Completed You and I [Razkar]

[Tinnok]

You and I
25th of Summer 512 AV

Two days in the jungle. Two days march from her hut in the woods, putting Taloba, and the very beginnings of trail restorations behind them. Two days of mostly silence, whistles and hand gestures.

Two days of peace.

The Eagle and Wolf trod upon raucous jungle, with no purpose other than the hunt, and Tinnok could not be more grateful. She sported new bruises, upon her wrists and ankles that were not spoken about, but she knew the Eagle had seen. They were her gift for finishing her term in the military. She saw his dark eyes, that caught every detail and thought far too much than any male should, saw his lips twitch with questions, but hold them back. He knew her life was different than his. Both of their roles were hard, but now the witch was no longer attached to the military, an outcast of the city, and even her own clan...truly nothing held her to the city save some vague promises of blood and honor. Honor of which no one save him and her old friend gave back to her.

So she hunted.

There were no paths. Tinnok knew that Razkar had taken the elimination of Myrian progress as a show that the Gods had abandoned them...Tinnok saw it as rather a rebirth.

The forest had slowed its symphony of madness. The energy that she had felt building before the spring storm, like something was being stored within the earth and coming through the flora...it had slowed, yet its evidence was everywhere around them. Giant ferns were even bigger, vines choked trees covered with moss, and everywhere her feet stepped Wolf felt the forest speaking to her. Slow and steady, peaceful yet desperate for sunlight and nutrients.

Two days in and she was high in the treetops, chatting with a brown billed toucan, the largest of its cousins. It sat on her shoulder, cracking a chestnut she had offered up in payment, reporting that nothing truly large or worth hunting had gone by, at least that the flighty bird had noticed. Then again it was mating season, and all this male cared for was pushing any and all birds away from his turf and being as loud as he could for the females. Speaking of which, his mind flitted to the image of a female not far away, and suddenly he was gone. Wolf sighed with a smile and began to lower herself from her perch atop the tree.

It wasn't surprising they hadn't found anything so far, and honestly, Tinnok wasn't sure what they hoped to find. Truly it seemed both her and Eagle had just wanted out...away, for similar and different reasons. Tinnok tried to grasp why Aya hadn't been able to come with them, and hadn't found a superb reason, eyes traveling slowly to her companion waiting at the base of the tree, looking expectantly at her.

She merely shrugged when he was low enough to see the gesture for what it was, swinging upon a low hanging branch, legs kicking up over her head and giving her body the leverage she needed to make a tumble to the ground below, rolling upright in an instant and setting off back into the forest. Other than the occasional ground fowl and agouti, she hadn't found anything worth pursuing. This was a real hunt, and not something that she wanted to shirk. A better hunt also required taking more time, and the more time she could devote to this task? The better.

He was quiet...but not as quiet as her. She could hear his footfalls on occasion, brushing across a leaf, giving the slightest sucking sound when pulling out of a section of moist earth, they fanned out apart, both searching for tracks, the better for which to find potential prey. Vaguely Tinnok wondered if there was any other person she would prefer to have at her back in a hunt.

[Razkar]

Some part of him knew that he should not have been out there. Not because of her; few other names or faces sprang to his mind when he thought about a hunting partner. Not because they were hunting out of sport, rather than necessity, though that did weight on his mind somewhat. Killing one's enemy's was one thing; killing an animal who knew no better just because you could was something else.

But no. The real reason for the Myrian's unease was because he knew his people still needed him... and as they delved further into the green, past Myri's domain and into Caiyha's... his guilt that such fears began to fade.

Another whistle to his left, and he stopped. Trained just as he was in the signals and calls of the Taloba army, his partner called out for his attention in their unique way. His foot stopped before it had fully put pressure on the patch of moist leaves, bow in his hand but without an arrow ready for now.

Tracking was the purpose right now, and for that they needed eyes, not weapons.

The male moved low and swift, keeping to the shrubs and vines, though stealth was much easier now. The sun had been nearly entirely choked from the jungle floor, greenery ratcheting up its volume two, three, four times over. Vines once winding became strangling wires across every inch of bark. Shrubs once waist high now obscured vision. And the animals...

A sloth hissed at them a few days ago. A sloth.

He found her bending over a clue, a hint, or so they hoped. The vegetation in the jungle now seemed to change every day, obliterating more than trails. Tracks, landmarks (such as they were), game routes... even water supplies. The more he thought on it, the more Eagle believed this all smacked of abandonment. For centuries his people had loved and worshiped Caiyha, the Green Goddess, Mother of their Home, if not their Race. They made offering to her, they respected her children and her land.

What had been their reward when the Storm lashed their land?

A rage that he could scarcely believe.

All are false and fickle save the Goddess-Queen, Razkar had thought mere days after the Storm, when Taloba was still in chaos and the jungle groaned and roared with such impossibly fast growth beyond her walls, all will betray. All will ignore. Only Myri will protect thee...

He gritted his teeth and shook his head, twice, quickly, neck almost snapping, banishing the thoughts. Such ruminations here, of all places, were unlikely to do him any favors. Turning his mind to the business at hand, he crouched down and stared at the same thing she was...

Wolf's thin but lined, hardened hands caressed the tracks. One of them was blunted and round-toed... a deer, is Eagle recognized it correctly. Or perhaps... no... no, the back was wrong. Probably those strange, hairless, tuskless pigs that lived around the Basin. Unwilling to disturb her, he narrowed his eyes as he observed...

Not much debris filling it. Not much water. Still has straight edges to the indent... can't be too old. No more than a day.

Then he frowned. The pig-thing... and damned if he could remember their name... had come through there, true enough, tracks steady and sure... perhaps a couple, or even a family group. But they were disturbed... gouges and strange patterns around it, like something...

Eagle reached out gently and felt at the ground. Something... snuffling? No claws, but... he looked further around the pig tracks, and quickly found something else.

Four-toed. Cruel little indents that denoted clawed feet.

"Doesn't look like we're the only ones on the hunt, Wolf..." He rumbled lowly, taking a swig from his water skin and offering it to her. "... which fits, I suppose, because those tracks look like what that it."

Without waiting for an answer, Razkar's eyes were already flitting around the dirt. The fallen trunks and debris, too, because he knew how predators didn't stay to the trails. Strength and agility were the marks of the Falyndar predators... but cunning... cunning was what made them lethal. His mind was focused now, more than it had been in days, and part of him rejoiced in this purity of purpose even as a smaller voice lamented the distraction.

He ignored it. The air reeked of prey and predator and, unknown to the slinking canine, more predators. Falyndar at its finest...

"How does this sit with your goddess?" Razkar rumbled again, voice barely carrying, aware only a few moments after that he'd referred to Caiyha as her god, not theirs, or his. "Hunting for a distraction. Would have thought she'd be... unimpressed."

[Tinnok]

She followed Eagle's assessment. The hoof prints were scattered, farther apart as if the prey had attempted to escape, and a giant paw print suggested precisely who. She nodded knowgingly and paced slowly around the markings, further along. The tracks were too small to be a tiger, perhaps a puma, leopard or panther? Wrong region of the jungle for a puma, but Tinnok had seen stranger things.

She glanced up swiftly at Razkar's remark, noting a strangeness to his tone, and the way he called Caiyha hers and not his own. Such bitterness he seemed to carry.

Tinnok almost considered not answering his question. She should not have to justify herself to anyone, least of all he, but a pink tongue darted across her lips and her mouth opened partly. "Hunting is a natural for a tiger as it is a Myrian. We are here to gather, kill, and use what we gain. How is that at all out of Caiyhas cycle?"

She asked a question, but she moved on through the thicket of scrubs and ferns, body bent low, eyes searching. He asked foolish questions, which meant he was thinking too much about something, like always. The half breed shook her head a little, then glanced backward.

"If our quarry got the pig then it might make for an easier find. Cats with full bellies like naps." She smirked and continued onwards, wondering if he would keep the silence or mar it with his thoughts.

It was hot, but in a bell or so Tinnok found one of the many overflowing streams that ran off the Kandukta basin from the torrential summer rains. Here the tracks stopped, perhaps not purposefully, but just like them, the feline, if it was that, which they hunted, had probably stopped for a drink. Tinnok bent down in a mirrored action of a beast, tongue lapping the cool clear liquid, eyes on a lower plane as she scanned the thin stream left, and then right.

They were quiet the both of them, but the jungle had eyes everywhere. The birds were loud but farther away from their position, and one cicada she had heard when approaching went silent. Yellow eyes glanced across the stream bed, searching for where the tracks continued.

[Razkar]

"If our quarry got the pig then it might make for an easier find. Cats with full bellies like naps."

Eagle thought about telling her that they could have smelled the blood by now; perhaps even heard the kill, since they both knew that pigs were anything but quiet in their dying. He could have mentioned that big cats such as what they might be after slept in the trees, perhaps high above...

But instead his lips just quirked into a smile at her tone of voice.

"And here was me thinking you were canine, nor feline..."

They trekked on until the indents in the earth gave way to a new and gurgling stream. The male stopped and looked up and down it, but could see no form or riverbanks. This was yet another of the impromptu rivers that wound their way through the jungle after the downpours that rocked their region. The water had to escape somewhere, and even the Kandaktu Basin was only so large.

Whereas Wolf was feline in her drinking, Razkar was definitely the primate. He crouched down on his haunches and put both hands into the water, making a bowel and bringing it up to his lips to suck and slurp the cold water. Once his thirst was sated he unashamedly started slashing handfuls over his face and back and shoulders, arcs of shimmering liquid streaming over him.

"Three days since the watchtower turned," he said, breathless huff making her turn, "And already it's like walking through a sweat lodge out here. Amazing..."

Sweat mingling with the water, Razkar began wading across the shallow stream, eyes scanning every foot of the "bank" barely five feet from their side of the water. This was the true key to tracking, he was fast realizing: patience and watchfulness. Already they had lost the tracks in the last bell, having to backtrack and find them again, then discover their prey had hoofed and padded over a tangle of fallen trees before touching the dirt again.

Time wasted, but they needed their trail. And now they had a river to deal with...

And so they searched, eyes downcast and trying to cover as much as they could. He did not speak but she could sense the words the crackling male had buzzing around him... and that he was holding back.

Razkar felt them bubbling in him, but he kept his peace. A hunt was no place for debate or recriminations, for one, and for another...

Out here, they were free. They were alone and without the stress and strain of the horror they had witnessed. This time was as precious and rare as some delicate barbarian vase, so easily shattered and all the more requiring protection because of that.

Eagle wanted to enjoy this. They'd had so few chances for pleasure, for relaxation (as far as Myrians understood the term) and the simple satisfaction of a hunt and kill properly accomplished.

Enjoy these moments while you can.

"Here." Maybe five chimes later, Wolf turned to see Eagle pointing at the mu. Messy, already-eroding indents were barely visible... but the fresher, deeper, dryer tracks leading away from the river were not. "Definitely a pig... and..."

Razkar leaned closed, crouched over like some feral savage with his knees cocked out, sniffing at the tracks.

"... leopard?"

[Tinnok]

They paced down the stream bed, water dribbling down the half breeds face from her drink. She spared his first comment only the slightest of glances, and nodded silent agreement in reference to the second.

She may have had snake blood coursing through her veins, but it didn't account for all the bloody heat, certainly.

When he paused, finding the tracks, Tinnok shrugged. "Panther, leopard, both make sense for season and place."

She glanced along path Not far, but there's a lot of ground to cover in such a small area. Perhaps we should wait and camp out for it?"

She knew the words for folly as she spoke them, and shook her head. It had already fed and watered itself, and probably wouldn't come back, not this evening not on the morrow.

Tinnok glanced down to where the water was swallowed by foliage. "But how far would it travel with dusk approaching, surely it wants the shelter of the trees for the night..."

She mused to herself, taking point. The tracks crossed over the little stream more than once, disappearing only to re-appear a few feet later on the other side of the water. Tinnok had to back track more than a few times to keep them in her sights, the Eagle pointing them out sometimes, she finding them others. Apparently the feline was just as hot as they were.

As Syna pulled downward in the sky, Tinnok frowned. The first real trail they had caught and they might lose it to the lack of light. She glanced back at her hunting companion. "Should we settle for nearby game or continue on in the darkness?" One was significantly wiser considering the dangers of the jungle, but their hunt could also be at stake as well. She paced forward, waiting on his word.

[Razkar]

"By all gods and sodding bastards..."

She laid out their options in her usual succinct and infallible way: two paths open to them, with going back not even mentioned. Razkar muttered the barrack-room oath as he studied the faceless yet chaotic jungle ahead of them. Strange that it could be like that. So... nondescript, despite the myriad of endless foliage and vegetation... but he knew that even now, dozens, scores, perhaps hundreds of eyes watched them. Most tiny and uninterested. Some fearful. And a select few wondering how hard it would be to kill them...

"We go on."

Eagle turned and saw the surprise in her eyes, but for the moment, censure had not flared in her vision. That would come after consideration, of course, so he decided to make his case, after taking a quick swig from his water skin.

"We've covered too much ground to go back now. Put too much into this. Gets too dark, we won't have a choice but to abandon the hunt..." he cursed, much more coarsely under his breath, frustrated at having their prize robbed by such a simple thing as a lack of light "... but that's if we lose it. We move faster. We can't be too far now..."

He peered in the direction of the tracks, but once again the screens upon screens of leaves and trunks masked everything. There could be an army of big cats and pigs out there and they wouldn't know it. But he hoped; he had to. He couldn't accept that their bells of following these two indents - predator and prey, one oblivious and the other stalking - had been wasted.

"Come, Wolf," he said, voice more enthusiastic, even with a whisper of the cockiness before the Storm, drawing an arrow and notching it, "We survived the Storm and what followed it. I hardly think a leopard will slow us down..."

Eagle regretted the words even as he spoke them, but he pressed on, eyes flickering up and down to mind the tracks and the jungle both. It was a prideful remark, and one that tested both Caiyha and the Fates. Beings that did not take kindly to such whimsy...

[Tinnok]

She nodded. He wasn't wrong. Wait a night and the cat could be gone, miles away and untaceable through the foliage, best to continue on as best they could and hope to catch up to the beast.

She let Razkar take the lead then, both of them only stopping their pace to confirm or discover new tracks. Luckily for them their predator seemed to like the soft soil on either side of the temporary river, and it took a bell for them to fully veer off back into the jungle.

Slowly the transition of birds to insects began to occur as avian entities took their place in the tree tops. Tinnok had heard that the noise of busy cities in barbarian lands could be just as loud, but she would be hard pressed to imagine such a caucophany without al the animals and insects.

Syna began to fall, casting long shadows over the tracks they sought, but they continued onward undaunted.

And then she heard it. A snarling growl that could only come from a jungle cat. No squeal of a pig followed, only a lower growl, rising into a hissing spitting noise.

Tinnok's hand slapped Razkar's back. This could prove dangerous of course, but their luck was undeniable, two cats fighting over a kill, territroy, perhaps even a mate. It was the perfect set up for the hunters who followed, and the noise meant that the felines weren't far away.

The noise also meant that they could increase their pace, albeit carefully, for they were under the cover of two snarling predators of the jungle. Eagle went forward, Tinnok close behind, nearly running into his back with her drawn longbow when he stopped and dropped low to the ground.

Not far from them, maybe 15 yards away were the quarreling cats. Jaguars just like he had said. One had a near ebony coat and his or her spots could only be seen when their flanks hit Syna's fading light, the other was a brown copper with black splotches. The dead pig was between them, and a fierce contest raged.

Tinnok nocked her bow, eyes glancing over to Eagle waiting on his command. If they could down one the other one would be easy, if they downed neither they might just have two raging jaguars to deal with.

[Razkar]

Any other time Razkar would have wondered why the pelt of one was so much darker than the other. At first glance it looked like a panther, but... yes... those spots were definitely that of a jaguar. The head as well, especially when it-

Snarled. Curved teeth and disgust and challenge in one flexing of those jaws. That bought him back to the task at hand.

"Dark one first," he muttered, drawing back his shortbow and lining up his shot carefully. Fifteen yards. Easy. Just stay steady... "Put it down quick, then take the other one if you can..."

Eagle didn't speak more; already the two cats had glanced away from their showdown at the strange, low keening they couldn't place and thus thought a threat. No time for words.

Another sound. The tightening of bowstrings...

"Now!"

Double twangs as two arrows flew through the air. Razkar's covered the distance faster, sacrificing range for speed, thudding into the shoulder of the dark jaguar-

-but Tinnok was surer, hitting it in the neck, an enraged scream of pain sending a flock of roosting parakeets fleeing up towards rising Leth.

Razkar's hand snapped over his shoulder, reaching for a new arrow-

"Shyke!"

-just as the other jaguar sprung into the undergrowth. Razkar felt a flash of grudging respect. Fearsome and deadly as it was, it knew when to fight, and when to run.

[Tinnok]

She watched the shot dig into the creatures neck, felt the sound of it grinding through skin and muscle. Luck was all the shot was, her arm numb from where it left the bow.

Eyes darted to the other cat, but there was still one alive before them, crouched painfully on the ground, a furious yowl screeching out of its throat. Tinnok leapt out of the underbrush, body low to the ground making her way to the creature. Tired eyes rolled toward her, angry and injured.

Her dagger was already in hand. She placed a hand upon the jaguar's head and heard its pain as if it were her own. The feeling was not a pleasant one, but it was something Tinnok refused to ignore. If she wished to hunt the living creatures she could speak with the way Nura allowed, she would have to deal with all of it.

The knife slid along the throat in a single fluid motion, a pool of blood spilling out over her hands as she felt the pain dim, glad for that.

"Caiyha welcomes you with open arms sister, you will be born again, just as strong..."

She saw images flash dully past her. A great expanse of land that was all the aging jaguars, a life led competing with tigers, boar, and pestersome monkeys, the pig that she had killed, mewling kittens hungry for food.

Razkar saw Tinnok jump back as if electrified from the body of the jaguar, now lifeless. Her eyes narrowed in thought, trying to determine the best course of action. She could let the young die, it would be the way of it if their mother never returned. They would starve, or wander too far from whatever hole they hid in while their parent was out hunting, getting nabbed by some predator.

But that other jaguar hadn't done the deed, it had been her...She shook her head muttering to herself, hand splayed upon her face. Even if she found them, what would she do with them? Bring them to her hut? They were wild animals not pets. She would have to find a surrogate mother, which could take anywhere from days to months if she didn't find the right cat in time.

But the other jaguar...it was the right time of season, if she was a female, fighting over food so she could feed her young ones as well...

Tinnok's longbow was upon her back, dagger stashed in her belt and she started sprinting through the jungle.

"Gotta catch that cat!"

She said in way of explanation, which wasn't any. Of course Razkar had two options. Make sure the kill was seen to or follow her into the darkening forest.

[Razkar]

Razkar did not pretend that he understood the wyrd that Wolf worked when she let Caiyha flow through her. Her mark was powerful, and he had seen the benefits of it; every eye of the jungle a potential spy for her, the very ground and trees signposts and allies... even the beasts that would snarl and hiss at him part way for her.

But it was not fallible, and not simple, he was learning, and when he saw her flinch away from the cooling corpse as if it had bit her, his brow crunched down on his eyes.

"Wolf, are you...?"

She moaned softly, and Razkar took a tentative step forward. The growling jaguar was already moving fast, rustling plants dogging it as it ran, shaking silhouettes of leaves and branches marking its progress. His eyes flash that way but when the sound escapes her lips he moves closer.

"What... What happ-"

"Gotta catch that cat!"

Razkar's mouth opened to ask something but she was already running, plunging through the undergrowth like it was water. Dark eyes flashed to the other jaguar, but what concern was that anymore? He doubted anything would steal their kill so quickly, and it certainly wasn't going to get up and walk away.

"Wait!"

Yeah, that was going to happen. Shorter than the female by a few inches, he was no faster for it, unfortunately, and soon he was bobbing and weaving under branches, torn by nettles and thorns, gritting his teeth at the strain in his legs. And that was not all. Something churned in his guts that would not go away.

Something about... catch that cat? Not kill it? Something tapped Razkar on the shoulder from inside, and would not relent. Something that whispered this was... not the work of Myri, as it were. Caiyha seemed to be guiding his friend now.

And after the nightmare he had endured, Razkar was in no mood to humor that deity, even in the place she was strongest.