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 Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:40 am
Hijil didn't know why her thoughts had wandered to that day. Perhaps because it was the first time meeting the village healer and his nephew? Perhaps because she had passed some ruins with artifacts similar to what her mother had recieved? Or, perhaps, she was just being thoughtful.
She never did know what mother was doing with those materials. It was a secret, one that remained covered. She could guess that the blocks were being carved and sold by Sara, and that the metal water tube was to make... something, but her mother got angry whenever Hijil brought it up, so she simply didn't.
She wondered how Biroki and Reshel were doing now. She didn't need to ask about her mother. She had killed her, after all.
She moved on, her travels far from complete.
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Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2014 11:51 am
Encounter
711 - words-
Travelling with injuries was difficult. Hijil could feel her wounds begin to strain and shiver taughtly against the neighboring undamaged skin, and knew she needed to rest or else they would open again.
She carefully, wincingly, climbed a nearby tree, daring the reopening of her wounds for the relative safety of the branches. She rested, leaning against the trunk of the tree as she ate a little snack of raw jahiri nuts and water.
She checked the bindings of her wounds meticulously, finding all was in order. Good: she'd just expended herself a little more than she should have. She knew she would right herself in time, but for now, she needed to give herself that time. There was no point in undoing all the hard work that Sauron had done in healing her wounds.
She leaned back against the tree and closed her eyes, intending to take a short nap to restore her strength. There was still a good bit of travelling ahead of her, and she wasn't even entirely sure of her destination. All she knew was that she was heading for the coast, and that she would get there. She would figure things out from that point.
Unfortunately, this was Alkidike territory, and though Hijil had no problems with the Alkidikes themselves, many would certainly have a problem with her, a fullblooded Shifter, in their territory. She could not stay here long.
She had just started to drift off when she heard voices below her. She peered down from her roost, wary. The voices were female, and for the most part they sounded young. They were possibly harmless, travelers like herself. She stayed very still, though, just to be sure. As they came into view, she saw to her slight dismay that they were Alkidikes, one bearing a spear and the other two bearing bows. The spearwoman was older, but all three had very similar markings. Sisters? Well they all were, but more so? They looked like a hunting party, and they had some prey already bagged. They stalked in silence below her branch. Hijil wanted to greet them. She wanted to exchange pleasantries and ask how their hunt was going, civilized things like that. She longed for some sort of friendly interaction, however short, but she knew that an encounter between her and an Alkidike hunting party was not likely to end friendly. She was, after all, a stranger in their lands, and they would likely think the worst of her and strike before asking questions. She was not up for fighting, and didn't want to do so. Her best hope for a peaceful encounter was for them to pass by quietly without finding her in the tree.
Just as they passed her by and she was starting to relax again, the older Alkidike raised her hand, motioning to the others to stop. They paused, just a few feet past her branch. The warrior's antennae twitched and she scanned the jungle around them. She crouched, her spear at the ready, and her sisters followed suit, arrows nocked to their bows.
Hijil froze, pressing herself against the tree, her heart pounding. The older sister stalked forward, graceful as a feline, scanning the surrounding brush cautiously. Hijil held her breath as the other two sisters, clearly well trained and used to working together, fanned out. Finally, the older sister relaxed, standing up and shaking her head. She motioned for her sisters to follow..
Hijil didn't relax until they were long out of sight. She slumped again against the tree, taking a few long, deep breaths. She looked up at the canopy, relieved. No conflict, no combat. No need to run or fight. But how long would her luck hold out? She inspected her bandaged wounds, visually and with her hands, before deciding she was recovered enough to keep moving.
She climbed down the tree onto the soft Jahuaran ground. She was definitely not well enough to use the highway of branches, and she didn't want to risk staying in one place too long. So moving on the ground it would be. She began walking as fast as her injuries would allow: the sooner she reached the more wild and uninhabited parts of the jungle and the coast, the better.
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Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2014 12:12 pm
Like the Nondwa
1282 - words-
Hijil broke through the forest and was startled by the sudden revealed brilliance of the dying day's light. The air was full of the scent of brine and salt, and she could feel it start to crystallize on her face. It was remarkable that she hadn't smelled it sooner: The thick foliage of the jungle must have absorbed it.
She climbed down the harshly eroded ridge to the soft sands below. She had never been to the coast before, and the ocean was greater than anything she had ever seen: only the sky itself could rival it in vastness. It was awesome and dynamic and lonely. Soft, rhyhmic waves broke the low hum of the muffled jungle behind her and large fish, their silver scales gilded by the setting sun, darted at the surface of the water near the fang-like rocks that clawed out from the shore. The ocean itself, though, seemed to continue on forever, merging into an endless and glowing horizon.
She watched as the sun set, seeming to sink into the water beyond and melt into a glittering line of fire and gold. Hijil had never seen anything so expansive. She had always lived in Jahuar, where the verdancy of the jungle crowded out all other life. Even in the canopy, where the sky was available to her, the view was nothing like this. The endless reach for light gave the canopy a cluttered topography of greedy plant tendrils and leaves, and the setting sun often disappeared into the steam that rose up from the sweated depths.
As the sunlight melted away into the water and the sky darkened, Hijil was transfixed as the stars came out not once, but twice: in the clear sky and again in the undulating waters. It was as if the sky had been brought to earth.
I really could. thought Hijil, full of wonder as she watching the now star-speckled waves roll in and crash, foaming, onto the rough sand, I really could fall into the stars she bit her lip, not sure, for a moment, whether she was looking up or down, I could fall away into the stars. she thought, wistfully touching the foam of a wave as it washed the sands, I could just float away. I could be free...
She had forgotten that wish she had shared with her friend so long ago, that wish to simply fall up, up and away, shedding all of her her earthly burdens and just leaving. Gone. She had thought that she had had heavy burdens then. She supposed that everybody thought that their lives were hard, when in truth they would only be harder.
Now the weights that had weighed her down before were as feathers. The whole world seemed to bear down on her shoulders. If she could only float away into infinity, no part of that burden would matter. Not the exile, not her mother's death, not even the abandonment of her only friend would matter anymore. None of her sins would. They didn't apply to things as far away and inscrutable as the stars and the sky...
She climbed back up the darkened bluff and, at the sharp edge of the glowing jungle, found a strong tree. She began turning some of the lower-hanging of it's clustered and gnarled branches into a shelter with her old, worn blanket and some handmade rope. It was temporary, but she would make it more permanent in time. She planned on staying here. No more wandering, no more hiding and sneaking fearfully, in the dense vegetation. She was going to stay here in the wild lands, safely away from her fellow shifters and from the Alkidikes, but close enough to Alkidike lands to see fellow sentient life occasionally. She didn't want to be alone, but neither did she really want to float away forever. Though her heart longed to be free, she knew that leaving the world, in whatever form that took, was not for her. Not anymore: her scars panged with a crisp and clear reminder of her near brush with oblivion.
Her heart might want freedom, but what she actually sought, she was certain, lay here on Tendaji in the life she had just managed to continue living. She merely had to find it.
She looked out towards the edge of the water again, at the glassy darkness that spanned to the edge of the world and wondered where it would be. Would it be deep in the jungle, lost in some overgrown and wild place? Would it be back in Ast, where she had been born, raised, and from whence she had fled?
What was it, anyway, this thing she sought? She would know it when she felt it, for it was a feeling – a concept - that she was searching for.
She climbed down the tree and began hunting down some vegetable matter for a nighttime meal. She knew that, whatever it was, the thing she sought was beyond physical. It was something outside of her, but also deep within. Perhaps she could call it love, but it was deeper than any love she had ever thought to give that name.
Only one person had ever made her feel the way. It had been small, a taste, but it had been the beginning of something more, and it had been beautiful.
Before, she hadn't been sure she would find it again. She hadn't thought she deserved it. Now, though, she wasn't sure she wouldn't find it. She knew that it was still available to her, graspable but indefinable, lingering in her memories like a tantalizing scent on the breeze. She had remembered it at the Stands of the great tournament, and again as she had teetered on the edge of life itself from the deep scores of the Radaku's claws.
She could best define it as a sort of bond, deeper than anything else, between the hearts of two people. It was beyond good or bad, or any mortal bearing. It was just... right. It was warm. It was... completing... in a way that she had never experienced before. She had felt so alive with this sensation, and so bereft without it. Every day she had longed to feel it anew, and every night, with her had wrapped it around her like a protective blanket.
A fluttering in a clearing beyond grabbed her wary attention, and she looked up to see a nondwa fluttering by. Suddenly, aware of the first, she became aware of others. As the glowing dust from their wings fell like a warm snow about her, she realized she was in a whole swarm of the peaceful creatures. They went about their business, their wings a quiet whooshing against the wild cries of the Jahuar night, ignoring her for other sources of food. It felt, briefly, ethereal among them and she remembered again her wish to float away into the stars. She felt afloat in and a part of the darkness and the luminescence and the fluttering wings.
Then the moment passed and she was simply among them on the forest floor. She smiled, offering a berry to one of the beasts. "I think..." she said out loud, "I think I will find it here." The nondwa took her berry and looked at her with vague curiosity before, finding no more food, it wandered placidly off. Her thoughts still remained, adrift in the falling wisps of glowing dust. I can find that feeling here. I will find that feeling here. and, quietly, because she almost didn't want to admit to thinking it. It was not something she deserved to think,
I will find her here.
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Posted: Sun Jan 26, 2014 7:08 am
The Water's Edge
941 - words-
Hijil surveyed the misty jungle from her canopy perch, looking out. A sea of trees broke on one side, and an endless expanse of water lapped on a beach on her other side. Not too far away, she could see the lights of a small Alkidike settlement, glowing softly in the grey uncertainty of the Jahuar morning. A
It was a beautiful sight, perfect for soothing her upset mind. She had picked this view well: it was nice to know that there were people nearby. It was just nice to have them there, within reach. Even if they would not be friendly towards her, it eased her loneliness somewhat.
She gazed out from her post a moment longer, taking in the view before she went about her day. There, in Alkidike lands, lay the hope that kept her alive through the troubles that the jungle threw at her. She was not hoping for forgiveness - what she had done was unforgivable. She just wanted some way to be a part of her life. She was still unsure.
Hijil took one last longing look at the settlement beyond the trees and clouds. Then, she scurried down the tree and, tentatively because of her healing wounds, landed on the ground. Before she started her search in earnest, she needed a place to come home to. She had been so long without a set home or the stability it provided. This home was still a work in progress. She would have to, definitely, replace the blanket that protected the branch from the rains with something more durable and waterproof - Perhaps a weave or a animal skin. She would also need to build some sort of platform in that branch to place her sleeping mat and supplies and other stored objects - the comforts of home. That wouldn't be too hard if she had some tools - which she needed to make. And there was also the matter of food and fresh water.
She had been here a few days, and had made progress. She now had some small amount of food stores laid away and a few pots of fresh water. Perhaps tomorrow she could stay in and craft some proper tools.
Today she was fishing. For now she was using a stick, a grass string, and a sharp claw with a piece of food on the end. It was a limited success. She would need to make a net and maybe some sort of fishing spear to fish properly. They would likely be crude - these weren't things she was used to making - but as long as they worked well enough to keep her alive, she didn't have to risk attack and discovery for the sake of finesse. At that, she reminded herself that camouflaging her new home among the Jahuar borderland was also a priority.
She had her work cut out for her, definitely. The search would have to wait, but if there was something Hijil was very good at, it was waiting. For a prey to fall into her net, for a special flower to bloom, for her to arrive at their meeting spot, for her mother to stop screaming at her about one thing or another... Hijil was used to waiting. Neither that person nor that feeling were not so fragile that they would blow away in the wind - Hijil had confidence in that. Soon. That was all she needed to hope for: a 'soon enough'.
Hijil set out for her recently discovered fishing spot, her makeshift rod and bait in hand. She wasn't an amazing fisherwoman by any means, but she had managed to catch a fish or two, and that was all she needed to feed herself for a day.
She had just sighted her spot- a nice rock just over a little pool of water that seemed to be a haven for nice-sized (and hungry) fish - when she saw another shape silhouetted in the light mist. Wary of people in these parts, she hid among the stones, watching, her black skin blending in with the seaweed-covered rocks of the low tide. It was an Alkidike, a youngling maybe, with a narrow barbed spear. Hijil watched as she stabbed it into the water, and felt sorry for them as they occasionally cried out in frustration. Spear fishing was difficult, she had learned. The water tricked you into thinking the fish was closer or further than they actually were.
Clearly the girl was as inexperienced as Hijil was, so Hijil wouldn't have been able to offer advice, even if she had dared to, and so she hid until, as water began to encroach on both her rock and her hiding place, a call from the shore drew the young girl away. Her mother, likely, or one of them. Hijil climbed a ways up the cliff and peeked out warily, watching an adult Alkidike, clearly a more experienced fisher from her overflowing catch basket, walk away with the frustrated youngling in tow.
When they were far out of sight, Hijil returned to the shore. The tide had ruined this fishing hole, but there were others she could try.
She could not be seen by Alkidikes: it was dangerous, and she still felt shame at being seen by others. She didn't think she would – or should – ever stop feeling horrible about what she had done. Not being seen didn't mean that she could not see, however. From the shadows she would search, and from those shadows she would find her. Fortunately there were a lot of shadows in Jahuar. She would find what she sought.
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Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 5:24 am
A Feast
1289 - words- "Hijil?" called Sara, her hands absently brushing the windchimes at the entrance to their lonely hut. They jangled melodiously, adding their high notes to the cacophany of Jahuar. The windchimes were new, a purchase of metal tubes from an elusive merchant. Hijil had always wondered how her mother turned the most mundane items into special works of art: It was a talent that she had never been able to manage herself.
"Here!" she called from their store room. Hijil had recently come back from gathering, and she had found a bounty of resources to bring home. The flowers and herbs and roots she had found should last last them for a while.
Sara looked in and smiled. "Is this all from today?" she asked, walking over to stroke Hijil's shoulder. Hijil managed to keep herself from twitching away - she could tell that this was not one of 'those' moods. This was a good mood. Hijil looked up from her work and nodded, lifting up a useful daybloom flower to show her mother. Sara clapped. "Oh, my good girl!" she said, embracing her daughter and kissing her on the forehead, her voice full of a vibrant joy. "My good little girl". Hijil didn't think she was such a little girl anymore, at twelve rainy seasons old, but she didn't correct her mother. She had no desire to ruin this rare positivity.
Hijil's mother broke the embrace and looked at her daughter, her face beaming, "So good, that I have a present for you!" she said joyfully. A thread of trepidation crawled down Hijil's spine: 'Present' from her new Alkidike friend in the forest usually meant something pleasant. 'Present' from her mother did not always mean nice things. Once, she'd had to collect spiky fruits for an hour in the heat of the sunlit canopy under her mother's stern gaze. That, too had been called a 'present'. And, while the fruits had been delicious inside the spikes, her hands had been bleeding afterward, and it had been very painful.
Still, she did not ask her mother what sort of present it would be. Instead, she let the woman guide her to a standing position and out into the main cooking and sleeping part of the hut. She covered Hijil's eyes. "Now Hijil. What is your favorite food in the world?" Hijil frowned lightly, confused.
"Ma?" This was an unexpected and wholly new question for her.
"What is your favorite food?" Hijil could hear a spark of her mother's anger lurking beneath her voice, and she did not wish to fan the flames.
"Uh." Hijil thought, trying to cooperate. She didn't want to tell her mother that she had been the one to eat all the little goldenfruits - so sweet they had been, like the tears of some goddess - instead of the local spitorogs, so she moved down the list to her second favorite food, hoping she hadn't deliberated too long. "Fish?" she said.
"Yes!" said Sara, her voice ringing with delight. Hijil had picked the correct answer. She relaxed in her mother's gentle grip. There were always right answers with her mother, far outnumbered by the wrong ones. "Oh Hijil! Take a look!" she said, pulling her hands back with a flourish.
There, by the low fire, was a massive fish. It's scales were a dark green-grey-blue with a silver tinge to them, neatly outlined along its long body. It's dead eyes gazed back blankly as Hijil's face broke into a grin. "Oh Mother!" she said, delighted, "Its beautiful!"
Sara nodded, proud. "Reshel got it for me. Such a good man, Reshel..." her attention drifted, before returning to the fish at hand, "He managed to get one of his patients to have a fish brought here. Can you imagine? Running this all the way from the ocean?"
Hijil stared. "All the way from the ocean...? Thats... far." she said, awed that anybody could travel so far, yet still have fresh fish with them. Fish, as she understood it, spoiled easily.
"Yes, yes, I just said that." snapped her mother, and Hijil shut her mouth. She would not have her mother annoyed and spoil this grand present. "I thought that we could have it for dinner tonight."
"Shall I prepare it, Ma?" asked Hijil. She hadn't prepared much fish in her life, but when she'd seen it done, it hadn't looked too hard.
"Yes..." Sara hesitated, "No, no. Let me cook dinner. You prepare those delicious berries you found the other day and set up a mix for soup. The bones will go in the soup, so we can have the fish day after day."
Hijil nodded. That was fine with her. She sat in the room and watched her mother prepare the fish as she de-seeded the berries and cut tubers and roots and aromatics. Sara was efficient and brutal- a chop to the head before quickly slicing the belly and gutting and washing the massive fish. But then she was careful, cutting as much of the meat from the bones as possible. Hijil was surprised at how adept she was with the sharp blade. "Ma?" Hijil asked. Her mother looked up and gave her a blank look, pausing in her filleting. "Where did you learn how to do that?" her mother stared at her for a moment more before returning to her work.
"Somewhere." she said absently, "From someone."
Hijil pressed. "Did Pa teach you?" she liked to hear what little tidbits she could about her father. She had never met the man, but from what she had heard, she would have liked to know him. Sara paused again, her gaze growing distant. Then she resumed her work. "No." she said, dismissively.
"Did your father teach you?" asked Hijil, probing. The moment she asked the question, she realized that she had crossed a line. Sara's hand jerked and she looked up at Hijil, her expression firey and wild. Hijil felt herself tense. Had that one question broken her mother's rare mood? Had she ruined everything? She looked back, warily, into her mother's glare, before her mother went back to the fish and resumed her work.
"No." Sara said, "I had no father, and was the worse for it." she said, her voice calm. Hijil pushed no further, and was silent for the remainder of the cooking of the fish.
The smells of cooking fish tantalized both shifters as Sara seared it in a pan and left it on the coals to cook through. There was a lot of fish, more than enough for the two of them with the berries and the leaves that were placed on the side. Sara's mood, which had been in that murkily neutral state ever since Hijil's questions, returned as they ate in companionable silence. The silence was perfect and beautiful, for in the silence, there was love, a love long strained and battered, but as real as any other. Hijil knew that Sara cared for her, and that she cared for Sara, and she willed herself never to forget it, even in the less pleasant and painful times. It was rare for Hijil to see her mother as her mother, and not as a woman who she both loved and feared, but now, over this feast of fish, she was her mother and - for this moment, this shared moment of family - she adored her.
After the meal, they set the stock to cooking and went to their tasks: Hijil to shoring up their stores, Sara to her latest craft project.
But that feeling of love was still there, suffusing the small, lonely hut with its purity.
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Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 10:29 am
Fishing in the Spirit Moonlight
968 - words-
After weeks of learning how to fish, Hijil had gotten fairly good at catching the oily creatures. Practice had made her fairly decent (though nowhere near perfect), and having a handmade and slightly crappy net made of grass strands helped, as well as a makeshift fishing spear made of a split stick and a tied on and sharpened rock. There was a lot of technique involved, technique that Hijil was only just starting to get the hang of.
Hijil liked fish, as had her mother. But, being inland and not very well-off skills or resources-wise, it had been a rare treat. Now, she could have it every day if she wanted to. Not that she did – Hijil liked to keep her diet balanced. She liked having a variety of flavors and textures in her meals.
Oddly enough, in exile she had more food than when she had been safe and sound at home. Between her mother and her, they hadn't had much to eat. When she had first run, she had had to let most prey get away, and her gathering attempts were limited by her surroundings. These past few weeks marked the first time that she had not gone hungry. She felt stronger and happier than she had ever felt. Had the Radaku attack made things clear to her? Had her newfound desire to live made living easier? Hijil didn't know. What she did know was that something was working properly for once in her trouble-filled life.
Hijil fished and gathered at night to avoid contact with local Alkidikes. She was not ready to start her search, and certainly not up for fighting born warriors. Night was great for other reasons, too: if she fished in the ocean, she could fish among the stars, which was ethereal and relaxing in a very nice way.
She sat on a rock in the dark and moonless night and cast her line out into the black and churning waters below. She could have cast the net out, but she didn't want to waste the fish she would catch. She ate a lot, but she only had her mouth to feed and no need to sell or trade. She really didn't need all that many fish to fill herself up. Instead, the net would hold the fish and help her haul it up and carry it home.
Fishing was peaceful, she had discovered. It required patience and it gave a reward. Thus, fishing was a perfect hobby for Hijil. She pulled up her rod to find that the bait had been taken, and was replacing it when her eyes were drawn to a sudden, eerily cold greenish glow emanating from the water. She stared at it as it flared before her, right where she had taken out her line.
It was like the reflection of the moon, but when she looked in the sky, she saw that it was the moonless phase of the moon's cycle. So, could not be a reflection. She watched until it faded away, unnerved. Cautiously, she dropped a refreshed lure into the fishing hole, wiggling it about to make it more appetizing to a fish.
What had that light been? Why had it gone? Had it truly been there, or was her solitude taking its toll? She felt a tug on her line, and pulled, fighting the fish until, finally, she landed it. She wrapped it – still living - in the net, intending to take it home and dispatch it there, to maintain its freshness. Thinking she would try for a few more, she prepared to cast her line again.
There it was. That glow in the water. She felt her soul chill at the greenish glow and backed away, picking up her fish and heading home quickly, unnerved.
What was it? Was it some sort of underwater moon, shedding light on the depths below? But then, why did it not shine at other times, and only when she had pulled her pole out? Perhaps it was the maw of some great fish, glowing in the darkness as it tried to engulf its prey? But why, then, had she not caught it if it was as close as the depth of the fishing hole would have indicated? It had to have been close.
Hijil started a fire in her hidden firepit and dispatched the fish, cleaning it in the way that she had seen the Alkidike fisherwoman do. She didn't bother to do much more than wrap it in a few thick leaves with some gathered herbs and vegetables and then place it on the coals.
Was the light some sort of spirit-moon? If so, why did it show itself to her? What did it want? What should she do? It had been much like the light of the plants of Jahuar, but in the ocean. The ocean was a place of darkness and brine and cold - light was not supposed to be there. Hijil did not know, and did not understand, but thought perhaps she should eat the fish in front of her and then stop fishing for a few days, just in case. She didn't want any ethereal spirit entities angry with her.
Hijil's steamed fish was tasty and the vegetables with it were succulent. She felt satisfied and generally good, ready to go out and scrounge up more food and materials for her abode. As she set out for the jungle, she was warier now, that eerie spirit-moonlight lingering in her mind.
Meanwhile, the bioluminescent jellyfish that had lurked in the fishing hole flowed back into the open ocean with the tide. If it could be relieved, it would be, to be back in the deeper waters. But it was just a jellyfish, and it just floated with the currents.
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Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 11:04 am
Sweetness in Foolishness
- 969 words
Not even Hijil's mother had known of her fondness for sweet, slightly overripe fruit and dripping sap. Hijil had told nobody about her secret sweet tooth. It was more than just liking it - her mother had liked the occasional confection and treat, and fruit made up much of the Jahuaran diet.
Hijil didn't just like it, Hijil craved it. She just had to have it. Normally, she could ignore it, but the cravings had grown implacable in recent times, keeping her awake even through the blazing Jahuaran days. The fruit she could find around here could not satisfy the need for sugar any longer. She needed something more, something intensely sweet and rich. She knew exactly where to find it too.
Today she had decided to seek out a source of sugar. She had known it was a bad idea with every step she took, and, now, as she watched the stinging insects buzz madly into and around their waxen home, she knew it was a terrible idea. But she also knew that within their home was exactly what she needed.
She had only had honey once before, when a travelling merchant had offered her a small sample, but it was sweet, but also ascerbic and tangy. It was thick and syrupy. It was, simply, perfect. She hadn't been able to afford any of it, though she had traded for his other wares on her mother's behalf.
She wanted it now, very badly so. But how was she going to get to it? The stinging insects were vigilant, persistent, and potentially deadly. Their stings were coated with venom that could, if you had enough of it, stop your breathing and heart. Hijil, true to the promise she had made to herself, wanted to live.
And yet... what was living without a few risks? And a few sweet rewards?
She grit her teeth against the irrational urges of her sweet cravings. A risk-free life was a long and comfortable one. She would not take stupid risks. While it would be nice to quiet the insistent longing for sweets, plunging her hand into the hive to snatch a small bit of sugary goodness would only catch her death, likely before she could bring her precious stolen goods to her mouth.
She didn't think, though, that her options were so limited that she would have to give up. On the contrary - she had an idea. She had once heard that the stinging insects did not like smoke. Perhaps if she somehow caused smoke to disturb them, she could take a little bit of their hive in the process.
But no, smoke would reveal her position. Someone would likely investigate, and that would mean that she would get into a conflict that she still could not afford. No. There had to be some other way.
But aside from the ill-advised shoving of her hand into the hive she could think of nothing. Frustrated, she left to try to forget about it.
She returned later, though, some twigs and flint in her hands. She had tried to go about her gathering, but the cravings were too strong. She had to have that sugar. She would try the smoke method, because she definitely wished to remain alive.
Carefully, slowly, so as not to disturb the insects, she piled up a mound of some of Jahuar's wet leaf litter, building a little aerated structure. Then, she lit it, aware of the intensifying of the angry buzzing just nearby. She left and hid in a bush as smoke began to curl up from the pile and, in the windless depths of the jungle, coil around the tree and the nest.
She waited a moment, before stealing to the tree and climbing up. She took out a makeshift dagger made from a long, cleaned, sharpened shell and, with some hesitation, began to try to cut off a piece of the nest. She only needed a little. She sawed as slowly as she could, her mouth watering at the golden-amber liquid dripping from the wound. She could hear buzzing around her and her heartbeat rose in her chest. This had been a awful idea from the start. She didn't know why she was still doing it.
Finally, the piece came off in her hands, writhing with small white larvae and glittering with the sweet treat that spilled over her hands. Trying to be quiet, she shimmied down the tree.
She miscalculated the distance. Hijil's feet hit the ground with a thud. The confused milling of the insects suddenly became more focused. They swarmed about their hive, then turned to her, a cloud of a thousand tiny black eyes and vicious barbed stingers.
Hijil did not deliberate. She ran. The angry buzzing pursued her to the very edge of the jungle, and she rushed into the rocky beach, hiding in a crag among the dead smells of low tide. The buzzing lingered for a moment before finally dissipating. Hijil, cautious, peered out to make sure they were not waiting to ambush her. Seeing no angry black eyes watching for her, she climbed out of her hiding place and made her way home.
She limped as she walked up to her stores and placed the ill-gotten treat in a small unfired clay bowl, covering it for later, and she realized that her hasty climb down the crag must have damaged something in her foot. She sat down to rest and, realizing her hands were sticky with honey, she licked them experimentally.
Though slightly tainted by the grime of the rocks and by her sweat, her eyes still narrowed in pleasure as she cleaned the sweet treat off of her hands. Yes, she had been chased by angry insects. Yes, she had an ankle injury. But this was worth it.
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Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2014 7:34 pm
Being BribedClass Quest 241 - words-
Hijil rested in her hidden home, drained from her trek across the jungle and from the trying child. Not that Hijil disliked Shandi. The girl had gotten on her nerves but, in the end, she had just been a curious child, not a bad one. Hijil had always liked younger people, including children, though she hadn't met very many of them. She really liked small things in general. She doubted that she would have the opportunity to have small ones of her own. So, she couldn't be mad at Shandi, not really.
Though the girl HAD asked quite a few awfully prying questions. Hijil wondered who else had seen her give the alkidike the small carved fish. She hadn't seen anybody about, but clearly Shandi had been near enough to see her do it. She chuckled softly to herself. It really wasn't much of a secret. She was alone, who had she to keep her secrets from? Herself? What of when she began her search for her lover? What of the war that was coming? What use was her secret as a secret?
She took one of Shandi's caramel bribes and let it sit, dissolving, in her mouth, enjoying the taste as it spread smoothly over her tongue. It didn't need to be quite so much of a secret anymore, did it? That she loved an Alkidike?
No. she realized, It didn't
And, in that moment, she realized she was free.
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Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2014 7:35 am
Patience- Meta ch 5
348 - words-
Hijil knew she was badly hurt. She had been badly hurt before - her scars were testament to that. She also knew she would heal, which was why she patiently lay on the bed that she had been carried to. Given time and careful healing, she would heal and be strong enough to fight again. This, she understood.
She also understood the impatience of her fellows as they squirmed in their beds, battling their injuries, desperate to be back out there and fighting. She wanted to be back out there too, protecting her fellows from the Obans.
But she was willing to wait. It would do no good to go out there so injured - she would fall quickly, and she might not be able to get back up. And what good would that do?
Her fellows would just have to wait, as she was. She was thankful for having a nice place to wait in with people attending to her needs. She didn't have many needs - food, water, companionship, and some assistance moving - it hurt to move and she didn't want to jostle whatever she had broken. Had she not gone to war, and been similarly injured, it would just be herself, taking care of herself. She doubted it would work out quite as well.
She smiled as a healer came to check on her. As it was, she was gaining back weight she had lost, and feeling more at ease than she had ever felt before. This war and injury may well be good for her. At some point, though, she would leave this tent and return to the hell of the battlefield, which was not very pleasant, though necessary. And when that time came she would make no fuss, just as she made no fuss now as the healer palpitated her torso, checking the progress of the bones.
The healer seemed impressed with her progress, but Hijil was not surprised. Her will to heal and live was as strong as her patience.
The time to leave, she knew, would be soon enough.
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2014 2:17 pm
Hijil was grateful to the shifter Hunter for teaching her the ways of the jungle. She was certain she would have, otherwise, starved.
How she had survived this long, unable to hunt or really take care of herself, she did not know. Luck, she supposed. She doubted it was skill.
She had no skills, other than moving in the trees and knowing what plants could be eaten. She was, she knew, a babe in an unforgiving wood.
Alone. Friendless. Motherless. All her fault...
But at least she could feed herself now, with meat to supplement her plants.
Now she just had to remember why she bothered.
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2014 4:57 pm
The leaf-Alkidike man was behind her on the path - a path which she, herself, had left. Her wounds felt better after she applied the balm, and she knew that - between the ministrations of Sauron and of Yaholo, she would survive and heal.
She had to heal.
She was already, in mind as well as body. The information she had been uncertain of had been offloaded. For better or worse, what she knew of Ruelash the Ice tribesman was now in the hands of the Leaf/Alkidike man. That knowledge had been a weight on her, a potential that could have been terrible, truly terrible.
She was glad that she would not have to face whatever she would have done to the man. It wasn't her way.
Besides, she had other things to think about.
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2014 5:09 pm
Hijil was always happy to help, and it warmed her soul to think that the small creature had been reunited safely with its owner. It was not a Jahuaran beast, and she was sure that - with its striking green coat and friendliness - it would not have survived long in the jungle.
She was glad that it had found her first, before some apex predator could make a meal of it, or before the jungle's poisons could seal its fate. It was a very familiar situation, being alone in the jungle. She was just happy that it had someone to turn to.
She wished she had someone to turn to, someone to hold and make life a little better. She wished she could have met the master of the sweet creature, talked to them a little.
But no. She had nobody, she had nothing, and she did not deserve conversation or friendship. Only loneliness and scorn and pain.
Still.
She was glad that the little creature had been there to alleviate it, even for a short time.
Now, though, it was back to surviving and living. "Goodbye..." she murmured softly, as she faded into the trees, leaving the path and the reunion far behind.
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Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2014 5:49 am
] The Radaku
636 - words-
The Radaku was dead, and Hijil felt that that was enough death for one day. She needed to bury the beast, but felt that it could wait. Instead, she turned to search for the injured Oban - She had no desire to let even an enemy fall prey to the merciless jungle. She had to find him before it was too late.
She stalked among the trees, keeping low to see if she could spot the trail of his blood. The air of Jahuar was always heavy, but it was normally loose and shrouding like a thick blanket of moisture. Now, though, was becoming clammy, clinging to her skin like a small child. Rain was coming, and with it, its cleansing power.
The rains of Jahuar were a constant of life in the jungle. They purified the air and soil, and nourished the bountiful life of the dangerous land. But it also washed away life as well, wiping away tracks and turning solid ground into thick, sometimes deadly mud. Without a blood trail, she wouldn't be able to find the lost Oban. Neither would predators, perhaps, but like Xilarn, the Oban was likely ill prepared for her homeland. The predators would find him eventually, or the weather, or the many terrible poisons and sicknesses that struck down even strong Alkidikes in the war camps. If she didn't find him, it was certain, he would die. Even if she did find him, he might yet die, but at least he would have a better chance.
It was for that chance that she hurried, seeking every droplet of blood and every trace of the man she could, even as the first drop, a herald of the deluge to come, splattered to the ground and soaked into the roots of the trees. Soon, it was upon her.
Hijil ran along the muddy ground, nearly swimming as the rain pounded its clear, rumbling notes into the foliage around her and the ground became mud. Unable to progress further into the sudden slime of the jungle, she scurried into the trees, tracking from the slickening lower branches until she saw, so faint as to not have been believed at first, a glint of orange-gold in the wet, fungus-lit darkness of the ground. She dropped as low as she dared, holding onto the tree with her legs as she scrabbled with her hands in the mud. She felt something fleshy and, hopeful, pulled on it.
A leg followed her hands out of the mud, then a body, then the whole Oban. With a surge of muscular strength from her stomach, she pulled the Oban up out of the mud and onto a branch, holding them steady.
They were unconscious, but breathing alarmingly faintly. Their wounds were deeper than she had thought, and they were nearly half-drowned from the mud. She set about trying to clear their lungs to keep them breathing, but despite her attempts to keep them alive, their breathing only slowed and, as the rain poured around her, it stopped entirely.
She sat there, looking at the body of the Oban, her expression a mix of pity and grief, the rain drenching her braid into a single, ropy, caclified formation at the side of her head. She thought about the Oban, and the Radaku, and the death that surrounded her. Even in times of peace, there would be death. War changed so little, and yet so much.
In that moment, she knew there was no more delaying, no more procrastination. She had to go home. She had to begin her search for her friend, before death claimed her - either of them - too.
She would arrange in Neued for the Oban to return to his people, and she would bury the Radaku, and then... Then she would go home.
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2014 12:18 pm
While preparing to set off on her journey of discovery and confrontation, Hijil was reminded suddenly of Xilarn, the young Oban she had helped.
As she packed away supplies and essentials like her hunting knife and rope – because you always needed rope – she wondered, uneasily, if he was all right. She had left him alone in her tree house awfully suddenly, and he was going to stay in Jahuar.
She couldn't very well stop him, but she wondered: was he ready to do something like that? She hadn't been, and she'd had no help. Was her help enough to set him up to live, and to keep living?
She wondered, also, why he did not want to go back to his own homeland. Was he running from something? From someone? It would explain why he was alone and unprepared in her jungle.
She thought it was sad that there were others, like her, who had to leave what they called home behind and live alone in the wilderness. She was not, however, running away anymore. It was time to run to her fate.
And, she supposed, it was time for Xilarn to run to his. Her nestling had gotten all the care and preparation she could give it, and now it was time to fly.
She looked out over the sun-dappled waves as they spanned from the cliffside beaches all the way to the infinitely distant horizon.
And soon it would be time for her to fly, too.
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2014 12:25 pm
Returning Home
- 684 words Hijil leapt through the canopy. She was nearly there: She had to be. She had been travelling so far and for so long through the matted jungle that all she wanted now was the sweet breeze and open view of the sea, and the familiar cloaked safety of her home.
Home... it was odd to have one. Her mother had brought her up in a place that she had called 'home', but it hadn't really been home. The platform in the trees, the misty mornings alone by the lake when she could get them, and Bhima herself – those had been home to Hijil, a haven from the threats of the outside world, places she felt safe in and people she felt safe with... But they hadn't been called 'home'.
Indeed; The platform in the trees was just a bunch of half-rotten wood strung between branches. The lake was just a swath of fresh, clear water. And Bhima...
Well there was no 'just' Bhima; Bhima was a collection of many things.
Bhima was Hijil's only friend, her confidant, the one person she had been able to trust completely without fear that they would turn on her. Her shoulders had offered comfort on the worst days, her hands companionship, her voice healing, her stories; hope. Bhima had meant many things to her in those days.
Those days, though, were past. Hijil had come, she felt, a long way in life since then. Before, she had been a quiet child that had no friends, no family, and nothing much to look forward to day by day. She had met other people, and had interacted with them in positive ways. She was even fond of a few – young Xilarn, for instance.
Which was why Hijil had to find Bhima properly. She could not just glimpse her here and there from the shadows and leave a random trinkets at her doorstep and in her hand.
The ghost of her childhood required her to find her, to face her, and to see if she could – now, with her new, grown up senses and more experienced mind, understand what they had had as girls. And, also, to see where they stood now. She had run away from her entire life, and had lurked in the jungle for many years. It was time, now, to find the old pieces of the life she had left and see where they fit now.
It was time to come home.
It was against her nature, which preferred to sit in the shadows in the safe loneliness of anonymity and watch the world (and the woman she thought she might still love) walk by.
But Hijil could lurk in the shadows no longer: it would lead only to death and despair. Now she had to move, now she had to act, and she had to do it before the greedy maw of war consumed its next meal of lives... which it would, all too soon. That she knew.
Her home by the sea would be a brief visit, a touch-down of sorts before moving on to start looking for Bhima in earnest. She had resources stored up, and she would take those, and she had ideas on where to start. Hijil would allow herself no more time to dally, no more time to fear. She would be going.
Finally, she broke through the thick jungle and beheld the cliffs and beach that was her home, the sky and horizon opening before her into a vast and endlessly blue-green expanse of water. Her heart felt freed from invisible confines, as she made her way along the cliffside path towards the sheltered tree she had made into home.
It struck her how much her home was like a nest, like a great bird had made itself a a place to live and raise its young in the tree. Was she the bird, or the hatchling? Well, she thought, feeling the openness of the seashore's sky from her shoulders to the innermost quiet depths of her soul, Either way, it is time for me to fly.
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