Once Upon a Wher (Cainith)

[Lotty]

Perhaps it wasn't the best of ideas to be wandering about this close to day's end, but then Osnat was not a creature known for having the most logical or thought out courses of action. For all intents and purposes, she was a do-er and not a thinker, so when she had left her chores that afternoon she simply followed her feet where ever they may go until she had found herself picking rocks and bugs and all kinds of creepy crawlies out of the ground of the forest floor. Why she was at it, no one may know, but it was perhaps because she had a morbid curiosity with all that was deemed "ugly" in this world - especially so for being a girl. Having her delights met however - she examined a mound of dirt that was in her hands one last time and watched as a few earthworms squiggled out of the soil and between her fingers before dropping it back to the ground - she dusted herself off with a few swipes along her tunic and made her way back to the weyr before the whatchamacallems pegged her as a bad seed for staying out past her bedtime or whatever it was they called it. Pfft, like she actually cared.

Taking it easy with only the slowest of walks, she made her way down the beaten path, pausing ever so briefly here and there to pick out the sound of rustling amongst the woods. Of course, being the seafarer that she was, she had to remind herself of the simple facts of the jungle. For instance there was no shipfish there to search her out, nor any sirens to lure her to her death, or tentacled sea creatures there to strangle her, and for this she took another few steps in the confidence of her safety. That was until she recalled word that there were a plethora of four and six legged things alike, some of which were more welcomed than others. If she had any hope at all though, it was that with those few waning minutes of light, the wher handlers had emerged with their spectacularly hideous bondeds.

There may have even been a wistful sort of smile at the thought of the muscly, dwarfed winged beasts as she looked there at the bush that was shaking and quivering ahead on the trail. To think...a wher! Much more novel than any of the other little cretins that she had found so far today, and besides, she had learned in her very short time here that the things were Impressible. Not that she really knew the implications of that, but she figured that it made them that much cooler, and she was willing to take what she could get in this weird place that she otherwise hated. With this thought in mind (and the concept that it could be one of those wild felines she had also learned about conveniently shoved away) she marched forward in her typically mannish way towards the disturbance among the brush all the while chanting, "Yodelay-he-hooo you magnificent creature..... you." The last word was said with clear disappointment as she scrunched her nose at the sight of a giant mountain of a man in front of her, "Crikey mate, what did your mother feed you as a kid. Geeeeeeze. From a distance I thought you a wher, but now I'm wondering how I didn't think you a giant swamp ape."

[Aftershock]

Cainith was concerned... at first he didn't worry when he came back to his room in the Candidate Barracks and found Rollhead missing, as the little blue sometimes went hunting for his own food... though considering he always had plenty to eat due to Cainith's own habit of keeping food around at all times, it seemed to be more to keep his hunting reflexes sharp... and to collect sacrifices. The first time Cainith had found the remains of a tunnelsnake, most of the flesh nibbled from the bones and the corpse situated on his desktop in a strange pose, he thought someone was playing a joke on him, perhaps someone who had something to say about his Wasteland background. But then Rollhead had suddenly appeared and stated proudly, "Rollhead bring sacrifice for Goddess! Give great power! Goddess accept Rollhead sacrifice?" Unfortunately, from that point forward, Rollhead seemed to refuse to stop the morbid practice, though he had at least moved the activity to an "altar" he had begun constructing on the floor next to Cainith's desk and the wall using bits of "holy material" he scavenged from who knows where.

This time, though, Rollhead was gone when Cainith came back from his chores, and was still gone when Cainith returned from dinner, and he had never had the little 'mandyr disappear for such a long period of time before, so he risked breaking curfew in order to search for the little blue. His search had eventually led him out into the jungles, where he was suddenly come upon by a blonde-haired... boy? Girl? It was difficult to tell, and Cainith's eyebrows lowered at the "swamp ape" comment. Rude little child, whatever it was. "My mother never fed me anything, bo... er, gir... cub," he finally decided, before continuing, "She died giving birth to me, rest her brave soul. And as you could obviously tell, no, I'm not a wher, I'm a Candidate out looking for my salamandyr. I think you'd know if you'd seen him, as he likely wouldn't have let you go by un-preached-to." Turning back to where he had previously been digging through the bushes nearby, he said, "If you do find him, please come find me, I'm sure he's scared to death being away from my 'divine presence' for so long," and proceeded to continue moving aside leaves and branches, squinting in the approaching darkness.

[Lotty]

Osnat was obviously incredibly confused, as one could gather from the way her head bobbed back and her lips parted and curled in reaction to his butchered words. She had lived with sailors who could get their words out with more clarity than the mangled set of syllables that came before the eventual "cub". If she didn't know any better, then she would guess that the man was having trouble with figuring out what exactly she was (much the same problem she had just moments ago) before settling on some kind of cutesy endearment. Setting her hands on her hips, she made it known by her stance that she was not entirely humored by this, but really drove the point home with a bit of lip to boot, "Yous got a problem?" She began very levelly, though a bit of seafaring accent leaked out into her speech, "Join the club, lots of people lose their mothers, its like a.... rhetorical question."

She for instance grew up without her own, but should the question ever be asked she would be sure to not explain that her mother couldn't have possibly fed her anything. It just seemed too silly of an aside, and one that she would not travel down to a complete stranger. Maybe that was just the way folk were down here in the south? Were they all so quick to divulge in their life stories? Still, despite the slight tinge of sympathy she may have felt for her fellow candidate - shared experiences and all - she pressed on completely unphased by the fact that this man was very much capable of sitting on her and thereby crushing her into a little Osnat jelly, "An' what is this nonsense about sala-whatevers? Why would it be preaching?" Being as fresh to the land as she was, the girl hadn't a clue what she was looking for when she brusquely swiped a ferny leaf out of the way and began to vaguely look around the ground that Cainith too was poking at.

"I don't see nuffin."

[Aftershock]

Cainith didn't recognize the accent, though he recognize the tone... and he continued to not like it. This girl(?) was obviously not from the North, as they would have trained such insolence out of a woman quickly up there, most likely. The anchor tattoo he saw on her shoulder told him she was likely from a coastal Hold, which explained why he didn't recognize the accent, since he had never been near the sea himself, other than when he flew over the ocean when fleeing Benden Weyr.

Ignoring her insolent question, he answered her when it became apparent she was willing to help look for Rollhead, ineffective though she seemed to be at the moment. "I'm not sure myself what a salamandyr is, other than it's what Rollhead is," he said, "They aren't dragons, obviously, but they can mindspeak like dragons. They're slightly smaller than firelizards, and look different, too. I have no idea where they came from, though I've seen quite a few around here." Cursing the lack of light, and wishing he had a wher around to help see in the dark, he continued, "As for what to look for, Rollhead is a dark blue, with a long tail, and two marks on his wings that look like a black and white painted eye. His wing and neck frill membranes are gold, and he'll likely speak to you of a 'Goddess', which is what he thinks I am. I believe he was brain-damaged when he rolled in his shell, but I Impressed the little guy, so I can't just let him die."

[Lotty]

Osnat's face dropped even further into the drooping disapproval that came with complete incredulity. She had but seen firelizards a few times, but in the north they remained mostly a spectacle with which the rich attracted further attention, and her vague memories melded with the more recent sightings of the wildings sitting in the rafters of the dining hall to create what was still an incomplete picture. A general size she could not determine nor the totality of their distinguishing traits - the mind had a funny way of distorting fact - and as such the vague guide to salamandyrs as being smaller and different than them was of little help to the girl. How much smaller? And smaller than what? The smallest of small firelizards? Or smaller than average firelizards? Either way the point was moot... she hadn't seen enough of the creatures to determine a size relative to the proposed situations.

With such few pieces of evidence to lead her she stopped her search, and let a branch swing back to it's original position as she pulled her body back up to it's full height. She was boycotting what she now believed to be a hoax, "You're leadin me on I think. Won't make a fool of me tonight though..." she crossed her arms dangerously as if she was the one to be worried about, "Little firelizards with frills? Talking their mouths off?" Osnat had yet to see such a thing in the past couple of days and was growing increasingly concerned about the fact that this was a cruel trick or some kind of hazing. Was Cainith put onto this by the other candidates? The sailor's daughter couldn't say, but she did feel like she was on the wrong end of some horrible joke.

She neglected to comment on the word 'Goddess', it was hard to react to that which she didn't understand. That word simply had never slipped into her vocabulary, but lingered somewhere instead in the fuzzy recollection of some fairy tale she had been told as a child, "I wish you the best though on your little hunt... but um... if you never find your 'Rollhead' again," seriously, what kind of name was that, "if you love something and you let it go, and it don't come back... that was your failure," her bluntness may have seemed cruel but it was ostensibly the result of the hardknock life rolling around with the boys and not out of any malice. For that reason, she moved forward without even realizing the error of her ways, and let her feet stamp down heavy on the forest vegetation. They were heavy careless steps, with little regard for where they landed as long as they were in the direction of the trail and therefore the barracks.

[Aftershock]

Cainith ignored the young woman's words, irritating as they might have been, until her claims of Rollhead's status as missing was somehow Cainith's "failure". Standing back up to his full height (which was, of course, quite a big larger than Osnat's full height), he glowered down at the younger Candidate, and was about to let loose with some not-so-kind words until suddenly, as Osnat stomped into the brush, a mindyell came squealing out, hollering, "GODDESS!!! Help your Rollhead! Big stompy try smash Yours!" Reacting instantly, he immediately snagged the back of Osnat's tunic, bodily lifting the girl by her clothing to swing in the air as he scanned the ground at her feet for Rollhead.

Spotting the little golden-accented blue 'mandyr, he stooped down (though not far enough for Osnat's feet to touch the ground), noticing Rollhead was clutched protectively around a large wildcat skull. Seeing that he was saved by his Goddess, Rollhead mindsaid, "Praise the Goddess, has saved Their Rollhead! Rollhead leave many sacrifices for Goddess on altar in thanks!" Clambering nimbly off the skull and back to the jungle floor, he gripped the skull tightly with his front paws and his mouth, then began to drag the bone in the direction of the Barracks, slowly but surely. Drag marks in the soft jungle floor showed it was what he was up to for quite a distance before nearly being smooshed by Osnat's foot.

[Lotty]

"What the!?" A stream of consciousness that was unfiltered and unfettered spilled from her mouth, as she swung her arms out to the side violently, her hands balled into fists, "Put me down right now shit for brains!" Who the shards did he think he was? She swore she heard the seams of her shirt begin to stretch and strain and considering the lack of apparel she had - spending a Turn in a little seahold as a drudge didn't exactly afford one much more than a loose, shapeless, sleeveless, sheath of a shirt - losing this one to a mindless brute would not sit well with her in the least bit. So it was that she began to resort to drastic measures, noticing that her lift off the ground actually put her swinging legs and thus her boot well within the range of a certain vulnerable body part.

Well that was until she heard some mindless chatter about stomping, smashing, and Rollheads... that regrettable name that she snickered at before.

The voice, working in tandem with the bizarre appearance of this strange creature, did little to calm her nerves, and when her eyes caught sight of the little wormy frilled thing, grasping to the skull, she couldn't help but revert to tales and legends of sea monsters. Pointing at it she yelled, "Guhhhhh! Baby hatchling Krakens!" Kill it! Her immediate desire was to throw something at it... snipe it from her spot - still well off the ground mind you - and rid it from her war path. Her rage and resolve was thus renewed, and so in between more insults, "You fat lump, let me go lard ass!" She reached her arms back in what was a more focused attack than the previous flailing, and grasped at the arm that held her, twisting the skin found there in one of her Tillek renowned Indian Sunburns. It seemed like a long shot, but she would try anything to get down.

[Aftershock]

Cainith mostly filtered out the raging young Candidate as he mindspoke to Rollhead. "What are you doing out here, anyway? And what's with the skull?" Rollhead responded, "Rollhead finding good for altar. Find big skull, big skull for big Goddess. Skull too big, Rollhead have trouble dragging, but worth it for Goddess." As he mindspoke, Rollhead continued to doggedly drag the skull across the moist jungle floor.

When Osnat finally mentioned krakens, Cainith was confused enough to grace her with an incredulous glance, before she started berating him again and he shook his head and turned back to Rollhead. Suddenly, though, he felt small hands on his arm, and a sudden pain (as though the Indian Sunburn itself failed to affect his calloused forearm very much, she did grab and yank out a handful of arm hairs in the process), which caused him to flick his arm out automatically, as if to dislodge a stinging bug. Unfortunately for Osnat, and her shirt, said automatic reaction didn't include opening his hand, and as her body was flung away by Cainith's motion, there was a rrrriiiiiipp as the stitching on her simple shirt gave way under the strain, and Osnat ended up rolling on the ground a few feet away... with only the front half of her shirt still with her, the back half still gripped in Cainith's fist. Looking over at the sound, Cainith laughed uproariously, and flipped the half of a garment in Osnat's direction as he chortled, "So, you're a girl after all."

[Lotty]

With the tearing sound loud and fresh in her ears, she knew that she was done for and let her hands go as his muscles flexed underneath the twisted skin. As the candidate fell she tucked her body in instinctively and rolled head over foot a few times along the soft forest floor before momentum gave out and she unfurled... splayed out atop of a fern. It was for a while then that she was dazed and confused with the whole of the world spinning around her. All the colors of the jungle stretched and twisted into long streaks, pulling in with it the vague form of Cainith lingering still in the background. Somewhere in her anger, it was his outline that pulled back together into a finite being, and with the background still blotched and blurry she had her eyes focused on only him.

Before even gathering her senses or noticing the bareness of her back and the sagging of the fabric around her neck, she had the wherewithal to clench her fist and grit her teeth in rage. Oh so he thought this was funny? Osnat would assure him that his glee would be short lived... one way or another.

And no, smothering him in his sleep was not below her.

Swinging her legs she kicked her way back to her feet and immediately crossed her arms across her chest - she felt abnormally bare even with the bandeau that wrapped around and covered her breasts - half way to console herself and half to strike an imposing figure despite the state of her undress, "Oh nice observation... now you can be proud of yourself for beating up on a girl?" There was no doubt in her mind now that she was dealing with a certified dimglow. She took a couple steps forward to retrieve the remnants of her shirt - she'd have to apply her net mending skills to the sewing up of her blouse - when she leaned over and caught the sight of a few palm sized stones. An idea struck. A particularly cruel idea, but then revenge was never very humane and she swept up the rocks into her hands with stealth. As she began to walk away - and without even a good bye - she non chalantly honed her sights on Rollhead and the skull he was so dumbly trying to move.

She immediately began pelting the creature, rearing her hand back in expert little change-ups... the rocks all too easily shooting off the tips of her fingers. With out checking to see if any of her assault made contact - she knew without a doubt she hit the skull at very least - she threw a glance over her shoulder, "Ain't hard to pick on something smaller than you, guess thats why you get off on it," cause you know, she was not an antagonistic force herself. But as far as she was concerned, until now she had been nothing but words... he was the one going around manhandling people.

[Aftershock]

Cainith scoffed at Osnat's words, responding offhandedly, "You're a rude little brat who seems to think she's seen all the world can throw at her. Girl or boy, I treated you just as you deserved to be treated. And you're the one who tried to rip the hair out of my arms instead of simply asking me to put you down." Shaking his head in exasperation at the girl's antics, then turned to help Rollhead with the skull.

As the rocks pelted around Rollhead, striking the skull and chipping one of it's fangs, with one glancing off his tail, Rollhead mindscreeched, "HELP, GODDESS!!! Evil heathen try kill Rollhead!!!" As Osnat turned to walk back out of the jungle, her only warning was a roaring like an enraged bear before she was painfully pulled from her feet by a handful of hair, and Cainith's voice booming with fury, "You foul little bitch! How DARE you attack my Bonded! I swear I'll twist your neck so hard you'll see your own back!"

[Lotty]

Osnat didn't take well to being called a brat, but she hardly wanted to snap back at that when he was busy justifying throwing his massive weight around and pulling people off the ground when said victims were busy walking away. Retreating, if you will. Bah, just like some people, "Sorry," she said as she threw stones, "I wasn't aware asking nicely was an option when you failed to use big boy words yourself..." clearly she was just frustrated at this point, as was easily seen by the scowl wrenching her face into something awful. Worst of all she knew it all to be a big waste... talking that is... he clearly didn't understand Pernese and trying to force the subject was ruining the otherwise good vibes she had gleaned from the rest of her day. This place obviously wasn't as laid back as it was originally made out be.

Out of stones, and running out of time - the sky was ever darkening, since the sun didn't stop for such petty squabbles - she had began to abandon the scene, only to be startled by a rumbling sound that resembled that of a full out herdbeast stampede. In her moment of shock, he was able to snatch her up by the hair, her own screams drowning out the bass of his voice. How dare her? How dare he, she swung and struggled for a bit, snapping back, "I dare you. I DARE YOU!" Osnat didn't imagine the list of suspects would be huge when she was found with her head twisted about like a possessed woman, and that fact consoled her more than it should any human. Still, she was not content with the concept of being killed by this guy after surviving a ship full of questionable men, and swung her legs for another shot at his crotch. Luckily - or maybe not so luckily - her shoulder length hair slipped between his fingers and dropped her to the ground. Finally! She bolted to her feet and made a run for the border... or at least the open range where someone might actually noticed that someone was out to murder her.

[Aftershock]

Cainith cursed as the girl slipped from his grasp, and gave chase as she began to run, bellowing in rage the whole way. The pain and anger coming through the Bond from Rollhead had overtaken his mind, and he was mindlessly enraged in his pursuit of Osnat, his long legs eating the distance as his hands reached out ahead of him for the fleeing Candidate, thick fingers clenching and unclenching in anticipation of catching her once more.