[Hunt] Time to Ride (Khida)

by **Colt** on November 28th, 2012, 6:27 pm

71st of Fall

The rain had stopped, and for that many people across the city thanked the gods. Though water was precious, too much water was just as dangerous as none at all. But though the horseclans continued to chatter worriedly about the run and the flooded Bluvein, the nameless hunter cared for little but the sun chasing away the soaking mist. Today was the day.

Yesterday had been spent perusing the tents as merchants hurriedly displayed their wares, eager to do business in what they feared could be some of the last sunlight left of the season. It had been the first time in memory that he had put his thoughts towards the shiny stones called mizas; there had been no use for them in the wilds and so he had almost forgotten of their existence. But as he had strode through the tents it appeared that he actually had a good amount of wealth; ironic, then, that the man who needed none had so much. Nevertheless, he had known what he needed, and here stood the fruits of his search.

When it came down to it, Drelah was not particularly special. The Seme gelding was neither tall nor short, not fast or slow. But what he was was sturdy; his body was thick and experienced and his eyes held a dependable peacefulness. He knew how to work, and had stood patiently while the man tangled with the harness. Drelah had snorted whenever the harness was put on wrong, and with time it had come together correctly.

The travois was less trouble, simple as it was, and though the gelding had regarded it with curiosity he had accepted it without protest. Upon the travois the man had piled his equipment: his fishing kit, rope and snares were tied down securely while a long knife was strapped to the pack saddle.

He himself was almost unrecognizable from the rough wild man he had once been. His ragged and filthy clothes had been discarded and his skin was clean. He wore simply-cut pants and boots, and though he went bare-chested in Syna’s light a cotton tunic and wool cloak had been neatly folded and put into the gelding’s pack saddle. A quiver of javelins was slung across his back and a knife was at his hip. Nevertheless, the calm, almost emotionless glint in his eye remained, eyes that had been marked by the wild and would forever remain so. His movements were lithe, each action purposeful and calculative as he checked and rechecked the horse and the travois.

Akaidras stood off to the side. The stallion had at first been unsure what to make of the new addition, but when Drelah had done nothing to challenge him then the black bay had decided that the Seme was not a threat. The strider could read his rider’s focused excitement, and was ready to head into the grasslands.

For indeed, that was where they were going. While he had begun to accept some level of comfort while taking cover in the Sunsinger pavilion, he knew that he could not subsist on the Sama’el’s hospitality forever. It was time to make his own place, his own home. It was time to become who he was, who he had been becoming ever since he had come to this city. It was time to become a Drykas.

The whispers had been lost in the rains, but when the sun came the talk of the Hunt had appeared alongside talk of the river’s flood. The competitors seemed to be precious few in number. All the more reason to come back successful; after so long off of the plains and with winter fast approaching, the city would need all of the food it could get.

The travois was secure. The horses were ready to ride. Only one thing was missing.

He turned to the sky.

“Ke-ke-ke-ke-ke-ke-ke.”

shopping records :

by **Khida** on November 29th, 2012, 12:53 am

He had been oddly busy yesterday, doing those human things she had not before seen him do in the city -- walking through the market, talking to the vendors, buying things. He now owned things, enough that he had also brought another horse back to their space. Khida had studied the horse intently, but briefly, and then proceeded to pay it no heed; it was a large and earthbound herbivore, of minimal interest to the raptor.

She hadn't been sure what to make of all his activity, but was content to wait and find out. To wait nearby and find out -- if he was leaving, the falcon did not intend to be left behind again. So she watched from high above as the new day broke, keeping an eye on the man and his big dark stallion. He had put a harness on the new horse, a process which seemed to the distant watcher to involve some trial and error; he had packed things onto the odd crossed boards, and others onto the horse's saddle. And then he had cast his gaze upwards, voicing the summons he always meant for her.

Khida broke off from the wide arc in which she had been soaring and flew over towards his position, though she remained high aloft. The falcon called an echo of his cry back at the hunter as she approached, then passed overhead, acknowledgement and announcement; I hear, and I am here. She banked, making a single circuit above the two horses and the man, then set out away from the city. She didn't know where exactly he intended for them to go, but it was rather clearly somewhere out there -- somewhere farther away than any hunt they had previously gone out on together.

by **Colt** on November 29th, 2012, 2:29 pm

He felt her more than he heard or saw her, and when she arced above him he couldn’t help a soft snarl of excitement. They were ready.

He vaulted onto Akaidras and circled Drelah, clicking in signal. The Seme’s stooped neck immediately rose, ears pricked to attention at his new master. And when the man and strider danced away, the gelding followed.

Into the grass; finally, into the grass!

The whispering gold swallowed them, and the hunter took a breath as deep as a drowning man’s. The smell of the city still clung to the air, but it was still open air. Zulrav’s breath enshrouded him, toying with his hair and whispering nothing at all into his ears. He could sense the clearness of the wild, and he knew what it was that had been calling him in the rains. He knew the jagged chord in his chest that drew him once again into the wonderful danger of the Sea of Grass. He could hear it, feel it.

The silence. The beautiful silence that claimed the wilds of Cyphrus; that had claimed him. It was loud and ringing, but wordless. It didn’t need words.

Akaidras made to bolt, but he leaned back in warning. It wouldn’t do to leave the new addition to their group behind. As that realization wormed its way into his thoughts, let out a disgruntled sigh. He’d need someone else, at some point. Someone with arms and fingers to watch over Drelah when he couldn’t.

He automatically flicked his gaze to the raptor above. He didn’t need someone right now. He had her, and as Akaidras loped under him he couldn’t have wanted for anything more.

He returned his eyes to the plains. Though Syna was awake she remained hung in the east, and he oriented south. Towards the Bluevein that had blocked the city’s Run. If he was lucky, they could find a spot a few miles downstream, away from the prying eyes of Drykas scouts trying to ford the river. There was where they would find their quarry.

by **Khida** on December 3rd, 2012, 11:01 am

The falcon flew out only a short ways before banking around again, taking stock of the two horses trotting through the grass, their direction and speed. He did not run the stallion as he sometimes did, but rode at the placid pace of the other, less-familiar horse; this suggested to the watcher above that they had a long ways to go indeed.

Accordingly, Khida climbed higher still as she flew, seeking the higher winds. With the decline of fall, good thermals were all but impossible to come by; so early in the day, they were entirely nonexistent. But she might catch a current higher up which blew more or less in the direction the peregrine needed to go, and would ease her flight considerably.

Though with the new horse and its pack, she could probably perch there and rest, if the falcon got tired of flying. She might just do that -- later.

For now, Khida watched. She scanned the grasses in all directions from her lofty vantage point, looking now not for signs of the small creatures which were their usual quarry, but the large ones, the big predators. Anything which might see a pair of horses -- or their human companion -- as a potential meal.

This close to Endrykas, she could see mostly those associated with the city itself -- Striders grazing and gamboling, hunting parties setting out or even returning already. Predators in the immediate area were few and far between, and shy of horses, particularly horses with riders; the Striders and the Drykas had made a distinct impression on the wildlife around their city's current site. But the falcon kept an eye out nonetheless, because there were always exceptions -- and they would pass outside the city's area of influence very soon.

Out there, any warning she could give would be sorely needed.

by **Colt** on December 16th, 2012, 10:41 pm

The plains were checkered with outriding Drykas and their Striders, but the space between he and they was large and concerned him little. And with time, they too were swallowed by the grass.

With time, time itself seemed to fade. Now and the past and present merged, marked by nothing but Syna’s climb into the sky. He could feel Akaidras, and in some odd way he could feel the falcon above him. He no longer needed to look to know that she was there. Here, now, in the Sea of Grass, he was with his family. He needed nothing more.

He blinked. Words and meanings had often come unbidden to his mind, and this was a new one. Family… he had seen two men embrace each other warmly and call each other brother. They were family. A mother dog had stopped her pup from nipping at a horse’s heels. That was family. And the Sama’el with his pavilion, his blood-bound brothers, that was family.

He put one hand on Akaidras’ neck and flicked his gaze at the dark speck circling above. Yes. Yes, this was family too. He found himself purring with the realization. Akaidras at the falcon were his family without doubt. Maybe Drelah would come to be family, too.

These warm thoughts sat comfortably within him as the day strengthened, forgetting to stop his purr. The last of night’s chill was dispelled, and even a stray breeze of warmth could be felt here and there.

Time continued to turn, and Syna was high in her throne when he caught sight of green among the gold. In the distance a line of trees stretched between two hills, no doubt clinging to the banks of a creek or something similar. That would be a fine place to rest.

He let a cry into the air for his partner, then signaled towards what he had spotted.

by **Khida** on December 22nd, 2012, 12:21 pm

Syna rose ever-higher in the sky, heating the air through which the falcon flew, light strong and bright upon the grasses below. She saw Drykas at first, more than anything else -- the humans, their horses, some with wagons in tow. They became fewer and fewer in number as the little group traveled on, until men and horses were the rarity, and the grasses all.

The grasses, and their denizens. Khida saw other birds of prey, all from a distance -- others aloft over their respective patches of savanna, seeking food, patrolling territory. Unlike them all, she traveled through, aerial escort to a human and two horses -- sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, sometimes out on one side or the other as the whim took her, but always within sight.

Their passage that morning went without contest. In addition to other birds, the peregrine found a small herd of cattle foraging in the golden grasses, creatures beneath her notice; the leopard which was eyeing them contemplatively was more noteworthy, but regarded the horses with only wary disinterest. What other predators she saw were further out still; if they noticed the small procession, they opted against taking interest in it.

As the day wore on, Khida began to contemplate that gear on the second horse, the potential it had as a mobile perch. Before she had quite decided to avail herself of it, the man called for her attention. The falcon came about to look out along the line he indicated, seeing the trees in the distance and reading water into their presence as readily as he had. She wondered, briefly, whether the trees would be their destination or only a resting place; but in either case, it didn't really matter to her. Nor did either possibility have much impact to her designs on that second horse.

Rather than fly out over his trees, helpful as the scouting might have been to the man, the falcon leveled her wings and angled down in a steep glide. She made unerringly for the pack saddle, approaching from the horse's rear flank; it didn't occur to Khida that the beast could possibly object to her sudden encroachment into its personal space, or the sound and motion of her wings as they flared out above it to brake and backwing. After all, it was clearly a horse for carrying things; it could carry her this last little distance too.

Closed [Hunt] Time to Ride (Khida)