Solo Bone Whispers

[Rufio]

7th winter 515 av
15 bells, heavy rain

There was something somber about the rain this afternoon. Heavy, and oppressive clouds loomed low, casting a gloomy din over the Sea of Grass.

Everything, grey.

From within her pavilion's tent, a young, caramel-skinned woman peeked out with a furtive frown. Her arms folded across a heavy, fur-lined coat that swamped her stature.

Large, round, deep-cocoa eyes swept the sky, and her lips were drawn puckered beneath the soft, freckled features, as she sighed. The sound was deep, exuding an unbidden melancholy from within.

" ' be a folly to go out in that t'day, child. Stay, stay." A voice croaked from within a generous pile of fur blankets. Rufio glanced over her shoulder at the gnarled, weather-wrinkled face that owned it, and shrugged her shoulders.

"I'll be alright. Sure, I will stay in the city." Short trip.
"Mmnn..." The old woman grunted, as her twisted fingers held a bundle of Olidosapux hair spinning into yarn from a spinning spool. Rufio watched the drop spinner with mesmerized eyes for a tick, before the grandmother lost her hold and it clattered to the ground.

"Ayahh!"- Came her shriek of frustration, cradling her shaking hands before her with a grimace caught between pain and irritation. Useless, broken, nuisance. Her sign tossed to the air sharply.

Rufio knelt and retrieved the spinner and yarn without a chime's thought, responding passionately with insisting disagreement, respect, worthy, love.
Grandmama Raen's squinting eyes peered out from her bark-like face at her granddaughter, surprised by her granddaughter's perceptiveness, though her sign waved her off dismissively.

"You take over." Skill useful, Rufio learn, make useful wife-
Just like that that Grandmama's tenacious match-making obsessions were piqued.
"Where is Dravite Blackwater?
Have you not seen him this season past?"

Rufio made a noise, a frustrated, cynical and yet—somehow within—wistful noise. "I have not, why should I have?" Watchman, duty, family-

Rufio responded, trying to make neutral her sign as much as she could, her hands set in motion just as Raen was trying to teach her how to hold the fibrous wool to attach it to the spindle. The elder cracked her knuckles with the wooden tool and tsked—be still-"child, I teach!"

Rufio grimaced her apology and she let the grandmother's hands mold hers around the wool.

　

[Rufio]

　　

"Grip like this; hard, harder." Came instruction, and Ru did as bid, pinching the end of a fluffy lot of Olidosapux wool between her right thumb and finger.

Raen held up the freshly spun thread of wool and wound it around the top of the wooden tool. The spindle was a long piece of wood with a heavy weighted section at the bottom.

Rufio's gaze took in the craftsmanship with quiet admiration. Wood was rare in the Sea Of Grass, and this drop spindle was old—older even than her grandmother.

Raen held the thread attached to the spindle against that which Rufio had pinched between her fingers. "This—the piece that you begin with—is the leader." The elder's voice croaked, before she spun the spindle.

Rufio watched as the wooden tool spun and the loose fibers of the leader thread were wrapped around the fluffy, loose piece sticking out from between Rufio's fingers, while the rest of the unprocessed fluff rested gently along her hand.

The elder smiled, and nodded—"See? Spin, and pull like this-"—her shaky fingers yanked gently on the bundle of wool. Pulling it through Rufio's pinched fingers a bit at a time so that it twisted, becoming a thread.

"Mhm." Rufio's deep gaze took in the process and was captured by it, enjoying it. "This isn't so har-"—thump!—the wool that had been twisting twisted too tight. It broke under the weight of the tool, which clattered to the ground, as it had for Raen.

Grandmama Raen groaned and shook her head.
"Must practise, child. Where is Farha?"
"I think she went to visit cousins—Darkwind—with Yama and Tal'ck."
"Ay?...It is a good thing that Tal'ck reconnects us."
Strong family, strong Drykas.
Rufio smiled at that and, having sat cross-legged through their palaver, shifted her bottom lightly off of her feet, which were growing pins and needles.
"Where were you thinking of heading in that rain Rufio?" Inquisitive.
"Uh, I just thought I'd..."

Rufio's voice trailed off, tinged with the whispers of a Shiber accent. Uncertainty—she hadn't quite known where she had intended to go, only that she felt strangely restless.

With a knowing mind, the grandmother stated motherly.
"Will ye find your cousins, Rufio?—And bring Farha home to help her grand-mama with the weaving, eh."

With an affectionate squeeze of her grandmother's hand, Rufio got up and darted out into the heavy rain.

❇ ❇ ❇

　

[Rufio]

　　
She was soaked in moments, her course black hair plastered to her head, raindrops trickling freely down her freckled face. Her thick wool dungarees turned sodden and dark as the rain seeped in, her sandals slapped in the mud as she made her way, hurriedly, between the pavilion tents.

Rufio shivered with the cold mud coating her bare feet, wishing she had pulled on her boots this afternoon. At least she could be thankful she had waterproofed her fur-lined coat with oil a few days ago after it had snowed, and it was offering some protection.

Her gaze tried to peer out up at the grey clouds hung above, but she could barely see beyond the next tent. She slung her arms out from the sleeves of her coat and raised it over her head to shield her face from the torrent.

"Owff!"—Rufio's breath was knocked from her, abruptly startled as she collided with a shadowy shape and thumped onto her back in the mud.

Raindrops fell into her face, and she wiped them away as she staggered to her feet again, covered in mud. The half-Drykas looked over and saw a woman struggling to get up, too. She threw out her arm, offering her help-
"Here, let me-"
The women helped each other to their feet and Rufio saw it was an elder she had bumped into.
Deep apology "Are you all right?"
"Yes, yes, fine, fine." Apology
—the elder returned with a smile.

Rufio took in the elder's wild, grey-black hair, her deeply lined face, single blind, white eye and her deep, mysteriously knowing sighted one. A feeling of unbidden reverence stole over her; this woman seemed ancient in more than just body, she thought.

Just as equally, the elder's gaze was taking in the half-Drykas whose arm she was still holding. The dark skin, the freckles scattered over a wide nose, the deep round eyes and round chin. Recognition struck her good-eye, and her smile widened with familiarity-
"Is that a Wildmane?"
Her voice croaked, her eyes squinted as to see her better.
Rufio was taken aback.
Yes—"how do you know me?"
"Ahh, Rufio Wildmane? I knew your mother."
Fond memories, well-met.

Rufio's surprise and inquisitiveness leaked into her sign. Just as she was about to ask how she knew her, or her mother, the elder's good eye fell to the ground.
"Oh, you have almost lost this-"
The elder bent her lightly curved back farther to reach for two leather pouches that lay in the mud.
"—here let me."
Rufio hurriedly stooped to help, and picked up the other pouch; both were made of simple leather, worn from use—they were almost identical.
Appreciation—"child, I believe this is yours—"
The elder held out the pouch she had retrieved and smiled in amusement.
"—that one is mine."

Rufio chuckled lightly, feeling her mood lift, and they swapped pouches—when the half-Drykas heard the contents of hers clinking lightly inside as it was placed in her palm, she presumed she must have dropped her Mizas—with a grateful pursing of lips.

A chime of silence passed between the women and a strange warmth lit in Rufio's chest, seeping into her drenched limbs, as her dark-ochre eyes flickered over the stranger's face curiously. It felt like something were passing between the two in that meeting.

Apology, intrusion—"how did you know mama?"
Rufio broke the silence, unabashed.
The elder pursed her aged lips and seemed to consider her a chime with her intelligent, perceptive good-eye.
"I am Ferem Silverstone."
She said finally, seeming to decide upon something.

Rufio grimaced awkwardly, and signed unfamiliarity, apology—she didn't know who the elder was.

The elder waved away her apology light-heartedly, and chuckled. "It was a long time ago that we met, you were very young, Rufio. It is good to lay eyes on you again."

Rufio sensed a kind of finality in her tone then, an impending farewell. The half-Drykas was at a loss for the sudden, gripping feeling she didn't want Ferem to part from her so quickly.

"—Wait, you must come with me, to my pavilion and out of this rain. Will you come for supper? Great-mama Raen and Ankal Tal'ck would welcome you to our fire." -insisting, warm invitation- "I would love to hear more about how you know my mother?" Curious.
The elder shook her head and patted Rufio's arm and signed- regretful decline—
"I have business to attend to with The Watch
—but...perhaps...another day?"
Rufio nodded, feeling a mysterious, sinking disappointment.
"Yes, of course." Welcome.
"It is settled, another day. Now, I must be on my way. Take care, Ru, and we shall meet soon, hm?..."

With that Ferem Silverstone squeezed Rufio's forearm and past by her.

Rufio watched Ferem go between the tents, disappearing into the rain. Her brow furrowed with bemusement, and confusion. So strange, she thought of the meeting. Yet she felt noticeably lighter of heart for it.

Rufio shook her head, put her Miza pouch in her coat pocket and hurried on towards the Darkwind pavilion to find her family as her grandmother had bid her.

At least, what she thought was her Miza pouch; unbeknownst to the half-Drykas, it was not hers but Ferem's pouch.

The elder—by decided purpose or fated accident—had taken Rufio's gold and left her pouch of casting bones with the half-Drykas, instead...

❇ ❇ ❇

❇- 10GM
+ Casting Bones

　　

[Rufio]

20 bells

The rain pitter-pattered against the oiled fabric of her tent, and Rufio heard her family's playful voices, and their laughter, ebb harmoniously from the larger pavilion structure across the Wildmane camp.

A little fire lit her humble home from the cradle of a brazier standing just in a ways from the doorway—"To keep out the draft", her father had once taught her.

Rufio was sitting on her bedroll close by the source of light and heat. Cross-legged, with a soft fur blanket draped over her bare shoulders, under it she wore a black, cropped, crochet top-garment and dark-dyed fur-lined leggings, to keep the Winter chill at bay.

The half-Drykas was bent over lightly, her chaotic, choppy hair brushing her freckled forehead, which was furrowed deeply. Her cocoa-gaze was captured by a tiny, white-washed bone between her fingertips.

On the worn, frayed rug beneath her was an empty, simple leather pouch and she had laid out a collection of mysterious items—animal bones and teeth; the charred husk of some foreign nut; a smooth chunk of amber.

Rufio sighed, and laid the tiny bone down with the rest of the bizarre trinkets. What were these? She wondered, utterly at a loss. They must belong to Ferem—that much was clear, and she supposed they had taken the wrong pouches earlier.

Yet, Rufio felt drawn to the bones. They're not just bones. They held an aura of mysticism, which prickled along the hairs of her arms as she touched them. They mean something, she thought with quiet, unsettling awe.

A melody of laughter drifted through the rain to her, and Rufio looked out towards it.
"—And then I told him-"
"What?—that you were really just cheating him!"
"Hush, Alar'ck, I wasn't cheating. I told him if he could prove he was a better shot, then I would consider kissing him."
"Tsk, tsk"—
Grand-mama Raen's inevitable opinion interjected
—"such a flirt, Laiha, what does your ma have to say!"
A tense pause, then Masuuli's answer—
"Did you make the shot?"
"Ugh, of course I did, mama. He was just big talk. The wind threw his arrows off-course. He almost hit a student of The Watch."—Laiha, ever-boastful.
Quiet laughter before, the Ankal's wife, Yama's voice chimed in with teasing disapproval—"Lai-lai, you must let the boys win sometimes!"
"Ack! Don't listen to her, Lai. A man who cannot stand the strength and skill of his wife is not a man to keep."—bit back Grandmother's matriarchal advice.

Rufio could vividly envision the piercing, agreeing, hawk-eyed smile of Laiha's mother at that. A faux-tired sigh hushed from Yama, which was chased by the diffidently amused, wolfish chuckle of her husband—Wildmane Ankal—Tal'ck.

A soft smile played along Rufio's lips at her family's orientation of discourse. Then she shook her head, and shuffled to lay on her front comfortably. Her fingertips reached for an old, worn, leather-bound book. Her mother's journal.

If Ferem knew Ma-ma, she must have written about her at some point, the half-Drykas mused. Though she had read the journal cover-to-cover many times; not a mention of the mysterious elder.

Flicking through its pages, Rufio was studious. Her deep gaze intent and searching as it flicked across the neat Shiber on the pages. Her lips puckered lightly as she murmured under the breath. Speaking the Shiber aloud aiding her to sound out her mother's language.

"Fi, are you not lonely out here by yourself?"—croaked a voice that startled the half-Drykas.

A grey-haired woman was standing by the doorway, a fur wrapped about her, leaning on a sturdy cane of willow-wood. Rufio took in her grandmother's gently suspicious face, under the mass of wrinkles Rufio was relieved to see a smile though.

She pushed herself up to sit again and shook her head. Peaceful, tired, resting—"Grand-Maisa."

Raen grunted, and stood for a tick peering at her granddaughter before her aged eyes fell on the casting bones. A mild alarm stole into her features and she hobbled over to see better. "What do you have there?" Explain.

The half-Drykas heard the hue of demand in her grand-mother's tone; it was just her grandmother's way.

"I don't know."—she admitted—"I found them today when I was out fetching Farha for you. I bumped into an elder, uh, Fu-Ferem. We dropped our purses. It looks like we've switched." Accident, warm meeting, family friend?—her sign lilted with curiousity.

Raen's narrow eyes had not left the bones, and she was still for a moment with disquiet. Rufio felt a subtle unease settle within her, and shifted uncomfortably. Eventually she teased her grandmother's thoughts into the silence with her sign—Share ken?

The elder took in a breath and hobbled over to Rufio, where she creaked as she lowered her aged bones to sit beside her on the bedroll. The elder took the bone that Rufio had been studying in her gnarled hand, and held it in her palm for a chime.

"...Casting bones..."

The words seemed to resonate in the elder's throat, catching in a cough—deep, guttural. Ominous.

❇ ❇ ❇

[Rufio]

21 bells

After Raen had left her tent to her bed, Rufio had taken up practicing spinning yarn, as her grandmother had bade her that afternoon.

Starting by taking the drop-spindle and the already-spun piece of Olidosapux wool, she wrapped it onto the top of the spindle, where a notch sat conveniently for it.

"The notch so the thread doesn't move as I spin."—Rufio murmured her thoughts to herself.

Then, she took the a wad of fluffy Olidosapux wool in her left hand, and wrapped a tiny part around the end of the already-spun yarn—"The leader." she reiterated her grandmother's teachings.

A faint smile was creeping its way into her freckled face, she was enjoying learning a new task.

Gripping the leader thread and wool between her thumb and forefinger securely, Rufio shrugged her arm so the rest of the fluffy wool would drape along the back of her left forearm. The spindle hung, swinging lightly, on the end of the leader thread.

The half-Drykas hesitated, trying to remember how her grandmother had taught her to begin. "Just"—her right hand traced down the leader thread to grip the round base of the drop-spindle—"spin". A flick of her wrist and the spindle spun clockwise.

The fluffy wool begun to twist around the leader thread until the fibers became so entwined it was hard to tell where the half-Drykas had joined them.Rufio's tongue made an appearance, poking out the corner of her lips as she concentrated hard.

Gently, Rufio pulled the fluffy Olidosapux wool through her thumb and forefingers, trying to keep her grip at the same time, while the spindle kept spinning. As the loose, fibrous wool slid through her left fingers, and joined in the thread beneath her grip, it twisted into the thread. As soon as she did this, Rufio let her right hand drop to the bottom of the spindle, and she gave another flick of her wrist, maintaining the spin.

Lifting her hand again to the fluffy wool, pulling it through her thumb and fingers, adding more to the thread, dropping her hand again to the spindle-base, flicking it again—keeping up the energy. Rufio was soon smiling—she was spinning yarn—and her heart thrummed joyfully.

Soon though, her arm was growing too short; or the thread growing too long. Her joy turned to perplexity—alright, now what? The half-Drykas hesitated, breaking the rhythm she had cultivated. The spindle slowed its momentum, it stopped, and then it begun to spin backwards.

Rufio watched with alarm as the thread begun to unravel! Quickly-thinking, the half-Drykas grabbed the spindle with her right hand to cease the spinning, saving her thread from loosening so much that she'd have to start over.

She sat a chime like that, wondering what to do with this long thread she had made, how to continue without growing into a giant to reach down to the spindle to induce its next twist. Mmmh...

As her brown-gaze fixed on the long part of the spindle, above the heavy base—why is that part so long? It's like a handle... It came to her then—"You wrap the thread around it!" She had watched her grandmother, and her little cousin Farha, spin yarn a hundred times yet never paid enough attention.

Rufio tilted the spindle, and begun to rotate the lengthy top piece so the yarn she'd twisted wrapped around it, using the notch to lodge the boundary between the spun-thread and the loose wool.

When she set the spindle down on the rug before her, it didn't un-spin. She let out a breath of relief, not realising she'd been holding it.

That's enough for now. She decided; it was fun to do;
—but harder than she had imagined.

The half-Drykas lay back on her bedroll and marvelled at the wondrously vibrant threads and tapestries that her grandmother had woven in her day.

As she lay, and the chimes ticked by, she tried to ignore the casting bones, which were still laid out by the brazier.

Her thoughts kept wandering back to them, thoough, and she would glance at them every quarter bell. Tempted.

She knew she should get to sleep...
—but she was restless.

❇ ❇ ❇

　
　

[Rufio]

23 bells

The bones jangled lightly as they fell from her loose grasp and scattered on the ground below.

Firelight glowed softly against the white-yellow bones, casting long shadows against the rug where they fell, flames reflected on the amber, licking this way and that. As if some ethereal quality of life laid its tendrils on them.

Rufio's brow was drawn deep over her large brown eyes, her mouth set in a puzzled line above her round chin. She hovered on her knees, her bottom barely touching the backs of her heels, where the fur blanket had slipped from her shoulders; her focus absolutely absorbed by the casting bones.

"A reader would throw these, cast them, and interpret how they fell." Her grandmother's voice re-played in her mind. Hmm. The half-Drykas wondered how one even begun to read bones.

Her deep, cocoa gaze flickered over them, trying to discern something. The amber stone had fallen into the middle, heaviest of the pieces. The foreign nut husk, it had landed a few finger-breadths away. The molars of some animal lay dotted randomly around.

It was meaningless to the half-Drykas.

She sighed, making a squeaking sound as she sucked the inside of her puckered lips, thoughtfully. "I should return these to Ferem tomorrow." She told herself. At that she felt a perceptible spark lick at the lining of her stomach.

She didn't want to, she realised.

Her thoughts troubled her, and she pushed them away, gathering the bones up one-by-one hurriedly, sliding them down her palm into their draw-string pouch.

When she picked up the amber stone, she held it a chime, gazing at its smooth, round surface. In a daze she leaned by the firelight with it.

The wind picked up outside, snapping an emerald length of cloth against the pavilion tent; Rufio started.

As her eyes darted to the cloth, something white caught in the lower-periphery of her vision. Looking down at the pouch still clasped loosely in her hand, she noticed white painted on the inside of the pouch.

With surprised curiosity, the half-drykas glanced from the amber to the pouch. Setting the stone down gently, reverently even, she then carefully un-did the leather throng keeping the pouch closed from the holes it was wound through.

When she opened up the leather cloth and laid it down, her breath sharply caught in her throat. The pouch opened up into a circle about two hands across—underneath the casting bones there were rings painted in white on the worn animal-skin.

Rufio's studied the the circles on the cloth.

The heart of these circles was dyed a vibrant red with a symbol representing fire painted white within it. The ring around this had been stained with dark-ochre—for Earth, Rufio mused. The next was a faded, soothing blue—Rufio paused for a chime and considered, then smiled gently—it represents water.

Beyond this, the next circle was a deep lavender hue, gold streaks shimmered gently, interspersed with silver flecks. Rufio shook her head, at a loss for what that ring must mean. Lastly, the outermost ring around the edge of the cloth was dyed in all these colours, about three fingers thick in an alternating pattern.

Rufio stared at the cloth and wondered what it all meant. Looking again at the bones that laid on top—"Where these fall in relation to the symbols matters." She smiled lightly, excitedly; there was a flutter in her chest.

Rufio sat down crossing her legs so she was more comfortable. She gathered up the bones in her palms, cupping them gently, respectfully.

Feeling the tug of intuition, she sat like that and took a few deep breaths, closing her eyes. She cleared her mind, letting her muscles relax.

She heard the putter-patter of the rain. The wind tugging at the tent; Zulrav's voice echoing across the Grasslands. She felt the solidity and warmth of Semele beneath her. Her chest rose and fell, rose and fell. She became conscious of her body and was reminded of Caihya, The First Witch.

Lastly, she focused on her heart-beat, her pulse thudding in her ears dully. Without realising, a faint smile seeped across her lips, her brow knitted together.

"Help me to see."
She whispered under her breath,
and she dropped the bones.

They thudded dully as they scattered across the cloth.

　
　

[Rufio]

　　
Rufio took in the lay of the bones.

The amber stone had, again, sunk to the centre of the scatter, resting comfortably in the innermost circle, almost blending in to the red-hue of the dyed cloth beneath it. A strange warmth bubbled up in the half-Drykas' core as she looked at it. It felt right, that it rested there, somehow.

Her curious eyes wandered over the other bones. The animal mollars, again, seemed random, spread out over the ring Rufio had supposed to represent earth, as well as some scattered out into the outer-ring, the one with the metallic markings, which she couldn't fathom the meaning of.

Her gaze was drawn with perceptible force to the sharp, yellow wolf teeth that sat nearest to her. Again they rested in the realm of Semele. Rufio felt a sense of foreboding tug at her innards as her eyes tracing the slight curve of the large teeth. She squirmed, uncomfortable, itched roughly at her neck.

Laid over these carnivorous teeth was a "wish-bone", the breast-piece of some bird, and a long piece of splintered bone—they were crossed over the teeth.

Rufio stared at the pattern. Her expression darkened with unease.

She had no idea what this all meant, not really. Yet there was something about the bones crossing as they did above the carnivorous fangs, on a backdrop of red-ochre, that unsettled her.

In most fortune-reading crosses and carnivores tended to represent ill omens, she knew that much. Birds—she recalled with a little difficulty—signal "message", "migration" or—her brow furrowed, etching shadows into her face—"prey?" She murmured aloud.

The wind picked up, snapping at the tent around her; Rufio was startled by the Emerald wrapping loosely flapped in the rain, her hand leaped to her chest.

Patt-ah patt-ah patt-ah—
her heart hammered lightly.

Suddenly she noticed the quiet,
the rain had lightened
—anxious.

A chime slipped by before the half-Drykas took a deep breath and chided herself for being so silly.

She chuckled at herself, nerves fading.
She shook her head; disbelieving.

Then her hands gently pushed all the bones into the centre of the cloth, and she gathered up its edges. She thread the leather throng through the holes, and drew the pouch closed.

The bones clinked together lightly.

With that the half-Drykas stowed them under the edge of her rug beside her, and lay down along her bedroll. Tugging the blanket over her, she curled up under it and sighed deeply. She felt tired, now.

She slept.

　

[Rufio]

　

❇ ❇ ❇

Zulrav's deep roar thundered in the Grasslands.

Lo, the sky was crystal clear; a pure, pristine azure. Sparse clouds towered in soft, fluffy columns, pink and gold and grey. Syna's Winter light faded, yet warm. The long grasses swished and swayed in the wind, rustling, rippling like waves.

The half-Drykas stood in the midst of the wilderness, barefoot. She felt Semele's moist, warm body under her soles. She smelled earth—rich, with a copper-tang; and the breath of the plants as they opened up their stoma around her.

Her skin was bare, she was scantily clad in a long crocheted skirt, a flaxen-dyed scarf wrapped around her breasts, while her bare skin was tanned and her nose-ring glinted in the light, as if it were really Summer, rather than Winter.

Rufio lifted her arms, and took a deep, deep breath.
It thundered, again, and she was startled.
Her heart thrummed.

Her cocoa-gaze peered out ahead—there was a boy in the distance. A curious smile licked into Rufio's freckled features, and she called out to the him, a stranger. "Hayh!" He didn't hear her.

Rufio watched him a little while. She became puzzled as she noticed that he was cast in shadows. "Hayh, hayh!" She called out again, this time cupping her mouth with her hands to carry her voice farther.

She began to walk in the boy's direction, wading through the dry grasses, which swished at her thighs, tickling her arms lightly.

The wind picked up.

The clouds began to sweep in—gathering. As Rufio's gaze fixed on the boy, the shadows that laid across him seemed to seep into the atmosphere. The sky was deepening into dusk. The clouds begun to swirl above, darkening.

Rufio looked up and sighed.
It's going to rain. She thought.

Zulrav's temper resounded with a boom, as if to answer. Rufio's heart quickened. The wind raked through the grasses now, laying them flat in places, tearing at her skirt, and tugging through her hair. The hair on her arms prickled, and at the nape of her neck.

Her heart quickened.

"Hayh-hayh!" An urgency stole into her call for the boy now. He didn't hear.

Suddenly—lightning tore across the sky, flashing in the din, and Zulrav boomed.

Rufio was startled, her heart leapt to her throat, her dark gaze flickered to the sky, where a tear had been ripped through the blackening clouds, jagged and hurting.

Her heart hammered.
Pa-tah-pa-tah-pa-tah-pa-tah.

Rufio felt fear sink its greedy tendrils into her—it's the lightning. Her lips trembled as she glared fearfully at the swirling, roiling sky above. Her body trembled, her arms, her hands.

Lightning seared across the heavens again.
Rufio felt panic nudge into the edges of her fear.

It's coming, it's coming. The dark.

When her eyes fell from the sky to the boy—she cried out in alarm. There was a shape in the grasses, a roiling black-fog beast.

A wolf stalked the boy.

Rufio yelled a warning, the words ripped from her lips by a sudden, harsh gust of wind. The half-Drykas felt panic surge into her limbs, and she launched into a sprint towards the boy.

Her heart hammered. It hurt.

The black, fog-wolf bunched up itself, and she could hear its rumbling growl in her ears, strangely close. "No, no, no!" She screamed.

Thunder roared.

The wolf launched at its prey
—and the grasses shifted suddenly.
As if a trickster tugging on a table-cloth under her feet.
She was the boy.

Black fur, yellow fangs dripping with saliva, brown claws, wild amber eyes.

Rufio threw up her arms and screamed.

"Rufio—"
A feminine voice whispered in her ear
—and she woke.

❇ ❇ ❇

　

[Rufio]

8th, before dawn

"Rufio! Rufio! Wake!"

This voice was not a woman's, it was deep with a growl, commanding; a man's. Tal'ck, the Wildmane Ankal, was shaking her awake.

The half-Drykas opened her eyes and stared up into Tal'ck's, which were intense, and full of concern.

"Rufio..."
He spoke, uncertain of her wild-eyed stare.
"you were dreaming."

The half-Drykas felt her chest rising and falling fast, felt the soft fur of her blanket half-strewn off of her, felt Tal'ck sturdy, hot palm clasped around her upper-arm. The rain was patter-pattering lightly against her tent.

She took a breath—and her heart-beat slowed.
"I'm alright." She breathed.

The Ankal glared at her, his concern was so intense. His dark hair was pulled back into a tight braid which hung over his shoulder. Under his eyes dark-circles made tracks in his skin, his beard unkempt around his mouth, which held lingering sadness.

"I'm alright." Night-terror. She repeated. The Ankal released his grip on her arm, and sat back on his heels, his face softening a little as he regarded his cousin. "You were screaming." He stated simply. Rufio was taken-aback, and felt the fear of her dream lick at her thoughts. "I am." Insisting, promise, truth.

Tal'ck nodded once, and took a breath, the tenseness from his bare shoulders ebbing, so when he spoke next he was softer, gentler. "Tell me."

Rufio hesitated, feeling words stuck in her throat. She shrugged a shoulder—"I don't remember."
Tal'ck's dark, prominent brow lowered.
Rufio hastily scrambled to add truth to the lie, to make it believable—"There was lightning."
The Ankal groaned knowingly, the warmth of caring permeating his intense gaze. Accepted. Fear—still?
Rufio, unabashed, half-shrugged and nodded.

Yes, she was still reliving the trauma of a man dying in her arms, his eyes wild, his flesh charred by lightning, his mind seered.

"Rufio, you know I am always here to talk to, I am your Ankal."
She nodded, and shrugged, with a smile.
"It will go someday. I know—"
need not fear, lightning no danger.
Tal'ck smiled back at her and huffed out a short breath. Silently relieved that one of his flock was in no real danger.

"It is late. Do you want to sleep with the rest of us?"
Strength together, comfort.
Rufio laughed quietly, sheepishly, and shook her head.
No, no—her signed waved.
Tal'ck laughed, too, quirking a brow, and returned—stubborn.

He lingered a chime, until Rufio waved him off and he left her, returning to his own bed again across the camp in the pavilion tent. Rufio watched his back, admiring the toned muscles in his shoulders, in his spirit—wondering if she might ever be as strong.

When her heart had calmed, she looked down at her left hand and un-clenched her fist—

—in it was the wolf fang from the casting bones.

　
　
　

[Jasmine Stormblood]

Let me know if i missed anything!

 

Rufio

XP

• Socialization: 5 XP
• Observatino: 5 XP
• Fortune Telling: 3 XP
• Weaving: 2 XP
• Rhetoric: 1 XP
• Logic: 1 XP

Lores

• Wood is rare in the Sea of Grass
• Weaving: do not pull hard enough to break the thread
• Weaving: requires much practice
• Weaving: pinch wool between thumb and finger
• Weaving: the piece that you begin with is the leader
• Fortune Telling: casting bones
• Caihya: the first witch