elderferal:

It’s a relief to see some of the animals going back. The smaller are playing with the squeakbeasts for a while though, and the wingbeasts flying make a beautiful thing to stare at. Some go back to the caves with their loved ones, some take the chance to use the rain for cleaning themselves, but until they fly away it’s difficult not to pay attention to the spectacle.

Difficult for anyone with a whole spine you mean.

The people helping you stand up carry you to your place, worried because you’ve barely noticed you can’t move your legs; only to be halted by the Shaman who gives instructions to your doctors to bring that oil.

He’s still a highblood, you guess.

It takes a while to work, and the pain remains but at least the bruises and the fractures in your bones have disappeared.

You tell everyone helping you to leave as you walk back to your place as if nothing happened there.

“Thanks…”

“Could you follow me Shaman, I need you to explain me.”

When you arrive you shoo all the couples off your room, taking all of the dyed skins on the floor out to get cleaned and putting some clean wools on a rock to rest. You light a fire and burn some aromatic plants too, to take off the smell of sex that floods every square inch of the palace.

It’s not like they can do much, they only merge their smell with the room’s.

Doing all this assures you’re in good health, but after the stampede and the rituals you’re really tired…

“Shaman, what did this all mean?”

You help your host to get to his room, too, after the doctors had follow your instrutions and massaged the oil on his back. You make him lay and you take care of the aromatic plants burning, to keep them relasing their aroma. You end up by following him, carrying the oil back with you.

“do YOU NEED more?” you mutter, pointing to the leather flask containig it. Yes, its smell it’s not very pleasing, but it works.

You’re starting to feel tired. The ritual, the dance, and then the animals, the rain.. Your hair is very wet and it hasn’t a very good smell, either.  Back in your place, you’d have oils to clean your hair, but not here.  You sit near Darkleer.

He demands an explanation. You seem meditating for some minutes.

“I.. think, the GODS gave YOU and YOUR PEOPLE a sign, THAT YOU are PROTECTED.  they AREN’T cruel GODS, and they LIKE the OFFERS you always BRING TO THEM. they WANTED to show YOUR PEOPLE something..SPECIAL.”

You look nervous about his safety, anyhow.

elderferal:

It’s a relief to see some of the animals going back. The smaller are playing with the squeakbeasts for a while though, and the wingbeasts flying make a beautiful thing to stare at. Some go back to the caves with their loved ones, some take the chance to use the rain for cleaning themselves, but until they fly away it’s difficult not to pay attention to the spectacle.

Difficult for anyone with a whole spine you mean.

The people helping you stand up carry you to your place, worried because you’ve barely noticed you can’t move your legs; only to be halted by the Shaman who gives instructions to your doctors to bring that oil.

He’s still a highblood, you guess.

It takes a while to work, and the pain remains but at least the bruises and the fractures in your bones have disappeared.

You tell everyone helping you to leave as you walk back to your place as if nothing happened there.

“Thanks…”

“Could you follow me Shaman, I need you to explain me.”

When you arrive you shoo all the couples off your room, taking all of the dyed skins on the floor out to get cleaned and putting some clean wools on a rock to rest. You light a fire and burn some aromatic plants too, to take off the smell of sex that floods every square inch of the palace.

It’s not like they can do much, they only merge their smell with the room’s.

Doing all this assures you’re in good health, but after the stampede and the rituals you’re really tired…

“Shaman, what did this all mean?”

You help your host to get to his room, too, after the doctors had follow your instrutions and massaged the oil on his back. You make him lay and you take care of the aromatic plants burning, to keep them relasing their aroma. You end up by following him, carrying the oil back with you.

“do YOU NEED more?” you mutter, pointing to the leather flask containig it. Yes, its smell it’s not very pleasing, but it works.

You’re starting to feel tired. The ritual, the dance, and then the animals, the rain.. Your hair is very wet and it hasn’t a very good smell, either.  Back in your place, you’d have oils to clean your hair, but not here.  You sit near Darkleer.

He demands an explanation. You seem meditating for some minutes.

“I.. think, the GODS gave YOU and YOUR PEOPLE a sign, THAT YOU are PROTECTED.  they AREN’T cruel GODS, and they LIKE the OFFERS you always BRING TO THEM. they WANTED to show YOUR PEOPLE something..SPECIAL.”

You look nervous about his safety, anyhow.

elderferal:

((i don’t feel good at all, sorry))

it must be the change of the season. I just woke up from hours of nap and i’m so tired. I’ll go sleep again because i had to crawl to my computer. please feel better soon. have  a proper alimentation for your illness.]]

elderferal:

((will be out for a good while: exams))

((good while = 2 hours))

[[I’ve been searching, is “break a leg” a way to wish good luck for  exams?]]

elderferal:

One can count around twenty different bruises on the beast’s head now, you couldn’t help yourself as the animals ran past the hunters and were arriving to the heart of the territory, trying to stop them, shouting to warn everyone and get them aside before it was too late.

And suddenly everything stops.

You growl on the ground in pain, having fallen on a rock. Got your payback for having kicked the guts of your mount for some good ten minutes, you guess; but you give thanks for it having stopped. This is too close to the mountains.

People start to peek out of the caves, many painted in blue from the mating; some get out in your aid and the hunters’ doctor goes to check the state of your back -nobody lifts their eyes off the beasts.

You can breathe the tension.

Tall hoofbeasts of all kinds and colors staring at the pack, breathing heavily from the run.

Wingbeasts landing on the trees and rocks surrounding the caves.

Sharp teeth and claws in every direction.

There is no time for the hunters to come and help. Nobody can move to get their own arrows and knives. The whole pack is holding their breath, stays still, keeps silence.

A drizzle starts, a soft spring rain, with the sun still in the sky, between the clouds.

It is now when the Shaman shows up from the mass of animals.

You manage to leave the pack. You used to be more flexible when you were younger, and you just end up by rolling on the ground. You stand up, with extreme dignity, and then manage to make yourself a way between all those animals.

“PLEASE excuse this INTERRUPTION. I KNOW it’s MATING season, AND I DON’T EVEN belong to YOUR KIND..I’ve BEEN HERE just for SOME TIME, but BARELY met SOMEONE. IT’S SAD to see A WHOLE VILLAGE so empty. It’s  A BEAUTIFUL DAY today.  You ALL should REST at LEAST for one day?”

You find your words kinda awkward. After lots of sweeps as an heremit, it’s hard to sound convincing to a whole different population..  Luckily, a very loud whirr makes everyone’s attention fall on the sky and the beautiful parade of birds flying and following each other in a rainbow formation. You honestly never saw such a marvelous event. With the rain, then, is even more.. mystical? Is such a weird combination of things..

You make your way to the hunter’s doctors, asking them for the oil you presented to Darkleer the first day of your visit. The animals seems to have lost interest in the village and some of them start dispelling. You don’t notice it once again, but there are lots of little glowing bugs in the area.

As soon as one of the doctor brings you the oil, you thank him, and get near the blueblood’s leader.

“I’M SORRY for your WOULDS, my friend. I COULDN’T HAVE imaginated THIS kind OF..SHOW. MAY I HELP you-? THIS works very GOOD..”

elderferal:

From looking entertained at the Shaman you open your eyes as plates as all of the forest runs towards the pass in the mountains.

Stampede.

Standing up as quickly as your tiredness allows to you get closer to the Shaman frowning, speaking louder than the hooves and wings of the animals sprinting to your pack.

“Shaman, you’ll get everyone killed with this! What the fuck did you do!”

You don’t hide your anger with the thoughts of defenseless children and couples attacked by wild beasts flooding your mind. All massacred.

Before you can do anything else to him, many of the beasts have climbed the hill and run to your place threateningly. A large moobeast lowers its head before knocking you to the air and making you land on its back; and you cling to it, trying to spot the Shaman in the middle of the stampede while keeping yourself close to its body -the speed this is going at is insane and falling to the ground now would mean death.

At least you’ll get to see if your pack is safe first.

“I KNEW I SHOULD HAVE NOT!” you yell, almost rageful. It’s hard to keep faith in moments like this. But, as you’ve always said, “unfaithful are lost”. You try to think for something but there’s not time. There’s not time for anything. The animals are already got into the hill and in a blink of an eye the feral blueblood is carried away. You’d like to tell him that he will be safe, that the Gods have a good eye on him and his tribe, because all of the offerings he made to them, but you have no time. And those beasts keep on flowing like a flooding river. It takes, then, some tries, to grab one of them and mount it. To be honest, you’re not used to mounting any kind of animal, and you’re barely holding yourself. Not having a a support under your feets makes you feel sick in a short time.

You try to look over the stampede’s head to notice your host, but you can’t really see him. You mutter some insults to yourself.

It seems like a portion of this pack is leading to the river. You cannot guess it, but you realized some animals are more calmer than the leaders.

Something catches your attention for a second. Just a second, because you’re already ahead in this frenzied run.. but it was something glowly? You’re not sure you saw it. Maybe your thinkpan is trickying you. You’re starting to feel very vexed and very guilty, too.

You seem almost pleased by the blood circle you painted on the field. As stated before, the pure cup of water is kept clean and without a single drop of blood in it. You deposit your leather bag some feet away from the circle, after taking a kris, with a finely decored blade.  After coming back near the circle- but still not entering it, you drop the beast on the opposite side of the cup of water. You use its blood to draw a line on your right hand,  and another one just on the right of the sternum.
As you make a step in the circle, the air becomes more cold.
You breath deeply the new fresh air in the hill. It brings the scent of a far place. Probably pine or moss. There’s not much wind, just a breeze. You bring the blade to your left hand, cutting your skin-not too deeply. Just to make it bleed of indigo. It’s a simmetric wound to the draw in your right hand. With your own blood you make another line on the left side of your chest.

>Darkleer should keep distance. The shaman starts his ritual. He starts with a low muttered pray, in an unknow language.  His words resemble a chant, with different tones and different speed. His movements follow the sound of his voice, while the wind flows with him. In a short time his dance becomes almost frenetic, without leaving the circle for even a second. The water in the cup treambles at every step, but not a single drop is spread. He still has the knife in his hands, but it never goes on contact with his skin anymore. It almost looks as an extention of his arm:  it dances with him. He’s not the Shaman anymore. The Gods are in his body, moving it as their needs.
He keeps yelling and shouting, but, anyhow, the ritual doesn’t goes on for more than four or five minutes.  At one point, he looks almost breathless, as he fold his hands near his face, the knife hold between them and stop with a final invocation. He deposits the blade on the animal, and then takes the cup of clear water, and takes just one sip.

You find yourself still short of breath while you drink. It seems that you’re back in your body.  You can now leave the circle.
You are really confused by the whole thing. The Gods never have been so joyful. You though they would be angry to you, due your obstinate will to interfer with this universe. But they are, in fact, very pleased. But it doesn’t look like this at all! You look at your host, withouth knowing what to say. The chill air confuses you and you start to hear a noise, a very far one. You move your eyes to the sky as you hear a whistle. First one, then a couple, and then a storm of feathered beast like the offered one, cross the sky. You are not native of those lands, but you have explored them: you don’t think you saw enought nests for all those flying beasts. And then the earth almost shakes. You two are on the hill, so you have the beneficts of an upper position. Lots of animals comes, directed to East. Some of them are calmer, and some seems moved by a burning passion.Surely it’s an unusual view.

“i.. WHAT.”

You look at the sky, confused. The Gods are really joyful today.