FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Ukeiuwa creeps along the ground, slowly stalking her prey. By general appearance it looks like her prey is only a human, though the scent is off. They're slouched over by a fire, dozing off with no one else around, the lance in their hands the only reason they've probably not fallen over yet. Finding the perfect spot for it Ukeiuwa crouches down about ten paces behind his back, her nose sniffing at the air to try and see if there's anything else that might be amiss. Sensing nothing else wrong with the situation she pounces at her target, hand fully outstretched so as to try and leave a gash along his back. But when she reaches the area right next to him instead of her claws finding purchase in his flesh it bounces off a sort of barrier and her momentum is redirected into the nearby fire. The figure instantly rouses back awake instantly, quickly grabbing his lance a lot tighter as he tries to figure out what all is going on.

"What the Let'hai was that? I could have sworn that you didn't have any sort of magical effect on you."

The other individual instead reaches into a pocket and pulls out a cracked orb. Ukeiuwa frowns, recognizing the object. She wouldn't be able to smell it because it's not active magic. It's a common enough trinket the Merchant's Guild sells. Activates when you fall asleep and will protect the user from one attack. She should have expected something like that, but she had foolishly forgotten that that trinket is a thing.

"No matter," she chuckles to herself as she looks over and then extinguishes the fire completely.

Confident in her own night vision, especially once she uses a bit of magic to help her see, Ukeiuwa circles her target, a grin crossing her muzzle as she sees that the other individual is far more reliant on light than she is. Once she thinks she has the proper advantage she rushes in and punches at him in the chest, straight on enough that even if he had another defensive trinket it would be absorbed rather than simply deflected. He doesn't but his reaction skills are good enough that he's able to block her attack with his spear, not that really helps him in this situation. Her fist explodes in a burst of fire, helping add to the amount of force she can exert. This pushes him back a few steps. Ukei uses the momentum to drive her attack forward, kicking at him and knocking him completely off balance. He tries to recover and take a swing at her but she knocks his lance aside and moves in, kneeing him in the groin. As he falls down in pain she steps over and kicks his lance away from him where he can't get at it easily.

"Any last words?" She asks, gloating a little bit.

He doesn't answer, but instead grabs a ball in one of his pockets and lets it go. When it hits the ground it explodes in a brilliant white light. Her eyes already been used to dealing with the darkness is blinded even more by the light and raises up an arm to try and shield her eyes as best it can. The light seems to condense and solidify itself into a little band around one of her arms. Ignoring it for the time being Ukeiuwa rushes forward to attack again but finds that her attack is stopped. She tries again and finds that as she starts getting close enough to attack the band begins to push back against her, stopping her attack from ever reaching him.

"What the Mian is this?" She demands.

The other person is still clutching their groin and moaning. Ukeiuwa tries to kick at him but her attack is stopped again.

"It was a binding charm," he eventually coughs out. "Binds you to me as long as that band is on your wrist. Makes it so that you can't go beyond a certain distance from me and cannot hurt me no matter how hard you try." He eventually works his way back onto his feet and begins making his way back to the fire pit, intent on getting the fire going again. "Was originally intending on using it on someone else, but considering the alternative if I hadn't used it."

"Well then why don't you simply take this thing off me and put it on the one you really want to enslave?"

"Because I'm pretty sure that the moment I take that off you, you'll try to kill me again. That and the enchantment really isn't designed to be used over and over again all that quickly. And for the record I am not enslaving you. That binding spell cannot force you to do anything beyond stay within a certain distance of me and keep you from trying to harm me. I have no control over your actions after that fact."

"Yeah, whatever. I'm still being dragged off to who knows where against my will. So who's this person you were trying to catch anyway?"

"I was told that I would need the assistance of a white furred kinal over in this region."

"What do you want with a Whitepelt? No, don't answer that. Don't really care. There's only one here that I know of but they tend to be rather hostile. Figure take you up there and then either we kill them and I ruin your plan or they kill you and I go free. Either way, win-win for me."

Once he has the fire going again Romnan sits down and stares at it for a bit. He was more than a little wound up from the encounter, not to mention still a little sore. Add to that his protection crystal was used up already. As such he was not getting back to sleep any time soon. Worthwhile investment anyway.

"So we might as well introduce ourselves. I'm Romnan Kouresei."

Ukeiuwa ignores him as best she can, choosing to lie down for the time and stares at the stars. Unfortunately, her present situation means that she's just going to have to go to bed hungry. That strange band around her wrist means she won't be able to eat him tonight and she doesn't know whether or not it'll let her get far enough to be able to hunt anything else worthwhile. And she sure isn't going to be asking him for some food. She'll just bide her time and then find out the limitations of this thing once he's gone to sleep again.

"You know, it's usually customary for you to then give your name in return."

"I see no reason to give my name to a Mian. I'm here against my will until I figure out how to get around this thing you got on me."

To further illustrate her point Ukeiuwa turns away from him and takes a good close look at the binding on her arm. She chirps a bit of magic at it and listens to the resonance. It rings holy magic, which causes her to frown. She's not good against holy magic, though why he would get a holy binding spell to use against that Whitepelt is beyond her. But the far more comforting part of it all is that she didn't feel anything restricting her magic. Which means what he said is likely true. So long as she doesn't attack him or get too far away it won't really stop her from doing anything. Which means there likely is a way that she can exploit it to get out of her current situation. If nothing else she can simply let someone else kill him for her. Then she'll be free. Probably give the Whitepelt responsible for this being on her arm a thing to remember her by. After all, her binding has nothing to do with seeing to it that that Zeil would see their discussion. If they died, oh well. There's a reason, after all, that these petty trinkets weren't really used by any but the most desperate during the Enslavement. She'll find a way out or otherwise sabotage everything he wants to do until he lets her go, then she'll kill him. She laments having to go to bed hungry, though if she had gotten her prey she'd be up for a while treating it to keep as long as possible. No sense in wasting food, after all. And unfortunately, she knows that he doesn't have a scrap of meat on him. How's he expecting to be able to entice a Whitepelt to join without any means to bind and nothing to tempt.

"If it's any consolation I am sorry for binding you, but it's important that I find this Kinal."

"Why, do you think it's going to end the war?"

"Well, maybe not The War, but if I don't get the help of that Kinal then my entire race might get wiped out."

"Gee, how nice of you, to come to our kind complaining about the threat of genocide," Ukeiuwa turns and stares at him. "And what the Let'hai were your kind doing a hundred years ago? Did your people do anything to assist us? Oh wait, I remember. You were on the on the side of the humans and Zifiel. Oh you would do grandiose acts of aid to make sure any of the slaves in your lands were treated fairly. But you sold the bands, you helped to distribute them just as much as any. You bought us. You sold us. You captured us and sent us back if any of us ever broke free. Your so-called allies. So no. You don't get to preach at me about someone trying to attack you. And I'm sure the only reason your people are in their current situation is from the Retaliation caused by your own reckless greed. So let's see how that mentality convinces the Whitepelt to not simply slaughter you."

Ukeiuwa huffs at him for a few moments and he just looks around rather awkwardly. "I'm sorry," he says, "I didn't know."

"Well of course you wouldn't. That's what the War does. Everyone sees only the despair and plight of their own people, of their own struggles. And in the process they completely overlook the fact that everyone else is probably just as poorly off and some have had it far worse. Because why care of the fact that the only reason the Dragons and Kinal are even still around is because they got around the Zifiel's device and then slaughtered every last one of them in kind. This world is Felarii. There's no one that's going to simply save the day and make everything better. I could care less about what Fate's Hands are doing. All they ever seem to do is just make things worse for everyone not immediately involved in their own personal plight. And to all of them I say 'Ke'kelaho.'"

"Um, about that," Romnan says somewhat awkwardly.

"Lemme guess, you're Fate's Hand?" she looks over at him and he reluctantly nods. Her response is to give him a particular gesture and then turns around to go sleep. "Well then, Ke'kelaho. Enjoy your night, Mian. I'll find my way to freedom yet and if not I'll at least get to enjoy seeing what the Whitepelt thinks of a Zeil like you."

And she does at least try to sleep. She's still a little too wound up from her attempt at the hunt recently and she was raised more than well enough to not let her awareness of her surroundings wane even when trying to sleep, which makes Romnan moving around periodically and the stench of him so close very difficult for her to truly go into a peaceful slumber. But she is able to get into a sort of unconscious state. Romnan stares at her trying to sleep for a while, trying to figure what he might have said wrong. But Fate had not intervened the entire conversation, so it must either not have been important or he otherwise got the desired effect from her anyway, as unfortunate as that was. Eventually the adrenaline of their encounter fades away and his weariness returns. He knows he'll need sleep if he is to ever have any chance of completing his quest. And before he had been foolish in thinking that Fate would intervene on his behalf to make sure he's awakened to danger, but as it has already failed to do that once Romnan feels the need to set up some precautions. He stands up with his spear and walks to the perimeter of the camp. He makes sure not to get far enough away that it might trigger the binding on the kinal, not wanting to aggravate her any more than he already has. He takes a deep breath and focuses hard on the blade of his spear and begins to do a chant as quietly as he is able. Ukeiuwa's ears twitch at this, though Romnan is too focused to notice. After a moment of chanting the tip of his spear begins to glow with a dark blue aura, water from the air seeming to collect on its surface. He takes a deep breath and then begins a different chant. All the while he puts the spear tip to the ground and begins slowly walking around the perimeter of the camp. As water of the blade contacts the ground it spreads out a bit in runes. The going is rather slow and it's not that great but it doesn't have to be. Thankfully it isn't something that would require the symbol to be a perfect circle. It would certainly help and is better as close to being a circle as possible, but will still do its job otherwise. As he gets close to his starting point he starts looking over his shoulder to make sure that he reaches the same point, finding himself having wandered about two feet off.

Once the circle has been completed there is a dim flash of blue light that rises up from the ground and forms a little dome around the camp. Romnan lets the glow on his spear fade and wipes the sweat from his brow. He's always sucked at putting up wards but Fate made sure that he at least knew some of the more useful and basic ones. This one won't so much protect him from attack, but if anything were to cross into the area of the ward, then it would alert him. With that small comfort in mind he can go to sleep, knowing that at least he'll know if another attack were coming.