Come West Along The Road [Asim]

[Raiha]

Closed. Asim only, please.

1st of Spring, 510 AV

Leaving Mura was a very new experience. And traveling in the winter, Raiha was finding, may not have been amongst her best ideas. She probably should have left in the summertime; but one thing after another had delayed it, and by then... well, she had been foolish in not realizing just how blessed they were on Konti Isle with the weather that they had there. But either way, there were always those who had made their way through here before, and had been able to come along with a merchant's caravan, cloaked against the cold, her hood drawn up to help disguise her features. Mizahar was rough, and she had heard enough of the stories of those who would seek to do her harm... if not worse. There were fates worse than death, as Kanikra had prophesied warningly. Raiha was inclined to heed it.

The weather was fairly clear, but Raiha held onto the saddle horn nervously enough. The Akontak was not the best rider - but it was much easier to go by a combination of ground and water, according to those whom she had talked to who had made the trip before. She had taken the boat from Mura to Zeltiva, and nine days ago they had left that port to make the trek to Syliras. Ten days, they had said, if all went well. Ten days. She had waited 22 years; she could stand to wait a few more days to get to Riverfall. Uzima rested on her forearm, the goshawk's leash looped around her wrist. There was no way Raiha could cage the goshawk for the trip. One of the merchants she had been traveling with remarked it was like a traveling zoo - she had the goshawk, and Diallo, enormous and white and grey, walked alongside the Firemane mare.

Apparently, they were a few hours outside of Syliras, and Raiha could hardly wait. She was looking forward to seeing the city, even if she wouldn't be staying very long before taking a boat down the Suvan Sea to Riverfall. As it was, she was keeping her head down, and by the time Diallo started to growl, there was a hailstorm of arrows. Yakini nearly reared before taking off, even as Raiha tried to rein her in. Uzima's wings flared, and the hawk flailed, screaming, unable to go anywhere with the leash and sinking her talons into the glove that the falconer wore to protect her arm as she flapped anyway. "Woah!" Raiha called at Yakini, pulling back on the reins. "Woah!" Diallo followed her, baying a warning at the man on horseback who had cut her away from the protective 'herd', and was following the inexperienced rider as the mare carried her wildly into the brush and off of the road.

Let me handle this! Kanikra ordered her. Go tuck yourself in your safe little world that you wish you'd never left! Now was not the time for arguments, but damned if Raiha was going to let Kanikra take over, though it was a weak point and Kanikra knew it. The Akontak was just trying desperately to hang on and steer the mare back towards the caravan they had been traveling with, as the enormous Deerstalker threatened the horse following her, the man was getting ready to fire his bow once more, this time aiming for the Firemane. Valuable though a good piece of horseflesh was, a woman could be sold for still more to the right people...

[Asim]

Which was when a large, roaring, brown bear smashed into the horse and man with the bow. Claws flashed, as did teeth, before the horse and man turned to flee, both with blood trailing from light wounds over the face. The brown bear leapt after them, still roaring, this time with a noticeable arrow sticking from it's back. After a bit of chasing, the bear leapt closer and knocked the man out of the saddle, freeing the horse to take off in blind terror. The bear, satisfied that the man was going nowhere, turned it's attentions to him and moved closer, growling. The man tried backing away, but kept falling, so he pulled a knife. He slashed as the bear got nearer, leaving a thin trail of blood, before the bear bit down on his head, leaving a tangled, bloody mess. Pulling back, the bear roared once more and then moved away from the dead man, back towards the Blueskin the attack had been aimed at. Sitting about halfway between his kill and the Blueskin, the bear sat down and growled as he tried to reach the arrow in his back. It wasn't a serious wound, but it was annoying.

[Raiha]

"Diallo!" Raiha shouted at the Deerstalker as he bayed at the man on the horse, chasing the horse off before returning to Yakini, growling. His fur stood on edge - Raiha had finally gotten the frightened mare to stop, and the horse stood, shifting her weight. Raiha was not a good rider, nor overly skilled with horses, but she had a feeling that, quite frankly, that Yakini wanted to be anywhere but here. And so did the blue-skinned Akontak. The only thing that had prevented her from just jumping off of her mare and leaving it to catch her later was the fact she would have crushed her goshawk, and that simply would not to. She sat astride the anxious Firemane, watching with enormous eyes as the bear... well, the bear obliterated her assailant.

Time to go, Kanikra was brisk. People to find. If you hurry back, you might still catch some action... and put those suvai to good use. No point in trying with the bear. It'll just get us killed. When Raiha made no move to guide the mare away, Kanikra started pushing at her stressed, pale twin. Move it! she ordered her. Do you want to join the man as part of a bear's afternoon snack? Are you that stupid!? Raiha clutched the reins and the saddle horn as she stared at the bear. Every part of her head hurt, and Kanikra wasn't making it any easier. If anything, she was intensifying the pain and prolonging the agony as she pushed, trying to force Raiha into either moving or losing control. Either way, Kanikra won.

This... doesn't make sense, she told Kanikra, slowly. Why had the bear come charging out, injured or not? Why had he torn into the man? Why not me? And further, why wasn't it charging us now? It's hurt. Logic says that it should be striking out as us to at least chase us away...

You're over-thinking things, Kanikra warned her. Just go. Just get going, go back to the party, or go on until you reach Syliras, and get your boat south. Don't make me push you to it. Else I will, and you won't like it... It's a pity we never learned how to use a bow. Look at the hide on him. Torn though it is... I'm sure it would sell well. He doesn't look like he's been hibernating...

He doesn't, does he? Raiha was thoughtful as she dismounted carefully, even as Uzima shrieked a protest. She held Yakini's reins tightly, keeping her hawk bundled near her chest until she could tie the reins around a tree branch, and tied the hawk's leash to one of the metal rings on her saddle, letting the hawk perch on the heavily-reinforced seat. The horse shifted uncomfortably, and Diallo rumbled at her as if to tell her that this was a bad idea. She held her hands up, empty and exposed, to the bear. This was not a normal bear. Given the givens, this didn't make sense, not at all. Caiyha and Oriana worked in mysterious ways. "I'll remove the arrow from your back," she called softly to him. "But no biting."

[Asim]

The bear heard her move and looked up, to growl at her. He stood as she came close, and stepped back slowly, still growling as he also tried to snap at the arrow in his back. When she spoke, however, the bear stopped and stared at her, trying to see if she was lying. If she was, he would kill her. And if she wasn't he had a problem solved. So he sat down, his back towards her, but his head turned to watch her. This way, if she tried to injure him, he could be on her before she had time to blink. But, for some odd reason, he felt he could trust her. With his life, if need be. So he turned his head away and looked down at the ground, before grabbing a pawful of grass and rubbing at his blood-stained face, to remove traces of his previous violence. His claws he dug into the ground as he pulled up the grass.

[Raiha]

Definitely not natural, Raiha thought, having frozen in her tracks the moment he got up on all fours to face her. He was huge. She swallowed that whimper that nearly came out of her throat, and advanced slowly on him. "Diallo, stay," Raiha warned the deerstalker who had started to follow her, only to retreat back towards Yakini, his fur standing straight up. The Akontak started her slow, careful path back towards the bear, hardly daring to breathe from the chances of spooking him and provoking him into decapitating her.

She padded quietly in her leather boots, and lowered herself to her knees to crouch behind him, having taken a handkerchief from a pocket, holding it in one hand. "I'm going to take the shaft of the arrow now," Raiha told the bear softly. "And I'm going to pull it out. With luck, it'll come out clean, and then I'm going to apply pressure to make it stop bleeding. Please don't move. For that matter, please don't kill me. I am only trying to help." With that, she carefully took hold of the shaft of the arrow, as close to the head as she could, and gripped it with her gauntlet-covered hand. Her breathing slow and steady, and trying very hard not to rattle in her chest, she adjusted her arm slightly for the angle. You wanted to pull it out at the same trajectory it took going in, so as not to catch or damage anything more than necessary.

He felt her hand on his back near the wound, bracing herself and him. "Here it comes," Raiha warned him, as if to give him a chance to steel himself before she made her first attempt to remove the arrow. Gritting her teeth, the Akontak pulled, keeping the arrow as straight as she could with the angle standing up at the same time for added leverage. And after a flash of pain, it was all over. Raiha held a bloody arrow in one hand, the balled-up handkerchief against the wound. "It's out," she told the bear quietly, beginning to breathe normally. "You're too big for me to bandage it, I'm afraid, and I don't think you'd care for me to try to stitch it. So the best I can do is hold it until the bleeding stops and let you go back to your den." She exhaled, keeping the cloth tight before checking the wound after another moment and pressing down again with a clean section of the handkerchief. "I don't know if this makes us even... you saved my life. For that, I thank you."

[Asim]

The bear stayed silent through the whole ordeal, but when she mentioned bandaging and stitches, he tilted his head slightly, thinking. He turned his head slowly to look at her, before making a choice, and shifting to a fully human form, still sitting, with his back to her. "Does that make it easier to bandage?" he asked, gruffly, as he continued to stare at her. The brown gaze that stared at her was unnerving, to say the least. After all, it wasn't every day that a pair of pure brown eyes stared at you. And the full head of grizzly brown hair didn't help either, as it added to the image of a barbarian sitting naked on a field of battle. That, or an insane man.

[Raiha]

"Oh!" Raiha took a step back, her blue cheeks turning a faint purple at the nakedness of the man in front of her. That she hadn't expected. She had seen people naked before. That wasn't really a big deal. But in her case, the matter was more that she had not expected this rather intelligent bear to be a Kelvic. But when she thought about it, it made sense. She understood that bears were smart, but a wild bear that had saved her life and was then letting her approach?

Bet he's big down there, Kanikra teased her. Why don't you go and have a look? He's not quite so big now... Now that the worst of the danger was over - they weren't dealing with an entirely wild animal - Kanikra clearly felt she was now able to start nagging, and to start nagging constantly, get Raiha's hackles up a little and start to stress her out. Come on, slip around and go see it! Fifth leg, like a horse, do you think?

I think... would you be quiet?! Raiha howled in her mind. Just stop it! "It does," she admitted. "But it means you would have to stay in this shape, or you would just tear the bandages up." She crouched down, and lifted the cloth carefully, having a look at the wound. "You know, though... without all that fur there... the wound itself is pretty shallow," the Akontak's voice was soft, quiet, as she had a good look at the injury, examining it. She exhaled, reaching deep inside of her and drawing on the gift granted to her by Rak'keli. As she exhaled, she gently applied pressure to pinch the lips of the wound shut and to try to seal them, but it wasn't going to work. The skin looked a little closer together, but that was as far as it got, even if the bleeding wasn't too bad by now. She sighed. So much for that working for her. One day, perhaps Rak'keli would see fit to grant her another mark. "A moment. I'll go get what I have from my saddlebags."

She returned with her waterskin and a length of cloth. "I'm going to flush it out. I cannot see any debris in it, so I'll rinse it and bandage it," Raiha told him as she settled behind him on her knees, having opened the waterskin and began to pour some of the lukewarm water, a trickle at a time, into the wound, cleansing it out, and checked on it again. She had always found that talking an animal through the procedure helped her gather her own thoughts, and sometimes her voice just made others calm as well. They latched onto that, animals did. "I'm going to bandage it now. You'll have to stay human for a little while," she warned. "If you go back to your other shape, despite the fur, it could get dirty. Can you lift your arms?" She unrolled the bandage and began to pass it around, keeping the bandage as tight as she could. Her long arms came in handy there, and at last she knotted it, and stepped back. "There. You're all set. My name is Raiha," she told him with a faint smile.

[Asim]

The man stared at her as she continued her work, his eyes never leaving her. He listened to her advice, nodding every now and then, and he even managed to smirk at the fact that she looked uncomfortable with his present state of undress. When she mentioned staying in human form, he frowned slightly. "Very well. But I'll need to go to my den to get my clothing, wouldn't I?" he muttered to himself as he lifted his arms, as asked, so she could wrap the bandages. He even offered a hand, so she wouldn't have to step around him, or lean against him, to get the bandages all the way around. He was uncomfortable with people touching him, to say the least. At the offer of her name, he lifted an eyebrow. "Thank you for the help, Raiha Blueskin. And the next time you are attacked, try to get back to the group of people you're traveling with. And get a smarter horse. One who knows how to stay with the group," he stated, the sound almost a bears growl.

[Raiha]

"You might want to do that," Raiha smiled a little. "And lay low where you won't get shot by random arrows, since I'm going to guess that that is how you ended up being struck," she put her supplies away in her saddlebags, and stroked Diallo's head as the big Deerstalker watched Asim cautiously. The dog made no move towards him, just watching warily. A human was less threatening than a bear, but he smelled like a bear, and that was bad thing, as far as Diallo was concerned. Yakini shifted a little as Raiha collected her reins and came around to the horse's side. "Will you be alright?"

Of course he will. He's a bear. Look at him, Kanikra crowed triumphantly. You could use some stress relief. Pull a move on him. Told you he was hung like... Raiha was not a prude, not in the least, but still, she wasn't going to just...

You. Be. Quiet! NOW! she hissed at her. "But anyway, I'm not a good rider," she admitted. "I'm still learning. They just... swept up on us, and started firing. Yakini is smart. She's a good horse," she had to defend the mare as she started towards the horse, carrying her waterskin. She could refill it in Syliras. "You know," she glanced at him over her shoulder as she was preparing to get herself into the saddle, "when someone gives you their name, it is considered good form to tell them yours..." She froze, the smile on her face disappeared as realization set into her eyes. "And I... oh Goddess. The others. I need... I need to go back. I need to see if they made it. I'm sorry, I've got to go." She collected Uzima as the goshawk let out her shriek as Raiha coaxed her onto the gauntlet, having already put the goshawk's leash around her wrist before gathering the reins in that hand, reaching for the saddle horn with the other, and boosting herself onto Yakini's back, pale beneath her dusky blue skin.

[Asim]

The man nodded as he stood and strecthed slowly, too see how well the bandages would hold up. Satisfied, he turned his head once more to grin at Raiha. "I was napping. Damned bandit wouldn't have hit me if someone hadn't run over here. And yes, I'll be fine." That said, he grinned once more and turned his head towards where his den was. "That's what bandits do. They sweep," he replied as he scratched his head. Perhaps, because she did help me, I'll go with her, until she gets back to her friends, he thought.

Turning fully towards her, he raised an eyebrow. "Give me a minute, and I'll join you for a bit. Let me go get my stuff, and then I'll escort you back to your friends," he grumbled. He didn't like getting near people, but, since she seemed to be new at this, he would help her out, at least until she was with her friends again. And then he'd leave. At the mention of a name for himself, he chuckled. "Lady, you don't know us Kelvic very well. I don't have a name. Don't need one either, since most people just call me 'Kelvic', 'hey you', or 'bone guy'," he replied. "As for what you can call me, just go with whatever. It won't matter, since I won't be sticking with you long."