divinetree | OC on OC shenanigans

[It'd been quite the pleasant year, traveling with a new companion - Durant had been quite handy in dissuading any particularly nefarious interlocutors from actually engaging. And the few that had were more than handled - it made it very easy for Maya to actually relax most evenings and focus on her writing or editing.

Tonight, at camp, she's enjoying the warm, clear night and the light of the fire to plan out their next route.]

Let's see... I've meandered to the past few places we've been visiting and picked out where to go. Is there somewhere you'd also like to add to our route, my friend?

[It had been some time since last he traveled with others. To traverse the jungles, ~~crush capitalism~~ hone your craft and discover new and intriguing ways to hone that odd, amorphous arm of his after receiving it so long ago was a routine he was accustomed to, but ultimately bored of.

So when an intriguing woman needed a hand with glory-seekers, he agreed! She was pretty, said the lizard brain. She was curious and he was handy, said the neocortex. As the time passed, the limbic brain had something to say: Stories needed to be written, told, remembered.

And who else but she?

So he, the dutiful viashino Durant, kept his senses honed. His feather-ended tail thumped the floor as he took a moment to rest and listen to the small scratches of pen on paper as usual. He'd come to find comfort in the little sound.

Tonight he lifted his head with the question, and settled next to her. He craned his neck to get a look.]

It has been some time since I've come this far north. When last I was here, this spot...

[He reached and touched a spot on the map.]

...Was home to a herd of creatures I had never seen before. I remember hunting and eating well that week. My only regret is losing the tools I'd had made from the bones.

A good area! Not far from there I know a family I recorded the stories for, a while ago... wow, the kids are probably all grown up with kids of their own, by now. There ought to be plenty of time to enjoy a good bit of hunting and catch up with the people in that area.

Bonecrafting is such a great art, have you ever made a set of knucklebones for games?

[He had come to know that she was long-lived, yet it still blew him away to wonder just how long it takes for other folks to produce a generation. His people were the type to spread rather quickly- with the 'trade-off' to be that most viashino died young in combat- so the thought of a couple of generations didn't feel terribly far apart to him.]

...Knucklebones...?

[Ooh, but he heard games!]

Ahh, one of the games involving counting, no doubt! I'm afraid not- I only just found myself learning to read, write, and count in larger numbers only two winters ago, long after I lost my tools.

But should I have my hands on more, then I just might. I enjoy learning a new game.

I'll teach you the rules! It's a lot of fun. And a great way to pass the time when you visit town and go drinking with the locals, everyone gets a lot more endeared to you if you're the one bringing a game to the table.

[Laughing a little fondly...]

My daughters loved playing knucklebones, we'd end up playing every time we met back up. Vera was pestering everyone around her to play even when she was old and could barely read the etchings.

That does sound easier than challenging someone to a drinking game or inciting a fight to gather information. Less property damage.

[He eased into a hunch, idly studying the colors of the fire. With a thought, he shaped his translucent arm into a tendril to allow him to shift the stones a little closer, keep the flames contained.]

Did you see them often?

There was a stretch of time where they really wanted their independence, had their own business to go about doing, and would get fussy whenever I tracked them down to check on them. But for those last handful of years, I lived with them in one place.

[At least, until they finally died.]

They were stuck to my hip for so long when they were young, though... I miss that.

[Ahh, he could recall when he wanted to start hunting on his own despite his sire's insistence. His mother had been an independent as many were among his tribe, stepping back and watching him from afar from the moment he'd taken down his first baloth. That day, he felt, he'd become a man and had aspirations for his own tribe, his own stretch of jungle...

But those ways when they held him, when he was clinging to their leg... he wouldn't forget those, either. The fondness of his thoughts cause a brief flutter of a soft rosy color blooming along the chromatophore spots on his body.

Durant tipped his chin, smiling slightly.]

Hah... I have yet to experience it myself.

[Then, with an ease back:]

...But you have my mind racing with the idea.

Hehe. Yeah? You think you'd want to have kids? I could see you doing very well with it, honestly.

My kind spreads like wildfire, so there is less of a pressure to produce any sort of heir unless you lead a tribe. Ah, but to see something you made grow and learn, hunt their first quarry, the fateful day they ask something to which you do not know the answer... so, naturally, you set out to learn together.

[He chuckled fondly.]

That is an adventure, a grand tale in and of itself, is it not?

Most definitely. Your lessons, your love for them... all of that ripples through time, long after you're gone, in how your children raise up themselves and the people closest to them, too.

OC on OC shenanigans

Duran(t) Duran(t)

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