[PRP] Hey, that's MINE! [Luxara/Alexin]

[T-Kai]

Splitch was large. Positively huge. Ginormous. Cyclopean. Behemothic. Gigantic, Elephantine. There was a list of words a mile long to describe the lusus, and Alexin knew loads of them. He'd happily tell you all of them too, sit you down and repeat them over and over until you knew them too - but of course he knew them best. But the point was, Splitch could take down almost any prey in the forest because of their size. So in that way, size was an advantage to taking prey down. But then of course, there was the downside - they couldn't go through denselty populated forest areas, or follow them down holes or into nests. So despite Alexin's view of their lusii ( heroes, someone who would never do wrong, courageous, brave, strong) well, sometimes they resorted to swooping in and stealing someone else's kill - in this case the kill of another lusus/wriggler pair, so it was definitely safe for their precious grublet, their sweetling, sugar grub - you got the picture. Unlike some lusii and their charges, their relationship was full of love (and a little bit of hero worship). The two headed, four winged owl had plummeted from a height, swooped in and grabbed the carcass, then beating their wings furiously, had gone back up into the sky.

Their size also made them quite easy to track as they moved through the sky, flapping sometimes awkwardly across the forest and landing in a clearing where a particularly small body waited, engrossed (as usual) in a book. Today it was a thesaurus, the voracious reader interested in “further en4bling my voc4bul4ry 4nd fostering 4 gre4ter underst4nding of the be4utiful n4ture of 4lterni4n.” Or you know, just being a wordy so-and-so. Either or. As the lusii landed the small body snapped the book shut (deftly inserting a bookmark beforehand) and ran to the large feathery owl and the bloody corpse of the beast. The left head on the owl leant down and began to preen the wriggler where as the right head kept a beady eye on the surroundings. (His wingtips did curl around the boy, though.)
Alexin was just about to start building a fire to cook the beast when his (and his lusii’s) head snapped to the forest at some kind of sound.  

[Gl!tch~]

It had been a looooong night. Hunting practice wasn't going to well. She'd either make a loud noise and scare something off, or her slingshot pebbles missed or hit the wrong spot, or her tracking would fail or she'd lag too far behind... Or she'd get too close to highblood hunting parties and have to bail.
So Luxara was absolutely starving, and shaky on top of it. Between staying still for hours and then bursts of running...yeah, it wasn't a good time. Meanwhile Stagdad had no problems taking down prey, and he wasn't being stingy with it, but Luxara's blood boiled over her failures. She'd show him that she had this. The greenblood was a small young thing, and made it up with spunk.

Her wounded pride was enough to nearly make her keel over, sure, but if nothing else, this was an exercise in perserverence. Unfortunately for a flying nutbeast, that is. The poor koala-sized thing was just fat enough to be a little too slow when the winded greenblooded child targeted it, and shot it with her wearing slingshot. In most cases, the weapon was barely good enough for hunting and not good for actual combat; small pebbles weren't too effective when everything else had teeth, claws, or better guns. But she thwapped this thing in the noggin, and as it turned to flee, she hit it again. Then another thwack as it started to soar away.
She chased after, pulling pebble stock from her coat pockets as she kept up, shooting and shooting, wearing out the elastic sling more and more. It wouldn't survive to tomorrow. Stagdad kept pace below, but couldn't help with taking down something in flight. Luxara was truly on her own with this one.

Those small rocks must have been hard, or the nutbeast's skull was soft, because after one more hit, the thing fell out of the sky gracelessly. It even hit a few branches and tree bodies on the way down, skewing its path further, and cutting gashes into it, to boot.
Luxara stopped for just a moment to catch her breath, smiling broadly in victory. Her lusus kept running in the meantime to lay claim before someone else did.

But it seemed that he wasn't fast enough; something dived in, grabbed the dead animal, and flew right off. Luxara caught up to Stagdad just in time to see her dinner disappear.

Her face fell. She clenched her fists, ready to have a total fit. This wasn't fair. She had tried, and tried, and tried... No. This wasn't going to get away from her. Luxara hopped onto her lusus's back, and for once he knew what she wanted to do and went along with it. Stagdad sped after the two-headed owl, keeping a decent pace... up until they ran up to a large, fallen tree with debris around it from a recent storm, it seemed. Luxara cussed, but didn't let it stop her. Instead of letting Stagdad re-route, she jumped off of him, climbed up the fallen tree, then went up into the canopy from there.

She ran and she ran until she was running out of trees; the owl hand landed in a clearing. Luxara had no idea if Stagdad was keeping up with her and could back her up as she took this thing down, but....

CRACK

Suddenly, her sure footing was just an empty void. The adrenaline in her system kicked into overdrive as she fell. Luxara curled up, bracing for impact, but something yanked her by the under arms instead. "Wuh...?"
Her long coat had caught on a sturdier branch on her way down; now she was dangling on the fringes of the forest, with the owl and...another kid? The bird was a lusus? They were staring at her, like she was jumping in on their good times.

As she struggled to get out of her coat and chase down her food, Luxara screeched, "I killed that! Get your lusus to step off cuz I'm gonna DIE!" Okay, that was a little melodramatic.

TanuKyle

FINALLY, RIGHT? Dear lord. orz

 

[T-Kai]

Gl!tch~

AND YOU THOUGHT YOURS WAS FINALLY 8D;;;

Was that a troll? Alexin squinted slightly at the flailing bundle that had just come crashing through the trees and resisted the urge to snort at the undignified state of whoever that was. It took him a second however, to realise that the fact that it was another troll was probably a /bad thing/. Most of the trolls around Four Fronds were higherblooded than Alexin - some were even seadwellers. But surely a highblood wouldn't get themself in such a state? Motioning for Splitch to stay (and praying that they would listen), Alexin began to move away from the fire and step close to the flailing bundle.

Of course, it was then that Luxara began to shout. Loudly. Alexin, startled, flinched, then scowled as he realised he'd flinched, and sniffed haughtily. On one hand, he didn't doubt that Splitch had stolen prey, and he was quite impressed that the greenblood had managed to actually follow Splitch through the treetops. On the other hand, they were a mess and they were yelling at him, so. Clearly they would have to be the better person, here.

Smoothing down their tunic - today's outfit was a tunic edged in his blood colour over leggings and the traditional (well, for alexin) imperial crimson sandals - they spoke.

"You are quite welcome to share if you like, madam - but first, do you require assistance getting down from that tree, and perhaps a brush? You do seem to have been pulled through a bush backwards, if you will."

There. Snarky, subtly insulting, yet still acting in a heroic way. Perfect.  

[Gl!tch~]

"I know I'm stuck! You don't have to tell me stuff I already know! I'm used to this kinda thing!" She thrust one shoulder, then another, kicking her legs in the meantime. "I can unstick myself, thanks." She wiggled a bit more. "Or Stagdad will!" Luxara announced, absolutely certain that her lusus could make up for her oops. "Anyway, a brush and a tree are totally different and I'm just stuck in a tree, silly!"

After flopping about unsuccessfully for a while, she started to droop. The smile plastered on her face made the greenblood look like a hung up marionette. "I'm so hungry..."

An antlerbeast crashed through the brush, long pointed tusks the only clear indication that this wasn't an oversized prey animal. He flared his nostrils at Alexin and Splitch. His child was prone, and he had one job that he very nearly could have screwed up

Luxara just waved as she continued to hang from the branch. "Hi, Dad." She then pointed at the blueblood. "The highblood took my kill. I don't think they're hunters since the kid doesn't have any weapons and he's too tiny to be one anyway, I think."

The greenblood paused as she thought, then said, "He's a cheater but he offered to share. Guess that means I can't smack him for stealing, huh."

TanuKyle

C-c-combo breaker

 

[T-Kai]

Gl!tch~

(-sad gaming noise sound-)

Alexin gave a muffled snort as she claimed to be able to unstick herself. It was quite clear from her positioning that she would require outside assistance - or she would need to disrobe from that frankly oversized coat. Watching her struggle for a few seconds, he had a pang of sympathy after she drooped and complained of being hungry.

"Perhaps if you get out of your co-"

Then of course, her lusus sprang through the bush. In retrospect, thought Alexin, she probably was too young (despite being older....or at least bigger than him...not, he thought with a scowl, that was particularly hard...) to be out on her own. Still, large pointy tusks and flaring nostrils. Alexin took a step back, as Splitch crowed warningly at the other lusus, fluttering to their talons and beginning to lumber forward.

Alexin then spluttered indignantly at her next comment.

"Size doesn't matter! I will have you know I could study hunting if I wished to!"

He paused sulkily, debating just turning round and ignoring her. But, he recalled with a sigh, he supposed if she had caught it, she did deserve a share, and he was pretty hungry too.

"...I was just starting to build a fire to cook it - do you have a preference for how it's cooked? I can do stew, boil it or roast it. Honestly unless you really prefer boiled meat I wouldn't recommend it, it really does ruin the flavour."  

[Gl!tch~]

"I'm studying hunting! That's what I was doin' before you came along." She wiggled and wiggled and wiggled until she slipped out, seeming to ignore the tiff between lusii. Her coat was still on the branch, though. Luxara's grin went crooked. She hopped back up on the tree, climbed up like a squirrel and grabbed it. She leaped down next to Alexin, and pulled her coat back on, peering at the higherblood's current efforts. "I like meat cooked however! ...As long as it's not burned. You know how to cook stuff? Dad doesn't. He eats everything raw, but it makes me sick sometimes! So I have to make fires too. I have an oven! Do you have an oven?"

Stagdad, meanwhile, was dealing with Alexin's lusus on the offensive. He jabbed his antlers forward, a way of telling them to back off. The tusked buck snorted at Luxara, too.

"Whaaaat?" she called over to her lusus, not sure what the big deal was anymore. She was gonna get food! That was a good thing! "I'm making the best out of my situation!"

TanuKyle