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 Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2016 3:31 pm
** Getting My Bearings - Solo- 500 Words **
It took Ruelash a while to realize that seasons had passed without him seeing another earthling soul besides Volkarosh. He had gotten so into the general rhythm of life that he had forgotten that they were completely isolated.
Normally, this would be Ruelash's dream; living alone, with no one to bother him. Volkarosh didn't ruin that dream at all – she was a good kid, a smart kid, good at surviving in the harsh lands. She wasn't whiny, and she learned quickly.
But that was the problem. He knew, though he didn't know why he knew or why he should do so, that he had to return her to her mother. So, when, on a nippy spring morning, Volkarosh asked him about her past, he was ready with an answer.
“Y'wanna go see it for yourself?”
She was an adventurous sort of kid, and he liked that about her. So of course she'd nodded, and that settled the matter for him, even if there hadn't really been a conflict at all. He spent days scouting out the paths, eventually finding a game trail that led to a road, pounded flat by generations of wind tribesmen.
From that road, it was a simple matter of finding a village, and then another simple matter to find out where he was in relation to other villages. From there, he could get to the village that his cousin lived in – that half alkidike that was Volkarosh's father through methods Ruelash didn't like to think about. After some preparation, he brought Volkarosh there.
Unfortunately, it was not so easy. Votzhem's parents – Ruelash's cousin and a very brawny Alkidike – said that Iroia had left for Jahuar. Across a whole continent.
Ruelash had made up his mind, though, and since he and the kid had made it that far, he figured he might as well take her the whole way. In for a nondwa, in for a radaku... or however that saying went. Ruelash wasn't sure.
He knew the Tale would be rough crossing, so he prepared Volkarosh for it with training and gruff advice, but as it turned out, she was more attuned to the savannahlands than he was. The heat seemed to energize her, the dryness to invigorate her, and eventually the tired and sunburned Ruelash just had to be proud of her and put it off to her Leaf blood.
After so long in the quiet chill of the mountains, the Jahuar border hit them both with an overwhelming cacophony of noise and smells. Deeper in, it was the darkness that unnerved them. Ruelash had been in the jungle before, of course, so he adjusted. Volkarosh, however, had met the limits of her quick adaptation. She stuck by him, wary of the dimly glowing trees and scuttling bugs.
Ruelash didn't mind her clinging to him as they headed for the settlement of Ast. As long as they got there, and Iroia was there to receive her, that was what counted...
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Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2016 3:39 pm
** Survival, Pure and Simple - Solo- 350 Words **
Ruelash dodged the pillared legs of the awatta, slicing at it. His face was cracked by his vicious grin as blood was shed and life was threatened. The Awatta, normally a gentle creature, was enraged by the puny little thing daring to oppose it's might. It wanted to crush the little biting gnat beneath it's mighty paws and be done with it, but Ruelash had other plans.
Calling taunts as he moved away, and darting in quickly to deal it new wounds, Ruelash herded it in a direction of his choosing. “Come an' get me, ya big lug!” he shouted at it, leaping backwards to avoid it's legs. “Too slow!”
It didn't speed up, but it did move forward... right onto snow that did not stay where it was supposed to. The crust of snow, and the twigs that held it up, broke and the beast tumbled into the pit he had dug for it.
He'd had no spikes to arm the trap with, but it's splayed body and damaged head was enough for Ruelash to leap in and finish it off. He attached a rope to it's leg and frowned – it was far too big to carry back whole, and would need more than one trip even with the kid's help. He'd have to take it apart and make sure that it remained his kill – not too hard, he supposed.
He tied a rope to one of it's huge legs and pulled it up, using the Awattas weight to help him belay out of the pit as he secured it, suspended, from a tree.
He removed to the cave shelter with a few hefty chunks of meat... to find that it was, basically home. Warmth greeted his frosted face, a bubbling pot sending off aromas of cooked tubers and vegetables over a merrily crackling fire. Volkarosh looked up expectantly, and Ruelash grinned as he put down the haunches and the hide, and set out to try to bring back more of the Awatta before dark.
The kid had things covered here, and he was so proud.
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Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2016 3:44 pm
** Direk Is Not Happy - Solo- 340 Words **
Ruelash ate plants as well as meat. Really, he ate anything, if there was anything to eat, and little Volka ate the same. He'd found a bunch of berries – rare sweet treats – and edible plants, and was returning to the cave with them to share with the kid when, behind him, he heard a familiar whicker.
“Direk?” He turned to see the black-furred Aldabuck glowering at him from atop a snowdrift, her fur coat somewhat frayed and off-angle. She chuffed at him and approached, threateningly. “Hey.” he greeted her, unphased... even when she rammed him with her head and kicked at him with her hooves.
It was clear that she was not happy with him, and so he fought her off bare handed, laughing. “Good t' see ya!” he said, “Yer a good girl, you know that?” she bit him in response, and he chuckled. What was a bite, after all, to an avalanche's pounding. “Thought ye'd died, or something.” he said, attempting to pet her despite her jabs and struggles, “Shoulda known that it'd take more n' a bunch o' snow to keep ye down.” she huffed at the complement, allowing him the brief honor of touching her before she darted in, raiding the sack of berries and plants. They spilled onto the ground, bright and red and sweet. “Hey!” She ate them before Ruelash could retrieve them, and gave him a defiant look, as if she was owed such a thing both by virtue of her dignified existance in his midst and by having sought her earthling over mountains and ice flats. He owed her these berries, and he had no choice in the matter. “Damn it.” he grumbled, returning the uneaten plants to the sack, “Was hopin' to show Volka the berries...” but he couldn't be mad at his pet for long.
“C'mon, lets go to her. She'll be happy to see you too.” he said, tugging at the remains of her reins. She shook herself and followed daintily. She was doing them a favor.
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Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2016 7:03 pm
Boredom and Competition **
1 2 3 4
“What are you going to do with it?” Ruelash asked Volkarosh. He was curious – the kid didn't do things without a reason. She was all about efficiently and unwasted effort. “If it ain't done, what are ye going t do to it?”
Volkarosh shrugged. It was for a special person, she told him. And they deserved the very best she could do.
And with that, she curled up in her furs to sleep, and Ruelash realized that it was – according to the darkness that glittered through the snowy wall – nighttime. They had used up their time well.
He set to clearing the airway again and checked on their shovels, making sure they could stand up to the task they were appointed to. They would need them to get out of their shelter and to do anything in this blizzard.
He'd just cleared the airway when he realized what Volka had said. A special person... Who? There was no one else here besides them, and she could barely remember her family, and... and... he didn't know what it meant, but it bothered him.
Even as the fire died down to embers, and darkness settled over him, he found that it bothered him enough that he did not sleep...
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Posted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 7:47 am
** Longing for War - Solo - 679 Words **
In the screaming chaotic fury of battle, everything made sense to Ruelash. The world was clearer there, to him, than even in the solitude of the mountains. War was when no one minded violence and death, and even applauded it so long as it was the 'right' people. War was when he was pointed in a direction and let loose, like an arrow from a bow. War was death and dying, the coppery smell of blood, the taste of ozone and flame in his mouth. It was the movement of his swords and the way that he could cut – so easily - through flesh and bone.
Ruelash missed war. He had survived two of them thus far – the war against the Obans and the one against the Extremists – and he was very ready to survive another. Though he did not understand why the wars had happened – his knowledge of the motivations and machinations of politics and nations, and what put some people on one side and large stompy beasts on the other was very limited – and he did not care. He neither had nor wanted that kind of capability. It made life too complicated. War was what he was born to do, and when battle raged around him, he was happy. That was all he needed to know.
When it was done, though, the silence scared him. It was a strange sort of fear, not anything like the sort of feeling he was used to calling fear. But in the aftermath of battle, he was afraid that he would never feel so alive again, and it was just as terrifying as any pack of radaku or emotionless avalanche.
After the Oban war, he had been especially concerned, but then the Alkidike had rebelled, and he had returned to his element, glorying in war and death as he did. That battle had nearly killed him when he had charged into it's heart. His life had nearly been taken. He had nearly ended. He'd loved every moment of it.
He was waiting for the next war.
Yes, taking care of Volkarosh and surviving in the wilderness had eased some of the pain of waiting. Fighting Bergchi for your life was a suitable substitute, and Volkarosh's presence meant that he had to focus, exclusively, on that. Her life had been on the line, too.
But she was reuinited with her family and he was alone in his makeshift shelter on the edges of Jahuar. And again, he could feel the old itch for violence returning to his fingers. He could not close his eyes without seeing blood and death and salivating, hungrily, for it. He wished, fervently, that the next war would come soon, and that he could dance amidst the fighting and the slaughter once more...
Or did he?
Every time he daydreamed, imagining himself dancing through battle and slaking his thirst for blood, something was missing from the fantasy. It infuriated him enough for him to stop thinking about it altogether, leaving him with only frustration and aggravation for company. It was not the lack of faces or races in his imaginings – his fantasies were not of a high enough resolution for him to imagine faces on the people he killed, and he had no idea where the next war would take him, or against whom. It was not the lack of beasts, though he hoped to face massive ones on the field again, like he had in the Oban war. Those, he remembered, had been fun.
No. What was missing from his fantasies was something else, and he did not know what it was. Just, that it was enough to throw him off entirely. Whatever the mystery element was, battle would not be the same without it. He could not enjoy himself without it.
He made a growling sound and shoved his face into a bundle of fur, a makeshift pillow. Chi's breath, he wanted war to happen. Soon.
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Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 6:44 am
** Sins and Virtues - Solo - 218 Words **
Perhaps against all expectations, Ruelash was a just ruler. With the help of far more intelligent advisors, he ruled well. He knew his place. He led the way, carving bloody swaths out of other nations and destroying those who would harm the peace that the others in his government laid in his wake. In time, the wildness in his heart softened and, as he witnessed his own funeral – with honors – he felt, for once, a little bit of peace...
Ruelash awoke in the cavern he had chosen to spend the night, his fur blanket somehow tossed to the other side of the cavern in the course of the night. Quietly, he cooked up something to eat and got ready to set out into the mountains again. He wished that there was someone to talk to about his dream – it had been so strange, so vivid, so real... already, though, it was fading into nothingness. He would, still, have liked to see if someone else understood it, or why he felt such pride in his dream. Maybe Volka, or Iroia, or one of the others would know.
But they were not there. He was alone. He choked down a meal – choking back a miserable growl in the process, and stomped out into the Zenan snow.
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Posted: Sun May 08, 2016 3:35 pm
** Bittersweet Achievement - Class Quest - 2318 Words **
It had been a long time since Ruelash had hunted the Nehredile by his home village of Secer, and he had forgotten the frustration of trying to harpoon one of the blubbery things. He soon remembered, however, as three nights passed without a kill, how he had felt when he was a newly-bladed swordsman trying to escape the frustrations of village life.
Things were different now, to be sure. He no longer ran from the villagers and their stupidity, but from the confusing and conflicting thoughts and feelings that clattered in his head like broken pottery. He no longer wanted to take out his aggression on helpless prey, instead seeking out the thrill of the hunt and the achievement of returning with full hands.
But for all that things had changed, one thing was still there – his nemesis, the black and white striped nehredile, Khashib. Years had passed, Ruelash had grown older, and it was strangely comforting to know that Khashib was still here for him to kill. A little longer in the tusk and ancient of eye, but still here, still powerful, still a challenge. Ruelash would take any old nehredile, but it was this one, this fat trickster, that he hunted.
Resting nehredile moaned in a pile of blubbery, warm, bodies but Ruelash only had Khasib in his sights. “I've got ye now...” he murmured, watching as the striped and blubbery creature slid along the ice by his hideaway. He gripped his hunting harpoon tightly, teeth bared in a feral grin. Timing would be everything. Khashib was far more agile than any nehredile should be, and had dodged harpoon shots before... many times before. Ruelash waited until there could be no error. And then he threw.
The head of the harpoon clattered on the icy ground where the nehredile was supposed to be. Ruelash blinked and turned to see that the beast had dodged, and was staring at him from a few feet away. It rumbled something that sounded like laughter and, before Ruelash could react, it slid into a gorogorum hole and back into the lake.
Fine then, I'll just take another nehredile for my trouble... Ruelash groused ferociously, retrieving his harpoon and turning to the pile of nehredile. Hitting them with the harpoon would be like hitting fish in a barrel...
Except that, as he turned towards them, the last of them slid leisurely into their a hole of their own, returning to the water. “Augh!” he snarled, stomping at the thick ice in fury. Another hunt, failed.
When he returned to the icy lake the next day, Ruelash had a plan. He dragged a mess of knotted rope onto the ice and began to lay it out, carefully, over every hole. It wasn't the most direct way to go about it, but the bastards had to come out sometime, and he needed them to get tangled up. They would become stuck and then he could keep them from escaping. And maybe, just maybe, he would catch that tricky b*****d Khasib, once and for all. With his traps laid out, he crouched behind ice-encrusted stones and waited.
The first to emerge, however, was not Khasib. Just an ordinary Nehredile, coming for air. It wiggled through the net, becoming in it as it's nose sought the freedom of air. It couldn't get onto the ice, it was so tangled. With a frustrated snort, it slid back into the water, freeing itself from it's tethers and returning to the darkness of the lake's waters.
Ruelash frowned. This was a problem with his plan – what if Khasib was never entangled? What if he never emerged? They could breathe without coming onto the ice, and if they weren't on the ice, he would have to wait by a hole... but which? There were many...
Another huff of exhaled air – Ruelash turned to watch as another nehredile emerged from a gorogorum hole. It was tangled, but not so much that it couldn't emerge. Awkwardly, determinedly, it loped out into the ice, trailing rope behind it. Ruelash smiled, relieved – there was hope yet. But this one was not Khasib, either. He would have to wait.
Almost as if following a set schedule or meeting time, others followed, tangling themselves and making their way, stubbornly, to their sunning spots. Ruelash began to wonder if he had put out enough rope. But, even if he failed to catch Khasib with his trap, he would at least have something for his trouble.
And then he came.
Ruelash knew him immediately, though the hole he came through was far from Ruelash's hiding spot. His striped hide strained against the ropes as he – as Khasib – hauled himself onto the ice. Ruelash wanted to crow with glee as he crept around the lake, but he knew that this was the moment of truth, when, tangled in his web, Khasib would prove him a master hunter or a fool like all the others.
Ruelash was no fool. When the time was right, he leapt out of hiding and threw his harpoon. It clattered to the ice – a miss. He felt an emptiness growing in his gut as the ancient nehredile began to scramble for their airholes. He contemplated failure and yet another defeat at the hands of his rival, this beast that so foiled him...
And then he saw that the others, pulling on the ropes that tangled them, were actually pulling Khasib away from his escape. Ruelash laughed, picking up his harpoon gleefully. He still had a chance. He looked at the panicking Khasib in its beady eyes, and threw his weapon. This time, the serrated blade struck home, sinking through blubber and muscle. Khasib moaned and struggled against his bounds, and Ruelash moved in quickly – he was so close, he knew, and he would not let this beast escape. Not now.
He stabbed the nehredile with his blades and struck it's heart. Khasib collapsed and was still. Ruelash quickly cut the ropes tangling Khasib with the others, and whimpering in fear, they slipped down into the lake. Curious, he tugged at the ropes, but they were loose and came back empty. Ruelash shrugged and began to gather up the ropes, grinning all the while. It mattered not – he finally had what he'd come for.
He dragged Khasib's body to his campsite and looked upon its blubbery girth. This was Khasib, the trickster, the nehredile that had eluded him for years. Finally, he had killed him. He had been victorious. It felt good.
Ruelash began to butcher his kill, seeking trophies and meat and other things that Khasib, as a nehredile, would provide. So absorbed with his own good feelings, he forgot he was alone. He looked over his shoulder and took a breath to call out to Volkarosh, the young girl he had taken care of for so long, that he'd done it. The breath caught in his throat as he realized it. Of course. She wasn't there. She hadn't been with him for some time, not since he had brought her to her mother in Jahuar.
Suddenly, his mood sank. Yes, Khasib was dead. Yes, he had hunted this beast for years. But he was alone, there was no one to share the victory with. There was no one to eat the meat with, or clean the hide, or prepare a stew. He was all alone, victorious but alone. He didn't like it.
He hacked off the nehredile's horn, perhaps with more violence than he needed to, trying to deny his own conclusion. After all, alone was how he liked it, just him and the savage beauty of the Zenan wilds, away from all the fools that made up most of the world. Alone was how he'd been for all his life. He was fine being alone, completely fine.
This was what he told himself, even as thoughts of Iroia, and Volkarosh, and Sezarra and Neska and even Votzhem flickered through his mind like crackling flames. His heart felt thick and sad. He missed them. He missed them all. He knew he was lying to himself if he said he didn't. He slumped, letting the butchering blade hang limply in his hands as memory and fatigue staggered him.
He had been alone much of his life, but he had been happiest with them. Fighting and surviving beside his 'pack' had been the best times of his life, and, he realized, nothing could compare to having companions. Not even killing his nemesis. Not even war could compare, and he loved war so much...
“Augh!” he cursed, kicking the dead nehredile in frustration. These feelings were so strange and frustrating! He'd been with those people, his friends, before, and if that was where he was supposed to be, why had he been drawn back to Zena? If he missed them so much, why was lonely Zena home?
Time and time again, he had ventured out into warmer lands, happy in the company of his pack. Time and time again, he had been drawn back, inexorably, to the land he was born in. He was driven away. He had been pulled back. Back and forth, like a child's toy.
And now he felt like he was being pushed away again. He didn't like it, this feeling of bouncing between places. He wanted one place to call his home, a place to roam that he knew well. That, he had thought, was Zena. And then he'd walked through the Tale and Jahuar, had shed blood on the thirsty Oban sands, and somewhere, somehow, the line between Zena's frosty peaks and everywhere else had become blurred.
When in the Tale, he longed for Zena. When in Zena, he longed for the people he called his pack, his family. They were separated by this fuzzy border; Iroia and the others would not come to Zena, and he could not leave it.
Or could he? Was Zena really worth being called home anymore, or was he just coming back there out of some stupid nostalgia, or whatever that word was for the foolish clinging to memories. What memories did he have to cling to?
He picked up his knife and began to butcher Khasib properly, grunting in exertion and in answer. Veshki. Of course the reason was Veshki. Veshki had been as much a part of this place as the snow and ice, had known every mile of cold stone and craggy forest. Ruelash remembered how graceful and confident he had been. Veshki had lived here, explored here, and died here. Ruelash was his brother, heir to his talent with the wilderness. Did he feel he should do the same?
Ugh. It was too nuanced a thought for Ruelash. Veshki was dead and gone and there was nothing Ruelash could do about it. He missed him – still missed him, even after all this time – but that didn't matter. Missing him wouldn't bring him back, just like missing Volkarosh wouldn't make her suddenly appear and help him with this carcass. Or missing Iroia wouldn't make her call echo from the mountains and cliffs, calling him gleefully to battle.
He wondered, briefly, whether she forgave him for not finding her husband. Sure, he hadn't even realized the big guy was lost, let alone alive, but when he'd gone to Jahuar, kid in tow, he had felt like he had somehow forgotten to do it. Like he had been supposed to. He'd felt so bad that he'd gone back to Zena to find him, but now, apparently, the big b*****d had found himself and come back home... or so Ruelash had heard. He was a little jealous, to be honest. Iroia hadn't needed his help after all.
Once upon a time, that would have been fine. Iroia didn't need his help, he didn't need hers, they came together to be a wild, rampaging team every so often, and then they lived their own lives. That was how it worked. That was how it was supposed to work. But with Volkarosh... that was when everything had changed. She'd needed him. She might not need him now, with her Ma and Pa and brother and whoever else, but one thing was sure... he needed her. He needed them all. He'd been able to ignore it for some time, occupying himself with the basic thrumming rhythm of survival, but he could feel it now:
Where he was supposed to feel victory, over killing Khasib, he felt only emptiness and a desire to share it with others. He wanted to see them there, at his camp, congratulating him. He wanted them to share their victories. He wanted all their successes to feed them all for another night, each ones accomplishments safe in the bellies of the others. He wanted them to be here.
He growled as his head and heart hurt, and plunked the somewhat reduced nehredile onto a sleigh. He had to move. Sitting here thinking like this was not his way. Besides, he didn't need to think too hard about the solution;
He had to go back to them, to his pack. And he'd have to stay with them. It hurt too much to leave them, and Zena no longer had the hold over him that it once had. Maybe he could convince them to go with him when the heat would be too much. Maybe he would only come back to his homeland for brief spells, to honor Veshki's memory.
Either way, though, he had to go. He had to say goodbye to this land, to Veshki, to the few others he cared about here enough to say goodbye to, and he had to set out to the borderlands between the Tale and Jahuar. There, he would find everybody. There, he would find his pack. There, all would be well.
A simple solution.
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Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2016 9:01 pm
** Walls Between Mountains - Ruelash and Votzhem - 285 Words **
Losing his swords bothered him a lot. They were his fangs – his teeth, his claws. He had a knife, sure, but it was nothing at all like the twinned blades.
It was too short. It wasn't slashy enough. He tossed and turned and eventually found he couldn't sleep. He slipped outside into the night to pace.
The white void of clouds was now just an ordinary darkened void, devoid of light. Not even campfires or villages – only the light of their shaded fire showed him where safe ground ended and death lurked. Ruelash supposed that they'd managed to find the one view that didn't look over some nomad's route or some settlement. That suited him fine.
He stared down into it, and kept seeing – as if right in front of him, etched into the darkness, - Veshki's face as it had looked long ago, just before he'd fallen. Ruelash had tried to help him. He swore that up and down the mountains of Zena, though no one believed him. He'd tried and failed.
He couldn't stop seeing Veshki's face.
He couldn't stop thinking about his own.
He could have been gone that day, like his swords were, like Veshki was. He felt very, very, lucky that he was still there. And sad, because he had liked those blades. Things didn't come back from that kind of fall, after all.
He paced and thought and eventually managed to settle himself enough for sleep. In the morning, he woke to the smell of Votzhem cooking breakfast. Looking down, at a pressure on his legs, he saw, to his astonishment:
His swords, sheathed and leaning on him.
”Chi's breath...” he murmured.
It was a miracle.
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Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 9:31 pm
** In Sickness - Solo - 1143 Words **
Ruelash wasn't worried the day Direk staggered. Life was life, people got injured. Even he got injured. He put it off to an injury that he hadn't caught, but he wasn't worried; Direk was a tough girl. She'd gotten through worse... at least, so he'd thought.
When she was too warm to his touch, he figured she'd been in the sun too long. Her dark coat soaked in sunlight like a sponge and sometimes made her too warm. She was cranky on those days, and a little bite-y. That he'd touched her nose made him feel accomplished, though she seemed to be biding her time.
When she didn't eat her feed that night, however, Ruelash knew something was really amiss. She'd never been off her feed before, not in the long time he'd known the midnight-black aldabuck.
Worried, he decided to check on her in the morning and hope that whatever it was cleared up on its own.
----
Direk's eyes were dull as she halfheartedly glared at Ruelash. Normally, she'd bite him for laying a hand on her without permission, but, as he stroked her fur gently, she only coughed. It was a weak sound, somewhere between a grunt and a whicker, and it was very unlike her. Exhausted, even by that measly protestation, she lay her head down on the hay. Ruelash growled. “You ain't okay.” he said softly.
The aldabuck had never been sick before, not since the day he'd traded for her all those years ago. She'd been his constant companion from one end of the continent to the other, and his partner on the battlefield. He didn't know what to do, with her sick. “'least we're in Jauhar, right girl?” he said, rubbing the place at the base of her horns that he knew she liked. Normally, she would have given him a hard time about petting her, even though she really liked being rubbed in that spot. “We ain't alone in the wilds, like usual.”
That was true. Iroia's son Arronthain was here, and his friend Sezarra. They knew beasts really well, and Direk knew them. They were trusted - if anyone could help, it would be them. It would probably be better to get them quickly, though. Now, perhaps.
Ruelash moved to stand up, only to be weakly tapped by one of Direk's hooves. She stared at him with her feverish eyes, tapping him again. “You tryin' to kick me, girl?” he said, smirking, “Gonna have to try harder than that.” He moved again, only to get hit in the knee with a lucky shot from her hindleg.
“Ow!” he snarled, wincing as her hoof struck him right in the weak point of the knee. It sent a wave of pain and strangeness through his leg, all the way down to his feet. He collapsed. “'ey! that hurt!”
“MEEEH.” she managed, a thin parody of her usual cries.
“What?” he snapped, rubbing his knee.
“Meeh...” she lay back on the hay. She felt like an oven, so hot that Ruelash idly wondered if he could cook food on her side.
“Ya don' want me to go, huh?” he said, glaring at her for a moment. “That's stupid. I gotta go, so I can get the people who can make ya better.”
She didn't move, her energy spent for the moment, her sides heaving in difficult exertion.
“Ya really want me to stay?” Ruelash asked, his voice softening, “Arright. I'll stay.” he said, sitting next to her again, “I'll get them when yer sleepin'. How about that?” That would probably be fine, if she slept at all.
-----
Apparently, it was a Chi-sent miracle that she hadn't gotten sick before. All the moisture of Jauhar wasn't good for her, a savannah-beast, and there were nasty diseases that lurked beneath the leaves. A miracle, too, that he hadn't gotten sick himself. Though, as Votzhem had said, he'd probably gotten everything else and didn't have room for any more bad sicknesses. Ruelash thought that was probably true.
With medicine, Direk was doing better, and Ruelash couldn't see it happening any other way. He really couldn't. What would the world be without her shrieks of indignation piercing his ears? Her hoofbeats following him along the paths? Her horns bruising and breaking his foes? She kept him on his toes and reminded him that he had a place to go and a place to return to, all in one. “Yer family, you know that?” he said, rubbing one of her velvet-soft ears. “Family's important.”
She stirred. She was cooler now, returning to her normal temperature bit by bit. She'd even eaten a little earlier – some barley meal mixed with water. “Yer gonna be okay.” Ruelash said, rubbing beneath her chin, “Yer gonna be right okay.”
People were surprised he cared. Ruelash didn't notice much, so it was striking that he noticed their shocked expressions at all. Volkarosh understood, and Arron and Seze had too. But even Iroia had been shocked that he'd care about Direk's fate, and she knew him better than most. Why would he feel nothing? Was it because she was an animal?
Animals could be hunted. They were an important source of food, fur, and sport. Ruelash was vicious in the hunt, a predator of wild peaks. But animals were also more reasonable than people, and they could be family. Direk was family. Why shouldn't he care about what happened to her?
He knew that it would have been practical to let her die rather than spend herbs on her. The weak died, the strong survived, that was the law of the wild. But that law was suspended for family – you never left family behind. Never. “I'm 'here.” he reassured her as she stirred. And here he was, adding his strength to hers, just as she added her strength to him. Why didn't people understand that?
The answer was the same as always; people didn't understand because people were stupid. Stupid and foolish and petty, their lives governed by worthless things. They were scared of their own shadows. Well, he was scared that he was going to lose Direk, so they could shut up and leave him alone. He heard their whispering when he was out in the town for Iroia or Volka, giving him side glances, sidestepping to avoid them when they walked by. Foolish. Ruelash snarled to himself – why couldn't they leave him alone? Why couldn't they just shut their mouths?
“Meh...?” Direk stirred, half-opening one exhausted eye to look at him.
“Sorry.” he stroked her face until she relaxed again, her breathing easing into a gentle rhythm, “All's well, girl. I was jus' growlin' to myself.”
She huffed at him, summoning sarcasm into a flick of her ear.
Ruelash grinned, relieved. “That's my girl.”
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