[CLOSED] Pulp Inc. Presents: Thrilling Tales of the New Continent! [Deante & Lasciel]

[lasciel]

The ground wasn't moving.

It was the first sign Siona had that something was amiss. The past several weeks of her life had been spent aboard a vessel that lacked the good grace to stay still for more than a heartbeat at a time. Now, the stillness felt (almost) as jarring as the constant motion had been. Of course, she'd spent some time shipboard before; almost everyone in Ulchark had, as the country seemed almost to have a fetish for ferry-based travel. But there were significant differences between spending a few hours on a shallow-draft vessel barely graduated from a raft that sluggishly made its way along some far-inland river, and spending over a month on the open seas aboard the HMS Horizon Skimmer. On a good day, the steam-and-sail-powdered craft rolled like a belly dancer's hips, a rhythmic undulation that one could get used to. But on a bad day (and bad days were shockingly many on the open seas), the deck would lurch and jump and buck like an unbroken dire ostrich! Siona had known of these differences... in theory. The difference between theory and practice, however, came not in her mind, but in her stomach. She had spent nearly as much time enjoying the scenery as she had with her head in a bucket, and if the deck saw fit to give her a moment of calm, the fox was hardly in a mood to complain.

In fact, she hardly felt in a mood to do much of anything at all, save to pass back into the pressing darkness that had held her for the past several... hours? Days? Slowly Siona realized she hadn't any idea how long she'd been wherever she was. But as awareness returned to her in fits and starts, she became increasingly confident that "wherever" wasn't the HMS Horizon Skimmer. The surface she occupied was too damp, and warm, and yielding to be any sort of deck, but still too solid and close to be the hammock she'd been calling her "bed". That was her second sign that something was amiss, as she felt blindly at the ground under her and found coarse sand rather than smooth wood. Between the presence of texture and the lack of inertia, she concluded that wherever she was, it was not where she should have been. Worse, she hadn't the slightest clue how she'd gotten there.

The third sign came when Siona's bright amber eyes finally slid open, and her vision was filled with a blurry mix of bright blue sky and lush green foliage. Foliage that her academic training immediately recognized as tropical, and foreign. Foliage that had no place aboard a ship. Foliage that irritatingly danced in an out of focus, making the world seem to jump and spin, forcing the fox to slam her eyes shut again lest her spinning vision incite nausea to rival that which she'd suffered during her journey.

Oh yes. Something was very wrong.

In addition to her dizziness and an overall sense of malaise, Siona found herself hungry, incredibly thirsty, and aching in approximately every muscle in her small body. "Compact" was the word she typically used, describing a frame that brought the tips of her ears below the muzzles of most folks while making up for what she lacked in height by way of the width curves of her hips and ass. "Curvy" and "petite" were other words she'd heard, but whatever fool was unfortunate to utter such in her earshot would usually be swiftly corrected. Not that she felt in any shape, just now, to bash in the heads of those silly enough to call her "delicate" or "cute". Her whole body ached, and she felt soaked to the bone besides, her dense white fur plastered to the black skin underneath such that she looked less the intrepid explorer and more the drowned dog. Similarly, her shoulder-length locks, usually a brilliant copper, were instead water-logged and sand-filled, sticking awkwardly to her cheeks and falling into her mouth. Everything tasted like sand and salt and iron, and her tongue felt as if she'd been chewing on a cotton ball besides.

Trying to move as little as possible, Siona assessed the state of her head; finding everything roughly in-order save for a few bruises, she moved downward, checking for any signs of obvious trauma. But besides being wet, and exhausted, and achy, with a fair assortment of scrapes and scratches and bruises, nothing seemed terribly out-of-place. She made another go at opening her eyes, this time managing to fix the elephantine leaves that hovered overhead into a single point in space. From there, the fox levered herself up into a sitting position, and moved to free her usually voluminous, presently-sodden tail from where it had been uncomfortably crushed beneath her. This, too, she inspected, but found no signs of breaks or fractures among the many small bones (not that she would've been able to do much if she had, as splinting a tail-tip was about as effective as splinting a broken toe). She moved then to the task of trying to stand, taking three tries to succeed and feeling frightfully shaky once she'd succeeded. Though standing hardly made her feel better, it made her at least feel less vulnerable, and surely that was worth something. Better, it verified to her that she could still stand, which Siona finally admitted to herself that she'd had a very real concern about the subject.

Standing provided a superior perspective, and gave her a chance to observe her surroundings. There was... sand. And water, lapping gently at the sand not too far away, though clearly the tide was lower now than it had been when it deposited her. Somehow the thought seemed right, she had been in the water, and then she'd washed up here. And "here" was likely the "New Continent" she and the rest of the crew aboard the HMS Horizon Skimmer had been sent to investigate. But what had happened to said "rest of the crew"? She searched her memories and found only chaos. She'd been on the ship, and then something had happened, and now she was here. The rest, Siona hoped, would come back to her in time. At present, she had larger issues to worry about.

There was no familiar weight on her back, which meant she'd lost her pack and all it's valuable supplies. Gone were her notebooks and pens and inks, gone were her tweezers and vials and spirits and pressing-paper and salts and wax and everything else she'd brought to capture, catalog, and categorize all the things that lived on the New Continent. Gone was her lantern, her meal kit, her spare clothes, her small collection of personal effects. A quick pat-down revealed that she'd retained a well-sized knife, her spell-pouch, an empty water-skin, a ball of twine, a charcoal pencil, a handful of silver pieces, and a few assorted pieces of junk of the kind that accumulated in one's pockets but defied description or use. She had her clothes: dark gray trousers with a tear in one leg, a green button-up linen shirt now missing it's bottom-most button, water-logged soft leather boots, a soaked but sturdy leather belt, and her undergarments. Though it hardly mattered, her garments remained in solid enough shape to keep her "decent", even if so dampened they clung to her small bust and her trim waist and her thick hips and shapely thighs and calves like a third skin (her soaked fur acting as her second). Her cloak, a lovely navy-blue garment with a silver leaf-motif pin serving as the clasp, seemed long gone. As did her revolver, though Siona supposed as damp as everything else was it was unlikely the weapon would've worked anyway. Most alarming was the fact that she hadn't the slightest clue where her spellbook had wandered off to, and without such, the fox knew she was as helpless as a newborn babe.

With her top priority thus set, Siona set to searching for a sufficiently-sized branch with which she could draw a reasonable approximation of a circle. The beach, at least, seemed ready to provide her with more than sufficient driftwood for the task. In short order, the fox had prepared for herself a tidy little space with which to conduct a Ritual, one of the simplest and yet most commonly-used. It had a proper name, but she'd long since forgotten it, knowing the technique only by it's common name of "Find My Keys". It required little from her: a strong visualization of the item she sought, and undeniable ownership over the object in question. The former was simple, and the latter Siona could only pray she possessed. But within moments of silent, focused meditation, she could feel the telltale tug at her navel, pulling her in the straight-line direction to her lost belonging.

It was not another two hundred feet down the beach that she found her spell book, wrapped in kelp and snuggled up in a pith helmet that had similarly been liberated from it's resting place and finally meandered on-shore. Siona took both; the former was water-proof and both items were thankfully undamaged. She quickly skimmed the tome until she found the spell she sought and prepared and cast it with only a few simple words and a flick of her elegant, black-padded fingers. Immediately, the water seemed to spring from her fur and hair (doing nothing about the tangles in the latter, of course), evaporating into so much mist that shimmered in the sunlight. She dried her clothes, then the helmet in a similar fashion, before aligning the headpiece's cutouts over her ears and settling the hat on her head. It cut the worst of the glare from her eyes, and it's shade provided a modicum of relief from the unrelenting sunshine that felt almost oven-like to her more arctic-minded sensibilities. Of course, Siona knew the warm weather would cause her body to quickly shed it's thick, white coat in favor for something thinner and more brown, but it was hardly an immediate process. As she took stock of her situation, she elevated "heat stroke" in her list of concerns, above "dehydration" but after "starvation"; the quick recovery of her spellbook had knocked at least one of those three down a few pegs.

There was plenty of water, and though it's native form was far too saline to drink, it was only a small magical effort to purify the volume she drew into her water skin. This first quantity was guzzled immediately, as was the second, both helping to relieve dry and scratchy feelings that plagued her mucosal membranes and blunting the worst of her gnawing hunger. She filled her water skin a third time, banished the salt (Siona still was unsure as to exactly where it went), then used a steady dribble to wash the salt and sand from her face and upper-body. She ran her small, dextrous fingers through her hair, trying to comb the worst of the snarls out, but only found that her blunt nails and sand-roughened pads would catch and tangle and make the entire mess even worse. The task was quickly abandoned; she would need either to find a proper comb and some sort of grease or oil to help repair her hair, or, worse, have to give up entirely and shear herself to the type of pixie cut she hadn't dared since her schoolgirl days!

"Personal appearance", however, ranked low on her overall list of concerns. There were still matters of "food" and "shelter" to tend to, though her very first thoughts were as to the fate of her companions. Had they lived? Were they nearby? She lacked both ingredients to track them via the Ritual she'd used to find her spellbook: she neither knew their current (visual) condition, nor could make any claim of ownership over them. Neither could she track the ship's food supplies, or her own belongings, as she couldn't claim ownership over the former and had no idea as to the appearance of either. Only her spellbook, bewitched as to be nigh-impervious to damage, could she have a reasonable assumption of the consistent appearance of. Of course, there were other means to track people and things, but... they were spells beyond her skills.

Siona was a simple biologist, her specialty in botany, in the study of nectar-bearing flowers, though she knew a fair bit about plants and animals in general. She'd had no small amount of experience in discovering and cataloging new flora and fauna species across other territories Ulchark had acquired. Though, such territories tended to be physically contiguous with the country, and expressed only small variations in the climate and conditions she'd grown up with at home. The journeys she'd made before had always been short, multi-day affairs at most, ensconced in a team of wilderness experts who could insulate her from the worst of the threats and discomforts of life in the field. Siona knew how to purify water, how to build a fire that she wouldn't have to magically sustain, how to build a small snare and how to set a net to catch fish in a river. She could orient herself, hike cross-country, climb a tree, build a rudimentary shelter, and suss out what plants were safe or unsafe to consume. Such had been in the required skill set for her current mission, and she'd expected to perform most of the tasks... with the assistance of others. In a team. With other people.

She was alone!

The thought terrified her, and she shoved it down, trying to ignore the black claws of fear that tore at her mind and tried to shatter her thin veil of composure. First in her head, then aloud, she repeated her list of tasks as a soothing chant.

"Find the crew, find the site, find shelter, find food, stay cool, make water, find the crew, find the site..." Her voice, normally a rich and somewhat sultry alto, came out scratchy and hoarse as if she'd been screaming. Perhaps she had? She still couldn't remember, and it was so frustrating. Siona was, she realized, pacing in a circle. Her dizziness had (mostly) fled, and her steps were no longer shaky. Her stomach still gnawed at her, and every part of her compact body still seemed to ache in one way or another, but she could walk. Which meant it was time to start on her list. She looked around again, pupils in her amber eyes narrowing as she stared out at the glittering water, then scanned left and right along the beach. She then turned to regard the jungle, dense and close and dappled with the morning (afternoon?) sun. Beyond the crashing of the waves she could hear the hooting and hollering and crawling and chittering and flapping and climbing and fighting and mating sounds of a thousand animals and more, each note strange and alien to her speckled ears. Her nose, similarly peppered with white dots among the black skin, found an equally alien bouquet of smells when she paused to inhale: vanilla and citrus and leaf-mold and salt and pear and cut grass and mildew and jasmine, and dozens of others that Siona lacked the words to describe.

Siona turned again to regard the beach. No sign of anyone, but... it wasn't as if she could see very far. Nor did she yet feel quite up to climbing a tree for a superior vantage point. So instead, she walked along the beach, in the direction in which the sand seemed to span the farthest, to see what she could see and to give her aching muscles a chance to warm up and relax from whatever ills she'd suffered. And, perhaps, if she was very lucky, she could find something to eat... a loud gurgling from her stomach punctuated the thought.

 

[Deante]

Walking left her alone to her thoughts, and after they were allowed to stew, she recalled the details the base camp had sent back. They had landed in a natural bay, with a river some two miles to their East (which the beach faced North, as the HMS Horizon Skimmer had been sailing South by South West the entire trip). Remembering this much, she also recalled the only notes the original, failed expedition had sent back; their location had a small river to their West some three miles.

Siona did not spot any roast duck, or steamed onions and potatoes, or even a single apple along the beach. Her passage dislodged a crab, one that moved surprisingly quick and wound up in the water before she managed to get a hold. Though the presence of one implied there very well may be more, and the second yellow and brown crustacean was far less lucky. It's oval body lacked any real meat to speak of--normally one might find it barely worth it, especially given how tedious it was to dig out the flesh--but something was better than nothing. Though no others were disturbed in her wake. She might have needed to resort to eating insects. Which where a good source of food, but far from welcoming.

Any further thoughts at that time were lost when she spotted the first member of the crew, a squirrel named Barnet, or Barlen, or...something with a B. He had been one of sailors, the agile rigging runners who worked the sails or any components of the exterior engine that the otters couldn't reach from the water. She ran to him, calling to him, and found that both were unnecessary. He was quite drowned. Billat had brought her no trouble, molesting her a few times with is eyes, but had wisely kept his intentions to himself after a few of his fellows had shown much less self-discipline or ability to learn from example. There wasn't much on him of use beyond a belt that would double for a rope, another sharp knife, and a copper pocket watch. Looting the dead would be frowned upon, but the wolf who had taught Siona survival had instructed her that respect for the dead ended where equipment important for your need to not join them began. So she left the squirrel his earrings; all of the sailors had them, and one had explained that it was to pay for a funeral. Mainly a pirate tradition, but real common among sailors as it never hurt to have guaranteed money that went everywhere with you and no one would nick without you knowing. Sadly Bartel would need it. The squirrel would've been a great boon alive, because while a sailor with likely little skills on land, he could've shimmied up a tree like it were a ladder and taken a look around.

The next survivor she found was far more upright. The badger, which she could tell from the white stripes on his head, was hunched over, his shoulders shuffling, and at a distance it looked like he was taking advantage of the privacy they hadn't had for nearly a month. But the sound of his cursing dispelled that. There were only two badgers aboard, and she quickly recognized it was Lerron, a carpenter who was rather decent at cards and quite poor with dice, two of the few things one could do aboard the ship. His reaction to her was immediate, his leaping up and taking her in a "thank every god above, it's another person" hug of desperation. "I'm trying to make a fire here, so someone might see the smoke, but I have...no idea how to get a spark without flint and steel," he confessed, pointing at the nest of twigs. "That whole 'rubbing two stick stogether' business just isn't doing it. Think it's all the sand?" He had little trouble makign eye contact with her, as he was barely any taller and, with the report of a wife and tots back home whom he always wore a smile when discussing, had no trouble keeping his eyes above her collar.

The idea would have some merit if the canopy wasn't so dense. Even if anyone wasn't underneath all the trees at the time they looked skyward, the jungle was so dense that their location could be anywhere and hard to reach. Once Siona explained the flaws, Lerron sighed. "I'm just dead weight out here, no good but a set of arms," he said, hefting a sturdy looking branch that would at least knock some sense into something that thought they looked tasty. "Could make us a shelter as fine as the Empress's shoes, if I had tools."

They came across a barrel, from the smell of it full of something pickled. Lerron wanted to open it, as he had not found anything to eat, and only had water once Siona had purified it. But the fox stopped him. Food like that, of that kind of smell, would bring any number of fauna out of the jungle for a taste. If the smell didn't repel them, that was. At the very least, it was secure and they could return to it if they didn't trek too far before nightfall. With much huffing and grumbling, the stout badger relented.

Which was not terribly far away. The sky had the first hints of dusk at their backs when Siona heard it first: the rush of water. The beach rose ahead in a treeline that obscured their view, but once they broke through the vegetation, they found it: a river. A fat one at that, but not so deep here at the mouth, and the current was broken by a line of rocks just upstream. "Look," Lerron said, pointing. On the opposite bank were trees that bore some sort of yellow-pink fruit.

He made to step into the river, but a loud shout followed a shape bursting from the jungle. The flash of movement grabbed Lerron, continuing to repeat the same word. From the insistence, the near panic on the feline's face, it was clearly a "No". Lerron pushed the cat and squared up beside Siona, snorting and lowering his head, but not yet brandishing his club, just yet. Their guest was indeed a feline, a female at that, with a yellow coat covered in an utter riot of spots and stripes and whirls. Her hair was as green as the leaves and vines, and even woven with a few to complete the camoflauge. Which it certainly was, as the minimal hide she wore was brown, bark-like appearances woven into it. She stood as tall as Siona, though more lithe and taut. She waved her hands, indicating the river, and babbled in several long sentences, before she caught on that it was pointless.

It then dawned on the feline that she had exposed herself to two strangers, her eyes flicking between the two foreigners. Siona managed to keep the native in one place while she rummaged in her book, and cast a spell to understand. "You are wise? You can work wonders?" she asked, in awe, when the vixen greeted her. Whiskers back, round ears low, she seemed momentarily awed, or perhaps utterly respectful, and she bowed her head, tail curled around her knees. Yet she gestured at the river emphatically. "You cannot drink without praying to Kanjalli, or the water will turn to sand in your mouth, and cannot cross without giving the spirit tribute, or the river will throw you back ashore, and that is before it grows angry. Kanjalli is very strong, its rivers very important, and if you wish to stay, you must remain in good standing with the spirit."

 

[lasciel]

Though Siona had read that there existed cultures that ate crustaceans raw, she'd never had the desire to try one herself. Her experience with the small, yellow-brown creature she'd caught reinforced that lack of desire. The uncooked meat was mushy and slick, and required much work with her teeth and tongue to coax the flesh out of the carapace. For all her efforts she managed only a few bites, even as she deigned to eat the green and yellow guts that sat in the main body cavity. Her luck was insufficient to provide a creature flush with tasty eggs, or even one with a shell softened from a recent molting. If this was indicative of her future meals, then, she considered elevating "starvation" to be higher among her list of concerns--

Gods below, was that a body?

It was, Siona learned, after making a fool of herself in running and hollering at the corpse. What brief hope she'd felt at spotting Billy (Bayson? Buck?) was extinguished when she realized he'd either developed a penchant for sleeping with his snout in a tidepool, or had long since drowned. A quick, tentative push at his ribs with one of her toes verified the latter. She turned him over, thankful to find that his eyes were closed and his expression only vaguely horrifying. Of course, Siona had experience with cadavers from her schooling, but there was something very different when the body before you was someone you'd seen up and about only a short while prior. Still, dead was dead, and it wasn't as if he could take his things with him where he'd gone (at least, not as far as Siona's own belief system ascribed). She quickly relieved Buster of his knife and his belt, but stopped before taking the pocket watch to ensure that it worked. A working way of telling the time would make her life a fair bit easier, but if it was spoiled by the water she would've had no way of repairing it.

"Lerron!" Siona greeted, accepting the frantic hug for a moment before gently prying the badger from herself. "I could get that started, but I don't think there's anyone to signal. If we can find a few more folks, and some supplies, I could try to get a message back to the Continent." Whether the necessary focus had washed up on shore, or was lost forever to the bottom of the sea, was another story. Beyond that she'd need enough people to form a Circle, but as long as one member knew the Ritual everyone else's roles remained passive.

"We don't know what's out there," Siona warned, when Lerron had moved to crack open the barrel of what she suspected (but could not confirm) to be pickled sausages. "We can't eat it all in one go, and it will attract attention." Her voice was stern, but when it was clear the badger wouldn't press the issue, she added in a softer tone, "We'll come back to it if we can't find anything else, but I think we'll both be happier with some grilled fish."

As they walked, Siona again tried to piece together what had happened in her head. She could remember being aboard the ship, the captain warning that the dark smear on the horizon would be "one hell of a squall", and being urged to go below-decks and stay there until it passed. She had done as instructed, packing her notebooks and her few personal effects back into the medium-sized trunk that served both as her wardrobe and her desk. On her back she still carried her backpack, though it contained only her spellbook, too precious to be let out of her sight. And, at first, she'd tried to remain where she was, wedging herself into a corner and reading a single book she'd purposely left out of her trunk by the silvery glow of a summoned finger-light. At some point, she wasn't sure when, the violent rocking and jumping of the ship had become too much for her mostly land-dwelling stomach. She'd gone up, intending to only stand in a stairwell, in the hopes of getting some fresh (if rain-filled) air. And then...

And then, nothing.

She huffed in frustration, but made no signs of wanting to discuss whatever vexed her with her companion. In fact, she remained silent for most of their walk, with her eyes mostly glued to the shore in the hopes of spotting some additional living member of the crew, or perhaps some useful bit of equipment. Instead, all she saw was a beautiful beach lapped at by a sparkling, blue-green ocean with water clearer than she'd seen in any natural place for all of her life. It would've been breathtaking, had it not been so terrifying a reminder that she was very far and away from anywhere she knew.

It took Siona several moments to differentiate the sound of the inland-borne stream from the dull roar of the ocean's waves. When she felt certain, she increased her pace, waving for Lerron to follow excitedly. Both the last report of the initial, doomed mission, as well as the first camp of the second mission, had made mention of a river along the New Continent's north coast. Though neither had settled at the river itself, if it was one and the same with any of the prior (attempted) settlements, it would provide a useful waypoint by which to orient herself. Lerron quickly caught up with her, then surged ahead to point at something. Siona followed the badger's gesticulations, noting the unfamiliar fruit which had drawn his attention. Of course, it could've easily been toxic, and she opened her mouth to warn him off from running over and eating it before she could give it a more proper inspection--

Something came from the jungle, and all Siona could do was watch as something yellow and brown and green(?) grabbed a hold of her companion and began to admonish him in a language neither her nor Lerron spoke. Belatedly, she grabbed at her belt knife, though the fox would've admitted if asked she hadn't exactly an idea what she would've done with it had push came to shove. The stranger, feminine in shape with a lean and muscular appearance Siona would've envied had she the spare thought cycles to do such. The green, she realized, came from the color of her hair, but otherwise the woman at least had the shape of something she could easily recognize as "person" rather than "animal", even if her mode of dress and natural markings struck her as peculiar.

Once her spell had been activated, Siona's first words were a request for the stranger to "please slow down and repeat herself." When the feline replied with something resembling reverence, she found herself first taken aback, then curious. Back in Ulchark, the major cities were so lousy with minor magic-users such as herself that it was impossible not to see such workings on a daily basis. But if her small spell was worthy of a bow like that, clearly there was a very different perspective taken with regards to magic on this continent. Quietly, Siona wondered if perhaps it was restricted in use to leaders, or elders, or religious representatives. She hoped it wasn't the latter, for while the biologist knew little and less of anthropology or diplomacy, she figured that upsetting the local preist(esse)s would be a bad way to make a first impression.

Siona tendered her own bow, though she made no effort to curl her tail around her leg. The fluffy mass was hardly pliable or long enough, and her calves were far thicker than the other woman's. She hoped it was a good enough attempt, and pondered the cat's warning. In all likelihood it was little more than religious superstition... Siona was not so thick as to deny the presence of gods and goddesses in the world, or to ignore their influences, but it was rare that deities took so personal an interest in any one person, place, or thing. Still, it would hardly serve herself, or her Empress, to anger the locals.

"The river is sacred to her people, I think." She explained to Lerron in the Ulchark tongue, gesturing for him to stay where he was. "She says the river needs a prayer, and maybe an offering." Then Siona returned her attention to the woman.

"We are new to this continent, and are unfamiliar with Kanjalli." She explained in the jungle cat's tongue, her pronunciation of the spirit's name a bit rocky and closer to 'kang-jelly' than the lilting and musical word the woman had spoken. "I am Siona, and this is Lerron." The vixen introduced, with a gesture first at herself then at her companion. "What does the spirit want as tribute? We do not have much, but we do not wish to make enemies of Them." Siona added, hoping that the "tribute" could be satisfied with prayers or something she could conjure up.

 

[Deante]

"I am Omani," she offered after the introductions were made.

When Siona explained what the cat had said, Lerron couldn't help a "Shuh," of dismissal.

The expression hadn't been missed. As well, perhaps it was also something in Siona's tone when she replied, or spoke to Lerron, that gave the cat reason to suspect they were merely placating. Cocking a brow, almost playfully, and extended one finger. Stepping to the edge of the river, she knelt and scooped up water carefully in both hands. Merely turning her body to show the foreigners, she held it for several moments.

Instantly the water stilled in her cupped palms. Then it seemed to darken, before it dried out, melting in reverse into river dirt. Spreading her hands, the dust filtered through her fingers. Lerron gopped. She smirked, but continued in a more serious tone. "If you anger the spirit, or call it to make a grand offering, Kanjalli will appear. I see it every year on a special day, when my people give thanks to its aid. Worship is the food spirits eat, what can make them strong, and they are always hungry." Onami's bright, green eyes met Siona's emphatically. "Kanjalli is fair. It pays particular attention to us, because my tribe depends on it so. We live in its crook, you see. It likely would not have noticed your first drink, or maybe the two of you crossing, but better to go forward knowing than to not. As to tribute, anything it thinks you value, anything shiny, or interesting. The river spirit is less fickle than ones of the sea. Just whatever you do, do not bathe in the spirit's waters. Or dump your shit there." The cat's ears folded back, the fur rising along her spine, and she looked like she'd rather eat her own tail.

Lerron rocked foot to foot, growing impatient with an explanation he suspected was less than helpful to their direct situation. "Ask her where we are." It was a fair question, which Siona relayed.

In the sand Omani drew a large, crooked h before making some wiggly lines below it. Then she tapped the southeastern corner, just inside. "We are here. My people..." she hesitated, turning her eyes up to look at Siona through her hair. "I seek forgiveness, Siona, for I do not know yet why you have come."

The answer Siona gave seemed to mollify her, but Omani did not continue. "You are with the most recent foreigners then. They are..." she wagged her finger further east of their position, clearly vague on the specific spot. "I have not seen them, but a few of our hunters have. Kanjalli was most offended and asked my people to investigate, for the most recent newcomers had come and taken a bucket full of water, and when it turned to sand, they cursed the river and stomped off, not returning. Since then we have all kept close to the river, watching for any who might cross, but you are the first that I know have made it." Practically seeing the salt on Lerron, she added, "And crossing the hard way, it seems."

It wasn't clear if they could make it to the base camp, or to Omani's village before nightfall though, as the sky continued to darken.

 

[lasciel]

Placating perhaps, but Siona had no intention of cheating the spirit. It was possible to deal with an entity respectfully even if one didn't revere it as a god. In response to Lerron's dismissive sound, she very deliberately stepped on his foot to hush him, but the damage had already been done. Omani seemed skeptical, but thankfully, proved ready to prove the foreigners wrong rather than to punish them for their insolence. In some vague hope of salvaging their mess, Siona held her tongue and merely nodded as the woman began her demonstration. She watched carefully for signs of spell craft... but saw nothing, besides the obvious transformation of the water into river-mud and then into dust. It was a worrying outcome, and immediately made her wonder what the cat had meant when she said the river could "grow angry".

Beyond the bits involving tribute and worship, the "rules" imposed by Kanjalli sounded sensible enough. Likely, Siona suspected, anything that would foul the water would be similarly punished, even if Omani's people hadn't yet developed to a level of industry to make such rules relevant. She wondered then how far inland the river continued, and whether this was merely one branch of a greater waterway that would have to be watched out for later.

Siona's skills in cartography were... Rudimentary, at best, and she lacked supplies besides, but she still wished for a more permanent way to transcribe even the crude map. Instead, she did her best to commit it to memory, assuming it was likely not to scale. When the explanation suddenly paused, Siona realized she was on-the-spot to explain how her homeland sought to... colonize?, Omani's home. Of course, they would bring advanced technology and magic, medicine and industry and all sorts of wonders, all in exchange for swearing fealty to the Empress. But when she had signed on, Siona had been assured the land was "utterly uninhabited". Now...

"I come as an explorer from the continent to the north of this one. I study plants and animals, what kinds there are and where they live." She paused, and debated how much more to explain. Finally, she settled on a few more words. "I am part of a third wave of explorers. Our goal is to build settlements here, ultimately." It seemed a suitable mix of benign and truthful, and seemed to mollify Omani.

"They probably didn't know any better, after our people's first ship disappeared, the second came with warriors rather than scholars. Short of a posted sign warning them of Kang-- Kanj-- Kanjalli," Siona's second attempt at pronunciation was a hair more successful, "they wouldn't even think to stop and look. The rivers we have back home are a bit more... Docile." Siona explained, with an embarrassed shrug.

Her gaze then turned towards the sky, more than a little worry. Her nose twitched, a sign of her nerves, before she posed her next questions.

"Do you know if... Anything dangerous stalks the beach at night? I would like to make it to my people this evening, but knowing nothing of the local fauna I'm more than a bit afraid of being, well, eaten." Siona admitted, while she fished through her pockets. She retrieved two silver coins, and hesitantly held them up for Omani to inspect.

"Is there a ceremony to this, or, do I just... Toss them in?" Siona held back from adding her mental commentary that it was like a 'wishing well'. As the cat pondered her replies, she turned and summarized the highlights of the conversation for Lerron.

 

[Deante]

At the mention of the first expedition, Omani's eyes warily drifted back the direction Siona and Lerron had come, and the fur along her spine had climbed, her tail stilling. Then the topic had changed, and she eagerly latched onto the question, and the sight of the coins, her eyes lighting the disks' shine.

"The beach is safe, but if you do not walk at night, best not to cross till morning. Kanjalli keeps out any threat that touchs its waters. Anything that could not, well, you would be no safer on the other side." She paused, then laughed. "Forgive me. Few true dangers will roam this far unless brought. It is the deeper you go inland, the scarier it is." Pointing down at her crude drawing, she tapped the curve of the "h". "That's why we go no higher than here, and why we praise Kanjalli so. Protection. Though other tribes say we are fools for living at a spirit's feet." The ocelot spread her hands in a shrug.

A faint bird call made her ear flick, and her eyes turned towards the foilage, but she didn't stop talking. "I will ask if I may take you to find your people, or if not me, someone else. We usually hunt at night, and I would have missed you but I came looking for crabs before the tide came in."

Lerron's stomach interrupted with a ferocious growl, then the badger pointed across the river at the fruit tree. "Can those be eaten?" He asked Omani, then at Siona to relay.

"Those are waterbellies. Eat one, no trouble. Eat two, and you may need to find a bush a few hours early. But after three, you will be running to the bushes all day. The juice is safe though, we use it in a lot of thibgs." She gestured up the riverbank on their side. "Up ahead are some just past the fallen log. Bury the peeling though, or the gnats will fall in love with you. A good thing to leave beside a sleeping brother, if he liked to pull your tail," she added to Siona, flashing a felone grin.

When Siona agreed to stay put for the night, Omani warmed about a particularly aggressive species of centipede, and a nocturnal venomous snake that liked any ground warmed by the day’s sun, like the beach. Fortunately it avoided any threats if it could, so one had to only watch their step.

Lerron could in fact fashion a better than serviceable shelter, even with no tools. And just in time; a light rain started as they were finishing. The badger was respectful but the small accomodations still left them half tangled together by morning.

Morning brought not Omani but an older and far quieter male. He at least identified himself as Romandi, and despite his wariness of them, offered a breakfast of berries, nuts, and a root mash sweetened with waterbelly juice, still warm from the pot. Thought he only had the one bowl, forcing her and Lerron to pass it back and forth.

Crossing Kanjalli was uneventful, Romandi tossing in a bright bead before wading in without breaking stride, and tossing on the two coins without preamble proved to bring no unexpected events. They still combed the beach, looking for any signs, and spotted a half-submerged crate swaying in the ride, stuck on a sandbar. Other ship detritus began appearing with more frequency. Romandi did answer questions posed, although not as forthcoming as the other ocelot. He moved with clear stealth and skill, his eyes and ears always on the jungle

A mile and a half from the river, they crested a rocky outcropping and the bay revealed itself. The vegetation had been beaten back, and they could see a rudimentary floating dock taking shape, people moving about in clear activity. Some half-mile out in the water, a barrier island of sand had accumulated around rock that jutted out of the sea. A healthy portion of the capsized HMS Horizon Skimmer listed terribly, shattered across the stone. A team of otters ferried surviving cargo on makeshift rafts, while another group of figures took hatchets and pry bars to the wreckage.

“These are your tribe then,” Romandi said, already easing back towards the foliage.

“Waste of good construction, Lerron mourned he watched the ship dismantled. “Plenty of building material, though. Ah well. Looks like there’s lots of work to do.” Eager to be productive, he trotted off to find a good place to start.

 

[lasciel]

Siona had wanted to ask just why the other tribes derided Omani's for living where they did, but something appeared to have distracted the ocelot, who then continued onward. All the fox could do was nod and, as appropriate, translate back and forth for Lerron. Even if it wasn't the badger's fault, she found it all a bit frustrating, having to hear or say almost everything twice to facilitate communication. She debated simply stopping, but knew it would be unwise to be rude to the person who she still had another day to travel with. And if something aggressive did stumble upon them, she would be relying on his physical skills as much as he was presently relying on her magical ones. She could shelve her questions for another time and be the polite translator. They seemed to be in the territory of Omani's tribe, so she found it unlikely she wouldn't meet another member at some point anyway.

Karma repaid her patience not too long after, as she found herself marginally helpful (at best) in constructing their shelter for the evening. Still, once it was built, she was able to set a few general wards around the tiny structure to (hopefully) ensure that they would pass the night unmolested. Without more equipment the best she could manage was a simple circle, set to produce a loud sound when something crossed it, but it would serve to scare off smaller critters, and give them warning about larger ones. The night was warm enough that Siona found no need to heat the small space, and in fact, found herself sweating after less than an hour. Still, it was rest, and a rest desperately needed after... Siona still wasn't exactly sure what had happened, but she felt confident that it had been bad.

Siona awoke gradually, feeling groggy and dehydrated from all the sweating. Her whole body still ached, though less fiercely than the day prior. And she was hungry. The small meal of crabs, followed by a small quantity of waterbelly flesh and a larger quantity of it's juice, had hardly made up for whatever she'd done the day before that. She suspected Lerron was even worse off: he hadn't had the benefit of the small amount of protein she'd found, and even if their heights were similar he outweighed her by a non-trivial amount of muscle. When Romandi arrived, bearing food, gave mental thanks to Kanjalli. It seemed about as appropriate as her normal, secularly-spoken "thank the gods" she normally uttered when something similar happened.

She performed her spell again, and soon enough found herself playing three-way translator. For better or worse Romandi seemed less talkative than Omani; it made her job easier but also meant she was able to glean fewer tidbits. Not wanting to press her luck before they reached the campsite, she kept her questions brief and casual: was the weather always like this, what was this plant or that plant, and the like. When they reached the campsite, Siona gave a heavy sigh of relief.

"Huh. So I guess that's what happened." The fox muttered, mostly to herself. She realized belatedly that Lerron had continued on without her, and it appeared that Romandi was making ready to leave. She turned towards him, gesturing.

"Wait! I, uh, wanted to thank you for guiding us. And ask if you could pass on my gratitude to Omani." Siona could be awkward and blunt, but she knew the value of good manners. Sometimes, at least.

"And I wanted to ask, so I can help my tribe avoid problems in the future: does Kanjalli guard all the rivers in this-- this land?" She had almost said "island", but remembered that the territory they occupied had been referred to as a "continent", and corrected herself. But regardless of it's size, it seemed prudent, maybe critical, to know if other waterways would attack her for crossing incorrectly.

Still, Romandi did seem rather eager to leave, and she made no effort to continue the conversation beyond that point. When the cat had disappeared into the foliage, she followed Lerron's idea, trotting towards the camp to see where she could be helpful. Her skills were not particularly useful in disassembling (or reassembling) a ship, but she also hadn't any idea how many magic-users the camp had. If she was lucky, she would be given leave to continue her original job: cataloging all the flora and fauna she could find. Depending on their food supplies, it could be a very useful endeavor even from a practical perspective, to know what they could safely eat when their own supplies ran low. At worst, she hoped her talents would be used for more than just making clean water and drying things out. Regardless, Siona looked for whoever appeared to be in charge, doing her best to not get sidetracked or dragged into any random tasks along the way.

 

[Deante]

Romandi smiled at the mention of Omani, dipping his chin. "I will, and she will be as pleased as am I, wise one." Though her following question drew a more amused smile, but he had the grace not to laugh. He shook his head, pointing to a tree at random. "That is a tree, and if it had a spirit in it, that spirit would be so small it could not control any other trees. Kanjalli's river is the largest that we know of, it goes much further inland than we ever dare, the spirit only controls the water that flows into its river." This was perhaps the most he'd said at once the whole morning.

The base camp was an ant-hill of activity. Supplies from the ship, once ashore, was cataloged and dispersed. A quickly constructed tent close to the beach was handling any injuries from the squall and swim. Siona had started that way, but by now folks were recognizing her as someone they didn't recognize, and started directing her towards Commander Tasa, the current individual in charge. Once Siona had intrduced herself, the older wolf spared one nod and a smile before she replied, "Glad you survived and made it in. Since you're in one piece, we need all the water you can make, as soon as you can make it. Second priority is anything you can get Anlen. After that, your time's yours, but you can pitch in anywhere you feel like."

Siona was familiar with Anlen, the vulpine doctor she'd chatted with extensively on the boat. Primarily a herbalist and potion-maker, he was going to greatly benefit from her expertise, since they well knew the supplies would only last so long in a place rife with unknown diseases and strange, dangerous fauna. The shipwreck had just accelerated the matter. The field tent had one of the camp's medics setting a splint on a sailor's broken tail, while another dressed the wound of one of the builders, a bite that took a good chunk of his calf muscle. "Something under the water," the wincing coyote said when Siona looked.

Anlen crouched in front of a dreamy looking mouse, whose ears looked pale. While he waved a glowing finger in front of the soldier's eyes, the mouse said, "I...don't...know, I just woke up in the jungle..."

"Mmhm. Well you smell like you had a bit of fun out there, who went out there with you? We could ask her what happened."

"...uhh..."

"Siona!" Anlen straightened up and smiled. Passing a waterskin to the mouse, he said, "Drink all of this slowly, you're definitely dehydrated." Then he walked out of the tent with her. "So glad you didn't float off. Just in time too, I need anything you can find. We're almost down to licking the wounds, here. The only thing that really survived was the pain killers, and smelling salts. The camp's rule is if you're going more than twenty feet past the camp's edge, you have to be with someone. So find a friend."

Siona did find someone, a mink named Razel who had been digging graves all morning and had been swapped out for someone fresher. The two stepped out into the jungle proper as Siona becan trying to find anything medicinal, first merely inspecting if anything was remotely familiar. With her focused at teh task and Razel being not so gregarious, not much was talked about. Though from Razel she did hear that nearly a third of the ship's occupants had either been confirmed dead or were still missing, including the captain. The sailors were stranded until the next ship made it otut, which would at least mean more hands (and mouths) for the colony for the time being.

The day went by with a blur. Before she knew she was hungry again, in time for the mid-day meal of mainly fish and hard tack, which unfortunately had survived the shipwreck. It did remind her of the pickled sausages that needed to be retrieved, and the crate they had seen floundering in the shallows. At lunch Tasa set down the camp's ground rules, which were common sense if a bit strict--they were serious about everyone not dying out here. Siona recovered a few things for Anlen--the first thing she set her magic to identifying was something that could work for infections, and she all but focused on nothing but that, as she knew how crucial it would be. The rain, which appeared at least three times, kept her cool throghout the day.

Later she rummaged through what had been recovered from the wreckage, and her trunk did survive. It was not water proof however, and had been thrown around in the crash, so everything delicate was broken and anything paper had been ruined. She staked out a spot for a tent, as the builders were only now beginning to construct the first wooden structures, but didn't receive anything to make a tent until it was nearly dinner.She reunited with folks from the boat, heard their stories, their day.

It was a few hours after nightfall when she decided to turn in. For whatever reason, she just hadn't felt exhausted. Around her the the tents were empty, or here and there snoring emerged, but she was the only one around to hear the soft spoken, "Siona..."

Turning, she spotted someone at the treeline, the shadows too thick to determine who it was. But it felt so natural, so reasonable, to go towards ithe figure. It disappeared before she reached the spot, though. "Siona... Come this way..." A flash of a grey tail into the thicker foilage. in the back of her mind, this just did not seem right, but even as she thought it, another came on its heels, that she was overreacting. That this was someone too eager to go ahead, to find somewhere alone. She recognized the voice, didn't she? It seemed familiar...

How far from the camp was she? The camp was in earshot, but that didn't tell her anything of use. Stepping around a tree, she saw him. One of the wolves she'd spoken to, fit and handsome and with eyes certainly on her, but he had never acted on it. Well it seemed that now he had, for the fine grey specimen was naked, leaning against one of the trees, smiling with eyes that seemed too clear and amber and appealing. "Siona." My, but he said her name so well, too.

 

[lasciel]

Of course the commander wanted her to make water. It was probably her least favorite task, and after weeks on a ship with the crew treating her (at times) like a glorified well, Siona had been looking forward to doing literally anything else. What was the point in going to school for biology if all folks wanted was water? But the rational part of her understood the reasoning, even if it rubbed her ego's fur the wrong way. She made no effort to mask her distaste, but nodded all the same. Her pride was at least slightly mollified by her second task, and she hoped Anlen would have something more interesting for her to do than chant at the sea until they filled their barrels. He had seemed a likable enough fellow during the voyage, and if their areas of research weren't quite the same, there was enough overlap between her botany and his herbalism that they could carry on an intelligent conversation for many hours on a given subject. Of course, that made no guarantees that he wouldn't simply turn around and ask her for more water. But it bolstered her hopes, at least.

The fox found herself running off to get the water-working done with as soon as possible, and it wasn't until she'd filled the first barrel that she remembered that she had intended to tell Tasa about Omani and Romandi and Kanjalli. Of course, it sounded as if the camp had already had one run-in with the latter, and given that they were now asking her to make water it seemed clear it had been their only attempt. Still, it seemed prudent to give both warning about the river's potential wrath, and to pass on the "secret" of how to buy the river-spirit's favor. Or at least to let her people know that there were sentients in the area, so that (hopefully) nobody would catch anyone else unawares. She had been fantastically lucky that Omani had been of the kind to explain rather than exenterate in response to their folly, but Siona was worried the next encounter between the two groups might not be as peaceable.

Unfortunately, she found herself too busy during the rest of the day, and too exhausted besides, to find another chance to talk to Anlen. She found herself paired with a hulking (from her perspective) mink of few words, and try as she might Siona seemed unable to make an impression on the stern mink. Worse, she had caught herself staring at the other's scars, and worse than that, knew she'd been caught. Razel, of course, hadn't said anything, but her icy blue eyes had made her impression of the fox all-too-clear. Of course, Siona wasn't going to let herself be bullied by Razel, but it certainly put a damper on any sort of pleasant chat she would've hoped to have while they worked.

For her own part, Razel found the afternoon tolerable, if only barely so. For the afternoon she'd been put in charge of the camp's newest refugee, a tiny (from her perspective) arctic fox who seemed incapable of staying quiet for more than a few minutes at a time. The assignment gave her a chance to get a bit of distance from the camp, and, if she was lucky, to finally see some of the exotic monsters that supposedly prowled the forests. Instead, she spent the day trailing after Siona, who seemed content to plod along at a snail's pace stopping to inspect nearly every leaf she saw. Given that it was the jungle, it made for a lot of leaves, and very little actual distance covered. By the end, Razel was certain she'd ground through her own teeth in frustration.

When the duo returned to camp, Siona triumphantly carrying a half-sackful of musty-smelling mosses she was certain Anlen could pack wounds with, to reduce the odds of infection. Of course, the trek reminded her again that there were locals here, who likely knew far more of what flora and fauna were useful for treating wounds. She made yet another mental note to bring the matter up the next day, as she quietly parted ways with the stoic mink. After bringing the sack to Anlen, and explaining that she was pretty sure there was more if she had more hands at her disposal, she went in search of a tent. Nothing was ready just yet, and she found herself directed to searching the "rummage pile" of things that had been recovered from the ship but not yet purposed, in the meanwhile.

Siona retrieved her spellbook, and tapped her now-flagging magical energy for a simple spell to detect magic. It would make searching the pile for anything she cared about much easier. In fact, she found her own trunk (though much worse for the wear) after only a few minutes of slowly scanning the pile with her gaze, diving practically head-first into the pile and resurfacing with the battered black case. Even now it sloshed with water and a gentle tinkling of broken glass. Steeling herself for disappointment, Siona threw the case open, and found what she'd feared: a water-logged mess. Her books were likely ruined, the ink run and gone and the paper sodden and disintegrating. Almost all of her sample vials were shattered, those which were still whole all proving to have a crack or nick somewhere that Siona feared would develop into a full-blown fracture with even a little bit of jarring. But her other tools were still there and whole: several pairs of tweezers, clippers, and tiny knives, her spare clothing, more charcoal pencils, a few magical foci, as well as some personal effects that hadn't minded the violent thrashing and the soaking in the sea. To drive the water from it all was easy enough, to drive the salt and grit was a bit harder, but not by much. She dumped what she didn't care to keep back in a pile, then dragged the trunk to the approximate spot where she intended to pitch her tent.

After dinner and some light socializing, Siona finally received said tent and set about making for herself something passable as a den, arraying the small collection of personal effects around the cramped space. But despite the early start to her day, she didn't feel yet ready to turn in. So, Siona exited the tent once more, and pondered what else she could accomplish in the gloom of the night.

After that, things grew... fuzzy.

Razel found herself nearly as restless as Siona, denied what she considered a hard day's work to instead play babysitter to a bontanist. Of course, she understood (especially after seeing Anlen's response) how important the fox's work had been, but that didn't stop it from being boring, nor did it stop her from finding the fox's personality insufferable. She took, then, to performing some calisthenics, both to burn off energy and to help maintain her warrior's physique. Thus, she was awake to spot the flash of brilliant white moving through the periphery of her vision, a "compact" figure she immediately recognized. She would've ignored it, except that it appeared the idiotic fox was headed out of the camp, and with no escort besides. When she had made absolutely sure that she saw what she thought she was seeing, Razel quietly swore to herself, stood up, wiped the sweat from her brow, and began to trot in Siona's direction.

"W-who are you?" Siona asked, feeling oddly groggy. Did she recognize him? Yes, she suppose she did; in the chaos of the day they had met over lunch (or was it dinner?), but for the life of her she couldn't recall his name. He certainly seemed to know hers, for how he crooned it so alluringly. And she had followed, like an idiot! Hadn't Tasa excoriated them all about the importance of staying in a group? Her head felt filled with mothballs, and she shook herself in an effort to clear them out. And then she found the thought she'd been seeking.

This is a compulsion.

Suddenly, several things seemed to happen at once.

Siona raised her hands to cast, beginning to unspindle one of the few spells she'd bothered to actually prepare that morning, still expended and waiting in her memory. Something (or someone) crashed crashed through the bushes behind her. And the very handsome, very naked wolf before her turned to bolt. She caught him with the tail end of her spell, but Siona knew it was ineffective when he continued to move. At least it was movement away from her, freeing her to turn around and stare at whoever had approached from behind. She came face-to-chest with almost six feet of sweaty, pumped-up mink, and stumbled backwards in surprise. Razel, for her part, moved to go around the now-fallen Siona and pursue the last flash of gray she could see. Within moments, though, she lost track of the wolf, and returned wearing a glare even more stern than when she'd caught Siona staring at her scars.

For her part, all the fox could do was push herself to her feet and try to explain. She got as far as the word "compelled" before Razel stalked off towards the camp, fire in her eyes. Siona scampered after, wondering where the mink was going. When they arrived at the far side of the camp, and Razel rounded on an unsuspecting Durun, Siona's eyes went wide. She yelled out for the mink to stop, spoiling the element of surprise and drawing the pair some unwanted attention. Razel gruffly asked Durun where he'd been just now, skeptical about his claims to have been "right there", but was calmed when his companions backed up his statement. Siona only shook her head; she had only needed to even see Durun standing casually and clothed to know that he hadn't been the perpetrator. How could someone run, get dressed, and appear so relaxed in such a short span?

The situation settled (even if no apologies were actually issued), the two females parted away again to head to their respective tents. For Siona's own part, she quickly fell into a deep slumber, aided by the poor sleep she'd had the night prior. Razel continued to stare at the ceiling of her tent for some time, trying to make sense of what she'd seen.

---

After a much-dreaded breakfast of even-more-fish and even-more-hardtack, Siona made her way to Tasa's tent and waited her turn until the wolf was free. Once inside, and with greetings handled, she went through the thoughts she hadn't gotten a chance to voice the day prior.

"Lerron and I encountered two of the locals on our way here. We washed up on a beach a few miles back that-a-way," Siona paused to gesture in the direction she'd crossed the river the day prior, "and made the mistake of trying to cross the river. I don't know if anyone saw him when we arrived, but we were escorted nearly to the camp by a male named Romandi, and the day prior we were helped by a female named Omani. They both appeared to be some sort of... jungle cat. They seemed to know a lot about the area, implied there was a larger tribe, and gave us some pertinent warnings about the river. It has a "spirit", or so they call it, but the more important part is that the river appears to have some sort of magical defenses that respond well to "gifts"." The fox continued, gesturing vaguely as she went.

"I was able to find one promising species of moss yesterday, for Anlen, but I suspect these locals may know more about the flora and fauna around here and their uses. I would like to go back and look for Omani and Romandi's tribe, assuming there hasn't already been an effort at contact. We may be able to get a better idea of the lay of the land here, and find a more sustainable food source, besides." Of course, Siona would've been fine eating fish until the end of her days, but she suspected some of the other people at the camp wanted for a more varied diet.

Her voice dropped, as she continued. This was the part she was less sure about. "I also had something... odd, happen to me, last night. I think someone tried to charm me... magically speaking." Siona added, looking pensive. "Razel caught the end of it. It looked like someone I knew, but, then I got back to the camp, and he was here, and it all didn't add up quite right. Has this happened to anyone else?"

 

[Deante]

Tasa stood in the command tent, which was simply one large enough to allow three people to move around a table covered in papers and a nearly empty map, swveral miles of coastline and a jag into the jungle revealed. With Tasa was a short-tailed weasel who seemed to exist to take notes, find papers, and run orders. One of the soldiers’ two spellcasters, from the pounce at his hip. The contact device sat on one corner, looking more like a brass and wood flower, or a box giving birth to a horn.

Kanjalli’s river was noted on the map, and Tasa nodded to it. “We’ve encountered one of those river defenses. I would have doubted the story but the one telling it has no disposition for bullshit. The rain, a stream closer by and our casters have kept us with enough to ration, but we have to get more. Same with food and medicine. We would have been strained without the stranded sailors, and I want a full larder by the time the actual colonists get here. As well, get me geography on the area, I hate being here blind, but the orders were to stay put till you lot arrived. So, good work, and it’s right in time.”

The second point thoug raised her ears, and she sighed. “Wellit , where’s that questionable health report?” The weasel produces it with minimal shuffling, informing her it was updated with Anlen’s notes. She looked it over.

“So including yesterday we’ve had three cases of someone waking up in the jungle nearby, lightheaded and not remembering much, smelling of sex and low on all fluids. If we had any alcohol I’d say it was just excess celebration, but now your story.. Looked like one of us you say?” She growled. “Ask these cats about magical and/or intelligent threats. And any preventative methods. We’ve ringed the camp in salt, and Wellit has some measeures against hostile magic, but that’s it. Like I said, blind.”

Once more Razel was assigned to Siona’s detail, likely because the mink looked more restless than anything, and a solemn grey fox archer named Garrin. As well as Cesarin, the map maker she knew from the ship. A raccoon, his species as foreign and exotic as his accent. Stocky and only fit enough for the hiking and climbing necessary for his job, the raccoon made up for an uninspiring appearance with bright, curious eyes and an easy smile, his words as clever as those fingers. There had been at least one torrid love triangle on the boat that was entirely his fault.

The trip was too quiet for Siona. Garrin and Razel not talkative, and the normally gregarious raccoon absorbed in memorizing their path, estimating distance, checking a compass regularly, and taking notes.

It occurred to Siona she only had the vague idea of where the village was. They would have to wander till they found it or the cats found them, and she recalled that Omani had said they often moved at night. Would they be up this early?

They crossed at the same spot Siona had before, dveetone tossing on sonethong just important enough to hopefully not irritate the river. Once across, they followed the river, zigzagging into the jungle and then back, looming for well-trodden paths and other signs of life while keeping the river in sight. It let Cesarin map it’s course while keeping them oriented.

By midday they had only found crude snares for game, but then Garrin spotted a clear trail to follow. Soon Siona and Garrin smelled the village first, the unmistakable tang of so many cats in one place, as well as the other scents of habitation, including the beginnings of food being cooked.

The village was a mix of treehouses and ground huts, spreading out in a clear area, one close enough to Kanjalli that Siona could hear the water’s babble. They must have just started stirring, for it appeared the only ones up and about were mothers and a few playing children.

It was one of these that saw the group before they had found s good way to introduce themselves. She was shocked, her startlement scaring the the kitten at her breast, which roused the neighbors real fast.

In short order they had a whole herd of cats watching them from the trees, along with several young males holding spears and curious-looking flutes, though the weapons were not at the ready.

“Siona!” Omani swung down the tree easily, darting over to stand before the fox. She called a few words of reassurance to her people, who were also being reassured by Romandi as he climbed down more measuredly. They all didn’t seem greatly alarmed; the knowledge of the base camp had been known, this was only a matter of time.

Omani drew them towards the village’s center, a clear meeting area shaded over by a reed and leaf awning. Nearby a pair of women worked several large clay cook pots over a fire, their attention no longer on breakfast.

As the group settled, two separate entourages approached. In the lead was a reserved older male ocelot, a clear strong man who had started to go, and an equally experienced woman who, by the pouches and foci she worked to fasten to herself as she walked, must have been the tribe’s spellcaster or herbalist. Each was followed by others that hung back.

“Greetings,” said the chief, “we have waited for this visit. It is good to finally speak. And speak, not struggle with unknown words,” he added, showing Siona clear deference.

 

[lasciel]

Siona's ears perked and her tail swished in noticeable delight as Tasa approved her request. It meant she would be off water-duty and, if all went well, would stay off water duty. It really was an awful waste of magic. Better still, she would have a chance to learn more about the local plants (and animals?), helping with Anlen's efforts as well as increasing her own knowledge. There was a dire lack of paper for her to take notes on, but Siona suspected that the broad and leathery leaves that grew in abundance could be re-purposed into an acceptable substitute without too much trouble. In the meanwhile, she had many spare pages in her spellbook, and anything she scribbled could be erased later with only minor magical effort. Of course, if there was something truly important (or a new spell!), she would take the time to properly impress the words into the page and protect them, removing the possibility of casual erasure by a misapplied spell. Of course, Omani had seemed so reverent of her easy use of magic, would that mean that whatever spells they had would be too closely guarded to share with outsiders? Perhaps whatever this tribe had for leaders would be able to shed more light--

"..three cases of someone waking up in the jungle nearby..." Tasa had started to explain something, and Siona hastily cut off her wandering thoughts to tune back in. She nodded in response to the wolf's question. She didn't know the individual's name, and had Razel not recognized the individual Siona would've instead assumed she'd merely (yet again) mixed up two similar-looking wolves. As it was, Siona now wondered if the other individuals so affected had also "seen" someone they recognized. Of course, it sounded like the other victims hadn't remembered a whit of what had happened. A small shudder passed through the fox, at the thought of what had almost befallen her.

"Omani said there wasn't much to fear down on the beach that Lerron and I woke up on, but that was..." She pointed to the far side of the river on the map.

"Kanjalli is sort of shaped like this," She explained, summoning a pinch of magic to draw a faintly glowing line just above the surface of the map, illustrating the rough "h" that Omani had shown her. "And we were here, and the cat said something about the river, or the river's spirit I guess, keeping out other threats. But I guess if we're here..." She moved to point to their present location, outside the crook of the "h", "that no longer applies." She shrugged, and let the glowing lines dissipate.

"She mentioned other tribes, so there's at least some other race out here, which could be a problem." The biologist admitted.

Much to both women's mutual disappointment, she was again assigned to Razel (or rather, Razel was assigned to her), in addition to a fox who looked to be a man of similarly few words as the mink. But when Cesarin was added to the group, Siona's mood lightened. While she had (thankfully) kept clear of the raccoon's apparent tendency to cause drama, he was clever and charming and would do more than just glower at her throughout the mission. And if Cesarin couldn't get Razel to lighten up and actually talk, then Siona suspected that nobody could.

Unfortunately, Cesarin proved to be as devoted a cartographer as he was normally a troublemaker. Fortunately, there were plenty of unfamiliar plants to stop and take notes on or clippings of, pressing leaves and flowers (or their petals, when the often mammoth flowers proved too large to wholly fit) in-between empty pages in the back of her spellbook to be more properly preserved later. Part of the reason Siona had jumped at the mission, besides a general urge to go somewhere new, was in the hopes of writing up her findings in this new and uncharted land as a book. Her position on the second ship (the first being purely military-types) ensured that she would be the first proper biologist with feet-on-the-ground, giving her several weeks (or even months!) of head-start on her colleagues. Of course, the matter of how she would send her manuscript back to the Continent was an issue not yet resolved, but she hoped that the third boat would come with the more sophisticated version of the contact device in Tasa's "office" that would let her easily transmit her notes back to the mainland.

Between Siona's note-taking and Cesarin's drawing, Razel found their pace frustratingly slow. But after seeing Anlen's response to the moss they'd gathered the day before, and knowing how vital the cartographer's work was for the entire mission, she found her reserves of patience a bit more well-stocked. Better, this walk seemed to take them farther from the camp than she'd ever gone before, up to the river that the little fox had called "Kanjalli" and that Tasa had called a variety of more colorful names. She rolled up her trousers and then made to cross, stopped only by a harshly barked warning from Siona. Her own blue eyes narrowed suspiciously as the biologist explained the need for tribute, but she wasn't one to disobey a direct order, and waited now impatiently as each member of their party tossed in a coin or bauble, before throwing in her own offering and stepping across. Nothing about the river seemed supernatural, but she trusted the stories her colleagues had returned with when her unit had first tried to cross the body.

By midday Siona found herself drenched in sweat and panting constantly. She'd gone as far as tying her blouse up just under her small bust, and rolling her pants as high as they could go on her thick calves, in a desperate attempt to keep cool. More than once she'd looked longingly at the river they followed, wishing she knew just how much (or little) the river would accept in exchange for a cool drink, before resorting to spellcraft to refill her canteen. Before embarking she'd been warned that her arctic-adapted physiology wouldn't play nicely with the jungle's tropical climate, but Siona had underestimated the severity of the issue. Worse, they seemed no closer to the village than when they'd first crossed the river. When Garrin perked up and reported that he'd found tracks, Siona was as grateful for the chance to enter deeper shade as she was to find Omani's tribe.

When Siona and Garrin seemed to freeze in place, smelling something that Razel's own less-sensitive nose couldn't pick out, she wondered if it was time to unstrap her battle-axe from her back. When Siona explained that they were close to the village, she instead opted to move her hands to the hunting knives at her waist. They offered a less intimidating but no less deadly option should these locals turn out be less friendly than the arctic fox expected them to be. When Siona went through the party and begin chanting and gesturing in a way that the mink knew meant "magic", she debated using the knives to instead dissuade the biologist. But when the biologist explained it was a spell to allow her to understand the foreign tongue Omani's people spoke, she begrudgingly let herself be enspelled, making a threatening sound in the back of her throat as she felt the magic tingle through her.

They approached then, Siona on point despite Razel and Garrin's hesitancy. The village was as Siona had envisioned it, though Razel was surprised to find so little activity this "late" in the day. Not that the mink said anything, and thus the acrtic fox couldn't reply and tell her that they were night-hunters and so probably slept in pretty late, and then none of it mattered as they were suddenly spotted. The kitten at the newcomer's breast let out a yowl of surprise (or terror?) and the party suddenly found themselves surrounded, though Siona was quick to hold out two empty paws, hoping to show that she meant no harm. Razel gave a low growl of warning, paws flexing on the grip of her knives but not yet drawing them, noting that the warriors who surrounded them weren't exactly pointing their spears at them and having enough expertise to know how and when not to make things worse.

Before Siona's own questionable skills of diplomacy were called upon, Omani and then Romandi showed up, and the small fox gave a noticeable sigh of relief. As the two ocelots reassured their companions and the tension seemed to dissipate, Razel eased her hands away from her knives, but still kept her bright blue eyes alert and attentive for potential threats.

"Omani, Romandi," She greeted with a nod to each, which served to also introduce the two to the rest of her entourage. "Cesarin is a map-maker, and while Razel and Garrin are warriors, we don't intend to cause any trouble." Siona explained, seeing no reason in even attempting to mask the professions of her two more heavily-armed companions. "We were hoping to talk to your leaders?" She added, smiling politely.

Razel looked around as they were lead, skeptical at being accepted so quickly and with no effort to disarm them. It meant either that the strange, spotted cats were all idiots (which seemed extremely unlikely), or that they were confident that they could handle the small party with ease, even when armed. Of course, given that they seemed to voluntarily live in spitting distance of a magic, "vengeful" river, perhaps their wisdom needed some re-assessing...

Siona offered a respectful bow to the two leaders (or so she assumed they were) that approached, glancing out of the corner of her eye at her companions and hoping they followed suit. For her own part, Razel gave a small nod, but was hesitant to have her eyes away from the collection of armed and, possibly, magic cats that had assembled any longer than was strictly necessary.

"I am Siona, a scholar of plants and animals," the fox introduced herself, then turned to gesture at her companions, introducing each in turn as she had to Omani and Romandi. At the end, she added, "we can all understand you, though if we intend to speak for a long time I'll need to renew the spell."

She paused, considering her next action. When Siona had first applied for a spot on the expedition, she'd been warned of the many tasks she would be asked to undertake, but "first contact with locals" had not been on the list. Alas, she was here now and had to hope she wouldn't botch it too terribly. And for better or worse, the experience was so far outside her wheelhouse that she didn't even realize she'd failed to think to bring some sort of gift or offering for the people, rather than just the river.

"Are there things you'd like to ask us? We, well, mostly me and Cesarin," she gestured at the raccoon, "have a lot of questions for you, mostly about the local area but also about plants and animals and some... strange occurrences we've been having back in our camp." Siona explained, choosing to be blunt rather than spending an eon in figuring out how to she was supposed to get to her purpose via politicking and speaking in circles.

 

[Deante]

The jungle canopy was at least thick enough that Siona was rarely in direct sunlight except when they wen talong the beach. There were occasional breaks in the treetops, and when there were, the ground vegetation was thicker. Sunlight was a precious resource to the plant-life. Rain though was far more plentiful, and the two breif showers did help keep her cool. Only until after they departed the riverbanks did Siona remember that Kanjalli would accept a simple prayer in exchange for a drink of water. Damn.

The warriors certainly kept their attention on Razel and Garrin, more the former than the latter, who seemed the most physically intimidating. As well as the scars certainly drew respectful looks. The eyes of everyone else seemed to follow Siona, and to a lesser extent Cesarin, than the other two companions. Omani had noticed this as they moved through the village, murmuring in an aside, "Few things have the color of your fur. It is pretty." True, the cats had white down their front, but certainly an all-white pelt would make anything so very vulnerable here in the abundance of greens and browns. Once he'd taken in the unfamiliar people and the village's sights, Cesarin's eyes seemed to wander between the comely ladies and the fit men, which was on par with his lack of discriminatory tastes aboard the HMS Horizon Skipper.

Razel noticed then that the spears they held were not tipped in metal, but some slices of a glittery black stone held tight between layers of wood.

"I am Dorandi, chief among my people here," said the older man, "and this is Parani, our Speaker to Kanjalli." She incliend her head to Siona. At Parani's side were two younger women, bedecked in similar equipment, suggesting that perhaps the spellcasting was a female tradition, or a family one? Or something similar. "Let us sit," he suggested. Which was a wise choice; everyone standing around had an air of tension.

"Let us trade questions," Dorandi suggested. "One for one."

The mention of strange occurances immediately grabbed the two leaders' attentions. "What have you encountered?" asked Parani. The explanation got a knowing look from the gathered cats. "A crocatta." The word did not seem to fit the ocelots' naming habits. "It changes shape, and once it has lured someone alone, it drinks their blood and water. Had its trick worked, you would have lived, but were there more than one, or if you tried to fight rather than submit, you likely would not have lived. They are cowards, too fearful and weak against more than one prey. As well, had your warrior called out to you, the spell likely would have been broken; it has only a weak snare of the mind." Had Razel not shown up, Siona's spell had scared the hell out of it, but if she had resisted more physically or called for help... A certainly chilling thought.

Parani added, "They often do not come as far as to reach us, let alone to the sea. News of your people's arrival must have traveled on the rain to even the things that do not have tribes." The colonly then wouldn't be protected by being unknown to the area's threats.

Then Dorandi raised his voice and said jovially, "I think that there are many tasks going undone, hey?" Which seemed to get a lot of the non-essential villagers looking chagrined and reluctantly moving to their own business. Still some lingered, and it seemed the two women at the cookpots realized that at least one part of breakfast was overcooking.

Cesarin took point, and showed his sketchbook. "We are hoping to draw the area, so that we can train guides easier. I would love to be told about features surrounding here, landmarks and important places. But that would slow down this exchange I think; could I maybe take one of your hunters or guides aside?"

"That is fair, and in exchange, we will ask two questions then." Dorandi murmured to one of the warriors behind him, who went and hailed a fit, seasoned woman who went aside with Cesarin to chat in low tones, regularly pointing at the book. The raccoon flipped pages, as he was keeping several different versions of the map, and made hasty notes.

"What is it your people seek to find here?" Dorandi asked. And, when Siona responded more carefully and politically, he smiled and said nothing. He then got to the real question: "Do you think they will make war?" Interesting that he had phrased it in a way to not put Siona as responsible, as part of it. She got the sense that if she said 'yes', he would not have gotten hostile with her. "If there is conflict amonng our neighbors here, we solve it with sport and contest, because allies are few and precious, especially those that do not require payment in return." Parani gave him a look, one he did not acknowledge.

By the time it was Siona's turn again, breakfast was done. It seemed to be a village affair, with folks lining up and getting bowls poured from the same pots. The group was invited to join, but most villagers sat nearby, which Dorandi couldn't really say anything about. It was a good segue to ask about food and water. Parani pointed to the food that was being served; a mashed yam-like root seemed to be the main course, worked into what amounte dto a brothy soup or stew, sweetened with more waterbelly juice. But there was other kinds of fruit, pulped until it formed a jelly, which was (thankfully) ladeled on fairly bitter leaves. The leaves were supposedly to keep them healthy, and drive off pesky biting. Siona didn't have time to investigate, but she suspected the leaves had lots of essential dietary elements that the other vegetables and fruit didn't have, or perhaps had something to help fortify against disease, and the smell (likely carried in the sweat) worked as a natural insect repellant. "We will show you what else we eat, later," Parani said. Cesarin was being educated in places of water, and liekly in handling any spirits that might get uppity.

Their next question was about the types of goods the colony would likely offer in trade. Dorandi didn't seem as invested in the question as he could've been, but explained that trade was generally done by one or two individuals from each village who traveled in a circuit, hitting the nearby tribes and returning. Terribly inefficient. A few times a year there would be gatherings that effectively created a sort of market environment, as there was no centralized location. Parani seemed most interested in talk of medicine and spells, and one of Drandi's men nudged the chief, to which Dorandi asked about weaponry.

When Siona asked about locals, Parani cleared her throat. "Do you have any other pressing questions, my chief? No? Then I can handle the rest, if you like." Dorandi took the hint, and politely withdrew after saying he would see them before they left. With that, he and his retinue found other matters to address.

When they left, the woman turned to Siona. "Either you would ask, or I would have to tell you, about something iportant and yet taboo. While it is taken as seriously by me as it is by all others, I am not as...frightened and protective." Yet she doesn't explain, right away. "There are four, five other villages of people like us, ocelots." While Cesarin had the actual map, they did their best with fingers in the dirt. It seemed that this village was the closest to the colony, but one was a day's travel above their base camp. "Then there are the Scaled." From the description, they were lizards, who lived half a day's travel to the coloy's right, further up the coast. The land there turned more wet, more swampy. "They are a very cautious people, quiet and slow, and when they speak you listen." Further inland, even further than the ocelot villages, there were was another species of cat. Bigger, broader, with whirly spots. "These are the Guar. They are great warriors, and like to be left alone. And I say that they keep eachother at the length of an arm, too. They do not live like we do, but more like..." She made a grid of dots in the dirt. "Territorial, but close enough they can protect one another."

"Beyond them... I have not met anything else. Only our Watchers have seen other races. There are people who look like your Cesarin--that ringed tail, but with taller ears, more slender. Tree runners. The word I have heard them called are cacomistle." Again, not a word that she would have heard from the cats. There were also apparently snakes, somewhere. The interaction anyone ever had was at the point of something sharp, and they liked raids. "Only the guar and one of our furthest villages have fought with them, though the Scales have an old, old grudge. I do not know much about it."

Once more it seemed as though the land grew more dangerous as one ventured further inwards, as though it were in layers, and the various people only going along certain layers.

For her part, Parani wanted to know words. One of her assistants fetched two clay tablets, and they wrote down phonetically the essential words in the language Siona spoke. Like "Ulchark" "yes" "no" "stop" and other important things that could be fumbled with in short order. "The magic you use to speak to us would be a great boon, but I will not be there for every interaction, as neither will you," she explained. The assistants she explaind hwere her apprentices. It did seem that magic was reserved for those of her role of advisor, healer, and consort to Kanjalli.

When the question of the mative fauna, magical and otherwise came up, Parani smiled. "Let us go see about food, hm?" She rose, sending her assistants off to collect medicines, while she walked with the group. The riverbank was nearby, and there the village had several trellaces with beans and vine-grown fruit, as well as a squash-like vegetable, and chilles, which Siona had no reference for. "There are also some peppers, but most of us do not like those. The guar have a lot more variety." The village also had a few coops of barely-tamed birds. "We mostly eat the eggs, as the hunters bring plenty of bird-meat." Snares caught lizards and rodents, Kanjalli had fish and eels. Digging tide pools and letting the sea bring you crab and other things was also very easy. Why the colony hadn't thought of that was beiond Siona. Honey also existed, but the village had not yet learned how to domesticate hives, so honey was a rare thing that had to be collected by smoking out a wild hive and being quick. The jungle had boar, but boar were just too tough to kill. Monkeys were edible, but they avoided them.

"Siona." Cesarin trotted up to her. "Let me show you something," he said, smiling, but indicated with a tilt of his head for her to step away. When she did, he opened his book. To the left of Kanjali's left branch on the "h" there was a mark. He tapped it, and said quietly, "This is where our first colonly landed." Then he pointed up, high up, where no marks were on his page. "I also get the hint there's something really important, incredibly big, and very taboo, up here. Both topics had my friend being more nervous than a thief in court. There's also a ruined temple here," he indicated, above and to the left of the first colony site. "Scary, nasty place, apparently."

 

[lasciel]

"It's a hot, sweaty mess." Siona replied to Omani in a grumble as they walked. She would miss it's beautiful snow-white shades, but not it's luxuriant density, when her body caught up with the climate and changed her coat to something thinner. For the nth time today she wished she'd listened to the recruiter's advice that she preemptively treat herself with heat and light in the evenings to trick her body into thinking it was summer. Her dense, winter coat was more resistant to water, true, but she'd been warned that if she fell overboard and wasn't immediately rescued that the insulating properties of her fur would make little difference in her fate. It had been a chilling thought, but one that had seemed so unlikely...

Siona noted the not-quite-symmetry in names between the chief and the cleric, similar to the way Omani and Romandi's names resembled one another. She wondered if the effect was intentional, or the byproduct of a small set of common names with mutations applied over generations resulting in families-of-names with similar sounds. Omani hadn't seemed like any sort of caster, not with how stunned she'd seemed at Siona's use of magic. Perhaps they the similarity then meant siblings? She filed the thought away for another time, as it was hardly her area of expertise and not (apparently) useful to her mission anyway.

Razel's expression made clear her discomfort at sitting; it left her vulnerable to attack and robbed her of her advantage of height over the diminutive jungle cats. But spoiling the mission because of her own (proper) concern over her ability to do her job would likely get her chewed out by Tasa, an outcome the mink hardly relished. She compromised by sitting down into a deep squat, a contrast with the cross-legged or legs-in-front positions the others seemed to assume. It was a pose she could easily stand (or spring up from) if something happened, and prevented her sheathed battle-axe or knives from getting tangled in limbs or caught on clothing. Though the cats seemed unlikely to jump them, the way some of them had eyed her scars made her uncomfortable.

Siona, less cautious than Razel (or perhaps simply trusting in the mink to defend her if push came to shove), took a cross-legged position with her tail pulled around and into her lap. Atop, she placed her spellbook, retrieving a sliver of charcoal from her pocket and unwrapping it from it's covering to take notes as they spoke. The deal that Dorandi suggested seemed amenable enough, and she nodded. As they talked, she jotted down words or facts of importance, in an elegant looping hand that would've been at-home in a formal manuscript or academic text. She'd lost her inks and, more regrettably, her watercolors in the shipwreck, but given that her spellbook was hardly her notes' "final resting place" she could put up with the boring, gray-and-tan pages for now. Words or phrases like crocatta or "traveled on the rain" were added, then circled, as Parani spoke.

She stiffened at the mention of war. Of course, Siona knew it would eventually come up... But she had been hoping (perhaps naively) that the subject would be broached at some later meeting, when someone more adept at diplomacy could handle the sensitive issue. She didn't miss Dorandi's careful phrasing, but even if he absolved her personally of blame, she could still mangle relationships between the jungle cats and her own people for a long time, if not permanently. Alas, such was the hand she had been dealt, and it would have been rude (and telling) to not reply. There was a pause, though, as she nervously fingered the fine fur at the tip of her tail in thought.

"I do not personally know, but I hope not. The Ulchark Empire seeks to establish some new settlement here, and I expect our Empress will eventually want to bring all the lands here into her country. I suspect it would go much as it went for my great-great grandparents, when the Rintel Wastes were claimed for Ulchark." Here, Siona shrugged.

"My ancestors lived as a collection of loosely-aligned clans, in a part of the world where..." She had been about to explain that it was "always snowing", but realized the concept may not translate. "...where few people wanted to live. But Ulchark discovered that there were valuable minerals, and wanted to claim the land as it was adjacent to them anyway. They sent emissaries, and offered each of a clans a choice: to join on their own terms, or to join on the Empress'. My ancestors chose the former, and if they hadn't I would never have been able to go to school, or learn the magics I wield, or visit lands as distant as this one. Other clans resisted, and their leaders were... Deposed." She shrugged again, though far less easily. That she had learned nearly nothing of her ancestral culture, not even learning the sounds of their language until she'd been courted by a linguist who studied the Rintel peoples when she was studying at University. She had snubbed him once she'd realized his interest in her was little more than a fetish borne from his studies.

At the suggestion of food, Siona's stomach rumbled. Their "breakfast" was easily her "late lunch" and the dining options at her own camp had hardly been inspiring (or plentiful) besides. Gratefully, she accepted the invitation to join and consumed what she was served with gusto. The protein content wasn't quite what her biology would've preferred, but it was far more flavorful and varied in taste and texture than either hardtack or the few fish her colleagues had been effectively been able to catch. The overpowering sweetness between the varied ingredients was almost enough to make her teeth hurt, and Siona wondered if the "jungle cats" here had as underdeveloped an ability to taste sweet as their (presumed) cousins on the Continent.

Razel took food when offered, but paused in eating to see how their biologist reacted. Except for a brief pause after a bite of the jelly, though, the fox seemed to suffer no ill outcomes. Considering it good enough for her, and feeling even hungrier than Siona (weighing nearly twice as much, all of it muscle!), she devoured her own serving with impunity. Like Siona, she found it exceptionally sweet, but unlike the fox she relished the additional calories the taste signaled. Perhaps that was why all these damned cats seemed to leap and spring all over the place as they moved? Were they all on a constant sugar-high? Of course, Razel kept her musings to herself.

They returned to their pattern of question-to-question, spending some time discussing trade and what goods the camp could offer. Siona clarified that while her people, referring to the Ulchark Empire, had available to them a great variety of technologies, medicines, and magics, that what they'd brought with them to the camp was more limited. Weapons, too; while Siona was unfamiliar with the specifics, she did paint a vague outline of the techno-magical war machines the countries of the Continent had used against each other in the past. Through this, especially on the last subject, Razel seemed to grow increasingly dour. Not only did Siona's explanations contain a few notable inaccuracies, but she was divulging valuable tactical knowledge to a potential future threat! Of course, had the mink voiced her concerns, it would've only encouraged the fox to explain more.

Both women were adept at concealing their surprise and mild concern when Parani dismissed the chief, and Siona worried that she'd made some sort of horrible faux-pas when the priestess turned back to look at her. It seemed instead, however, that they had reached a subject either special to the spiritual leaders of the tribe, or a subject only discussed among women. Whatever the case, she nodded as Parani explained, or at least hinted at, a taboo. When the other woman drew a rough map, she flipped to a new set of pages in her book, reproducing the shape with her charcoal pencil and annotating as she received explanations of (roughly) who lived where. Points were made and labeled and notes were added as Parani warned her about the ways of other groups, who it sounded like were not nearly as friendly as the "ocelots" she presently spoke with. The word "Watchers" got added as well, off in one corner; the priestess had said it with an air of importance that emphasized a capital "W".

Siona had no trouble or hesitation in teaching words to Parani and her apprentices, drawing the shapes of letters and explaining how each sound was made. She went over essential words, and also explained the litany of races that made up her camp: wolves and minks and mice and otters and badgers and raccoons and even foxes such as herself. "In the countryside, people stick a bit more with their own kind in enclaves, but in the cities, we're all mixed up." Siona added, explaining how so many different races could make up one nation. "But there are also a lot more of us, I suspect there are as many arctic foxes in my home city as there are ocelots in your village."

When the subject of food-production arose, she nodded eagerly and stood to follow. Razel sprung to her feet as well, happy to be moving again after so much sitting and talking. The village had children, and children had a habit of making loud noises at random intervals, each shriek or yelp leading to her muscles growing tighter and tighter until the mink was sure she was just one big ball of tension. And big was indeed the right term, as she found herself again towering over the locals when she unfolded her long, hard body to it's full height. As they moved she shook herself out, feeling properly limber by the time they reached the third vegetable (or fruit?) she didn't care about and paused for another explanation and note-taking session.

When Cesarin returned, Razel prayed that meant it was time to leave. For a "first contact" mission, the day had been awfully boring, with nothing to fight and nothing to even do besides watch the tiny botanist learn about all the plants of the forest (or so it seemed to her). But the raccoon seemed instead to want to discuss something, as she noted when she realized he was speaking in Ulcharkian, rather than whatever magic words Siona's spell would likely force her mouth to make. When Siona stepped out of earshot of the ocelots, Razel followed.

"The priestess mentioned something taboo, but I thought she just meant talking about the other races." Siona replied in Ulcharkian, carefully avoiding the use of Parani's name in case they were overheard. "I'll see if I can learn more, I get the feeling that there's some subjects that are taboo for men here." She turned slightly, addressing her next question to Razel as well as Cesarin.

"Has anyone from the camp visited the original landing site?" It would require either a boat journey, or two crossings of a river with a tendency to get uppity.

When they finished she returned to Parani, making sure to shoo Cesarin off in case her suspicions about the subject of "female-only" subjects was correct. She let the other woman lead the conversation for a while, but when it came back to her turn for questions again, she pounced. Subtlety had never been her specialty, anyway.

"What was the taboo you mentioned? Perhaps I am not understanding, but it seems we danced around the subject." Siona inquired, with a friendly smile. Razel just barely managed to hold back from rolling her eyes.

 

[Deante]

As Siona explained the war engines, the cats seemed to grow tense and uncomfortable, if not wary. Finally Dorandi broke in, “Those are too big and expensive for us. I just wanted to taste boar again.” Which brought a laugh that broke the tension. Razel could clearly see that both the cats were not an offensive minded people, not interested in war, but they also didn’t have anything in sight made of metal. All the visible edges were the glittery dark rock. And while all the clay said they had a kiln, she’d seen no forge.

Which would explain why she was getting looked keenly, but not on a threatening manner. Although the look she was getting from a few of the young men was not just limited to interest in her gear.

"I was told the river was as far as they've traveled," Cesarin said, even as Razel was shaking her head sharply. They had even been instructed to try and find a suitable place that was not the original colony's location. Much to the grumbling of those at the base camp the month they'd been there, sitting on their hands, accomplishing nothing but cutting firewood and swatting mosquitos. They wanted to make sure whatever happened wasn’t repeated, and that meant finding it and stopping it.

Siona returned, Parani began, "There is..." a splash interrupted them. They stood close enough to the river to see a circular pattern of waves in the center of the water, before a spout sprayed straight up, like a geyzer. Siona has the sense sone magic followed, a message she just could not hear. Parani sighed. "Kanjalli calls. I must go."

"I can go instead, so that you may continue," cut in the oldest of her assistants. She looked more eager. To do this service for her teacher, or to visit Kanjalli, wasn't clear. The younger girl's expression was more that of an uncertain bride-to-be when thinking of her betrothed.

"No." The wise woman wore the expression of one disrupted by their duties, with perhaps a wry smile underneath. When the older girl dropped her eyes in acknowledgement, Parani continued. "Unless you were called by name, the Speaker is expected. To send you instead would be an insult." She looked to Siona, then her apprentices, lips pursed. She took her apprentices aside, having a short, one sided word with them.

She stepped to the river's edge. "Siona, I hope to see you again soon, that we may talk of magic and more." With that she dove into the river. Briefly they could see the spotted cat through the clear water, and then she was simply gone, as though the river ate her.

The oldest apprentice took a breath, with clear effort drawing on the mantle of serious responsibility. Then she turned. “I am Tolani. You asked about a taboo...” A sigh. “Three day’s walk is a wall, the Divide. It goes further than any of us have traveled, said to go from sea to sea. It is a barrier that protects us. Some things can cross—it is low enough we could climb over—but it bars the darkest things, for the lands beyond are fearsome and the roots of demons run deep. On the horizon is a mountain that breathes fire and ash, and Kanjalli says there is a spirit of great fury inside that demands the sacrifice of lives into its fires.

“Along the wall are towers, and each tribe of all races on this side sends a Watcher to fill a post, to wait and look for anything that crosses, so that we may have warning. Each Watcher spends half the year there, and half off. Our Watcher is my father, who will return soon.” This she said with pride and sadness.

Glancing towards the village she added, “The Divide scares them. Beyond it is death, or worse than death. But Kanjalli’s waters begin past it, and Parani is there now. We Speakers have a better idea of what evil lives behind the Divide, and have the magic to survive.”

Tolani answered any follow up questions before saying, “You wanted to know about medicines?”

Which meant the talk of possible danger was over. Razel’s possible interest could have been stomped, but she’d noticed the trio of men watching. Well, a teen and two somewhat older. They stood close, chatting and looking at her in a way that men universally did, when they were seeing who would approach a woman first. Finally one did, striding forward in what wasn’t quite a swagger. “Greetings. That on your back, would you show me?” He tilted his chin at her axe. Like the other cats he was sleek and toned and taut, and this was shown off by the fact he wore a garment a little more than a loincloth, but not by much. A few bright feathers decorated a necklace—no way he’d wear that hunting. Had he went home and put that on? His tail flicking in lazy little sways, what felines did when they were watching sonethong they wanted to pounce, just not yet.

 

[lasciel]

Razel watched, a skeptical expression clear on her face, as Parani explained her sudden need for departure. She didn't know enough of magic to know the precise mechanics, but she was sure it would've been a small thing to summon such a waterspout. And the timing was awfully convenient! What was the woman getting at? But the women spoke too quietly to eavesdrop, and as much as she wanted to shake one of the small cats until answers fell out, she was under strict orders to defer to Siona and Cesarin. It was infuriating!

But then she watched Parani jump into the water and disappear without so much as a ripple, and all she could do was stare.

Were these ocelots crazy? The answer was "clearly", in her opinipn. She shook her head in amazement, hands continuing to grip the hilts of her knives but now just a little bit more tightly...

She listened, for once as intently as Siona as the subject turned to the dangers further inland. Now she was grateful for the copious notetaking of the little fox, her looping hand easily keeping up with Tolani's words. Tasa, and really everyone in the camp, would be in some way interested in the intel. But soon enough, the discussion returned to more mundane subjects, and she found herself once more disappointed.

Movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. She sprung from her crouch, but did not yet draw her knives, tail twitching in obvious agitation. Her stance quickly relaxed when she realized it was one of their males, wearing some sort of ridiculous necklace. It certainly wasn't hunting garb; he would be spotted a mile away from the bright flashes of color. And the way he rolled his hips as he walked... Was trying to attract her attention?

How adorable, she thought, her muzzle contorting into something that could charitably be called a smirk.

She was not sure what to make of the twitching of his tail, though it reminded her of a few of the larger cats she had met and tangled with back in Ulchark. A sign of piqued interest, or of a state of agitation. She raised a brow at his request, but reached both arms behind herself nonetheless. In one lithe movement she drew the weapon over her head, displaying both grace and a significant amount of strength in her triceps and lats. Quickly she reversed her grip, twirling the axe such that the handle faced the approaching cat and the blade pointed at her sternum. The weapon was large for her, and obviously outsized for the ocelot (or at least she believed such), and so she believed it to pose little threat.

When the ocelot had finished inspecting her weapon, she reholstered it along her back. Did she do so with more flourish than strictly required? Perhaps. Razel had a strict policy of avoiding entanglements with anyone in her unit, her chain of command, or anyone likely to become a member of either group. Between her departure from Ulchark and the arrival of the second boat, this had amounted to a vow of chastity. She could flirt (in her own way) here without violating her code of honor, and it seemed that most of the important discussions were taking place among the womanfolk, besides.

"I'm bored. Would you like to spar?" She asked, placing her hands in her pockets with her thumbs hitched outside, hips slightly forward, a stance of subtle dominance.

A light sparring match would be useful in three ways. First, it would give her an idea as to how these ocelots tended to fight and how well-trained they were. She was confident she could tell the subtle differences between a lack of skills and the very-skilled merely playing at such. And she could measure how physically powerful the cats were, after all, the specimen she faced seemed to be of prime age and reasonable fitness. Second, it would burn off some of her nervous energy. It had been entirely too long since she'd sparred with someone new, besides, and the experience would be insightful. Had her skills lapsed, spending months practicing against the same small handful of opponents? She was hardly of any use to her Empress if she became stale or predictable.

It was the third reason that put a particular gleam in her bright blue eyes. A good, sweaty bout was a great way to assess whether someone was interested in more than just a brief throw-down. It was her preferred alternative to flirting, and one could learn a lot about how someone felt about you from how an they fought you. It had been an awfully long time since she had anyone to look at but her own colleagues, and those few fortunate souls who had washed up from the shipwreck hadn't been quite to her tastes, either. These muscular, graceful cats, though...

"No weapons. I'd get in trouble if someone got injured." She added, in a tone that suggested she felt confident that she would not be the one getting hurt.

Of course, Razel wanted nothing to do with someone who didn't want something to do with her. If the sparring match was accepted and remained only a sparring match, she would not press the issue. She would happily subdue the ocelot (or two; she felt confident that her advantage of size and combat experience was worth a lot here, but not confident enough to suggest the idea outright) and drag him (them?) off somewhere to claim her victory prize, but only if the subdued party seemed enthusiastic about the whole idea.

 

[Deante]

The tribe had warriors. Tough cats who were ready, if not eager, for action. Razel has seen it, guards trained to fight and then set to defend in a place that would see little actual trouble. They wanted that readiness to pay off, to prove their worth and contribute. This man was not one of them. He didn’t look at her, didn’t stand like she—an armed outsider clearly ready for a fight—was a threat. He didn’t even walk up like he was there to challenge her, prove his strength over her. He’d come to flirt.

The effort to show off definitely landed. His friends didn’t expect the display, and for a second they looked like they thought he was going to eat it. The cat—who she’d learn later was named Odate—took the axe and by the way he handled it, was at least familiar with weapons. He shifted it to test the weight, a shadow of a swing to see how it was wielded. The metal blade was far more interesting to him, but he passed it back.

And then she proposed to spar. That took the ocelot off balance. Odate had expected this would be a challenge, hadn’t been intimidated by her size and dangerous baring, but not a fight. And he knew when using weapons, he was screwed.

Then Razel said no weapons. After a second, a grin spread across his face, one that said this was going to be fun. “I accept. Do not hurt me too much though, my friends are watching.”

Odate’s stance changed, not that of a fighter, but certainly one of preparation; his hands held out at waist height, his movement bouncing on the balls of his feet. Razel knew the type of fast little shits, dodging and coming in quick, feints and the like, and he was clearly waiting for her to make the first move.

When she did, she found out Odate was a good abambe player.

Abambe was their sport, a simple game. Someone on a team had to carry the totem—a stick wrapped tight in a pelt—to the opposite team’s zone. The other team had to get the stick, or get the holder on the ground. And while you could tackle, you could also grapple.

When she punched, Odate dodges and latched onto her arm, hopped up so he could fold his body around her arm, and dropped his weight. She had to either go down or get her shoulder dislocated. The next time he caught it, she squatted, putting her center of gravity low...and he ran around her like a kid on a maypole, turning and pushing her till she was off balance. It ended on a stalemate, him not strong enough to get her down, she not at an angle to hit him.

Razel hadn’t trained to deal with something that wasn’t trying to hit with weapons or claws or teeth. He didn’t care about hurting her, or even about not getting hit in the process, but he was always inside her guard, never letting her superior reach and height mean anything, and too low for a good headbutt. She could knee him in the stomach, and that dropped him once.

When she tucked her elbows in tight, dropped her shoulders, and used her knees, he pounced at her shoulders, tried to get his legs around her anywhere he could, and fucking climb her like she were a willow tree in a wind storm. When she realized he wanted to get on her back so he could bite her scruff, a real sensitive hold, she stopped fighting like a soldier.

Wrestling wasn’t an alien concept in Ulchark, but it was strength for strength, usually equal matched oppponents. This was new. Unless you had brothers. And you were a mustelid. If she were any other species, he’d likely have won or turned it into a draw. But mustelids had spines like a bow, meant to bend even more than a cat. She could turn her upper body around almost 115 degrees when warmed up. Folding on half was as easy as sitting down. So Razel stopped trying to stay tense and instead bent with him.

The real flaw was Odate only cared about getting her on the ground, not pinning her. So Razel let him, then went for the pin, an elbow on his throat. Or she twisted so he hit the ground hard and she on top.

That last one knocked the wind out of him, and Odate was done. “I think..I have beaten you enough...Do you surrender?” he huffed, grinning.

 

[lasciel]

"Watch these." Raze's voice was the only warning Siona had before a startling number of weapons were unceremoniously dumped in a pile next to her. Where had the mink been keeping quite so many knives? The biologist could only gawk as Razel at last leaned her battle axe against the pile, before turning without another word to stride back towards a male ocelot who seemed to be limbering himself up for some sort of fight. For her own part, the fox only shook her head, apologized to Tolani for the interruption, then resumed their conversation without another look back.

The bout was a good one, longer than she had expected and presenting interesting challenges. At first, Razel had worried (rightfully so) that she'd spend the short match pulling her punches and trying not to cause an international incident. So when the ocelot turned things into a wrestling match, the stern look of concentration she'd worn since first settling into her stance cracked into the first hints of a grin. Of course, she was still careful when it came to blows, she didn't want to actually hurt Odate. But his more-than-apt wrestling skills let her, in turn, relax and focus on the sparring match, melting much of the tension she'd built up for having nothing to do melt away.

By the end, she found herself pleasantly sweaty, her body warm and limber from the exercise. Razel also found herself pinning down an attractive male ocelot who, from the look on his face, had no qualms about his current position. His quip made her chuckle, a warm, rich sound accompanied by a practically carnivorous grin.

"Of course," She replied smoothly, her voice slightly husky from the exertion. Though she had bested him, he had fought well, both better than she'd expected and in absolute terms. Razel respected his efforts, even if she'd gotten the best of him in the end. She leaned in further, dropping her voice so that their conversation became a bit more intimate in the highly public space. "And now for your prize."

There was no mistaking the look of heat in her vivid blue eyes, as she eased off of him. She stooped back down, and for a moment it looked as if the mink intended to help Odate to his feet. Instead, with a small grunt of effort she simply scooped up the ocelot and proceeded to walk off with him. He was left with a choice to either be slung over her shoulder, or to wrap his legs around her waist (or, perhaps, to try again to climb around her if he was feeling feisty). Razel was careful to monitor his body language, not wanting to miss any subtle sign that Odate had changed his mind. But otherwise, she let her strong hands squeeze appreciatively at the firm muscles of his ass and hamstrings as she carried him.

She strode off in the direction of lowest population density, looking for somewhere vaguely private to show her captive exactly what he had won. At the ocelot's not-so-subtle cueing, she corrected course towards what she assumed was his home or some other suitable location. What she found appeared to be a glorified tree house. And there was, unfortunately, no way she could see to get them both inside while she still carried Odate. With some reluctance she let him down, doffed her boots and socks, then gestured for him to lead the way. She followed a heartbeat later into the surprisingly solid structure. Of course, she didn't want to take any risks regarding the sturdiness of the walls, but the central tree trunk itself would suit her needs delightfully.

Razel said nothing, didn't see a need to say anything more, as she began to strip down. She'd already left her weapons with Siona, and the empty harnesses and holsters came off quickly, folded by habit into a neat pile. Her shirt followed, the drab greenish-brown garment being rapidly but precisely folded as well. She removed her belt, coiled and placed it with the harnesses, then shimmied and stepped out of her pants, picking them up and folding them like the others. Her undergarments, plain and utilitarian, were the last to be shucked and also apparently required folding. Any attempts by Odate to approach during the brief, but focused process were met with a snarl and a scowl.

Only when she stood fully naked did Razel signal to Odate that he could approach. Of course, that signal was for her to approach him, confident, gliding steps that displayed a predator's grace. The filtered light of the treehouse seemed ideal to highlight her firm body, light and shadow emphasizing the contours of her abs and thighs beneath her short, dense coat of dark brown fur. She lifted her arms to reach behind her head, tugging at the severe bun that normally kept her hair tamed until the glossy black locks fell in cascades just above her shapely shoulders. As she brought her hands back down towards her sides she ran the cream-colored tips of her fingers over the generous swells of her breasts. If the feeling of her scars beneath her left hand gave her pause, she showed no sign. Odate could now see the full extent of the damage, a shallow but persistent network of fine lines that reached almost to her left nipple, continuing along her ribcage until a few inches above her left hip.

When she reached him, Razel didn't stop moving, backing the ocelot up against the tree trunk with the intent of pinning his hands above his head. His response would let her see how much he wanted to play, and let her adjust her plans accordingly. Would he be as delightfully surprising as he'd been during their sparring bout? She surely hoped so.

 

[Deante]

Odate didn't expect to be picked up, but he let himself get draped over her shoulder. It allowed him to give a cheeky wave to his friends as he was carried away, grinning all too self-satisfied. That spotty, stripey tail fwipped one way, then the other, wrapping around Razel's neck, or paffing her across the nose. He was by far the most playful man she'd rumbled with, but man he was; those capable hands on his hind end and legs soon had a firmness pressed into her shoulder, and the muscles underneath her fingers flexed to press into her touch. The ocelot seemed all to willing to float with the river's flow, quite curious about how these Ulcharkians courted. The local girls were playful but never this assertive, and it was a pleasant change of pace.

The treehouse was indeed sturdy, but small, a good comparison to her tent back at base. Which Razel was quite used to; no barracks, no, but the ship's bunks had been little more than cubbies with hammocks. She had a little more room to stand tall, as the roofs were as peaked and slanted as a tent's, to better let the rain flow off. A bachelor, he shared it with another unwed male, so the interior was sparse except for some bags hanging off off pegs.

When she started stripping, he waited to join her. There wasn't much for him to get rid of, but he also wanted her attention. Finally when he was seeing a lot of bare fur, Odate had but give a tug and a wiggle and the minimal garment was kicked into a corner. He would be winning no blue robins for size, which she no doubt could have expected; a man his height and species, he wouldn't be bringing a halberd. Still it was not so small as to not be serviceable, and would certainly get the job done. He was not self-conscious about his endowment either, both displaying it with a flirtatious tilt of his hips while his attention was on her own body.

Razel caught his hands and pinned them easily, because he was reaching out ot touch her when she did. Once more he was caught off guard, and it took him a moment to catch up, but he gave a cocky grin. Where was this going to go? Though he struggled a hint, more put off by his inability to touch her than anything else; Odate was simply not used to being the passive one. And, as she had come to understand from him, he still found a catty way around his predicament. Her height put her breast in range of his face, and he tilted his head, brushing the tip against her nipple. The second stroke, though, was a pleasant friction against her skin, his raspy tongue moved slow and practiced to tease the roughness against her without being too abrasive. She'd never bedded a feline before, and while she'd heard about those tongues, the sensation was utterly new. He nudged the fur of her tit enough to lap at the areola around the nub itself, and then swirled the skin again.

 

[lasciel]

If Odate was expecting all Ulcharkian women (or men) to be as aggressive as Razel, he would find himself sorely disappointed. Though the Empire could never be called "repressed" (and in fact, some of the neighboring countries found many of Ulchark's practices quite scandalous), the typical sexual encounter involved quite a bit more talking, and usually a minimum of sparring (if any). Ulcharkians were fond of their flirting, seduction, and bedroom chat before the "main event", and Razel had more than once walked out on a partner for being too talkative. She was a simple mink with simple needs, and valued her time almost as much as she valued her pleasure. Worse, engaging in too much chit-chat, even just listening to it, had a nasty tendency of giving partners the idea that she had an interest in them beyond a quick (or slow) fuck, which lead to... complications.

There would be no such complications here (or so she hoped). Just an enjoyable way to kill time and relieve some tension while her charge talked plants with the locals. Very enjoyable, if her partner was half as good at fucking as he was at wrestling.

There was a flash of her wet, pink tongue as she licked at her muzzle appreciatively, watching the ocelot's surprise and then enthusiasm at being again pinned. She leaned into him, placing one thick thigh between his legs to grind against his member with a teasing roll of her hips. Surprise briefly flickered across her expression when he leaned forward in response, but then she felt the first flick of his tongue against the pert peak of her nipple, and surprise melted into relaxed pleasure. Normally she found attention to her breasts somewhat boring, but the unexpected friction seemed to do something for her that other tongues hadn't. Yes, it was indeed quite nice, and possibly could be even nicer if applied to other areas. But for a little while she let the ocelot have his fun. She would encourage him in the proper direction soon enough.

As he worked, she transferred her hold on his wrists to her left hand. The weight of her body on the grip would still present some challenge to escaping, but the position was more symbolic than anything else. He would keep his hands above his head because she told him (albeit, non-verbally) to, and would growl threateningly if he tried to wiggle free. She used her legs again, rubbing her thigh first against his length (and noticing that his tongue wasn't the only thing unusually textured), then using her knee to encourage his legs into a wider stance. In the meanwhile, she moved her right hand to grip his left side at the top of his ribs. She appreciated the feel of his fine, exotically-marked fur beneath her calloused fingers as she walked her hand downward towards his hip. From there her touch moved along his adonis belt, pausing just before touching his shaft and instead moving to caress his inner thigh. The backs of her knuckles purposefully grazed against his balls and perineum, but her fingers refused to move quite where he would've likely wanted them.

When Odate had lavished ample attention on both of her breasts, leading to a pleasant build of heat low in her abdomen, she changed her tactics. Her left hand, still holding his wrists, shifted to press his arms and head downwards. She abandoned her playing along the inside of his thighs to instead grip the back of his head, caressing the pads of her fingers against the base of his feline ears. But as she did, she continued to apply pressure downward as she widened her own stance, revealing flushed folds hidden among soft, ivory fur matching the patch under jaw and on her fingers and toes. She let his hands go when the posture became awkward, using the hand instead to pull back her outer labia and expose her entrance and clit. The moisture present proved that he had done a good job with his tongue, and Razel intended for him to repeat the feat with a far more sensitive nub.

 

[Deante]

No, it would not surprise him to discover that, say, the white-furred woman was a chatty sort who needed to be talked out of her clothes. She did not strike Odate as the action sort. Which was just fine by him. Cute sure, but he had went after Razel for a reason.

No, he wouldn't try to escape either. It was clear she wanted him caught, and he was fully into playing along now. The cat went up on his toes as her thigh glided over him, then he shifted at her herding. So far he was accommodating all her gestures and requests, and underneath her fingers his muscles tensed, and he nudged up against her touch. It wasn't until that caress intentionally deviated and started to taunt that she got the first bit of resistance, a roll of his eyes up at her that said "Really?"

That's when she started herding him, and the message was received. No need to press too long, he sank down comfortably. Palms planted on the tops of her thighs, kneading in lazy waves as his nose dipped in, and he ran his tongue up the inseam of her thigh. The same motion was repeated on the other leg in reverse, and he made his way higher. But two could play that teasing game; the wet, pink lash swept up to groom the fur of her mons, just north of her clit, swirling down down down until he almost touched it--and then to the side, the crease where thigh and pelvis met, where her fingers were tucked in. He nipped one of those digits.

Still he couldn't keep at the game any longer either, and dove in. Oh, he knew how to do this. Not too hard, stroking using the raspy tip to flutter inside, then out, and paint her inner labia, before migrating up to--

Odate jerked his head to the side and bit her thigh lightly, growling like a beast, head shaking as if he were to tear a chunk loose. Then, grinning, he went back to the task, this time genuinely shining that bead. First the underside of his tongue, smooth little brushes, and then the rougher top. Lips settled over the numb and he sucked on it, rolling his lips about. While up to such trouble, his hands had migrated around to the backs of her thighs, squeezing the taut muscles, then slid higher to cup her ass. Here he squeezed hungrily, pressed her cheeks together, and pricked her skin with his claws. Finally he could touch, and touch he did, using his grip to pull her firmer into his face.

All the while he kept his round ears up, and occasionally came up for air, letting him look up past her breasts to see her face. She hadn't struck him a sa particularly responsive woman, not a vocal one at least, and he was looking for some kind of sign he was following the right trail.

 

[lasciel]

A lazy, indulgent smile split Razel's muzzle as Odate went to his knees, and she tilted her pelvis forward in response. Turnabout was fair play, of course, but she still gave a low growl as the cat continued to beat around the bush. The hand at the back of his head, previously rubbing at the base of his ears, ceased it's motion in favor of applying an increasingly insistent pressure. Nipping at her fingers earned him a snarl, the latter half of which dissolved in a sudden exhale as he moved his attention to her inner lips. It wasn't quite where he wanted him, but--

His sudden display of "savagery" earned him a chuckle, then a heavy, contented sigh as that wonderfully textured tongue finally settled on her clit. But beyond that initial noise, Razel was as quiet as Odate had expected. But the mink was by no means a statue. While her tail was neither as long nor as expressive as her partner's, it did curl and flick as he worked, mirrored by twitches and ripples in the hard planes of her abdomen. The muscles of her ass tensed beneath his appreciative hands, and her legs shifted as she adjusted her stance to press more firmly into his face. The most obvious sign was in her breathing, which first grew heavy, then irregular.

Odate could tell Razel was drawing close to her peak when her thighs began to tremble. It was a small movement, and would've been difficult to notice had she not been so thoroughly pressing his muzzle into her cunt. As he lapped and licked and sucked, especially as he sucked, her hips jerked and the hand on the back of his head flexed. Soon he had her practically humping his face, slow rolls of her pelvis punctuated by the occasional sudden exhale and sharp inhale. His saliva mingled with her own wetness, which was present in abundance from his efforts.

Razel removed the hand holding her pussy exposed, sliding it around to her buttocks to encourage one of his hands to move down between her legs. She felt close, very close, but wanted more stimulation than just his tongue could provide. Not that the soldier expected to just walk away after, there was still that interestingly-nubbed cock to take for a test ride. But at the moment she just needed something in her, and wasn't too picky about what. Odate's digits found her entrance to be hot and wet and tight, the muscles inside gripping him with a nearly crushing firmness. Moving his fingers required real effort, one that would be hard to maintain for any significant duration. Thankfully, the mink didn't need much to go over the edge from where she was. Indeed, the ocelot had done a good enough job (or perhaps Razel had been that badly sex-starved) that he needed to do little more than crook his fingers a few times.

A low moan, the first real sound he'd gotten out of her, gave him a moment's warning before the movement of her hips went from smooth to frantic. Her whole body jerked and shuddered, both hands now on the back of his head and tense with the effort of resisting the urge to push him further into her folds. It wouldn't do her any good, as his tongue made for far better stimulation than the leather of his nose, but neither did she let him withdraw. Only when the last spasm finished passing through her did Razel's grip relax. She was panting now, looking down at him with her tongue lolling out of the scarred side of her mouth, vibrant blue eyes half-lidded in contentment. Again, she chuckled, dragging one hand through her thick black hair to coax the locks back out of her face.

When the ocelot had caught his breath, Razel urged him back to his feet, before pushing him back against the tree trunk again. With one hand she titled his muzzle upwards, while the other splayed flat over his lower abdomen. Grabbing his chin then to hold his head in-place, she ran her tongue along the salty, bitter-sweet trail her own fluids had left on him. Below, her other hand glided downward, running the heel of her palm along the front of his cock until she reached the head, where she stopped and squeezed gently. She began to pump her grip along his length, and brought her mouth down to crash against his in a fierce, passionate kiss. Of course, she wanted to do more with his exotically-textured cock than merely stroke it, but Razel wanted to ensure he was ready (and wanted to continue) before moving onto the main event. She was certainly ready, her entrance thoroughly lubricated from both his saliva and her own orgasm.

 

[Deante]

Along with that well-textured tongue was another sensation that was fairly new to Razel: a purr. The ocelot's mouth vibrated around her, a pleasant little rumble that traveled down into her. It wasn't as strong as it could've been, but he was fairly content, if not satisfied, with the effect he was having on her. Though certainly the most quiet lover he'd had (well, the most quiet one who wasn't trying to be quiet), and he had little to go on except the jump of her muscles, her breath. Not the best measure, seeing as those were subtle and he was quite focused on playing her instrument.

How could he have forgotten to use his fingers? Probably the fact that she was being quite forceful about it. Besides, given that Razel was practically sitting on his chin with how firm she was pushing against him, Odate would have had trouble getting a hand between his jaw and her. Still, at the prompting he did as requested, two fingers immediately sinking in before spreading, then twisting and curling, giving the feel of something thick in that tight grip.

Finally when she started really rolling across his muzzle, the cat tilted his maw and wrapped his lips around her clit, sucking once more. That was the best thing he could do in all that frantic motion, and the one thing he had spotted really made her muscles jump. There was certainly a swipe or two of tongue along the way, but he kept that constatn sensation up, helped all the more by the buzz of his purring lips.

When she let him go, he leaned back, taking a deep breath. His eyes rolled up to her, smiling at that expression, his own mussed a bit by the wet muzzle-fur all askew. Rising, he wondered what she was going to do, holding still--and this time keeping his hands at his sides. Eyes closing, he relaxed as she licked--and then tensed as she grabbed him, the long tail whipping against the tree. Unable to help himself, he fucked up into her palm, pent up and eager, but he stopped after the second, so suddenly something might have been wrong. Only that he'd remembered to behave; the message that she was in control had certainly sunk in, and he was letting her lead fully, not wanting to jeopardize this ending. When she squeezed his tip, those spotty hips squirmed on the spot, and he huffed out a little mewl. Oh he kissed back sure, and pressed his chest against hers, but resisted pushing against that pumping grasp.

 

[lasciel]

Razel paused, too, a moment of hesitation as she waited to see if Odate had changed his mind. Perhaps she had been overenthusiastic with her hand, and had hurt him with her strength or her callouses? But no, he still seemed eager and ready, and the sound she received in response to rubbing her thumb over the meaty head of him was unmistakable. Against his lips he could feel her smile, and then she was back at it, dominating his mouth with her tongue as she slowly pumped along his length with a firm grip. She wanted him nice and hard and needy, and every involuntary wiggle of his lean hips was met with a satisfied hum from the mink. She couldn't purr, not like he did, but he could still tell that she was appreciating and enjoying his restraint and his frustration.

Not that she had any intention of getting him off like that. She pulled back from their kiss, though one hand still gripped his chin, and the other continued to stroke him. Again, Razel evaluated the room. There wasn't much to work with, a low table or ottoman would've been ideal. But she did finally spot a mat rolled up in one corner, which seemed suitable for her purposes. She let go of his face, but not of his cock.

Odate was made privy to Razel's plans only by virtue of a gentle tugging on his member. The mink had ceased her stroking, and instead (carefully) used his erection as a handle, leading him towards the corner she'd been eyeing. But while she no longer stroked, she did idly rub her thumb again over the head of his cock. Even that stopped, if briefly, as Razel stooped to grab the rolled up mat, bundling it under her other arm as she took a few steps away from the wall before laying it down, though not unrolling it. The tube-like profile of the mat now formed a flattened oval, providing a roughly ocelot-sized platform. Razel maneuvered Odate until he stood just in front of one of the mat's narrow ends, then placed one hand on his head and with both hands directed him once more onto the floor. This time, however, she came with him, letting go of his cock so she could put weight onto both of her hands, which she placed to either side of his shoulders and walked upwards until both of them were roughly horizontal, him laying down on the mat and her on all fours above him.

Razel brought her head down, not to meet his lips but instead to bite not-so-gently at the fur where his head joined his neck. At the same time, she brought her pelvis down and backwards, so that the underside his hard cock pressed against her labia and clit. As she licked and nibbled at his neck, slowly moving upward, she rolled her hips in a way that slid her sex up against him, leaving a wet and sticky trail and pressing his head just against the bottom of her slit. But rather than tilt those few inches to let him penetrate her, she slid back down, grinding herself along his cock in a steady rhythm as she moved her mouth to capture his again.

When the ocelot seemed thoroughly lubricated, his cock coated in a mixture of his own saliva, her juices, and his precum, Razel again paused. In one fluid movement she pushed herself up to rest on her knees, hips rising so that she hovered above him. Her left hand gripped his right hip, while her right hand she splayed flat against the bottom of his ribcage. Even if her hands hadn't held him firmly in place, her hard blue gaze said it all: don't move. In another fluid movement, one that involved bringing her hips down and forward and then back and up, she caught the head of his cock between her lower lips and pressed downward so that his head just barely began to penetrate her. Slowly, very slowly, the mink lowered herself onto him, her abdomen visibly fluttering as the tight muscles of her entrance passed over each little nub that ringed his shaft. Occasionally she had to reverse or shift slightly as she found a spot where his skin caught against hers, but finally her hips pressed firmly into his, her length entirely seated in her.

The purpose of the mat became clear, then, as the elevation of his body meant that the muscular thickness of her thighs and legs wouldn't limit the depth that she could kneel down into him. She ground her pelvis against his, pushing the head of his cock into her anterior fornix and grinding her clit against his fur. The movement was small, but accompanied by a very deliberate and very forceful flexing of her pelvic floor. Razel was certainly a mink who did her kegels! She continued in this way, sliding her hips back and forth but never really upward, all the while displaying an impressive amount of strength and coordination of her inner muscles. Of course, each ripple of her walls seemed a bit less impressive, as her "relaxed" state grew tighter with each stroke that pressed his tip pleasurably against her fornix while stimulating her nub with his pelvis. Against his thighs her tail patted and lashed, telegraphing her enjoyment if her dilated pupils and rapid breathing hadn't already.

As she moved against him Razel removed her hand from Odate's stomach, reaching instead back and behind to caress his balls and massage his perineum. Compared to her other feats it was no great show of flexibility, but it did push her chest forward and make her back arch enticingly. Better, it meant that Odate could sit up and lavish more attention on those generous breasts, and if he chose to Razel certainly wasn't going to stop him. Only if his hips tried to rise to fuck her more vigorously would she impose any restriction, using her own body's weight and the other hand that still pressed on his hips to keep him pinned to the mat. He would come on her schedule, and not a moment sooner. To that end, she paid close attention to the feel of his balls, ceasing her movements when she felt them begin to tighten in the way she knew signaled closeness. Razel continued in that way for some time, fucking him with slow, controlled movements and pausing when he seemed near to orgasm.

 

[Deante]

Needy? Definitely. He was starting to worry though that this would end with him spraying across her thigh and that was that. Then she led him literally by the cock, earning a surprised little chuckle out of him. The fussing with the mat got a tilt of his head, not quite clear why she wasn't opening it, but in truth, not really caring. Then he found himself herded onto his back, and he didn't object. No, object was the wrong word. The bite on his neck caught him off guard---not that it wouldn't come from a woman like this, but that he enjoyed it so thoroughly. Odate's back arched and he let out a bit of a huff, shuddering underneath her.

Though he enjoyed the teeth claiming his throat, the woman was maddening. The constant grind, the impression that he was about to slide inside only to have her move away. He wanted in. When she rose, when she rose up, and with it his delight--only to find that every single step of the process was slow, teasing, constant. The push of him into her, once she was seated, her movements. The pressure was certainly elating. Something about a body pressing down on his pelvic bone, at the right angle, was a good kind of uncomfortable, like it should set his teeth to hurting.For Razel, those curious little ridges and nubs certainly caressed her interior in such lovely ways, those around his tip fluttering over her formix, while with her grinding about his base, the ones there brushed her labia easily. At the right angle, one along the base might even nudge her clit.

The finesse and control of her musculature was impressive, the way she squeezed and pushed him wasn't anything he'd experienced, and Kanjalli's rapids she was gorgeous, breasts rising, hair spilling like a waterfall. Yet still maddening. The ocelot wanted to move. Wanted action. This was no wild chase, this was no thrashing passion. Was it to express control over him? To show who was stronger? He squirmed beneath her, clearly agitated, but not wanting to stop either, because stopping and not finishing would be worse than the inching. Yet she wasn't letting him cum, either. "Abomdi modo olante." Despite her confused expression, it took him a moment or two to realize that whatever magic had allowed them to talk was gone. The next thing he said needed no translation, an irritated curse.

The best he could do, though, was appease her. The cat palnted a palm on her lower stomach and swiveled his thumb down, taping her clit. With the mink moving so slowly, Odate could use a claw to delicately, delicately trace the nub. Just a little brush here and there before he went back to using his thumb, applying pressure, the slow waves of her loins doing more of the work.

 

[lasciel]

Had the little fox's spell worn off already? The thought concerned Razel not because she felt a dire need to communicate with Odate, but because it warned her that time was getting away from her. She doubted Siona was in any danger, but if the biologist had concluded her business and the party was left waiting on her, well... there would be a thorough tongue-lashing from Tasa for that, and one not at all resembling the one she'd just received! But, ah, those were issues she could deal with later; there was a very distracting matter at-hand and one she would soon need to conclude, it seemed.

She increased not the speed of her strokes, but the force of them, driving his cock so firmly into her that it made her gasp. Oh, yes, those nubs were quite the treat, especially as the ones towards the base slid in and out of her as she moved. Razel would've reached down to touch herself, but Odate had already gotten the right idea, so she adjusted her angle slightly to give him better access. Still, she craved more contact, and moved the hand that had been on his hips to grab him by the collarbone and roughly drag him into a seated position. The mink paused her fucking briefly to adjust her position, removing her hand from his shoulder only to loop it around her waist, crushing his muzzle into her generous breasts. This, of course, left his hand trapped between them, but Razel seemed to care little.

When she resumed, it was with both powerful and fast strokes, fucking down onto him with enough force to bruise him. The arm circling his waist crushed him against her tightly, though at a low enough pivot point that he could still maneuver thanks to that flexible feline spine of his. She rode him then in earnest, huffing at the bottom of each stroke as their hips met with a muffled, wet sound. Her other hand she brought around to plant on the back of his head, forcing his mouth to her left nipple. She bent her neck then and clamped her teeth down around the left side of his neck, hard enough to leave a mark though well short of breaking the skin. Her tongue worked against his fur and he could feel, rather than hear, a low growl coming from her.

She increased the length of her strokes, going so far that Odate's head nearly popped out of her at the top. There was an aspect of danger, of course; if he became unseated before the down-stroke she'd likely break his poor pecker in half! But the cat had indicated, in not-so-many words, that he wanted movement, and Razel was determined to give it to him. Her own peak was close besides, he could feel it in the way her muscles clamped down powerfully and consistently on him. Her breath came in short pants now, hot and moist against his neck, and he could feel her thighs beginning to tremble as they had when he'd gotten her off with his tongue and fingers. The hand on his waist had moved down to grab his ass, pressing him up into her as she thrust down onto him, her blunt claws leaving little divots as Razel became too distracted to moderate her strength.