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One, two, three…

Again.

…four, five, six…

Again.

Naqenni swept her practice blades, shifting the balls of her feet and body angle as she moved through one of her more recently-learned routines. It wasn’t complicated. They wouldn’t yet teach her more complicated ones, but frustrating as that was, it mattered little for the moment. The more she learned of blades, the less she favored them. Still, they would be a ready and necessary ally if ranged attacks failed. And, her tutors taught it. She wouldn’t settle for anything less than perfection in that regard either.

Even months afterward, the events of one of her first sessions with one one of the older alkidikes of the tribe still left her stinging and cross to think about it. So she swung again, and again—and again, until her breath caught, throbbing to a familiar pounding rhythm in her throat. At each finish, she would tell herself, ‘One more time…’ and at each completion: ‘And just once more after this…’

Only when she knew absolutely that her muscles had numbed to the point of making her motions sloppy and unfit for repetition did she let up. At that point, she dropped her weight back to the nearest tree, eyes shutting, shoulders to the bark, and breath coming in deep, audible pants. Then, just as her own breathing began to quiet, she heard footsteps.

Antennae twitching, she pulled away from the trunk, straightening her posture, rolling her shoulders back, and squinting towards the sound.

Naqenni’s attention flicked over Ceylinae.

One of the ‘three’, she had known Ceylinae — or at least known of her — for as long as she’d known anyone. After all, for some time, she, Cey, and Ku had been the only children to the tribe, preliminary gifts from Elzira and their future, and in the sense that they came into the world together, they were a trio—asked for or not. Privately, however, Naqenni still considered both competition. Allies in the future, yes, but those who ought one day follow in the wake of her leadership. She curled her toes and shifted her weight.

“I’ve seen something you haven’t yet,” she said, ignoring her sister’s question intentionally and cocking her posture to rest her hands near to her hips and the practice blades there, expression casually smug. “Just the other day, further than we’ve been permitted to go. If you have time in your busy training schedule, though…” She nocked her head a half inch to one side, “…I’d race you there. If you have the energy. I know you like to start early and may have worn yourself out…”

So she had already been training.

Naqenni made mental note, and shifted her weight, listening halfheartedly until Ceylinae came to the end of her spiel. There, a slow smile spread into a cocked grin on Naqenni’s features. She notched her head to the left—and with no further indication of their direction than that, broke into a sprint. Despite her greeting, she had no doubt that Cey, much as she trained, had the energy to keep up, but it never hurt to push herself, particularly with those best suited to testing her limits against. Simultaneously her closest sisters, and her fiercest competition. One day, if her mothers were right — and Naqenni didn’t doubt for an instant that they were — they, Cey and Ku, would fight at her side in battle.

And by the goddess, if she had her way, they would be fighting one at each side and one half step behind her lead. That, however, was a play to be made another day.

For now, she had the earth beneath her feet, the great, misty jungle around her, and a destination to reach. Sucking breath to the pace of her livening pulse, she pushed her pace faster, testing the limits of her legs—and twitching her antennae to gauge Cey’s location.

As Naqenni’s heart rate picked up, thrumming to a rough beat even as her feet flit light over the mossy earth, a tingle rippled beneath her skin. Heat, and anticipation. The thrill of pushing her body towards a sting in her veins. The rush that she imagined might be similar to a hunt, when she got the opportunity to try—but, she did have company, and the last thing she wanted was to tire in front of her company. So, though she could have pressed longer at the sprint, she let her pace ease when Ceylinae went out of her way to hop obstacles, and fell into a familiar rhythm instead.

When the other girl scrambled to catch up and came beside her, Naqenni’s lips twitched again towards a smile. This time, the settled on something more subtle and smug.

“It might be a very long way,” she said. “Or just up the bend. Why. Are you tired already?” With the question, she shot her sister a glance, expression alight with fresh amusement, and no small amount of challenge. Though she knew what she would hear in response, it never seemed worth it to resist the urge to goad. So she didn’t bother trying. “We can slow down, if you like.”

Naqenni scoffed, torn between amusement and something else altogether. “Of course I know where I’m going,” she quipped. “Saying that was my way of telling you I’m not telling you until we get there—you’ll see. It’s not that much further. I’m sure your legs will survive.”

And there it was, finally. Ceylinae’s return jab.

Naqenni couldn’t decide whether to be pleased by the quip back or not. After all, if she and her sisters were going to one day traverse into the world at large, a little verbal insult couldn’t be the undoing of their composure, and it seemed only right to give them all practice at that. Not that she herself was perfect at handling such things, but never mind that for now. On the other—well, she didn’t need a nap.

She opted to demonstrate so through actions instead of words, picking up her place. Despite her prior statements, given the pace they were going, they were close by now, and not long later, the approaching, subdued rush of tumbling water became audible, the soft hum of it seeming almost to vibrate through her tentacles. Her stride gained an extra, anticipatory bounce to it. Soon, Cey would see.

She could probably already hear.

Before sunset.

Naqenni stifled a snort, but held her tongue in favor of opting for a different sort of retort tactic. Closer. Closer. Closer. Perhaps it was easier to hear the rush of water over the rest of the competing sounds of the jungle because she knew the nature of their destination and what to listen for, but no matter. Any advantage was still hers to make use of.

The opening to the underground river that Ai had showed her some weeks back was not overly wide, but more importantly, from this particular angle, it was nearly invisible, the lip of it closest to them being just high enough to mask the fact that the ground was gone entirely scant inches later. Naqenni sucked in a breath, narrowed her focus, and pushed, increasing her speed whatever fraction she could for a handful of seconds and then, at the last moment, dropping—and skidding, coming to an even crouch not far from the lip of the yawning cavern that opened into the tunnels below.

“Be careful not to fall, sister,” she said airily, not quite managing to remove the breathlessness from her tone. It didn’t matter much, after all. They were here.

Naqenni eyed her sister, watching on in private amusement as her arms swung, followed immediately after by a rear-first topple to the forgiving earth. Though, if she truly thought about it, her sister tumulting over the edge had been a very real risk, that end had not been her goal—and, in fact, was a distinctly unwanted result. This, though — the moment of scrambling and lost balance — was perfectly in line with her aimed-for expectations. She tipped her head to peek over the lip herself.

“Just the river,” she said. “And whatever lives within. I climbed down before, some, but I haven’t been deep. We could explore. If you’re not scared, that is. What did you do for training this morning?”

As she said it, Naqenni stood and walked the ledge, eyeing the rock for the place she had begun to climb down before. The gouge in the earth, while fairly deep, was not unscalable, and several portions of it were angled just enough to allow travel down to the rock banking the underground river. How far back it went in either direction, she didn’t know, but now, with young company and no adult to attempt to impose restrictions, she had more freedom to experiment. She intended to make the most of it.

Upon finding the place she had scaled downward last time, Naq crouched, angled herself, gripped the lip, and lowered her legs over, beginning a downward trip.

“That is what I said,” Naqenni said. Even as she spoke, however, most of her attention was focused elsewhere: on the crimp and grip of her fingers to the stone and the brace of her feet as she found footholds; on the balance of her weight and relative availability of further brace points on the way down.

A certain, hammering rush came with climbing—thick, heavy, and hard in her chest whenever her body was suspended at a fatal height—distinctly different and less pleasant than that of running, in Naqenni’s opinion. But the only way to combat it was practice. Their sister-race, after all, was born for the jungle, for the trees, and climbing in that sense ought to be natural to her genetics. There was no reason or excuse for fear.

Regardless, her goddess would not let her fall. She was destined for greater things. This thought, as it generally did, eased the throb of her pulse and relaxed the pinch of her muscles, helping her to make the rest of the trip more smoothly. It did not remove the solidified sense of safety and satisfaction that came with the reassuring press of hard ground beneath her feet.

She could feel the chill of the rock through her leathers. Glancing down the long tunnel and the shadows and reflecting glimmers of light that lurked there, her pulse picked back up to a much more favorable, giddy tempo. “Don’t slip,” she ‘cautioned’, already touching a hand to the wall herself and then starting down the narrow ledge of rocky ‘bank’ by the side of the tumultuous river. “I’d hate to have to explain how I tried to stop you, but just couldn’t convince you it was too dangerous to handle…” Antennae twitching as the air chilled, her gaze slid over the moss native to the cave, and in her distraction, the goading in her voice slipped away, forgotten, and replaced by musing curiosity. “How long do you imagine this has been here…the rock is so smooth — do you suppose earthlings have walked here first…?”

Or perhaps, she thought, they would be too weak to even make it into a treacherous cavern. It seemed possible.