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Post by Ladd Russo of the Russo Family on Dec 4, 2010 21:36:47 GMT -5
Devshiva had only one dream, the entire night. He saw the ripped away face of the dead child, Madiew, and laughed. He woke up refreshed, which was probably an insult in some way. The stirrings of the others brought him out of it and into wakefulness. His headache was astounding, the light crashing into his mind through only one eye was enough to nearly make him cry out, and he did make a small sound of irritation. Being hit unconscious was not something to shrug off, and his eye also probably had something do with it. He swallowed and held his thumb tightly to one wrist in an attempt not to start retching up nothing. Food was important now; they had not eaten anything yesterday.
All of them were of failing health in some way. Silently rocking to his feet, almost overextending himself to unexected dizziness but making no comment of that for dignity's sake, he went to check the traps he had set last night. Two fish, one otter. If he could find some mushrooms, it would be a real meal. Keeper knew they needed it. Maybe she knew it even better. Killing them, he wrapped them and tied them outside his pack.
"Whitte, you are a witch. Are you able to make fire?" he asked. "We need to walk now, but at noon it we will have to eat." Illness and injuries would overcome a hungry man. He had survived chewing leeches for protein in harsh times before, but that was not advisable right now. Neither Whitte or Dodger seemed worse.
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Post by Arual on Dec 4, 2010 22:40:36 GMT -5
"Im not a witch, but a shape shifter. There's a difference, but my attempt to make a fire is probably as good as yours. I'll work on it when we stop." Whitte really didn't understand how being a wolf meant you were a fire-breather or somehow a witch.....but it seemed to Devshiva that was exactly the case. If he was joking, well, then wasn't the younger kid embarrassed.
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Post by Señor Sunday Friday on Dec 5, 2010 0:32:09 GMT -5
WELL BEFORE WE TIMESKIP!
Dodger heard their plight and quietly began scaling higher, ambling from branch to branch and finally reaching out to grab a few handfuls of the hanging moss on the branches, stuffing it into his sack of stories and paper. He hoped they wouldn't suggest burning them... the stories and knowledge you could record on pages and that were recorded on those pages were (at least he considered them to be) more valuable than breakfast though he hadn't eaten anything in longer than he'd like to think of. His stomach protested the lack of food and he grumbled, himself as he began to drop down to the ground, feeling a little unwell now but he'd had worse... and of course there was his throat which wasn't veeling all too well at that moment.
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Post by Ladd Russo of the Russo Family on Dec 5, 2010 0:50:36 GMT -5
"You burned a leech, so I asked," he replied in short explanation. "One can be a Moon Demon and a witch both."
Devshiva had never felt the rush of magic through his veins, that incalcuable power that some posessed. In Floht, it was rare that someone could simply hurl fire or lightning as did some. There were witches, whose powers were strange and mysterious more often than directly harmful, and there were healers, who sometimes learned more in their art than simple medicine and could actually mend flesh with a touch of their hand. It was a witch that told him once that his brother would live for more than two hundred years, saying it was prophecy.
She had been wrong, as his brother and father had died the next year, driving his mother mad. They had sent her away, somewhere. He laughed softly to himself, not exactly what one would call happy laughter. If only there were healers who could touch the mind.
Devshiva brought his flint and Dodger's moss to the task, thinking these thoughts with blood still flaking on half of his face. Thanks to the power of teamwork, they had a fire going and fish and otter cooking.
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Post by Arual on Dec 5, 2010 12:38:49 GMT -5
It felt like a lifetime ago, and yet it didn't, since he had done that. Because he was a wolf, his body temperature was much warmer than most men. A gift and a curse, more so a curse in the summertime.
(whenever they got done ....yeah)) When they did settle down for lunch, Whitte did his best to get a fire going, but there was more wet wood than there was dry, and his leg forced him to stay in a tight perimeter. But not every hope was lost. "Dodger, could you do me a favor, please?" Maybe higher up in the trees there would be luck in dry wood.
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Post by Señor Sunday Friday on Dec 5, 2010 16:05:40 GMT -5
((Note: A higher body temperature would mean that he would be less effected by the heat of summers since his body is naturally a higher temperature and he would be more effected by cold weather due to his body needing to work more to maintain homeostasis. Also. It also stands to note that paper, presumably dry paper, catches fire at the famous number of 451 degrees Fahrenheit.... and a leech which is composed primarily of water would likely need to be heated up a lot more to spontaneously combust. Next time you try to explain something with science, please try to make sure that your science makes sense.
Also a note: I'm guessing that a leech has a higher water content than a person, so you're saying that people who touch him would suffer severe burns and his clothes spontaneously combust when they come in contact with him- and even if it's just his blood which you may say, his bandages would burst into flame... and if his body temperature just spiked to that temperature then since, again, we'll assume leeches have a higher water content than people- Raegan, himself should have spontaneously combusted as well or whatever.))
Dodger sat and looked at the otter and fish, his mouth watering as his stomach protested the wait, "Dev?" he rhasped, "What is a border guard exactly?" he asked, finally asking the question that lingered on his mind's back burner throughout their journey so far, "And why would it keep people from helping you?" His ashen brown hair was shaggy and in tangles around his face as he looked towards their guide, curiosity peppering his features.
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Post by Arual on Dec 5, 2010 21:07:19 GMT -5
((Well, i fail at science. -.- My apologies, and thanks for the pointer out. ^^ ))
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Post by Ladd Russo of the Russo Family on Dec 5, 2010 21:21:51 GMT -5
(While it is a good thing to do research behind scientific explanations, we could also be a bit politer in pointing things like that out, for future reference. Personally, I have no clue on the plausability there.)
Devshiva turned the otter, making sure it was cooking evenly, though the fish would be done first. Dodger had asked a strange question, one that Devshiva had never heard explained and thus had to think about it for a moment. A child learned over time, from how people acted and snatches of anxious, sad, conversation, but the only given explanation was...
"They are the guardians of the border." An obvious explanation. A definition within the name itself. Then, he continued, finally finding an avenue through which a foreigner might be able to see something that took a lifetime to know. "Consider this: 'Those who see Death, know Death. Those who know Death will kill. Those who kill will kill again.'" He smiled, almost nostalgically, though his tone never lightened. "All that we are is in that proverb."
"Children, or more rarely adults, who have seen too much of her are taken into the Border Guard. Since they would have fallen to her anyway, they are put into a position where they can court her with control and aid their innocent nation while doing it. We are the ones that deal with her, so that people do not have to."
"But because of it, we are not like them. Very, very few resist her until death, unless their death is early. But what happened yesterday is very rare, a thing of rumors. Lareg hid his sickness very well. No, usually, willingly or not, when the Lady at last overcomes us we are blinded in a much kinder way..."
It was all he could really explain. It was why they did not meet his eyes...eye, now, because they knew what would be there. It was why they were frightened, but also why there was pity. Apart and not apart, honored and disgraced, the Border Guard.
The fish was ready, and he rationed it out, no utensils or cloths.
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Post by Señor Sunday Friday on Dec 5, 2010 22:53:23 GMT -5
"I understand..." he muttered, looking at the fish quietly, not yet eating it. His voice was going to suffer if he kept talking but right now he didn't feel so inclined to remain silent, "We don't have border guards in Virisea... only border towns." he looked up at Devshiva, "Some of the other towns changed countries every week with the raids from the south.... and then there were the guards posted about. They were marked though, you might benefit from marks here. They keep people under control." he explained. "One might have kept Lareg from... well... you know." he took a bite of the fish and spat out a small bone. "What happened?" he asked, though realizing he spoke the question at a point when it wasn't very opportune, "What happened to make you... selected for the Border Guard, if you don't mind me asking." Dodger coughed, little bits of food and spit dislodging themselves from his throat and mouth and finding themselves on the ground.
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Post by Arual on Dec 6, 2010 11:47:36 GMT -5
Whitte was silent. He listened, and was tired. But it wasn't weakness of the body, no, there was pain there from the stabbing in his leg. The twenty-four year old was tired of other things. Things, though accepted, were in no ways about to be spoken about aloud. He ate some fish, eyes downcast in thought. The young man was a million miles away right now.
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Post by Ladd Russo of the Russo Family on Dec 6, 2010 19:23:48 GMT -5
"Four years past my tenth, a wave a cholera struck the village where I grew up. It is a nasty and undignified sickness, and this was a lightning break; no time for a Sealsman. A quarter of the town was dead by the end of the second day, but by then it was gone," he spoke in the same serious tone he had used to talk to them about breakfast or at any time along the past. It seemed as if he had spoken of this many times, and it had no real meaning to him, even as he continued.
"My father died first, despite my family's efforts. When my brother went out to find clean water water to boil, he did not return. I found him dead outside the town, and I dragged him back to my mother. She could not take Reyes' death on top of my father's. He was the oldest by six years and the Lady wrenched her mind instead of grabbing it. She persisted that he was alive, that she had seen him walking after we had buried him. They found a monastary that would take her. It was not a situation that would inspire debate; there was no place for me besides the Border Guard at that point. A man came to see me out a few weeks later."
He finished, quite unaffected, and started hewing the otter to bits with a sharp rock. Thankfully slate could still be found here and there in this area.
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Post by Señor Sunday Friday on Dec 6, 2010 21:22:53 GMT -5
"May the life they lived live strong in you." he muttered, "I'm sorry for your loss." he rhasped, the former sentiment being entirely Vundarstan as they believed that you didn't inherit just traits from your ancestors but when they passed, they would reside within you and inside of yourself you carried the sum of all your ancestors. The way such a belief effected them was beautiful and terrible in a way and one's bloodline was an important thing to them. If you had an enemy and you were vengeful enough against them you didn't only kill them but all of their offspring as well, destroying your enemy completely while on the other hand they had it where they didn't mourn the passing of their loved ones but rather thanked from for the blessings they give by passing from their body into those of their children and the celebrations could last for days.
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Post by Arual on Dec 7, 2010 16:57:01 GMT -5
I have nothing to say, Whitte isnt going to comment))
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Post by Ladd Russo of the Russo Family on Dec 8, 2010 0:53:48 GMT -5
(You could add anything in there, you know. This is just a group conversation around the campfire. Full of stories and changes of subjects and arguments. You could talk about your dog, the weather, your home, how you feel about the presidential election, tallies on favorite color, anything. XDD)
Devshiva doled out the otter meat, which the author had no idea of just what to say it tasted like. Because damn, otter. What? No one eats otters. Except apparently for people who lived in the swamp. It probably tasted something like rabbit, which is said to taste something like chicken. So... chicken? Sure. This, at least, would give them something to keep going on. Something to heal and walk on. Though they were nowhere close to starving, he had heard it was absolutely the most painful way to die.
"How is it that you became a Moon Demon?" he asked Whitte, after accepting Dodger's condolences with a nod. Once again strange. The Border Guard were not ones to mourn death, and those who were not border guard offered constant condolence in their eyes, but not to family that may be lost. But Whitte's power, it was important that he knew.
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Post by Arual on Dec 8, 2010 10:03:37 GMT -5
"Im not sure...." He answered. "I was thirteen when it happened. Suddenly my family shut me out, and I lived out of my room for weeks instead of working or going outside with friends. It wasn't like my mother or my father to keep us locked up that way. " The young man looked down at the ground, eyes on his leg for just a moment. The fire's heat warming his skin further from what it already was. If his mind wasn't in the past before, it was now.
"I'm the third child of five in our family. Two older with an advance of at least four years, and two younger. When my older sister came in to give me something to eat, I asked her if they had done it to our eldest brother; Nathan. She couldn't remember- or maybe she just didn't want to..." Whitte shrugged as he explained. "But it happened only a week or two after I had asked her. All I've been told is that it runs in the men of our bloodline, and that we can't let it take over," a bittersweet smile came to his face a moment, and vanished the next. "For obvious reasons. I don't remember much more than that."
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