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 Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2011 8:07 pm
Hayagriva shook himself and water droplets flew from his mane and coat. The red strands of his mane stuck to him everywhere they touched, one of the many downsides of having such a long mane. It was difficult to take care of and tended to make a mess under just about any weather condition other than perfect.
The storm seemed to be over so he stepped out from underneath the tree he had taken cover beneath. He set off at a brisk pace, heading to where he knew the purple feathered mare would be. He had waited long enough and it was time to finally have words with Revyra. She had saved the life of one of the herd members and risked grievous injury in the process. She was brave and fierce, and he was utterly in her debt.
He had been putting this off for some time now and thought he knew why: guilt. It was his daughter that had organized that attack. It had been him that she was after. The rest of the soquili had gotten hurt as collateral damage. If she hadn't been attacking him or if he had been alone then it would only be him injured. Instead he had failed his duty as the protector heir and had allowed his herdmates and friends to be mauled. He sighed and continued walking. Though his mother had counseled him to focus on the present, he couldn't help but keep reliving that day and what he could have done differently to help the others.
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Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 8:20 am
Despite understanding the importance of water to all things living Revyra found herself wishing that she hadn't needed to deal with it today. It was somewhat ironic that she had been thinking it would be good to get a drink right before the heavens opened up and drenched her. She had sought out shelter beneath a cluster of trees soon enough but that hadn't spared her wings from the rain. Her golden eyes narrowed in annoyance as she looked at her soggy feathers. Now she would have to dry them.
Grumbling lightly to herself she stepped out from underneath the, rather ineffective, shelter of the trees and spread her wings up and out to expose them to as much air as possible. If she had been home she would have been fine as her home was inside stone. Revyra fluttered her wings lightly to try and shake off some droplets without re-soaking herself as she looked around. She wasn't really close to home now, in fact, it would take the greater portion of a day to get there.
Now she found herself wandering around the lands of the Padmapani herd, doing her patrols there instead of near her own roost. They'd had troubles with skinwalkers. She had interfered with the beasts' goals and it seemed wrong to leave even if there hadn't really been a sign of them lately.
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Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 4:33 pm
Further walking brought his mane no closer to drying. The humidity that hung in the air made certain that he would be damp until nightfall. He took a moment away from his brooding to imagine life without a long mane. He could get one of his herdmates to help him cut it. It would no longer weigh his head down, tangle in branches, or soak up rain. It was a nice thought, but not one he was ever going to take action on. He had worn his mane long since he was a young adult and was too set in his ways to change now.
He realized that he had stopped paying attention to his surroundings during that train of thought. Not good. He needed to be sharper than that or else he'd end up with a skinwalker's jaws around his throat, and he knew just the skinwalker that would love to do it. He looked around himself with new focus and his ears pricked to attention. He rounded a bend in the path and there she was, decked out in her purple feathers and saddle.
"Revyra," he said as a simple greeting. "There's something I wanted to talk to you about." Words were not Haya's strength. Another soquili might have come up with a less abrupt way of saying things, but Haya did not have that gift.
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Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 4:57 pm
The sound of approaching footsteps put the winged mare on alert. Her wings shifted into a striking position: still out away from her body but with more tension. She lowered her head and listened closely to the sound. Approaching. Steady. Not hurried. It sounded nothing like an assailant's approach but it wasn't until the golden elder came into view that she relaxed. Despite her dislike of the feeling of wet wings at her side she wasn't about to talk business standing around like a drunken turkey. With her wings tucked to her sides she gave her full attention to the stallion.
"Go ahead." She replied with a curt bob of her head. Where his way of speaking may offend the more delicate sorts Revyra rather appreciated the approach. It got straight to the point leaving more time to discuss what needed discussing or else time for preparations. Besides, she had an inkling of what this was all about. She'd been in there territory for quite some time. No one had seemed bothered by her presence but she didn't figure she was entirely welcome. Helpful or not this was not her home and she understood that and really she was glad someone had the guts to pony up and tell her to go back to where she belonged.
She hadn't quite expected this today. There hadn't really been any signs. But in the end signs could be missed and it was a sign of good warrior to simply go with the flow.
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Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 5:40 pm
Neither of them were really the sort for flowery conversation. Haya was a little glad of that, since it put him on equal footing with her. He was used to dealing with soquili that were a lot more chatting with him. The change would take a little getting used to. "Well," he started. Was she looking a little unfriendly or was he just imagining things?
"I know you've been staying in the area for some time now and we haven't really talked." No, she wasn't being unfriendly. She was just stern, like he was. Soquili probably thought that he was unfriendly from time to time too.
"Anyways, I thought I'd say something that has been on my mind since the skinwalker attack." There was no need to specify which skinwalker attack. Not even Samsara was brazen enough to come back again so quickly.
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Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2011 7:52 am
Slowly her calm set features began to shift and scrunch into mild confusion. If this was his way of asking someone to leave then Revyra figured he needed some serious help with his people skills because it sounded more like he was reminiscing over things that had only just happened. Was she not being asked to leave after all?
"Go on..." She encouraged shifting her weight. Revyra was not too terribly fond of being confused. It made her feel uneasy as she did now. To top that off she couldn't even say anything as she hadn't the slightest clue as to what he was prattling on about. As much as she would have loved to toss in some sort of sarcastic remark to put herself in more of a position of control she understood that it could very well kill the conversation before it started.
Days that she would have loved to scream: 'Stop beating around the bush and speak!'
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Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2011 3:55 pm
Something wasn't working in this conversation but Haya wasn't sure exactly what. Maybe he had int interrupted her in the middle of something and she was annoyed by the distraction. The look that Revyra was giving him made him pause before speaking. He would keep this brief if she wasn't in the mood for chat, he decided.
"Well, I wanted to thank you. Without your help, I'm certain that Bari would have been killed." His mind flashed back to the way he had found her. She had been covered by blood and scratches, most shallow but a few deeper. She had been driven to incoherence with terror and could only babble nonsense for a day after.
His brows furrowed at the memory. "Not many would risk their lives to fight a skinwalker like that." He cut himself off before he complimented her on her bravery. Though she was definitely incredibly brave it felt somehow trite to say it, as if it was something that should be taken for granted with this mare.
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Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 9:57 am
Revyra blinked and uttered a simple, "oh" before falling silent. So that's what had brought him out here? He wanted to thank her? She let out a small laugh with her nose, a sound between amusement and simple breathing. No wonder it hadn't sounded like she was being asked to leave. She wasn't. Being thanked, however, was considerably unexpected. It wasn't as thought she had really had a choice in the matter.
"I won't say 'you're welcome.' You have no reason to be thanking me." She fixed him in her yellow, almost glowing, gaze. "You'll find that anyone with proper training would have done the same." This time she snorted and rolled her eyes upward as if silently cursing the training. "When presented with a fight there aren't really other options." Even though she enjoyed the action to some degree Revyra couldn't deny that the conditioning she had gone through was a bit annoying a points. There was no living a "normal" life after training.
After training you saw the world differently. A tree became shelter or a hiding place. A hole or fallen tree became strategic moves. A skinwalker attack became duty. That was just how it was whether she liked it or not. She thought back on the particular attack with a frown. Sure, she had saved the mares life but she wouldn't have needed training in the first place if she hadn't been so useless. So far it really seemed that the only one that had half a clue was Hayagriva. She brought her eyes back down to him. "I'm sure you understand that though, right?"
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:47 pm
The way she said things resonated deep within Haya. It was as if she was voicing thoughts that lay within him but he had never found the words to express before. There was something very right about those statements. He was glad he hadn't mentioned her bravery. He had been right about it being unnecessary to mention. She was too disciplined to be ruled by such small things as bravery.
He smiled slowly and his gray eyes crinkled with appreciation. "That's right, I do understand. You call it training, but I call it duty." He hadn't had any training in his life except in the battles he fought. "There's not really room for hesitation in either of those, is there?" Haya would fight off anything from kalonas to purewalkers for his duty to the herd, even if it meant injury or death. It sounded like Revyra would do something similar under those circumstances.
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Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2011 7:55 am
"Duty?" Revyra's eyebrows raised as she eyed him. She had never considered the two to be one and the same. "Well, those two do seem to go hand in hand don't they?" She offered with a shrug. With training came duty and if a person had any sense duty would be met with training. "No, no there isn't. Hesitation is death in battle. There is nothing noble about that death." She nodded her head firmly. Younger trainees often hesitated and she had witnessed a staggering number of them limp home to lick their wounds. They were lucky. The program was tough but it had never been do or die.
Thinking back on those days came back full circle to the skinwalker attack. She had seen the state of the wounded when she had brought help and to her knowledge only the one hadn't tried to fight.
"Why don't you train young?" She asked quite suddenly the question seemingly out of the blue. "They'd fair better in the world if you did. You do realize this don't you?"
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Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2011 3:05 pm
Haya was beginning to understand that this mare was far more than she appeared. She was more than just a warrior, she was a soldier. It was a distinction that Haya had never had the call to make, but Revyra was the perfect example. He had learned everything he knew about fighting from the fights themselves. She appeared to have learned similar lessons from vigorous training.
"Train them young? Well, some are pretty young when they-" Halfway through the sentence he realized she didn't mean training them when they were young adults. She was talking about training foals. "I've never heard of that practice, actually," he said thoughtfully. "I've always thought that foals were too young to understand combat.... or young enough that they shouldn't have to." He tried to imagine telling his mother that he was going to start training foals to fight skinwalkers. She would either laugh in his face or give him a long talk on the virtues of pacifism.
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Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2011 3:36 pm
"Never?" She knew many people chose not to train their foals but she had never known a person to have never even caught wind of its existence before. Convincing him of the merits would either be easier due to this or else it would be much harder.
"They shouldn't have to, it's true, but it's smart for them to know." The look on her face was serious but not cold. "The world we inhabit isn't all butterflies and sunshine. You know that. I know you do." She fixed him with a hard look. "There are skinwalkers. There are kalona. There are just nutty soquili that hurt for no reason. Do you think any of them would hesitate to go after a foal?" There was really only one answer. A predator or nutcase wouldn't care if it was a child, in many cases it would make them a better target.
"I'm not saying train them up to send out to fight the good fight. I'm saying train them up so they don't get killed." She paused and considered. "The full grown ones, however, those should have more extensive training. They're certainly old enough for it."
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Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2011 2:02 pm
Everything she said was true. It was somewhat as if she spoke the truths that the peaceful Padmapani herd didn't want to acknowledge. They were a herd full of kindness and compassion but the rest of the world was not. Haya remembered with pain the soquili in the herd who had gotten attacked and hurt over the past year. With his daughter terrorizing the area, knowing how to defend yourself was more than just a luxury.
"You're right," he said in a thoughtful and somber tone. "We've never lost a foal in the herd but our lands are not free from danger." He smiled sadly. "I patrol the territory and now you too, but two soquili aren't enough to catch every monster that might try to slink close. Maybe it's about time the rest of the herd started chipping in and learning how to keep everyone safe too."
He hated thinking of his fellow herdmates being isolated and in mortal danger... but it had happened before and would again.
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Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2011 4:51 pm
She watched him carefully. She had gotten through, she knew she had, but there was nothing to smile over. This was serious business they were discussing. Hard realizations should not be met with pity or distasteful smiles. It would only serve to warp things. Getting through was a victory but not one that tasted anything like it to the winged mare.
She nodded her head slowly. "There is great strength in numbers and great good can be done with great strength." She had been around the peaceful bunch long enough to recognize them as what many would refer to as "good." It was a subjective statement to be sure but one a great number had and one that shouldn't be ignored.
"I have your permission then? To train them." It was a question asked with little consideration for how much trouble could come from forcing a training regiment on a group of free spirits.
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Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2011 7:03 pm
His mother was always talking about fate and Haya had slowly gained an appreciation for it. Now he began to understand that Revyra coming to their herd might have been fateful for more than just the skinwalker fight. She bore with her a state of mind that was vastly different from that of the herd. She thought differently than they did so would be able to enact changes that they wouldn't even think of.
He nodded. "I think that could greatly benefit the herd. I already train some of the older soquili but I'd be very curious to see what you'd do with the foals." He cocked his head slightly at her. "Would you mind if I attended and watched? I'm sure there are many things that you know that I don't, and it'd be good to learn."
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