Heinous Omens [K-Tribe]

[Naunet]

K'deiki laughed. The chuckle lasted only a few moments, sounding from deep within the cloth that swaddled her body, and then it broke with a cough. When the old woman recovered, she turned her face towards the Tia though she could only barely make out his silhouette. "Do not think me so far gone as to lose track of words like that, K'ile Tia." She spoke his title without any mockery, rather with a solemn understanding. "A huntress's sharp mind fades only with her last breath, after all."

 

Thin, grey hair woven in braids and beads shifted as the Elder shook her head. "No, I know very well what you do. Will it be a good feast?"

[Twinflame]

"I didn't mean to say that you were. Uhm." Where was that Xha'li with those coals? It was going to start getting cold outside soon, and K'ile wanted to be done well before the huntresses returned. "The feast won't be as good as it would've been. But it's been a long time since we've had a feast. Nobody's going to complain about bellies full of good meat."

[Naunet]

The Elder hummed, the lines shaping her face creasing into more varied canyons and valleys as she smiled in entertainment. "A feast deserving of their future," she rasped, referring to the children they'd spoke of moments prior though not explicitly specifying. "That is all that is needed. And, of course, the challenge." The coals caught her clouded eyes, giving them a bit of the spark they may have once held.

[Twinflame]

"The challenge more than anything." K'ile stepped back from what he was doing and dropped into a crouch. He couldn't actually cook anything until Xha'li arrived, and he wasn't going to leave the Elder alone to chase after the kid. SO he just leveled himself off to K'deiki and looked over at her. "If I'd known the tribe had become so complacent about the Nunh, I would've started fighting K'yohko for the title a long time ago. I'd never have won, but I'd have fought for the sake of it."

[Naunet]

"K'yohko is a strong man. It would take much to defeat him," K'deiki wheezed, her suddenly somber tone broken by a hacking cough that shook her shrunken, hunched form for several moments.

[Twinflame]

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."

[Xha'li Moui]

Xha'li returned holding the urn K'ile had given him and Kedah curled around his shoulders, nodding to K'deiki he held out the urn to K'ile, "Here you go uncle, the hottest coals from the heart of the bonfire."  Setting the urn down he turned back toward K'deiki and bowed, "Honored Elder, how fare you this evening?"

[Naunet]

The old woman, once one of the proudest huntresses to lead their family's hunts, was not too proud to accept water from a well-meaning Tia. She drank from the pouch unsteadily, tremors and arthritic joints keeping her grip on it from staying secure, and smelled the half-Keeper's arrival before he spoke.

 

Setting the pouch down in her lap, K'deiki cast a knowing look towards K'ile's scent, but spoke to the younger newcomer, "Showing my years, I fear, child. Do you know you are taking part in a time-honored tradition of our family?"

[Twinflame]

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.

[Xha'li Moui]

Xha'li sat down next to K'deiki and shook his head, "No, I gathered it was important but my father, K'zhuzu, died when I was only 4 and I remember almost nothing of him, let alone anything he might or might not of told me and my brothers of his former tribe."  Reaching up to scratch Kedah's chin Xha'li continued, "Most of what I know of him I've learned in the past few moons, before that I didn't even know I had Seeker ancestry as no one really liked to talk about him, it was always 'when you're older' or 'best not dredge up unpleasant memories for your mom'."

[Naunet]

The Elder wheezed out a chuckle, one hand moving to her chest. "Then what better time to learn than now," she spoke after a moment of recovery, her smile exaggerated by the loose, mottled wrinkles on her face. Milky eyes crinkled, apparently amused by the whole thing. "K'ile Tia supposes to challenge our Nunh for his position. It is quite a momentous occasion. This feast," she gestured with the withered hand not pressed to her chest, fingers almost hidden completely by the folds of her wraps, "will mark its initiation. Any man who wishes to rear children should be able to provide for them, after all."

[Xha'li Moui]

Xha'li nodded, "The Keeper equivlent are Breeding Males, and in my village you just had to be of age, the real challange came in that the expectant father was expected to spend the last two moons as well as the three following birth with the mother of his new kits helping to keep the house clean and ensuring there was plenty of firewood along with food in store, especially if the had the 'luck' to expect a winter birth."

 

With a wistful, if somewhat sad smile Xha'li continued, "Thats apparently what happened to dad, he'd gone out on one last trip to ensure we'd have enough meat to last the winter before the snows came, unfortunately that night winter came early and with a vengeance.  By the time the winds died down and the skies cleared three days later the snow was up to three fulms deep in places."

[Naunet]

K'deiki relaxed, her frail body sinking impossibly further into her colorful wraps, and turned her eye to the vague shifts in tone that marked where the coals K'ile set stirred to flame. "K'zhuzu... we mourned his loss long ago, but it is good to have a piece of him back. K'takka will come around to it." Her head dropped forward then, and she went quiet enough that it almost seemed as though she'd fallen suddenly asleep.

 

A thin, grey tail shifted beneath her wraps. "Learn all you can, child. From our ambitious Tia. From the huntresses. From the Nunh. Heh, and of course from your Elders. Would you like to be K'xhali?"

[Xha'li Moui]

Xha'li scrunched up his nose, "That'd be a bit weird, the Xha in my name is my mothers, the li refers to me, so my name literally means 'third son of Xha moui.'  Still I appreciate the gender, maybe just K'li?  I go by Li often enough anyways save having members of the other races call me by my moms name."

[Twinflame]

"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."

[Naunet]

K'deiki chuckled low, coughed wetly, and then went quiet for the moment.

[Xha'li Moui]

"Well time to get back to helping Mr. Wantta-be-Nuhn." Xha'li said with a smirk as he stood up and dusted himself off.  Sniffing at the meat he grinned before heading off to dig through the supplies before sighing in exasperation and muttering under his breath about plain salt being a waste of good antelope meat as he dutifully salted and prepped the meat for cooking.

[Izmina]

K'zhumi stands in the medical tent, checking and organizing her supplies. Attempting to recapture some sense of familiarity in this new land. She thinks back to the bonfire, a touch apprehensive. The hunt seemed to have started well, she hopes Menphina will bless them with a favorable result.

 

Sniffing the air the shaman detected the faintest odor of cooking meat. Her ears flatten as she thinks of the feast. That damned tia was actually going to challenge the nunh. With a sigh she collects a few supplies and heads out in search of K'yohko. She wants to check on his arm. That tia wasn't becoming nunh because she was lax in her duties.

[K'nahli]

The girl was doing remarkably well to keep up pace with K'nahli, at least relatively to what K'nahli had been expecting. Her footwork wasn't entirely without flaw but that was certainly to be expected from someone whom had not lived long as a huntress. Even in the sandy regions further south of her, the huntresses had taken great care to train themselves to be very lightfooted. That way, even in the calmest of days, their prints would not last long before being swept away by the concealing wind and throwing any potential predators(namely Amalj'aa) off of their trail. A highly valuable skill in post-calamity years when everyone and everything had been thrown array. Though leaving tracks would seem to be less of an issue in this area, the skill certainly would seem to hold massive potential for them.

 

K'nahli's maroon eyes flicked over K'tahjha briefly as the girl came to meet with her near the summit. The blue-haired girl offered her younger counterpart a nod in approval before, slowly, she crawled her way toward the top of the hill in careful preparation to inspect the land beyond. There was a strange scent that had been provoking at the girl's senses since before even departing in the direction she had, but like most scents in this new land, it was completely alien to her. It was best not to get hers or anyone else's hopes up so readily, no matter how strong it would seemed to have been getting as they drew in closer on their destination.

 

The hill's summit had been laced over with numerous strings of loose rock that, if stepped upon too rashly, could easily create sufficient noise to warn and scare off any prey. Noting such, K'nahli took great care as she stalked her way slowly upward, offering a slight gesture back toward K'tahjha that suggested she wait where she was until K'nahli was ready.

 

Reaching the top, the archer's sharply, narrowed eyes fearlessly peered over the hilltop to finally take the chance to inspect the source of the mysterious scent that had been teasing her senses.

 

 

"......!"

 

K'nahli could scarce believe her eyes, so much so that she had almost forgotten herself as she propped herself up a little too high to get a better view of what she was seeing.

Numerous, large and strange beasts indeed occupied the lands below. Their presumably, thick hides were coated with a heavy layer of fur that reeked with the heavy scent she had earlier picked up on. That must be it... what K'yhaega was talking about. Miqo'te have the fortune to have an unrivalled olfactory sense, enough so that they can pick up on even the considerably weaker scents of a sandworm's putrid breath or a sanddrake's sulphuric essence, but creatures like these that were far more common in the northern lands were indeed remarkably easier to detect; and not only that, but various other scents, weakler though they may right now, littered the area around her. Each one was unique but distinct and similar in but one important matter - this was the abundant smell of prey.

 

Despite K'nahli's reckless response, however, the beasts at least continued to remain unaware of her presence above. The girl continued to gaze upon their prey for a few seconds longer before sinking back out of view once again. Her troubles had seemed to have been momentarily stolen completely away from her after being presented with such a sight. Never in a long time had they been blessed with such a generous bounty; their hides alone would serve countless other uses on top of all else, and even more, these beasts would surely prove a new challenge on their own - a detail that K'nahli would normally take great interest in.

 

Her anxiously drawn eyes stared absently before herself for a moment in thought before she then turned to focus on K'tahjha.

 

 

"Can I trust you to find your way back? I would have you relay something to K'iara" she spoke low and bluntly.

[Izmina]

K'tahjha freezes in place at her sister's signal, crouched low to the ground. She was somewhat disappointed to not have the opportunity to see what was making the noisesome scent, but there was no thought of disobedience. Tahj waits patiently until K'nahli's sharp gaze settles on her once more.

 

For the briefest of moments Tahj was sure her heart had forgotten how to beat, By herself? Can she actually back track to the hunting party? Then her chest expands almost painfully with pride, the huntress was entrusting her with this task. Many thoughts and emotions were colliding in the young girl's brain, but locking eyes confidently with the older girl she simply nods.

[K'nahli]

Despite everything, K'nahli was not totally oblivious to K'tahjha's brief hesitation. She blinks slowly, somewhat showing her lack of enthusiasm for her next question in the process as her gaze grows a little more dull with expectancy.

 

"If it worries you so then simply speak your mind. It matters little that I remain here from what I can tell. Even were we to somehow lose track of our quarry it would be naught but a thorn in the side against losing you" she spoke with the same blunt tone as before, though still perceivably not in the same fashion that one would relate to the girl's usual aggressive tone.

[Izmina]

K'tahjha immediately shakes her head, her mind quickly retracing the route they had taken. She is confident she can retrace their steps closely enough to be able to scent the hunting party. She speaks just above a whisper, afraid to spook  what ever creatures waited below. "I was surprised is all. I can do it." The girl waits her sister's decision with baited breath, hoping to be trusted with this task no matter how easy it might seem to a more experienced huntress.

[K'nahli]

K'nahli's eyes narrow a little with apprehension as she eyed the girl closely before allowing a slow nod in approval to eventually follow.

 

"If anything happens then just call for help, and if it does then do not tarry yourself long before doing so... lest you end up in the Black Shroud or some such".

 

K'nahli leans a little closer in to K'tahjha and briefly explains what she is to tell K'iara before withdrawing again to patiently watch the girl make her departure.

[Izmina]

K'tahjha listens intently to her sister and as she turns to go back the way they came, she pauses to commit K'nahli's current location to memory. Then with a determined nod, more to herself than the huntress, she begins picking her way back towards where she last saw the hunting party as quickly as she dares.

 

Winding in and out of the brush and brambles, paying attention to her foot placement, trying to make as little noise as possible while still making good time. She pauses to catch her breath and realizes she is scared and her heart thundering in her ears makes it hard to hear. Before she was relying completely on K'nahli to spot predators and keep her safe. Tahj takes a moment to reorient herself and scan for any potential predators, then heads off at speed. Just as she was certain she was lost and her heart started to sink, she picks up the scent of the hunting party. Sighing in relief, Tahj immediately seeks K'iara to relay K'nahli's message.

 

Pausing a second to regain her breath and calm her heart rate that was skittering in her chest like a scared rabbit Tahj smiles proudly at the older huntress. "K'nahli says there's a herd of large, plant eating animals, a little shorter than than sandworms but with lots of meat traveling due east. She says some of them have horns."

[K'nahli]

K'nahli watches K'tahjha closely until she vanished into the darkness. In truth she couldn't help but feel a little concerned for having been the one that sent her off alone with such little experience, even if the distance they had travelled wasn't very far at all. The girl sighed quietly to herself before turning once more to slowly press forward up to the summit again and keep a close eye on the animals in the hopes of perhaps learning a little more of them before they would commit to engaging the beasts.

 

The were still a little far off for her to discern very much about them in this dark light but her best guess was for a similar approach that they would take with Sand Drakes; to attack their... soft(?)... underbelly. It certainly didn't look as intimidating as their large front side, but even if they were a little less concealed than the sand-kissing abdominem of those fire-spitting, Sagolii beasts... they certainly appeared to have quite powerful legs.

It wouldn't be wise to underestimate their speed merely from what she has seen while they were relaxed and grazing, she thought.

 

K'nahli hummed silently to herself as she gave it some further thought; her eyes never straying away from the slowly-departing creatures.