Solo Hunter or Hunted?

[Dravite]

9 Spring, 515 AV
Just Gone Midnight

"Is it too much to ask to get a good night’s sleep around here?" Dravite called and some of the lingering hunters that had stayed up sharing stories on site laughed and muttered their apologies. Sleep didn't come easy camped on the fringes of Endrykas, the city of tents. Dravite had sat awake on his bedroll for two hours, the fires, footfalls and late-night whispers creaked like a weighted rope swinging back and forth in a light breeze; had all kept him awake. His wife Belkaia and three year old son Kyanite had managed to drift off without too much trouble, wrapped in each other’s arms; oh how he envied them.

The fire-pit crackled and hissed as men threw left-over bits of fat and bone into the flames. Dravite lay on his side with one of his arms trapped under Belkaia, burly fingers combing the long, loose curls on his son's head. He watched a young couple bickering outside of the open-walled tent and smirked at the display as both used wild gestures and grassland-sign, exaggerated by the heat of the argument as they tried to communicate their disapproval over something as quietly as possible.

Drykas were a relatively sensible race of people, but every now and then they liked to let their hair down and let loose for a few weeks and the spring celebrations seemed to be as good an excuse as any. Living alongside Endrykas for four weeks in two, two-week blocks (one at the start of spring, the other at the end of summer), for the year gave the Windborne pavilion peace of mind; there was safety in numbers, but like anything else, it brewed its own troubles.

Restless, the wheat-haired Drykas male wiggled his arm out from under his kin carefully and tucked them in before getting to his feet. He collected his bone-spear and hunting kit before leaving the shelter of his tent. The night sky stretched out forever but lacked its usual lustre, the man thought as he looked skyward, seeking out a sign that might agree with his thoughts; that of the hunt. If he couldn’t sleep, he may as well do something useful and it had been a long time since he had hunted by moonlight.

As he stalked away from camp with his hunting gear, one of the women lit a torch on a long stick and pushed it into the ground alongside a second that had been burning for some time now. The Windborne pavilion liked to light a torch for every hunter that strayed away from camp at night. They liked to think the fire served as a guide for the soul while doubling as an easy way to keep count of who was currently away from camp. Dravite had always appreciated the gesture, but felt it served no real purpose.

On this occasion, the man decided to leave Cree (his strider) with the pavilion’s herd, favouring a journey on foot to help keep his fitness up, not that he ever ate enough to slip the other way. Some days the hunt provided them with an abundance of food and others, well it was safe to say that no one in the Windborne Pavilion was overweight. They only ever took what the needed and excess meat was either dried and saved for long journeys or sold to other nomadic travellers.

He wandered ten minutes from camp on foot, keeping an eye out for any movement in the grass, though he relied heavily on his hearing when the light was dim like this, looking this way and that without making any sudden movements. Soon his eyes had adjusted to the darkness and the high moon made it seem almost easy on a still, breezeless night such as this. Dravite heard the odd snort of some strange animal in the distance and imagine stumbling upon a herd of Olidosapai; though even he doubted they would graze so close to Endrykas where a hundred hunters would descend at the blow of a horn.

Traversing through the grass at night was a slow and cautious trip. Creating too much noise might frighten off something worth catching, or worse, make him the prey for something bigger, stronger, and even stealthier than he. Dravite ducked low to adjust his hatchet on the leather belt he wore and sucked air through gritted teeth as his bare knee found a patch of prickly grass. It was then he heard the low growl and noticed a flash of yellow eyes up ahead in the darkness.

[Dravite]

Going out alone at night would always be one of those risky chores, just as any action taken outside the city of tents and closer into the depths of the wild was. Dravite stilled but kept his wits about him, tightening his hold on the bone spear that had belonged to his father and Tal'o Ker before him. It was a weapon that had passed to three generations of sons and would one day go to Dravite's son Kyanite, though Dravite was determined to make sure that day did not arrive too soon.

Another growl, this one somewhat more intense than the first and as the Drykas man listened close, he could have sworn it belonged to an animal with much to lose; the dog was guarding something. He was poised and ready to strike, his pulse quickened, the rhythmic thumb of his heartbeat sung in his ears, outdone only by the hurried footfalls that raced towards him from the right. Hesitant and unable to quite see either of the figures that stalked about him, Dravite eased back slowly, keeping his guard up.

"Merr!" A stranger’s voice hissed and the low growling ceased.

A black figure sprung towards the voice and as the foreigner raised his torch, Dravite realised the pair were no more than boy and beast. He touched his hand to his brow in greeting before letting his hand hang at his side once more. "My apologies," the young man called, his face lit up under the light of his raised torch. "I was hunting with my dog and he got loose."

"No need to apologise," Dravite said, warily; he didn't trust strangers, even young men in their teens. For every man in the world with something to give, there was another ready to take it from him. Again he closed his fingers firmly around his spear, but let his stance relax as not to come across as too imposing or intimidating.

Dravite's burst of panic and ebbed away, relief seeing both shoulders and the line between his brows relax. His eyes soon adjusted to the unnatural light source burning in the darkness and he measured the teen who was all awkward limbs and flowing, dark curls. The two of them used grassland sign to communicate, as not to attract too much attention from what lurked in the night.

The boy explained that he had been training his dog to spot rabbits when she had caught sight of a spritely, old hare and dashed off into the darkness after it. Spring was a great time for hunting small game, snakes, foxes, birds, and rabbits fresh from their winter burrows with new young to feed that left them somewhat desperate and more prone to taking risks in order to get their fill.

Dravite took advantage of the light source, pointing his gaze about his surroundings and finding very little until he glanced to where he had first heard a low growl from the dog. He caught sight of something out of place up ahead in the tussocks but chose not to stare too long in fear of having to share whatever it was he seemed to have found. What with his fright, he hadn't smelt the decaying flesh and decided to draw the conversation with the boy to an end. "I should return to my hunt," Dravite signed and the boy nodded; eager to go about his own business.

The stranger smiled and scratched behind his dog's ear with his free hand, the torch lowered in the other. Dravite had never quite understood what men loved so much about animals that sat and scratched all day and night, or looked up at their masters with begging eyes come meal time. A dog was more likely to get a kick than a kind scratch from him. As if the boy had read the man's mind he piped up. "Merr would give her life for me," to which Dravite only nodded and thought I wouldn't be so sure if I were you.

He would never entrust his life to an animal, even Cree, his bonded strider had bolted on him one too many times for Dravite to believe in something so foolish. The two parted ways, the boy going back to where he had sprung from, his dog in tow while Dravite stalked towards whatever it was he had caught a glimpse of in the distance; eager to examine the kill site.

[Dravite]

Dravite moved closer to the Glassbeak remains. The area surrounding the carcass was relatively clean, he thought, looking firstly at the remains and then the place it lay in. There were little to no signs of blood loss, be it splashed, pooled or otherwise. He noticed a few scratch marks in the soil where the Glassbeak's talons had raked the earth during what must have been a quick scuffle, or slow agonising death.

He tried to envision the acts as they may have unfolded here, perhaps two dominate males fighting for a single mate, or maybe it was just a routine fight over territory gone wrong. Nothing about the animal's wounds seemed to give any credit to either of the man's theories and upon closer inspection; Dravite discovered that three of the large rib-bones were snapped right in two. The parts of the long rib-bones that had been broken seemed to have sprouted legs and walked away, their ends nowhere in sight. Dravite thought of the young boy's dog and realised that it was probably not the first Drykas pet to stray this far, seeking out the ghastly smells the night’s breeze had carried to their noses.

There weren't many predators out here capable of dragging of such large bones and none especially that Dravite wanted to come into contact with. He tried to scavenge a few of the Glassbeak’s feathers, but there was little to take as the bones were all but picked clean. Feathers usually came in handy for decorating, fastening to weapons or even sewing. His mother had once patched up a hole in the knee of his pants with just a single Glassbeak feather and a length of thread. He recalled watching her, mesmerised by her resourcefulness and survival skills.

The few feathers he did find were either damaged or so discoloured they no longer resembled the down of the bird they had once belonged to. Glassbeak feathers were marvellous things, capable of taking on the colour of their surroundings; Dravite had always imagined they would make a fine cloak, good for camouflage out in the Sea of Grass. Ideally he would have liked to start working on a project such as this, but Glassbeaks weren't the easiest creatures of take down, at least, they weren't something he tended to meddle with if he could help it.

The question still remained, how did a large male Glassbeak that was taller than a man, break three ribs if not to another Glassbeak? Dravite moved around the area slowly, stepping tentatively, toes first before his heel found the ground, looking for animal prints. He brought his flint and steel forth and struck the items against each other to see by sparked-light, what was hard to see under the light of a hiding moon with the naked eye.

The ground seemed to lack in prints what the sky missed in stars tonight, other than the paw prints he understood were probably left by the run-away-dog, among others. Dravite blew a few stray hairs from his grey coloured eyes and had almost given up on the role of investigator when he noticed a reasonably peculiar set of tracks, or rather, one long track that looked as if it belonged to an overgrown snake; make that a very, very overgrown snake.

Dravite was suddenly torn. Should he stray further away from camp to follow the odd, sweeping, serpentine weave through the grasslands, or steer away from what was undoubtedly trouble, in favour of a nice easy rabbit kill; a guaranteed meal for himself and his family. He looked back in the direction of camp but saw little through the darkness, questioning the light flickering of what could have been a torch shining far away. His stare was pointed then in the direction the boy had gone where there were sure to be rabbits.

There was no denying his spirit of adventure, seeing his gaze once again settle on the strange tracks. He imagined all types of things, both enthralling and terrible, that quickened him and with his humming heart sang, 'come, come, into the night, after the thing you seek; come, come, and see what lurks in shadows with the strength of an Olidosapux and the cunning of a fox. Come young warrior, come'.

[Dravite]

Now he was at home, in his element, lost beyond the borders of Endrykas, hunting something unusual. Dravite followed the winding tracks for hours, sometimes losing sight of them due to areas where the grass had grown thick and the wind had whipped through the tussocks wildly, hiding any traces of which way the tracks might have led. When he got low to the ground he would look for broken shrub branches or snaps and tears in individual blades of grass.

Thirsty, he sat down in the grass and drank from the water-skin he had left camp with. His spear pointed skyward, he didn't like to leave it on the ground in case it was stepped on or damaged. Dravite liked to imagine that the spirit of a tireless, bloodthirsty warrior was tied to the bone-spear; a restless spirit that didn't like to go without the hunt for too long, always standing and ready. He closed his eyes and heard the rolling tide of the coast sing in the distance; if nothing else he could use it to point him back to Endrykas, but first, he wanted to find out what had killed that Glassbeak.

Dravite held his spear in front of him and let it lean against his shoulder to free up his hands, resting them on folded legs as he kept quiet and concentrated on slipping into a trance. He had practiced webbing from a young age but still wasn't as proficient in the art as he would like to be. Wispy blue lines floated on the edge of his vision, drifting closer and closer until it were as if he could reach his hand out to take hold of one gently. His mind raced as he followed one of the blue guidelines, letting the web take his mind cross-country at speeds matched only by the eagle’s dive. He pictured the webbing from above, Endrykas and camp still behind him, the shore where he had heard it and the stranger he had run into still stalking rabbits far right of him.

When he came out of his trance he looked into the fading darkness without fear. He hadn't sensed any large herds or dangers up ahead, but felt he was going in the right direction to find whatever it was that had left those tracks in the soil. With his water-skin secured against his belt and spear in hand, he set off again, going with the wind which wasn't strong enough to move his dreaded hair. For hours he felt as if his had been going in circles, but reassured, he pressed on.

It wasn't long before he found the tracks again and something in the darkness caught his eye. Dravite kneeled down and flicked at the object with the tip of his finger. It was no bigger than a coin with an opaque translucency he hadn't come across before. Upon closer inspection the man realised he was holding some type of scale shaped like a piece of honeycomb. His brow knotted as he turned the scale slowly, trying to figure out what it might belong to. He had come across hundreds of snakes in his lifetime, but nothing like this.

[Dravite]

Dawn

The first hints of sunlight had stretched across the horizon like long, golden fingers, reaching over the sky through broken clouds to whisper to the world, 'awaken'. A light frost had settled where the land still wore its winter coat, in the dips and around hidden water-sources; white steam peeled away from the earth under Syna's light as if she drew in a breath from the sky. The grass was laced with dew, pricked tips gently folding with the new warmth of day. The birds had been up for an hour and Dravite, still roaming across country on tired, cold feet, stopped to admire the beauty of the place he called home.

The tracks he had struggled to follow most of the night were out of sight and almost out of mind, for he still clutched the honeycomb shaped, snakeskin scale in his hand, turning it to stroke with the pad of his thumb. He was no tracker, but wouldn't call this a wasted trip; as his mother always said, 'everything for a reason'. No experience was too small if it had taught something, and surely next time the man would take his strider, knowing how far the mysteries of the land could take him in just one night.

It was time to seek the aid of the Drykas web in order to help point the hunter home. He lowered his spear so that it was level with the long grass and closed his eyes to concentrate. As he slipped into a trance, the chill in his feet numbed, forgotten, and the ache in his leg muscles from walking all night eased. The voices of the web were busy and quick moving this morning. Dravite realised that he had walked in a large horseshoe shape through the night, pointing him almost in the direction he needed to travel. He followed a light blue line to his pavilion and his eyes snapped open, "This way."

An hour from home, he smiled to himself at the thought; no wonder he hadn't been able to find those tracks again. Dravite tried to imagine what the scale had belonged to. The grassland snakes were generally small and cunning, they liked to sneak up or a man or lie in wait, bodies coiled up as if wrapped round the ankle of a god; always ready to strike if a man did not use his ears and was not careful enough to watch where his feet fell.

He recalled then, as a boy, sitting in from of the fire pit one evening in Endrykas, listening to the Emerald Clan warriors sharing tales of their adventures to strange lands, when came the story of a young boy that was neither beast nor man, but both; half boy, half snake. The storyteller had called the creature Dhani, and said he spoke with the tongue of a snake, as it the muscle were stretched and pinned to his chin. Dravite remembered taking the tale to the other children in his pavilion and all night they had hissed at each other and nipped the ends of their tongues trying to create their own rendition of the serpentine language.

Perhaps, he thought then that one had visited the city of tents, or rather, stalked the edges of Endrykas, wary of what lay within. It made sense that a scale this big belonged to a creature even bigger than he had imagined, with the capabilities of squeezing the life from all who crossed its path. He thought of the Glassbeak remains and the broken ribs the skeleton sported; it was easy then to agree with himself, that the Glassbeak had been strangled by a large constrictor and the scratches that marred the ground were made by its great talons in wake of a struggle.

Not too far from home Dravite noticed a pair of pricked rabbit ears up ahead in the grass and subconsciously licked his lips. It had been a while since he had caught a rabbit, tending to snag them in the snares he set rather than pin one on the head of his spear. Slow moving and cautious, Dravite chanced another step in the rabbit’s direction and noticed its ears flatten. He took a few more steps, moving closer and closer until his ears sprung forward again, listening for something it had heard.

The man froze, reluctant to let his breakfast get the better of him; he would play the waiting game, if that's what it took. His instincts told him to get low to the ground but his stubbornness knew that he then risked startling the animal if his moving made the grass rustle; the distance of his stabbing arm would also be shortened. He had to take a chance, should aim from where he stood and let the spear glide forward out of his hands and into the heart of his prey; it seemed too risky and perfectly thought out all in one.

Dravite waited until the rabbit had dropped its guard again before drawing his arm back, spear pointed and at the ready. He adjusted the height of his throw but had failed to calculate the morning breeze into his aim and drove the spear forward using his body to propel the weapon at great speed. His spear shot through the grass like an arrow, landing a foot in front of the rabbit who seemed the fastest creature the world had ever seen, going from relaxed to the safety of his burrow in all of two point three seconds.

The Drykas man put his fingers through the dreaded knots of his hair and growled as if to scold himself; if only he had chanced another step, if only he had waited, if only, if only... He collected his spear and kicked up some dust; perhaps it was time to think about a new weapon, but first he needed to get a job and make some money for the current season. A night at 'sea' only to return empty handed; what would his wife think?

[Naiya]

Here's what the Fox says

Name: Dravite
XP Award:

• Endurance +2
• Hunting +1
• Investigation +1
• Land Navigation +1
• Observation +5
• Socialization +1
• Stealth +1
• Subterfuge +1
• Tactics +1
• Tracking +2
• Weapon: Spear +1
• Webbing +2

Lore:

• Burning beacons for hunters of the Windborn Clan
• Dhani: a race of snake men
• Drykas: a sensible people
• Hunting: hunters may easily become the hunted
• Hunting: in the dark, you must listen more closely for prey
• Hunting: recognizing the growl of a dog
• Hunting: spring is a season of easier hunts
• Snakes are stealthy and dangerous creatures
• Stealth: quiet steps to keep from alerting others to your presence
• Subterfuge: don't give away interest by staring
• The remains of a glassbeak can be useful
• The threat of a stranger is not abated by youth
• Tracking: the path of a snake

Penalties and Awards: Dravite will be tired in the coming day, and mildly sore through the legs from the long walk he took. Dravite received a patterned scale, probably belonging to a Dhani.

Seasonal Challenges
Investigate a kill site - Completed
Learn a new skill - Completed
Go hunting something unusual - Completed

Notes: Great thread here, and with a lot of small details that gave you some useful lores and skills! You did a great job of keeping to your goals and skills, not overplaying while still keeping to the character you have built. Great job on that, as a grader I am glad to see it. If you have any questions about the grade please shoot me a PM. Also, please edit your request in the grade request thread!