[SRP] The Scout (Ni'it x Tethys)

[Epine de Rose]

Find the boy and install yourself in his army.

It was a simple enough task in part, or at least the initial stages were rather easy. The first of the hurdles had been to find him, based on how masterful the cheetah was, she hadn't found this particularly difficult. In fact one might have gone so far as to say that it was easy, but there had been a reason she had been recruited when the Collective had stumbled upon her. It had been such a long time ago and yet it was only now that she was truly being utilised.

She had to give Tethys a measure of gratitude, while he may not have posed any difficulty in locating, he had certainly ensured that her mission would no longer be boring. Oh, she'd had some excitement tracking down particular individuals and simply keeping an eye on them, but she'd been required to keep her distance until now. With the adjustment to her orders she would now be able to get right into the thick of it and actually put that nose of her's to use. Up until now everything had been child's play, what came next would actually give her the opportunity to test herself.

However, despite the ability to locate the Captain she had yet to work out how best to get herself in to his good graces. She had already been sighted (deliberately), but she hadn't quite formulated a plan. The Collective had been firm in their orders that she was to be as vague as possible, but Ni'it believed that a measure of flexibility might be required in order to be successful in this role. They might have been watching from the outside, but being vague when one wanted to be on the inside was going to fail miserably.

...It was with this in mind that she had chosen to pad along behind the warband, purposefully in sight so that they would eventually have to acknowledge her. Once they did she would go with the flow, and figure it out as she went along...

Words: 348

 

[Epine de Rose]

How many days had it been now?

They had been aware of her since she arrived, the cheetah hadn't made it difficult to spot her, and at some point she had also decided that following them was a reasonable course of action. His Reavers had been amused at first, under strict instructions not to lay claim to anything while out in this region, and yet as the nights had drawn on this amusement had turned to increasing curiosity. The topic of this persistent feline would come up at least twice a day, with a Reaver checking to see if she was still behind them.

Eventually the Captain had conceded that he was going to have to address the situation, and as the group came to a halt for the evening and set up their camp once more, he broke away from the group and strode back the way they had come. It didn't take long to find the female who had settled herself in a small outcropping of rocks - it provided just enough shelter for her but none of his kind would have stood a chance at getting under their themselves.

Suffice it to say that she looked rather comfortable from his vantage point.

Shaking his head, the lion had soon closed the gap and he came to a halt that would have given her enough distance to dash away. Perhaps once she had been acknowledged she would leave them be and return to wherever it was she had come from. Alternatively she might well have been a messenger and was simply waiting to deliver her missive.

"I couldn't help but notice that you've taken quite a bit of interest in my companions and I," he began and raised a brow. "Can we help you, at all?"

Words: 297

 

[Epine de Rose]

Yay!

A warm smile flooded on to her lips as he finally acknowledged her and she sprang to her feet with much the same vigor as a small cub. She might have been older than him, but that didn't mean she was any less sprightly. She had been waiting, watching, and silently beginning to wonder if they were deliberately ignoring her in the hopes she would go away. At one point she had even assumed that it might be in her best interests to simply jump in front of his path and (unsuccessfully) block it.

"Mmmm, no," she replied softly and closed the gap between them. Then she promptly sat down and pressed a paw to her chest. "But I'm supposed to help you," she continued. Somewhere out there the Collective would be yelling for her to stop, but on this occasion she was going to go with her gut. You couldn't have trust without being honest and while she wouldn't tell the whole story, she wasn't about to tell lies either.

...She knew they would backfire.

They always backfired.

"You're looking for something, phantoms," she stipulated and clapped her paws together enthusiastically. "They happen to be my specialty," she explained and tilted her head to the side. "The Justicar sent me to help you," she finished.

Words: 217

 

[Epine de Rose]

"The Justicar?" Tethys replied in confusion and narrowed his eyes. He wasn't entirely sure he knew who that was, or rather he wasn't until he had a vague recollection of something his father had said quite some time ago. Could she possibly have been referring to him? He returned his gaze to the cheetah and tilted his head to the side, she already had information he hadn't exchanged outside his warband and she was already name dropping so perhaps...

"Are you referring to my father?" he asked. When in doubt, he would always seek clarification, but he was fairly certain this was who he was referring to. However if that was the case then it seemed his father was aware that Tethys had made the decision to make a move or two of his own. Admittedly the two hadn't had enough time to catch up, but he knew that Destati and his mother had seen one another several times. If there was one thing Arimathras couldn't do, it was keep her mouth shut when she was particularly frustrated at a turn of events!

It made sense for his father to know.

What didn't make sense was that he had chosen not to stop him, instead he was simply helping him. Hadn't he installed Tethys as head of the family so he could keep them safe? Something didn't quite add up...

Perhaps it was his facial expression but he soon found himself the subject of the Cheetah's giggles and he raised a brow.

"What?" he demanded.

Words: 255

 

[Epine de Rose]

"You are very stubborn," she stated gently and raised her paw once more to place it carefully on his nose. It was enough to draw his eyes down to her level and she smiled again. "Your father cannot stop you from doing this, therefore he has to make sure you have the best chance of success," she pointed out and released her 'grip' on him.

She let this little factoid settle in for a moment and then gave a small wiggle of her ears. She wouldn't force the issue, but it seemed she didn't have to based on the lion's response.

"If you are to succeed you're going to have to find a way to locate the very things you seek," she continued. "And how better to do that, than to give you the aid of someone who can find them?" she finished.

She didn't press him further as she seemed to have made her point.

This assumption was confirmed when Tethys seemed to accept her points as valid and gave a small nod. She happened to know his name, or at least he would bet a fair amount of his valuables on it, but he didn't happen to know her name. If she was to provide aid then he was going to have to know how to address her and it couldn't simply be 'cheetah', he might have been in a hurry but he wouldn't forget his manners.

"What's your name?" he asked and gave a slight not.

"Ni'it," she responded.

"Then it looks like I have myself a tracker, doesn't it?" he mused as he took a long breath and released an equally long sigh. If Ni'it was truly as good as she claimed and his father really had sent her, then perhaps Tethys would find his search cut short.

Unbeknownst to him however, Ni'it had some very specific instructions and on this occasion, the most important of those was to 'delay him' until he was 'ready' to continue... His father might have permitted him to pursue these phantoms as well, but it seemed that he wasn't going to let him find them until he was confident the boy could survive...

Words (Ni'it): 156
Words (Tethys): 209
Total Words (Ni'it): 721
Total Words (Tethys): 761