Zion: Light of the New Moon Part 2, Ch 1.5 Bannihar
Zion - Light of the New Moon, Part 2 Chapter 1.5
Bannihar The Long Road Ahead
With two-to-one in the votes (and one Contributing Reader not voting), the final post for this chapter features Iskiy meeting Dana, the antlered wolf Wild Lander who has been shadowing the party. The final count on modifiers for this chapter is ++++ Delay. Since Elias's Contributing Reader did not vote, poor Elias loses another Willpower and Bannihar loses another point of Favor.
Iskiy sighed to himself, seated on a rock a short distance from a small tunnel leading through the mountainside. He'd gone through the tunnel not two hours previous, joining the rest of the party as they entered the Wayside town of Cliffholm. Some twenty feet into the tunnel a stout metal portcullis separated the Wayside from the land beyond. What lay past that barrier, however, made Iskiy dizzy.
Cliffholm was built along the inside face of a caldera. The diameter of the risen crater must have been a half-mile and the Wayside was spread out in a ring all along the mountainside. The town itself had a single street separating the buildings that were constructed into the cliff face and the ones that hung practically out over empty air with a several-hundred foot drop beneath them. The strangely-solid-yet-horrifyingly-precarious surroundings were too much for the antlered wolf so he took his leave and returned to what felt like more solid ground.
Though the Wild Lander reasoned that it was far safer inside the Wayside than beyond its portcullis he couldn't bring himself to be subjected to the stares of the Waysiders; his antlers continued to attract far too much attention. Iskiy knew that the party planned to spend the night in Cliffholm and collect what supplies they could purchase; he would join them in the evening, but until then he preferred to spend the time alone.
The scout pulled a whetstone from his belt pouch and drew his sword, setting it across his lap. Iskiy scowled, looking at the stained, pitted blade; it had been far too long since he had the opportunity to maintain it and he knew that he would have been reprimanded many times over by a superior officer. "The City Dwellers have their rules..." he mumbled to himself, starting on honing his weapon anew, "...some of them for good reasons."
"an' ye speak their language too, do ye?" a female voice called from the vegetation beyond the cave, causing Iskiy to immediately stop the sharpening. He flicked an ear, focusing both of them in the direction of the voice; whoever she was, she had a strong accent.
"Who are you?" he asked, "What do you want?" Iskiy didn't feel threatened... physically, at least.
"Me name's Dana... an' ye be Iskiy Thrush, aye?" the stranger questioned, still in hiding. The Wild Lander couldn't help but smile a little at her accent; he could tell it was a Wild Lander dialect, but not one familiar to him. But, more pressing, she apparently knew him.
"How do you know my name?" he asked.
"Heard it often 'nough on th' road... th' city folk ye travel with call ye 'Iskiy', aye?" she responded, cloaked in the underbrush.
"Come out where I can see you." Iskiy requested, "I don't like talking to bushes."
"Nae? Why?" she asked in a tone that the Wild Lander thought sounded more inquisitive than humored, "They be fine enough if ye need answers..."
"Funny." the scout answered dryly.
"Nae..." the voice countered, "Humor be one thing bushes don't have... most plants don't... but some trees be better."
"Now you're making fun of me." Iskiy stated, standing up, "Are you coming out, or not?"
"Heh... ye poor, poor lapdog... 'Are you coming out or not?'." she noted with humor, doing a fine job of imitating the tone and inflection of his question, "Ye sound just like em."
"Just like who?" Iskiy asked critically, taking a step closer to the bushes.
"Put away ye pig-sticker an' maybe we can talk face t' face..." she suggested, "ye be a little too much like th' city-goers fer me to like seein' a blade in ye paw."
Iskiy rolled his eyes, "I've lived in a city most of my life-- I should act like them." he didn't particularly like that argument, especially since he'd always felt like an outsider, but he humored the voice and put his sword away.
"Oh ye should, should ye?" the voice chided, "Funny... ye don't have th' look'o'a Warmonger on ye."
"Warmonger?" Iskiy questioned. He had a feeling what she meant, but didn't want to assume considering it was such a powerful accusation.
"Oh ye silly, silly lapdog... don't tell me ye ain't of the Wilds... we both know ye be of the soil an' stars an' not of the stone an' steeples." the voice chided again.
"Who are you?" Iskiy demanded, approaching the bushes.
"Already said it once, boyo... me name's Dana." she answered, and the scout heard the sound of someone moving further into the brush.
"You said if I sheathed my sword we could talk." Iskiy accused, following after her.
"An' we are, Iskiy Thrush... we be talkin'." she noted with a playful giggle.
"Face-to-face." he growled faintly, pushing faster through the bushes, until he suddenly emerged into a glade. He yelped when he ran nose-first into-- another nose.
"Not so good on stoppin' once ye get goin', are ya, boyo?" the woman noted. Her pink nose was perched at the end of a strong-but-feminine muzzle, surrounded with pure-white fur. The fur continued on to create a snowy frame around a ruggedly beautiful face with two striking, almost predatory pair of eyes, one green, one blue. Iskiy stood staring at an aggressively confident female wolf... but what caught his attention the most were the pair of thick, branching antlers rising majestically out of her head between her ears.
"You..." he stuttered, staring at the tree-like projections situated at the top of her head.
"I be Dana." she noted calmly.
"You..." he gaped, astounded as he stared at the first antlered wolf he'd seen in years without looking into a mirror.
"be Moon Pelted." she commented smoothly, running a pink-padded paw across her bare midsection. She wore a fur halter and a leather loincloth, but her smooth, finely toned abdomen was clearly visible.
"You..." he stuttered, still awe-struck by the smooth, arching antlers rising above her. They were like his, but not like his; while his were rugged and rutted hers were smooth and flowing... more like a caribou while his were deer-like.
"be a Wild Lander... like ye." she offered, an obvious smirk on her black lips, separating the white in her muzzle.
"You..." he repeated yet again.
"Well?" she questioned, planting her fists on her hips in mock anger, "ye know how t'say more'n that, don'cha boyo? Speak already!"
"...have antlers." the scout finally managed to blurt.
"Aye." she acknowledged, "That obvious?" she inquired with a smirk, "Come on." and, with that, she turned about and slid off into the forest with such grace and surreal silence that it almost seemed as if she were an illusion dispelled.
"Where are you going?" Iskiy asked, finally finding his ability to speak.
"Ye said ye wanted t' talk..." one blue and one green eye glinted back at him from the darkness, "Ye comin, boyo?"
"Yes..." Iskiy noted after a moment, and he started off after her, "but I didn't expect it to be such an ordeal." he offered helplessly. Her clear, melodious laughter signaled that he had apparently said something right, or wrong-- he couldn't tell.
The scout was kept chasing her for almost five minutes before he found her stopped in another clearing. The newest opening in the undergrowth was blanketed in moss. It had several small, irregularly shaped boulders strewn about, likewise covered in sheets of green lichen. Dana waited for him to enter into the clearing before she took a seat, and he paused as the earth rose up to create a mound upon which she sat.
"Are you... a Geomancer?" he asked, astounded at the way the earth responded to her.
"Nae." she answered.
"Then how did you make the ground do that?" he asked, motioning to her seat.
"I did'nae MAKE it do anything, Iskiy Thrush." she stated.
"But... it rose up." he pointed out.
"Aye." she acknowledged.
"And you didn't do that?" he asked incredulously.
"Nae." she confirmed.
"I don't understand." Iskiy stated.
"True." Dana smiled, "I know."
The scout cocked his head to the side, "You are one confusing wolf."
"True..." the Moon Pelted Wild Lander grinned wider, "I know."
Iskiy opened his muzzle to-- he paused, closing his muzzle. How would he be able to talk with someone like her when she kept talking in circles? He put his paws on the top of his head in frustration and blurted out, "Why are you here?" he demanded in as clearly a question as he could manage, hoping that he'd finally get a straight answer.
"Because ye be here." she responded; Iskiy wasn't having a lot of luck.
"You have antlers!" he blurted.
"Aye." she confirmed, reaching up to brush her paw across her left one, "Ye already said ye noticed."
"But... YOU HAVE ANTLERS!" he repeated, having so little success in talking to her that he could do nothing but obsess about them at that point.
"An' so I do." she acknowledged, "An' ye do too-- shouldn't be that strange, aye?"
"What are you doing here?" he demanded in frustration.
"Talkin' with ye." she smiled calmy, crossing her paws on her knee in an almost lady-like manner. Considering the huge litany of scars stretched across her bare arms and one side of her face, Iskiy couldn't help but think that the posture didn't suit her.
"You've been following us." he accused.
"Aye." she acknowledged readily.
"Why?" he demanded.
Her smile slowly faded as she gazed straight at him, and her next words were in the tongue of the Wild Landers. She spoke it slowly and deliberately, and Iskiy had absolutely no trouble understanding her.
"Marked by the spirits?" he questioned, "What do you mean?" he asked.
"Just that." she noted, standing up as her earthen seat retreated back into the ground, "An' when th' spirits place their mark on someone or someones... well... I can't help but find an interest in em." she winked.
"But what does it mean?" he asked.
"Not sure." she responded with a smirk, "Guess we'll be findin' out 'ventually though, aye?"
Iskiy wasn't sure he liked that answer.
* * * * * *
Chapter 1 of Part 2 of Zion concludes for Bannihar.
The highest scoring reader vote involved Iskiy meeting Dana... so here you go!
NON-Contributing Readers may now elect which of the following be granted to Bannihar:
1) +1 Favor 2) +1 Luck 3) - 1 Danger 4) +1 Willpower to all characters!
Please have your vote posted here by Friday, December 2nd! All readers, also keep an eye out for the upcoming journal!