A forgotten kinship (Brig)

[Kelpie]

Date TBA by Brig The air was still frigid. Winter was like that here. With being so high up from the ground, elevated as if on clouds, Lhavitians as a whole grew to live with expanded lungs and the sheer lack of oxygen so apparent here. They were comforted in the air, where the traces of their Lady’s stars were painted on the black veil hanging above their heads and the mist that was so wholesome and welcoming caressed the streets and the crystalline homes. All Things Wild had been going well for both Haeli and Brig. They worked hard, accomplished many things between them resulting in an establishment that was looking better and better by the day. They were a unit; a team that knew what worked well for each other and what did not, but the truth of the matter was that they were young, as was their bond. Life for Brig in a city so populated would be hard at first but change must happen should they wish to live happily amidst so many people. A change that, if allowed to happen, could even bring strength to their bond. Today was a relatively calm day for Brig. He did the usual, helping Haeli around the store, cleaned, tinkered then relaxed with his bondmate for a time. It was only when he found he was lacking in supplies for tinkering did he decide he would go out into the Surya Plaza to visit the usual merchants who now seemed to know him by face. Except as he walked through the bustling streets of Lhavit toward the plaza ahead, the crowd seemed to immediately part. There was a familiar scent on the breeze that Brig could pick up. Familiar in that it was the scent of another he had met during the festivities not too long ago. A mop of pure white hair framed a stern face and azure eyes that bore into the raccoon kelvic’s skin. He was walking toward him swiftly, with a grace that was beyond the normal citizens of the floating city. He might have been on his way past Brig did a strong hand not shoot out abruptly and grasp his arm. “Follow me, I have much to teach a child like you.” He whispered. It had not been fifteen seconds before Sayim had released Brig and walked on, with the eyes of the crowd following his every movement. He seemed to be walking toward the gates, where the Misty Peaks bordered the surrounding wilderness.

[Brig]

Day 51 in Winter, 510 AV Life in the mountaintop city was a world away from the one Brig had known far below in the wild lands. It wasn’t only geography that both fascinated and confused him. Before he’d followed Haeli up to the high peaks, he could could count the number of humans he’d really talked to on one hand. And living in isolation like he had, he hadn’t come close to that many more. Here, they seemed to move at once in predictable patterns at predictable times of the day and night. Unlike his wilder cousins, they seemed to have more regular schedules to keep. They looked at their candles and clocks more. And sometimes, Brig had observed, they didn’t seem to like having their schedules upset. Their rituals fascinated him, and either in his coon or human form, he spent an awful lot of time just watching them whenever he was out. Not that he didn’t have rituals of his own. There were his nightly rounds prowling All Things Wild. The regular dates he kept with the neighborhood tomcat that he’d sparked a rivalry with early on. His rituals made sense. And Haeli. Haeli made the most sense of all. Their bond was only getting stronger with every day that passed. And it probably didn’t surprise her when after they’d been laying side by side for a while on the floor, watching cottony clouds skirting over their glass ceiling in whimsical shapes, he’d sat up with a sudden grin, and told her there were things he needed off in the city. Nails. He needed more nails. But he also wanted to find some glass marbles and strips of thin copper, he told her. And he'd only grinned again mysteriously and kissed her if she wondered why such an unlikely combination. It was a surprise, his eyes spoke to her in volumes. For her, but not till it was ready. So off he’d gone with his new green cloak thrown over his shoulders. He’d even grown more accustomed to wearing boots on his feet, at least his human ones. If only when he was out and about in the city. She’d know that right back could mean minutes or marks, he could be both fixated on whatever he was about to the point of obsession. And compulsively curious at the same time if something unusual caught his interest. But he was never gone long, and never far away. Their bond and his heart always brought him back. He hadn’t yet found his marbles or copper sheets when the crowd to the side of him opened wide. He could sense the familiar kelvic before he saw him. The faint breeze carried a particular scent to him, keen eyes caught glimpses of white hair and Brig frowned a little, carefully eyeing the approaching male. He recognized the way that one moved. The first and last time Brig had seen him, Sayim had been prowling and posturing. And being younger and less experienced, Brig, wisely he felt, had given way even if the hair had risen along his spine in response. Or would have, had he been in his coon form. This time he stayed put where he’d been standing next to a peddler’s stall. He tensed some at the look in the kelvic’s eyes, but he was careful to keep any challenge out of his own. Brig could hold his own, and had against creatures much larger and meaner than him. But he didn’t have to see that one in action, to know he’d hold his better. He did bare his teeth huff a warning though when he was grabbed by the arm. Impulsive, instinctive, and then the other one was gone. Just like that, leaving Brig to puzzle out what he’d said. Not for long, curiosity got the better of him and Brig turned on his heel to follow Sayim through the opening he'd left in the crowd. And when he got close enough, a stride behind, he couldn’t help but let wondering get the better of him. ”Where are we going? What will you teach me?” he asked.

[Kelpie]

Sayim hadn’t spoken to Brig for quite some time. In fact, despite his call to follow him the older Kelvic felt no need to respond, as if he had completely forgotten Brig was there. No matter, however, for as soon as they had passed through the gates of Lhavit and stood along the winding ridge leading down into the valleys of the Misty Peaks, Sayim paused. “We are going out there,” He said bluntly, a finger pointed toward the tall rocky peaks that sprouted throughout the entire landscape. Clouds of mist mingled along the natural obelisks, and the greenery tinged with life. Those who have lived beyond the Valterrian would be awestruck by the beauty that was created from the destructive power of a heartbroken god. It catered to life, and held mysteries that have yet to be discovered. But one secret had disturbed the Okomo kelvic far more than it should. He turned to look at Brig, his gaze hard, his accent, thick. “You will be slow and cumbersome. I will change to accommodate you. You may change into your animal self to cling to me as you wish. I will be going fast. And make sure not to fall off and plummet to your death, it‘d be wasteful.” The single white robe Sayim had been garbed in slipped off, exposing his fine, fair skin, and muscular physique. Yet not seconds after the garment pooled around his feet the pinpoint lights of Kelvic transformation consumed the male figure, and from it emerged the form of a large, pure white Okomo. Crystaline horns curved back magnificently as Sayim reared his head, motioning for Brig to grasp onto whatever he could to stay on. And he waited, as well, in case Brig decided to change into his racoon form to find better leverage on the horse-sized animal. A chime later, Sayim bounded off down the path with incredible speed. Jumping from ledge to ledge nearly effortlessly. Hard crystalline hooves cracked rock and compact ground, yet his legs remained durable. The ground was reached in less than seven chimes, and once upon the horizontal plane, Sayim waited for the raccoon to dismount before he emerged from the cloud of lights into his man form once more. He did not waste time, immediately moving through the thick brush with such ease that suggested the kelvic had been through here more than once. “You’re young,” He said matter-of-factly, as they walked past skittering critters and a myriad of flora, “I can tell it hasn’t been long since you’ve bonded. You’re loyal, too, and not stupid loyalty. I mean the type that holds you to your bondmate, where stupidity does not cloud your mind. You would do anything for her?” He stopped to look at Brig, then continued five seconds after, “A bond is not just serving your mistress. You help develop their growth through your own. They are you and you are them. Can you feel it when you’re with her?”

[Brig]

Brig’s curiosity was a willful thing. And for a kelvic as young as him, his patience in reverse hadn't developed as fully as it could. It wasn’t easy, trailing the silent Sayim and stopping himself from treating the other kelvic to a barrage of questions. Where were they going? Why? What was it the other one would teach him? But Sayim was older, more experienced…probably much wiser than him and Brig knew better than to question him any more till he was good and ready. Out there. He stopped, just a step behind Sayim and looked out at the craggy peaks and steep green slopes covered in curtains of mist. Sniffed the air and pricks of anticipation tingled over his flesh from brow to toes. It called to him in ways no other creature could understand. The bluffs and piney treetops, the cold streams and deep ravines. He was two parts of the same, to the same measure. The wilds, and Haeli. Surely it was Caiyha then who’d had a hand in putting him and his beloved mistress together. Her heart was as wild as his in many ways. And they fit together, just so. No matter that they were both trying to sort out just how they’d fit with others who weren’t as wild at heart as them. He sniffed the air in anticipation and Sayim was right, Brig decided. His human form wasn’t as suited to where they were going as would be, was he to shift. Falling clumsily to his death had no appeal at all and if he was to ride atop the Okomo kelvic? He’d never ridden any other animal before and the terrain they were headed for wasn’t the best place to learn. No, shifting would be better, he decided as he shed his clothing and shifted with barely a thought, a brief vortex of light leaving behind the raccoon instead of the seeming human. Getting up top of the Okomo wasn’t hard. He used the other kelvic's wooly back haunches to climb, much as he’d climb anything else. And found himself a good spot in the middle of the Okomo’s wide sturdy back. A startled rattle erupted from deep in his throat as they bounded off. And he clung and gripped with every conceivable part of him that could, up impossible slopes and bounding from one treacherous ledge to another. There was no fear of it though, not really. Only gratitude that nature had equipped him with back feet as useful for clinging as front ones. And when they stopped, he barely had time to scamper down and transform himself back to his human…being, before trailing Sayim once again. ”I’m young,” he agreed as they travelled along. ”I’ve been bonded since just before winter. And never before I found Haeli. I was meant to bond with her,” he said, without a doubt in his mind or heart. ”I belong to her,” he added. Of course he was loyal and do anything? ”Anything.” ”I feel it when I’m with her, and it brings me back when I’m not,” he tried, attempting to explain what he felt. But he agreed. ”I’m Haeli, and she’s me. I didn’t know it though, that I was looking for her. What was missing. But it was supposed to be her.” On that point, Brig was clear and believed it, felt it with every part of him. He’d been pulled from the valleys to the peaks, closer to Haeli by an instinct he couldn’t have begun to understand. ”I would do anything for her, and be anything she needed. How do I?” he wondered with a curious tilt of his head. Develop their growth through his own. Was he doing something wrong? If he wasn’t, then why would the other one say it? ”Am I doing something wrong? Something that’s not good for her?” he asked.

[Kelpie]

“Most of our kind feel this way when we bond to someone for the first time,” Sayim said as they walked on through crowded brush and staggering pillars of rock, “But that feeling often does not last as long as we like. Things change, raccoon, people change. Humans. They always change. So it‘s never something as simple as you did something wrong.” His words carried on the wind as it swept past them in sudden drifts. The entire time, the older kelvic kept his sharp eyes on their trail, pushing small branches aside and stepping over uprooted logs. “We can go an entire lifetime feeling completely devoted to our masters, this is instilled in us. We know it, we feel it, it’s all we have that keeps us sane. But humans…. Humans are as fickle as the weather. They can love you for a day then hate you the other. You believe you belong to Haeli but what if Haeli does not return the affection a year from now? A month from now? You can never know.” Sayim paused, holding a hand out to prevent the younger kelvic from stepping any further. He lifted his nose to the air and inhaled deeply. Something prickled beneath his skin, and his expression quickly melted into indignation. “Come.” He growled. Movements quickened, and Sayim was soon leading Brig down a steep incline and into a heavily forested path below. In a small clearing where foliage hung low and swayed lightly in the breeze, a body lay. It may have appeared as if the creature was asleep had the blood that coated it not betray the scene of a vicious crime. Where once there would have been magnificent crystalline horns curling on the head of the animal there was now only broken stumps. All of the tough legs of the creature had been twisted in some macabre fashion, and most of its coat had been raked clean, leaving bloody patches and deep jagged incisions revealing a missing portion of the ribcage and the spine. The creature seemed morbidly skinny, as if it had been starved. Sayim’s jaw was clenched as he approached, slowly, as if all time had stopped after falling witness to yet another brethren‘s demise. Strong, fair hands lifted the remains of the head of the dead okomo, and his eyes belied the fury that arose in him upon setting eyes on the two deep craters in the jugular. “For several weeks now my kin have been subsequently murdered,” The kelvic okomo growled under his breath, “They have been tortured and drained of their blood, their horns and sometimes their bones stolen. The killer is still out here. Feeding on us, stealing our remains for whatever petching forsaken experiments they conduct with it. And yet again, another of my brothers has fallen. He did not deserve this…” No tears escaped him, but Sayim was not beyond mourning. He pressed his face against the okomo’s cheek and stroked his neck. “I will avenge you, all of you.” Near the left portion of the clearing, a trail of blood was splattered across several ferns and trunks of the trees. The flora here seemed flattened, as if something had quickly fled, disregarding the inevitable trail it had left behind.

[Brig]

Brig’s human feet, bare at that, weren’t nearly as good for walking over uneven and broken ground as his coon ones were. In comparison to ordinary humans, his soles were nearly as tough as leather for his refusal, when he could, to wear boots or even sandals. But still, he had to pick his way more carefully when ordinarily he’d have scampered, balanced and climbed with an uncanny grace. But all the while his observations were the same and not diminished as humans’ were. Sight, the faintest sounds or scents carried on the breeze. All the observations that kept a creature like him alive, was he in a city or the wilds. Sayim knew more about humans than Brig did. He knew their ways better, maybe he understood their strange quirks and habits that still struck Brig as nonsensical. But he didn’t know Haeli. ”Haeli’s not like other humans,” he huffed out. ”She’s not…fickle,” he added then, as good as tasting the unfamiliar word. Still, he frowned while he considered what Sayim had said. He worried sometimes that he would disappoint or embarrass her. That she’d come to think she didn’t want or need him. She was his, and he was hers. They were a part of each other like no other creatures could be. Unlike other humans and other kelvics too, he thought. ”Does your mistress love you?” he wondered aloud, but then considered. ”I can feel it. Haeli loves me, but she doesn’t have to. If she didn’t, it wouldn’t change my bond. She could even send me away and I would go if she needed me to, but I would still belong to her. And I would still do or be what is best for her.” But when Sayim paused, so did Brig and his wilder form and his senses came alive even while standing on two feet. If he’d been in furred form, it would have risen along his back, and his teeth bared themselves, nonetheless. He huffed deep in his throat and followed cautiously, sniffing the air, peering into the undergrowth, listening. A rattle rose up when he spied the okomo’s body and he tensed all the more, cautiously following Sayim once he’d decided that whatever the threat was, was no longer lurking nearby. He crouched down, a little behind and he could feel the other kelvic’s grief, for one of his own cousins. Brig left it be then, and remained quiet for a long moment. He’d found his own, after all, hunted and trapped, even worn on the backs of others as coats or cloaks. And he’d wanted to avenge them too. ”One of the spider people?” he wondered, after a long moment, having spotted the gouges on the creature’s throat. He’d only met one of them, and hadn’t liked him at all. And he only knew vague things about them, only that they stole human women and devoured the insides of other creatures. Eventually Brig stood up and sniffed the air again, raised his lips and bared his teeth in response to the smell of fresh blood, and peered off around them. And then his eyes narrowed when he spotted displaced grasses and smears of blood. He padded away from Sayim quietly, dropped down to trail his finger across one of the splatters to see if it was still wet. ”That way,” he finally said to the other kelvic. ”It went that way, maybe not very long ago. Maybe we even scared it away with our voices.”

[Kelpie]

It didn’t take long for Sayim to compose himself after the brief respite. A final touch trailed itself along the cheek of the fallen beast, and the kelvic stood, his hands clenched into fists. He stood poised before the corpse, as if he was awaiting something, but it was clear he was simply churning over the incessant questions and thoughts in his head. “No matter if my mistress loved or hated me, I would serve her until the end of my days.” He finally said, keenly aware of Brig’s wholesome love for Haeli and his respect for space for the grieving kelvic. Sayim was resolute in his decisions and his words, and when he glanced at Brig he gave a curt nod at his mention of the culprit of this unspeakable crime. There would be justice, and there would be blood; it was only the inevitable when a monster was loose in the vicinity of the Star Haven. “The spiderlings are not stupid enough to dare murder an Okomo, but if it turns out to be one, I will be glad to tear their limbs apart and make them swallow it.” The words escaped him with venom that seemed to drip from his lips. He moved swiftly passed Brig, following the blatant trail of flattened leaves and blood splatters. “All the more reason to pursue a coward.” He growled. He ran, leaving Brig to catch up as quickly as he could. The agility pumped through his system, sending him leaping over fallen logs and ducking beneath exposed branches, and soon the leaves concealed the fair skin and flash of white hair, leaving Brig only the light trail of freshly flattened plants to follow. Several chimes passed by like this, and soon the wilderness became deathly silent. It almost felt as if the inevitable eyes of a predator lingered on the raccoon kelvic, urging him onward. A roar soon echoed through the woods. If Brig ran any further and across the bend of a copse of trees, another clearing was revealed, and within it were two creatures as black as the night with a physique that resembled a slim crouched human but with the head and features of a fearsome feline. Their eyes were as white as opal, and their fangs dripped blood. A massive okomo, no doubt Sayim, fended one off with vicious sweeps of his crystalline horns, stomping his hard hooves to drive them off. The other, however, was soon creeping up to flank the older kelvic, and without Brig’s quick thinking, he would surely succumb to an attack.

[Brig]

There was no reason for disagreement then, between the two kelvics, in how they viewed their bonds with their mistresses. Though Brig couldn’t fathom that his Haeli was capable of hating anyone, either kelvic or human. It was a human oddity, he thought, or maybe other creatures too that were closer to humans than those like him or Sayim. Animals didn’t hate, they didn’t get in conflict with others just for its own sake. Those things seemed counterproductive to sense and survival. Humans thought too much, maybe, Brig suspected. Haeli was human, but she was different. Raised without those things that made the others seem so nonsensical to him. But there was a threat out here, something that was a danger to other Okomos, and to others as well until it was stopped. Beyond the poor, dead creature, he could smell it, could sense it in the air like pricks along his spine. But then Sayim was off and shifted, leaving him standing there. On two feet he wouldn’t be able to keep up, so Brig shifted there in an instant and took off, what the okomo leaped over before him, the raccoon kelvic dashed under instead, deftly scampered along fallen logs like balance beams, or even ducked his way through pitfalls and crevices. Still he wasn’t as fast as Sayim, but he could hear him ahead, and caught flashes of white through the foliage with his own keen eyes. All the while, he could sense something watching, stalking, but he kept going, using his senses to catch out the dangers at every turn. Even when the other kelvic couldn’t be seen anymore, there was a trail to follow, and something he didn’t quite understand kept him moving forward. It was quiet though, and it meant that the other creatures of the forest too were well aware of what lurked here, and didn’t care for it a bit. That roar, whatever had made it, meant they had the right idea. The things in the clearing looked and smelled like nothing Brig had ever come across before, not in all his life in the wilds. It raised the coarse hairs along his spine, his tail grew to thrice its ordinary thickness and even though he was quiet there in the underbrush at the clearing’s edge, he bared his sharp teeth, bunched up from front to back and a rattle threatened to rise up from his chest. Ordinarily he’d have made quick work of leaving, scampering off into the thick of the woods without risk of the things seeing him. But if he did, then Sayim wouldn’t last the fight…Or so Brig thought. So quietly he stalked round behind the creeping one, at its back while the other one was focused on avoiding Sayim’s horns. Of course Brig was much smaller than his prospective adversary. But he didn’t shift to his human form, it wouldn’t do him nearly as much good regardless of size. In either form, he was no match for such a creature, only distract it and make its life more difficult. A mere nuisance to act as a distraction for Sayim’s benefit. So silent till then, he leapt with uncanny speed from the underbrush from behind the creature, letting out a threatening snarl, and with razor sharp canines, lunged at the things hind tendons. Clamping down, tearing, intending to surprise the creature and inflict as much pain as possible to distract him from Sayim. Then let go, spin away and dash back to safe distance. Still challenging, rattling and growling, inviting the thing to turn on him, while keeping the surrounding underbrush close to his back. Places he could duck or slip into where the thing couldn't go...a hollow log would be nice for a game of cat and mouse, so to speak, for a handy escape from the creature’s designs.

oocmy apologies for the delay. Life's been a little crazy.

[Kelpie]

An ear-splitting roar escaped the throat of the monster, now sufficiently disturbed from it’s initial ambush on the okomo kelvic. It whipped it’s massive feline head around to face Brig, bearing it’s bloodied fangs and black tongue. Sayim was busy subduing his attacker, himself harboring deep cuts where the long black claws of the creature raked his flanks, but Brig was not fortunate enough to be neither big nor sporting antlers to keep the worst of the monster at bay. All he had were his wits and his agility, and it was time to put them to good use. The beast was on him in seconds, thundering through the brush and leaving splatters of black blood in his wake on dozens of leaves. It ran on all fours, chasing the raccoon who fled inside the hollow log he’d spotted not moments before, but it would prove futile. One swipe of it’s monstrous claws and the log was smashed into splintering pieces, and Brig was once again exposed to the fury of the black creature. He scrambled on his feet, darting between ferns and uprooted vines, with the thing right on his heel, flesh from it’s tendon flapping against it’s hind legs. He would find himself getting progressively exhausted as he sprinted as fast as he could manage, the looming threat of the abomination and it’s stench renewing in him a determination to keep ahead; to continue fleeing; to run for Haeli’s sake if not for himself. Five chimes would pass before the raccoon would stumble over a ledge and fall into a deep crevice in the earth, tumbling down, down, down until he landed in a pile of dry leaves. The stench of the monster had oddly vanished, and there were no traces of it left on the breeze, as if it had ceased chasing him some time ago, or perhaps even the notion of it not having chased him at all. Oddly enough, the crevice was too high and smooth for Brig to climb but what lay before him was an opening to a cave, nestled deep within the rocks that now served as a pit. A cold breeze emanated from the cavern, caressing the raccoon’s fur.

[Brig]

Brig had wanted to distract the creature, stop him from stalking the embattled Sayim. And he’d done it. Maybe a little too well. He was no match for that thing, not his size, his sharpened canines, his strength or his claws. He couldn’t challenge it directly, even to help Sayim. The only thing he could do, for himself, for the okomo was to run, and run some more. He back peddled a few paces, keeping himself bunched up and teeth bared, still challenging the thing to pursue him. Even if he didn’t doubt at all that it would. And then he spun, turned tail and ran through the brush as fast as all fours could carry him. First dashing into a hollow log, and then out the other end as it splintered into pieces behind him. He rolled on the run once, but kept running as he never had before. He hadn’t anticipated that the monster would drop and run on all fours, but he still had smaller size to his own advantage. Even panting in exhaustion as he continued to duck and weave through any obstacle he could find to leave between him, and it, he ran for Haeli mostly. But a part, ran for him too. Brig understood death all to well. It was a natural part of living. He’d just like to put off the dying part as long as was possible. But he was exhausted, and growing less graceful. Stumbling, not his usual sure footedness. And then the world fell away from beneath him. Even while he tumbled down, instinct had him grappling for anything to catch himself with. But it was too fast and too steep, no time to even think about what would become of him when he hit bottom. Thank the goddess for that pile of leaves, though. Raccoon’s had a natural ability to turn themselves over and land on their feet. But it wouldn’t have helped much if he’d landed on solid ground, dirt or rock. As it was, he landed with a oomph, and took some time to get his breath back. And when he did, he looked around him, looked up, sniffed the air and listened close…Nothing. Where had it gone? He tried in a few places to get back up the way he’d fallen, but every place he tried only sent him tumbling back down again. How far had he run, when he couldn’t see, hear or smell a thing of what he’d left behind him? He couldn’t go out the way he’d come in, he’d tried, and tried again already by the time he took a full accounting of the opening in the rocks. It was dark there, but he could easily fit through the gap. And if there was a breeze coming out between the rocks, didn’t it have to come from somewhere? Another way out? Curiosity was as much a part of Brig as was fishing in streams or climbing trees. It wasn’t just the necessity of getting out of the pit then, back to find Sayim. But wonder too. He crept closer, sniffing the air and moving slowly. Things sometimes lurked in crevices and caverns that might be as dangerous as what he’d left behind. And he kept it in mind, even while he peered into the darkness of the cave, looking into the dark, sniffing the air, listening. Trying to discover if he could sense anything, anything living before he went fully in.