Hunting, Not Fishing.

[Vega]

90th Trial of Zi'da during Arc 716

At least, she thought with a slight twist of her lip, if she got completely lost and turned around, she'd be able to build a fire. She could survive well enough in the forests, but this hunting business seemed to be something that was big to all these Sev'ryn. These Sev'ryn? Vega couldn't hide the slight twitch of amusement as she realised that she was still thinking of them as apart from her, but she was half Sev'ryn and so she was going to learn to behave like one. Also, she figured, it would be good if she could feed herself. She was used to having to do that, but the land was a whole world of different to the oceans.

Still, this trial, Vega was determined that she was going to get back to her Sev'ryn roots, whatever they were. So, she had her bow slung and her sword at her side. Her belongings were with her, as always, and she was wrapped up against the cold It wasn't too bad, in fairness, but it also wasn't the kind of weather where you wanted to get caught short. But, survival wasn't her main worry, so much as shaming herself in front of her mother's people.

The young woman who was walking so determinedly, striding in fact as though she was about to go and wrestle a lion, was very obviously not like the other people here. She was taller than most of them for a start standing at six foot and her long red hair was certainly unlike the others here. Her clothing was distinctly Biqaj in nature, should anyone recognise it as such, her skirt and blouse matching, deep green with a white trim. Her dark green cloak fell over her shoulders and her boots were brown. Should anyone join her or walk closely enough to see her, Vega's eyes were a vivid purple at the moment. She looked around to see if there was anyone nearby who looked like they might be heading in the same direction ~ after all that would at least mean she had chosen a reasonable direction ~ then determinedly shouldered her pack and strode forward.

[Arlo Creede]

He'd spent a great deal of time out in the open. Or at least he had over the last arc since he'd left home. And Arlo liked trials like this, when the sunlight was golden in the morning and late afternoon, and when it hadn't come down the night before, the snow crunched underfoot. It wouldn't last long. The young human was fully aware that Cylus was well on its way, just around the corner and the trials would grow darker and colder. The nights would too.

But he'd enjoy the open while it was still hospitable. He'd decided to head out and do a little trapping or hunting that trial, and after seeing to Peg, he'd packed a rucksack and thrown it over his shoulder, pushed his hat down close to his ears and had collected his bow and a good knife to take with him. but he hadn't started on his way yet, deeper into the forest. Instead he'd gotten distracted by the process of watching others coming and going through the gates, and had found himself a perch to sit on, nearby and above the path on the lowest branch of a good stout tree.

He wasn't exactly hiding though, and he had a good view of anyone headed in his direction. Stealth wasn't his aim either, what with his feet dangling and swinging slightly back and forth. It was the woman that caught his attention, and made her more noticeable than others. Her hair specifically. It was a color he hadn't seen much around Desnind since he'd arrived. In fact he hadn't seen that color much at all during his 17 arcs. It was that hair, and the fact that she seemed to be walking with such purpose away from the gates, rather than towards them, which made her seem a little different than the rest.

In spite of the weather being agreeable, it was still cold and Arlo was dressed for it. Mostly in black, his trousers and boots, his coat and his hat. But his wool shirt was a color that wasn't exactly brown or green, but something in between. If she was looking anywhere but straight in front of her as she walked, the woman couldn't have missed him sitting there up on that branch. Even if it was only his swinging feet that caught her eye. But nonetheless as soon as she passed Arlo pushed himself off his perch and dropped the several feet to the ground and fell in step beside her.

"You look like someone who's going somewhere important. Or away from something?" Name's Arlo, he said, even though she hadn't asked. "Hunting, gathering, or fleeing?" Not just out for a stroll he didn't think. Folks strolling tended to go leisurely about it, not with purpose like hers.

[Vega]

There was a boy sitting in a tree, swinging his legs. Vega noticed him, glanced and gave a smile. She considered a caustic comment about his hat, but she decided against it since, all things considered, he had the advantage of height. U'frek knew what he had secreted away in his little den up there and young boys were known for finding things funny which no adult would. So, she smiled and kept moving although she didn't deviate from her path any more than she avoided walking too close to the tree. Because if the young boy decided that flinging mud or other, less pleasant, things was funny, she'd deal with it. Her father didn't raise her to sway her path because of nerves, nor was she naturally inclined to it.

When she looked up at him and smiled, the woman who walked so determinedly had vivid violet eyes. By the time he jumped down, though, they had changed. When he spoke, she stopped walking and turned to look at him with deep amber irises. "Hello, Arlo. Vega." He wasn't quite as young as she'd thought, but he still looked to be mid teens, maybe a few arcs older. Just the same age as one of her cousins who was, without a doubt, the most irritating individual ever spawned. His blood ran silver but his heart was pure blackness, Vega was convinced of it. Come to think of it, Vega thought to herself, every mid-teen male she'd met made her think that there was a real argument for locking the male ones up until they were at least twenty. "Pleasure to meet you," she said and nodded. "Nice hat"

As to where she was going? Vega glanced and nodded towards the forest. "I'm going there. Hunting. I'm new here, trying to find out about my mother's family. She was one of these Sev'ryn folks, so I'm trying my hand at some hunting." She glanced at him with eyes which were mostly amber but which held significant flecks of violet and she grinned. "Besides, it's all a bit hey nonny nonny for my liking. What about you?" Vega glanced up at the tree and then asked with an apparently serious expression. "That your tree?"

[Arlo Creede]

Flinging mud? Arlo hadn't flung mud or anything else at girls or women since he'd been seven or so. Or maybe ten, when his stepfather had taken a strap after him for it. But that was an age ago and he'd grown into a man since then.

Now that he was down on the ground and walking beside her instead of viewing her from above the path, he realized that she was skinny and tall. Elbows and knees. Taller than him even, but the crown of his hat probably made up for it. She was older too. Not by much and definitely not old enough to be considered long in the tooth. That would come when she was thirty, maybe thirty-five at the latest.

But it was the eyes that caught his attention and caused a temporary distraction. "Never underestimate the value of a good hat," he said when she mentioned it. "Likewise." A pleasure. "Your mother. But it's not just Sev'ryn? Your eyes I mean, the way they turn color. It's more like the Biqaj isn't it?" The young man clearly didn't think twice about asking things that others might not care for having been asked at all, by strangers or anyone else. Or commenting on them either. If he didn't ask, he didn't know.

"Nowhere in particular," was where he had come from, though that wasn't necessarily true. "Well I've come from outside Rharne, where my parents have a small farm. My stepfather raises sheep and cattle, and my mother keeps chickens. But I'm no farmer, so I'm going wherever my feet take me. It's a good place to watch people coming and going," he added, referring to the tree.

By then they'd walked some ways from the city gates, the path was growing narrower and the growth surrounding it thicker. Still he strolled beside her. "I thought I might do some hunting myself. You mind company?" he asked.

[Vega]

Vega glanced at the boy called Arlo as he suggested that a hat should never be underestimated and she grinned, somewhat despite herself. "I'll take your word for it. I don't suit hats, they just end up looking like they're too small as they perch atop my hair." Plus, she'd yet to see anyone that could pull off a hat and make it look anything but like the hat was wearing them, rather than vice versa. She included Arlo in that unfortunate group of deluded individiuals who believed different, but it was probably rude to say so, therefore she kept quiet.

She nodded, though and grinned, impressed that someone in this place knew what she was. "My father is Biqaj. I have the eyes, the ears and the blood thing all going on." Vega didn't mind questions, she was of a like mind to him in that in so far as she figured that if he didn't ask, he wouldn't know. Not asking seemed stupid. "I was raised as Biqaj, though I'm obviously only half. Though, I thought I was going to find a bunch of people with red hair, in truth." When she spoke about her Biqaj heritage her eyes shone a vivid pink and she grinned, shrugging her shoulders. "U'frek only knows where this comes from, that being the case."

He came from outside Rharne? Vega nodded "I've been there. Lots of wine, if I recall. Just the docks, though, we didn't stop there long. We never stopped anywhere long." She glanced back at the town and sighed, just slightly. "Going to be stuck here next season, though. I thought the weather would be better this far south, but nope. You looked about twelve arcs old sitting up there swinging your legs." The last about his tree, of course. "Which, you know, might have been what you were going for as a look. Good work if so."

Did she mind company? Vega grinned with a good natured grin and shook her head. "Far from mind it, it's fine. Especially if you know how to hunt. We don't do it much on boats, though I once got lost in the forest for a ten trial with my father. We managed. Can you use that thing?" She nodded to his bow, her own slung over her back. Whatever he answered, as they walked another while forward, Vega glanced at her hat wearing companion. "So why Desnind, then, Arlo? It's a long way from Rharne. Were you getting your hey-nonny-nonny on?"

[Arlo Creede]

"Not everybody does I guess," Arlo agreed when Vega mentioned that she didn't suit hats or they didn't suit her. But he was only guessing. He hadn't spent much time thinking about it. "I guess you've got to have the right kind of head," he reasoned. "Not too round, not to squat or too tall. But it keeps the heat in during the winter, and you can store things inside them."

In order demonstrate while they were walking along the path, he pulled off his hat and flicked out a card that had been secreted away inside the lining. A playing card. Old, faded, dogeared and creased. "Picked it up somewhere along the road, months ago. Somebody, somewhere, isn't playing with a full deck anymore." Whether he was trying to be funny or not was anyone's guess. He simply put the card back in the lining, the hat back on his head.

"It's an unusual color. You don't see hair that color very often. But twelve?" he said when she mentioned his age. "I don't," he insisted. I'm seventeen." But then wasn't it that those who were older had difficulty judging the ages of those who were younger? It was something his mother had said once, and he suspected now it was true. "I know a little about hunting, and using a bow," he confirmed. "I'm no expert, but on a good trial I make my mark more often than I miss it."

And as they went, the forest grew a little thicker, the trail narrower until it split into several others. By the looks of them, deer trails or those worn by similar sized creatures. He'd wait for Vega to choose which she'd rather, and then follow along. "Desnind, because it's the page my book of maps fell open to, when I was choosing my next destination." It was as good a reason as any, he figured. "I follow Cassion, and if roaming Idalos is good enough for him, it's..."

He paused mid-stride, having heard something up ahead of them. The rustling of leaves, and a second later a deer bounded across the path. Not a large one, but not small either. He pulled the bow off his back and an arrow that he nocked in it, but didn't raise the bow or draw back on the string. Much quieter now, he said, "I might've spotted a rack, but not a large one. A young buck, maybe."

[Vega]

The right kind of head? Vega looked at him and laughed, thinking that he was joking, but it appeared he wasn't and she attempted rather badly to turn the laugh into a cough. "Sorry. Just sounded like you were saying that I had the wrong kind of head. But you can what where now?" Oh by U'rek's skid marks but this kid was both highly amusing and a little bit terrifying. She looked at the card and grinned at him, falling into a sort of easy banter which she was used to with her cousins of his age. "I was worried you were going to whip a five trial old sandwich out of there or something equally vile. Your two season dead pet hamster called Twinkie." She looked at the playing card and replied, equally seriously to him. "I'd say there's a high chance that at least one of the people concerned was playing without a full deck before you found that, to be honest. Why'd you keep it?" She appeared genuinely interested in the answer, her eyes shifting to blue as she asked. "I mean, why that rather than one of the hundred other things you must have seen?"

"Fair enough. You don't look twelve now. It was the leg swinging that did it," maybe he looked fourteen, she thought. Fifteen at a push? But then, Biqaj led a different kind of life to farm boys; the seas were not a place for the kind of childhoods land lovers had, so she'd heard a thousand times. Usually just before the realisation that she was there and an apologetic or uncomfortable glance. Hmmm. "Well, I grew up with Biqaj and it's an unusual colour amongst them. Visited a lot of different cities and ports and it's an unusual colour there. So I just figured it was a Sev'ryn thing. Turns out, not so much. Go figure." It was a bit of a conundrum to Vega in truth. But he sounded like he was better with a bow than her and so she nodded her head. "On a good trial, I'm about half and half, so you're probably better than me." Or exaggerating madly. Always a possibility, that.

When they got to the place where things split though, Vega crouched down and looked at the ground, then glanced up at Arlo. "So, can you tell the difference between these tracks? Like, which ones belong to which creature? And if you can, will you tell me?" If he could and would, she'd listen attentively, keen to learn. But then, she'd choose one, apparently at random.

"Book of maps? My father has a book of star charts that he keeps. Calls it his book of dreams. Says he wants to dream under each star. Your book like that for you?" It falling open at the page was a good enough reason and, having been raised amongst wanderers it didn't seem strange to Vega not at all. But then, a noise and a rustle and she turned, oh so very slowly. Copying Arlo's actions, she pulled the bow and notched an arrow, watching his moves and how he did that so carefully and without noise. She got her bow ready but didn't pull back yet. Instead, she simple spoke in as quiet a whisper as she could, so low that he would strain to hear it in fairness. "Ok. What now?"

[Arlo Creede]

"Scoff if you like," Arlo said and shrugged, sensing that Vega remained unconvinced about a good hat and it's value. It was the snort that gave her away as they'd walked along the path. "But once Cylus comes in full force and settles in for the long haul, and the hood on your cloak doesn't quite do the trick, you might come to think differently."

"And who keeps a sandwich under their hat?" he asked, glancing at her with a curious expression. "And I've never had a pet, unless you count the dog that kept my stepfather's sheep together. But he was no pet. Do your eyes always shift to blue when you ask a question?" he wondered suddenly, because they'd seemed to, when she asked why he'd kept the card but nothing else. "Come to that, do they shift again for other reasons. If you're sad, or angry for instance. Can you control the color. I seems like a change in color might give you away, if there's ever a time that you'd rather it wouldn't."

Except that in regards to the card, she was mistaken. "I find, pick up and keep lots of things that I find along the way. For lots of different reasons. Maybe I'm exception, but I suspect that I'm not. Someone that wanders like me doesn't keep any regular job for long, and nels are hard to come by," he explained. "And lost or castoff things that might seem useless to some, can be useful to others. A bit of wire from a thrown cart wheel can make a good fishhook. The wood, for a fire or to make a trap from." It didn't explain the card really, but Arlo kept lots of things.

"And all of those things must have stories that go with them. A traveler is more welcome at another's fire, if he's got a good story to tell. A couple of pearls and a broken strand found half buried might have come from a lover's quarrel," he imagined, and then grinned, shrugged again. "That card might have belonged to a cheat who was on the run, and he dropped it in his haste after being found out. Or maybe he was running because he'd been caught with the inn keeper's wife."

But it was the leg swinging that had made her think he was younger? He might have been insulted, and maybe he was or maybe he was amused. But a snort of his own in response made it difficult to tell. "You'll forgive me if no one's told me before when it's time to come out of the trees and start worrying about a respectable job, finding someone to marry who'll nag you in your old age, or dreading the inevitability of things like death and taxes. What's the proper age?" he asked, studying her with a barely concealed smile, as if trying to decipher her own age. "Twenty-five? Thirty maybe?"

And his book, in fact, was a little like that he confirmed. Or maybe exactly like that in some ways. But something else she'd said caught the greater part of his attention. "So your father is a dreamer. Is he also a dreamwalker? If so, we've got something in common."

But then there'd been the place where two trails split away from the larger one. "I'm no expert at tracking," Arlo said as he crouched down and studied the ground beside her. "But I've done enough living in the wilds to learn just a little. That there," he said, pointing out a soft patch of soil just beneath a nearby bush.

"The soil is soft, not packed so the track must be fairly recent. It's a solid print, see? Not in pieces like a dog or cat might make where the pad mark is cleanly separate from the toes. And see how the toes are thin and long? More like fingers, and the print looks more like a hand than a foot. A raccoon made that, probably digging for grubs under the bushes. I've seen enough of those before. There was a raccoon that raided my mother's ornamental fishpond nearly nightly."

"That there though," he said, pointing to the other side of the path. "is probably a deer track, but an older one. Cloven hooves, not like a horse or donkey. There's other animals with cloven hooves, like cows or the sheep that my stepfather raised. A deer's tracks are almost identical to a sheep or a goat's. But I haven't seen many domesticated animals around here. Considering where we are, it was a deer that left it."

But that track had been left there trials ago, maybe longer he thought, after a good rain. The earth there was dry now and packed, and the deer that had made the mark long gone. They were on to fresher game now. "Go slowly and quietly," he advised, whispering as they went in search of the deer or another like it. "and patiently. A deer will always outrun you, you can't chase one down. And where there's one there's likely to be others nearby."

With a sharp eye trained on their surroundings, sooner or later they'd find their prey. Or they wouldn't. You could never be sure and even the best hunters could return empty handed. But if they spotted the thing, Arlo was content to let her take the first shot. He was curious to see how she did. Often, he thought, that first shot was the only one the best of them got.

[Vega]

"Fair point. If that happens, I'll invest in a hat." Vega nodded at his hat-wisdom and said no more on the subject. Touchy things, she thought, boys. He was curious about her eyes though and Vega shrugged slightly, a little self-conscious but not overly so. "They change with the moon and the stars and my emotions. So, this trial blue eyes might accompany a question. In the next moon or under different stars, blue might mean sadness or joy or a hundred other things in between. Gold or silver, though, those always mean intensity of emotion. Always. So that's a giveaway, I suppose."

His explanation of the card made no sense, although part of it did. "I understand scavenging, and using every last scrap of every last resource. But it's a playing card. Though, you know, my grandmother used to tell fortunes with a deck of cards. She was wickedly accurate, too. But not like those, Biqaj cards." There was a pride that was hard to hide in her voice and her eyes darkened in shade as she spoke. She liked the idea of where the card might have come from, though. "Maybe," she offered as an alternative, "it was left as a message between two criminals, planning a kidnapping or some such. Where you found it was a place where they had planned to leave messages and each card was a different message. That would be a clever way to communicate, I guess, without ever speaking." She shrugged, considering the kind of criminal masterminds who might use such a system.

When he snorted, though, she lifted her lips in amusement and replied with a smile. "I didn't tell you it was time to come out of your tree. Just that when you sit there like that you look twelve. You carry on, one trial you'll be old and trying to climb that tree to recapture your glory arcs." As for the proper age for coming down from ones tree? "If thirty's the age for nagging, marriage and taxes, here's hoping I die at twenty nine." Never was there a truer word spoken to the half-breed's mind. "A walker in dreams? Impressive." Was she serious? She seemed it. "We have tales of people like that. Stories, mostly. Are you really?" Or was this an example of a young boy exaggerating? He seemed serious and Vega got the sense that he was, but she couldn't be sure.

It was useful information he gave her about the tracks and she stored it away. She would have thanked him too, but instead turned to look at him sharply and raised an eyebrow. "What on Idalos is an ornamental fishpond? A pond with ornamental fish? An ornament of a pond with fish in it?" If something was ornamental she considered, it was just for looking at. "Like, having a pond just for the sake of having a pond? Why would anyone do that?"

However, no matter the vagaries of land loving crazy folk, as they moved and he whispered she nodded her head. As they moved, slowly and carefully, Vega was sure to tred with caution, not snapping twigs or otherwise making a noise. Then, they caught sight of the deer and Arlo seemed happy for her to take the first shot. Standing as still as she could, she raised and pulled back on the bow, regulating her breathing and taking the extra trill to aim. Her face was a study in concentrating and she kept her aim long enough to improve the likelihood of the shot, whilst not holding it so long that she started to tire or to over extend her pull.

Releasing the arrow, it flew straight and true but Vega shifted, just slightly, after she'd released and the deer started to move. The arrow hit, but it did not kill it outright, as she had aimed for, and the beast ran into the forest.

[Arlo Creede]

So when it came to her eyes and the changing color of them, she was something like a chameleon that way. Except instead of changing color to match her surroundings, the shifts were more in keeping with the cycles of moon and stars, and in part her moods and emotions. It seemed more complicated than he'd first imagined it to be. But the revelation fascinated the young man, and first he got the opportunity, he'd make a note of it in his book.

Biqaj cards. That was interesting too and he'd want to look into it. But in the meantime, when she offered up her own version regarding the cast off card's origins, Arlo grinned. "Yours may be better than mine," he admitted. "You're not a bad storyteller yourself. But there's other ways of communicating without speaking or writing letters," Arlo considered. "My grandmother was deaf. Had been since she was born and she spoke with her hands. I learned a little by necessity. Not fluently by any means, but I think it would be a good way to communicate with others while on the hunt.". Providing the other party had some understanding of the knowledge themselves.

"I am," he'd replied when she asked him, was he truly a dreamwalker. But then Arlo frowned, feeling he ought to elaborate a little. "But you know how you've accused me of being only twelve?" Wrongly of course, he implied. "When it comes to dreamwalking I'm a little like that. Not very long to it and I've a ways to go before I can claim to be proficient." And the ornamental pond was too look at, he told her. Filled with fish with scales like bright copper and gold, some of them spotted. It might have seemed to be a frivolous thing for his mother to do. But his stepfather couldn't have afforded diamonds or pearls for her. The fish were his way of indulging her liking for things that glittered and shone.

They'd caught up with the deer before long, and just as Arlo had thought, it was a young buck. A few arcs old maybe, based on the number of its points. It was grazing in a small clearing, having found nothing around to be alarmed about. But as soon as Vega took her shot, he raised his head and bolted. Too late to avoid her arrow though and Arlo was impressed by her aim. The strike was enough, they'd discover, to have sprung a steady bleeder.

"Nice shot. We'll have to go after him, but you struck close enough that it will slow him down and he'll eventually bleed out I think." And it appeared the deer wouldn't be all that hard to track. It was bleeding enough to have left plenty of drops on the forest floor, and streaks on the leaves where it had passed by. And by the time they caught up with it, the buck had slowed to a standstill and was slumped near the edge of a small stream. "I'll finish him off," Arlo told her. In fact the animal would die soon without intervention, and he didn't care for any animal to suffer.

He raised his bow, pulled back and steadied, breathed in and took his shot. Carefully so that one arrow would be enough to end it. It did, and was fairly instantaneous. "How strong are you?" he asked Vega. "If we find two stout, narrow branches, I've got plenty of rope in my pack and we can fashion a sling to put him in, or a litter, and carry or pull him back," he suggested.