Solo A Dark Morning Pt.1

[Ixzo]

33rd of Winter, 515AV
The chilly morning was dark. Which, for the night lion, was her favorite time to wake. Yet the morning did not greet the Kelvic with excitement. Silver eyes blinked a few times and the cat drew a tongue across her whiskers, as she blinked her dry eyes awake. It took her a moment, but the large lioness finally stretched her paws forward. Her shoulder cracked as she stretched and the large yellow teeth opened up to reveal her spiked tongue as she yawned.

Not wasting anymore time, the Kelvic shifted up on her hindquarters, pulling back and clawing at the packed dirt under her tent. Evidence of the habitual clawing of every morning had long since torn up the grass and dug holes into the ground, but a proper tree to claw was hard to come by so the dirt would do first thing in the morning, her tent was a mess anyway.

In just a few seconds, the woman replaced the lion, and she was wiggling into a pair of trousers, a shoddy replacement for her warm coat, but clothes got the job done. At least for winter she understood their necessity. With practiced ease, the lioness reached up for her hair, scooping locks in each hand and braiding them together in the typical Myrian fashion. She had shaved the sides not long ago so instead of a greeting of gooseskin at her touch, her digits only brushed over the soft fuzz of new hair. She didn't think there to be a need for a turban today.

Instead the lioness shrugged on her fur vest and hooked her game knife on her belt. She had hunted yesterday and didn't think that a morning in the Sea would do much other than make her growling stomach worse. Unravelling the tent, she slung the flap over her shoulder, taking the time to close it before she departed for the stream.

Stuck in her thoughts, interested in the strangely Myrian-looking bow she was intending to purchase, Ixzo didn't look up until she was kneeled by the stream, plunging her hands into the biting cold to fill her waterskin before she looked at the horizon in front of her.

"Myri almighty, clip my claws." She muttered, because instead of being met with the lavender sky of an early morning. The lavender of the sky was still there, but clipping it from her view were large geometric swathes of black, yet with the haze of distance, the Kelvic couldn't put together what it could possibly be.

Myrian | Pavi "Speech" Sign | Common | PC/NPC "Speech" Sign

[Ixzo]

It was at that unfamiliar sense of complete confusion and fear that Ixzo moved. She didn't know what these large shapes were, but whatever it was, it wasn't good.

Silver eyes were tossed over her shoulder and she glanced back at the cluster of tents where her's lay. She tried to always position herself around at least one Pavilion, although this family was asleep. Capping her water skin, Ixzo stood and bolted back towards her tent. She didn't run much and although it wasn't more than a twenty-yard sprint back to the outskirts of the tent city, she was out of breath when she reached her tent.

But the lioness flew past it. The warm rusty color of the tent closest to hers reached in her view. "Drykas!" She shouted, trying to wake the family before tearing into their tent. She wanted someone else to see what she saw. She rounded towards their front, where their fire lay and the goats she had been tempted to eat on many occasions. "Drykas!" She called once more, forgetting the name of the family that neighbored her. With brittle fingers, she grabbed the thick canvas, trying to shake it with her hands. If these had been the huts of her home, she would have rapped on the door, but the tents didn't exactly work like that.

A blabber of Pavi sounded from inside the main tent of the Pavilion and she knew it was directed at her. The lioness intended to step back and wait calmly for the Drykas to hear her concern, but the lioness couldn't help but fight. The large black shadows on the horizon were not so clear now, and she realized it was a little bit foggy. Not enough that she couldn't see well out into the grazing fields, far past the stream where most of her cluster of tents got their water and rinsed their clothes, but enough that she couldn't quite see the rocks that broke the border between grass and the sand of the ocean beach. The black shapes, they were covered by the clouds at this distance.

Myrian | Pavi "Speech" Sign | Common | PC/NPC "Speech" Sign

[Ixzo]

"What is it?" Rude, unthoughtful… yada, yada. She didn't watch his honest signs of frustration, extended an inked arm towards the waves of the ocean a mere few miles away.

Fear. She signed before she could speak, and his eyebrows furrowed. "There are…. Shapes. Shapes in the ocean." Giant, unknown. She reached up as far as she could to try to demonstrate the triangular curved shapes, but he didn't understand.

"What?" He signed something she didn't watch. "You're talking nonsense, neighbor." He waved her arguing sign away.

"It is in the ocean!" She tried to explain, Believe. "Come, see!" She tried to urge him, stepping back and waving towards the ocean.

"The sun is barely rising! I am not walking all the way out there for that nonsense." Ships, passing. He waved an explanation. It suddenly seemed reasonable, and Ixzo paused. The strange black shaped did look like the mast of a ship, didn't they? She stumbled, unable to pull up and adequate reply and the Ankal took his chance.

"Don't bother me for this nonsense again, child." Foreigner. She shrunk back at the sign, she would have spoken more, convinced him that it was odd to see such a large mast ship so close to the shore, and stopped, not passing by. But she didn't dare speak out against him, for he had already turned back into his tent.

She managed to turn away before a hiss of anger flew from her mouth, surely he had heard. Embarrassed, the lioness sprinted forward, returning to her own tent. Cold fingers fumbled with the bindings and before she could get the strap undone, she grew frustrated with herself. A growl masked with the thick fog of her breath in the chilly air forced her to slow down. Priskil, I need your patience. She shrunk into herself, she had always been prone to a temper, but she was especially agitated in these few seconds, for a reason she didn't know.

Myrian | Pavi "Speech" Sign | Common | PC/NPC "Speech" Sign

[Ixzo]

After a few ticks, she thought she was almost calm enough to open her tent, and found the straps easy to untie now. Focusing on her gut-wrenching feeling of fear, Ixzo tossed her full water skin, still dripping with freezing water, and her knife over her bedroll. The Kelvic didn't hesitate then, stripping off the confining clothes with a little more vigor than was needed, but the chill of the morning gave her plenty of boost to shift. The familiar hot pull of her bones in her body did not soothe her as she thought they would. Instead, her cat eyes looked out at the dim tent, her tail already flicking with agitation.

She didn't have any human weapons, but the Kelvic wasn't ready to sit around at the sight of those things.

Slipping out of her tent, she didn't bother to glance at her neighbor. So if they were ships, why had they stopped? And why did they make her feel so… weird. She didn't want to admit that fear crept into her gut, but she wasn't stupid enough to ignore the feeling either.

Blessed with the dark shadows of the morning sunrise, Ixzo slunk forward. When she passed the stream, hopping over the thin sliver of icy water so she didn't get her paws wet, the grass picked up. It wasn't eaten down by the livestock her and although it wasn't as tall as deeper into the Cyphrus plains, the dead golden plant was nearer to her shoulders.

She didn't run now, knowing it would wear her out faster in this form, but the lioness trotted forward, determined to reach the rocks before the sand where she may see the ships better. But she couldn't have been more than sixty yards from the shore when sharp salt-worn shrubbery forced her to slow. She was only beginning to pick her way around the bushes when she heard the first voice.

Myrian | Pavi "Speech" Sign | Common | PC/NPC "Speech" Sign

[Ixzo]

It was a whisper, a jabber in a language she didn't know, but unmistakably human. The fog was not so thick, but with the looming shapes of the rocks, with the black sails behind them, Ixzo felt surrounded. The lioness immediately crouched, slowing her breath and assuming the still stance when prey is near. She was the predator, so she kept her ears up, stilled her tail as best she could and watched for more noises or a movement to give them away.

They were not quite, and she heard them before she saw them. A small group of suntanned and dark-skinned sea-people were also picking through the sharp beach grass and shrubbery.

She trained her silver eyes on the painted figures, eyeing their movements. Instincts told her to fear them, but the strange paints on their faces and the foreign tongue they spoke intrigued her. Ixzo let her mouth open slightly, inhaling the scent of them to taste the salty smell of the sea. However she took more effort to breathe out, minimizing the white streams from her nostrils that the coldness forced upon her.

The air was stagnant but cold, she hadn't worried about her scent being picked up, for the humans likely wouldn't have recognized it even if they could pick it up. But before Ixzo could make a move to creep forward, one of them spotted her. Immediately her hackles rose, but she didn't react. A twisted and scarred finger extended towards her, and she shifted, ever so slightly to get ready to spring if necessary. But when the rest of them froze, two more pale eyes sliding in her direction, she got a better chance to look at them.

They all held weapons, many of them, too many for her liking. But these were not the weapons of a hunting party. Along with their spears and arrows, swords and clubs were gripped in their hands. She didn't like the look of it at all. Slowly, as if scared to trigger her, one spoke. The sharp foreign tones came out slurred now and they began to disperse, away from her.

She wasn't close enough to dart for one if she wanted to, but she thought them very stupid to then separate. Altogether, six of them, they would have no issue taking her down, yet they all moved away. That is how she knew it wasn’t a hunting party.

Myrian | Pavi "Speech" Sign | Common | PC/NPC "Speech" Sign

[Ixzo]

But instead of leaping for the closest one, as her gut immediately instructed her to, Ixzo flicked her tail, keeping eyes with the leader. They thought her a wild animal after all, yet she remained with the restraint her human form allowed. Of course, they would attack if she did, but they were clearly trying to avoid it.

So instead, she backed up. They were deep into the sharp sand-plants, but she was on the edge. With strained muscles, Ixzo padded backward as they tried to skirt around the foliage.

But she didn't attack because she noticed another thing. Another group, a little smaller, was creeping through the boulders behind them. They were the same kind of people, that much she could tell from afar. But unlike the group that had seen her, they didn't realize their friends had slowed, they were moving forward with an intent she didn't quite understand.

When the thought slunk into her brain, she didn’t want to believe it. She recognized this formation. They were a hunting party, that much was true. But the hunting these sea-people had in their eyes was not one for food or even sport, but a hunger for blood, one that she knew well.

But how? Why? What would stir these foreigners to attack the Drykas? Ixzo slunk back further, she was ahead of them, and could still retreat given the time, but her wide silver eyes were finding more and more pockets of people.

This was an invasion.

Myrian | Pavi "Speech" Sign | Common | PC/NPC "Speech" Sign

[Ixzo]

Every emotion on her domestic side screamed for her to attack. As a human, she wanted to defend these horse clans. These people she felt that she belonged to, and even the man who wasn't worried like she was. She thought of the small children she sees in the lanes between the tents and the curious horses who would allow her to pet them. More so, she thought of the groggy sleeping forms of all these Pavi-speaking strangers and felt an eerie connection.

Fight. The thought screamed, but self-preservation overrode her Myrian-taught instinct.

She would fight, that was for sure, but she had to warn people first.

She wasn't used to being prey, but the lion shrunk back, not willing to bolt with so many weapons nearby. Instead, she used a nonchalant tactic that she had used so many times. Ixzo pulled up from her crouch, standing tall in the grass, and simply turned around. The groups of warriors were behind her now, and she could never settle the goose skin on her back at such a prospect. None would have an issue seeing her, but she strode forward, away from them as if she could care less about all of them. She used the tactic on prey she knew she had no chance of catching. Or when faced with a large herd that spooked at her sight. When it was clear she was not interested in the hunt, the herd no longer cared for her presence. Both sides knew that the prey could kill the predator far easier than the predator could kill the prey, yet the chain was still respected in that the predator still remained the predator while the prey still remained the prey.

Although humans were predators in their own right, so this understanding may not be so clear to them. Many of her kin's pelts had been hung in tents as prizes, although if she could think in her Myrian mindset, she held faith that they were too preoccupied to bother with her. She was into attacking them so it would merely be a waste of their time, and likely blow their stealth invasion, to go after her.

It was with this thought that she sauntered forward, weaving through the tall grass towards her city. She was faster than them, a product of being much larger and fueled by fear, and reached the tents before they did. Ixzo didn't look back to see how far they were, before disappearing between the tents. In ten ticks she was human again, this time staying as low as she could creeping into her tent. The cold bit her skin all over, but Ixzo only threw a summer shift on before slinking out.

Myrian | Pavi "Speech" Sign | Common | PC/NPC "Speech" Sign

[Ixzo]

Fear clenched her heart, for her human seeming was far more used to the emotion than that of her lioness form, and Ixzo froze. There was no choice now, she had to warn her neighbors. They would be slaughtered. But when she faced the inner city, away from her tent, she saw the usual morning movements. A few campfires were being lit for those who had a leisure day and needed the warmth. Others were tending to their animals, but at a glance to her neighbors strider, she knew the unsettling feeling hadn't been only hers that morning. The Ankal's wife now tended to her own horse, picking the hooves and not paying attention to her.

Ixzo tried to wave at the woman, not sure how close the strange people were and scared to speak. "Woman!" She whispered as loud as she dared, and the woman paused, glanced around, but did not see her.

Carefully, she edged to the other side of her round tent, glancing at the fields behind. She saw nothing at a glance, so she bolted forward, coming up behind the woman as quietly as possible. "Woman," She whispered the wife let the horse's hoof drop, standing. A flash of recognition and then irritation settled onto her face, and Ixzo cringed. How did she explain this? The wife had already heard of the antics a bell before and now was likely going to write her off.

But before Ixzo could open her mouth to explain, there was a strange whistling noise. Far off, near the other tents, and she glanced to see a single arrow fly through the air. It landed in the middle of a field, narrowing missing a Zibri, but had no other use. She felt her blood freeze as she realized what it meant. It was the signal to begin.

"Fight!" She gasped at the woman, who was confused. She likely couldn't put together what the whistling arrow was for because she hadn't seen what Ixzo had. "Go, go!" She urged, pushing on the horse's rump in front of her. The animal skittered forward but looked to the wife, who was still not understanding it.

Myrian | Pavi "Speech" Sign | Common | PC/NPC "Speech" Sign

[Ixzo]

Ixzo growled in frustration but ran further into the tents rather than turned to look back. This woman might die, but she may be able to warn others of the oncoming battle? There was a sinking feeling in her chest as she flitted between the tents. Everyone was sleeping! They were treating it like a normal day! Didn't they know?

Not wanting to slow, Ixzo leapt over a chamber pot, her toe knocking the pot, and when the putrid smell hit her, she realized it hadn't been emptied and cleaned yet. The cat grimaced, but when she turned the corner, slamming into someone, she exhaled in relief. He was a man of the watch. Desperation must have shown in her eyes because she was so out of breath she couldn't speak, and yet he understood even before she finished her sign to ask him to come.

Within a few seconds, the man was on his horse and galloping in the direction she had come, but his horse was not the only one, she could now hear other horses. Dread filled her at the thought of her people meeting the sea-warriors. The invaders were surely more prepared than a morning patrol of the watch, but Ixzo had to have faith in the Drykas.

Yet Ixzo still didn't turn around. Her bare legs and freezing feet brought her deeper into the city, she had to find more watchmen and women.

Myrian | Pavi "Speech" Sign | Common | PC/NPC "Speech" Sign

[Prophet]

Amazing thread, Ixzo! What a cool way to approach the raid. I'm impressed and I hope you're pleaased with the result. Let me know if you feel that I missed something.

 

Characters Name

XP

• Running: +3
• Observation: +5
• Socialization: +2
• Stealth: +2
• Logic: +2
• Endurance: +2

Lores

• You can’t knock on a tent.
• Pavi: Using signs for emphasis
• Hunters don’t use swords
• Kelvic: Human shape comes with emotions
• Ixzo: Faith in the Drykas