***
K'airos was away from the camp, not too far away, but behind enough dunes to be considered hidden, in some way. She was lying on top of one, her head poking above it, watching over the new trap she and her sister had made. It was an almost exact replica except for a few differences. First, K'airos had waited until K'aijeen was gone to modify it. The last thing she wanted was the for drake to be blown up to pieces and have no meat left except for the spine she wanted. For that reason, she had taken away some of the bomb claws and a few sharp sticks. The most probable result, she hoped, was that the drake died without losing most of its body. Or at least be left alive but too wounded to fight or flee. Hopeful thinking. She sighed on her dune and waited.
K'thalen led the way across camp, past the southern edge and into the dunes. K'piru kept close, anxious, sparing little glances K'ile's way as they walked as though he might know something they didn't, which was silly but she was worried.
"Y'know, I think I might be impressed if she got that whole thing set up again already. It was a pretty fancy contraption," K'thalen commented as they made their way up a dune. At this, K'piru paled.
Walking along, trying to look relaxed, K'ile said, "Can't say your kids aren't smart. Anyway, don't get your hopes up, but I do smell food and Thalens."
"You make it sound like a fun party," the nunh chuckled, and then quieted as they crested another dune. He paused and squinted into the shadows before pointing down, "Well, there we go. Careful of the sand."
"Huh?" K'ile said, having not witnessed how the previous trap worked.
K'airos, on top of the dune on the other side, noticing her father, immediately yelled: "Don't! Stop right there!" She said this while also raising and waving a hand energetically.
Taking hold of K'piru's shoulder to keep her from going further, he nodded ahead of them, "Got sticks all buried in the sand and--" his words cut off at the shout across from them, and he looked up surprised.
K'ile stopped in his tracks and look... confused. Not upset, just confused. "Uhm. That wasn't the Thalen I was expecting."
"Airos??" K'piru made as though to cross to her daughter but was very sharply brought to a halt by K'thalen's grip. She shook her head, "No, she... was just looking for Aijeen. She had nothing to do with this. Nothing!"
"Go around it and come here!" K'airos yelled in a lower tone. She could have explained what was going on, but decided that it was best to get her family out of the possible angle of a approach of a hungry drake first.
Crossing his arms, K'ile called out, "Where's your sister, K'airos?" As he turned to walk sideways around the trap.
She shrugged. "I don't know. Isn't she at the camp?"
K'piru needed no further encouragement, batting her way out of K'thalen's grip and hurrying past K'ile towards her daughter. K'thalen followed at a calmer pace.
K'ile dodged out of K'piru's way, having no intention of getting between the mother and her child. After a moment, he called back to K'airos. "No. We don't know where K'aijeen is. You sure you haven't seen her? Maybe, say, stealing meat to bait a trap?"
K'airos avoided the question with one of her own: "What is mom doing here?" Then she looked at her father and added. "Dad...!" A pause. She though better. "K'ile! Get her back to camp! It's too dangerous to be here."
"Don't suggest things like that," K'piru snapped as she rushed over to her daughter, stumbling a bit in the deep sand before coming to a halt near her daughter. "And don't you tell me what is dangerous, Airos! What are you doing out here? With this...!"
Chuckling and looking sideways to K'thalen, K'ile said, "Yeah, there's no way I'm bossing K'piru around. Talk about dangerous." At that, K'thalen chuckled lowly, clasping his hands behind his head as he walked.
"Well...I thought that...if the elders...with Aijeen's trouble...the trap that wasn't...and..." K'airos mumbled before coming to the important part of what she wanted to say: "I'm correcting Aijeen's mistake!"
There was a moment where K'piru's ears drooped and she took a disbelieving step back. Then it was gone, her tail fluffed up in agitation, and she leveled a disapproving frown in K'airos's direction, "What in Azeyma's name were you thinking?! How could-- How could you possibly do this, after everything you heard earlier today! After--Stealing from the tribe, you!"
K'airos' ears flattened against her skull. Her gaze moved away from her mother and to the trap, where it stayed. "I'll let the results defend me."
Catching up to K'piru, the tiny Tia muttered, "At this rate the result is going to be no feast for the festival. We don't have much more meat to spare."
"This will work! And if the drake doesn't come soon, we can take the meat back. No harm done!"
K'piru blinked rapidly at that and looked around, her ears shifting. "Drake..." Then to her daughter, "Airos, this is dangerous!"
"That's what I just said!"
"Let's say you do lure in a Drake and the trap doesn't work," K'ile said. He put himself right beside K'airos, in her personal space, and said sternly, "What happens when all you do is waste the meat and piss it off and it comes after you?"
For the longest of instants, K'airos wondered how Aijeen could resist all those disapproving glares. K'ile's felt like a boulder had felt upon her back, yet it was only one stern look. Aijeen resisted the whole tribe. She shook her head. "It won't. Drake's aren't smart enough to recognize a trap that doesn't go off. I'll just use my spear. It will be too distracted with food to see or smell me."
"So, wait," K'ile held up a hand, "You entire plan hinges on being able to sneak up on a Sand Drake while it's feeding and kill it in a single stab?"
"You can't hunt a drake on your own, Airos!" K'piru exclaimed. K'thalen winced and rubbed at the back of his head, eyeing the trap.
K'airos' spear was lying nearby, half covered in sand. She picked it up and pointed with it to the contraption she called a trap. "That's all I need! You'll see!" she chuckled.
K'ile reached out and grabbed the spear. "No. It's dangerous and wasteful. We're taking the meat back now."
K'thalen stepped up alongside K'airos then as well, saying, "I know Aijeen got to ya with her grand ideas and all, but I don't think you've thought this through, huh? And that's coming from me!"
"You are wasteful!" she pouted to them all. Saying that one stab was all she needed had sounded glorious and self-explanatory. Apparently it hadn't been. /Obviously/ it hadn't. "Aijeen's not an idiot. I'm not an idiot. I can set the trap off with just one stab in the right place. I tried it on the bomb claws that were left over!"
"Hey no, no one's said you're an idiot," K'thalen soothed, "Just... not really thinking about the bigger picture. Too high a risk in this. What the huntresses do work - no need messing with that, right?" He gave K'airos a grin.
Still holding onto K'airos' spear with one hand, K'ile maintains his silence, just watching the woman.
K'airos stared at K'ile in defiance. It lasted about ten seconds before she jerked her spear off K'ile's hands. "Fine. Fine! I'll disable the trap and you can haul the meat back." Hanging back, K'piru worried her hands, looking between K'airos and the trap below.
K'ile let go of the spear and stepped back from it.
"How do you do that, eh Airos?" K'thalen questioned.
K'airos kneeled up, thought, and dropped down again. "Uhm. That's the part I didn't think through."
"What!" K'piru exclaimed and spun towards the trap, eyes scanning the area, ears straining. "If you can't disarm it, then..." She was interrupted by a K'thalen's voice, "Alright now, we can handle this. How's it work, and maybe we can figure it out?"
"Oh!" she exclaimed after a moment, raising suddenly. "I know! Just...wait here. And if a drake appears, and the trap doesn't go off, hit the third blood trail where it ends." she said, pointing there with one hand and picking her spear with the other.
Stepping over to look at what K'airos was pointing at, K'ile said, "Wait here? What are you doing?"
"Don't you dare go off on your own, K'airos!" She took a step towards her daughter as she spoke.
K'airos had received enough stern looks to make her feel bad for at least a few moons. "I need a tool. I won't be long!" she explained hurriedly. Or, rather, not-explained. She turned around and rushed down the dune to run off. "And stay down!"
"Hey! Don't you run away from us, girl! You're-" K'ile didn't give chase. "... Dammit, K'thalen. Your girls."
"A tool? K'airos--!" And then K'piru was off after her, "Get back here! Airos, it's dangerous!"
"Ugh. Thalen, don't let your mate run off!" K'ile looked down at his brother, then up at K'piru, as if he couldn't decide whether or not to run off after her or not. After a moment, he did.
"I'm a huntress. I'm in danger all the time. Trust me!" K'airos yelled back without stopping.
K'piru had no real hope of catching up to K'airos in the sands, a healer chasing after a huntress in her element. Still, she tried, scrambling across the dune as quickly as she could manage. Likely luckily for her, K'thalen caught up with her before she'd gone very far, grabbing at her arm with a sharp, "Putting yourself at risk isn't gonna help, Piru."Â
She pulled against his grip and demanded back, "Go after her! No one is supposed to be out here on their own - she'll... please, go after her!"
"I've got it!" K'ile said, and just kept running when he caught up to K'piru. Since he had no ambitions to become Nunh and he usually wasn't kept too busy enforcing the rules, hunting was also one of K'ile's main responsibilities.
K'airos continued running off at a brisk pace. She didn't head to the camp as one could have suspected. No, she was heading in a different direction. She did not look back nor said anything more, failing completely to notice K'ile.
K'thalen frowned, keeping hold of K'piru's arms and moving them both back closer to the trap. "Calm down a bit, won't ya, Piru? Freaking out like this isn't doing anyone any good." She didn't reply.
After following her for a bit of time, and noticing they weren't heading back into camp, K'ile put a bit of extra speed into his run and tried to close the distance between them. "K'airos! Stop running away from me, dammit!"
K'airos lowered her pace to turn around with an expression of mild surprise. She kept half-running away from K'ile, but by the time she was done turning around K'ile was only a few steps behind.
"Go back! I don't need you."
"I'm not going back!" K'ile kept up with K'airos, "The hell are you doing? Getting a tool my ass."
She frowned. "If a drake won't come to the trap, I'll bring a drake to the trap." she stated. "So go back! You are just going to distract it and get eaten."
"What!" K'ile tried to catch and stop K'airos. "That insane!"
She flailed her arms away of him and sped up her pace. "If I don't there will be no meat at /all/. I can't unmake it!"
"We can just hunt more! This is... Grr." He started running after K'airos again, "It's like you're trying to be K'aijeen but you don't understand how to do it!"
A sudden urge to throw something at her uncle invaded the girl. Luckily, K'airos didn't have anything harmless in hand. Instead, her grip around the spear tightened. She stopped. "If this works..." she started without facing him. "We won't need to put our huntresses at risk anymore. Just set the traps and watch over them. Get bigger prey with less effort... With less people. We'll have more meat, more skins, more bones. I just need one drake. One!"
"You think nobody's ever tried to hunt Sand Drakes before? Or to set traps instead of sending hunting parties?" K'ile stopped very near the girl, grabbing her arm with one hand. "We hunt the way we do because it's the best way there is! Tested for generations. Now would you stop trying to get yourself killed!"
"We didn't think of bomb claws before!" she said, wrenching her arm off. "Nobody in the tribe tried a trap like this. Aijeen's failed because we stumbled into it, not because the trap was badly made. It's not proof enough!" Her ears were flat against her head, and her eyes looked up to K'ile's. "If this one doesn't work, then you'll be right."
"Yeah, and you'll have a Sand Drake hanging off your tail," K'ile snapped. "And not just you, but you'll be putting me and your parents in danger too!"
"Don't blame that on me. I didn't bring them here!" she yelled back. Her tail moved from one side to the other in quick motions before it lowered significantly. "But you are right." and she dropped her head.
Back at the trap, K'thalen had managed to somewhat calm K'piru down - at least to the point where she wasn't trying to run off after her daughter. For now. That was, until the moment she exclaimed, "Aijeen! Where is she? Thalen, I must find Aijeen--"
At which point, the nunh winced, and looked around, "She's not here, so she's alright. Probably sulking between a couple tents, yea?" K'piru remained unconvinced, looking out towards where K'ile had run off after K'airos, and then around the dunes.
"What if--what if she's set up another? We must find her!" And then she was off, in a different direction, somewhat parallel to the camp. K'thalen cursed, usually jovial mood souring, and chased after.
K'piru would not be stopped this time, absolutely driven to locate her youngest daughter. Not wanting to hurt her, K'thalen gave up after the first couple times she violently tore away from his hands and just stuck close to her instead, offering a, "Don't you think you should've waited for K'ile and Airos first?" This didn't get a response. He sighed.
"Yes, I am," K'ile said, nodding. "Now we have to go all the way back to where your parents are and start trying to find K'aijeen. You've wasted a lot of time."
K'airos shaked her head. "Aijeen isn't doing anything. Let's get the meat back first. I think I know how to get it without exploding. We'll need some spears and... a lot of rope."
Looking annoyed, K'ile said, "You're not just saying that so you can try and get me to go back to the tribe for rope and you can go lure a Drake."
"That would be a fine idea if I was dealing with dad!" she chuckled. "But no. Let's go to the camp. Then the meat. Then Aijeen. Who did nothing!" she insisted.
K'ile added, "Then you're explaining yourself to the elders. And you're plenty old enough for the racks. Come on!" He easily picked out the direction back to camp by smell, and started that way.
K'airos followed in silence, feeling defeated.
K'airos was away from the camp, not too far away, but behind enough dunes to be considered hidden, in some way. She was lying on top of one, her head poking above it, watching over the new trap she and her sister had made. It was an almost exact replica except for a few differences. First, K'airos had waited until K'aijeen was gone to modify it. The last thing she wanted was the for drake to be blown up to pieces and have no meat left except for the spine she wanted. For that reason, she had taken away some of the bomb claws and a few sharp sticks. The most probable result, she hoped, was that the drake died without losing most of its body. Or at least be left alive but too wounded to fight or flee. Hopeful thinking. She sighed on her dune and waited.
K'thalen led the way across camp, past the southern edge and into the dunes. K'piru kept close, anxious, sparing little glances K'ile's way as they walked as though he might know something they didn't, which was silly but she was worried.
"Y'know, I think I might be impressed if she got that whole thing set up again already. It was a pretty fancy contraption," K'thalen commented as they made their way up a dune. At this, K'piru paled.
Walking along, trying to look relaxed, K'ile said, "Can't say your kids aren't smart. Anyway, don't get your hopes up, but I do smell food and Thalens."
"You make it sound like a fun party," the nunh chuckled, and then quieted as they crested another dune. He paused and squinted into the shadows before pointing down, "Well, there we go. Careful of the sand."
"Huh?" K'ile said, having not witnessed how the previous trap worked.
K'airos, on top of the dune on the other side, noticing her father, immediately yelled: "Don't! Stop right there!" She said this while also raising and waving a hand energetically.
Taking hold of K'piru's shoulder to keep her from going further, he nodded ahead of them, "Got sticks all buried in the sand and--" his words cut off at the shout across from them, and he looked up surprised.
K'ile stopped in his tracks and look... confused. Not upset, just confused. "Uhm. That wasn't the Thalen I was expecting."
"Airos??" K'piru made as though to cross to her daughter but was very sharply brought to a halt by K'thalen's grip. She shook her head, "No, she... was just looking for Aijeen. She had nothing to do with this. Nothing!"
"Go around it and come here!" K'airos yelled in a lower tone. She could have explained what was going on, but decided that it was best to get her family out of the possible angle of a approach of a hungry drake first.
Crossing his arms, K'ile called out, "Where's your sister, K'airos?" As he turned to walk sideways around the trap.
She shrugged. "I don't know. Isn't she at the camp?"
K'piru needed no further encouragement, batting her way out of K'thalen's grip and hurrying past K'ile towards her daughter. K'thalen followed at a calmer pace.
K'ile dodged out of K'piru's way, having no intention of getting between the mother and her child. After a moment, he called back to K'airos. "No. We don't know where K'aijeen is. You sure you haven't seen her? Maybe, say, stealing meat to bait a trap?"
K'airos avoided the question with one of her own: "What is mom doing here?" Then she looked at her father and added. "Dad...!" A pause. She though better. "K'ile! Get her back to camp! It's too dangerous to be here."
"Don't suggest things like that," K'piru snapped as she rushed over to her daughter, stumbling a bit in the deep sand before coming to a halt near her daughter. "And don't you tell me what is dangerous, Airos! What are you doing out here? With this...!"
Chuckling and looking sideways to K'thalen, K'ile said, "Yeah, there's no way I'm bossing K'piru around. Talk about dangerous." At that, K'thalen chuckled lowly, clasping his hands behind his head as he walked.
"Well...I thought that...if the elders...with Aijeen's trouble...the trap that wasn't...and..." K'airos mumbled before coming to the important part of what she wanted to say: "I'm correcting Aijeen's mistake!"
There was a moment where K'piru's ears drooped and she took a disbelieving step back. Then it was gone, her tail fluffed up in agitation, and she leveled a disapproving frown in K'airos's direction, "What in Azeyma's name were you thinking?! How could-- How could you possibly do this, after everything you heard earlier today! After--Stealing from the tribe, you!"
K'airos' ears flattened against her skull. Her gaze moved away from her mother and to the trap, where it stayed. "I'll let the results defend me."
Catching up to K'piru, the tiny Tia muttered, "At this rate the result is going to be no feast for the festival. We don't have much more meat to spare."
"This will work! And if the drake doesn't come soon, we can take the meat back. No harm done!"
K'piru blinked rapidly at that and looked around, her ears shifting. "Drake..." Then to her daughter, "Airos, this is dangerous!"
"That's what I just said!"
"Let's say you do lure in a Drake and the trap doesn't work," K'ile said. He put himself right beside K'airos, in her personal space, and said sternly, "What happens when all you do is waste the meat and piss it off and it comes after you?"
For the longest of instants, K'airos wondered how Aijeen could resist all those disapproving glares. K'ile's felt like a boulder had felt upon her back, yet it was only one stern look. Aijeen resisted the whole tribe. She shook her head. "It won't. Drake's aren't smart enough to recognize a trap that doesn't go off. I'll just use my spear. It will be too distracted with food to see or smell me."
"So, wait," K'ile held up a hand, "You entire plan hinges on being able to sneak up on a Sand Drake while it's feeding and kill it in a single stab?"
"You can't hunt a drake on your own, Airos!" K'piru exclaimed. K'thalen winced and rubbed at the back of his head, eyeing the trap.
K'airos' spear was lying nearby, half covered in sand. She picked it up and pointed with it to the contraption she called a trap. "That's all I need! You'll see!" she chuckled.
K'ile reached out and grabbed the spear. "No. It's dangerous and wasteful. We're taking the meat back now."
K'thalen stepped up alongside K'airos then as well, saying, "I know Aijeen got to ya with her grand ideas and all, but I don't think you've thought this through, huh? And that's coming from me!"
"You are wasteful!" she pouted to them all. Saying that one stab was all she needed had sounded glorious and self-explanatory. Apparently it hadn't been. /Obviously/ it hadn't. "Aijeen's not an idiot. I'm not an idiot. I can set the trap off with just one stab in the right place. I tried it on the bomb claws that were left over!"
"Hey no, no one's said you're an idiot," K'thalen soothed, "Just... not really thinking about the bigger picture. Too high a risk in this. What the huntresses do work - no need messing with that, right?" He gave K'airos a grin.
Still holding onto K'airos' spear with one hand, K'ile maintains his silence, just watching the woman.
K'airos stared at K'ile in defiance. It lasted about ten seconds before she jerked her spear off K'ile's hands. "Fine. Fine! I'll disable the trap and you can haul the meat back." Hanging back, K'piru worried her hands, looking between K'airos and the trap below.
K'ile let go of the spear and stepped back from it.
"How do you do that, eh Airos?" K'thalen questioned.
K'airos kneeled up, thought, and dropped down again. "Uhm. That's the part I didn't think through."
"What!" K'piru exclaimed and spun towards the trap, eyes scanning the area, ears straining. "If you can't disarm it, then..." She was interrupted by a K'thalen's voice, "Alright now, we can handle this. How's it work, and maybe we can figure it out?"
"Oh!" she exclaimed after a moment, raising suddenly. "I know! Just...wait here. And if a drake appears, and the trap doesn't go off, hit the third blood trail where it ends." she said, pointing there with one hand and picking her spear with the other.
Stepping over to look at what K'airos was pointing at, K'ile said, "Wait here? What are you doing?"
"Don't you dare go off on your own, K'airos!" She took a step towards her daughter as she spoke.
K'airos had received enough stern looks to make her feel bad for at least a few moons. "I need a tool. I won't be long!" she explained hurriedly. Or, rather, not-explained. She turned around and rushed down the dune to run off. "And stay down!"
"Hey! Don't you run away from us, girl! You're-" K'ile didn't give chase. "... Dammit, K'thalen. Your girls."
"A tool? K'airos--!" And then K'piru was off after her, "Get back here! Airos, it's dangerous!"
"Ugh. Thalen, don't let your mate run off!" K'ile looked down at his brother, then up at K'piru, as if he couldn't decide whether or not to run off after her or not. After a moment, he did.
"I'm a huntress. I'm in danger all the time. Trust me!" K'airos yelled back without stopping.
K'piru had no real hope of catching up to K'airos in the sands, a healer chasing after a huntress in her element. Still, she tried, scrambling across the dune as quickly as she could manage. Likely luckily for her, K'thalen caught up with her before she'd gone very far, grabbing at her arm with a sharp, "Putting yourself at risk isn't gonna help, Piru."Â
She pulled against his grip and demanded back, "Go after her! No one is supposed to be out here on their own - she'll... please, go after her!"
"I've got it!" K'ile said, and just kept running when he caught up to K'piru. Since he had no ambitions to become Nunh and he usually wasn't kept too busy enforcing the rules, hunting was also one of K'ile's main responsibilities.
K'airos continued running off at a brisk pace. She didn't head to the camp as one could have suspected. No, she was heading in a different direction. She did not look back nor said anything more, failing completely to notice K'ile.
K'thalen frowned, keeping hold of K'piru's arms and moving them both back closer to the trap. "Calm down a bit, won't ya, Piru? Freaking out like this isn't doing anyone any good." She didn't reply.
After following her for a bit of time, and noticing they weren't heading back into camp, K'ile put a bit of extra speed into his run and tried to close the distance between them. "K'airos! Stop running away from me, dammit!"
K'airos lowered her pace to turn around with an expression of mild surprise. She kept half-running away from K'ile, but by the time she was done turning around K'ile was only a few steps behind.
"Go back! I don't need you."
"I'm not going back!" K'ile kept up with K'airos, "The hell are you doing? Getting a tool my ass."
She frowned. "If a drake won't come to the trap, I'll bring a drake to the trap." she stated. "So go back! You are just going to distract it and get eaten."
"What!" K'ile tried to catch and stop K'airos. "That insane!"
She flailed her arms away of him and sped up her pace. "If I don't there will be no meat at /all/. I can't unmake it!"
"We can just hunt more! This is... Grr." He started running after K'airos again, "It's like you're trying to be K'aijeen but you don't understand how to do it!"
A sudden urge to throw something at her uncle invaded the girl. Luckily, K'airos didn't have anything harmless in hand. Instead, her grip around the spear tightened. She stopped. "If this works..." she started without facing him. "We won't need to put our huntresses at risk anymore. Just set the traps and watch over them. Get bigger prey with less effort... With less people. We'll have more meat, more skins, more bones. I just need one drake. One!"
"You think nobody's ever tried to hunt Sand Drakes before? Or to set traps instead of sending hunting parties?" K'ile stopped very near the girl, grabbing her arm with one hand. "We hunt the way we do because it's the best way there is! Tested for generations. Now would you stop trying to get yourself killed!"
"We didn't think of bomb claws before!" she said, wrenching her arm off. "Nobody in the tribe tried a trap like this. Aijeen's failed because we stumbled into it, not because the trap was badly made. It's not proof enough!" Her ears were flat against her head, and her eyes looked up to K'ile's. "If this one doesn't work, then you'll be right."
"Yeah, and you'll have a Sand Drake hanging off your tail," K'ile snapped. "And not just you, but you'll be putting me and your parents in danger too!"
"Don't blame that on me. I didn't bring them here!" she yelled back. Her tail moved from one side to the other in quick motions before it lowered significantly. "But you are right." and she dropped her head.
Back at the trap, K'thalen had managed to somewhat calm K'piru down - at least to the point where she wasn't trying to run off after her daughter. For now. That was, until the moment she exclaimed, "Aijeen! Where is she? Thalen, I must find Aijeen--"
At which point, the nunh winced, and looked around, "She's not here, so she's alright. Probably sulking between a couple tents, yea?" K'piru remained unconvinced, looking out towards where K'ile had run off after K'airos, and then around the dunes.
"What if--what if she's set up another? We must find her!" And then she was off, in a different direction, somewhat parallel to the camp. K'thalen cursed, usually jovial mood souring, and chased after.
K'piru would not be stopped this time, absolutely driven to locate her youngest daughter. Not wanting to hurt her, K'thalen gave up after the first couple times she violently tore away from his hands and just stuck close to her instead, offering a, "Don't you think you should've waited for K'ile and Airos first?" This didn't get a response. He sighed.
"Yes, I am," K'ile said, nodding. "Now we have to go all the way back to where your parents are and start trying to find K'aijeen. You've wasted a lot of time."
K'airos shaked her head. "Aijeen isn't doing anything. Let's get the meat back first. I think I know how to get it without exploding. We'll need some spears and... a lot of rope."
Looking annoyed, K'ile said, "You're not just saying that so you can try and get me to go back to the tribe for rope and you can go lure a Drake."
"That would be a fine idea if I was dealing with dad!" she chuckled. "But no. Let's go to the camp. Then the meat. Then Aijeen. Who did nothing!" she insisted.
K'ile added, "Then you're explaining yourself to the elders. And you're plenty old enough for the racks. Come on!" He easily picked out the direction back to camp by smell, and started that way.
K'airos followed in silence, feeling defeated.
![[Image: AntiThalSig.png]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/179079766/AntiThalSig.png)
"Song dogs barking at the break of dawn, lightning pushes the edges of a thunderstorm; and these streets, quiet as a sleeping army, send their battered dreams to heaven."
Hipparion Tribe (Sagolii)Â - Â Antimony Jhanhi's Wiki
