Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was not an unusual day for Doesina. Wander around the city and towns bored. Wander around the wilderness bored. Heike was taking her sweet time at whatever it was she was doing with the Alkidike. Maybe she should be taking this as a sign something might have gone wrong. It had never occurred to her before. The Elaria was often unconcerned about things, just drifting through life like a feather on the breeze. She'd never known much trouble in her youth and had lead a pretty quiet life, despite the history of her race suggesting otherwise. She had rarely known fear or worry when others were concerned. She was feeling it now. It was strange. She had travelled too far. It was time to make her way back to the small village. Her whole purpose here had been for her cousin and she had let herself get distracted. No more. She could always make one last stop at Neued before they left.

Now that she was out here, in the sounds of nature she was more used to, a smile was back on Doesina's lips and the worries pushed to the back of her brain. It was probably fine. Everything worked out.

She was oblivious to anything above her until the sound of creaking branches made her look up. Pale eyes already wide went wider and she raised a hand in a salute.

"Hello," the Elaria called up at the hanging woman. "Is this some sort of special training?"

Doesina's eyes went a bit wide at the explanation given. Not that she was dense, but who was she to say this wasn't indeed some sort of training ritual. People had all sorts of ways to strengthen themselves. Fear or danger wasn't as uncommon as it may first appear if you really stopped and dug about in your memory. At least for her, having grown up in a town where everyone was a warrior in some shape or form, she'd come across many who took things to the extreme when it came to training. She knew some who sought out Wirenth as sparring partners, feeding off the rush of andrenaline from the danger. Not her cup of tea, but who was she to judge what worked for someone else? A simple target in an open field was enough for her. She'd like to live to full adulthood, after all.

"Yeah. I suppose real danger is a good way to practice being in danger." Oh. That was a joke. Of course that was a joke. She really needed to broaden her horizons away from crazy women who chased after dangerous predators cause regular training was too boring. Why would an Earthling out themselves in such harm when they had so many more options available for them. Turning hobbies into a career while you were still young was such a wild concept to her.

The Elaria grinned, trying to hide her misunderstanding by pretending she'd known it was in good humor all along. This woman would probably want to get down, right. Doesina reached for the dagger on her belt, prepared to quickly scale the tree and cut the thread when the thread did the work for her. Instead, her arms shot up in front of her to catch the falling woman. But yet again her attempts to help were eclipsed by nature. She dropped one arm, leaving the other suspended in the air to aim a few pokes at the swinging girl. She couldn't help the amused giggle that escaped her throat at the whole situation.

"Sorry. Still need my help. Still a few more feet to go."

Ah, yes. Of course. Hanging upside down would render someone quite dizzy, wouldn't it? Doesina hadn't really been thinking any further than what her eyes were seeing before her. Not much ever seemed to worry her. Not even in the face of obvious danger would her smile ever drop. Being what she was made her feel almost invincible. Small for an Aishan, she was still a lot bigger than a lot of other people and had the knowledge of different weapon use under her belt if anything ever threatened her. What did she really have to fear from the world around her?

That thought never wavered even as she looked up, even as the smile did waver a little and a more serious expression took over her face. Okay, the fun was now over if the creatures who had spun these threads was in fact still around.

The Elaria eyed the branch and than the thread keeping the other girl swinging above the ground. It had been many years since she'd been in the forests of Jauhar and she was not a stranger to the Menzuri anymore. She'd not known them to be easily cuttable. Or at all. Not that she'd given it more than a few seconds of trying before abandoning whatever had gotten stuck in the webs. Even if it was a few dreads of her hair.

"Don't have much of a choice, do we? I can try to break the branch if I can't." Doesina asked, now glancing at the trunk of the tree. Making sure none of the creatures were hiding on it. She gave a circle of the tree, looking it up and down before returning to her original position, dagger now held in one hand. "You can hold onto me if you want. Might keep you from swinging too much, if nothing else." Dagger between her teeth, the young Elaria ascended the trunk, finding what footholds she could to remain upright while her upper half leaned towards the other girl. She began to saw away at the tough thread, every so often glancing up to make sure she was not attracting too much attention. She tried to keep her movements as minimal as she could, her hope in this being easy dashing with each movement of the blade.

"Uh...How hard do you think these things would be to fight?" she asked, watching some leaves above rustling suspiciously. Crystal bodies couldn't be very easy to puncture with a blade, so she'd always managed to avoid a confrontation. Didn't want to risk figuring out firsthand if they really were made of crystal.

Fear was not a common emotion for the Elaria to feel. Her mother always joked that her daughter would have faced down a pack of Wirenth without a second thought to anything else. Doesina's confidence in her abilities was well beyond the borderline into stupidity sometimes. Though right now she wasn't being stupid without a reason. She couldn't exactly just leave the girl to the mercy of the Menzuri.

Doesina looked up at the branch, not too far above her head. The thread wasn't giving way at all. She hadn't expected it to, but it was worth a try, right?

She glanced back down at the hanging hybrid, a small smile on her face, still sawing away at the thread. "Nope. Not an expert at all. Only been here a few years." She knew some Elaria had come here to live with the Alkidike, try to fix relations with them. She was sure of those Elaria had been raised here, brought back when their mothers returned to ask Elzira for a child. Glancing back up at the branch, she stopped, pulling the dagger back closer to her. "Alright. Branch it is." Dagger back between her teeth, Doesina scurried up the tree, holding onto the branch with one hand while she held onto another branch with the other, pulling down on it with all her might. "Not leaving you behind," she said between the dagger, as a loud crack could be heard and her balance tilted towards the ground sharply. Had she not been holding onto the other branch, she would have fallen completely.

The Elaria released the branch instantly, hoping the other girl would be able to land safely on her own. She wasn't exactly in the position to help, hanging from the tree as she was herself. Not that she was stuck. Not by far. In fact, Doesina thought it was quite nice up here. If you ignored the rustling in the leaves above her, slowly creeping closer. She glanced down and sheathed her dagger so she could wave before beginning her slow and careful scoot down the tree. "Don't worry! I got this!"

On the ground once more, she brushed at her clothes, picking a bit of bark off the front of her slit skirt. Climbing trees was nothing when you spent most of your life outside. As soon as she'd arrived here so many years ago, the first thing she'd wanted to do was climb to the very top of the tallest tree she could find.

Pale eyes crinkled in amusement at the comment. Placing her hands behind her back, Doesina leaned forward a little bit. There was still plenty of distance between the two, her body having twisted around the trunk as she climbed down. "I don't think I'd mind being stuck to you, either," she answered playfully, not exactly taking the compliment all that seriously at all. Just a bit of fun wordplay. She liked fun wordplay. "But yes, I agree. Leaving the area might be wise." Suddenly she stopped smiling and stood blinking at the other girl, really seeing her for the first time. "Oh! You are a hybrid, aren't you?" The smile returned to her face as she straightened back up, taking the first steps away from the dangerous tree. She'd met some up in Ast, but most of them hadn't been too eager to let an Elaria come close. "Do you need any help with, uh..." she waved a finger around the other girl's feet, this?"

Following easily into step beside the other woman, Doesina couldn't resist a few giggles at the awkward way she was walking, trying her best to stifle them behind a hand or closed lips. The last thing she wanted to do was come off as rude, as if she were laughing at the hybrid's misfortune. Which, of course, she kind of was.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, waving a hand in front of her face, an unintentional snort escaping, making her clamp both hands over her mouth. "I don't mean to make fun." Swallowing hard, she removed her hands, lowering them to swing casually by her sides. She was under control. A lot of people often got the wrong idea when it came to how easily she laughed at everything, thinking she was either too ditzy and stupid or intentionally trying to make them feel bad about the situation. That was never her intention. She'd be the first to laugh at herself had it happened to her, as well.

"So a second generation hybrid? That's really cool!" And she meant it, as odd as it must sound coming from the mouth of an Elaria. But Elaria made hybrids sometimes, themselves. Some of her friends back on Yael were half Yaeli. Whenever Doesina would be out in the woods, hunting or just exploring. she'd make time to visit with them. "Yes, I am. I came here to find my wayward cousin and now I'm just passing time while she does her thing for a bit." She waved a hand at the mention of training. It was always odd to think of how Earthlings didn't all train like her and her Sisters did. That they had so much choice in what they wanted to do with their life. Not that she disliked training. It was just...As natural as breathing. Just something they did, no different than saying good morning. "Being able to decide what you want to do must be nice, though. Being half Alkidike shouldn't mean you have to live how we do if it's not what you want."

"It'll be a funny story to tell later on," the Elaria remarked, walking with her hands behind her back and a giggle every so often, infected by the mood of the hybrid with her. Heike never laughed with her like this. Never really cracked a smile, for that matter. Doesina never begrudged her the unfriendliness, she had a lot on her mind to deal with, what with the loss of her mother. She didn't know what she'd do if she lost her own mother. She still lived at home, just the two of them. Or it had been that way when she'd left over a year ago. "And maybe you could dance with it, if you swung it in a circle and hopped over it."

The extra movement of the other woman did to draw Doesina's head downwards, a small smile still on her lips. She swung her own hips wide one way, than the other, in a mimic of her companion, smile growing wider in delight. It was much more fun being with someone else so like her.

"It is a compliment! I know others would think differently, especially my own Sisters. But life is too wonderful to be grumpy all the time about everything, right?" She raised both her hands at that, holding them above her head to take in all the beautiful nature around her. She knew she was a bit of a strange one. It always made her uncomfortable back home, being so happy to share Yael with the Earthlings and visiting with the Elaria hybrids who lived nearby. She never understood all the negative feelings. Maybe being around it was why she choose to project so much laughter and positivity as she could. They all might look different, but deep down to their core, they were all the same and wanted the same things out of life.

"I can teach you. If you want. Maybe not about fighting, but if you're curious about anything, I like questions." She stopped by the water's edge, looking down at the water before turning back. Leaning forward a bit, hands behind her back, Doesina adopted a sly smile as she asked, "Do you want me to hold the branch or you?"