It took me a good twenty minutes of pacing up and down the beach before my face stopped burning, and I stopped trying to think up patterns for Ikaylay pelt coats and Soto shoes. Nohwasi would make an excellent rug. I wanted to tie their tails together and then chase them through a very dense forest.
But eventually my humiliation cooled and I was back to where I’d been before running into the Trio. I paced slowly along the water line, picking at interesting shells and whatnot. Or, at least, I call them shells. Many of them are flexible as if they’re made of keratin or some other protein instead of the usual calcium carbonate of Earth shells.
They were interesting enough, but without any kind of frame of reference it was difficult to learn much from them. Was this conical thing a shell for some kind of Minervan cephalopod thing? Or was it only a tiny piece of armor from something bigger? A shed claw sheath, perhaps? There was no one around to tell me. So I gathered up a handful of the most interesting ones to ask Kohric about later, and continued.
Not long into my walk I noticed I wasn’t entirely alone. One of the little flying creatures happened to dart past me, and as I turned my head to follow it, I happened to catch sight of a yellow tail and a suggestion of long ears. It was only the motion of the tail that alerted me. I’d never have seen it if not for turning my head just at the right second. For a panicked half second I thought it was Ikaylay, and the other two were about to descend on me from behind and scare the crap out of me.
But then, seeing he’d been spotted, the Azu raised his head and I saw that he was clearly not Ikaylay. The stranger carefully showed his palms in greeting and bobbed his head. It’s a wonder I ever saw him. His tawny hide and green markings blended beautifully with the grass. He looked faintly familiar; one of D’Keda I’d never talked to. But I remembered his green curlicue markings from seeing him with the hunters.
I greeted him back, and asked his name.
He seemed very shy. He kept turning his muzzle a little to the side like I’d seen some of the youngsters do when they were unsure of themselves. It was oddly comforting to see someone feeling as awkward as I was.
“My name is Slaasek,” he said, and slowly came to sit nearby. “You are Tee-Tee.” Again that muzzle turn, but his eyes were always fixed on me. “I watched when the three played their trick.”
“They have played two tricks now,” I explained to him. “I want to make them stop. I want to trick them too.”
“Yes, I watched the trick-in-the-water,” he said. “The three think they are more clever than Tee. This makes Tee sad, yes?” At this I wasn’t sure whether to be comforted or creeped out at the suggestion that this fellow had been watching me since we’d arrived at the beach.
His kind eyes decided me on “comforted.” “Yes,” I said. I debated the merits of revenge versus taking the higher ground. Then I thought about Ed having trouble getting taken seriously. Ah screw it. “Can you help me trick the three?”
Now he faced me a little more directly, and his mouth gaped in a feral grin.
“Yes.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I hardly saw him the next day, and the morning after. It wasn’t until the second afternoon that he approached me again, still doing that shy muzzle-turn. He had another Azu-nah with him, a gray fellow with a thick, fluffy mane and beautiful tattoos. Slaasek introduced him as Duryl, another hunter.
Together we sat and I watched as the two of them hatched a simple plot that would put the Terrible Trio in their place. I admit, I may have cackled once or twice.
Late that same evening, just as it was growing dark, we put our plan into motion. Slaasek lead me to a big, gnarled tiger tree that leaned over a small hillock. Sandwiched between the sloping roots of the tree and the hill were a thick cluster of short little plants. They hugged the ground like strawberry runners, and had delicate little fruits growing along the underside of the leaves. Slaasek had explained earlier that these were one of the Trio’s absolute favorite foods. They had cleared out the obvious caches days ago, and had been complaining at evening meals about not finding more.
Duryl was already waiting for us, lazing happily in the thick branches of the tree several meters above. Slaasek joined him and gestured for me to start.
I wandered in a wide circle around the tree, searching for the three little buggers, and finally spotted them chasing each other a little way off. I shouted to them as Duryl and Slaasek had said. “I have found a mystery!”
The Azu-nah are apparently more curious than any ten cats.
I almost didn’t have time to blink before they were swarming around me, asking what I’d found. I directed them to the fruit and asked them, innocent as a newborn calf, if they were something edible, or if perhaps they were horribly poisonous?
Speaking of cats, have you ever seen one looking particularly smug? Yeah. I half expected Sodo to start licking a paw.
So Ikaylay, also smug as hell, started in about how these were very dangerous, and that I should probably go away right now and warn Eyani away from the area, so he or another youngster did not think to eat them.
He was taking a breath to go further, when from up in the tree came a horrible scream, and a big gray shape dropped from the tree right on top of me. I didn’t have to act my part. I shrieked in genuine surprise and had the breath knocked out of me; Duryl was supposedly going to land next to me.
But all of that was drowned out the howls of fear that came from the Trio. I barely had a chance to register the looks on their faces before they’d flailed and skittered a good half dozen meters away, bouncing from forelegs to hind almost like startled puppies. Sodo practically disappeared in a cloud of dust.
Slaasek and Duryl sat on either side of me, loudly “kheee-ing” their amusement.
Sweet vengeance!
This week's cameos are Slaasek and Duryl! Submitted by Prannon and Doran respectively! Thank you for submitting them!
I also just noticed just now that I forgot to include everyone's tattoos in the images. I'll be tweaking them tomorrow or Thursday. Sorry about that!
the creatures (Oshtik says they’re called “oai”) looked bottom-heavy, but what I took for bulk was actually a second set of wings on the hind legs. They hold them tucked under the body, with the outside toe forming a second wing surface below and a partially underneath the primary arm-wings. Essentially they’re like little biplanes.
