Stepping on Eggshells

[Khasar]

Kaelu exclaimed her love of earth, and Khasar could only smile and say, "Okay, just for the little guy then." Khasar walked back out into the rain and picked up to buckets. He didn't hurry through the rain, he'd always been fond of precipitation. The buckets actually caught a little water, but not enough to make a trip to the well mean nothing, so walk on he did. He sent one bucket down, and brought it back up. A flash of lightning... flashed. He sent another bucket down, and lightning flashed a few flibjibs further away than the last one.

Khasar carried the two buckets back, one in each hand. He opened the door and a wave of heat hit him. He'd always preferred the cold, but he'd make due for the cub to dry off. He set one of the buckets down near the fire, and set the other one next to the cub. He said to Kaelu, "There was a flash of lightning, twelve seconds after thunder. It was further away than the rest of them. Do you think that has something to do with the distance? I met a guy in this big city who told me that lightning's when ice and rain touch in the sky. His friend said he was an idiot, but I've never heard any other explanation but that the sky father creates lightning. That makes sense I guess, but still. What do you think?" While he was talking, he'd walked over to a corner of the shop, where it seemed the smith would discard failed works to melt down for later. He picked up a lumpy spoon, and sat back down next to the cub. He scooped the water out of his bucket and dripped it down the wolf's throat. He'd sat up, but was still keeping his weight off of his limp paw.

When the little wolf had seemingly finished drinking, the swordsman figured he'd be hungry, so he grabbed the pouch tied to his belt, and took out a piece of mutton he'd roasted two nights ago. He didn't know if salt was bad for wolves, but the cub seemed to like it a lot. Khasar gave him two more pieces, then scratched his head and softly howled. As Cu began to dry off, Khasar noticed he was an odd combination of gray and white. They weren't exactly like Khasar's the wolf had very light gray eyes. Khasar smiled and howled again.

[Kaelu]

Khasar vanished for a moment. It left Kaelu alone with the pup and her questions. So many places and humans had a name for all of them! She had even heard that there was such a thing as water that you could not drink and yet it went on seemingly with no end at all. That had to be impossible, but then again so too would some say that fighting Taguels and flying Manakete existed were impossible as well. She inched closer to the wolf pup and hunkered down some strides away to study it from afar. Just as impossible that someone might find such a small creature alone in the rain. Oh well!

Her new friend returned with a pair of buckets and she looked over her shoulder from where she was as he entered in and set about making themselves at home for the night. Kaelu was comfortable enough for herself, but humans were different sorts. "The longer the count, the further away the storm is. I think it's come in and now going away." Kaelu responded with a smile. As for lightning and what made it, Kaelu had something different in mind for the reason for it. "I was told it is nature's wrath. Sometimes when it hits the ground, it creates fire and fire is fury, so lightning is wrath. Or was it that wind was wrath and lightning was something else...?" She tried to muddle through it and as she thought, she rubbed an ear. Water was still dripping off of her and the rubbing the ear she pulled more from them and dried them all the quicker. It was also oddly soothing to her.

"Who is this sky father? Is he someone important?" Kaelu asked suddenly, recalling the words. She had heard a few folks mention it in murmurs but had not yet had the question to ask after this father in the sky. Or from the sky. Or of the sky. Or whatever it was that he had to do with the sky at all.

[Khasar]

Khasar simply smiled and shrugged as Kaelu explained what she'd heard about lightning. He didn't know how nature could have emotions, but no one could be really sure what caused the weather. Hell, he'd never met anyone who knew what rain was. Well, water he supposed, but none could explain why it was. He leaned against the chair as the Taguel girl claimed not to know who the sky father was.

He scratched Cu's back and said, "The sky father is considered the creator of the Earth. He and the Earth mother are the ones who control the obstacles placed in front of you. Some believe they control your fate, but I don't like that idea very much. It makes me feel as if I'm not the one who decides my actions, actually if I believed that I'd try to do the most shocking action at any opportunity. Some call him Father Sky, but my tribe, and most of the ones we met called him the sky father. What do you believe Kaelu?"

[Kaelu]

"The creator?" Kaelu did not think that was right. Then again, how had the Earth begun? There were stories about nature and all its powers. Of the strength of the Taguel and the might of the Dragons, the older kind, who watched over to guide and protect the Humans, the younger kind. Maybe this was such a story? She sat up when Khasar asked her about her thoughts on the matter, "What do I believe?"

What did she believe? Kaelu knew that she believed in the forces of nature. She believed that all life was connected together. She believed that spirits existed in everything around them and you needed to be respectful and thankful of it all. "I believe... I believe... I believe in the importance of all life that exists everywhere around us from the clouds in the sky to the pebble underfoot!" She declared with a smile and a great wave of her arms. Yes, that was what she believed in. Whether the air or the sky was called a spirit or a father didn't matter, just so long as it was honored.

"Khasar, why do you worry about fate?" Kaelu returned to a phrase that Khasar had said earlier. Her head tilted to one side, an ear perking up halfway on one side while the other remained limp. Fate was something she vaguely understood. It had been spoken of before in her Warren when she was child during lessons. She couldn't recall what was said about it, just that it had been brought up, and now she wished she had paid more attention. Oh well! "Fate might exist, and if it does, then it's what made our paths cross and that's surely a good thing. Don't you think so? You're my first Human friend!"

[Khasar]

Khasar's smile widened as his eccentric friend described her beliefs. Seemed as good a thing as any to believe. Although it sounded as if she was "in tune with nature." Dear god, was she one of those people that didn't eat meat? Well she technically wasn't one of the 'people' but no need to split hairs. Hare, hair, pun aside he might be more cautious eating animals around her.

Why did he worry about fate? Why indeed. "You're my first Taguel friend Kaelu, and if that was solely due to fate then fate has my apology. My problem with fate, is that it takes away choice. Say one day a woman decided to wear a blue dress over a red one. If that's her fate it wasn't really up to her. I mean it is, but she was always going to. So if all our decisions are already made what's the point of making a decision?" He smiled, "Sorry I didn't mean to be so serious."

[Kaelu]

"Hmmm, that's not quite right..." The young Taguel said. She scrunched up her face as she thought really hard about how to explain how fate probably really worked. It was hard to understand and so just as hard to describe. She squeezed her eyes shut and drew herself in as she thought a little harder over it. At last she had it and she jumped to her feet with the victorious feeling she had.

"I've got it!" Kaelu cried out. "Fate doesn't mean that all decisions are already made for you. Not at all. Just that the end point is all the same. The path might be different and all the hows and the whats and whys, but where you end up is the same. Maybe even the when, too." She babbled out quickly. Her tail flicked a little and she reached up to take a hold of the ends of her ears. They were so soft and velvety and always helped to calm her and slow her down. "Think of it like this, Khasar, we were meant to meet but if I hadn't thought to explore a little when I was lost, I'd have never gotten here and then we would never have met at all. At least not when and how we did. I had always imagined the world of Humans and wanted to know about it after all, so I'm sure that at some point I would have struck out to do so, but then we'd have met and become friends at a different time and place and in a different way."

She sat back down, looking almost exhausted after all that thinking and explaining. There was more to say though and say it she did, "And then would you have found the little wolf if I hadn't been there to stop that unfair fight? Hmm? That was Fate, too! And that is something I'd have done no matter who it was or where I was, it just happened to be you as it was meant to be. See?" Kaelu tilted her head to the side a little. The gentle cock of her head made her wet hair drift a little and caused the soft tinkling of the bells in her hair. Kaelu didn't think of Fate as a bad thing, or at least not an all bad thing, and it was not like you had no ability to make decisions at all either. "Umm... it's like those things they call prophecies. No matter if you decide to try to change the outcome or wait for it to happen, the outcome is always the same. How you get there doesn't matter and the decisions can be different, but the end is always the same. And those aren't all bad either, I don't think." Kaelu finished with a smile, righting her head again and giving a bit of a shrug. Khasar might not understand it at all and he might not agree with her, but at least now he knew what she thought on the matter. Serious or no.

[Khasar]

Kaelu simply smiled and shrugged as his little rabbit friend explained her views on fate. He disagreed but he wouldn't argue. The destination being set sounded almost as bad as the how, when, why's, and who's. As she moved around the bells in her hair rang. A small chuckle escaped Khasar's lips at that, but he covered his mouth before it became a full laugh. Then she mentioned prophecies.

The word itself took the smile off his face. He himself had a prophecy set around him, and it was not one he intended ever to fulfill. He shook it off and smiled a few words later, and listened as she finished her little speech. Khasar saw almost everything about the girl as little, which made him wonder just how she'd survived in the human world, or with those monsters back in her "Warren". He flashed his teeth then said, "I am happy I met you Lu. Very happy. You don't mind if I call you Lu every once in a while do you?" The wolf had fallen asleep in the chair behind Khasar. The crimson haired swordsman stretched his legs. " What was your old home like?"

[Kaelu]

No words for her now? Kaelu didn't suspect that anything she had said didn't sit well with him. Instead, she took it to mean that Khasar understood what she had said. She smiled back at him, returning his with a bigger one of her own, as silly and naive as it was. Kaelu completely missed it when his smile had dropped away because it returned long before she could have registered it or connected it to anything she had said at the moment.

"Nope! You can call me Lu! Or Bunny, too! Or anything else really, because nicknames are something friends use, right? And we're friends!" She gave a fierce nod in accompaniment with her response. It was as energetic as everything else she did and said. No matter how late the hour might be or how dark the night might become, she was always full of energy and her smile always bright. She stopped and sat upright when he asked her a new question, "My home? Oh! The Warren!"

She nodded once more. The Warren, her home, deep in the wild and virgin forests where no one Taguel could hug a tree on their own. A place that was dark and smelled of warm, wet earth with a green light that filled everything beneath the canopy. Kaelu closed her eyes as her memories of her home filled her so that she could describe it fully to Khasar. "The Warren cannot be found on any map. There are almost no openings in the forest. It is old and deep and green. We live in hovels or huts or something of the sort with the earth under our feet and in between our toes. The moss is soft and all the comfort and cushion anyone could ask for. Everything is covered in a green light and fireflies are our nightly lanterns, big mushrooms too! It is warm and friendly and perfect. It is home." She opened her eyes, an affectionate smile on her face. She missed the place a little. It was hard to fall asleep in the various places she had stayed, but just thinking of her home made it easy to drift into dreams of big trees and lush green shrubs.

"What about your home, Khasar? Do you miss it?" Kaelu asked him.

[Khasar]

Kaelu looked like she was tired as she described her home. He shouldn't try to keep her up too long. It sounded like something out of a fairy tale. She asked what his home was like. Hmm. He squinted his eyes to think.

"My home was very different from yours. Well, I don't really know what to call home. See, we were nomads, we moved around a lot. So my home was really just you know, the gers we slept in. Well, if it makes sense I'd guess my home was the people I was with. Home is where the heart is you know? We were herders, kept sheep. We hunted some, and occasionally we came to forests. I'm a pretty good tracker, but I bet you're better since you've lived in a forest your whole life. But, I guess my favorite of all the places was a site next to this great big rock. There was this pack of black wolves who were almost always there when we were. They never bothered us or our sheep. I liked watching them prowl around a lot. My second favorite was a river that stayed still during the day but rushed at night. No one could explain it to me, but it was always fun to wait til sunset, and watch as its speed picked up."

[Kaelu]

"Wow! You've been all over the place, huh? That must have been real exciting!" Kaelu exclaimed with excitement ringing in her voice. She was on the edge of her seat now. She was a little envious of Khasar and his life of adventure. Oh sure, she loved her youth and her home under the vast trees of the deep forests, but you did not happen across many strangers. Strangers were what friends were before you met then and if you never met any, then you'd never make any new friends.

She pondered how good of a tracker she was. Kaelu nodded because she certainly could track monsters and other creatures. She very thoughtfully started to answer with, "I guess I am pretty good... so long as I remember to watch where I am, otherwise I get lost and have to track myself!" By the time she had finished, she giggled a little. Kaelu shrugged her shoulders and added, "Oh well! You can't be good at everything!" That was fine with her too. She was good at other things, like being a team player and boosting motivation and being a powerhouse when she fought. At least, she thought she could be a powerhouse, if not now then certainly after she had worked hard and gotten better at fighting for sure.

[Khasar]

Khasar shrugged, "I don't know, I'm not good at everything, but I'm not bad at most things. Most things I'm about middle of the road. Well, maybe a little bit better than middle of the road. So if left's good on the road, I'm somewhere near the middle of the left of the middle of the road. You know left middle left of the middle. Fighting hunting, running, debating. I'm, you know? Okay. You know what I'm bad at? Math. I couldn't even count until I was ten. I'm also bad at reading. I still move my lips, to help me understand the words sometimes. I tried to explain it to this man I met in this town called Ostia, he said he thought it was because people told me what words meant, not told me what the words meant. I don't know, guess it's just one of those things."

The swordsman shrugged and looked over at Kaelu. She was asleep. Khasar chuckled, that was her and the cub. He ought to sleep soon. Still though, one last thing. He stood up and took care of the fires of the forge. He could not, and would not sleep with something so hot feet away from him. He walked over to a work bench. He took a blanket off of the seat's edge, and brushed it off. He lightly placed it over Kaelu, then rolled over, and went to sleep.

[Kaelu]

Kaelu didn't think that she was tired. If asked, she would have denied it outright, but like a child it was obvious that fatigue was setting in. She pulled her feet up, the mud that caked them now dry and crumbling, and drew her knees close to her chest. She rest her chin on one knee as Khasar continued to speak. Her head rolled to the side and she righted it, tucking her chin behind her knees this time. Her eyes were half-lidded and before long they had were closed to the world. She was no longer hearing what Khasar was saying, lost to sleep in the company of a new friend and companion.


(OOC: The end ^^)