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 Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 12:33 pm
T A B L E . O F . C O N T E N T S
Learn To See, Learn To Feel
Nights Reward pt.1
Helping Hand
Nights Reward pt.2
Grocery List
Friend Abound!
Fish Spearing 101
Fish Spearing 102
Chapter 1: Intrigue
So We Meet Again
Sister of My Mine
Tis the Season
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Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 12:59 pm
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2012 2:16 pm
In any case, Alassiel had tried out what Zuberi had done. Stealing a spear and quietly exiting into the forest so no one could see her training. When she’d grabbed the spear, she’d felt horrible. Stealing went against her morals, and the only way she’d reasoned with herself was by promising to return the spear once she was done training. Stealing had been harder than she’d thought, usually there were other trainers around and Alassiel’s first attempt had been a failure. As she’d been about to grab the spear a trainer had asked her what she was doing, and she’d babbled out an excuse about seeing a bug on it and wanting to inspect it. The trainers gave her a look that said they didn’t believe her, but gently sent her on her way again, Alassiel could feel their eyes on her back until she was out of sight. It was only on her third attempt that she finally managed to grab a spear and make it back to her home. She collapsed when safely back home, perspiration had beaded on her forehead and she wiped it away quickly as she tried to regain her breath. If she was going to be doing this often, she was either going to have to find a way around the trainers or learn to lie. This was not going to be easy.
Getting out of the village had been relatively easy. She’d made sure to wrap up her spear so no one could see what exactly it was she was carrying, and went out. No one stopped her, no one looked at her suspiciously, no one bothered her. Smiling, Alassiel entered the forest and began her trek through to find a place no one would be able to find her. Of course, here came another challenge. She didn’t want to run into any unsavoury creatures and much less Alkidikes and not be able to run back to the village fast enough. Though, if a villager stumbled onto her and reported back, she would get into very big trouble. Alassiel decided the risk was good enough for the reward, more training meant she could get better far more quickly and be more useful.
The place she found was quite a distance from her village, but she’d inspected the grounds and had found no Alkidikes or other menacing beings around the place. The place hadn`t been easy to find, but for now it was going to have to do. Then Alassiel had cleared a few bushes and fallen branches that littered the place so her space could be wider, and the more she cleaned the more she was starting to like her little place. If she was going to be using this regularly she might make it into a bit of a fortress, the extra branches and such would do well to cover those smaller spaces between trees. A quick glance atop the trees told her she could make a well hidden little hideout there too, she’d be able to keep supplies and anything she needed in case of an emergency. Maybe she could even bring back a few supplies to reinforce the place. She was going to have to get crafty with it to make sure no one found it. Surely, if they did they`d take it down.
Now settled on the forest floor, Alassiel unrolled the spear from its material to examine it. The shaft was long and used from all the trainees using it, the cutting part of the spear was also worn but with a little sharpening she could probably give it a deadly edge again. In her hand it felt a little heavier than she was used to, but she could work in some muscle training too while she was here. Standing up, Alassiel parted her feet and began repeating the exercises she’d learned. It wasn’t long before she was huffing and puffing, muscles aching from the strain and effort she was putting into it. She’d completely forgotten about the time, so when she finally noticed she was shifting into her lighter colors she knew it was time to go. Wrapping up the spear once more, Alassiel climbed up to hide the spear among the branches. Once satisfied with her work she headed back towards the village.
No one had said anything about why she’d been gone all day and there was no talk of a missing spear. And even if they did find out there was a missing spear, there was no way they would be able to track it down to her. In any case, Alassiel was sure there would be no problem, as far as she was concerned she was not involved. Plus, who would believe that she had done such a thing? She was such a great sibling and such a good helping hand where needed. She didn’t like to lie, but she would if it came down to it. She would not stay in this life and be unhappy. Satisfied with a good days work, Alassiel went back to her home and almost collapsed onto her bed. Her siblings were making a ruckus and she knew her mother would want to help soon. She was going to have to pace herself if she wanted to keep this new routine up. Otherwise she was going to burn herself out quickly.
Word Count :: 1,001
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Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2012 9:43 am
Helping HandPRP :: Alassiel is lost and stuck in the forest, she meets Laini after she falls out of a tree.
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Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2012 6:18 am
Making a disgusted face, Alassiel sat up suddenly head turning in the direction of the small lake. Maybe she should try her way with a net and see if she could practice something else than her spear fighting. Getting up she made her way over to one of the trees and began climbing, grabbing some of the vines as she went and then dropping them in one heap as she headed back down the tree. Once that was done she headed towards the lake, planning on grabbing some long pieces of grass to leave out to dry so she could later use them to weave.
Her elder sisters had taught her to weave baskets to catch fish in, and they’d also taught her how to fish with only a hook and rope. She would make all of these things including a net, if she caught and brought in some fish she’d be able to practice her spearing technique and maybe her brother would stop laughing at her. Her older siblings all had families of their own or were looking for a mate in her brother's case, all were proficient fishers and such, with the exception of Alassiel. Sure she could stand by the water for hours on end waiting for the fish to bite her line and bring something back, but even her younger family members could spear a fish better than she could.
Sighing, Alassiel began gathering some of the long grass that was around the lake. Personally, she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life mating and fishing and taking care of her children and other family members. She wanted to provide for the whole tribe, which was partly why she was learning fighting techniques with the spear. Alassiel could please both her family by learning how to use a darn spear, but she was also pleasing herself by learning how to fight with it. It was a win win situation for everyone, and none of her family members knew her real intentions were to fight and protect. Though, her announcement could come at a later date, they were bound to figure it out at some point.
Going back to her camp, Alassiel glanced around and sighed loudly. It would be nice if she could at least bring friends here. Sure she liked the silence, but it was nice to have some company once in awhile. Someone to help her out with her technique would be nice... Maybe Zuberi? her cheeks flared as she thought about their first meeting, he was really nice, and had a spear. She was curious to know how good he was, and if she did show him the place they’d be able to help each other out. A sparring partner would be nice... Yes, this was what she would do, next time she saw him she would ask him if he wanted to be her sparring partner. Alassiel smiled as she dropped her long grass by the vines and took up her spear again, she took up her spear and began trying to sharpen it again.
She wanted to be ready as she could be.
Word Count :: 689
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Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2012 9:32 am
Grocery ListPRP :: Alassiel goes out shopping for dinenr and meets Takoda.
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Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 7:14 am
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Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 7:16 am
Fishing wasn’t what Alassiel wanted to be doing for the rest of her life, but she thought it would give her an advantage that the others might not have. After all, she was trying to spear something that was small and continuously moving in water. If, and it was a big if, a war did break out between the different tribes at least a person was larger and she could hit them better. Though a war breaking out was a silly idea, they’d only now recently come into contact with other races, could a war really break out between them? Better to be over prepared than to be sorry later on, because they were going to need every capable hands to help protect the young and old.
So out she went to the lake, she was going to start it out relatively easy in knee high water. After a few attempts at jabbing into the water and no fish, Alassiel paced herself. She waited, patiently for the fish to come back to her, waited for the waves to subside and then strike. This time she did manage to stab the fish and almost fell into the water as she made it back to shore to throw the fish into the ground. Yes! She’d done it finally! Now Alassiel needed to practice and get more fish, she needed to return home with a handful of fish and prove that she was good at this too! Out she went again into the knee high water, waiting patiently for the fish.
It didn’t take her long to get the hang of it, and soon she had ten fish by the side of the water. Now it was time to make things a little harder for her, this was training after all! Now she went deeper into water that was up to her waist, this required her to change her strategy and a bit more effort. This was a little harder to learn, Alassiel kept forgetting that she needed to stab in deeper and the fish swam away from her each time. The first fish she finally managed to spear got her excited and gave her hope that she was improving somewhat. This time around, catching fish took Alassiel a little longer than she imagined, but she had caught her ten fish and that was good enough for her.
Her next attempt was getting water up to under her arms, making her hold the spear up at times and sometimes keeping it under water. Keeping the spear underwater was quite a lot harder than above water, but there would be no relenting! Though after a few hours of this kind of training, Alassiel decided to take what she’d caught home to the family who were more than pleasantly surprised when they saw her tired and exhausted with twenty five fish caught in total. Her parents praised her and ushered her to the table, but Alassiel declined and instead went to her bed to crash. She had no energy to eat after this much training, she just wanted to sleep.Word Count :: 640
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Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2012 12:46 pm
The place she’d built for herself looked like it had taken a harsh beating, some of the branch had broken and were laying all over, leaves, vines and other debris also laid wasted on the ground. Alassiel pursed her lips, the first thing she was going to need to do was clean up a bit before she even thought of grabbing some of the food reserves here to bring back home. The vines would be good for rope, as the branches would be good to reinforce her shelter. The rest she took out of the mini groove simply to keep the place clean, didn’t take her long to be back up into the tree fixing things as she went. The place was really starting to look good.
Her training spear, thank heaven, had been tightly secured the last time Alassiel had used it and she grabbed onto it with quick ease. It was already well into the afternoon now that she’d finished her repairs. She was going to be trying out fishing under the water now, she made it to the point so why not right? The fish would want to be out and about too, so hopefully she wouldn’t have to go deep under to find what she was looking for. Alassiel was also thinking about bringing back most, if not all of the berries, fruits and whatever else she’d stored back home, and the fish she caught today to make up for the lost time she’d spent back at camp.
She’d almost reached the edge of the lake Alassiel usually went to, when she heard an unfamiliar noise and paused. By the water was a strange creature, she had never seen anything like it. It had long legs and two protruding horns from it’s head and fur... Not many things had fur, this thing must have wondered from far. It looked big enough to ride, which was sort of odd. Meat would be good for the family, and its not like this thing belong to anyone here anyways... So, taking aim, Alassiel threw the training spear as hard as she could and hit the animal right in the neck. The training spear may not have been overly sharp, but it pierced the skin nonetheless and sent the beast running. The shifters eyes grew big, and she took off after it, following the red trail of blood it was leaving behind.
The beast did get away, but Alassiel eventually caught up to it and its dead corpse. Sitting beside it’s mother's corpse was a smaller version of the animal, probably its baby. It turned to look at her, making a noise as if crying out for her to help it. She couldn’t though; she’d caused this after all. She couldn’t possibly be its caretaker. Cautiously, she removed a few vine from the trees and made a loop with one end by twisting them together, from afar she threw it at the baby and advanced. It didn’t even move, even when Alassiel removed the spear from its mothers neck, even when she started cutting her up to take out the meat. She still needed the meat after all and this was only part of life. The shifter had decided to take the baby to her family, but on second thought, looking at it once she was done with its mother, she couldn’t.
It looked like a ground animal, and certainly something that was going to require her attention most if not all the time. Perhaps she should leave it there, her time was already quite divided between training and helping back at home. Alassiel was going to have to learn how to build a shelter for something that lived on the ground, and build something that was going to keep it safe from predators. She was taking on one hell of a challenge here, and there was a life at stake. Sighing, and getting slightly irritated that the meat might go bad if she stayed here too long, Alassiel grabbed onto the vines and tugged the poor baby all the way back to her shelter. She wasn’t happy, and it certainly didn’t look very happy either.
The tree Alassiel had originally picked out to carry most of the weight for her home atop was large at the trunk, and if she moved a few of the plants she was sure she’d seen some small hole that would be big enough to fit the baby in for now. She’d have to get digging at the bark some other time, maybe even create something so she could come down from the tree and get right into where she was keeping him. Yes that would work, but would require lots of time and effort, and quite possibly her having to go out into the rain if she didn’t finish quickly enough. With the debris she’d found, she made a bedding, weaved out a bowl for water and some berries so it could feed and then stuffed it in. “Alright, if you want to live, you better keep quiet Raysh, I’m locking you in for the night.” There. She’d given it a name, it was officially hers.Word Count :: 1,002
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 8:33 am
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Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 7:21 am
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Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2012 4:36 pm
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Posted: Fri Aug 24, 2012 8:24 am
Tis the Season Quote: The air was ripe with cheer in all of Tendaji. The Oban's King had been defeated and a new and compassionate one put in his place, the slaves were released, and it was time for the Winter Solstice. Friendly faces abounded as the havoc of the war was nearly wiped away and the villages restored. It would seem as if everyone was enjoying the season, and it was very clear to see why. Almost every land in Tendaji were hosting their own winter celebrations, partying and feasting until the early hours of the morning before settling in to sleep for the night. It wasn't a time for work anymore, but a momentary reprieve for play.
When her father returned from the war with news that the Oban king had died, Alassiel was finally allowed to leave the tree. She pestered her father for stories of the war until he finally relented to tell her. It was only when her mother came to get her to help with preparations did she leave her father’s side and let him rest. His tales only fired up her need to leave home and go on her own adventure and find her own way. She could not do this here, Alassiel knew this. She would have to leave one day.
For now though, there was food that needed to be prepared and children to clean up and things to put away as they prepared for a feast. Alassiel was assigned kitchen duty with some of her younger sisters. She each gave them a task of either peeling or cutting making sure they did not injure themselves in the process and got to work on her own work. She was making a berry salad for dessert with some various ones they had stored. She cleaned them, cut them up and then added some sweetener with some crème.
Alassiel checked one more time on her siblings but since they were doing fine, she moved on to a bit of cleaning. Her mother had asked her to pick up stray leaves and tidy up anything that had been left lying around. She mostly picked up a few clothing pieces that had been spewed around by the younger children but that was it. Her sisters came to see her and told her they were done. Alassiel went to check up and approved their food before sending them off to get cleaned up. Her mother would want to finish the rest of the meal by herself.
Now that she was able to go out and check on her Talbuk, Alassiel slipped out from her home to go check up on him. She had not been able to see him in a while and she needed to make sure he was still live. When she made it he looked fine if a little on the skinny side, it wasn’t like there was no food around for him to forage for but she did get him food most of the time. She took care of that today and made sure to leave a lot of food for him. The celebrations were about to start and she couldn’t stay around for much longer.
The Shifter had gotten quite good at coming and going as she pleased through her home, no one had noticed her absence. If anyone asked her siblings usually spurted some sort of excuse since they didn’t know where she was and didn`t want to have to go around and find her. After all the celebrations would surely bring little gifts! Alassiel changed quickly and made an appearance. Her mother wondered where she was and Alassiel told her she`d run errands for a few elder folks she`d run into.
It was good enough for her mother who sent her o her way to play with the rest of her siblings. The whole family was reunited and enjoying some of the food as the celebrations went on. The younger children were given a few gifts while everyone else simply enjoyed the peace. Alassiel herself settled near some of her older sisters who were all clutching large pregnant bellies. She did not envy them; looking at them she did not want to share the same fate. Nether the else she engaged in small chat with them about their children and soon to be born children. They all seemed to wonder when Alassiel herself would pick someone to settle with. She shrugged off answering, no use telling them her plans. She wouldn`t be staying around for very long. Not if she could help it.
Word Count :: 752
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 5:29 pm
Winter Is Coming Quote: The settlements of Tendaji all knew how to take care of themselves during the winter. Zena and Sauti received their usual snow fall, for Zena it was nearly year round and didn't faze them much at all; Tale and Jauhar seemed to retain most of their heat, dropping to milder temperatures; Matori and Oba seemed to flux between mild during the day and a sharp chill in the evenings. But usually it was all under control. Word had passed through the elders and oracles and mystics that this winter was going to be a hard winter. The air would be sharp with cold and snow would fall in all areas of the world, something that had never happened before in Jauhar. It came as a shock when the temperatures began to drop rapidly through the night. Most had thought that it was just a joke. There couldn't possibly be enough cold air to send snow to Jauhar. It was absurd. But it happened, and most of Tendaji wasn't prepared. In the morning everything was frosted over, those in Zena and most of Sauti were barely able to open their doors the snow had risen so high overnight, and those in warmer climates could see the sheet of frost on the ground and the plants around them. If the winter was going to be a long one, they would have to salvage what they could and come up with a plan...
Except that morning she woke up chilly and her breath became fog every time she exhaled. Winters didn`t faze them much, it got a little colder but they were always prepared. Always. They`d even been warned that this winter would be a little harsher than the rest, Alassiel had worked hard to help her family as best should could so that when she did leave they would be good and fine on their own. But that morning as she stood up and looked to her other siblings who were curled up in their sleep she knew that perhaps she`d have to stay a bit longer.
Alassiel moved around the tree fast and made her way below closer to the trunk until she finally saw it. Snow. There was snow on the ground, her eyes grew huge and she climbed back up to gather extra clothing and blankets to cover her siblings. Then she moved towards her parents who were just getting up and dressing, it was even colder up here.
“Alassiel, go check up on your grandparents quickly.”
Nodding, Alassiel climbed to the higher levels of the tree where it was even colder. She feared for the worst. How could she possibly leave now when her family obviously needed her? No, she could not stray from her path, she still had a few days left and she would help fortify their home before leaving. They would be fine on food. Still, as she checked on her grandparents who were still asleep, she awakened them and helped them put on multiple layers of clothing. Her father came up to help her and together they took them down below where it was warming.
Everyone had gathered in the family room and her mother had begun a fire. Alassiel helped her grandmother to the fire and then moved towards her mother.
“What are we going to do?”
Her mother was thoughtful for an instant.
“We’ll all have to sleep in this room together to keep the heat together. Food will be just fine.”
“Listen mom I’m goi –“
“Alassiel, I needed you to com e help me with the elders of the tribe. Your mom will take care of the children.”
Turning Alassiel nodded to her father and left her mother’s side. It seemed like there was never a good time for this kind of thing. She followed after her father as they made their way to the Elder’s home to make sure they were alright, her father sent Alassiel to fetch wood and start fires. As more and more villagers awoke to the cold they more gathered to help the elders. Her father sent her back home when he felt he no longer needed her aid. She would return home but she needed to check on someone Raysh first.
Raysh was huddled in a tight ball when she found him in the little shelter she’d built for him. Poor thing was so cold that he didn’t even hear her coming until she’d uncovered him. She covered him with a thick blanket before getting to work on his shelter. She removed all of the snow and made walls and a roof with the snow to keep all the warmth inside. Alassiel filled out the whole shelter floor with straw which would keep him warm and the blanket would help. As long as she would keep the wind out he was fine. He seemed to gather more energy as she worked and was eating fine by the time she left him.
Darkness came quickly and when she got home her father still hadn’t made it back thankfully. Alassiel helped her mother with dinner, a warm broth with vegetables. Her fingers were thankful or the warmth of the home. All the children had gathered their beddings and placed them in the common room, even her own was there and Alassiel settled between two of her younger siblings comfortably. She was sure they would be fine while she left for a bit.
Word Count :: 771
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Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2015 1:12 pm
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