[Bronze Woods] Hunting for Two.

by **Medhozic** on January 13th, 2014, 6:30 pm

He didn't respond. Abandoned or orphaned, neither of it mattered in the long run - it left the same scenario behind, one that he knew all too well. A boy forgotten and alone, left to make his own life in a world that he had never known, and would never truly understand without a guiding hand to show him it. He would not feel compassion or pity, merely a mutual understanding of how it felt. He had been abandoned, as well.. forgotten by his parent. Left, forgotten on a mortal plane that he knew nothing of and would never wish to - once one knew of the world beyond the clouds... it would all pale in comparison. The constant thriving battle to survive was disgusting and beautiful at the same time, and no matter what direction you looked at it from, it was always tainted by complexity. Never a simplicity, never a single-minded ambition and never a way to absolve oneself in anything other than death. And even here, they believed that this would not always be the case. As if the ultimate price was too little payment for love, jealousy, or greed. Foolish and stupid.

"A messenger cannot eat the letters he delivers. If you wish to survive, you will become self-sufficient." The boy should be listening closely. He would give valuable advice, even as he continued to study those engravings in the bark and brushing it over with his fingers to try and find out how the boy had found the approximate time that it had been made. "You will hunt, and feed yourself from what you find. You will sell the rest for Miza's, when you need them. Otherwise you will preserve them for future rations when hunting is few." It was a perfectly sound plan to work with - to keep food always on the table. "It is more useful than any other the other jobs you will find around this city. None of these commoners will be able to hunt their own food and survive solely from it. They will always rely on the farmers and the hunters to bring it to their doorstep." Long after the accountants, and the other foolish merchants would be forgotten under the ups and downs of the rest of the world, there would always be one constant - and there would always be a demand for it, no matter how much a tapestry was worth, or gold. You couldn't eat either, and in the end, eating was more important than anything else. And if it wasn't, then you'd die pretty damn fast.

Finally, he found the small scrapings and looked over them with curious eyes, intent on seeing what the Kelvic had. "I'm unsure. What do you mean, they're the same color." He was scraping away a little of the under-bark himself with one nail, but he didn't see what the other was seeing.. or at least he suspected so, since all he could see was that the upper layer was a different color, and nothing else. Surely it was always a different color, it wasn't like the tree was just going to change. "As soon as I understand what you have found, we will move on. I will use my bow, and you may use your daggers. If you are correct, it will not be far away." If things were going to run as smoothly as this, he would invite the boy to more of his hunts. The talking was occasionally confusing, but he could live with it ultimately in trade for his tracking skills and another pair of hands to help in hunting and collecting food.

by **Elsu** on January 14th, 2014, 8:10 pm

ELSU

"A messenger cannot eat the letters he delivers. If you wish to survive, you will become self-sufficient." Elsu's face broke into a carefree grin at the other's words, teasing, "How would you know? You ever tried paper?" For better or for worse, Elsu had. Two months old and left on his own, the Kelvic had been flagged down by a man someday, asking if he would deliver a letter a couple streets over for a few copper mizas. The lad, looking about six at the time, had complied easily, and been rewarded for his efforts. On the way there, curious as he was, a little corner of the paper had been ripped off and had tried to been ingested. It didn't taste very good, nor was it filling, so there was no cause to repeat the experiment. No one commented or seemed to notice the missing strip of paper.

The Ethaefal's fingers grazed over the wood, and Elsu's eyes followed them, trying to figure out what exactly the other creature was puzzling out. "I usually hunt out here anyways. There's always some little birds around, they keep me filled for a while." He shrugged, and a quiet birdcall sounded through the woods as though to prove his point. "It's easier to hunt as a falcon anyways." No chasing after creatures on the ground, throwing daggers or shooting arrows in hopes they would find their mark. No, when he was a falcon, he was a bird of prey. All he needed were his wings, talons, and beak. He could rely on himself, on weapons of his own crafting rather than ones he had bought from the market when he first realized he needed them.

"They're just..." Elsu was unused to explaining things. Most times he was the one being taught, not the one teaching, and this was odd to him. Giving people reasonings and skills they would carry for the rest of their life. Being wrong simply wasn't an option; it was cruel to leave people with false knowledge. But what if he himself was wrong? Maybe the marks had been there a season, a year or two? Or maybe days ago, the deer having left eh area long ago? No, it wouldn't do to think too much about it. His intuition didn't normally lead him astray. "The wood." His forehead wrinkled, eyebrows pushing together as he tried to figure out what he was going to say. "Ya' know how when ya' chop down a tree, the wood that's left? Changes color over time, yeah?" Why exactly that was a mystery, but he had observed it happening. A tree had gotten cut down in the woods nearer to Syliras, and the stump, which made a good place to sit and eat either before or after a day of exploring, had darkened from a pale brown to a darker grey over the course of a year. "But here, the color of the wood here -" Elsu pointed to a small strip of wood he had recently uncovered with his fingernail - "is the same as the wood here. That the animal or whatever uncovered." The Kelvic glanced to Medhozic, hoping the man would understand what he was trying to say. He wasn't really sure what exactly else there was to explain, and the more he tried to think of reasons why, the less he seemed to be able to think at all. His foot started tapping against the ground lightly, fingers squeezed around the handle of his dagger. "Uh, yeah."

by **Medhozic** on January 14th, 2014, 8:29 pm

He didn't need to try and eat paper to know that it would not be good use for food. If paper was food, he would see people eating it. They wouldn't write on it and send it to each-other, because they would never be that generous with their food like they would always have him believe, telling others how they gave food to the hungry and shelter to the needy. No, he'd always see them screwing the paper up into little balls and swallowing it whole. He didn't say it though. He'd remain silent on that particular topic, and his opinions of many of the humans - and expanding from that, mortals as a whole. Birds, he wouldn't have thought to be edible either, because of their speed. One would have to be incredibly fast in their use of a bow in order to catch it. Or throwing knife.

"A falcon." He'd never met a Kelvic before, but it seemed odd to talk about hunting as a falcon regardless. Hunting with a falcon, he would understand perfectly - falconry had been something not uncommon in Ravok, as he was sure it would not be for many other places, but hunting as a falcon would not be something he would hear often, if at all. If the boy truly was a falcon, why didn't he have any feathers instead of hair. Or a beak, or something else rather than just that simple human face like all the others that he'd seen. Birds of prey would have made sense for hunting smaller birds, but nevertheless, it made no sense to him and he wouldn't raise the subject on fear of confusing himself even more than this boy had managed to do alone. Hunting alongside a bird of prey.. well, it would certainly make some laugh.

His smooth fingers gently passed over the scrapes in the wood as he studied them, and then turned back to the boy-turned-falcon. "So wood changes over time. Because the wood has not changed in colour, it means that it has not been a long time since it was last done." At least, that's what he'd managed to pick up from the half-explanation - it didn't mean that he believed a word of it. Surely the wood didn't really change colour, he would have noticed if it did; the bark would have been changing colours like his horns did throughout the seasons, like his hair and shifting from their dark green hues to a heavy brown and back again. Still, it made.. relative sense to have it unchanged beneath the surface. That's what he told himself for the sake of his sanity. All of this new information; being a falcon, trees changing over time, it was all too much to take in at once, but he seemed to know most of what he was talking about. It was all stored away in the back of his head to be sorted over another time, worked out and resolved...

"Let us go this way." He turned from the markings in the bark and towards the Cobalt Mountains, trekking deeper into the forest. Whatever it had been, would not be all too far away.. and he knew that because a few chimes later, they came across a second mark splattered over the floor. The Ethaefal nearly stepped on it, but he found it by the sheer smell that radiated from it. The splatter was quite large as well.. and steaming with the heat that it had retained. Whatever had made it, was wounded.. and wasn't far from here. "Stay close. Keep your dagger ready."

by **Elsu** on January 18th, 2014, 6:30 pm

ELSU

“A falcon.” The way Medhozic said those two words made them neither a statement nor a question, but rather something balanced perfectly in between. There was some measure of carefully veiled confusion, the need of a further explanation, and yet the man’s countenance stated quite clearly that any explanation would not help. Especially any explanation Elsu could hope to provide. If you didn’t understand something completely yourself, explaining it to someone else would be futile. As he had shown with his interpretation of the markings on the tree, that he didn’t fully comprehend what information he was trying to pass along was a huge component to his partner not being able to understand.

The Kelvic himself wasn’t quite sure what being a Kelvic even meant, honestly. He had two forms, one a normal human being like any other, and another a falcon. The falcon was no more alien than the human, and rather than being two separate beings, parts of both forms combined to form the creature that called himself Elsu. He wasn’t just falcon, he was more human than any normal bird of prey, but he wasn’t just human. There was something a little bit too animal about him, the way he would cock his head to one side and stare someone down, how feelings wouldn’t always rank above survival, how the future and the past mattered none, if at all. He was constantly stuck in the present; plans and goals were there but distant. He was going to die. That knowledge made him human. He was going to keep surviving until he did. Living would be preferable to surviving, living meant goals that were created and met. Surviving meant eating, sleeping, shelter and companionship every now and then. Living meant comfort, friends. Surviving was easier than living. That knowledge and the want, the need to continue with just surviving made him animal. The want to live made him human.

His companion had said… something, Elsu hadn’t been paying much attention. It seemed important, probably, but whatever it was hopefully wouldn’t matter too much in the long run. Deep reflection was not good for listening. The boy shook his head, dark hair rustling back and forth. “Sure.” That was a good response. He couldn’t be held responsible for either a yes or a no, so whatever he had agreed to (had he agreed to something?) couldn’t be blamed on him. The Ethaefal was already trekking ahead, and Elsu scurried to follow, attempting to keep his body as quiet as possible. Avoid twigs, dry leaves, step lightly in the snow so as to avoid crunching, don’t swing arms. Smelling the next mark not too long before seeing it, the youth winced. Pungent was a bit of an understatement. Yeah, he lived in a city, but the smell of waste was something he was pretty sure he would never get used to.

“Stay close.” Yup. He could do that. He already was, barely a pace behind the other, tense and starting to sweat. Oh gods. He had never actually managed to kill an animal while human, not with weapons or bare hands. It just seemed wrong, somehow. He wasn’t sure how, but hands couldn’t possibly be right for this. No, he needed claws, talons that were sharp and deadly and could pierce underneath a bird’s feathers to draw blood. “Keep your dagger ready.” No. That’s what weapons were for. Daggers. His dagger was his talon, grasped tightly in a slightly sweaty palm. It was part of him, an extension of his hand, one that he could take off and adjust as was needed.

by **Medhozic** on January 21st, 2014, 6:32 pm

He took a few more steps forwards, beyond the blood - and immediately a rustling noise from further down the small path of cleared bushes startled him into slipping behind the nearest tree; an old and grey thing that was only held up by the intertwined branches above holding it steady with their tension. They weren't far away from the thing at all.. by the sounds of things, it wasn't small either. He didn't dare look, in case it had seen him. Unfortunately, he hadn't even glanced about to see what the boy was doing in the meantime, and he still didn't desire to. All that mattered was that it hadn't found him yet, and it sounded big. Something that he could sell for a good amount of coin back at the castles and the markets. Unfortunately, there wasn't a chance that he was really going to catch the thing. He realized that the moment he sneaked a glance around the edge of the thick trunk and saw what could only be described as a very, very big bird.

Its wings were folded, with a bit of blood dribbling down from lacerations visible even through the soft feathers. But the wings were huge.. probably about 18' wingspan in total. His estimations were off entirely - it spread its wings for only a second, and they threw a dwarfing 30' span straight away, before settling back behind it. Startling, to say the least.. although what it was, the Ethaefal had absolutely no idea. He'd seen birds before, of course.. but none ever as large or as vicious as this. Even while wounded, it looked terrifying - not just because of its sheer size that would have cowed many a woodland wolf, but the thick talons that dug into the ground, and the dirty grey skull that formed a bony helmet that swept back over its head, forming dull points around its cheeks and beak.

Its back was to the two of them, and it seemed to be fiddling with something on the ground, shifting weight around. The wound on its wing wasn't the only weakness - its entire body had been covered in scrapes, wounds and piercing gaps where flesh had been torn out, thanks to a recent mating ritual turned successful for another one of the birds. This one, unfortunately, hadn't been that bird - its charcoal-black feathers stained crimson in many places, where they simply hadn't been torn out. He considered simply jumping out, and shooting the thing in the spine with the short-bow that was still primed beneath him, but his arrows seemed somewhat feeble when he looked up at the bird hanging in place. He doubted that nothing short of a perfect shot through the spine would be enough to stop it, and that was nothing short of impossible for him. He could try though.. with the bony plate over its skull, though, shooting it through the head would be out of the question.. maybe through the neck..

His careful calculations meant that he ended up practically just staring at it for several long seconds, partially in awe for seeing a Kriital for the first time. And he wasn't even sure if he was going to prey that it be the last, or not. And just imagine what would happen, if he actually caught a thing.. and brought it back for everyone to see. The recognition!

by **Serendipity** on March 13th, 2014, 8:40 pm

Medhozic :

Elsu :

Notes :

If there are any problems with the grade, please don't hesitate to drop me a PM!

Closed [Bronze Woods] Hunting for Two.