Hunter Or Huntress

Saph had to admit this was the least prepared she had ever been for a final hunt. Normally she would have scouted out herds, deer paths, or colonies well in advance, had a plan worked out of what to try for, ranked them all by order of likeliness, and overlapped search areas. But today, all she had was the fact that no one had a chance to recon since Galaxer arrived. And he was already gone again. At least they had gotten some work out of him first.

The dragons had left first thing in the morning to make the small town of Ylditz while the huntresses had all gotten ready. The coldest bit of morning had been allowed to pass just so they wouldn’t freeze to death just trying to make it to the forest. But a big part of the challenge today would definitely be fighting the cold. One had to keep going as much as possible. As Saph glanced about at the others she tried to guess what they might go for today.

Jacky would go for something so big she was the only one here who could haul it home by herself. She always did. Dakota would probably take a nice plump goose or a few ducks, Essy was gonna go foraging like always, and Fengi was a wild card.

Last year she hadn’t managed to get anything at all. But two years ago she had scored an odahir, or at least the head of one to bring home. It wasn’t that they were very hard to find, or kill, but it was one hell of a flight to the mountains and back in just one day.

Saph herself tended to go for something very hard to catch. Last year she had wanted a collection of tits and finches, but had only managed the one. This year though she had a new idea. She was bringing her nice new bow, and the arrows flew so much faster, especially with the lightwood shafts normally used for little critters. She was going trophy hunting. There weren’t any dragons to be slain in the forest, but if she could get a joke in at the same time as she got Maiko something interesting it would have been a good day.

So she was gonna be looking for jackalopes.

She snapped back to reality as Nunuk started reciting a prayer to Naulk, the huntresses coming to attention. They were all standing in line arrayed by rank and ready to take off. It all looked very normal, save for the human who was standing to Fengi’s left, making him the lowest ranked ‘huntress’ present.

Saph did look down the line briefly and chuckle to herself. It would be quite hard to explain this to someone just passing by, she thought. She did wonder what the human was planning. Jacky had only told him this morning, which was rather cruel, so he hadn’t had much time to plan out what to do. But she did know he had prepared the quad bike, without trailer, so he likely wasn’t going hunting for Tirox.

“-and grant our huntresses a safe, fruitful hunt, in your name. Through their bounty do we grace this land…” Nunuk finished, looking to Dakota. “And from our home we gift the fruits of our fields, may you see them given to the spirit of the land.” Nunuk held out the small cloth sack, which Dakota took and held at her side. “May Lotek see you safely return with Naulk’s bounty.”

As one the dragonettes turned to face the edge of the horizon, in line behind Dakota. Tom took a moment to get the memo, turning as well.

“I want to see you all back here before sundown,” Dakota called out. “No heroics, you are all needed… and cheaters never prosper.”

With that she set off running over the platform, followed by Essy, then Sapphire, Jacky, and Fengi, leaving a slightly confused Tom standing behind scratching the back of his neck.

Saph just snickered to herself as she let a slight dive bring her up to speed. ‘Poor guy, probably should have explained all this first, hehehe,’ then she spied Fengi diving for one of the sheds down below.

‘Where is she going? Did she forget something?’

_________________________________________________________________________________

Tom stood there watching the huntresses speed towards the horizon rather awkwardly before turning to look at Nunuk.

“Right so. One question.”

“Yes Tom, what is it?” the Lady replied, not unkindly. He figured she probably took pity on him right now. He intended to make sure that pity was misplaced.

“That whole, back before nightfall thing… could we scrap that for me?”

Nunuk tilted her head slightly, looking at him. “It would be rather hard for Jarix to assist you once darkness falls.”

“Yeah I know, but… I’m on the ground, it might take a while. Not like I can scout from down there.”

Nunuk turned to look at the blue dragon, who was sitting ready up against the wall of the greeting hall to give them all space to have the little setting off ceremony.

“I can fly at night just fine… do you have a lantern or something, Tom? A light I can follow?”

“There are lights on the quad, yeah. I have a flashlight too,” Tom confirmed. He didn't need to mention that he likely wouldn’t be using said light once the hunting actually started.

“I see… Very well, Jarix, can your crew stand the cold?”

“We have winter gear, Lady Bizmati,” Zarko answered for the dragon. She and Radexi were indeed done up in rather stout looking fur lined clothes. It should be no concern.

“Very well, in that case. Apuma, please bring me the box.” Tom and Zarko looked to the elderly gentleman, who stepped forward with a pretty looking box that Tom swore he had seen before.

“A set of what?” Tom questioned as Apuma opened the box to reveal a pair of familiar earrings.

“You may borrow them for the day. Seeing as the huntresses have sought to place you at a disadvantage this day,” Nunuk said with an assuring nod.

“Ooohhh, right, cause no one down below anymore.”

“Indeed Tom. See that you return them, that goes for you as well Zarko. This way you may stay in touch, without interfering.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Zarko said, stepping forwards and bowing slightly as she took one of the earrings, Tom doing likewise.

“Their draw should be greatly lessened by the short distance between you, but I would still advise against idle chit chat.”

“No worries there, radio silence for me unless it’s proper bad.”

“If I cannot see you from above I shall ask for periodic updates,” Zarko interjected, rather dashing his dreams of not actually having to use the things. It was quite an unpleasant experience… Or perhaps he had just been trained to think that because of what normally happened afterward.

“Riiight, great… anywho, snap and break as they say back home.”

“Come again?” Nunuk questioned, brow furrowing.

“Oh uhm it’s a fishing expression, something something, catch a fish so big, your rod snaps and your line breaks… we use it for hunting too now.”

“I would rather you didn’t… when things snap on a hunt it is rarely good.”

“Yeaaaah bows… wings… I can see that. I’m gonna go do a hunt. See ya,” Tom said, marching off to get out of the rather awkward situation, all the arrayed keep-dwellers watching him head for the stairs. ‘Such a stupid expression anyway.’

It was quite a long way down the stairs, and it sounded like he couldn’t ask for help from anyone. The more he thought about that the less that started to seem like a bad thing though. This was clearly a test of one’s skills, endurance, and maybe a bit of luck. He had been hunting before he’d been doing loads of things around the keep. But he was always getting carried to and fro, getting helped.

There wasn’t anything wrong with that, but it would be kinda nice to prove he was quite capable of handling himself, even as a hunter. Or huntress as they kept reminding him. He’d been hunting loads before, yet here he was treated like a total newb most of the time, who just so happened to own the only good rifle around.

He would show them he was a darn bit more than that. He knew full well the huntresses couldn’t carry home a red deer. They couldn’t even get someone like him into the sky without help or maybe a ledge or something. So that was his plan. One with a nice trophy on it too if he could manage it.

‘But then it’s just the quad helping me instead?’ he questioned to himself as the stairs just carried on. ‘No, cause then the rifle and their bows are cheating too… and I’m not walking, so it’s not cheating,’ he finally decided as he started pondering if he should hitch up the trailer anyway. ‘Might try for more than one after all… yeaaah let’s bring the trailer anyway.’

_________________________________________________________________________________

Saph had looked over her shoulder towards the keep to see if she could spy Tom setting off, alas all she managed to gleam was Jarix taking flight sometime after them, going to lazily circle the keep a few times before setting course for the forest.

The five huntresses were all heading straight for the nearest treeline, so it would seem no one was going to attempt to hunt the open plains. Saph didn’t blame them, not much save deer to be found there big and small. Coming home with a single dotted buck, while a decently easy solution to the day's challenge, didn’t show much skill aside from being able to hit a deer from the air as they fled.

That was a basic skill for any huntress. She was pretty sure Fengi had done that for her first outing actually. Perhaps fitting for Bo and Pho’s first times as well, whenever that might come. Saph thought Bo was in with a decent chance of being allowed next year, but Pho had a while to go yet. It was as much a matter of if one could be trusted to make it back in one piece as it was if one was good at hunting. They hunted in groups normally for a reason, since there was most definitely risk involved.

But one needed to take some pride in their profession, to prove oneself every once in a while. And who didn’t like a little friendly competition. She was just glad Kulinger wasn’t a huntress or the number of rituals today would have skyrocketed. It might just be her, but bathing in deer’s blood while chanting around a fire didn’t really suit her sensibilities all that much.

For her first time Saph had dug up some medicinal roots Apuma had been going on about for months. She had actually stumbled on them a few weeks beforehand and marked the spot. Jacky had been so confused by that one. But the joke was on Jacky cause it had earned her copper. It was probably because foraging was one of the last things Saph had mastered, and she still wasn't that brilliant at it.

‘Maybe Tom will bring back a whole tree instead, that would be quite funny.’ Have Kulinger do some ritual burning of sap or something. Saph didn’t actually know much about what Kulinger did in his spare time, only that he tended to burn things every now and again. Particularly old bows; she’d rather wanted to keep the one she broke years back, but alas, the pyre it was.

‘Gonna be funny when he tries to burn one of the new ones and there is a pair of metal bow limbs leftover afterwards.’ She chuckled a bit to herself as she flew along, thinking back to when she had been looking for a keep to fly for. There had been some weird ones looking for recruits. Luckily for most of those, when they figured out that she wasn’t a lunatic they had moved on.

‘At least I didn’t go for the church… I would have been a terrible priest hah. I hereby pardon you from your sin of farting at the dinner table… you may lick the figurine of forgiveness. Maiko could do with a bit of that, the sly bugger,’ she snickered. He had been waiting for her last night after they put Ray to sleep. Complete with flowers, and little else. On her bed no less.

‘Five silver says he’s had to atone a few times over the years. He would just put that honey he bought on the figurine first then weird out the preacher hehe… Wait, was that why he had bought that? So she would… Oh the dirty bastard!’

_________________________________________________________________________________

As Tom trundled along with the quad looking for high ground, he certainly had plenty of time to ponder what to do with this day. Up above Jarix was following lazily, but at least he had been convinced to climb up to what Tom had called “High as fuck up. Also tell him he’s lazy” when giving Zarko a ring… ‘Hehe ring ring, who is it? It’s earring…’ Anywho hopefully he wouldn’t scare the prey before the quad did. Which in and of itself might prove a rather big problem, Tom thought.

He was kinda hoping to crest a ridge and just be presented with a large herd in the distance. Then he would walk up on foot, get what he could, and go back for the quad to haul them to the keep. If he got lucky he might be the first one done today actually. He probably wouldn’t though. There was every chance he would see jack and shit all day.

Or perhaps Jacky and Shitfire. If he ever called Saph that he was quite confident he would need to go hide behind Shiva or something if he wanted to live.

‘Hmmm… probably safer to just beat her. Who knows, maybe Nunuk will make me a silver? No, actually, that wouldn’t be fair on Fengi…’ He wondered what she might be up to, actually. She had still been rummaging around one of the smaller outbuildings when Tom left, meaning if this was a race, technically he wasn’t in last place, which was unusual. Just as he was happily pondering away he was oh-so rudely interrupted by Zarko once more.

“Hey soldier… might want to look behind you.”

Tom sighed then damn near fell off as he tried to respond, the world growing faint before snapping back as he cut off the magic to the earring. ‘Goddamn stop first then reply… or just don’t,’ he grumbled to himself as he brought the quad to a stop. Turning around to look behind him he saw a large black dragon beating steadily along, not quite towards him but certainly in the same general direction.

He stared for a moment as his brain computed just what the fuck, then he started cussing to himself before closing his eyes and trying to focus on the stupid earring.

“Hey yeah. Is that allowed?”

“I do believe so, yes, seeing as she is now little more than a tool for Fengi to use. Yldril even agreed with the statement earlier this morning. I believe it may have been Maiko’s idea.”

“That little… right. That’s just cheating.”

“Says the alien with all his boons and gifts. Shall we take away your weapons and give you a bow as well?” she replied in her signature dry humor. Tom wasn’t actually quite sure if she did find it funny or not, but he assumed.

“What’s next, tooth and claw? I’m handicapped enough as is.”

“Yes, you are rather less frightening when it is just yourself aren’t you?”

Oh she was definitely taking the piss. “Tell me that down here or in the sparring ring. I’ll mess you up… eventually,” Tom grumbled in reply, thinking back to how he had managed to beat Rachuck way back when.

“I do not intend on letting you lose until I get tired, you know,” Zarko replied, evidently having heard the story at some point.

“Well the least you three could do is give me some eyes in the sky, everyone else has them.”

“Hmmm… I will let you know if we spot something dangerous.”

“Oh come on woman, gonna be out here all day otherwise. Fuel is expensive don’t you know.”

“You are free to walk, or object to going. I do not believe you are being forced, are you?”

“It didn’t sound to me like much of a choice.”

“Well I shall give it to you then. Do you wish to return?”

Tom grumbled a bit more, feeling slightly called on his bluff. “... No.”

“The shut up and soldier, soldier.”

“Not a soldier either anymore, I would have you know.”

“Once a soldier, always a soldier. Now I would advise you get moving. Two fifths right seems like a good idea.”

Tom honestly did not know if following her advice would be helpful or counterproductive right about now, but if he did then hopefully she would take pity once she had her fun.

He cut the flow, the world returning once more as he opened his eyes to see Yldril beating past on the horizon heading for who knows where. ‘Well if she can see whatever it is she’s not going for it… right then.” Tom scanned the horizon, once more finding nothing, before setting off once more, feeling a little less confident in getting the heavy haul of the day.

__________________________________________________________________________________

“Come on another one, where are you all? Shouldn’t you be out getting fat for winter?” Saph mumbled to herself as she glided along between the tall heaven oak, trunk after trunk whizzing past, right left right left. One needed to have fun on the job as well of course. She already had the first two Jackalopes hanging from her belt, so at this rate she would have quite the trophy set by the end of it. Perhaps she could turn them into little figurines during winter. If they even had the time for things like that.

‘But do I even wanna get him something like that? Especially if he wants me to- shit tree!’ A quick dart left and the offending trunk came hurtling past, sending Sapphire’s pulse rocketing.

‘Well that was stupid, might be going slow, but still no time for daydreaming…’ Sapphire scolded herself as she settled back into the gentle weave. Flying between the trees was one thing she had never struggled with; racers rarely did. Bo and Pho certainly found it perfectly natural too, so they only needed to work a little on not crashing despite having one’s eyes on the ground.

Saph though had been doing this for over a decade and a half by now. The trick wasn’t speed like in a race though, it was silence. A single beat or two, then glide along silent as a dawn falcon looking for any mice or hedgehogs who hadn’t found a place to hide yet.

Jackalopes were no different. They did come out during the day though, even if they rarely strayed far from the warrens. That was why one needed to be quiet. Even flying up under the canopy they could hear you before they saw you if you let held your wings too lose and the membrane started to flap around, or if you beat them at all.

They might still see you of course if they happened to be looking the right way, but once you made it over top of them you were safe. Then one would simply need to roll into a dive, as silently as possible, and get into firring range.

Do it right and you might even get to take one with a knife or talons, though Saph did prefer to just stick an arrow in them. There were few things more embarrassing than plunging your talons into nothing but dirt as the little critter ran off ducking and diving through the forest floor and then with a spray of dirt they would be gone.

She had heard of people who took the time to flush them from the warrens and then tried to catch them at the entrances. They had tried a few times in the past but without much success, so an old fashioned diving hunt was still their preferred method.

As she glided along she saw quite the variety of critters down below, and there were even some birds flying around up in the canopy with her. Though they were soon scared off as the far larger white dragonette glided through their airspace. Their shrieks and calls were a constant annoyance as they alerted the actual targets down on the ground.

It did sound beautiful though, and while most days she would be cursing the birds for making her job so much harder as a flock of spotted deer took flight, today she just changed course to follow them for a bit, watching them jump and bound through the forest. It was an idyllic sight, the small breeds of deer were always nimble on their feet, and they could jump and leap far better than even Sapphire had any hope of doing if she didn’t cheat and use her wings. And those skinny little legs, Saph almost expected to see them snap under the strain, but they never did. The deer just went sailing through the air without a care in the world.

Well, save for whatever it might be it was running from.

‘It really is quite remarkable how fast they are… look at them go… Tom can’t do that. Neither can we… I wonder how Tom’s people used to hunt back before all their fancy things… bow and arrow perhaps? Just hide and maybe herd the prey towards them? Sounds tedious and slow… and what if you don’t have a bow? Gonna throw rocks?” she chuckled to herself, trying to picture Tom attempting to kill a jackalope with a rock from a distance. ‘I don’t fancy their chances… Then again he’s not much for quitting, maybe he just gets lucky after enough tries. Probably praying he won’t starve to death all the while.’

‘Oh wait what have we here? What is it Tom says, ‘speak of the devil?’ Flat fuck rock, been a while,’ she chuckled to herself as she recognized the terrain arround her, spying the tall rocky monolith peeking through trunks of the heaven oak. Dakota and Essy both insisted it was ‘Flat Top Rock’ but Jacky and Saph knew better, with Bo and Pho joining she even felt like they might earn a majority on deciding what the rock was actually called.

When the Sun had some power they often used the rock to take a break and warm up, and perhaps have a snack and a drink. She did have a bit of sausage she had bought in case she got the munchies. She watched the stone monolith glide past to her right through the trees pondering what to do. She didn’t really need a break, but at the same time, it did feel right to go have a look.

‘Who knows, maybe we forgot something last time,’ she chuckled to herself, banking in towards it.

It had been nearly a whole year since they found Tom here, so they had been past at least a few times since, so it wouldn’t be any of Tom’s things. Perhaps this was where Pho’s little improvised tailbag had ended up. It had been months, but there was still no sign of it. Saph was convinced that either the young greenhorn had taken it off at a rest stop because it was uncomfortable and forgotten it, or it had fallen off during some hard maneuvering and Pho hadn’t actually noticed it was gone.

Either way, missing it certainly was.

Saph started with a quick sweep of the ground around the stone pillar. With the falling leaves and bare trees it was hard to recognize the place, and anything down there they wouldn’t find till spring, if ever. She tried to remember where it was the quad had been parked back then. Back before they knew anything about what it was they had stumbled on. Or perhaps Tom had stumbled on them, there was a bit of confusion as to that. The whole year had gone by, spring, summer and now autumn. Soon winter would be upon them.

It was incredible to think about how much had happened in those three seasons. Certainly more than Sapphire ever remembered. They have been more busy than ever before, despite hunting less than they ever had. Come to think of it, the only supplies they had ended up selling off was that tiny bit back when Archeon first came. The rest they had kept for themselves and all their new guests.

And it wasn’t just Tom’s fault either. The darklings attacking definitely didn’t have anything to do with him, but Saph couldn’t help but feel like those early two battles could have ended quite differently if Tom hadn’t been around with his magic fire stick as they called it back then. She had a bit of a chuckle at that. Mighty Tomas Hansen, the fire mage in service to Lord Joakim. By the gods that had been a terrible cover story, but in the end it had sorta worked.

As she circled up the rock looking for any remnants of his climbing equipment, she was sadly disappointed. Even those funny metal anchor things he had used were gone. She couldn’t even remember if it had all been taken down that first day or if they had waited till a later hunt.

As she crested the top, coming to a stop with a mild jog, wings folding, she had a look around. Up here everything looked like it always had. Barren, plain, sandy brown… It was cold too. The cold stone sent shivers up her legs and spine as she walked on it, quite an unpleasant feeling after being in the air for hours. She got out the bit of sausage to nibble on, looking out over the horizon. The sun was still high, but even the heaven oak were losing their leaves now. They were always the last to go, but soon the forest would be nothing but barren wood and yellow. Perhaps they would even get a decent amount of snow this year.

‘As long as Tom doesn’t bring it inside,’ she chuckled to herself as she had another bite of sausage. ‘Oh who am I kidding, of course he will.’

She remembered him talking about some sort of winter celebration, well Maiko had told her about it. Apparently they had to exchange gifts. Normally they did that when spring arrived or when a trader brought the thing they had bought. Saph guessed the humans were quite capable of going shopping even during winter. It made sense, Tom didn’t struggle with cold at all. There probably were limits, but if a stag could bound through the snow like a light footed dancer, she saw no reason Tom couldn’t slog through it like a determined hedgehog.

Going to the edge of the rock, she sat down, legs dangling over the edge, watching the forest contently. “All in all… I think it’s been a good year, minus poor Anastasi…” She got out her knife and cut an end off the sausage. “For you, old sport. Best bounty you ever gave.”

__________________________________________________________________________________

“Jammen for fanden da! Forpulede lort!” Tom cursed the quad spat up rooster tails of brown water and mud. He hadn’t been paying much attention to where he was driving, instead looking up at Jarix to see if he could work out where the dragon was looking. He was betting that if there was something to hunt about, the dragon would be staring right at it.

What he had missed in his high sighted idea was the boggy mess he had then hit at close to 50 kph.

The quad had bogged down as the ground gave way, the tracks behind him filling with murky water, and now he was stuck. He had of course tried to drive out, dropping down to 4 wheel drive, but he was truly stuck. And now all of him was wet, which was great.

It definitely wasn’t 10 degrees outside and with the biting wind this was going to suck quite a lot. He hadn’t actually bothered bringing spare clothes, but at least the boots had kept his socks mostly dry.

Now he needed to work out a way to get back out of this mess. The trailer certainly didn’t help matters, and there weren't exactly any trees about for him to winch to either.

“Fucking lorte ide,” he carried on cursing to himself as he got off. He had at least brought a shovel, so he could dig a slit and use the shovel itself as an anchor to winch himself out. Predictably enough, as soon as he got off the bike he lost the luxury of dry socks.

“Fucking dammit… I really did pull a Sapphire here didn’t I?” he sighed, thinking back to the huntress’s first time driving. He had thought she would be better at avoiding water than turned out to be the case, but he could hardly judge right now. Looking around it was blindingly fucking obivous that he shouldn’t have come here. Rookie error at best.

The second quite predictable thing to happen occurred just as he was getting started on digging his anchor slit. Zarko decided it was time for checking in.

“Why did you stop and get off? Weren’t you hunting deer?”

Tom just sighed, rather not wanting to answer, but as he had well learned by now, not answering her just meant she would keep pestering him in a sterner and sterner tone. So he closed his eyes leaning on the shovel like a proper roadworker to get it over with.

“I’m stuck. It’s all mud.”

“Oh,” was the only reply he got at first, then silence. He could only assume she had to tell Jarix the news, the two of them would make sure the whole damn keep knew about this. “Do you need help?”

“I thought I wasn’t allowed- woah woah woah! Shit!” Tom let out in a panic as the whole world seemed to turn upside down. It was like being stuck inside a dark box that just fell over, then he felt the cold wet smack hit his face. He shook free of the magic, coming back to his senses, arriving at the conclusion that he was a shitty roadworker and had fallen over.

“Det er kraftedme løgn,” he cursed to himself as he lifted his face clear of the soggy muddy grass, spitting out a few bits. Could this day get any fucking worse? Then he heard the flap of wings as something large and airborne tried to slow down fast. Looking up he saw Jarix coming out of a steep dive, bleeding speed before setting down hard on the grass, feet sinking in a fair ways, Zarko craning her neck to see from her spot at the base of his neck.

“Are you okay, Tom?” the dragon asked, sounding equal parts worried and confused.

“No… most definitely not,” Tom replied, letting his face back down into the mud. ‘I won’t hear the end of this til spring…’