[flashback] Sura and the Wildman [solo]

[Sura]

Summer 509 AV A stinging insect circled lazily through the sweltering mid summer air, coming to land on sweaty expanse of Sura's pale exposed neck. Her webbed fingers failed to reach the silvery bug before it took a generous bite of her flesh, adding yet another itchy red mound to the growing collection of nicks, scrapes, and sores she was busily acquiring on her little foray into the underbrush. She'd left her horse and gear tethered at the forest's edge so that she could enter the dense young trees to scour for edible unimpeded, a decision she was quickly coming to regret not only because she now worried for her animal's safety, but because the assumption that she would easily navigate the thicket and retrieve from it a bountiful meal was borderline delusional. Thus far her epicurean discoveries included, but were not limited to: a root too pasty and bitter to swallow; a surprisingly savory fungus which had the unfortunate after effect of turning her stomach after a mere nibble; and a clutter of nettles that, if she were fortunate, might be later boiled into a drinkable tea. She could hardly sustain herself on flavoured hot water, however. Sura pressed on, committing herself to a few minutes more search before she returned to her waiting gilding with a few mere nettles in hand. Her perseverance payed off in the form of a dark green leafed bush bearing bright shiny tiny globed fruits. In her excitement for her discovery, Sura failed to notice the soft, yielding quality of the ground she was treading, and the step drop downhill lurking just a few bows beyond. As she stooped over and began enthusiastically plucking all the berries she could could pile into the folds of her pale blue tunic, the earth beneath her gave way, sending her tumbling head over heal down a steep twiggy incline. She became a velocitized ball of pale flesh, tearing through undergrowth and colliding against the odd rock. The crash-course lasted a mere few moments, but felt as if it drew on for hours. One last bruise inducing tumbled brought her into broad daily where she collapsed to a stop on her back, aching limbs fanning out at her sides at awkward angles. Her breath came in exhilarated heaves as a stir of dust spiralled upward from her resting site into the strong glare of the sun. The blinding sphere of the sun was suddenly eclipsed by a grizzly silhouette. Wild blue eyes surrounded by dirty flesh and an unruly mane of blond hair browned with grit bore down at her. Sura gave a shrill scream of surprise, the effort of which made her aware of an aching pain in her side. She closed her eyes as if in an effort to will the sting away. When her pale lashes fluttered open, the man was gone. She suspected him an apparition of her hunger and pain. There was a stir of nausea in the pit of her stomach, and suddenly her awareness faded, and the world had gone dark. When she awoke the feeling of hard earth was no longer at her back, but soft bed instead. Well, relatively soft. The straw stuffed mattress didn't quite hold up to the level of comfort she knew on the White Isle, but it was a welcomed improvement from her bedroll. Her eyes snapped open wide as she was suddenly sobered by the thought of her horse and gear. The memory of leaving her horse tethered, her fruitless hunt, and her subsequent 'shortcut' down the forest hill cam rushing back all at once. She shot up in bed, and with the look of a wild animal sent her sights darting about her surroundings. She was in a sparse, rustic cabin. Light had faded from the small windows, and what could be seen was bathed in eerie shifting orange fire light. Strange, cruel looking things she assumed were traps hung by the door alongside stretched pelts and drying herbs. There was a simple table, a pair of worn wooden chairs, cookware by a hearth hosting a dwindling fire. Sura thought herself alone in the dark, until the glint of a pair of wild eyes watching her with still intensity stole the air from her aching lungs.

[Sura]

Despite the dark, the sight of those animal eyes was all that was needed for a multitude of overwhelming insights regarding the shadow-shrouded stranger to flood the konti's senses. There were glimpses of blades tearing flesh, fur and muscle entwined in snares, and bones snapping under the blunt force of weathered fists. It was more then she could bare. Sura was to her feet and on the ground just as fast, stumbling against the cool earthen floor. Something was painfully awry with her left ankle. Before she could make a go of righting herself, those rough hands she'd seen bloodied and fouled were on her arms, hauling her upward, his leathery callouses itching against her soft flesh. It was all she could do to look with frantic longing to the door and beg to be set free. His firm unyielding grip directed her toward the table instead, where she was less then delicately sat in one of the rugged chairs. Tears began to well along the ridges of her closed eyes as a litany of grizzly fates, each more devastating then the next, filtered through her imagination. The whirlwind of unfortunate destinies came to an abrupt end when there was a heavy clamour on the table before her. Sura gingerly opened her eyes. There, in the cabin's low light was a steaming bowl of stew, complete with whittled wooden spoon. Her grizzly host settled at the table opposite her, his chair creaking under the pressure of his muscular bulk. He dove into his own bowl, handling his spoon with all the grace of a manner-less child. A sheen of grease dribbled downward into the tangled wilds of his beard which he wiped aside unabashedly with the sleeve of her raw hide shirt. His consumption paused only for a moment so that he could gesture with a dirty digit toward Sura's bowl. Slowly, and with measured care, the konti took up her spoon and prodded her meal. Large chunks of red meat riddled with fat drifted through the thick brown oily base. Sura could hardly look at let alone consume the flesh. She did manage to find on the odd piece tuber in the stew, which she picked out and forced down out of fear of invoking her host's ire. After a few strained moments of silence, the pelt covered human returned his spoon to the table, his bowl entirely clean. He watched the konti in her tuber fishing until she too returned her spoon to the table, leaving her meat portions behind. "You don't eat meat." Came the low gravely commentary from across the table. His voice was weak and hoarse, Sura suspected from quite a while of neglect. Thought the near whisper was more a comment then question, Sura gave a shake of her unruly white mane. "Fish?" Sura nodded her confirmation, eyes glued to the table before her. "Right. Tomorrow, we fish." He concluded with a firm pat of the table. The wildman's chair skidded backward as he gathered up his own plate and that of his konti guest. ***** Her first night in the cabin brought little rest, and Sura looked rougher for it. Still dirty and bruised from her fall, dark circles had begun to gather beneath her formerly bright eyes, and her hair was a few tangles and matt away from rivaling the wily state of her host's. Despite all her worry, the wildman made good on his word. In the morning hours, before the sun returned with its uncomfortable heat, he'd guided her down to the waterside of a small pond near the cabin, a short downhill slope away. He'd somehow found the time to whittle a crutch from a tree limb that had naturally been shaped for the job. Sura hobbled along with her wooden aid, willing to offer the man the benefit of the doubt after she'd discovered that he'd tracked down her horse after he collected her up from the dust and carried her to the straw bed. Her gilding was still sleeping happily outside the cottage, tail swatting at insects that were already beginning to fill the morning air. The konti and the human settled at the edge of a small dock built with familiarly rugged craftsmanship. Hooks glinted in the early yellow sunlight as the wildman baited them with wriggling worms. Sura did not watch. She'd been careful not to examine his features for fear of gleaning more information then she cared to know of his character, but she turned away entirely when the bait was impaled on pointed metal. "What?" He asked gruffly, offering the baited rod. "It suffers." Sura shrugged sheepishly, taking the reel tentatively in hand. His response inspired a chuckle of amusement, and that was the last sound issued by either over the expanse of an hour. There was a tug on the wildman's line, casting ripples on the placid lily filled pond. With all but a few skillful tugs, the fish had been hauled from its watery home and cast onto the deck where it gasped and flopped against the sun warmed wood. "Does it suffer?" The man chuckled hoarsely, shaking his head in furthered amusement. "I didn't figure you the sort for cannibalism." "What is cannibalism?" She asked, brow tenting at a Common word she'd yet to encounter. "Eating your own kin." came the gruff response Sura's pale cheeks pinkenned and brow knit with adament objection. "I am not a fish!" "Coulda fooled me with those." He smirked gesturing toward the gills hidden beneath her platinum locks. She looked back to the pond, jaw squaring with resolve. "I am no fish." Sura repeated beneath her breath, her temper simmering. In a fit of impulse, she grabbed the fish and tossed it back to the pond. It's silvery scales disappeared into the green waters of the pool. "You are right. It suffered." She agreed, though her tone was far from compliant. Her hands quickly fell over her protesting stomach, and she folded with remorse. The pain was only worsened by the knowledge that parameters of her diet had further dwindled by this stranger enlightening her to the anguish that preceded her seafood suppers. "I'm going to be hungry the rest of my life." She moaned. "We'll see." Her host smirked knowingly.

[Sura]

Her injuries made travel unwise. The next day came and went. The wildman, who finally introduced himself as Evan, has taken off in the wee hours, leaving Sura to her own devices. In her boredom, she'd attempted to cook a few of the tubers Even had prepared the night prior. She now sat scrubbing the charred remnants of her efforts into a basin. She was nearing the half way point of the sweat inducing effort when Evan returned, bearing a cluster of newly skinned hides over her shoulders. He didn't say anything of the burning stench lingering in his cabin, but cast her a brief sideways glance as he began sifting through his day's work. "I'm no cook." Sura grumbled defensively. "Oh, what are you then?" He asked with amusement, broad back turned to her. She was growing tired of the seemingly never ending entertainment he found in her. "A mason." She replied firmly, her words laced with pride. "A small thing like you?" with surprise, though his shock sounded strangely feigned. Before Sura could fire off a retort, Evan plopped a hide at her feet, it unfurled revealing a handful of nuts, a pair of last night's tubers, and some deep green leaves. "Crush those into a paste, boil those and eat that fresh." He directed, pointing to each of the foods respectively. "If you're up for it, I'll show you where those can be in a week's time. Your leg ought to be good by then." Sura watched in tight lipped silence as Evan returned to his work. He was a difficult man to grasp. Despite his overall unpleasantness, he hadn't exactly been kind, but he'd been nothing but giving of his knowledge and resources. So much so that his seemingly limitless generosity was beginning to inspire suspicion. In Sura's limited experience outside the isle, little was given without the expectation that there would be something offered or taken in return. He'd simply assumed she'd be staying until she was well, and if she interpreted him correctly, boyond then still. Having turned the idea over in her head, it didn't seem altogether terrible.

[Sura]

Sura filled the hours with attempts to better prepare the strange food she had been provided, at least to where it was edible. The yet unsolved mystery of what if anything her host expected from her in exchange for his hospitality weighed heavy on her mind. She didn't have the nerve to peer further into his character then she already trespassed, and so his motives remained illusive. Every day dawned with the expectation she'd be called upon to make good on her debt, and every night she retired still plagued by doubt and suspicion. When she was finally invited to forage, the trip into the dense forest beyond the pond was purposeful and short lived. The perimeter Sura was permitted to travel was a small one, but creatures large and small seemed to avoid the circle's limits. She imagined this was Evan's doing, though how he accomplished this remains was beyind her understanding. The human taught her little in the sweaty underbrush other then how to avoid his traps and where to scour for what she needed to sustain herself, explaining her inexperience and ineptitudes were a strenuous liability for which he hadn't the time or patience. Sura had to settle for trailing along on the occasions when his temperament permitted - which were preciously few in number. Time fell to the wayside as the sweaty summer unfurled. Sura had blended the nuts, tubers, and leaves in every combination her imagination could conjure and Evan's mound of exotic skins had piled half high up the door post. Drowning in boredom, the konti was struck with an invigoratingly ingenious idea. She abandoned her things and marched with newly found purpose to the cottage pond, returning with a few stones from the water's edge in her webbed graso. The rock was far from lustrous, but it was solid and strong. By day's end she'd grown tired of transporting the stone in her weary arms, and settled for dragging them uphill on one of Evan's thrown away hides. He said nothing of her use of the skin or the conspicuous mound of stones outside the cabin door. Frustrated with his silence and apparent lack of interest in her designs, Sura retired to bed ill tempered. She awoke the next morning with well stoked vengeful fire in her belly, heading straight to the pond with an all consuming determination set into her alabaster features. She'd exhausted the stones at the water's edge, necesitating that she wade into the pond and eventually dive for additional rocks. Having spent most of her life on land, swimming slowed her gathering, but her aquatic adaptations eased the learning curve. Though her limbs ached from the effort the next morning, she was quick to rise with the sun an resume her efforts, wrapping her hands in leather scraps to spare them from further callousing and sores. Sandy clay was salvaged from the pond bottom to be used as mortar, and row by row a simple apprentice wall began to take shape, surrounding the cottage on four sides. Only three stones high after her first day of laying, the wall was slow to climb, and once complete, it was no more then a pale shadow of the graceful design-teeming buildings of her home. She was admiring her modest handiwork, clad in the sweat and filth of her labors when Evan appeared at her side. She hadn't heard the human's approach, though between his formidable stealth and her depleted senses there was little surprise in this. "That'll keep the place cool in the summer, and warm in the winter months." He nodded approvingly. It was the closest to a compliment she'd ever receive from the man.