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This was all Faiza's fault and Shukri was never going to do anything nice for his formerly favourite youngling again so long as he lived.. if he lived. Fai had asked him to gather some bones for her to make beads with. Far too young to actually choose to craft as a career the youngling rarely got at any of the good bones that came in from hunts and was often left to practice with lower quality materials. She was also too young to leave the camp unattended and everyone was too busy to take her on a trip right now.

Shukri though had free time and had figured it wouldn't be that difficult to find a set of sun bleached bones or a vacated carcass to gather stuff from. Faiza was, outside of his family, his favourite person in the band and he didn't really mind helping her with simple things like this., though it didn't hurt that Faiza was always good at repaying favours.

Off Shukri had gone in search of bones, scouring the nearby area and then venturing a bit further away from camp when he found nothing. Years of being on the move had made Shukri quite fast and though his legs were only so long he could cover the ground or scale the nearby rocks with ease. It was in dropping down from a small outcropping that Shukri found exactly what he'd been looking for. A small shallow cave filled with bones, all of them the same type and upon closer inspection not a one of them looked line it had been chewed or separated from the rest by force. This was not some predators cache but a place where for some reason many of these beasts had died or, Shrukri had frowned and crouched down to better examine the bones, some seemed far older than others. So were the creatures coming here to die then for some reason?.

There was likely something deep and meaningful in all of that and Shukri would ponder the significance of it and that place later. in the meantime he had gone about collecting the type of bones requested as well as a few teeth and claws for his own personal use. Everything had been going fine until an old mangy looking critter had shown up, presumably to die and had taken offense to Shukri's looting of the skeletons. While the creature had never been an true predator in it's prime it still had sharp teeth and claws and Shukri had been on the run from it after narrowly making it out of the cave.

As a prentice all he had to defend himself was a simple sling and while he had no problem taking the bones of the dead or defending himself normally he couldn't bring himself to attack an old likely already dying creature.

This softheartedness had lead Shukri to where he was now, 30 or forty paces ahead of the beast that would not stop stalking him. Both had long since stopped running and slowed to a walk, both trying to outlast the other. Shukri had no idea where the creature, which was practically skin and bones now, found the stamina to continue to peruse him. All he knew was that he saw someone else in the distance and hopefully the creature would back away rather than deal with two of them.

While Shukri had been planning to get the shifter to help him he'd not expected the other man to be quite this useful. There was no way the beast was going to get past the currently dark skinned shifter and his shield. Which meant Shukri and the small hoard that rested in the pack upon his back and in the pouches in his belt were safe. It was perhaps a little embarrassing to be hiding from a native predator behind the stranger but Shukri valued being practical and healthy over proud and injured or dead. Besides he would have been hiding behind someone no matter who it was. Shukri, while athletically built, was no fighter and avoided any confrontation that couldn't be handled with a few shots from his sling.

Shukri had to give the other man points for creativity, he'd not even though about trying to use food to persuade it to stop following him. Not that he'd had a lot of time to deeply contemplate the situation then, not that he had all that much now. As soon as he was told to get going the wind tribe prentice started moving again, eager to put as much distance between himself and the vengeful predator as possible he moved as quickly as possbly without doing anything so rash as breaking into a full run which might draw the predators attention. " Thanks," the single word was a breathless pant but filled with gratitude nonetheless.

For it's part the beast did indeed stop following the wind boy and made no move to pursue him and the odd smelling stranger. While the capacity for sorrow was in it's nature so was the need to eat and it had been thrown free food. Old and weary it may have been but the desire to ease it's hunger was still there and the beast began to set about trying to release it's meal from the strange encasing.

"Most scavengers like easy meals," Shukri pointed out with a bit of a grin as he surveyed the area and looked for the best place to rest." We can rest up there," he pointed to the top of a rocky arch that connected two nearby elevated bits of land. " It's not going to climb after us, I don't even think it can." The beast might have been able to follow after him for some time but that had been walking over fairly flat surface, Shukri was pretty sure it couldn't drag it's carcass up a proper rocky incline right now. Not that he was in great shape for climbing right now either but the prentice would manage even if it hurt. He had no concerns about his rescuers ability to follow, after all he was a shifter like Takoda and they climbed trees all day.

Wasting no time Shukri set about finding a good place on the wall to start scaling it. His pale skin was flushed with adrenaline and taking on a pink shade darker than the one that tinted his otherwise golden hair. This was not how his days normally went and even his most incredulous adventures had not featured him being hunted by a decrepit old beast angry that he took it's kin's bones. Something for which Shukri was still not sorry, he'd been on a mission after all and honestly it wasn't like they were going to be used just lying in that cave. At least with him and Fai, the bones, teeth and claws would find new purpose.

"I'm ok, just a little tired," Shukri admitted as he let his heart beat calm and his body relax not that he was no longer being pursued or forced to climb. From here he could see the scavenger best that had been after him, it had destroyed the wrapping around the fish and was now devouring it slowly with what teeth it still had. The young prentice wondered if the meal would give it the energy to eventually make it back to it's intended final resting place. He sort of hoped so for reasons other than the fact that he was putting it on one of his maps as a good resource cache.

"The view is nice here but it's better from some of the smaller mountain tops," Shukri noted, responding to one of his Savior's earlier comments. "You probably shouldn't try to climb anything bigger than that though" he continued and pointed a mountain off in the distance. "If you try to go too high too quickly you can get very sick and die." The air thinned heavily the further up you went and even members of the wind tribe could not climb the tallest mountain in one day as their bodies could simply not adjust fast enough to the changing atmosphere. Well there were rumors to the contrary but Shukri didn't personally know of anyone who had ever dared try such a thing. Even he had too much respect for the mountains and Bergchi to think he could simply scale anything with no repercussions.

Able now to properly greet the other Shukri offered a grit covered hand to the shifter. "I'm Shukri, thanks again for saving me."

"What made you want to come to Sauti, Chalcedony?" Shukri asked curiously as he slowly drew his hand back after the shake. Shukri himself was the adventurous sort but some of those he had met from the other tribes were not and well he couldn't imagine going so far from home just to see what was out there if you weren't going to enjoy yourself along the way. Shukri was also nosy by nature and liked to learn everything he could about people so knowing Chalcedony's motivations served multiple purposes.

Shifters were an oddly noble bunch, Shukri noted, or at the very least the two he'd met so far had seemed that way. Still it was good to know that Chalcedony really had no ulterior motives in joining in with the group that had come here. He felt a little bad for the other male having been signed up to travel seemingly against his will though, even of some good had come out of it all.

"You certainly seem to be doing a good job of protecting me," the young man admitted with a slight smile. "And congratulations, getting titled is important, do you think your family will be sad they weren't here to see it?" Chalcedony sounded close to his kin and Shukri wondered if there was any bitter sweetness in getting promoted to guard when those he wanted to protect most weren't there to celebrate with him.

"If I wasn't interested in knowing I wouldn't have asked," Shukri pointed out. He wanted to reassure Chalcedony that a little rambling wasn't going to bother him. "Besides, your family sounds nice and like they probbaly talk about you just as much." All the family talk just made Shukri glad his own kin and Faiza were not that far away. He was no great protector but he had his place amongst them and they had always accepted him for what he was.

( Sorry my brain ran out of things to say here sad I should be able to write more if we get them moving again or something but I couldn't find a smooth way to transition the conversation. )