“If its about the name....” Naita called as she tried to keep the Leklan in view, “It's fine! I can change it! You don't have to be feather!” she leapt over a fallen tree, “You can be whatever you want! Just please come back!”
Damn she thought, hissing softly. The little thing could run. “Seriously, please come back?” she called, “Lets try a different name, arright?” Maybe if she hit upon the right one, then the little critter would come back...?
“How about... Umami? Darrel? Kit? No, wait, not Kit!” she took a breath, gasping, “Flora? Its like fleur! But better!”
For a single, heart-wrenching moment, the little white shape became lost amidst the trees. No! Naita let out a little shriek of dissappointment, Don't go, don't go... damn it!
She scanned the forest desperately, searching for the creature. She had only known it for a few minutes, and it was prey, but she was so lonely and it was so soft. “Come back!” she called again.
And then, to her delight, she found it. With a whoop of glee and relief, she resumed her chase...
Naita watched the leklan sit, happy for the first time in a while. Properly happy, too - Naita was fed, watered, and she had a companion: it had been so long since all three had been true. She let herself relax, enjoying the luxury of simply putting her head on her claws and not worrying, for the moment, what would happen next.
'Course, she needed to take care of her pet, she supposed. It needed a healer, and she needed to be better about getting herself food, otherwise Cid could become a snack, and that would be unfortunate. She watched as the leklan lay down and – nervously – went to sleep on the riverbank.
As the dragon had promised, the numbness soon freed Naita, only to bring with it embers that soon became blazes of searing pain that danced along her nerves. She howled as the pain streaked through her, but could not move.
It was hopeless. She couldn't move, and she was in pain, and the dragon would return and eat her. This was the end of Naita, the end of everything, and the seagoing Firani could do nothing.
She was going to die alone.
The pain came in waves, spasming through her in ripples of agony that only added to her hopelessness.
And then, in the throes of this intense pain, there came a spark of hope: her tail twitched.
Desperate, she grabbed onto that hope, trying other parts of her body. They moved too. Awkwardly, twitchingly, she jerked herself onto her belly and, with more effort, onto her feet.
She turned to where the dragon had flown off to.
Screw reason. Screw rationality. Cid was a leklan, but he was her friend, and she was not going to let the dragon have him without a fight. She staggered forward, her every movement a struggle and a pain.
She would save him.
Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 12:52 pm
Rescuing Cid HUNT: Ysali Dragons x 4, Win x 4 Zamanavyi and Naita 166 Words
Naita spat into the dragon's ashes. “There. Finished you.” she said, gathering the orb, “Stupid shitting landlubber b*****d...” She had bested it, and she felt good – angry and good, just like the old days of ship smashing with the Stormborn.
Fighting that fiercely, with a group to back her up, even if it was a 'group' of two magescians... well, it had been nice.
Suddenly recalling her reason for fighting, she looked around anxiously for Cid, only to find the leklan gone.
“Cid?!” she cried, searching the clearing frantically, but she could not find him. She supposed she should be grateful that he was not amidst the blood and ashes of the dragons, but that he was not there, after such a hard fight, was terribly upsetting.
She turned to the hybrid, feeling (and looking) pathetic and heartbroken. “He's gone.” she said, dejected.
“Don't worry. He can't have gone far.” said the magescan, sheathing his sword, “We'll find him.”
After hunting with the hybrid and the little dovaa pup (or whatever a little magescian was called), it was a shock to hunt on her own. Naita had forgotten how difficult it was to be on her own, and she recalled, with chagrin, that it had been her that had broken away.
Cid slept fitfully nearby, her latest kill – a mealy bouken – already devoured and digested. She would have to adapt, once again, to stalking her kills properly, without help.
Ah well, she thought, Whats done is done. And there had been no way she would have gone to Aisko in the wintertime. Not her. Serenia was her current port of call and, until summer softened Aisko's icy grip, she was not going to dare to go anywhere near it.
Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2015 8:15 am
Apple Blossom19
This is the post reply for Catch that Hastar, but im using it here because its cool. Go start another taming <3
Naita growled, shrugging off the aid. “I'm fine!” she insisted, “Jest a wee scratch.” and a bruise. And maybe a broken bone. Or two... Ow!
“I've had worse!” she insisted, getting to her feet. She ignored the offer of help for now – nice as this Magescian was, she couldn't accept the help. She was all riled up now; stupid hastar, with its stupidity and it's stupid speed! She'd show it who was boss! Her! Naita! Firani of the Thunderborne, scourge of the seas!
“C'mon!” she cried, trotting off after the hastar and speeding into a gallop, “We ain't lettin' it get away, are we?!”
Naita shook her head as she followed Avani and her Leklan, wondering at the oddness of the whole damn situation. She was following a crazy magescian and a sheep to a freakish house with some kind of freakish family, and was offered meat for doing so. Naita was half concerned she would end up in a soup – and wouldn't that be ironic, cooked up for a magescian when she so enjoyed their meat.
But it all felt inevitable – as if it was a thing that was supposed to – very definitely – happen. Naita, however, did not believe in fate, and she wasn't going to end up in anybody's cauldron. If anything 'funny' happened, she'd deal with it, like she always did. With fire.
In the meantime, she wanted to see just how crazy this twoleg was. She was morbidly curious – so sink her.
“You know, Cid...” Naita said to her companion, “Maybe I misjudged the kid.” She curled up in the lair that had been provided to her as a guest and looked over the site of her injury. It was good as new, not red or welted or anything. “I mean, she's pretty wimpy, but she took down two of those critters and I didn't even take down one...” she rolled her wing joints, stretching them. “Just goes to show – I'm a good trainer. I didn't think she had it in her, though...” she chuckled, “But hey. I like surprises.”
What hadn't surprised her was the healing. Ysali healed or poisoned, that was what they did. But clearly the kid was skilled, and Naita, though definitely not surprised, was still impressed. Even she had to admit that she wasn't so adept with her own magic, not yet.
“I think the kid has potential... to be a terror.” she chuckled, “I wonder... If I ever reform the Stormborn...” she shook her head. “Nah. She's not Stormborn material. A good khehora, to be sure, but I don't think she's fit to be one of us. Not like...” she said quickly, “Fit, fit, just not a good fit. You know?”
Cid didn't care.
“Anyway.” her gaze turned, thoughtfully, to the starry sky above, “She did kill those magbits, though, so... Maybe I'm wrong.” She hummed and lay down, still watching the stars. The Ysali would be training, still – the tribe and its elders were all nightcrawlers. A little full of themselves, but not half bad. Still, Naita was a day person. She wondered if the Ysali got any sleep.
“Maybe.” She yawned, “I'll find out some other day.” they had a month yet, after all.
“Hey, C'mon...” Naita protested, as the angry diabi warrior shoved her again. Cid, quivering precariously on her back, curled closer to the ridges of her neck, preferring the danger he knew to the danger that growled at them from the shadows.
“Keep going.” snapped the warrior, figuratively and literally, their ivory teeth nearly catching her on her tail, “Move.”
Naita looked back at their balefully glowing eyes, and at the other sets of glowing eyes that trailed behind her, ready to pounce in case she ran, snapped back, or did anything else they considered objectionable. “It was just a joke!” she protested with a grumble, though she let herself be pushed along. What else could she do? While she enjoyed a good fight, she was out-numbered, out-maneuvered, and out-trained. “Come on, mates! It really doesn't warrant all this. Really!”
“It wasn't funny.” snarled one of the warriors, “Move, Firani.”
“By the seas and stars.” muttered Naita, moving obediently as she was shoved along, “You need to lighten up a little.” Their heads were up where their tails should be and there was nothing she could do about it.
~~~
Naita hadn't thought that a little snooping would be a problem. Sure, she was a guest of the tribe, courtesy of their elders. Sure, she was busy for a lot of the time training the wimpy Ysali. And there was hunting, feeding her pet, socializing and all sorts of other things Naita wanted to do. There was, however, a nice chunk of time with which she could do other things. Naita would be the first to admit that she was not only curious but reckless, and she took pride in it. So, when one of the elders left their lair unguarded and unwatched, Naita had had to drop by and look. And when something shiny had glittered from its depths, she'd had to investigate. What self-respecting khehora wouldn't investigate something shiny? It was in their dragon blood to be enticed by treasures. So of course she'd entered, and of course she'd taken a look around. That meant moving things around, as well, because the best things were always underneath other things. So what if some of those objects went missing? There were many objects there, and one or two would not be missed...
Right?
Wrong.
Apparently these Diabi were more protective of their treasures than a silx, and about as ferocious in doing so as a bolarn, with about the same manners. Naita honestly did not see why she'd had to be yelled at by seven different khehora and escorted to the edge of their territory. To the rogue Firani, it all seemed like overkill for a few trinkets... which they had taken as well, to her chagrin.
~~~
Not that it mattered, honestly. As she crossed the territory line and kept going, without her escort now, she decided that, either way, she was done with the swampy forestlands. She was a wanderer, and it was time to wander on to better, more interesting things. Once it was clear the warriors had decided not to murder her then and there, she happily took her leave. Somewhere else, for sure. Some new adventure. Some new eats, too, for she was hungry.
Scenting a magescian town, she started towards it, thinking that a raid – such as it was – might improve her mood...
Naita's belly was full of charred Vildean meat, and her soul was full with the promise of companionship for the next day. Meeting Ebalia had been fortuitous and fun... not to mention the girl had saved her life.
With her own blood.
Freaky as it had been, that meant Naita owed her and was also, in her mind, related to her in a strange sort of way. Certainly, Ebalia was on the Do-not-eat list. But would she be more? Did Naita want her to be more?
Well, they would meet soon, and she would see whether this was a temporary friendship or not. Naita could use more friends, she figured.
Naita nosed the egg, attempting to get it nestled in her makeshift nest. Her main experience with nestcraft consisted of transient nests she had made for herself and abandoned (or occupied) khehora nests, but she was sure she had done all right. Cid didn't mind the egg, and he seemed to like her nest, so Naita figured that was a mark in its favor.
Carefully, she curled around it, covering it gently with her body. Ebalia was in her big twoleg city for a few days, she had said, and in the meantime Naita had the egg. Naita doubted she would be so lucky as to see it hatch in that time – that would solve all the problems nicely – but either way it would be warm and safe while she waited for her friend.
Because she would wait. And Eba was her friend. The rampage and its sudden end had proven that much. If the egg didn't hatch under Naita's care alone, then, she supposed, that would be its fate. That also solved the problems around this whole situation nicely. Naita felt tugged between two debts – the egg was a baby khehora, her kind, and she had to do something with it. Ebalia was her friend, and had saved her life before. She hated feeling conflicted. She wanted it to be clear cut and unambiguous, like things should have been.
It was satisfying, then, that time would settle things. If it hatched in Naita's care, it would be feral. In Ebalia's care, it would be bonded. Either way, Naita would help to raise it right, and both debts would be reconciled with each other nicely.
“Hey, I get it.” she murmured to the egg, “It's a pain to have to think for yourself, you know?” Naita knew all too well. Thinking for oneself was complicated, and she missed having others to help her think. “So I don't blame ye if you wait 'til Eba comes back, get yourself bonded, never have to worry about that ever again...” Stars and tides, the thought was tempting even for her! “But if ye think you can handle it, if you even wonder about it, just... give yer shell a tap, would ye matey? Ye owe it to yerself to at least pick when ye hatch, aye?”
Of course, she got no response. She had expected none. “Well, ye've got time.” she said, setting her head down to rest.
As Ebalia went to return the treasures and belongings to the people of the village, Naita was busy figuring out what treasures to keep (and hide) for herself. She had already found a dragon orb - which she slipped into a hidden area so that the villages wouldn't find it if they came back to collect their things - and Naita was sure she would find more in the depths of the ship. They may have been cut-rate crappy raiders, but they had been raiders and she could practically sense the presence of riches untold...
Well maybe not that much.
Still, they had put up a fight, and it had been a fight as a team. Naita loved those moments, where she could cooperate and didn't have to worry about hard things like thinking. It had been fun...
And now she had a ship to lair in. Whether she could get it back in the deeper water or not, that was hard to say, but either way....
It was bloody wonderful.
In her search she found a book of spells and a shiny shield of some kind, both of which she hid somewhere safe, along with some scattered coin. They were hers now, and no one was going to take them from her. If they belonged to someone... well... things got lost, after all.
Her hoard secreted neatly away, she went onto the bridge to sit, watch, and wati - innocent as an Orakoi - as the villagers came into her ship to claim their things.
And then it would be just her and Ebalia and the ship. All to herself. Not a bad haul, all told.
Naita dug her claws into the wheel of the ship to stabilize herself as she attempted to keep it on course. She knew little of sea charts, though the ship had a few, but she knew her way by the stars, and she knew where to go. Normally, she had some help on board, helping with the rigging and assisting with the wheel in awkward spots when Naita's hind feet and natural desire to be on all fours was disadvantageous, but she knew there would be no help from Ebalia tonight. Nor, she figured, for several nights after. She had, after all, a newborn khehora to feed and care for, and those little ones, she remembered, were very needy. She wondered if it would be more so because of its bond? It was a shame that the hatchling had bonded – he was a pretty little thing – but Naita supposed it couldn't be helped. She owed Ebalia at least the chance at hatching the egg, and she had given little whatever-his-name-was plenty of opportunities to be born under her care and not bond. There was nothing she could do about it now, and why should she bother? It wasn't her problem anymore. She inhaled the damp, salted, sea air and hummed softly to herself in the lapping, dark silence.
It did bring up an interesting question: what was Ebalia to her? A friend, certainly, and Naita had few of those, but was she anything more? Did she see Naita as a friend, or as something like the newborn bonded? As a pet?
Naita knew she was not a pet. Whatever she was to the Oblivionite, she would not be that. She would make sure that Ebalia knew just what she had gotten herself into. The hatchling could not be neglected, either. She'd help raise that khehora, and teach him to be just as wily as any feral. She would make sure that Ebalia was not bonded to a mindless, happy, petlike slave, but a person who could match wits with her at any time. Admittedly, a person who relied on her for his very existence, who could no more leave her side than he could become a khehorian, but a person who could hold his own against her. He might not like what she had to offer in the way of training, but that was the last, remaining thing that Naita owed the brat. And she would pay up.
In the meaintime, she would let them have this time together. She needed to make sure they were going the right way for Taliuma, that Magescian port full of people and ships. They would find what they needed there, she knew, and their home could become more than a floating hunk of wood... It could become, well, a home. A place she could live in and never be alone.
“Aye...” she murmured, staring with some jealousy towards the enraptured bonded pair, “That would be nice, wouldn't it...”
The storm roiled and boiled and churned around her, lashing the leaves into dripping green banners. Naita sat still, used to the discomfort of being wet. Her magic was safe within her, burning unhappily amidst the rain, but protected from ample practice and sheer will. She liked the feel of water on her scales, washing away dirt and revealing her sea green scales splashed with red. It cleansed her face like tears, the roar of thunder the best lullaby to her troubled soul, the slow gurgle of her stomach the refrain, happily digesting its meal.
Cid did not like the storm. He hid beneath a shrub and curled up around himself, waiting for it to go away. Naita was away, a long time away. The lightning and thunder and high waves reminded her of her family, and she missed them dearly. But with every crash and rumble and sharp blast of wind, they were there with her for a brief and glorious moment. For a moment, she was not alone.
And then that moment would pass.
She stared at the night sky, feeling achingly empty, and wishing she had pushed a little harder, maybe asked to stay with the Dovaa and her bonded. Or threatened to claw their throats out. But something about them – that they were both Peisio, that the lady studied dragons, that they had not feared her or her fangs... well, she had a feeling that a threat would have gone over poorly in some way. Certainly, they would have refused her shelter.
She wouldn't know now. She should have asked, but she hadn't. And now she was alone, just her and Cid, looking for ghosts in the storm. Would this, she wondered, be her whole life?
She moved to a tree and curled up beneath it, her magic able to keep her warm through the cool night ahead.
Naita hurt and felt as though she would faint from the air, but she was finally off of Aisko, and could revel in the lack of ice in the air as she left it's frigid coasts far behind. She could rest with the hope that her next few days of travel would take her to a place that, compared to that frozen hell, would be paradise, where sun and warm breezes would caress and heal her wounds and trees would drop coconuts, those wonderful balls of milk and meat. Not actual milk or meat, of course – those were better. But, for Naita, coconuts came a close second.
Ahh, she could imagine it now, her mouth watering over the blandness of the ocean, but she was not likely to be at Eowyn yet or anywhere where coconuts could grow. It was still too cold for them yet. Seeing an island below her, she circled in for a landing. Island was a generous term: it was more or less a rocky coral-strewn sandbar, but it would do.
A shame that Xenosa had not come with her: it was probably thanks to that Orderite that Naita was whole (mostly) and sane (relatively). Naita doubted they'd meet again.
She landed in the sand and curled up with little ceremony, quickly drifting off to sleep.
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