Foolish Mistake (Closed)

[Talhar]

1st Day of Fall, Nov. 510 AV

The brown, orange and red leaves on the forest's soil were dry and fragile. Making every step Talhar took sound like he was a rampaging elephant of sorts. His brown dreadlocks,tied together in a knot to avoid getting stuck in branches or losing sight of a target by a loose lock. Hulking, he moved forward, avoiding dense areas in the process as best as he could.

He saw a lake in the distance and remembering what they told him before he went on his hunt he realized it was Priskil's Pond. A supposedly magical place, full of old lore and mysteries. It meant little to ignorant Talhar who knew little to nothing about magic. All he knew was that a lake, or pond, was a great place for a hunter to strike an unsuspecting animal busy gobbling up fresh water.

He approached the pond even closer 'till he was merely hidden by a couple of trees and a lowgrowing bush. After waiting on his stomach for nearly half an hour there finally came a foolish creature in his range. A doe nervously shifted its head left and right to check for any predators but failed to spot Talhar.

Talhar kept his eyes on his target, wiped the leaves away that were resting under his palms and pressed himself up, silent as a feather in the wind he readied himself. Unsheathing a javelin and stretching his free arm to have a better aim. He wasn't that far away from the doe so he didn't have to shift his balance far back for more throwing force, instead he tried to calm himself as much as possible to slow his heavy breathing.

Holding his breath he waited for the steadiest and most accurate moment before hurling the javelin forward, his eyes widened as the javelin flew through the air in the direction of the doe.

[Iris Dove]

1st Day of Fall, Nov. 510 AV

Iris was happy to have finally made her way out of Syliras. She felt free being back in her dove form, in the air, flying about, the wind sifting through her white feathers. She had no idea as to where she was going, all she knew, was that all of those people in one place was far too overwhelming to her.

Iris looked down at the terrain, as Syliras started to get smaller and smaller. She looked at all the trees, and small sections of smoke, where she figured other travelers must be making camp and resting for the night. She wished she could allow herself to stop and be with some of them, but she was worried that they'd try and harm her. No matter, she was sure she would find a place to rest eventually. After all, there was an entire forest below only a few hundred feet below her and at her disposal.

Iris decided to fly a little closer to the ground. She wanted to find the best tree to make her nest in. She flew in between them, being mindful of the branches, certainly she wouldn't want to run into one of those. She studied the vibrant color of the leaves, appreciating each one to the best of her ability as she continued on her way.

After a few more minutes, she realized that she was tiring out at a faster rate than she had anticipated. Her wings began to feel heavier and heavier. Her family heirloom, which she carried in her beak along with her thin white dress and shoes, felt like a lead balloon. She was going to have to find a place to perch, rest, and regain her strength, or she'd simply pass out! She also felt as though she could do with a drink as well.

Luckily for her, there was a pond up ahead. Perfect! She thought, a place for me to get a drink and rest. She noticed that there was a doe already drinking from the pond. She giggled to herself, hooray for company she thought. As she continued to get closer and closer to the water, she grew happier and happier since she could finally let go of her load. Yet, just as she was almost there, something flew out of the trees and clipped her wing. She dropped her load, a few feathers broke and fluttered to the ground, others bent and ruffled. The doe ran deep in the forest, startled at whatever it was that had hit her, and Iris' rapid fall to the ground, considering how she was now unable to flap her left wing.

Once she had fallen from approximately 3 and a half feet in the air, Iris hit the ground with a loud thud. Owww, she said as she instantly shifted back into her human form. She wondered what on earth had hit her. She looked over, and saw a javelin resting a few feet away from where she had fallen. A single white feather hung from its tip. Lovely, she thought to herself as she placed her prized father's necklace back around her neck. The sudden movement in her arm hurt her. She looked down at her left arm. There was a small gash just beneath the shoulder. Crimson red blood started to spill from it.

Iris gritted her teeth and began to ease herself back into her dress, she was getting cold, her shoes, which she had easily wrapped inside of the dress, fell out, and she was too lazy to put them back on. Not lazy, in too much pain. Her arm would not stop stinging. As soon as she had gotten the dress back onto her thin frame, she looked over at her left arm, at how her blood was beginning to stain the white fabric of her dress. She gritted her teeth again. This sucks, she thought to herself, as she could have sworn a noise coming from behind her. She turned her head slowly, wondering what on earth it could be, and braced herself for the worst.

[Talhar]

As the javelin left Talhar's hand and went flying he could've sworn it would hit the doe. A triumphant smile was already curling Talhar's mouth when the javelin struck something else instead, a bird got in the way of the javelin and caused it to pierce the dry soil a few feet away from the doe instead of hitting home.

The doe got startled by the sudden chirp of the nearby bird and hopped off back into the forest, away from the origin of the sounds. Meanwhile, Talhar's disappointment and anger were dripping off his rugged, slightly tanned face.
' Damn it, what were the odds of that happening!? ' He mumbled as he stepped out of the woodworks to retrieve the bird and his javelin.

' W...Wh....How....No...What happend? ' He finally managed to exclaim at the wounded woman in the white dress, laying wounded on the ground between Talhar and the javelin. He couldn't understand how, at first, but it seemed pretty clear that HE was the one who had wounded this woman. The shape and depth of the wound were easily backtracked by Talhar as a javelinwound.

After a few moments of staring in disbelief with his mouth open, eyes widened and pupils dilated he finally regained his composure and tried to quickly asses the situation. Questions could be asked later, first they needed to bandage that wound before anything infects it.

Without talking he ripped of his sleeve and crouched down beside the tall woman. ' We need to bandage that wound. I am sorry if I have hurt you, it was an accident I swear but for now, we need to make sure you're at least somewhat properly bandaged. Could you lift your arm a little bit please? '
He asked of the blonde haired woman.

[Iris Dove]

Iris watched as a tall, dark-skinned man approached her from behind a line of trees. Her black eyes were fixated on his face as he came closer, they were glaring at him. Was he the person responsible for making her fall from the sky? She wondered for a moment, before realizing that she could pick up no other noise and they must be the only two people around. This man had shot her.

Iris turned her body slightly, so her gaze left him, and met with the ground by her feet. She clutched her right hand over her left shoulder where the wound was protectively, partially because she didn't want him to look, partially to hide and slow down the bleeding. But that didn't really work. Some of the blood seeped through the spaces between her fingers and shown brightly upon her pale skin. She gritted her teeth as she stared angrily down at the wound, and the man got closer.

Had he tried to shoot her, or was he aiming for the doe, and she had stupidly gotten in the way? Was he approaching to get his javelin, and then leave her to die, or finish her off? She couldn't tell.

When the man reached her, she was surprised to see him rip off one of his shirt sleeves, and ask her to extend her arm to him so he could bandage it to the best of his ability. Why was he showing her kindness? And should he trust him? She looked up from the ground into his eyes and stared with as much intensity as she could muster, she felt that if he flinched, she probably shouldn't trust him completely, but then again, she needed his help to bandage her wound. She decided she'd trust him, and his poor aim for now, until she figured out if he was truly someone she could rely on.

Iris pushed her long blonde hair behind her back using her right hand, and lifted her injured arm out to him. She winced a little, squeezing her eyes shut, trying to block out all the pain, and the image of the forest and the pond that surrounded her. Through gritted teeth, she introduced herself as Iris, and asked the man his name.

[Talhar]

" Talhar " he replied without looking up from the wound. His hands were a bit shaky and his breath heavy from the situation he was in. He nearly killed this woman. He frowned and cursed himself in his mind as he gently placed the sleeve on the underside of the arm, just behind the wound and wrapped the two ends of the sleeve carefully around her upperarm before tying a small knot.

" If it hurts too much, tell me and I'll loosen the sleeve a little. " He said, finally looking up and into her dark eyes. Her eyes contrasted strongly with her pale skin and blonde hair, somehow it felt right though. She was a beautiful woman to put it mildly but that thought passed rapidly through and out of his mind, he had gravely endangered this woman by his own stupid mistake of not scanning the area enough before launching the javelin.

He was at a loss of words. Apologizing seemed so little and even humiliating in a situation like this, he had to say something though so he finally said:

' I'm honestly and extremely sorry. I don't know what to say but I hope you can forgive me. '

[Iris Dove]

Iris sat patiently as Talhar bandaged her arm. She could see him shaking. Was he afraid of what he had done, or was it something else? Was he cold? Each time that his hands shook, he jiggled her arm, and this sent a sharp pain through it, but she did her best not to wince. She didn't want him to know that it was hurting her so badly, and just as this thought raced through her mind, she heard him ask if the bandage was too tight. "No, it's fine," she replied as calmly as she could.

Her breathing was steady, her eyes staring down at the ground in front of her. When he had finished working, she looked over at her shoulder, and watched as some of the blood set itself into the fabric, and then stopped. The blood was dark red now,but she had a funny feeling that it would grow brown, then black, and start to look just plain nasty within a few hours, and that she may have to change her bandage a few times until the wound healed completely.

When Talhar had finished, Iris began to realize just how tired and thirsty she was, so she got up and walked to the edge of the pond, cupped her right hand, and scooped up some water, bringing it to her mouth for a drink. The water smelled of sediment, and was both cool and refreshing. She could feel Talhar's gaze boring into her back as she drank, so when she had finished drinking, she walked over to the fallen javelin, and picked it up in her right hand. She picked her single white, crumpled feather off of the tip, and turned back to Talhar. She thrust the javelin into his chest, as she looked him over. Trying to determine how much stronger he was than she, if he was stronger.

Deciding that he was, indeed, the stronger of the two, even though it was more likely that she was the smarter, she decided to do her best to stay on his good side, for now. She looked up, and into his eyes as she asked, "so, what brings you to the wildlands?"

[Talhar]

Without replying to his apology Iris went to drink from the pond and returned only to poke him in his chest with the buttend of the javelin. Talhar was confused about why she did that but for some reason it made him at ease. At least she didn't poke him with the sharp end of the javelin.

' I'm here to train my hunting, as you can tell...I still need alot of practice. '

The leftcorner of his mouth moved up slightly to reveal a smile before he continued talking.

' What about you? We're in the forest fairly deep and you're hardly in a hunter's attire e. ' He asked, not having realized she was of Kelvic origin.

[Iris Dove]

Iris' eyes seemed to shine. Glimmer really, like little tiny lights or sparkles were creeping across them. There one moment, gone the next, only to appear in another section of her dark eyes. She stared intently at Talhar, a smile creeping across her face at the man's words. He doubted her hunting skills, how amusing. But then again, she supposed he was right, she wasn't dressed much like a hunter. But then again, did she need to be, did the way that one was dressed really prove anything?

Then it hit her, Talhar's next question, what on earth was she doing in the wildlands? She thought to herself for a moment, what was she doing? Trying to find freedom, some water, a place to rest? Would the truth seem odd to him, out of place? After all, she was alone, virtually unarmed considering her animal form wasn't particularly intimidating. Scratch that, she was unarmed, she had no weapon, and now, thanks to him, she couldn't make much use of her left arm, and fly away and be as free as she wanted to be up in the sky, soaring alongside the clouds.

Iris was beginning to realize that her thinking time was up. She was starting to notice the awkward silence that stretched out between her and Talhar, she was going to have to answer him, and fast. She shifted her weight from her left foot to the right. She told Talhar that she had just left Syliras and was looking for a place to rest. She got thirsty, and tried to get to the pond for a drink, when he shot her with his javelin. She decided that she didn't want to tell him why she was in Syliras just yet, or that she had gotten lost there.

She looked up at the sky, noticing that the sun was slowly but surely going down. Within a few hours, it would be lost behind the tree line, and the moon would have taken its place among the stars, illuminating the night sky. She looked back at Talhar. "It's going to be night soon. It's bound to get a lot colder," she began, as she shivered slightly, doing her best to hide it. "We should build a fire," she said as she walked over to the line of trees and begin to pick up small, dry twigs in her good hand. Within a few moments, and a few trips back and forth, she had formed a small pile of kindling, a few feet away from where Talhar stood. She hoped he knew how to start a fire, because with her arm, she would have a lot of trouble simply rubbing two sticks together, let alone using flint and steel to make one. Of course she had some on her that she wouldn't mind lending him if it meant they'd have a source of heat, but she didn't want to fetch it from the inner stitching of her dress just yet.

She raised her right hand to clutch the single feather that hung around her neck, and looked up at the sky, a single tear running down her face. She wished she could be back up there, away from here, looking down at the world, and all its inhabitants. They looked like ants from way up high.

[Talhar]

He nodded as she stated that it was going to be nightfall soon and that they needed a fire to keep themselves warm and dangerous animals away. He was about to collect small branches and dry wood for the fire but as he returned from scooping up some water into his mouth from the pond there was already quite a stash on the ground. ' This will do nicely, I have flint & steel in my vest to ignite the fire once it's all set up. '

He proceeded by gathering a heap of dry leaves and arranged the branches in such a manner that they mimiced a pyramide-shape, over the leaves. He kept one side of the 'pyramide' open where he struck the steel and flint together to cause sparks so that the leaves caught fire and inevitably the wood aswell. It took him a while but he managed to do so, afterwards closing the gap with some more wood once the fire had blazed a bit more.

He took the light and raggedy looking drape off his back and unfolded it before spreading it out on the grass. ‘ Here, you can use this to sleep on. It’s not much but it’s all I have. ‘
Talhar stared into the dark forest for a second before seating himself next to the fire and the blanket. “ So, Iris, where are you from? Or are you from the Syliras Region ? “ He asked in a polite manner, he was being overly considerate and polite in contrary to his normal doing but he still felt awkward about the whole incident and he felt like it was his obligation somehow to at least 'protect' her 'till they departed ways.

[Iris Dove]

Iris stood a few feet away from Talhar as she watched him build the fire. She shivered slightly, as the sun continued to sink in the sky, and the temperature continued to drop along with it. She felt like it took him longer than it should have. Boy, this guy was slow she thought to herself.

Even so, Talhar managed to make a fire, and when he finished, he took the drape off his back, and placed it next to him. He then offered it to her as something to rest upon. She eyed him suspiciously, her black eyes turning into small slits, perhaps he didn't notice because of the dark. Cautiously, she walked over to it, and sat down, allowing the fire to cast long shadows across her face, and warm her body. She held her hands out to it, and was surprised by how hot it was.

The fire grew, and crackled in front of them. Talhar's face was hidden by the smoke, which continued to swirl around him with the wind, before the winds shifted and blew the smoke in the other direction. When she had settled in, Talhar asked her where she was from. She sat for a moment, her hands extended towards the fire, which was glowing a reddish-orange with the heat. She contemplated for a moment, she didn't exactly have a home, considering her having been snatched away as a child, bought by the professor, passed to his granddaughter when he died, and then used by a thief when she died as well, to serve him as a spy. But could she, or rather should she, explain this to Talhar? Did she truly trust him, considering he had just shot her, thinking she was only an animal, before realizing she was really a woman? Perhaps he felt as though he HAD to be nice to her. She couldn't really tell.

So instead, Iris told Talhar that she was "from no where in particular," hoping that her cryptic answer would either satisfy his curiosity enough, or at least, get him to shut up for a while. He really seemed, odd, to say the very least, to her.

Looking frantically around for her bag, which was no where to be found, she sighed heavily. She pawed around on the ground, where on earth was it? Her eyes scanned the dark ground around her, and then she knew she must have dropped it somewhere, well that's not good, she thought to herself. But then, when she really thought about it, she realized that it must have burned in the fire that killed her second master along with most of her other possessions. Lovely, she thought, I'll have to get another pack to carry all my things soon, because this was definitely not going to work out for too long, all she had was whatever she could wrap in her thin dress and carry in her beak- an empty waterskin, her eating knife, which she strapped to the top of her right calf using a leather band, flint and steel, and a blackberry, which must have fallen out on the flight over, since she couldn't find it, and a small satchel which contained 100 mizas, which she oftentimes wished she could dump since they weighed so darn much.

Iris got up abruptly, carrying the empty waterskin in her good hand. She called over her shoulder, "where you from?" to Talhar, but never really paid attention to whether or not he answered her. When she got to the edge of the pond, she opened the top of the waterskin, dipped it in the cool water, and filled it to the brim before closing it and returning to Talhar. She dropped it on top of the drape she had been sitting on, and walked into the forest. She couldn't see too well, but enough to make out the shapes of the trees and the plants around her. They looked black, like shadows, but slightly more tangible. Thankfully, it didn't take too long for her eyes to get used to it, and it didn't take too long for the size of the fire to dwindle as she walked farther and farther into the forest. She just wanted some space for a bit, and perhaps to find something to eat. Even so, she couldn't tell if Talhar was following her, or trying to, she was too absorbed in what she was doing.

Iris knew that she had seen an apple tree on the journey over to the pond, if only she could find it. A few minutes later, she had found a tree which seemed to be bearing fruit- to her they appeared to be dark orbs hanging beneath a tree. She picked a few, and started to head back to where she could faintly make out the light of the fire. She thought she had gone farther, but it couldn't have been more than 70 feet away, especially since she could still see a faint light.

When she had returned, she looked into the light to find that she had indeed, brought back four apples, all tightly nestled into her right arm, as though she were carrying a small babe. When she got closer to the fire, she realized that they were all a deep red. She threw one at Talhar, who was still sitting stupidly by the fire. It hit him in the face. Perhaps he couldn't catch either, or she had thrown it too hard, perhaps, intentionally so.

Then, Iris sat back down on the drape, pulling her eating knife from the strap beneath her dress. She put two of the apples down next to her and started to cut the third with her eating knife, into small wedges, bringing each delicately to her mouth. She found it hurt her left arm a bit to hold the apple in place, but she did her best to ignore it. She was hungry. She ate silently, staring into the flames, noticing how at times the fire seemed to dance, and create shapes. Swirling shapes. Images of life in Mizahar- trees, people hunting, or perhaps it was all her imagination. Perhaps it was simply her in need of rest and something more nourishing than a red apple.