[Yael] Creepy Crawlers (Naq/Ai)

[Painted Moose]

The Only Black Uke

Haunted creatures...?

Ai tried to keep her snorting to a minimum. Several little teary eyed elaria had come running back to their mothers, blaming a mysterious creature for their wails. Apparently it had been some sort of giant bug, with scary markings and just...Ai groaned, reaching a hand up to rub at the base of her antennae. Giant bugs? Really? If any of these brats listened to half the stories their mothers told about Jauhar they would know there are worse things than giant bugs.

At first she had been happy enough just to ignore it all. Then the stories and rumors built to a fever pitch; one that Ai simply couldn't ignore any longer. So, she'd taken up her swords and moved out into the jungle, keen on finding whatever it was that frightened the children, slaughtering it and bringing it's head back to throw at their feet.

Maybe then she could get some peace.  

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

“It was as big as I was!” The speaker was young, perhaps five or seven summers, short with a mop-top of loose red dreads that didn’t reach her shoulders, and pouting. Her ‘audience’ was a clutch of three other youngsters, all taller than her but one, but none of them over twelve, by Naqenni’s guess.

“That ain’t so hard to be.”

“I mean it!”

“Maybe it thought you looked like good snackin’.”

“It’s not funny—”

Naqenni swung her legs from the high branch of her perch. Perhaps she ought to have been up to more. It certainly wasn’t for lack of ambitions that she hung about, and yet—after Kasama’s death, everything felt strange in a way she couldn’t place. Empty, but not. Gray and indistinct. As though she were still, despite all her best intentions, waiting for something. And she had no concept yet of what that ‘something’ even was.

Breathing sharply out with frustration at herself, she swung down, dropping from the branch to the forest floor, adjusting herself, and then striding out: away from the children’s conversation, away from Zinris entirely, and into the thick of the trees. It was not the first time she’d heard talk of ‘terrifying’ creatures out in the undergrowth, and with want of anything pressing to do, now seemed as good a time as any to kill something.

Killing usually helped matters, regardless.  

[Painted Moose]

The Only Black Uke

Ai was moving deeper and deeper into the jungle when her antennae alerted her to movement. She looked around her, trying her best to spot the culprit and with no small amount of difficulty she found it; or rather, her.

She wasn't the only one hunting the strange creature.

Much to her displeasure.

Naqenni was still a good distance away from Ai, and thus the alkidike hid behind a particularly thick brush pile, hoping that the younger huntress would pass her by.  

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

Though in the past Naqenni had intentionally taken after some of her older cousins—in pursuit of curiosity, answers, snooping, new locations, gossip leverage, or anything of interest for that matter—this was not one of those occasions. While she was on the lookout, naturally, since it was some variety of peculiar beast that she hoped to find, her attention was not keen on the specifics of other things which might have passed through the area. Her sisters and cousins all hunted and scouted the territory surrounding Zinris, so there was nothing unusual there to be out on the search for.

So she didn’t.

Of course, she may have also been even more distracted than that, her mind only half on the hunt while the other half dedicated itself to life musings, purpose, fate, anxiousness and impatience—or wallowing as the case may be. But she was not about to admit any of that. She took pause only when she saw something that might be promising, stooping beside a set of unusual tracks. And residue.

She drew a knife from her hip, crouched close enough to reach out with it and scrape at the alien substance and bring it forward to sniff. Her nose wrinkled. It was at least unfamiliar, which was a promising start for hunting something ‘strange and foreign.’  

[Painted Moose]

The Only Black Uke

[3/7]

Ai remained purposefully hidden for as long as she possibly could. She scarcely moved while the elarian was in the area, lest she be found out and have to deal with that mouth of hers.

Still, while she hunted, her focused had become more drawn to the younger woman and less on her actual prey. It led to Ai missing the subtle signs of being in it's immediate area; the little scratches made on branches and niblets taken out of the leaves that so carefully concealed her.

Moving from one tree to the next she was nearly on top of Naqenni when she came face to face with it. And in her instant recognition of the atrocious, groan worth insect Ai didn't stop to think about her actions. She unsheathed a sword, used the flat of it like a baseball bat and swatted it off her branch...

...right atop the elarian.  

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

After wiping a sample smear of the residue from the blade of her knife onto a strip of cloth for examination later, she folded the cloth up and tucked it at her hip, stood, and—something dropped upon her. Legs, clicking and skittering, like live branches tangling in her hair, and Naqenni screamed.

But not without wrenching it off of herself in the process and immediately goring it with her blade—which did manage to either find or make a crack in the exoskeleton of the beast enough for it to give a satisfyingly shrill insectile screech. She leapt back the next instant, blade away, bow out, arrow nocked. The beast was massive for an insect, but not all that large on the grand scale; perhaps as large as her head, and with the knife wound, it’s skittering was slow and disoriented. It would almost surely die.

She cocked her aim up, to the tree line.

To be perfectly fair, she hadn’t known what she was looking for beforehand: more insects, a source, a nest, a disturbance. A cousin was not among them, but with Naqenni’s mentality it took less than a split second to leap to conclusions upon recognizing Ai.

“You.” And she loosed her shot.

Of course it was done without intention to hit, but if the arrow accidentally lodged itself in the trunk of the tree her cousin was perched in uncomfortably near to where her head had been, well—that was neither here nor there.  

[Painted Moose]

The Only Black Uke

[4/7]

Ai couldn't help it.

She laughed.

Cackled, actually; a deep, gut busting explosion of laughter that was as surprising to her as the maglardilla must have been to Naqenni. She had to grip the branch she sat atop with her thighs just to keep her balance.

It was just too priceless! The elaria was treating the insect like it were an earthling vanguard; and the sight just gave fuel to Ai's laughter. She tossed her head back, letting it roll out as easily as if she did so normally, even going so far as to snort a bit.

And in an instant after an arrow was lodged in the bark uncomfortably close to where her head had just been. If it was supposed to scare her it didn't; instead, Ai rolled her head back down to look at her cousin, the most smug grin planted firmly on her face.

"Trying to save face, cousin?"  

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

Naqenni grimaced.

If she were completely honest with herself, Ai’s laughter had been so sudden and open, it was almost disarming. She wasn’t certain she had ever heard the woman laugh like that—ever. Of course, the fact that it was at least partly (if not entirely) at her expense did act to dampen any appreciation of it, and certainly on the surface it wouldn’t do to look distracted. Again.

She snorted. “From what? I haven’t lost it.” Ai was the one cackling like a madwoman and dropping foreign insects on passers by. Naqenni’s attention turned back to the creature then: unfamiliar, alien, ugly. And dying, besides. Her upper lip curled a bit. “What is it?”

Was this what the younglings were blustering about?  

[Painted Moose]

The Only Black Uke

"Oh, haven't you?" She couldn't help chuckling once more, an actual, honest smile on her face. It was so rare that it actually caused her facial muscles to ache.

"That is a maglardilla." The woman supplied from her perch, relaxing her hips enough so that she wasn't holding the branch in a death grip to retain her balance. "It's from Jauhar, so I'm not entirely sure why it's here. Hurry up and kill it already; I'm eager to take it back to cook it."

It had been an eon since she had tasted the sweet, juicy meat and now she had another chance! Goddess be praised!  

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

“No,” Naqenni said. An ‘answer’ to the initial inquiry, though it was more of grunt, her attention on the critter and her upsurge of instinctive gut-pull anger ebbing away to near-nothing as the shock factor did.

Hurry up and kill it already.

One of Naqenni’s neck tendrils flicked at the tip, tapping once before — in a quick, ‘obedient’ gouge — she drove her blade back into the already maimed beast, this time twisting, pinning it with her heel and holding until it ceased its struggles, and fell still. Satisfied that was taken care of, she returned her attention to Ai.

“Cook?”  

[Painted Moose]

The Only Black Uke

"The meat is very juicy, and can be very tasty if properly prepared."

Ai grasped the branch before her and languidly slid forward, gliding her fingers along the length of the branch until she was on her stomach, undulating her body like a keldari as she went. When she was properly stretched, Ai lifted one thigh and brought that leg over to join the other. She swung herself off the branch, holding on for just a moment before free falling to the ground.

When she landed she was crouched, but she didn't remain so for long. Ai stood and moved closer to the kill, and subsequently Naqenni as well. She bent once more, but only to lift the giant bug into her arms. "Come, you should try it at least once in your life."  

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

Naqenni watched, her gaze following the movements of Ai’s body with arguably slightly more intent than was necessary. But really, that was more Ai’s fault than hers, moving about like that, and there didn’t seem to be any reason her attention specifically shouldn’t climb up the length of Ai’s leg when she swept it out and over—and dropped.

Naq tipped her head, and grunted when the alkidike picked up the beast, rolling her shoulders. “I killed it,” she said. “If you cook it, I’ll eat it.”

It seemed like a reasonable balance to her. She might have made the argument that it was hers since she had slain it and maybe she wasn’t even in the mood to share—but she didn’t know the first thing about how to handle such a thing over a fire, and Ai’s company wasn’t the worst.  

[Painted Moose]

The Only Black Uke

"It's a deal."

Ai couldn't help the excitement pooling through her heart and into her body. She never thought she would be so happy to see one of those insects ever again in her life; how many meals had her mothers prepared with them? How sick had she become of the meat after eating it three nights in a row? There had been a time when she had begged never to eat it again, and now-

Now she was thrilled to cook it up.

"Come on then, it's best when it's fresh." Ai turned on her heel and led the way through the trees back to her little home.  

[Miss Chief aka Uke]

For a moment, Ai’s excitement — even predominantly contained as it was — reminded her of the way the other woman’s expression had lit in her cave when she spoke of home, gesturing to her sweeping canvas and explaining what her world had been like. This, Naqenni realized, was also a ‘taste of home’ so far as Ai was concerned.

As Naqenni trailed after her, her attention took in the landscape—the dark, fungal and interwoven trees and mossy rock formations. Even though she wasn’t there, she could hear the ocean surf too if she drew it to mind, and imagine the scent of the salt sea. She was similar in age now to what Ai had been when she’d left her home to fight, and then been banished from it.

It was strange to think. Difficult to even picture not only never seeing her home again, but being forbidden from it. She’d heard the tale of course a thousand times. But it was different to see what homesickness did on a more individual, tangible level.

She decided, screeching fits of earlier aside, she was glad they’d come upon the ugly bug after all.