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It took Naita some time to gather up Cid. He could be wily for a stupid piece of fluffy livestock, and he had learned a few tricks to keep from being picked up and carried or – worse – flown. Still, Naita had experience wrangling him, and soon she was off and flying towards the arranged meeting spot, the Leklan safely and carefully clasped in her mouth.

She landed nearby, dropping the leklan to prevent any accidental biting, and, carrying over the momentum of her flight, trotted towards the meeting spot.

”Ahoy!” she called, spotting the young Oblivionite. Good – she'd come. ”Sorry I'm late! Cid wanted t' play hide n' seek.”

Cid followed her placidly. If he had been less stupid, he might have protested that he hadn't been playing – hiding from large toothy fire-breathing predators was serious business. But he'd been defeated, and so he followed, sheepishly as it were.

”Where are we off to today?” she asked, her tail lashing eagerly, ”Explorin' or killing? Which is yer thing?”

(172/500)

Naita did like that response: having a specific goal in mind was just plain boring, and you were more likely to find something neat when you weren't looking for it anyway.

”Allright, then. Lets go.” she said, picking a direction and simply moving in it. The forest was mostly unexplored for her as well, and she loved to just wander. That was how she spent most of her life, to be honest, especially since the Stormborn broke up.

”So.” she said, keeping the hungry silence of the woods at bay, ”Ebalia... can I call ye Eba, or something like that? Tell me a bit about yourself.” she looked idly into the fungal trees, sniffing the air, ”I figure I want to get to know ye, since I ain't going to eat ye.” she shot Ebalia a very toothy grin – showing all her very sharp carnivore teeth. Just for the joke, of course. She wouldn't eat Ebalia, and besides, she was still full up from the tribe of Vildean they had slaughtered. She wouldn't need to worry about eating... for a little while anyway.

The path they were on – if path it could be called, for it was more a game trail than anything – began to meander along stone and ancient root systems, trecherous but tracable. Naita had no idea if it led anywhere in particular, but it was – from the occasional broken twig along it – still used by something, making it interesting and apparently leading to somewhere, at least. Or not. That was the whole point of exploring, wasn't it?

Most of all, she had company to explore it with. That was plain damn nice.

(452/500)

Naita knew, only vaguely, what streets were and had no idea of the circumstances of such a life for a magescian. Being without shelter or a set place had been her life for so long that it was almost hard for Naita to imagine life with a home. But she understood what it was like to be away, forever apart from her family and clan, and alone in the world – that, she understood.

“Kinda like me, I guess.” she said, “I used to have a pack I ran with, ye know? We hatched together, grew up together, did everything together...” her gaze grew distant and unfocused, remembering the Stormwinds. Oh, the times they had had together... the destruction they had wrought... “We flew all the seas of the world, attacking ships and, uh...” she remembered her current company. Although not one for social graces, Naita had a feeling that murdering magescians as blatantly and raucously she and her gang had done would not go over well with her new friend. Then again, it might. Best to leave that part out for now... she thought. She didn't want to lose a friend over a little detail like that.

Then again, she had never told anyone her full story before. Not even the Magescian she had ended up closest to – the Orderite Avani. Ironically, that one would likely not have minded. She was a strange one, that was for sure.

And yet, it was this one Naita was telling. She didn't dwell on the oddity much further than that, though. ”Well... Then we attacked the wrong ship. Most of us dead, the rest...” she sighed, ”Scattered. So it's just me now, and I've been wandering...”

She tensed as they came upon the campsite. She'd been fortunate to not have much experience with hunters, but she knew of them. Maybe they were good for a fun fight, but the smell of khehora blood around this campsite made Naita wary. The egg made her warier. She might not mind the bonded – she'd met a few pleasant ones in her travels, with decent bondmates – but the idea that some poor orakoi had been ripped away from his or her parents and clan before they even got a chance to meet them? That was just s**t.

She loomed, keeping an eye on him as he slept. The b*****d probably drank all his grog she grumbled quietly to herself. She tensed as he stirred, moving forward in a lunge as he awoke and, his eyes widening at the intruders, scrambled for his weapon. She slammed him off his hammock, holding him down with a powerful paw.

”Ahoy there.” she said, grinning, ”Move, and I'll kill ye. Don't move, and maybe I'll kill ye.” she said, ”Best chance ye've got, matey.”

”You'rs, is it?” she breathed into his face, her breath scalding his skin slightly, reddening it. ”So ye laid it, eh? Ye brooded it, eh?” she carefully tore open his shirt with her free claw, ”I guess you be khehora under all that soft magescian flesh, eh?” she poked at his bared, dark skin. He was well muscled, lean. ”Sure ain't under yer clothes. Oi, Eba.” she said, shooting her new friend a grin, ”How'd ye like t' see whats inside?” she pressed a claw into him, drawing blood.

“You... Don't kill me!” he pleaded, “I'll give it back! I promise.”

”Oh no, matey. I ain't planning on killing ye...” her breath left a single, angry red blister on his neck, ”Not yet.” she pressed harder, drawing more blood in a very suggestive way, ”How about ye tell us where ye found the nest, and I might not strip ye of all yer skin afore killing ye.”

After all, it seemed both she and Eba were of the same mind – get that egg back home. At least, it seemed that way to Naita, and she might as well ask.

Besides, this was fun.

”Don't remember?!” Naita pressed her claws in further, ”Try harder...” she said, dragging a claw along his skin, leaving a long, fleshy gash. She paused, looking over at Ebalia briefly.

”Now, that's right kind o' ye...” she started. It was nice to be called what she was, not that she minded that someone had objectified her. He was at her mercy, so what did it matter? She was probably going to kill him. But then, her voice stalled in her throat. She stared at Ebalia for a long, heated moment, her fuchsia eyes gleaming.

”That we do...” Naita said, her voice a low, sibilant growl. And with that, she turned back to the man and blasted him in the face with her flame. His scream was lost as the flames stole his air and the charring destroyed his soft tissue. He choked on the smoke and heat. Finally, she stopped her flames and, as he struggled to breathe through a face scorched beyond recognition, she slashed him through, his skin crackling and falling away, revealing broiled, bleeding red flesh. He smelled of roasted meat and fat as she shoved him aside violently. She bared her teeth at Eba.

”Well.” she growled, ”Now he can't tell us the location o' that nest, can he?” smoke poured from her nostrils as she glared at Eba, ”Guess ye'll just have to keep it, eh?” she said, before wheeling around and storming off, taking her destructive urges out on the man's tent. She didn't like this. Not at all. But what was she to do? The Oblivionite girl had saved her life, and honestly the khehora's parents were very likely dead, and Naita couldn't take care of a orakoi, not with Cid. Really, it was best.

But she knew what she was doing to that little one by letting Ebalia take it, and she wasn't sure what to think of herself. But she owed her, and if that was what she wanted...

Naita flamed the tent, the red glow of it reflecting golden on her sea-green scales. It was soothing, somewhat, to see the flames, but she still quaked with rage, more so because she didn't know why she was so pissed. She growled, more sour than angry and stormed off into the woods, striking at trees with her claws and gouging out wood and hyphae as the impacts of her blows reverberated through muscle and bone. What had she expected? That her new friend would just put the egg back into a nest and be done with it? Naita knew that, if she had been a twoleg and she had stumbled on a khehora egg, she certainly wouldn't want to part with it. What was inside the egg was power. A bound khehora was a companion that would never leave you – forever bound to you until death. Naita knew she wouldn't pass up on that. Why should she have expected Ebalia – a girl she had met yesterday, by the stars – to do any different? She smashed an old, rotting stump, sparks flying from her claws as they heated with her magic and charred the old wood. She'd just thought it would have gone differently, that was all. She'd been expecting to go off looking for the nest. Heck, she wouldn't have minded if Eba had said what she'd said after they'd given it a good try. It would have been unlikely to have been found in the first place, and the parents were likely dead. But... Naita spewed flame into the air, barely managing to not kindle a deadly forest fire. Would it have killed her to look first?! Was Naita not a loyal friend enough?!

She glared at the residual glow that her flame left in the air, and the embers that petered out harmlessly in the damp soil, breathing heavily. Still. Naita had overreacted, and she couldn't pick and choose her companions. And there was no way for either of them to know if Naita was a loyal friend, as she had only known the girl a day.

A day.

She turned and trotted back to the now-ruined camp, searching for Ebalia. She stared at her a moment, her eyes locking onto the pale glow of the runes on the shell. Finally, she spoke. "Ye know..." she muttered, "It'd be real bad form o' me to eat ye on the first day of our friendship. Real improper."

It was... an apology. Sort of.

"Or end up cookin' that lil' un in its wee shell."

”Well, if yer going to be its mama...” the very thought of Ebalia laying an egg was amusing enough to soothe Naita, even as the smoke from her rampage blew through the clearing like a haze. So angry before, and so calm now... It was odd.

Fights with the Stormwinds, as often happened between friends and family, had been heated, and her temper had erupted into rage more than once. But then, as ow, she had calmed quickly, and things had returned to their normal congeniality. Naita was not one to hold grudges, of course, but more often than not, after the 'winds had broken up, she had at least been grumbly after a fight with an aquaintence.

Not so now. She was calm – becalmed, like the sea after a storm. ”... I s'pose I have to. Since ye can't brood it yerself.” Imagining Ebalia trying was also a funny thought. Naita had never brooded an egg before, but she was willing to bet she could do it better than a twoleg. She thought for a moment, and relaxed.

”I guess I'd be happy t' help.” she admitted.