Welcome to Gaia! ::

Detraeus blinked, tensing on instinct at the unexpected contact. Then, though, he flushed, heat crawling up his neck to his ears and throat knotting as he tried to clear it, her body warm and soft as he remembered it from the first — and only — time they danced. Grunting, he reached around, patting her back uncertainly. “I’m…pleased…that you like it,” he said.

Detraeus tilted his head. Between his increase in rank in the pit as well as his new habit of taking on ‘other’ jobs made possible through his connections with fellow pit fighters, it had been some time since he had last gone out and participated in a proper hunt. Man versus beast and nature. Besides that, the thought of spending the time alone with her — while intimidating, to an extent — was also appealing in ways he didn’t care to over examine. He also simply appreciated the fact that she wanted to use the weapon, which was promising. All this in mind, he studied her, testing the seriousness of her offer before rolling his shoulders.

“If you like. Would you…prefer to spar with it? Or take it for a hunt.”

Detraeus shook his head. He preferred the concept of a hunt, personally, and so it was decided upon. They agreed on a meeting point and departure time for the following afternoon, leaving Ara enough time to practice with the weapon to at least some degree on her own and grow more accustomed to it before putting it to use against something that fought back. Detraeus tossed restlessly in his bunk that night. It pleased him immensely to have the gift well received, but the prospect of spending an evening with her — just the two of them, with no one else to break the silence — that intimidated him.

He rose early, however, as per his usual habit, leaving his bed before dawn and progressing through his morning routine of exercises in the pre-morning silence. He met the sun as it rose halfway through and made quick work of breakfast after. Araceli lingered in his thoughts throughout the day. Her, as well as the progression of events in the pit, and jobs he’d taken on outside of it. Hired arms, mostly — guarding caravans, merchant travellers and the like across the desert. He had yet to fight anything with Seren’s blood in the arena, and the desire for it itched at him. The boy on Soudul had done nothing for him. A blank emptiness that only left him wanting for something more tangible.

He pushed the thoughts away. The sun was half way into the afternoon sky when he arrived, saddled on a dark hastar, at the meeting point of their choosing, just outside the city limits. They had not discussed yet precisely what they would be hunting, but by his judgement, starting small and working their way up through whatever they might find along the way made the most sense. Other than that, he had nothing to do but wait, his hastar’s hooves absently beating the sand as the low, airy notes of a distant instrument filled the air over the ever-present bustle of the city itself.

Taliuma, he realized belated, was home to him, now.

Detraeus turned, surprised at the sound, blinked, and then relaxed at the sight of her.

“You made it,” he said, attention flitting over her briefly and taking in the details before he trained his gaze back to the open desert before them. His tail tapped against the side of his mount as he settled his posture and lifted his reins, clicking just enough to get the beast moving. “And what would you prefer to start with, sky princess? More baowi? A clutch of feathered argaroo? Some wild alkara…or bigger prey? A three-headed, pincered beast with a tail of poison and leg tips like a knife blade…”

Detraeus shrugged, privately pleased, and clicked his reins, leading them out. He supposed he ought to have been more concerned. It was an entirely new weapon for her, after all. But then, she was practiced enough with her wind magic on its own to begin with and he knew his way around the desert well enough by now to manage it on his own with relatively little issue. Urshunds still were something to keep a watch out for, since he knew he wanted nothing to do with the massive things yet, even with Araceli’s back up. Fortunately, though he had on occasion come across the abandoned tunnels of some, he had yet to find himself under attack by one, and planned to keep it that way for some time. Rumored to span the length of ten men or more laid end to end with a hunger to sing legends about, he figured himself — and Araceli — far safer out of their path.

So, he turned their path eastward, not towards the Terra Expanse, but the looming, rocky crags, stacks, and canyons of the northern Malro desert. As a whole, the desert’s terrain varied greatly from area to area, several different types melding from one into the next across its full distance from shore to shore. But Detraeus knew this area — made of hard, burnt clay, caked earth, and hot stone that stretched towards the glaring sky like broken teeth — was home to plenty of more challenging prospects which lurked amongst the rocks. The cah native to Eowyn, in particular, preferred the dense earth and climbable stacks within which to make their nests.

After making their way well out of sight of the desert city and into the narrow shadows of rock spires, Detraeus slowed his mount’s pace. Listening to the dry whistle of wind, he eyed the path ahead and after several more paces, dismounted and crouched. His wings flit behind him, tail flicking side to side as he studied the earth: recently disturbed, with plenty of tracks large and small. Much of the desert’s life force took to the ground, or at least the shadows, during the day — seeking out respite from the burning sun to conserve energy and water — but that worked to their advantage, leaving all the tracks out in the open with few things awake enough to be desirous of attacking them unprovoked.

“Rhamidon or cah?” he asked, hand hovering, splayed over the massive, rounded footprint of what looked to be a rhamidon loner. Larger than most, and unaccompanied by pack mates. At the sound of clicking to his right, however, and the trickled rumble of falling pebbles, he stood immediately, fingers already reaching for his. “It seems the goddess has chosen for us.”

Detraeus had his bow up, nocked, and drawn within moments of the beast making its appearance down from and around the rock spire. As the winds picked up, however, he held back, keeping his position locked and poised and watching Ara instead. The intention, after all, was to get her comfortable with the weapon, and so long as she seemed to be handling herself, he figured it best to give her the full opening of an untouched target. She did not disappoint.

The wind gathered around her like a familiar friend, tamed by her magic but still fierce and wild as any to her enemies. Detraeus watched, thumb hovered over the butt of his arrow as his attention followed her with riveted fascination. Despite having only owned the weapon for less than two days’ time, Araceli manipulated it with surprising expertise. Not the effortless skill and comfort of the weapon master who’d forged and carved it — though that was hardly a fair comparison, since that woman had clearly worked with similar such blades for many years of her life — but impressive in her own right, overall.

Not wanting to risk a moment wasted, however, Detraeus kept his pose, stepping over the compact earth without ever lowering his bow as he moved so that Araceli’s winds would — if necessary — benefit the direction of his arrows. The need never came. As her weapon buried itself deep in the creature’s body newly-turned-carcass, Detraeus waited, and watched. Only after its last, dying twitches had long since ceased in their entirety did he lower his own weapon, relaxing his arm, removing his arrow from the string and brushing his thumb over the shaft as he re-holstered the body of the bow onto his back.

Wordlessly, he approached its bleeding husk. After slipping his unused arrow back into his quiver, he braced a boot on the overgrown insect’s cracked exoskeleton, gripped the boomerang’s handle, and yanked, unsheathing’ it from creature’s body in a single go. Removing the blood from his boot with a scuff to the dried desert earth, he lifted and brought the weapon back to Ara.

“Certain my aid is needed? You handle well enough on your own.”

Detraeus grunted at her first response, externally neutral, but silently pleased. At her latter question, however, he tensed. His tail flicked at its tip, two sharp lashes side to side as the spines stretched outwards, and he rolled his shoulders, trying to force the tension from them. Many words lingered at the edge of his tongue — sharp, bitter, brittle words — but he kept most all of it to himself. Instead, aloud, he said only:

“I did not ask for them.”

With a quick beat of his wings, he lifted off the ground and mounted his hastar, immediately nudging it into motion with his heels and clicking the reins as he went. His pulse still beat quick in his throat as he rode, but he swallowed it down and focussed his attention on the road ahead. The rhamidon loner’s tracks headed nearly directly east, towards the face of the setting sun, and Detraeus angled his path that way. Aside from the one he’d witnessed Casseth fight in the pit, he had only limited experience with the beasts in person and knew that loners ran large — and especially vicious — but felt confident in his ability to take one on, regardless. Particularly if he managed to catch it unawares and use surprise to his advantage.

That, however, did not seem in the cards.

He spotted the rhamidon as it came into view over the upper edge of a nearby crag, its scales catching the glinting light of the sun and attention already clearly honed in on him. Its snort disturbed rubble from its upper vantage point and it gave a testing stomp to the earth. Detraeus reined his beast in gradually, slowing to a standstill before drawing an arrow from his quiver, still mounted. He narrowed his eyes as he aimed, breathing out to steady his hold and planning for a shot directly in the beast’s eye socket. Seconds from loosing his arrow, the rhamidon roared.

Loud enough to make desert rocks quiver, it frightened Detraeus’ hastar into a panicked buck, and he swore aloud, wings billowing outwards, beating to save him from a nasty fall or lashback and allowing him to rise safely up, off, and away from his mount as it whinnied, prancing wildly. He landed in a half crouch, bow up again in moments, aimed for the crag’s edge. But the space was empty.

Detraeus narrowed his eyes, tail twitching warily as he relaxed his bow to a loose nock at his side. He heard the beast again before he saw it: the low rumbling of a pounding charge coming from a body that matched his own weight fifty times over. Then, it showed, coming around the low edge of the rock formation — apparently having charged down the back face — coming in a direct shot for him and kicking up coiling clouds of dust to either side of it like an angry storm cloud of dust and rubble.

Detraeus aimed, and fired.

Plink.

Plink.

Plink.

Three shots that ought to have driven into the beast’s skull did nothing but earn Detraeus another echoing roar from it, each of them unable to find a niche between the tri-pronged wall of protective horns to the vulnerable head beneath. As it closed in on him, teeth bared, Detraeus grit his own and leapt again, diving above the beast’s head with a beat of his wings as it lunged, stampeding into the area he’d been in only moments before. A half-second after, he pivoted midair and dropped, wings still wide to keep his balance as his boots made contact with the rhamidon’s back.

It snarled, loud enough to hurt his eardrums, and lashed its tail up, trying to drive him off. The spines of it gashed through Detraeus’ leg, shredding clothes through to the skin, but not before Detraeus could work off three more shots, directly into the back of the creature’s neck and behind the protective wall of its horns. In moments, even as Detraeus blood dribbled hot and sticky down his gored leg, the rhamidon’s body shuddered, and collapsed beneath him. Detraeus grimaced and holstered his bow, looking up to see if Ara had followed to watch the fight.