Completed A Short Morning's Trek

[Jei]

3rd of Winter, 520 AV

Jei's eyes fluttered open as he woke to the shuffle of struck tents and whispered voices. He could tell that Syna had yet to break the horizon to shed light on the pristine beaches where he and his group had set up because he could still hear the chirps and rustles of the night's insects and nocturnal creatures over the gentle rush of nearby waves. That, and it was still dark as could be in and outside his tent, save for the shadows cast onto his temporary home's walls by torches and movement.

He was used to waking at the crack of dawn and even sometimes a bit before that; his biological clock usually bade him to wake at around the same early, early morning every day. It was because he was not ready to wake that he knew that something was slightly amiss. The rest of his party did not often wake this early, he knew that for a fact. So he slowly shuffled in his bedroll and blanket, stretched his arms, and, with a slightly annoyed rumble in the center of his chest, pulled open the flaps of his tent to peek out.

The night previous, his tent had been one among a few, but now it was the last on the beach. Each of the others were geared and readied, and left not a thing on the beach they had taken residence on, as if they were to leave soon...

"Where you guys just going to leave here without telling me anything," Jei hissed in Myrian as he got to his feet, naked as the day he was born. He could care less, however, as the rest stopped their activities to look at the new commotion. The man looked astonished and a tad upset, truth be told, at being kept out of the loop of whatever this was. To be fair, it was a rather important to know.

"You're staying here to keep an eye on the foreigners. We were just meant to come, look for a few days, and return, minus one. We will return every so often for an update." Jei grunted in response to his leader's orders and light information. He was not going to argue with her, of course, but he wished he was better informed. "How often are you to return? Last time, we did not return for years." He was not angry that he was being left, he figured he would be fine here on his own. But with nary a known companion, he would be truthfully on his own for a while. "Unknown. Whenever our commander decides. We will find you, or whatever message you leave for us should you be unavailable," she finished as she motioned for the rest of the party to follow on a march back to the beach and their boatcraft. Jei said nothing as they left with few goodbyes.

[Jei]

It was with a heavy sigh that Jei turned back around to his tent, now alone in the sands of the Sykan beach. While he was interested in and wanted to learn of the foreign culture and customs, he did not wish to have to rely on them to survive. And he would have to rely on them to survive, as he knew he did not fully posses the necessary skills to survive on his own. He was good in the jungle, yes, Competent enough... But that was it. He was not much a trapper, or even a mediocre shot with a bow, and he hardly knew anything about farming. With the departure of the rest of his party, he would have to look to the strangers to help.

Speaking of strangers... The shifting of sands around what seemed to be a solitary pair of feet nearby alerted him to his lack of solitude at that moment. He turned, eyes squinted to try and see better with Leth's soft light. He scanned the area in his immediate vicinity, until he saw the outline of a person some yards away. He was not sure who this person was, and could hardly make out any details of them - the light of the moon only gave him a vague silhouette.

"Who's that," Jei called out with a basic handle of the Common tongue. He did not speak brokenly, per se, but his voice with thick with a Myrian accent, and he seemed to put emphasis in the wrong places and he held certain sounds too long; obviously, far from a comfortable language for him, but it passed enough to communicate. "Indigo. I live in Syka, I was just returning home from some time in the jungle. Why did your people leave?" She seemed to have been there long enough to see, and only now chose to reveal herself once the older, and much more discriminatory, Myrians had departed.

"They were only here for a small time. They left me here to learn about Syka," Jei admitted truthfully; after all, there was hardly any reason to try and lie. There was not much about the situation that needed to be hidden. "Give me a small time, I will be more presentable," he said, before going into his tent quickly just to grab and struggle on a pair of underwear and his pants. It took him only a few minutes, and when he came back out, Indigo was closer, and the peeking of Syna over the horizon made it far easier to see.

"I am Jei of the Dancing Dagger," he introduced himself in that strange accent-drenched Common. He held out a hand for Indigo, before he looked at her a bit closer and what she had. She looked to have just come from the hunt, with carcasses slung over her shoulder and a bow in hand, quiver of arrows at her waist. He pointed to it after they released each other's forearms. "You are a hunter? Do you go into the jungle alone?"

Indigo nodded in response as she adjusted her quarry on her shoulder, which prompted Jei to offer assistance that she accepted. "Yes, I am just going to go get them skinned so that I might butcher them for food over the next few days. I have been going into the jungle for years."

As Jei slung her kills over his own shoulder (no easy feat; they were quite fat and heavy, and he struggled a bit), he walked alongside her in the direction of the Commons as they spoke, though much of his attention focused on steady feet and strong hands. He did not want to drop her kills in the sand. "You must know much about surviving here, then. Can you teach me? To shoot, to hunt, to live in the jungle. I am good in the jungle, but not the best, and I am no hunter."

[Jei]

It surprised him how much he struggled with the dead weight of Indigo's kills. He always thought he was moderately fit, but... As Syna climbed higher and they got close to the morning bustle of the Commons, Jei had slowed down to a noticeable degree. Indigo even had to wait for the suddenly sweat-drenched man every now and again. "You're sweating on my kills," she said simply as he watched him ascend the steps to the Commons, one slow step at a time.

"Animal fur..." He started in Common, obviously out of breath. "Is just sweat, fur, dirt. Pelt will be fine," it was hard enough to understand him with his accent, but the physical exertion that he required to transport game... He was not ready for, and it showed on his features and in his voice. He could feel his back, especially the small area of muscles right above his buttocks, tighten and ache as it struggled to keep straight and carry the load properly. His thighs and calves screamed at him to stop the punishment, while his shoulders shook slightly as he willed them to keep from buckling. His hands, forearms, and biceps burned as they had worked hard to clench the carcass' fur and exerted some amount of pull to keep it secured.

"But... I got it. How far?" Even though his usual Common was kept short and clipped, the effort caused his sentences to be even more so as he made his way through the Commons with Indigo. He kept his head elevated and eyes locked on Indigo's head, because if he looked down, his spine would not be straight, and it would be harder to continue.

Even though he had his eyes on Indigo's head, he was not very attentive. His mind focused fully on the task at hand as his body ached more, and so all he could do when he ran into a now-stopped Indigo was mutter a few 'sorrys'. They were at the Fish Cleaning Station now, which also had some equipment for larger game. Like the one he dropped now, as he had stopped and lost concentration, and his muscles took a break.

As his hands propped him on his knees and he huffed and puffed, Indigo looked at the lad. "We're here. If you want to learn, we'll have to do it another time, when you are not so exhausted. You'll need to get into better shape to last alone in the jungle for any length of time."

Jei nodded as he stood straight, hands on his hips to keep his upper body stabilized. He was drenched in sweat, and he ached damn near all over. "Go rest. Meet me at the Commons in two days, about an hour or two after daybreak," Indigo almost ordered as she bent and picked up the animals to take them and skin them. Jei could do nothing but nod and slowly stumble his way back to his tent as he was abruptly dismissed. He took his sweet time on the return.