Welcome to Gaia! ::

Biroki looked up at her calmly. He would have been intimidated, but he was too fatigued to really care about size differences at this point. He understood. "I'll let you know." he said, thinking, already, about where he could use a strong alkidike...

((A few weeks later))

Ast was still familiar, still home. He had been worried that it would not be, not after the fights: both the battle and the fight with his wife.

But it only felt more comforting and home-like the closer he drew to the hut where his uncle - and now his mother - lived. "We're close now." he reassured his companion. He had kept his promise to let the Alkidike know when he was leaving (for completely not-spitorog-related reasons), and had taken her into Ast. It was daytime, so the odd looks were less than they could have been, but he still felt them, and the unasked questions they implied.

Smoke came from his uncle's hut. "Hes in." he remarked, continuing to approach...

Reshel was technically in. Actually, he was outside, hanging up laundry to dry. He knew he only had so long before Sen'oda shouted for him again. He had forgotten what a needy fireball his sister could be. He loved every second of it. It was nice to have her back, in a masochistic way. Family was family.

Speaking of, he saw a familiar face approaching. Tension he didn't know he had faded away.

He'd been unreasonably worried about Biroki. His nephew may not have been fighting, but he had still been there. Clearly, though, he was safe and sound.

"Biroki!" he called out, waving. His hand stopped in midair and his smile froze on his face as he took in the traveling companion - very clearly a fullblooded Alkidike.

The older shifter quickly hopped down, setting a weight on the rest of his laundry, to confront his nephew. "Biroki, what is this?" he asked, concerned.

"Uncle, this is Bhima." Biroki said quickly - perhaps too quickly for his liking... hesitating before introducing her reason...

Reshel looked her over, guardedly. "Lots of people live here, and lots of people leave. You're going to have to be more specific than that, Alkidike."

Biroki flinched. "S-she's looking for Hijil, uncle. And its all right..." he said, hurredly. Reshel's attitude was too tense for him, and Biroki was tired of tenseness. He didn't want violence of any sort to erupt, not out of a misunderstanding, and he also wanted to expedite things. He had delayed her for several weeks, and - though he was justified and didn't regret it - he did feel a little bad. "They were friends." He believed her, and he knew there was no reason for her to lie. His eyes begged his uncle to calm down and help her... who had bothered to talk to him politely after their last meeting, so desperate was she for answers.

Reshel blinked. "Hijil?" He turned an intense look on her, his mind putting disparate events together. "Friends." his voice was cool, neutral, but there was something harsh beneath it. He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. "Well. Well well well..."

A shout, angry and demanding, came from his hut, and he turned, wincing. "Biroki?" he said, "Why don't you go say hello to your mother and get her whatever she is wanting now?" He gave Biroki a sidelong glance, a hint that there was more to what he was asking. "I'm sure she would like to see you safe and sound and home."

Biroki doubted that. While he was glad that his uncle had not resorted to or instigated violence, he did not like how Reshel was so cold, so unlike the uncle he knew and loved. He was sure his mother didn't like him - she wasn't kind to him and preferred the company of his daughters to her own son. To be expected, he supposed, after she had left him all those years ago. "I don't really think..."

"Go on." said Reshel, making it clear that this was not optional.

Biroki got the message. "All right." he said, entering the hut, looking back uneasily at the two of them.

"Well then. Lets talk." he said, returning to his laundry and beckoning her to follow. He was facing away from her, seemingly calm and unconcerned, but he was not. He was tense, very tense. Answers awaited him to questions he had never hoped to resolve. He wasn't sure if he was angry, not yet. "Alkidike... Bhima... I want you to answer, very plainly and honestly, this question." he began, "You say you were Hijil's friend. How close were you, exactly, to her?" he turned, looking at her, "I know its very personal to ask," he amended, softening the blow a little, "But I must know, and I wouldn't ask unless I felt it necessary. I need to know the context to know what information you want to know... what you really want to know." he amended again, "Beyond the questions you might think to ask."

Biroki's eyes adjusted to the different light in the tent. It wasn't the dimness that bothered him - the jungle was dimly lit itself. Nor was it brighter than the outside, not particularly. It was different. He could barely make out the thin, scrawny black shape huddled by a wall, even when it moved to look at him with pale, hollow eyes.

"Hello mother." he said, kneeling next to her.

The thin - almost skeletal - woman glared at him. "I en't yer mom, boy. That was J'khom, and don't you forget it."

Biroki sighed. He didn't feel hurt, though he wondered if he should. "I know, mother, I know." he said, "What did you want? I can g-go get it..."

~~~~

"Close, mmm?" he said, as if he suspected there was more to it. "Thank you. That explains a lot." he stretched laundry on a long vine, hung under a tarp to keep it all dry. "You see, the last time I saw Sara - Hijil's mother - she was very upset. Her daughter was involved with an Alkidike, she said. I am willing to bet now that that Alkidike was you." he paused, as if dredging the story, reluctantly, from some great depth. "She was absolutely frantic. I tried to calm her down, and she went home. Three days later, I went to her hut and I found her dead, for at least that long. Hijil was nowhere to be found, and we searched for that poor girl for a whole day, before the rains took away any hope we might have to track her." he trailed off, then took in a hesitant breath of air. "Would you...have anything to do with Sara's death?" he asked, his tone almost hopeful, "I know how she was, and I wouldn't blame you if... something happened..."

"Don't Want nothin', Boy..." she grumbled, turning away. Biroki wondered what caused her ill temper. Was it her weakness? Her long unconciousness? his existence? Or was she just like that? It was strange. She and Reshel were so different... he couldn't believe they were siblings. "Well, all right... Some water." she said, seeming to relent. Biroki got her some water and carefully helped her drink. She did not thank him. "Whos that outside?" she asked leaning back and turning towards where Reshel's voice, muffled, leaked through the canvas and leaves of the hut.
"Nobody." said Biroki, checking her over. Her bedding didn't need changing, and she didn't look like she needed cleaning just yet, either. He could feel her looking at him. It was true, though. Bhima was nobody that Sen'oda needed to be concerned about....

~~~~

Damn it. He had been hoping that the Alkidike had had something to do with it. Then Hijil... well...

Those two had been doomed for something terrible to happen. He knew how Sara was, and how unstable she had been after her husband had died. He should have done something. But he hadn't, and it sunk in now that he might have, by doing nothing, have doomed two lives and hurt another. It was years ago, but he felt the guilt now like a knife to the gut.

"Mmm." he said, not sure what else to say as he watched her body language. It was difficult to tell with Alkidikes, or those who bore their blood in their eyes - he couldn't tell when she was looking at him or not. "No. Nobody knows anything..." he said, his manner softening. It was, however, obvious that she was in pain, and he felt that it was, also, his fault. And there was really no way to make her feel better.

"Would you..." he hesitated, "Like to see the hut? Where she lived?"

"All right then." Reshel moved to poke his head inside his home. "Biroki, I'm going out for a bit."

Biroki moved, opening his mouth to ask a question before Reshel stopped him. "With our guest. I'll tell you later." he glanced at the woman at Biroki's side, "Don't give him too hard a time, Sen."

She made a noise, a raspy sort of gurgle that could have been a laugh. And Reshel smiled, leaving them there. His smile faded back to a serious, almost- but not quite - sad expression.

"All right." he said to Bhima, beckoning. He didn't bother to look up at her face - so much higher than his own - before turning to go. "Follow me." he didn't want to look at her eyes anyway. Not right now. He wasn't sure if he could face them, or what mistakes they might reflect...

~~~

Biroki blinked at his uncle's sudden departure.

"He does that often, boy." coughed Sen'oda, "Or he did."

"Did what?" asked Biroki, looking down at her. His mother.

"Go off on things and tell you nothing at all." she replied, smirking. Her face was not as skeletal as it once had been, but it was still striking, "Resh's a real jerk that way."

Biroki smiled. "He n-never used to do that." he said, "He always explains later... when he does things like this..." he shrugged, "You know. Going off, doing things, coming back..."

"Oh yeah?" she began to laugh her terrible laugh again, fading into coughing that Biroki soon relieved with another drink of water, "We'll see about that." she whispered, lying back, "He's a piece of work, that brother of mine..."

~~~

Reshel didn't feel so much like a piece of work as a piece of dung. He'd been one of the few people that had bothered - had cared - to visit Sara. He'd been over a few times, met Hijil frequently... but he'd rarely talked to the girl, not more than business at that. But he'd seen the bruises. He was probably the only one in the village that knew Sara and what she was capable of doing - had probably done.

The path was familiar... but only barely. It was overgrown, the jungle slowly taking it back. Soon, there would be little more than packed earth to mark the way to the home of a broken woman, to mark a path a solid little girl had once trod. And, maybe, one day there would be nothing left but Jahuar.

"Its not too far ahead..." he said. Yes. He felt like dung. But, he reminded himself, it had been years ago. He was only mortal. He made mistakes. That lessened the feeling a bit, age devouring it as the jungle devoured its secrets. He knew his excuses. Sara was unstable - the slightest thing could set her off. But when she was good, she was good, and he could calm her down. He'd been afraid that interfering too directly in her life would make her lose trust in him, and then she would never calm down. He needed that trust - trust was the only true weapon a healer had against sickness and pain. Without it, no medicine or magic would really work. So he gave her medicine - not too much because of the side effects but - and he had known it then - not enough. He'd listened to her when she had her frantic fits, but he had done only that. Should he have done something else? Should he have raised Hijil himself? Biroki was a mild child and he had been enough of a handful...

There was no point to dwelling on the past. He couldn't help anybody now - Sara was beyond his help, and Hijil... Well... Who knew.

"Its there..." he said quietly, pointing. It had been years since he had been here. He could still see where he had buried Sara's body with its cracked skull - a gold-flowering shrub was flowering there. Pretty. Ethereal. Sad.

The hut had never been in the best condition, pieced together by whatever Sara had found - she and her husband had been resourceful. Of course, the mostly leafy roof had rotted now, becoming a mess of vines. It barely looked like a hut anymore, just a vagely ball-shaped mound of vegetation with a door. "You can still see the steps..." He looked at them sadly.

They weren't really steps so much as rungs, like a ladder, made with hollow heavy relics he'd sold to Sara long ago... He'd wondered what she wanted them for. Well, now he knew. It was... cute. She'd always been creative.

"Be careful... I'll be right out here."

That was the time he'd had Biroki deliver them... He hadn't made that mistake again. The way Biroki told it, he'd been attacked by her. He'd been protected by Hijil, he said.

Oh, Reshel knew he should have done something then. He'd seen the brusises, he'd heard of her being hit by her mother, he should have done something. But what would there have been to do? Nothing.

What could he do now? For Bhima?

All he could do was watch... And wait... And maybe make sure she got out of there okay.

He didn't like that. He didn't like that at all.

Reshel had left himself to stew in his own thoughts, unable to drag himself away from the place. His need to help and his promise rooted him there, though he had thought about just leaving her there and burying the memories with some carefully saved fruit wine.

But he hadn't, and he couldn't figure out if he regretted it or not as she stepped out again. "Your welcome, I suppose." he murmured, "For what its worth, Bhima... I'm sorry." he said, meaning it in all the ways he could mean. He was sorry he hadn't helped Hijil, or Sara in the past, and now that he could not help this girl chasing shadows in the dusk.

"Are you going to keep looking?" he asked, turning to lead her back to the settlement and the path that would take her safely (ish) to her own tribe's lands.

Reshel turned and looked back at her. "No. I suppose you wouldn't..." That was it, then. He couldn't help her any more than he already had, and if he had helped her at all was debatable. Hijil, he still felt, was probably dead if not then, then in the years in between. Too much could happen to a person in the jungle in a day, let alone a year.

"I can help you no more." he said, turning away, "I wish you luck in your search" he said, walking stiffly away, back towards Ast.

She would need that luck.