Eye of the Ixam

[Mayra]

18th of Summer, 515AV
7th Bell, Morning
Dravite's Tent

Mayra felt like a child again. The half-breed practically skipped through the tents of Endrykas as she retraced her steps to the Blackwater tent. She was working herself up about a possibility of a hunt. Her last meeting with Dravite had ended on a rather pleasant note, which ended up with him inviting her to a hunt. The hunt was not the source of her buzz though. She could care less about killing antlered herbivores, but the prospect of adventuring into the wild grasslands of Cyphrus was exhilarating, even if there was only a slim chance of it. Although she couldn't feel it, her Ixam book burned in her pack over her back. She didn't hope to see the grassland giants again, but if she could understand the environment they lived in better... Perhaps she would never go into the wilderness alone, but for now, Dravite was her door. He was her entry way to the fearsome grass that encompassed Cyphrus, and for some time Mayra had little issue with the man. He had become useful, and she would take advantage of that.

But why would he invite you? The question still hung in the back of her head, but Mayra didn't have the mental room to think about it any longer. She had to learn the Ixam's environment if she ever hoped to glimpse one again. But when Mayra reached the torch that marked Dravite's camp, her outward expressions of excitement dispersed immediately. Her veins still buzzed with the hope that he would say yes, but once she caught sight of the man, she couldn't help but calm down.

He had his back to her, as he had the first time, and was doing... something to his horse. She took two steps forward, passing the torch, before stopping. Grooming. That much was evident once she saw the brush in his hand. He was grooming the horse. That made sense, what did she think he was doing? She faltered for a second, taking a breathe before speaking up.

"Dravite Blackwater." The low velvet of her Zith accent carried his name over to him, even though she dared not go further into his camp. Once she caught his attention, she turned her head to the side slightly, questioningly. "I don't suppose you are free today?" Mayra asked when he turned at her voice. The foreigner hooked one finger on the strap on her pack before straightening her head out. She tried not to think too much while waiting for his answer, afraid he would say no.

[Dravite]

The man used the end of a stick to pick out his horse's hooves as best he could. Doing the front hoof on either side was easy enough, but Cree tended to put up some resistance when it came to doing the back. Perhaps it was an uncomfortable stance for the Cyphrus stallion, or maybe he was off balance with all the spring and summer grass he had gorged himself on this year. Either way, the task never seemed to get any easier, but Dravite remained just as determined each week to see to it that Cree was in top health.

The brush was his favourite, for this the stallion would lower his head until his black muzzle touched the floor and he was able to drift off while standing. Sometimes he would waver and wake all of a sudden, wondering what had happened; a comical sight to see. The horse lord ran the brush over the stallion's back and rump, combing the loose hair and dust away. Cree was very fond of finding a nice little plot of dirt to roll in afterwards, but didn't seem to care for carrying it around with him afterwards. His mane and tail were long, even for a Strider.

Dravite set the brush aside after combing out the thick, dark mane and used his hands to take extra-long strands of hair between his fingers. He then guided his free hand up through the extra hair and gave a sharp pull of the long strands, freeing them. Pulling extra hair from the mane and tail was something his mother had shown him time and time again; a job he always refused to do until now. Lazuli was gone and there was no one left to look after Cree but him. The Strider snorted at the tight tugging and pulling of his mane. "Sorry, boy," Dravite apologised, "you know I'm new to this."

When he was done, Dravite worked on the tail, pulling any of the hair that almost touched the ground, while leaving the shorter hair to grow. He would step to one side when he worked with the tail, mindful that even though Cree was a tame horse, he still had the ability to kick from time to time if it pleased him. All in all the Strider looked a lot tidier and less wild. To finish, the man used his clumsy fingers to weave the hair into a loose braid from the top of the tail to about the third of the way down; this would help keep the Strider's tail neat, even if it did look a mess for his shabby weaving job. Bits of hair stuck up where they shouldn’t, and others came loose completely. "I'll get better at that," he promised with a laugh, "but next time it would help if you stood still."

One last going over with the brush saw the stallion almost shine, a soft lustre left by the natural oils in his buckskin hair. Dravite didn't hear Mayra move into camp, but noticed his Strider's left ear point in the woman's direction to hear her better. The horse lord stopped what he was doing and hooked his thumb over the black, leather belt he wore before turning to face her; his name fresh off her lips. Dravite smiled when Mayra asked if he was free today; obviously she had liked the idea of a hunt after all. "Mayra," he greeted her, "good day for hunt, but where is Mayra's horse?"

She called the Drykas 'horse people', then why, Dravite asked himself, did the woman think they would use anything less than a horse to traverse the grassland plains? Dravite closed his eyes and shook his head slowly, bemused; the poor woman probably couldn't even ride. "Mayra walk on foot?" He suggested, but knew instantly that she wouldn't be able to keep up with the stallion, "Dravite walk with Mayra."

It would only take him a moment to get what he needed for the hunt, his spear, dagger, and a few other necessities. He didn’t know what Mayra planned to go hunting for, but he felt the djed of a few deer in the web earlier that morning; perhaps the two of them would get lucky if the other hunting parties hadn’t already seen to it that the herd moved on. “What does Mayra hunt?”

[Mayra]

Mayra might have been amused, watching Dravite's train of thought, if she wasn't immediately embarrassed. What was wrong with not having a mount? "I don't have a horse." I have a pony. The halfbreed frowned, stepping more into the camp. She opened her mouth, ready to argue with the man, but he made an allowance for her. Okay. Perhaps a 'hunt' required a bit more... preparation than Mayra had assumed.

"Wait. Am I supposed to have a horse?" But Dravite had disappeared into his tent. The half-Zith glanced at dark stallion just a few feet from her, quite unsure of being alone with the thing. She knew he wasn't going to eat her but she didn't understand the creature. Mayra didn't like not understanding things. But then he was back, thankfully saving the mixed blood from having to confront the terrifying creature, and keeping her mind on something else.

"Ummm... I'm not quite sure..." She shrugged. "I was just thinking I could tag along." She gave Dravite the brightest smile she could, remembering to keep her lips closed. How much was she supposed to prepare for this? A 'hunt' was not exactly within her skill sets. She just wanted to get out in the plains, to learn what she could about the habitat of the Ixam.

"Here." She slipped her pack from her back, slipping her hand into the pouch. It was not hard to find, the giant fragment of an Ixam scale. She pulled it out to hand it to Dravite. "This is what I'm hunting." She paused. "It's the scale of an Ixam. And I want to ride one... One day."

The halfbreed watched Dravite's reaction for a few ticks. She was trying to be friendly and open, and couldn't see any negative reactions coming from it. Perhaps he would think she was silly if he knew anything about the elusive reptiles. But that didn't matter. I will make you my friend. She mentally demanded, he was her key.

"So let's go." She held out her hand for her scale back and then turned in the direction of the plains, waving him forward. "I won't get in your way, I promise."

[Dravite]

Armed with everything he would need for the hunt, Dravite returned to the outside of the tent to witness Mayra, transfixed and staring at his Strider, Cree. He smiled, was she still under the impression that the stallion might eat her, left unattended? He was big as far as Striders were concerned, with a hulking, great neck and strong hind quarters. Cree had a quiet temperament, especially when stood basking in the summer sun; it was the cold that saw his spirited nature best reveal itself. Strider, the man gestured in grassland sign, he didn't have a common word for the name. If Mayra was going to be around for a while she might as well start working on the language barrier.

Mayra slipped her backpack from her shoulders and Dravite couldn't help but notice the concealed bumps of her too-big shoulder blades; or were they something else? However, he was quickly distracted by Mayra, who presented him with the scale of an Ixam, a creature he had heard about but never seen in the flesh. A strange wave of déjà vu struck the man as he held the scale up, it looked surprisingly similar to the scale he had picked up on a hunt in the spring. Dhani, he signed, forgetting himself. Dravite spoke up in the common tongue, "Dhani skin," he was so sure he had been hunting a snake-man that night that the idea of his scale belonging to something else just didn't compute.

The godless woman held her hand out for the scale and Dravite carefully placed in her palm before patting himself down as Mayra turned away. "Dhani," he scolded in Pavi, fetching his own scale from the pocket of his trousers; the two objects were identical, there was no questioning that.

The horse lord fell silent as logic took over, lost in his own thoughts for a moment. If this scale does in fact belong to an Ixam, he told himself, that means these creatures are big enough to take down a Glassbeak; this being the creature he had stumbled upon when he discovered the kill-site. It explained why Mayra wanted to ride one, but what in the world made her crazy enough to think it was even possible?

Dravite froze, there was no way the woman could get him to leave the camp without his Strider now; if she planned to get them into trouble, the least he could do was devise a plan to get them out of it, and quickly. "We take Cree," he called to the retreating mixed-blood, "Mayra ride too."

The Drykas Man turned to his mount and placed a hand on the animal's wither, throwing a leg over with little trouble. Mayra might find it difficult to get on, Dravite thought to himself, after all, all she had was a pony and he couldn't envision her riding that. Cree pulled up in front of the woman and Dravite extended his left hand to her. "Mayra take Dravite to home of Ixam."

To his knowledge, he had no idea where to begin looking for the strange, scaled creatures, but if Mayra had seen them with her own two eyes, perhaps she knew where to start looking. Dravite could hunt for tracks to add to his sketchbook or even use the webbing to seek the Ixam out, of course he would need to be careful not to let on what he was up to; webbing after all was the best kept secret of the Drykas people and he intended to keep it that way.

[Mayra]

Mayra couldn't help but notice he was signaling something with his hands again. Whether it was intended for her or his horse, she didn't know. But what was with these people and all their handlanguage? "Dhani-skin." He said something. And for a tick Mayra thought he had spoken in his language, not understanding what the snake people were called.

"Scale." She tried to correct him, "It's called a scale." She slid the scale back into her pack, making an effort to angle her shoulders away from the horselord this time, hyper aware of the obvious differences between their two races. But he procured a very similar scale to show her. It was utterly identical, but of a different color, to her own fragment. A mischievous grin spread cross her face when she looked at it. "So you'll help me look for one?"

But instead of following her, Dravite was on his horse. The movement was smooth and the mixed blood hardly realized what he was doing. From the foreigner's view she didn't understand the relationship between Cree and Dravite, to her it seemed unnatural.

"Oh." She looked at Dravite's hand that was offered to her. She had ridden on a horse once before, coincidentally the first time she saw an Ixam, but the mixed blood couldn't remember if she had been as terrified of the beast that time. She glanced at his hand and then back at the Stallion that stood before her. Wimp. Mayra mentally kicked herself when she felt the first reactions of nerves. Her own lazy pack pony had taught her that horses couldn't possibly eat her, but that didn't change her nervousness around the creatures. She glanced at Dravite's hand once more, taking a deliberate breathe, before grabbing his forearm securely. She tentatively placed a hand on the horses hindquarters. When she was not met with any real reaction from the animal, other than the irritated twitch of his skin, she pushed her weight into her hand and pulled with the other.

Mayra wasn't particularly strong, but thankfully she had not lost too much muscle during her lazy days out of the caves. After a few labored ticks, with an awkward struggle to quickly scramble onto the horse, Mayra let go of Dravite. "I don't exactly know where they live." Mayra tried to continue the conversation as if her greatly embarrassing inability to smoothly get on the horse had not just happened. Mayra hardly moved her stiff body, not quite sure how to sit on the beast. She could feel her heart pick up at the precarious position that she sat in, there was nothing to hold onto and of the horse moved there was very little question that she would find herself back on the ground.

"But, umm." She cleared her throat to cover her stutter and readjusting so she was copying Dravite's position and grabbed his shoulders. Deal with it. Mayra wanted to growl at him if he reacted, how else was she not supposed to fall off this damn beast? Mayra swallowed. "I-I have an idea of where they may be." Mayra gripped the man, trying to keep her nerves down. As soon as Cree took a step, Mayra would squeal like a child.

[Dravite]

Mayra was nervous, Dravite could feel it in the way she took his hand, saw it as she tentatively reached out to touch the animal's rump, and again when her hands tightened upon his shoulders. It worried the horse lord, Strider's were super-sensitive to their riders and Cree's hyper-awareness caused the horse to lift his head and turn his ears back to listen. Dravite wriggled forward, mindful that he was now sharing Cree's back with another and closed his hand around the strap of the yvas. As Mayra fixed her position and the horse stepped forward, his skin pricked as the woman made a high-pitched, nervous sound. “Easy, easy,” he spoke to Cree in Pavi to calm the horse.

Dravite took Mayra's hand and pulled it in front of him to set on his belly. "Kalea have no horses?" He wondered aloud, "Mayra hold on, careful where feet go."

He didn't want her to make the mistake of squeezing her legs about Cree's middle too firmly, or push her heels into the soft part of his belly that nine times out of ten would see him buck wildly until he was rid of his rider, or in this case two. "R-relax," he encouraged, unsure if that was the right word. Before they departed he fixed Mayra's free hand over the first, this way if Cree did go up on his hind quarters unexpectedly there was a better chance of Dravite keeping them both on.

They walked from the camp to the wind-knotted gates and out into the grasslands. Dravite made note of the sun and pointed, "East," he smiled, showing Mayra he hadn't forgotten her little lesson when they had first met in the spring; what a long way they had come since then, and how much further they had to go.

Dravite clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth to tell the horse to speed up, the animal bypassing a simple trot, opting instead for a canter which was quick but nowhere near as smooth as a gallop, jostling the pair a little. When the horse lord was sure Mayra wasn't going to throw herself off, he closed his free hand in the Strider's long, dark mane and made a low, quick sound that saw Cree speed up into a gallop; the kind that made the man smile as if he were just a boy again.

As they raced away from the city through the tall grass, Dravite glanced down to check that his spear was still secured to the yvas. "Which way?" He called to Mayra, speaking up to fight the wind that whipped through their hair and made the skin across his bare chest horripilate.

He had discovered his scale in the spring, a quarter mile from the nearest bed of water. The man had already devised that this Ixam creature wasn't fond of venturing too near the city, or there would have been more reported sightings of them in the past, but everything that walked the plain needed water to survive. If Mayra did not suggest otherwise, Dravite intended to start their search on the west side of the Uvic River, which tended to see more wildlife than on the east where the people of Endrykas went to water their livestock, swim, fish, or wash their clothes. "All right," he agreed when Mayra gave her order and used his leather dressed heel to steer his mount in the right direction.

[Mayra]

The walking was fine. Yes, Mayra was unsure if she was going to slide off the horse or manage to stay on, but she kept her hold on Dravite still loose. But when the horse broke into a clattering faster walk, Mayra bit her lip to keep from shrieking again. Immediately she found that was a bad idea when she couldn't keep her rump attached to the animal, and wound up nearly chewing her lip off. The utterly inexperienced rider was jostled painfully until she had the sense to time herself with the horse, so that she wasn't so easily thrown off. But it wasn't long before the beast shifted into a much smoother, and much faster, gallop.

Mayra had no more qualms about holding onto Dravite for , as she thought, her life. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. This man is going to kill me. I'm going to die. Mayra chanted to the beat of her panicked heart. Mayra shut her eyes, against the wind and tried to keep herself from suffocating the Drykas she had practically magnetized herself to.

"Which way?" The tendrils of the heavily accented words reached her ears before the wind snapped them from her and Mayra opened her eyes again to look in front of her for the first time. The smaller woman sputtered when a thick tangled lock of Dravite's hair immediately whipped her in the brow, but the wind swept the hair from her face quickly after.

"To the water?" She suggested, but it seemed as if Dravite was already heading that way. How did he control this beast? "Near low vegetation." Mayra raised her voice, but tried not to shout, since her face was already inches from the man's ear. "Near any bushes or trees." She corrected, remembering his level of comprehension of her language. "And far away people." She added the suggestion to her series of fragmented ideas. Her book said the creatures were docile, but she knew that since they were so rare, it was likely they rarely went near civilization. She sounded like she had no idea what she was doing, but was certain she could get a grasp on their likely location if she understood her surroundings at all.

[Dravite]

Water, low vegetation, trees, and away from people Mayra had said. Dravite urged Cree on to the far side of the lake, keeping a good distance from the edge so that if there were any tracks to find, they wouldn't be ruined by the heavy footfalls of the horse. It had taken them a while to ride out and Dravite couldn't help but smirk, knowing the kind of pain Mayra's legs would be in tomorrow. He helped the woman dismount before climbing down from the horse. The yvas was loosened for Cree's comfort but remained on, just in case they had to make a quick escape. Dravite never hitched his Strider to anything out in the grasslands, he knew it was dangerous and time consuming if they needed to get away in a hurry.

"Mayra look over there," he pointed to the water's edge before finding a nice shady spot below one of the surrounding trees.

He watched to make sure Mayra had done as he had asked before leaning back against the tree to close his eyes and concentrate, meditating in an attempt to clear his mind and slip into a trance that would let him traverse the web undisturbed. It wasn't long before one of the glowing blue tendrils floated into the edge of his vision and Dravite took hold, following the paths of the webbing. He circled the lake in moments, a task that would have taken them at least a day on foot; searching for djed auras, and listening for voices.

He had been right about the lake; everyone was on the east side, leaving the west untouched. He sensed a familiar hum through the strands of the web, a drift of wild pigs passing through the area, digging for roots and other tasty treats. Moving along Dravite noticed the movement of deer, small birds, and felt the disturbance of wild colts testing their fighting skills against one another further out on the plain. No Ixam, he thought to him; no, their auras would be much larger and less familiar to the man. At least he now knew they were safe to explore for a while, with no large predators in the immediate area.

When Dravite came to from his trance he got up and brushed the loose soil from his trousers, moving to join Mayra alongside the lake. He approached the woman as quietly as he could, barely lifting his feet from the ground, but instead, dragging them slowly. When he drew close enough, he raised his arms and yelled, "Ixam!" At the top of his lungs, attempting to frighten the woman; he was probably lucky not to get a fist to the face.

Laughing and backing away playfully, Dravite tried to focus on the task at hand; tracking. He was to see if there were any signs of the Ixam having visited the area in the last few weeks. The weather hadn't been a problem so far this season, and other than the wind blowing loose foliage and dust about, most of the tracks left near the water's edge were relatively well preserved. Dravite crouched down with his sketchbook and ink stick, drawing one of the smaller prints he spotted first. It was bigger than a coyote, but smaller than a wolf, perhaps a wild dog, he thought, making a right mess of the drawing, especially with the new tool he was using.

As he shuffled along, sketching the odd bird print into his leather bound book, or comparing this and that, Dravite spotted a dark shape moving under the water, drawing his eye. He set down the sketchbook slowly and took hold of his spear; the man had been successful once before in using his spear to fish, perhaps he would get lucky again. Moving to stand slowly, Draivite positioned the point of the weapon just in front of the dark shape, coaxing the creature forward before he lashed out, thrusting his spear in the shadow’s direction with no real skill. The fish thrashed, just clipped by the point of the spear, but was able to swim away. The horse lord stepped into the water and growled. "Tricky fish!"

[Mayra]

8th Bell, Morning
West Uvic Bank

Mayra couldn't keep the groan from pushing its way out of her lips when she finally could feel her feet on the solid earth again. Dravite smirked, probably aware of her pain, which earned him an icy glare form the foreigner. That was torture. She straightened her legs out, biting her tongue at the complaints from her thighs. And she still had to ride back on that thing!

"Mayra look over there," She ignored the Drykas for a moment, taking the tick to glare at the horse as well. Cree seemed content on ignoring her, already attacking the lush, untouched grass that surrounded the lake. You did this. She blamed the horse, bringing one leg up behind her to stretch out her thighs as best she could. It was a few ticks before she realized Dravite had disappeared. She whirled on her feet, black eyes searching the low grassland shrubs for the man, and immediately saw him settling against a tree.

Not worried about it, Mayra turned towards the bank of the lake, looking over the greenish water. Where to start? Taking a few steps forward and doing her best not to waddle like one of her chickens, Mayra ran what she knew of the Ixam through her mind. Of course her thin book didn't give her much information, and the half-Chaktawe knew nothing on tracking an animal. But she was here to learn their environment, so that is what she was to do.

But before Mayra thought too much on it, she found herself distracted. A plant that was growing in the shallows of the lake had been torn up, likely by an animal, but it was nothing but the leaves. Immediately she kicked off her boots, peeling her socks off to stuff them in the leather as well. Carelessly rolling her trousers up her calves, Mayra stepped into the mud at the edge of the water. She wiggled her toes in the warm much for a tick, enjoying the feeling before taking the necessary steps over to the weeds. Picking it up, she examined the bulbous corn that acted as its root for a second. A very very faint bell rang in her head as she looked at the pale root, thinking of something edible she had eaten before. The root was partially gnawed by some small creature, which only helped her think it was something she had seen before. But Mayra was not stupid, she was not going to eat this random root because she thought she had before.

She threw the plant back into the water, standing up and brushing her hands off on her trousers. "Ixam!" The call was loud and very close. Without thinking, Mayra jolted, jumping backwards away from the noise before her mind registered the word. Quickly, Mayra ignored the man and looked around. "Wha-? Dravite!" She scolded the laughing man, aiming an open palm at his shoulder. He dodged her slap, and was distracted by something in the harder mud a little further down.

"Shyke-head." She growled, tiptoeing out of the mud, but the curse was softened by the amused grin that she wore. The man begun to pull out a book and ink stick, and Mayra glanced back at the shrubbery that he had come from. What had he been doing over there? Curious, the half-Zith left her shoes within proximity of the horse and ventured into the low brush. There were a few scattered trees, but there was something immediately noticeable about the shrubbery surrounding her. The upper half of the trees were bare.

Mayra's brow furrowed as she thought about the oddity. The trees weren't terribly big, probably a meter or two for most of them, but most animals didn't start from the top. She had walked the cows by enough trees to know that the large herbivores, easily the largest she had seen besides a horse, ate only the leaves they could reach. But these trees were stripped from the top, and the grass around her was not so long as it had been by the bank where Cree was greedily consuming it.

The half-breed glanced back at Dravite. Somehow the two had mostly just done their own thing during their time so far, which Mayra didn't mind. She bet the horselord didn't need her breathing down his neck, but she didn't particularly want to join him in hunting either. She'd probably find a way to mess it up for him anyhow, but that didn't bother her.

She watched the man for a tick, he was sketching something in his book, crouched near the packed dirt. Occasionally he would move a little further this way or that, but somehow he was completely encompassed in whatever he was drawing. Funny. Mayra watched, she had only thought of the horselord as volatile and possibly mentally unstable before then. He was unnecessarily harsh and utterly aloof, but when he was distracted like this, Mayra thought she got a different perspective. Maybe this is what Belkaia sees. the halfbreed turned away, back towards the oddly eaten shrubbery. Maybe that is why the crazy woman is with him. She is too kind for that man. Mayra was looking at the grass now.

[Mayra]

She could see large patches where it was clearly ripped up, but this grass didn't look like a herd of cows had gone through it. Her cows at the Pride grazed evenly, not like this. Where one cow would finish, another would line up, somehow finding more grass where her sister had just eaten.

It wasn't until Mayra saw the second scale that she put the two together. What was her luck?

The halfbreed crouched, letting out a frustrated sigh at the accompanying pain in her thighs from the simple movement. There was another fragment of a scale. It seemed as if these things fell off the Ixam periodically, but to Mayra that didn't make any sense. The shard of gleaming green that she held in her hand now was so much smaller than the one she had found in the spring. Mayra removed her pack from her back, pulling out her book once more to look through the Plains Ixam section.

Their immense size requires them to eat plant material to sustain themselves; a plentiful resource in the grasslands.

That was all she had. That and the memory of reading that they ate low hanging branches, but Mayra was too distracted to bother properly searching for that context. Perhaps...?

Mayra slipped the book back in her bag, pocketing the shard. Bare feet slipped through the low grass as she weaved through the bushes. She needed something more. Any animal can leave these massive patches, she simply didn't know all the grassland creatures, so it was not impossible. What was her luck she saw an Ixam again? Too hopeful. Mayra shot her thoughts down, until she saw the familiar print at the base of a much larger tree, but still small by the mountain woman's standards.

"Dravite!" She called, standing up straight to look towards the bank. Mayra knew she hadn't been loud enough, she had wandered too far away, but the foreigner was too distracted to completely comprehend how far she was. She glanced at the large indent once more, her eyes following up a the tree. Heavy scratches raked through the bark. But these were not the territorial scratches of a mountain bear, like the ones she saw in Kalea. The foreigner knew little of grassland animals, but she hoped this was her third clue that Ixam had passed through here. Mayra walked around the base of the tree, examining the marks that tore through the smooth bark. They were not claw marks, it took a mere imbecile to know that. There was no pattern whatsoever to even hint that it was Ixam.

Glancing up the tree, she saw her clue. It was not a scale like her own or Dravite, it hardly even resembled the tiny shard she had just found, but it was definitely a scale. Mayra reached up to see if she could touch the shard lodged in the tree bark, but her fingers barely brushed it. Without being able to pull on it, Mayra couldn't tell how deep into the bark it was lodged, but she had a feeling it would not come out easy. "Dravite!" She called again, frustrated. The taller man would have no trouble reaching it, although he would probably need to dig it out of the bark if she wanted it. Where is that horselover when I need him?

She stepped back, looking at the tree for a tick longer to bring her thoughts together. She was finding fragments of scales. There were trees eaten from the top, obviously by an animal larger than them or at their canopy level. And the tallest tree around had marks all over it, but they were not from claws. The scratches on the tree almost seemed as if something had been rubbing against it... and with the scale that was deeply lodged into the bark... Mayra was narrow-sighted enough to feel as if this was enough evidence to claim Ixam had been here, although how recently she didn't know.

Maybe the scratches were from the scales. Maybe the Ixam was rubbing up against the tree for something, which might be why that shard was so deeply dug into the bark, out of her reach.

Mayra turned in the direction of the lake, remembering Dravite's existence. She could see the water glimmer in the sun through the trees, but she was too far away to see the bank. She was alone. A burst of adrenaline challenged her heart and Mayra turned back to the tree. Without hesitating, she slid the knife from her frog and jammed the blade into the wood, just above her head. She couldn't loose this tree.

Allowing her instincts to take over. Mayra took off through the shrubbery. Bare feet nicked at small pebbles hidden in the grass, but she didn't slow until she saw the familiar hulking figure of Cree. Slowing to a walk, Mayra sighed for a moment. She wasn't lost, she was panicking. This is not the place to go far, She reminded herself, quickly finding Dravite in the shallows, spearing something. The barbarian likely won't notice. She frowned at her thoughts.

"Dravite." She stepped forward so she was closer to Dravite, black orbs flitting between the wind-driven waves of the lake for whatever he was spearing. "You suck at fishing." She flung the casual insult, not really thinking about her words. "But do you want to see something?" She raised one eyebrow questioningly at the man. You better. She thought to the man, deciding those words were not the best choice. "I think the Ixam were shedding near here."