Twinflame

Children of men always squirm pathetically when faced with their ends. Not once had Baoht Zuqqa Roh seen one greet death with dignity, and this man was no exception. Writhing and pounding, leaving bruises beneath his scales and beating at his muscular head, not once did the small man succeed in inflicting a pain which Baoht Zuqqa Roh could not ignore. Instead, the Amal'jaa's teeth pierced through the man's chest and body. he felt his teeth pierce past muscles and through tendon, and when ripped his maw free of the man, blood was everywhere. Triumphant, Baoht Zuqqa Roh opened his arms, grabbing the man with one to cast him away. To let him bleed out and die as meat for his sand drakes.

Feeling the satisfying crunch of bone, Baoht Zuqq Roh did not hear the satisfying howls of pain he had hoped for. "You writhe like a captured beetle!" Seeking those cries he desired to hear, Baoht Zuqq Roh curled his head down to bite into his prey's body. The flesh tasted rotten. Men were not worth eating.

The action Baoht Zuqqa Roh took next was so obvious a stone could have taken it. As the child of man pressed itself forward against him, Baoht Zuqqa Roh dropped his chest and pulled his arms inward, trying to crush the man.

The pain told him both where his quarry was and what his quarry was doing. It was useful for that. Baoht Zuqqa Roh would think about the injury later. He turned fast, to pull his wound away from his quarry and try to take the arrow as well, lifting his large arms over the man. "You bite like a fly!" He slammed his arms down in an attempt to catch his prey. "Let me show you how a scorpion stings!"

The man was small. Baoht Zuqqa Roh had felt what seemed like a firm enough hit to send the man skittering across the water like a thrown stone, but did not see a flailing body beset by hungry drakes. He turned, seeking with his claws, the water frothing about him and turning brown with stirred-up silt.

The weapon was like a needle. Baoht Zuqqa Roh half-suspected it would snap between his scales if he was successfully stabbed with it. When the child of man ran to the side, Baoht Zuqqa Roh swung his arm in that direction, his one limb almost as large as his target was, all but ignoring the weapon leveled against him. As a result, he did take a hit, the weapon knocking against his hard scales, trying to push through to the soft meat beneath. All it succeeds at doing, however, is ripping out a line of scales which, while painful, only sharpens Baoht Zuqqa Roh's strength.

When one of his drakes went limp in the water, blood pouring out of its mouth and choking it, Baoht Zuqqa Roh roared. This was not communication; it was fury. Each of those drakes had taken a decade to train. He had named them after the progenitors of his brood. They were living relics, sacred, and the blessing of Lord Ifrit burned in their eyes. When Baoht Zuqqa Roh shouted again, the sand drakes recoiled, putting distance between themselves and the man. No more of them would be sacrificed on this hunt. Shan'Gai Chah did not deserve it. "Your bite is small, but stings, child of man!" Baoht Zuqqa Roh three down his bow and spread his claws, showed his teeth, his great tail swinging behind him. He waited for the metal bolt that his prey was using as a spear, but to the Amal'jaa was still just an arrow. He would catch it and claw the man to shreds.

Baoht Zuqqa Roh spun on the child-like female with a snarl, frustrated that he did not understand how she was still living and angered that she was helping the man. Had she used the shaft herself, he would have been impressed. But to give it to her protector? "Cowardly daughter of a weak species!" He raised his bow, angling another of the long shafts for her. K'aijeen's eyes widened, and she snapped back half a pace. She waited for anger to come, the stubborn fury to rise up inside of her and bring the power with it. But it didn't. No anger came. No power found her. The other will was silent, or absent. She didn't realize that she would miss it. She didn't know how to protect herself. She lifted her arms crossed them in front of her, wincing away. "Don't." The Amal'jaa released his bolt, and it impaled both of her arms before slamming into her skull.

Baoht Zuqqa Roh chuckled. it sounded more like a roiling, rumbling growl, and in making the sound he also dispersed the wind that wrapped him. His scent and the sound of his amused breath now rolled over the water. He raised his voice, "Your struggles are entertaining, child of man!" He'd never seen a soft-fleshed man try to wrestle his drakes bare-handed before. Baoht Zuqqa Roh raised a guttural howl, and two of the drakes fell back in response. A third, however, merely paused, and then continued, forcing the man to deal with two drakes. Baoht Zuqq Roh was curious to see what his quarry would do. * K'aijeen lay in shock, staring at the sky for a few seconds, before she lifted her hand to look at the shattered remnants of the stick she had been conjuring with. She exhaled a frustrated gargling sound, but decided quickly that they must be another stick nearby. It was just a stick, after all. She cast aside the stick and fixed both hands on the dark metal shaft sticking out of her belly. She strained her meager arms against it and gradually withdrew it, first from the dirt, then from her body. It disturbed her that it bore no fluid from her innards, making her worry that her body's internal functions were shutting down. But she didn't concentrate on that. She rose to her feet and looked towards Thal, choking at the sight. At first it looked like he was being torn apart by the monsters, and when she noticed he was still alive, all she could think was that he mere moments for being destroyed. Shaking herself, she shouted in a violent croak, "Dad!" and through the sharp, two-meter long metal shaft into the fray.

K'aijeen's ears laid down flat on her head, and her face scrunched up stubbornly. "No!" She held the small branch out in front of her and moved it in slow, circular motions, concentrating even if she still appeared fearful. Green light and wind began to move about her hands, but just as the energy began to form, it was disturbed by the passage of a dark metal shaft. The projectile shattered the stick in her hands and pierced through her center, just below her ribs, knocking her off her feet and pinning her to the ground as though a great nail. Baoht Zuqqa Rogh rose from the water, setting another two-meter shaft in his giant bow. He roared, and the drakes responded, spreading out to form a circle around Thalen. The Scorpion shouted again, and they came at him from all sides.

K'aijeen ran, but not very far. She sloshed through the knee-deep water until she'd reached the shallows on the other side and there turned to watch Thal. She had hoped he would follow her but was not surprised when he did not. A dead branch with curling leaves hung from a loop of red thread on her side, and she took it in her hand, untangling it quickly. Her hands moved quickly and carefully despite the fear that was pulling strange, choking sounds out of her shredded throat. She tried to think of Thal's questionable mortality as a boon, but she couldn't manage to lie to herself like that. He was still just a body, after all. * Baoht Zuqqa Roh crouched in a muddy pool, his shining scales making him appear as a great stone. He held his bow and its arrow low beside him, just above the water, and the hot wind that wrapped him stirred up the surface with considerable ripples. He watched the first drake dealing with the thrown stones as the two others surpassed it to rush the man. This was the prey given him by Shan'Gai Chah? Baoht Zuqqa Roh should have sent two arrows back with the tracker. Perhaps his drakes had misread the scent. That happened sometimes. He would ensure his target after this one and his companion were dead. The fourth drake passed Baoht Zuqqa Roh to one side as he lifted his bow and directed it towards the sick-looking child that had fled.

The green-haired girl, who had been called K'aijeen, drew back only slightly at first. She had memories of hunting sand drakes. Setting a trap. Harvesting one for its spine. She hadn't made the choice to do those things. She wouldn't have. It hadn't been right. But she remembered the feeling of bones and meat giving way under her small hands and improvised tools. She remembered touching the electricity of the dismembered nervous system. Hiding almost more from the unwanted memories than from the drake itself, K'aijeen backpedaled and spun, putting herself behind Thal and pushing herself flat against his back, her hands up on his shoulders. She looked around him as the drake came down the stones and headed for the water, shouting the whole way. Two more appeared atop the great stones near the water, following it, roaring in kind. Bestial roars still came from further south. The Ourobon heard them coming and began to flee clumsily, its unwieldy body moving with difficulty. But the drake did not chase it. It gave the fish no attention at all. The drake, pulling itself along on its belly but its head still as high as K'aijeen's shoulders, pulled itself into the water and continued straight towards herself and Thal. Its eyes burned with light. Its mouth opened to display teeth and tongue and oozing, petulant drool. K'aijeen grated out a high-pitched sound of fear when suddenly there was nothing but air and water and silt between Thal and the lizard.

((This thread takes place after What Can Be Found if you Trust the Gods)) Will had poured out of the Bowl of Embers just like sparks from an overturned brazier. Baoht Zuqqa Roh, therefore, walked the sands. The sun did not burn as hot this far north, and his scales cooled. He clawed at his forearms in distaste, grinding his jaw and letting his pointed teeth click. The sun drakes noticed that their master had paused and turned, eight eyes glowing from faces the color of dust, to await his instruction. Their passive submission annoyed him -- they did not actively fear him -- and he exhaled a growl that burned the air like the breath of a molten fissure. The sun drakes turned more fully towards him, and their heads dipped, and their maws closed. Baoht Zuqqa Roh dropped down into a crouch and grunted instruction in a furious tone, gesturing, and the beasts followed his motions, obedient, quivering. When Baoht Zuqqa Roh stood, two of the drakes departed, moving fast in two different directions. The others remained, eager for instruction, growing more submissive each instant he withheld it. "Roh!" A grating voice shook through the stones. Baoht Zuqqa Roh turned to look behind him, the air roiling around him, and glared at the other Amal'jaa coming past the rocks behind him. A tracker, carrying a spear in one hand and a staff of calling in the other. This new Amal'jaa's scales did not glint as brightly, as though he were adorned in shale, or the tempering had left him ashen. The tracker raised his blunted claws. "Roh, word for Zan'rak!" Baoht Zuqqa Roh shook. A twitch flowed outward from his spine, hot through his shoulders and arms and belly, and he belched volcanic breath. "Am I called for?" The wood of his bow thrummed as it shook in his hand. "Shan'Gai Chah sends these words: You are to-" "His words? Now? Send Shan'Gai Chah a message for me!" Baoht Zuqqa Roh lifted his bow and knocked a two-meter metal shaft into it, lifting it and letting it go without giving the tracker a chance to flinch. It was not a glancing shot; the arrow stuck in the Amal'jaa's chest and punctured one of its lungs, the dusty bundle of unpolished scales dropping on its side in the dirt. Bahot Zuqqa Roh shook his bow at the tracker. "Drag yourself back to Shan'Gai Chah and deliver that before you expire, or die a failure!" It was a fitting gesture. Baoht Zuqqa Roh would not deserve his title as the Scorpion's Tale if he did not occasionally sting. The sound of a sun drake's call tore Baoht Zuqqa Roh's attention from his victim, drawing his gaze towards a rocky outcropping north of him. The beast was small and distant, but his sharp eyes could see its gaze directed still further northward. The sun drake shouted again, and Baoht Zuqqa Roh tossed his head back to let a very similar shout out himself. The two drakes at his feet responded, roaring at the sky, and moments later the fourth -- which had one southward -- called out as well. Turning his bow in his hands, Baoht Zuqqa Roh growled and grunted at the drakes before him, and they ran to join the northmost of them. Baoht Zuqqa Roh took another metal shaft and set in against the string of his massive bow, and his teeth clicked. "Not even Shan'Gai Chah has the right to interrupt a hunt he himself requested. Especially once the hunter has the scent of their prey." As he took his first stop forward, he exhaled a hot breath, and it stirred a wind that wrapped around him soundlessly. His scent was trapped by it, concealed from the nose of his quarry. His footsteps made no sound. He lowered himself and crept at a running pace northward, his drakes running ahead of him. * The green-haired girl pointed out the Ourobon. She smacked Thal on the arm to get his attention. "I found one. There!" She pointed more emphatically. Her clothes by this point had degenerated into little more than red threads that wrapped her shoulders, torso and hips, as though simply decoration for her burned away chest and the burnt hole through her back. The cloth tied around her neck did not perfectly conceal the wound sliced in her neck. The thin, dark corpse bounced in the knee-deep water and pointed at the Ourobon as though it was very hungry. Really, she was just doing her best to help Thal hunt. When she turned to look back at the Ourobon in the shallows, her gaze lifted to the sand-drake on the rocks, several hundred meters south of them and staring right at her. Her ears pitched back, and she looked vaguely troubled, though she knew that sand drakes rarely attacked full-grown Miqo'te in the wild. Then it roared, shouting at the sky above it like a wolf calling to its pack. And it was answered by others, an echoing series of calls throughout the southward rocks.

"I don't know if fight's the right word for it." K'ile trotted away from where he'd placed the meat, taking a glance over his shoulder at the other vessels being put near it. There had to be more than enough to fill the stomach of everyone in the tribe. Tahj and Luha stole his attention more greedily than the food, however. It was right, seeing them together. And Tahj with firelight on her face, not running off into the shadows. He gave them a smile. "I'm going to retire the old man as gently as he'll let me. No reason to be mean about it."

"The huntresses are already back. We took too long." K'ile spat this like an accusation at K'li, even though the delay was probably more credit to the Yohko and Luha pulling at his attention. But would K'ile blame himself for letting himself get distracted by them? Not with K'lie around and so convenient to complain at. K'ile tossed the lids on the clay vessels full of cooked meat, then threw a lid at K'li. "You get the salted meat. Come on, K'li Tia." K'ile hefted one of the vessel's in each arm, lifting them high on his shoulders and turning to exit the tent. As he stepped out, the red light of the bonfire caught in his blue eyes. He stopped as he caught the scent of fresh kills, fresh fire, and huntresses whose bodies were full of fire and adrenaline. If tradition held, more than one huntresses would be hungry for the Nunh after a hunt, and moreso after a challenge. The joke was that to survive the challenge was easy. Surviving the rest of the night was another thing. The scent and the firelight reminded K'ile of nights years-past, watching the late K'thalen Nunh toy with lesser challengers before a raucous crowed of hundreds of Hipparion. He recalled feasts that lasted for two days straight, when two Nunh took two challenges on two evenings. He recalled great dances that had lit entire nights, five fire dancers moving in alternating circles for hours on end. K'ile didn't wait. The throbbing headache of his concussion still pulsed behind his ears, but he barely felt it as he trotted forward and shouted to the gathered huntresses. "Hey! Someone drag K'yohko out here! If he wants to call himself Nunh he's going to have to earn it tonight!" The red firelight flicked off K'ile's sweat as though he himself were aflame, the darker dirt of their new home sticking to him like smoke in the sky. Heads glanced up from him from the hunt's kills. These were the beasts that K'luha and he had spotted when they were scouting out this land for the tribe. It seemed so strange now, that what they had discussed then had actually happened. The entire tribe had come, and the bounty was just as great as they'd hoped it would be then. Maybe K'luha was right when they'd spoken earlier. Maybe now was the time to multiply and fill the tribe with kids. "There's more in the meat tent!" K'ile shouted, hefting the clay vessels in his arms. He didn't have to say more than that. A handful of huntresses stepped away from the fire and the carcasses to get the dozen other vessels that K'ile and K'li had filled with food. K'ile set the vessels off to the side of the fire, leaving a wide swath of space available close to the fire where he and K'yohko would fight. Once the meat was on the ground, he waved to the Elders to get their attention. He saw them adorned in the ritual garb of the challenge, something he hadn't seen in years. There was a different mood about them. K'deiki stood with a strength that she'd lacked even when he'd seen her an hour earlier last night. K'ile barely noticed this before he turned away and shouted out over the sound of the crackling fire. "K'luha! Hey, where are you?"

Sighing and letting his shoulders drop, K'ile groaned. "You didn't ruin it. Don't be so dramatic." He curled his hands under the urn and stood with it, holding all of the meat it contained. "Just finish up that last batch and help me move it all out to the bonfire. I want the feast ready before the hunt is over. There's going to be some very hungry huntresses."

K'ile ignored the pot that K'li said was salted for preservation, if only to save himself from having to smell all that salt. He crouched instead over one of the other urns, looking in and sniffing the meat to check it. Sure enough, there was a powerful scent of salt in this one as well. K'ile brushed at his face and looked over his shoulder. "You never really lived with an honest shortage of resources, have you, K'li? The kind of famine where you begin to wonder how long a person can go on nothing but two or three grains of salt."

K'ile's brow dropped, and he frowned at K'li's gesture with his tail. "Very clever, keeping your tail away from the fire. Nobody else has ever thought of that." The Tia paced into the tent to look over the meat. "Why would you use salt to season the meat? The salt is for preserving some of it, because we aren't going to eat it all tonight. That's why I told you to only salt some of it. Salting all of it is wasteful."

After leaving K'yohko and that very strange conversation behind, K'ile found his way back to the center of camp mostly by scent. His brow was furrowed and his eyes were on the ground in front of him as he walked, trying not to over-ponder the very strange but relatively unsurprising conversation he'd had with K'luha. The woman's desires made sense. She had been a mother for a very long time, after all. A new child would grow up without the turmoil of the Calamity. K'tahjha would be a positive influence, a close sister. K'yohko would stay away from K'ile's children. When the smell of cooking meat and salt became too much to think through, K'ile lifted his face and walked the last few meters toward the tent. He sniffed for the stink of charred meat or burning fur in case K'li had actually managed to set himself on fire. As K'ile pushed into the tent, he huffed, "Okay, that took longer than I thought. Hope you haven't been lazy in here."

It was good to have K'luha's eyes on him again. K'ile hadn't thought about that before. She'd been around, but she hadn't really looked at him like this since he'd left her on their way back from Gridania. Like the sun had been shining, but there had always been a shadow on him. "K'yohko doesn't know anything about kids." K'ile's statement was a quick snip into the silence that K'luha had left for him. The Tia watched K'luha's eyes and leaned close to her, speaking softly and trusting K'luha's ears to hear him. "But this child would be different, because they would have a /father/, not just a Nunh." "K'yohko knows how to make children." K'luha corrected lightly, a small smile curling onto her pale lips. Her tail flicked upwards cheerfully behind her. It wasn't a no. It sounded very much like a yes, actually. "But I can teach you that." The former huntress kept her gaze steadily onto K'ile's eyes, feeling warmer than she had in quite some time, despie the cold breeze of the night. K'ile leaned his head slightly back. His ears twitched. "All men know how to make children. There's nothing special about that." K'luha frowned faintly. What sort of response was that anyway? Her ears flicked downwards a bit, but she shifted forwards closer to K'ile. "Then show me that you can." Breaking his gaze from K'luha long enough to glance back in the direction of the cooking meat, K'ile said, "I'm preapring the feast for tonight." Then he looked back to K'luha, trying to catch her eyes again. "I'm going to do this right, and beat K'yohko. Tonight. Then I'm all yours." K'luha watched his gaze shift away back towards the feast, and clawed back the desire to throw K'ile on the ground. She pressed a hand back to her chest and clutched at her shirt. Her lips twitched, unable to decide if they should hold a scowl or a smile. Her mismatched eyes locked back onto K'ile's eyes as soon as he turned his head again. "Tonight?" K'luha muttered. "You're still hurt. And K'yohko is just recovered." She let out an aggravated click of her tongue, her eyes glancing in the direction of K'yohko's tent. "If you don't win, I'm taking you anyway." K'luha shifted her eyes back to K'ile with a narrowed gaze. "So don't get too hurt." At that, K'ile couldn't help a small, nervous chuckle. The way she made it a threat, it sounded like something he should be afraid of. And maybe he would be, if it were someone other than Luha. Someone he were afraid of hurting or being hurt by. But he wasn't afraid of that with Luha. Except maybe her hips. Still, her agression pushed against him. So he pressed back against it. "I don't plan on losing, so you just plan whatever you want." Then he lifted hs hands to her neck, holding her head still while he kissed her. K'luha smirked faintly. She couldn't help but think K'ile shouldn't be encouraging her. The woman relented and eased into his touch, into his kiss. Her ears and tail perked up visibly, pleased with the show of affection. Although it pained her to do so, she lightly pulled her head to the side, breaking the kiss after a moment. "Well if you're going to do that, I'll take you now..." she muttered quietly, glancing up to catch his eyes this time. K'ile pulled himself back at that, though K'luha's scent followed him, and he could smell the mood about them both. He felt like he should be smiling, but an intimidated frown forced its way onto his face. His ears stood up on his head, directed towards K'luha. "That wouldn't be... No, after is definitely better." K'luha scoffed lightly, following forward with a gentle glide of her body. Her tail shifting behind her, moving in a strangely sultry manner. "Then you'd better run, because I'm not a very patient woman right now. Tahj is with the other huntresses and my tent is empty." The woman raised her brow at K'ile, licking her lips and observing him like one might observe their prey. His eyes distracted by her tail, K'ile stepped back the way he had come. he couldn't smell the fires, meat, or even the salt over K'luha's enveloping scent. "You wouldn't want to tire me out before my fight." K'ile managed, weakly. K'luha chuckled deeply in her thoart, stepping forward again so she might reach out to gently grasp one of the straps K'ile so pitifully wore like a shirt. "Oh, but I would." "No you wouldn't. We need to do this right." K'ile backpedaled further, trying to win his way free of the woman's enveloping scent so he could make his escape. K'luha stepped forward after K'ile, her hips swaying widely with every step. She smirked just as wide as her hips swayed, sharpened teeth peering lightly back at K'ile's retreating form. "You're tempting me K'ile." "That's now what I think I'm doing." K'ile turned his eyes away. His ears twitched. "It's not what it sounds like I'm doing. I don't think." "K'ile~" K'luha called softly, slinking forward again. "You'd better run." Wait, did she want him to? Wouldn't that be rude? But she'd said... And he really did need to finish the... And the fight was going to... "Uhm. Okay." K'ile bolted. K'luha sighed lightly as he ran off, flicking her tail backwards. "Shit... I better not have fucked that up for myself..." she grumbled a bit and stepped back towards her tent. Once K'ile was a good ways away from K'luha, but not quite back to the fire yet, he slowed. Once he went back and started cooking, it was probably all he would be able to do for the rest of the night. Meanwhile, K'yohko had wanted to talk to him. Standing in the camp as new stars began to spread thorugh the sky above him, K'ile smirked. K'yohko thought he was going to mate with Luha that evening. He probably wanted to talk to K'ile to let him know that his woman would no longer be supporting the challenge. But things weren't going to go how K'yohko expected them to. K'ile turned his gaze around the tribe. Then he turned to start towards K'yohko's tent. He might as well let the Nunh make a fool of himself. It wouldn't take long. K'yohko stood heavily, holding the fabric of the makeshift door open to let K'zhumi out. He gave a small nod of his head to her as she left before once more retreating back into the dark cool emptiness of within. It was a small tent, large enough for three at most. The inside was mostly empty, almost sterile looking. Only a few things lay about its confines; K'yohko's weapons, a few different pieces of clothing that had been givne to him, and of course a large bedroll. He sat alone with his back to the entrance, closing his eyes once more in his usual deep meditation. K'ile could smell K'zhumi's passage, but it made sense to him. The Nunh would have to be at his strongest. Otherwise, K'ile's victory wouldn't mean anything. Having little concern for whatever K'yohko was doing inside, K'ile positioned himself directly in front of the man's tent. Hands on his sides, K'ile bent forward and shouted, "Hey K'yohko! You busy? Bet you're not!" His tail swished back and forth behind him. "You may come in, if that is what you are asking, K'ile Tia." K'yohko's voice called back strongly. It seemed to have returned to its ever deadened and monotone call, ringing through the quiet of the night like a courel's call. "That's not what I was asking." K'ile pushed his way into the man's drab tent regardless. "I was just saying that I suspected there were no women in the fruitless Nunh's tent." "You just missed K'zhumi, and the rest are on the hunt." K'yohko replied smoothly, keeping his back to the other Tia. "K'zhumi doesn't count when she's just hear to lick your wounds." K'ile flicked his ears at that. He stopped just inside of K'yohko's tent and dropped into a crouch. K'yohko held a response on his tongue for a moment before giving out a long breath. Words that needed not to be said should be given to the wind. The nunh took another moment before he finally glanced behind him at the Tia. "I am surprised you came. You certainly took your time getting here." K'ile's brow dropped, "Unlike some people in this tent, I have things that I do for this tribe. I was busy. And I'm not like those daughters of yours, terrified by any syllable of sound you make." "It is a daughter of mine I wished to speak about." K'yoho turned his entire body around finally, facing K'ile squarely and keeping his hands in his lap. "How well is it that you know K'nahli? Has she ever confessed anything to you?" K'ile leaned away, his ears laying back on his head. That hadn't been what he'd expected. "She's spent some time trying to teach me how to use a bow. I don't think she's ever formally confessed anything to me." K'ile leaned forward again, sniffing the air for some indication of K'yohko's concealed mood. "Are you worried I won't make a very good Nunh for her?" "I worry for her, and for K'mih. I think you will be a fine nunh for them however. But I worry K'nahli and K'mih will never mate. K'nahli is too willful and K'mih lacks a will entirely." He sighed a bit, revealing a faint touch of frustration with the girls. "But K'nahli confessed to me something tonight that vexes me beyond all else. It makes me believe that... you have been right. That I am a poor Nunh." He frowned a bit, wrinkles forming heavily on his forehead. "Girls with bad fathers are going to have problems." K'ile spoke completely without pity for the man. He didn't need any. "But I don't think you need to worry about their wills. K'nahli will figure herself out, and K'mih's got plenty of will when people are coddling her." "K'ile Tia. I wish to entrust you with something, but I must know that you will not speak of it outside of this tent. Is that something you can do for me? If you never did a single thing for me again, that would be alright so long as this knowledge I wish to say is kept secret." K'yohko leaned forward, narrowing his gaze sharply at K'ile. K'ile frowned, letting his head lilt to one side. "I can't promise to do something before I know what it is, but I'm not a gossip. I don't run around talking about people." K'yohko seemed vexed by his lack of an answer. His ears twitched incessently atop his head, and his tail curled up around his side. "I cannot tell you if you cannot promise this for me." The Tia rolled his eyes. "Okay, little Yohko. I promise not to tell anyone your secret." "K'nahli said she was in love with me." He frowned deeply, his ears pressing to the top of his head. "I do not know how or why or even if it is true, but she professed it as truth to me." K'ile snapped his head back. "What? Uhm. In what way?" "Not the way a daughter should care for a father." He shook his head roughly and reached back to rub at the back of his neck. "In an incestual way." "Oh." K'ile's ears turned sideways on his head, and his tail flipped back and forth behind him. He laughed at that, eyes on the ceiling. "You are so... Well." He dropped his gaze back to the man. "So what are you going to do about it?" "I..." he gripped roughly at the back of his neck and forced himself to breath out. He slowly released his neck and set his hands back into his lap. "If I loose to you, then... she could not care for me anymore. Could she? I must do something to spare her... " K'ile shook his head. "That won't change anything." Then he thrust a finger at the man, pointing violently at his face. "And don't you DARE think about losing to me on purpose. If you don't give this fight everything you have then being Nunh means nothing. Not to you, not to me, not to this tribe and not to your daughters." K'yohko recoiled slightly, for the first time seemingly affected by anything K'ile had done or said. "I realize that K'ile and yet... I would do anything to save K'nahli from myself." He stood impatiently and paced back and forth in front of his uncle. "And yet if you were nunh, would not much be fixed? K'nahli would be forced to give up on me, K'mih would have a mate, K'luha would be happy, perhaps even K'rahto would begin challenging you..." K'yohko grunted before forcing himself to sit still again. "I will... give this fight my all. For your sake. And the tribe's sake. But please, you must help me figure out how to convince K'nahli to care for someone else." Watching the Nunh with a vexed expression, K'ile shook his head. "My being Nunh isn't going to fix anything. I can help K'luha put herself back together, but that's still going to be hard. I'll help the tribe and the women by giving them more children, but it's still going to be hard. I don't think K'nahli and K'mih will accept me as their Nunh." "If you beat me fairly, would they not be impressed enough to do so?" K'yohko asked almost nervously. The idea that they would still not accept K'ile if he defeated K'yohko seemed to be a concept utterly beyond the Nunh. "That's not how it works. They're young. They can wait for another Nunh. Decades if they want. Or just never mate." K'ile brushed at his face with the back of his hand. His ehadache was beginning to come back. "K'mih doesn't like me." K'yohko resumed his vexted expression and scratched at the back of his head again. He didn't have a headache, but he was beginning to develop the urge to go find K'zhumi again. "Why doesn't K'mih like you? Can we make her like you?" "She doesn't like me because she likes you, and I don't like you, so she doesn't like me." K'ile shrugged. "We could make out at the feast. Then she'd know we're okay." "... Would that really help?" he leaned forward, unable to discern if K'ile was serious or not. "I'll do it if it would help." "No that won't help." K'ile shook his head, but chuckled. "By Azeyma's eternal light, Yohko, you really don't have any idea, do you?" "I don't." K'yohko frowned again and sat back, clenching his hands together in order to remain as still as possible. "My daughters elude my ability to reason. They have ever been whispers in the wind and leave me grasping at nothingness." He grunted somewhat irritably and pulled his ears back. "I am not too proud to admit when I am floundering." "You shouldn't have any pride around me. I've never respected anything you've done, and I'm not surprised to hear you admit that you have no idea how to be a parent to the children you probably should've never had." K'ile spoke sternly, but it was both untrue and overly cruel. There were, in fact, some things he respected about K'yohko. None of them came into play here, though. "Listen. Get over K'mih. She's not a problem. If she doesn't want to mate, she doesn't have to mate. That's her own business." K'yohko kept his face still, although he wanted to wince at K'ile's words. Was this the truth he was meant to hear? That none respected him? That he should hever never done his duty as a Nunh? His expression was schooled and firm. He couldn't allow his own doubt to betray him. This conversation wasn't supposed to be about himself. It was about K'mih. But mostly, K'nahli. "Fine, then K'mih is not the problem. It is K'nahli. How do I get her to give up her feelings and give them to someone else?" he snapped back towards the Tia, impatient for an answer it seemed K'ile was so ready and knowledgable to give. "I don't know." K'ile shook his head. "Losing the challenge to me won't change her mind if that's honestly how she feels about you. She's young, though. Kids her age, even those as careful as K'nahli, say a lot of things about their feelings that just aren't true." K'yohko's ears perked up lightly, but he was careful not to let his face betray his hope. "You think she was lying? Or just confused?" K'ile looked to one side, and then back at K'yohko. "Maybe." K'yohko inhaled deeply, letting his ears return to a more normal position. "I could believe such a thing...." After a moment's pause he looked back to K'ile. "I will hope as much for now." "I'll have a talk with her." Kile pushed himself up, standing. "But you need to promise you're going to do your best to win." I've already promised that much, K'ile." K'yohko seated himself more comfortably and rolled his shoulders a bit to ease some tension that had settled there. "I will fight you with all of my strength." "Fine then. Are we done?" K'ile found a certain bitterness weighing down his words. Perhaps just out of habit. "I have a feast to prepare." "We are." K'yohko called back stiffly, turning his back to the tia once again in order to take up a comfortable position to meditate in. K'ile stepped towards the door, and there stopped, glancing back to K'yohko. "If you helped prepare the feast, it could go a long way to reminding people that Nunh challenges are normal and important, not about conflict." K'yohko paused and glanced back towards K'ile, a bit surprised but keeping the look of surprise from his face. "I thought you wanted nothing to do with me." Rolling his eyes, K'ile flicked his tail. "Oh, don't give me that pouty kid act. I'd thought you'd grown out of it." K'yohko's ears twitched faintly, his tail sweeping around to settle into his lap. "You also don't remember the trouble I had cooking the feast for my challenge." K'ile shrugged. "You can be lazy if you want." He walked out of K'yohko's tent. K'yohko narrowed his gaze a bit as K'ile left. "Asking me to cook his own feast for him and he calls me lazy..." he muttered faintly, shaking his head and returning to his meditation.

Without looking, K'ile tossed another piece of cooked meat at Xha'li's salt. His eyes were on K'luha's eyes, watching the way the firelight flicked about differently in them. Her features seemed somewhat gaunt, but she was more awake than she had been last time he'd seen her. That was good. As her scent pressed forward through the oppressive stink of salted meat, the aching concussion receded to the base of his skull. One corner of his mouth plucked upward, and his ears shook. "Definitely. One second." K'ile took a chunk of raw meat and set it to cooking, then turned to Xha'li. "Okay, time to cook like a grown-up for a few minutes. Just stick half of what you cook in that pot over there so it stays warm and juicy for tonight and then salt the other half so we can keep it around longer. Easy." K'ile's blue eyes flicked to K'deiki. "If he lights himself on fire, it was probably Azeyma's will." Then K'ile stepped towards K'luha, reaching out to take one of her hands and leave with her. "Okay. I'm all yours. Well, at least as much as I'm allowed to be for now."

"I don't want to be Nunh. Other people want me to be Nunh, and the tribe needs me to challenge Yohko either way. That's a pretty big difference." The meat K'ile cooked was mostly not salted. He kept the cooking platter hot by occasionally adding a new coal, letting the meat sizzle and brown thoroughly -- likely far too thoroughly for Xha'li's taste -- before putting that meat in a covered urn that would keep it warm and preserved until the hunters returned to eat it. Occasionally he shuffled a piece of meat off to Xha'li for salting, which would dry and preserve the meat so that it lasted longer. Those would be eaten later in the evening or saved to be packed in pouches and eaten throughout the next day. As K'ile worked, he occasionally glanced at the Elder, but he didn't engage her in conversation. He didn't know how. He did say to the air around him, however, "If I do win, I'm expecting the other Tia to get uncomfortable about it and start challenging me. Frequently."

"Hey." K'ile tossed a piece of cooked meat in an empty pot, a smack of frothing blood. The delicious smell of it had overpowered K'ile's senses and made him numb to even the lingering scent of the salt. It left him hungry. He held the pot out to Li. "Stop talking about yourself for five seconds and salt that, kid."

K'ile grumpped when he took the urn from Xha'li, but he did it wordlessly. He wasn't going to talk down to K'deiki in front of Xha'li. Instead, K'ile set the urn of coals in front of the vessel he'd set up to cook over. He knelt between them, reaching into the urn and pulling out a coal with his bare hand. The coal sat between the callouses of his fingers and palms, and he lifted it out so quickly and directly that he barely felt the heat before the coal was in the vessel. He did this several times and then covered the urn to keep the remaining coals hot. He took up the sticks he'd prepared for cooking on and position it over the coals. The clay walls of the vessel directed the heat upward so that the air was already shimmering with heat. He reached for the meat to get started. The smell of Gridanian deer meat was about to fill the tent.

K'ile turned and took two steps to the side, taking a pouch of water from where it was stored near the food. He returned to crouch in front of K'deiki and held it out to her. "Yohko's a kid that thinks he's grown up just because he grew into that tail of his. I don't think he's ever gotten a real serious challenge before." The he shook his head and remembered who he was talking to. He didn't have to puff up his manliness for K'deiki. He scratched at the back of his head. "Anyway. I don't need to win. Point is that being Nunh needs to mean something. Without the challenge, it's just a word, no matter whose name it is."