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 Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2017 10:27 am
I N T R O D U C T I O N x S O L O
Nothing to Prove "I dunno what you hope to gain, training out here by yourself."
Kzakka stood with his back to the Alkidike woman, bow in hand, strung, with an arrow notched and aimed at a cluster of about four spitorogs. They were stupid creatures and clearly unafraid of death. So 'training' was perhaps a kind word for the practice of aiming and shooting the mostly defenseless beasts right in their big ole round eyes. Halona didn't seem to mind the activity, though, for all her questions. She merely came to watch. And harp.
For his part, Kaz couldn't be bothered to care whether she was there or not. It wasn't like anyone else was here to take her place. "Nothing, I guess, he grunted before firing an arrow into the dirt right amidst the spitorogs. They reacted about as he expected: not at all. "Just looking for something to do."
Admittedly, he knew what to expect from Halona, at hearing such a phrase. His Alkidike mother wasn't especially fond of self-imposed seclusion, not when they were all a family here, all given to the earth by the same goddess, and all deserving of each others' respect. She interfered with this type of activity whenever the opportunity presented itself. "I saw some of the younger girls catching fish near the riverbed. That could be fun, huh? Why don't you go join them there? It'd be better than- er..." She glanced to the current objects of her son's attention and shrugged.
"They don't want me there." Kaz retorted, reaching down to his supply of arrows strewn across the ground.
"Who said as much," Halona demanded. Where she had been resting her long, slender frame against a gnarled tree, she popped forward at the words, her tone darkening and eyes narrowing. "You know if anyone says such a thing to you, I'll crack their antennae right off their heads. Don't even care who sees me do it or who gripes and complains and screams afterwards."
He turned to face her, brow arched skeptically and lips swished to one side. "Dun no one got to say as much," Kaz informed his mother plainly. "You know it. I know it. I'd go down if I wanted to. But I don't see no reason in pushing up onto their fun if I'm not gonna like it either." He turned back to the amphibians and raised his bow. "And I'm not gonna like it, cause I don't like them." He loosed. The arrow missed its mark a second time, but did manage to cause the nearest creature to balloon up in defensive alarm. Kaz scoffed in mild amusement.
Halona was no fool. Her son was young, with still much to learn and experience. And she'd be especially hard pressed to believe that children, with no outside knowledge of the world beyond and no reason to distrust one little boy, would turn him away from their games without outside influence. Children, Halona thought, were generally pretty accepting to anyone of reasonably similar age and mindset. She doubted the other younglings, Alkidike girls near to Kaz's age, really had anything against him, personally.
Their parents did, sure, and they poisoned the young girls' minds against hybrids any chance they got. But their parents weren't there now, and Halona didn't think her only child ought to be wasting his time with unintelligent forest creatures when he ought to be enjoying youth and making friends.
She stepped up behind him, easily more than twice his height, and slipped the bow from Kaz's fingers before he even had a chance to fully understand what she was up to. The Alkidike held it out of his grasp with a grin. "I want you to go down there with the other girls today."
"Mama." His tone was as much a warning as could be managed by a seven-year-old boy, and his expression one to match. "I don't wanna."
"Well, you're a little kid, and I'm a grown-up." Kzakka's frown tightened into an already-fully-expecting-this-nonsense scowl. "So when I want something, you gotta do it." Halona swished her weight from one ide to the other. "Or you won't ever get this back. So you'll never be able to practice. You won't improve. You'll be a terrible warrior and of no use to anyone, and we'll all have a reason not to be your friend."
Although the young hybrid boy still looked wildly annoyed, his posture stiffened, and his face took on an added edge of uncertainty. "You'd still be my friend." The statement was informative, but came out slower than with his usual certainty.
Halona groaned softly and rolled her shoulders. She cast her gaze upward into Jauhar's thick canopy, and grunted. "Uuugh, yeah, I guess I'd have to be, since I have been this long." When her son's fists bunched and his gaze fell, she sighed. The Alkidike woman reached, threading her slim fingers through the loose dreads at the side of Kaz's head as she dipped to touch her lips to his forehead. "Go on, Kzakka," she encouraged softly, tipping his chin up with her other hand and holding his gaze. "They are just children, like you, and they cannot do anything to you that you can't get back up from."
"Regardless of how things should be, they will not like you or respect you, unless you make them. And that should be very, very difficult to do if you continue to avoid them." Kzakka hummed out a quiet, discontent, and unenthused sound, and scuffed his foot against the dirt. His guardian mother was not swayed. She straightened and gave him an encouraging pat on the back to send him on his way. "That's not much a way to show them how wonderful and personable you are."
He scoffed, muttered in dissatisfaction, and stalked away from her.
"Mamas will be here, baby, no matter what happens. Catch the biggest fish for me!"
It was times like this when Kzakka really despised his Alkidike mother's interference. He knew she meant well, but there really were some days he just wanted to not inspire loathing in his sisters. As much as he would've liked to do anything else, Halona was still his mother, and she always sounded so, so hopeful, for reasons he didn't understand. If she wanted him to play with the other girls, than he would.
And maybe this time, she'd understand not to be hopeful. Once and for all.x
x
Results: Kaz and Mama do some bonding.
Word Count: 1074
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Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2017 10:44 am
D E V E L O P M E N T A L x S O L O
Muddy Buddy Admittedly, Kzakka didn't mind the river. It was almost always warm enough to play in the water, and it wasn't so deep that his mothers feared letting him go alone. So when there weren't other girls there, it was nice. Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one who enjoyed it, and the rocky bank was popular among most younglings his age, and he had been warned that others were already here.
Still, as Kaz watched from the treeline, he couldn't even help but admit to himself that it might've been worse. His mama had told him there were girls down by the riverbed, and he'd expected a whole cluster of them. But there were only two, and only one of whom he recognized.
Marantha was younger than him, though not by more than a handful of moons, with chunky little arms, stripes like jungle foliage camouflage, and the most absurdly deep voice he'd ever heard come out of anyone's throat. She, like many of her Alkidike sisters, was not friends with Kaz. But since she'd never done anything expressly objectionable to him, and he didn't recognize the other girl at all, Kzakka decided he might as well make himself known.
Kzakka picked his way down the rocky outcroppings that led from the jungles to the more open expanse of water. It wasn't a long trek. The trees were still close and high and large enough to blot out all of the sun's rays, with branches that arched high over the water's surface. But many of the rocks were large enough to climb on and over, and sometimes sharper than was pleasant. It was still no place to slip up.
"Mara?" He asked once he was close enough to hold a respectable conversation. "You got a new friend? I hadn't never seen her around before."
The girls turned in unison. The very first thing Kzakka noticed was how the new girl's eyes popped wide at the sight of him, and her pouty little lips parted into a short 'o.' She was the first to answer, and she did it so quickly that Marantha didn't have the opportunity to interject. "I'm not a new friend," she informed him. "I lived on Chibale, with my guardian. Mine and Mara's mamas bloomed together, so we're really specially related-like." And then she stepped forward, closer to him.
"Li!" Marantha yipped, immediately grappling to snare the other girl's arm and tug her back. "That's Kzakka. My mama said I'm not allowed to talk to him, so you prolly shouldn't neither..."
"Well." The girl, 'Li,' tugged her arm free of her sister's hold. "My mama shoulda told me not to talk to her before I started, then." She scrambled across a lower rock between her and Kaz and ended up much closer to him than he expected she'd get. She smiled, in that sort of half-amused, half inquisitive way and tipped her head. "She's funny-looking," Li informed Mara. "And her skin looks like mud."
Kzakka bristled immediately, lips pulling back into a snarl, and brow furrowing hard. "I'm not- I'm a boy, and it doesn't look like mud."
She dipped and smeared her hand across the wet, muddy ground between the rocks, then promptly slapped the flat of her palm to his chest. "It does," she retorted. "Look, it's the same color." Kaz growled, snatched her arm off of him and was well and prepared to shove her into the mud herself, until, "That's okay, though. I like mud. It's pretty and weird."
He froze.
She crouched, and as she did, her arm fell from Kaz's grasp. She plopped her bum onto the rock she crawled over earlier and dipped both hands into the dirt. "Everyone else is kinda the same, aren't they?" She asked as she collected a handful of ooze and smeared it up the length of her arm. "I wanna be different too."
"You're not supposed to do that," Mara warned her. She still stood several paces away. "You're getting dirty. We should go home. My mama will be mad at me."
"But she won't be made at me," Li retorted. "She's never mad at me. Besides, s'not permanent. It'll come off." She ladled another handful onto her thighs and rubbed that in too. "Hey, what'ssa 'boy?'"
Kzakka blinked. He wasn't sure if she was genuinely curious and interested or if this was just a new way of teasing him. He liked the idea of the former better, but he still couldn't help but be suspicious. Still, he found himself sinking down to sit across from her. "Well, that's what I am. I'm a boy. So, I'm not a 'she.' I'm a 'he.'"
"Why?"
Kaz shrugged. "I dunno," he grunted. "It's what my mamas said I was."
"But how come?" Li persisted. She seemed to be content with the amount of mud slathered across her skin, and her gaze was fixed on Kaz again, and her still-dirty fingers started to wander curiously nearer. "How did you get to be a 'boy?' I haven't never heard of no one else being a boy."
"That's because-" Both Kaz and Li swiveled up to fix Mara with their stares. She stood at Li's back now, with her pudgy little hands on her hips and that snooty, better-than-you expression on her face. Kzakka grimaced. "His mama came from Oba. She's not even an Alkidike! My mama said Kaz was a hybrid, and it's his fault if Aisha gets sick. That's why he looks all weird, and that's why we can't talk to him. She said if we don't talk to him, he'll go away. And Aisha could get better."
"Oh." His new 'friend's' voice was quiet, then, and Li glanced away from him.
This was why he didn't like any of the other girls. Even if there were new ones, the others would just tell them not to talk to him, and they'd all listen, and they'd all hate him together. Kaz frowned at the rock beneath him, and his hands curled into fists. He hated them too. Maybe he would go away, somewhere they weren't, and he could be happy there.
The girl shifted to her knees, and Kaz thought she was about to get up to leave, but instead, she waddled closer and laid her hand over his knee. When he glanced to her, she was beaming. "My mama said there was another goddess, in a place called Yael, and that some Alkidike moved there to worship her and let her take Aisha's place. But I don't wanna move. I like it here. So if you're gonna destroy Aisha, you have to take her place, and be the new goddess, like the one on Yael, and make lots of baby blooms."
"Li," Mara yelped. "You can't say that! Don't say that, ever!"
Li continued on, unabated. "Goddesses are real big and powerful and can do lots. But you're kinda small. I bet you can't do it alone. I'll help you, okay? I don't think my mama will mind. She only doesn't like people who aren't from here. But you're from here, and here now! So it should be okay."
"I'm telling!" Marantha shouted. Without waiting for a response, the girl scrambled away from them, her stubby little legs jiggling as she scampered over the rocks and mud and toward the trees.
"Good idea," Li shouted after her. "Tell, so everyone will know that we're making a new goddess! I'll stay here, with- Uhm, what's you're name, again?" She was still smiling, still touching him, and she was so bold and so strange, and so different than anyone Kzakka had ever met.
So when he answered, his tone was muted in mild confusion and surprise, though he did meet her gaze with his own. "It's Kzakka."
"Okay," she nodded. "I'm Kunali! We've got a looot of work to do."x
x
Results: Met Kunali.
Word Count: 1311
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Posted: Mon Sep 18, 2017 8:52 am
D E V E L O P M E N T A L x S O L O
Preying On You Kzakka learned quickly that the girl from the river, Kunali, was not to be consistently available to him. Li and her mother lived on the main island of Amara, and only made short trips to visit the woman's bloom-sister in Emeka once every full cycle of the moon. Often Kaz would not catch Kunali at all when they were in Emeka, as he never could tell when exactly they would arrive, and his own home was far enough outside the main settlement that it was unlikely for them to cross paths by happenstance.
He also suspected (though Li had never said as much) that her guardian mother wasn't keen on the idea of Kunali running off to meet with a hybrid during their trips, and she was likely kept occupied for as long as possible to prevent her the chance of seeing him.
It shouldn't have struck Kzakka as surprising. Even though Kunali was interested in 'weird' things and clearly rebelled against conformity, she was no older than he was, and her mother had a tight grasp on her activities. Kaz ought to have been prepared to only come into contact with Li only very infrequently. And at first, he was. It wasn't so bad. He'd been without a friend for years, so not having one around wasn't too troublesome.
But he liked her a bit more after each of her rare visits, and he suspected she liked him alright too.
That didn't stop him from thinking that one day, she would arrive on the mainland only to have changed her mind about him. One day, Kunali wouldn't fight any idea that was presented to her by someone else. One day, she would 'grow up' and have a deeper respect for the things her mother said, and as such would decide that hybrids weren't 'interesting,' anymore, but a stain on their race, as many of the elders did.
Rather than spend time in her absence thinking unpleasant thoughts of his only friend, Kzakka busied himself. Not with his sisters, of course, as he found he had little patience for them unless Li was there with him, but with his mothers, with his bow, or with Natra, Halona's radaku.
The beast was far from Kzakka's favorite partner for any activities. It was twitchy, finicky, and alert as though it feared something might swoop down and attack it at any moment. As a top tier predator among the jungles of Jauhar, Kaz didn't understand why it acted so frightened of any shifting shadow. It wasn't as though he or either of his mothers had ever mistreated it... If he'd have been a pureblood and welcomed among the sisterhood, he wouldn't have bothered with the beast at all.
Alas, his options for consistent companionship were few.
"Natra. Natra, come here," Kzakka practically seethed as he tried to coax the radaku to follow him in his attempts at 'hunting' for the day. When Halona left with the creature, she often came back with enough meat to feed her entire family for days, and she boasted of Natra's skills in combat each time. Kaz had never seen such things, and the radaku certainly never performed well for him. But he'd decided that was at least as much his fault as it was Natra's. He was no warrior capable of killing much of anything himself, yet, and having a flighty creature at his side didn't help matters.
Still, each time he went out with the beast, he thought, 'This time for sure.' That hadn't been the case so far, and Natra's behavior wasn't promising for today, either. She slunk away from him anytime his gaze wasn't firmly on her, off to sniff at tree roots and leaf piles.
Kzakka wasn't sue what the process was that led Halona and Natra to successful hunts whenever they went out, but he somehow doubted his mother allowed herself to be led about by the beast as he was. Was she tracking something? Kaz couldn't say he knew all of the expressions of animals, but the radaku didn't look like she was concentrating on the hunt. She looked... Well, he wasn't sure. Alarmed? Confused?
Unimpressive, if nothing else.
With a displeased grunt, Kaz stalked after her, curled a hand about one of her horns, and dragged her attention back toward him. "Are you just dumb?" He demanded of it, giving the captured horn a little rattle.
"Not listening to you, huh?" Kzakka's attention snapped up at the voice in time to see four girls breezily picking their way among the bushes and string toward him. His posture tensed. It was never a good sign when they came upon him in clusters. "Even Kzakka's beastie doesn't like him." The speaker was a girl perhaps two years older than Kaz named Bazirii. She led her little pack like a leader, standing at the forefront of the grouping with her chin notched up and her lips curled into a smile. She was bold and fearless, with unmarred yellow skin and almost curling long dreads.
She was, to Kzakka's great disdain, quite beautiful.
"You don't have anything to say?"
He didn't, really, and didn't know why he should or what she expected to come from his mouth, but standing silently was an invitation for jeers and jibes. "You ever seen two radaku greet each other? Stick their nose right in each other's butts. She must've wondered why the smell of a** was drawing so near." Kaz patted the beast's head, and in the moment that he did became acutely aware how stiff Natra had gone. Her muzzle was angled low, gaze intent on the girls. Frightened of them, Kaz decided. She was frightened of everything.
Bazirii sneered at his commentary, put her hands on her hips, and strutted nearer. "A welcome scent as compared to the trash she has under her nose every day." As she neared, the Alkidike girl reached her hand out toward his radaku. "She should come home with me. Bet she'd like it more than-"
Chaos erupted.
Further commentary lapsed into a shriek as Natra lunged forward, snapping her jaw around the girl's arm and battering at her legs with clawed paws until they were both in the dirt. Halona had always had high praise for Natra's viciousness, though Kaz had never seen it. Now, as the radaku wrenched her head from side to side, dragging the whole body of a screaming girl this way and that in a frenzy of snarls and scrapes, Kaz was struck immobile.
Bazirii's friends had also taken to wailing, and little else. 'Someone stop it!' 'It's eating her!' 'What should we do?' They were a cluster of useless birds, flapping their arms about as they scuttled backwards in fear and shouted for help and one of them even demanded he stop it.
He should.
Bazirii's other arm was clawing at Natra's muzzle. Her feet kicked and lashed at its chest, desperately trying to dislodge a now-awkwardly-skewed arm from the beast's mouth. Little scarlet droplets spun off and away at each twist and wrench of Natra's head. She would not release the girl.
Kzakka didn't know how long exactly it was before he moved, himself, tossing his weight forward against the radaku's flank and looping both arms about it's throat. At some point, he'd taken to screaming too, and the sound right in the creature's ear was enough for yellowed eyes to flick to and pin to him. A growl tore from Natra's throat, and she attempted to adjust her bite on Bazirii's arm, only to have it ripped from her teeth as the girl kicked and Kaz yanked.
Natra tossed her head and dove to bite again, landing somewhere near the Alkidike girl's calf in Bazirii's scramble to escape and Kaz's own attempts to force the beast back. The bite dragged all the way down her foot, where it was finally loose enough the the girl could force herself away.
Fists curled in Natra's fur as Kaz latched on and used any strength her could muster to shove the radaku back. She fought him, and he caught only glimpses of the mess she'd made as he tried to keep her away. The most predominant thing in his vision: red. Red on yellow, on green, on brown. Screaming still echoed loud in his ears, and he cast a quick glance up to see Bazirii crawling. Not running, but crawling, with only one of her initial three cluster still around to try and help her. Natra snarled and howled, but made no move to bite or claw at him, even as she squirmed to be free of his hands.
Once off of her, and with enough distance between them, Kzakka jerked Natra back in the direction they'd come. He was too frightened to release her, lest she turn back for more.
A part of him knew he ought to be dismayed that his mother's beast had torn into Alkidike flesh and likely maimed a young girl, but the thought at the forefront of his mind was only that he would be in trouble, and that there was no way of hiding this, and he had no idea what to do. Bazirii would need a healer. Would she make it to one? She'd been bleeding so much... He couldn't escort them, himself; he had to get Natra away... He had no option but to leave. There was no point to sit and wait for someone to find him.
So he ran. With fingers still latched to Natra's fur, he ran toward home, where his mothers would have a better idea of what to do and how to proceed.x
x
Results: Halona's radaku attacks an Alkidike girl while under Kaz's watch.
Word Count: 1611
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Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2017 9:12 am
D E V E L O P M E N T A L x S O L O
Tied In Blood "Can I see her?" Kunali's voice was soft and secretive as she perched forward along edge of a massive tree root, gazing at Kaz's face and leaning toward him as she spoke. "You know," Li prompted as her companion blinked in confusion. "The mauler. Your radaku!" Her cheeks colored slightly as she went on, her voice raising and her body bouncing. The topic was uncomfortable to Kaz, though Kunali clearly didn't share his reservations.
The pair sat outside, tucked among the coiling and cavernous root space of a large jungle tree behind the hut Kzakka resided in with his parents. The hovel was hidden from most everyone, so even if Li's guardians sought her out here, Kaz and Kunali would have a few moments before being spotted to escape.
Kzakka enjoyed the spot. Quiet, sheltered, and safe, it was the perfect place for the two of them to hold their secret meetings. Or for her to question him.
Kaz bit the inside of his cheek and glanced away. Even though it was his first time seeing Kunali since the incident, it had still been several months since its occurrence, a testament to how infrequently she was in his life. He didn't think he'd be open to sharing with anyone else, but this girl was his best and only friend... She also spoke quite a bit and was friendly with many. Kzakka liked to think he trusted her, but as he considered his words, he decided maybe he didn't as much as he'd like to believe.
"They didn't tell you my mama had to put her down...?" he grunted stiffly. "They said Natra attacked a child without warning, so even if she's a 'pet,' she's too dangerous to keep around. Mama slit her throat and brought her pelt to Bazirii's guardian in offering. ...They said she wouldn't walk without a limp ever again; did you know that?"
The way Li's face lit up suggested she might be more excited than concerned.
Strangely enough, Kzakka didn't find this bothersome. Bazirii probably hadn't deserved to be mutilated, but she had been rude, and she and her hoard had encroached upon him like they could've been planning something nasty. Natra's actions were probably justified.
"How will she fight if she can hardly walk? I wonder if she'll be able to use magic... That'd help her- Oh, wait." Kunali gave a quick nod and tapped her fingers together. "Has she seen a healer? Are there very many here? Your tribe is pretty small, so I suppose it wouldn't be surprising if none were advanced enough to heal very terrible wounds... If only she lived on Amara. The Mystic herself might have come to help!" Kunali looked positively starstruck. She chittered on for a few moments without Kaz needing to say much of anything. Her final thoughts came a moment later. "Her scars must be a sight to behold... If she still manages to finish her warrior training, I bet she'll be so beautiful. Kzakka, what did she do to you to earn such treatment?"
How much had anyone actually told Li, he wondered? Had anything from anyone else's mouth been accurate? Bazirii had claimed he'd instructed Natra to attack her, so it'd be a wonder if Kunali's mother hadn't ordered her to steer well away from him. He shook his head. "Not much of anything," he admitted slowly. "She and her friends found us while Natra and I were hunting alone. We both said some insults, then... it just sort of happened."
He scratched the back of his head, at the point where his dreads met the more sheared side of his scalp. "My earthling mother said that before I was bloomed, and again when I was real small, sisters would break into our hut. Didn't specify what they was trying to do in there, but bet it was bad. Kill my mother or cut off Mama's dreads, maybe. I dunno. But I guess Natra turned real vicious around that time. I'm not usually close enough to anyone while she's around to notice, but my mother thinks Natra would've attacked anyone that walked up to me or her."
"Oh!" Kunali's fingers flew to her lips, and for the first time, concern caused her brow to furrow. "She wanted to protect you, then. Did you get hurt?" When he shook his head, she nodded affirmatively. "Then I don't think it's fair she had to die! Bazirii shouldn't have crowded her!"
Secretly, Kzakka agreed.
But even more secretly than that, so did Halona. Her fury had seemed like it would have no end when they'd demanded her beast's head. She had given them a radaku's pelt, though Lona guarded her creature's life as she expected it to guard her son's. Natra remained locked inside, out of sight until they could form a better plan for what to do with her.
And Kaz, though he hadn't considered himself close to the creature, was starting to think there might be more to an animal's bond than he'd initially given credit to.x
x
Results: Kzakka appreciates his mother's radaku defending his honor.
Word Count: 842
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