Completed Desperate Measures

[Tani]

514AV, 27th Day of Spring.

Tani woke to a jab of pain in her arm, as had become usual. The pitiful excuse for a tree she'd doubled over as shelter the previous night had finally given way to the memory of yesterday, springing back into place in a flurry of branches that raked her still-raw arm on the way up. An arm, she noted, that was entirely human. Her spine popped in protest as she heaved herself upright, squinting as the ever-irritating light tried to pry its way in between her eyelids as well.

Getting up was proving to be more difficult then she had originally planned.

Sleep had proved a frustratingly elusive quarry lately, dwindling as the pain in her arm grew. Part of her knew something was very wrong with the wound, now an angry red welt that stretched a handspan above and below her elbow, but she pushed it to the back of her mind. It had not killed her, so it would heal, eventually. That, she was certain, was how such things worked.

Syna had barely begun her daily creep across the sky, though the night-time chill had faded from the air. She couldn't have been asleep for more then a handful of bells, and the aches in her limbs attested to it. There was still plenty of time for a day's travel. Unfortunately. She spared a moment to glare at the offending tree - one of a copse, nestled under a ridge against the lashings of the wind, shifted, and set off along the ridge.

The underside of the ridge crumbled away from her as she trekked further from the morning's camp, leaving the topsoil hanging over the grass - a frozen wave of earth. A pair of bats flapped from the rear of the overhang in a haze of leathery wings, squeaking their displeasure at her presence. It would have been easy enough to chase them, to leap from the ground and drag one down to the ground with her teeth and claws. Tani barely spared them a glance. It seemed like far too much effort.

[Tani]

If she were being honest with herself Tani would have to admit that was lost. Lost between the endless plains of grass and the ceaselessly blue sky, plagued with the attentions of predators she couldn't see but knew had her scent, running on little more then willpower as her body slowly turned on itself for sustenance. One forelimb was a puffed up mess with a rotten odour about it, like a corpse left too long in the water, and the other was far thinner then she remembered it being. Any inkling of where she was or where she had been had faded into a near endless ocean of backtracking and diversions. Yet even as the world crumbled around her Tani still would not admit that she was lost, because to be lost in the Sea of Grass was to die there.

She couldn't recall when she had last eaten. The pain in her stomach had faded to a steady ache though, so surely that was a good sign. Similarly, the dryness in her throat had retreated to a sort of vague itch. So that was nice. If she kept not-eating, maybe she would keep feeling better. She'd left a lake behind her some time ago – a bell? A season? It was hard to be sure. It had been a glittering expanse of blue, waters stretching as far as she could see. As far as she could sea? Hah. She chuckled at her own wit, but it came out more as a sort of strained gasp. It would have been nice to see it again. Maybe she could, if she turned around. She paused for a moment, considering the option before deciding against it. No, changing her course would have been too much effort now. Besides, her bondmate was waiting for her, and she didn't want to be late. She knew she was meant to be somewhere. How else could she explain the faint sense of urgency that had nestled in her gut like a parasite?

That was alright though, because Arnen was walking with her. If she closed her eyes – and it was remarkably easy to close them, now – she could almost see the old hunter's strider keeping pace beside her. It was almost comical. Arnen's strider was a large, heavy beast, with a dark brown coat and the same malignant glare in its eyes that all horses carried, and yet it hunched beneath the crumbling ridge-line with her. The hunter atop it kept his eyes fixed forward, travel-stained face scanning the rippling grasslands ahead of him, one hand on the spear at his side. Tani kept pace, trotting alongside, the strider temporarily flashing into being with each blink. She found herself drawing out her blinks, just to keep it in view. Arnen was there. Arnen would know what to do.

Keeping up was hurting her forelimb, so she shifted, transitioning back into human form in the space of a heartbeat. It wasn't night time anyway, and she wasn't hunting, so what was the point in staying in her feline skin? There had been a reason, she was sure, but it hung tantalisingly out of reach, like a low-flying bird. She sighed and let it go. The grassland before her was as featureless as ever, the ridge slowly melding into another hill that stretched skyward. Her legs gave an anticipatory shudder. Strange things, hills. Always turning up when she didn't want them. Still, she had a tongue now, so she may as well use it. It would be rude not to. She blinked again.

“Hello, Arnen.” Her good arm danced upward in greeting, hand darting over her heart in brief acknowledgement. Family. Clan.

The old hunter said nothing.

Tani frowned. That was strange. Usually Arnen was, if not a fountain of conversation, then at least polite. They were so far from home, after all, and he'd never passed up an opportunity to teach her before. Surely he would have something to say. Some comment on the clouds hanging in the sky, or some faint track in the grass she ought to be paying attention to if she ever wanted to have a hope of being a decent hunter. She glanced down, wondering what she could have said to offend her old mentor. She hadn't said anything wrong. She still had her- Oh.

Her hand was empty. And one arm all was swollen. Had she fallen on it? She probably had, she concluded. Why else would she be walking?

“Did I forget my spear, Uncle?” She tapped her side self-consciously, the unspoken threat of being dragged before the Ankal settling over her. Again. What sort of hunter was she? Was she going to take on the creatures of the Sea with her bare hands? Paws. Whatever.
Arnen did not respond.
“I did, didn't I? Tell me if I did.” She needed to know. How else was she going to improve?
The hunter kept his silent vigil.
“Arnen!” She hissed now, irritated. “Why won't you answer? I'm trying to help, and you sit there like a stunned rabbit. You said you wanted me to learn. Why won't you teach me? There's nothing out there-” She swept a hand across the grass before her. “To hear us! If we're hunting, you would tell me, wouldn't you? Once we're done, we can go home, can't we?”
No response.
“Can't we?” She repeated, voice a hoarse whisper. “Please, Uncle. I'm trying. I tried so hard...” She trailed off, mouth too dry to continue speaking. Had she failed? Had she disappointed him somehow? She blinked again, fighting back tears from ducts too dry to yield them. When she opened her eyes again only darkness greeted her.

[Tani]

Something was digging into her stomach. Tani blinked, shaking off some of the haze that had settled over her mind like a fine blanket. She felt as though someone had punched her in the face. She was lying face down in the dirt – as she watched, an ant paused before her, considering this new intruder to its realm. She blew it away. If she craned her neck she could still see the ridge above her, thinner then it had been, but still shading her from the glare of the day. Beyond the shelter of the ridge, the midday sun baked the grasslands beneath its gaze. She tried to push herself upright, only to find that her arms weren't responding to her commands, pinned as they were beneath her, folded like a poorly packed tent. She must have fallen on them.

Fallen, in the Grasslands. In broad daylight. In human form.

Fear loaned her strength and she tried to stand again, this time rewarded with an eruption of pins and needles in the limb. She rolled to one side and blood surged into her arms, sending waves of tingling dancing from her shoulder to her fingers. She sat up and was met with a rush of dizziness that threatened to send her crashing to the ground again. Eventually, she managed to wiggle over to the ridge and slide herself upright using the dirt at her back to support her. Moving her limbs was like trying to handle a captive snake, her arms resisting her orders at every opportunity. Still, she made it work eventually, relying on the muscles in her back rather than her traitorous arms to slide to her feet. This earned her another surge of giddiness, but she froze and it passed in a handful of ticks. She was proud of that. Just standing up felt like an achievement worthy of a rest. Surely now, if she were just to lay down for a -.

”No.” The strength of the command surprised her. Her voice was dry and cracking, but the conviction in the word, drawn from some deep part of herself she had not even known existed, brooked no argument. She was seeing things. Hallucinating. Arnen had vanished years ago, she reminded herself, the old hunter failing to emerge from whatever scant cover he had been able to find from the great storm. It wouldn't be long now before she joined him.

The thought came with cold clarity, a bucket of freezing water poured over her fevered mind. Hadn't she heard his lessons? A lesson he, with his final actions, had only solidified. Didn't she know what happened to someone so far gone they simply gave in, gave up on fighting? Even now, the idea held some appeal. To simply lie down and let the grass settle over her, to continue her journey with nightfall, to yield to the cries of her exhausted body. Perhaps. Perhaps she would later. Now though, now she could find the energy for one more staggering step, one more half-pace forward. It wasn't much, by the wind and stars, she was barely moving. But she was moving. To stop now would have been a betrayal of the worst sort. Kyron was waiting. Lost, for far longer than she had been. He would have come for her. She pushed on, each step dredging new protests from her legs. The hilltop waited just ahead of her, the ridge slowly fading into the rising earth, and she staggered on.

A strange smell hung in the air, discernible even with the blunt sense of smell that plagued her in human form. It drifted through the sky, part over-spiced meal and part waterhole. A frown drifted across Tani's face. She hadn't run across an odour like that in all her time amidst the grass. It was vaguely familiar but, as with so many things now, her fogged mind made retrieving anything more then the instructions for the next step an exercise in futility. Whatever it was, the smell must have been strong indeed if she could detect it with the horrendously poor senses she bore upon two legs. With agonising slowness she dragged herself the last few paces to the hilltop – and froze.

A thin ribbon of deep blue stretched across the horizon, the flash of white swell barely visible in the distant haze. Sea salt drifted on the wind – the smell Tani had detected earlier, and the promise of civilisation hung with it, the faintest impression of a building rising against the ocean. Still at least a day's walk away at her current pace, but civilisation nonetheless. Toward the limits of her vision and beyond another half dozen crests in the land, the grassland slowly faded, yielding to mangroves and what could have been farmland stretching alongside the coast. That wasn't what she was staring at, though.

[Tani]

Colour flashed across the valley before her, quick enough that she had to turn her head to keep its source in view – even with the advantage of height the hill gave her. Three glassbeaks – one large and spotted in blues and violets, and the other two smaller and a plainer yellow. They were almost invisible against the grass shrouding them, had the larger creature not drawn her attention. Puffs of dust rose behind the trio as they surged to her left, racing parallel to the coast.

Tani exhaled, took a half pace back, and sunk into the grass. If they saw her, the big predators gave no sign, continuing their bolt across the valley floor with reckless abandon. By flattening a clump of grass – hands were useful for something – Tani was able to make out their quarry. A horse, white splotches dotting its flanks, a heavy stockiness to its limbs that made it look naked without a wagon hitched to its broad shoulders. This was no strider. Likely a runaway from the still-distant town, it lacked the signs of careful attention, the gleam of intelligence that lit the eyes of the Drykas' mounts. No. Terror had made its home in the eyes of this beast.

As she watched the plough-horse began to move, legs rolling into action like the cogs of some tremendous, ponderous, caravan. It slipped to a trot, and then a mad gallop, hoof-strikes throwing up clods of mud behind it, sweat gleaming on its back. The horse was quick, quicker then its form would have implied, small birds and insects alike scattering from the grass before it as it continued its mad charge. Far faster then Tani could have ran, even in good health. It was still too slow.

One of the yellow glassbeaks closed the distance with almost casual ease, neck stretching out to inch those terrible jaws still closer to the fleeing horse. They slammed closed around the horse's tail, shearing off a mouthful of brown hairs and spraying a pulse of crimson blood over the grass. A desperate whiny, pain evident despite the growing distance, escaped the horse. Escape itself was concept growing more and more distant as the remaining pair closed the distance. The large, coloured glassbeak – further to the horse's right - slammed into its flank like a tidal wave striking a pebble, sending the horse careening to one side. Just in time for the final glassbeak to race forward and bury its claws deep in their prey's side. Finally, the horse stumbled, and they both vanished into the grass in a tumble of limbs and horrible, raking talons. There was no grace to the hunt, no order to the slaughter. The glassbeaks fought for meat, even as the horse spasmed beneath them.

Tani turned her eyes from the butchery and back to the coast. Better you than me, friend. She repressed a shudder at the thought of continuing her shuddering walk, unaware of the predators lurking in the grass until they fell upon her, ripping and tearing. In a way, she had the horse to thank for sparing her that. She wasn't sure who to thank for the luck, but she uttered a quick prayer regardless. It seemed like the right thing to do. Arnen would have done it. Words froze in her throat as a clump of grass not thirty feet ahead of her slid to its clawed feet.

The fourth glassbeak rose from the grass like a wraith, earth crunching beneath it. Slightly smaller then its cousins feasting on the horse, though still easily large enough to snap her spine with a single bite, the glassbeak's dark yellow feathers gleamed like beaten copper beneath the midday sun. Tani's pains evaporated in a rush of adrenaline, limbs tensing for the chase – for all the good she knew it would do. Beady eyes swept across the horizon, found their target-

- And the glassbeak vanished in a cloud of dust. Tani gasped in a combination of surprise and relief as the predator sped off to join its compatriots in the slaughter, heart threatening to hammer its way from her chest. Confusion quickly wormed its way in, replacing terror. Why wait? Why hadn't this glassbeak attacked with the others? Were there still others lurking in the grass? She slunk back below the hill line and shifted, her swollen foreleg wincing in protest as she put weight on it. She sidled forward, grass above her shoulders, confident now that she was out of well and truly out of sight. Her ears swivelled like sails aligning to a breeze, tracking to the crunch of horse-bone that had been barely more than a whisper a few short ticks ago. The sound was reassuring. It meant the glassbeaks were still at their feast. She heard no hint of other creatures lying in wait.

Tani sidled forward again, cresting the hill in a slow creep of black limbs. Easy now. Her limbs still fought the motion, but the rush of adrenaline made movement a little easier. If she could suppress the tremor that set her paws shaking if she held them above the ground for more than a tick.

Then she saw them.

A pair of eggs, gleaming beneath the sun like oversized pearls – directly where the fourth glassbeak had waited. A mother - or soon to be, at any rate –, likely not willing or physically able to risk the hunt. Each egg was easily the size of her head, and than some. Probably a little under a third the length of her body. Her stomach growled in expectation.

Could she? Did she dare?

The glassbeaks were some way off, but with their speed, the distance was meaningless. They could chase her down with ease, gut her and feed her to the yet-unborn chicks. Worse yet, the eggs were too large for her to carry, at least in feline form, resting in a cleared patch of grass. Yet, she was still at least a day from the town, and she hadn't eaten in... Long enough. Hunger drowned out caution, and she slid forward.

[Tani]

Dry grass crunched beneath her paw. Tani paused for a long moment then, satisfied that nothing had heard, gently placed her paw down on a slightly greener patch. The noise was slight – probably barely noticeable to someone with above the grass, ears exposed to the ocean breeze – but to Tani every slight crack was a death rattle. She was no stranger to the art of stealth – she had stalked prey before; than the consequences of failure had simply been an empty belly – inconvenient, uncomfortable, and embarrassing, but hardly fatal. Being the prey was a new experience.

It was, she decided almost immediately, not one she had the slightest desire to revisit.

Each word the wind whispered set her on edge, every slight twitch of the grass froze her in place, eyes searching for its cause. The Glassrider pavilion had once hosted a tightrope-walker – a man with a strange accent who had, in return for food and lodging, carefully strung up his poles and walked upon the empty air with only a thin band of hemp between him and disaster. Creeping through the grass, one poorly placed foot away from a messy death, Tani felt a sudden rush of kinship for the moustached foreigner.

Up close the surface of the eggs resembled a honeycomb, intricate patterns weaving across its surface that belied the terrifying predator-to-be lurking within. Glassbeaks, it seemed, did not build nests – at least not in the sense that the tree-going birds she was familiar with did. Instead, the eggs sat in a rut in the ground, dug out with claws and lined with a layer of grass. The end result resembled an oversized bowl – which, Tani thought, advancing another inch closer to her dinner, was an apt description.

Nothing stirred in the nest as she approached, walking with pronounced care. Dancing on eggshells. Tani winced inwardly. She was a positive fountain of humour now, of all times? She raked her eyes across the sky, crouched low enough to the ground that her stomach was less then inch from the bare dirt that surrounded the nest. Glassbeaks couldn't fly, could they? She was fairly certain they could not. She returned her attention to the nest.

Slowly, carefully, like a glassworker handling a prize piece, Tani raised her good foreleg and nudged the closest egg.

It didn't move.

She tried again, putting a bit more effort into the movement. The egg swayed a little, but remained decisively unmoved. The egg was heavier than she had expected – more like a miniature boulder than the pebble-eggs of the smaller birds she had hunted in the past. She considered shifting to lift the egg and discarded the thought again almost immediately. The glassbeaks may have been focused on their meal, but it would be an incompetent predator indeed that failed to notice a lightshow in her nesting grounds. She stepped into the still-warm nest with exaggerated care, hesitantly positioning herself between the two eggs.

Tani braced herself against one egg, selecting the one closest to her entry point, and heaved. Her body rebelled against the effort, drained limbs threatening to fail as they sent spikes of pain searing up her spine. She paused for a moment, gathering herself. Then, over her own laboured breath, she heard it. More accurately, she didn't hear it. Silence had settled over the nesting grounds, like a shroud, the crunching of bones vanishing from the air.

The glassbeaks had finished their meal.

She gritted her teeth and pushed on, a fresh rush of adrenaline lending her muscles a moment's strength. Slowly, ponderously, the egg began to roll. Tani followed close behind, wedging her nose beneath it and continuing the motion. Once the egg was rolling, it was surprisingly easy to keep it moving, even as she forced it uphill, away from the nesting grounds. Somewhere behind her, she could hear the steady beat of talons on dirt as the glassbeaks began their return – at least, that was what she presumed they were doing. Her face was too buried in the dirt to tell, and she didn't dare pause to confirm her fears.

Grass and twigs alike crumpled under the rolling egg, throwing up a noise that Tani was certain would draw attention from the distant town. Yet, no frantic call of anger rose behind her, no fearful pounding of claws on grass heralding her death. The crest of the hill rose before her, and she pushed on, thoughts of stealth forgotten. It wouldn't be long now. Couldn't be long. Agonisingly slowly, the egg rolled over the peak, and Tani darted to the other side to slow its descent. As soon as she was a comfortable distance from the hill she nudged the egg between a tuft of grass and rock to hold it in place and shifted, scooping the egg up under her good arm and hobbling as fast as her bruised body would allow away from the nesting grounds – over the ridge she had spent most of the day beneath.

Behind her, a call like stone on steel split the sky.

[Tani]

Syna had begun her reluctant descent by the time Tani had distanced herself from the nesting grounds to her satisfaction. Twice the hammering of claws on the horizon had forced her to shift and take cover in the grass, unmoving, egg wedged between her forelegs. Mercifully, both sets had faded again almost as quickly as they had appeared and the Kelvic had continued her slow, limping journey. Save the glassbeaks, the grassland here was unusually bare of anything larger then the odd songbird – likely driven away by the presence of the feathered predators, she reflected. As you would have been, if you had any sense. Arnen's half-remembered voice chided her. For once, she had no trouble cheerfully ignoring him.

The egg was heavy in her arms, but remarkably smooth. After a failed attempt at slinging it beneath her good arm that had sent the egg slipping into a nearby bush – the egg was, she'd noted, remarkably tough – she had eventually settled on slinging her prize in front of her, cradling it like a newborn. If she kept her wounded arm on the bottom of the stack – even moving it that far was an effort that she had to conscript her good arm to accomplish -, the pain was bearable.

Glassbeaks claimed to be such fearsome predators – and the reputation they held among the Drykas only solidified it, yet... She held in her arms an egg from one, stolen away beneath their supposedly unblinking eyes! A trickle of pride broke through the bank of her hunger, and she grinned at the setting sun, exposing twin rows of faintly pointed teeth. Far in the distance, a geyser shot a column of smoky mist into the cooling air, Syna briefly flashing a multi-coloured smile back in the falling droplets. Grass rippled in the ocean breeze, and she knew that if she focused on it, she could smell the salt in the air, drifting over the plains before her. Her plains.

Yes, despite the ache that greeted her as she settled to the ground, it was a good night to be a Kelvic.

Good night or no, though, her body was quick to remind her of how much precious energy she had expended in the chase with the glassbeaks. Without adrenaline pulsing through her, each swaying step bought another wave of dizziness, and she had to lie down for a moment as she lowered herself to the dirt, lest her focus fail and she topple back into it. Eventually, she gathered her wits and managed to slide herself into something resembling a sitting position.

Her initial attempts to crack open the egg by prodding at it with her thumb only met with a faint nail scratch across its pearly top. She cocked her head to one side, frowning in consternation, good mood rapidly evaporating. When a second and third attempt using the same method failed Tani began to wonder if she had just successfully made a particularly smooth boulder her prey. Finally, the shell yielded to a well-placed blow from a nearby rock, a small, jagged hole in the top that bore a closer resemblance to a cracked skull then a fractured egg. Tani hardly cared, raising the egg to her lips and drinking greedily.

The egg's contents slid down her throat like a living thing, strange, slimy, and near-flavourless. The watery, uncomfortably clingy, liquid could not have been further from the firmer meet that usually made up her diet. Once, the disgusting slipperiness of it would have made her gag. Now, she consumed both the white and a slightly thicker fluid that she presumed was the yolk with relish, tongue questing for drained shell for any drop that still stubbornly clung to the interior. It was food, whole and proper, and her body delighted in the simple joy of knowing that it would survive the coming night. The day beyond was not guaranteed, but what did it matter? Her heart was still beating. Soon, she would begin her journey towards the lighthouse that hung on the distant horizon.

For now, though, she had another task to attend to. Slowly, careful not to bring on another dizzy spell, Tani stood, shifted, and began the painful search for the night's shelter. It would not be a lengthy rest – she needed the cover of night to travel, but even a few hours sleep this close to glassbeaks demanded caution.

The moon had crept over the horizon before she finally curled her aching limbs around her, settling into the faint indentation she had dug in the earth, grass layered above and below shielding and cushioning her in an arrangement amusingly similar to the glassbeak's nest. Her prey's nest. What could have been a self-satisfied smile drifted across the kelvic's face as she slipped into the realm of dreams.

[Khida]

Grade Hold

As stated previously, if you return and update your ledger, I will release your grade.