forum Everchill Shenanigans Pick-A-Path || Open Voting, Stalkers Welcome!

Started Jan 30 by @im-with-stoopid pets

tune

Clashing thoughts spiraled in Naveil's mind, and his body threatened to convulse. He shouldn't have accepted the help – what if it was a trap? The fingers on his free hand trembled, itching to retrieve the knife from his coat pocket. What was he thinking? Lowlanders weren't to be trusted – they were thieves! Scoundrels! Sinners!
Cold, paralyzing numbness fell over Naveil as he felt their hand wrap around his wrist.
"Are all-ya noble-folk chickens at climbin' rock?"
Serrated nails dug into Naveil's sleeve, the lowlander near dragging him up the cliff with a single rugged, cracked palm a tad larger than his own. Hidden beneath their humble form lay some formidable strength - one that could break the bones in its grasp. Naveil trembled in the lowlander's shadow as they bantered on, Naveil's weight trivial enough to hold onto both him and a conversation.
"Met some-ya hill-folk down near m'barn in the crater," Some earnest lilt tinged their rasping voice, the kind usually reserved for reminiscing with an old friend. Naveil had never received such a tone, and their amity only sharpened his dread.
"Lemme tell ya," the lowlander added, gesturing, "those folk couldn't climb a ladder, let 'lone a cliff. Done worse than you down there. Wouldn't give meh th'time of day, neither, s'if they ain't smell like flower vomit. All tha' parfum musta gone to they's heads."
"…Really..?" It was all Naveil could manage between the ghosts of pain haunting his arm and shoulder.
In a casual tug, the lowlander brought him over the cliff's brim and onto cragged, grainy soil. Naveil shuddered. He wanted to be angry. He should've been angry. The lowlander had wrapped their defiling touch around his wrist, speaking over Naveil as though he were nothing.
But they'd helped, hadn't they? Hells, Naveil had even accepted it. His head spun with contradictions; it was in the very marrow of highlanders to despise the valley-folk, but his heart thought otherwise, and the unbalance ached. He should've tipped his head up and glowered down his nose at them, but he couldn't bring himself to. Not right now.
"S'wha's yer name, ah?" The lowlander was, thankfully, oblivious, speaking with that same pleasant familiarity. "S'pose y'don't like me callin' ya 'noble-boy.' "
"…Jus' call me Nav. And I'm not a noble."
"Ah, y'mightas well be! Y'got some nice treads, a coat, gloves – y'know what I'd do for some gloves, Nav? I don't, but I bet it'd be somethin' big, alright."
They were something eccentric, talking with their hands as much as their mouth – a natural-born storyteller, no doubt. Naveil wasn't a particular fan, as his instincts determined their anxious gestures as threats, and he flinched accordingly. What rattled him most, though, was the lowlander's summer-wear in the winter's icy grip. Their sweater and slacks, patchworked and moth-eaten, draped over their frame like curtains, yet a light sweat dribbled down from their tangle of dark hair.
"M'name's Tomma, by the way, but s'not important much – ya won't be seein' me again, I don't think." The lowlander – Tomma – stepped away from the bluff and into the deepening forest grass.
In the rising light, their silhouette became clearer. Tomma was a young, pale-faced boy, maybe a season or two Naveil's senior, thin yet burly. A medley of scrapes and scars crossed his skin like lattice, though, as with the cold, he seemed not to mind.
"Whaddaya mean by that?" Naveil's senses hadn't settled yet, and he was compelled to pry.
Tomma nodded a quick "follow me," walking and talking as if Naveil'd simply oblige.
And he did. But not because Tomma told him to.
"I mean," Tomma hesitated. "I mean, most ya highlanders find out real quick that us valley-folk don't like ya much. Y'haven't 'ad a run-in with an' of them?"
Naveil kept a hare-skip behind Tomma, shuffling his boots in the sedge.
"Nah."
"Then I s'pose y'got lucky. My folk'd have a spade on ya head, no questions. 'Cept me, o'course - an' Jenny's sweet as honey, too. I left her over yonder. Jenny!"
Something distant stirred. Naveil's heart froze, then thrummed against his ribs. The leaf-litter crackled beneath the weight of some behemoth.
Tock-tock.
"Jenny!" Tomma called out to her again.
Tock-tock-tock.
Tough hooves clattered against stone, bearing down on the boys in a thundering stampede. A flash of silver fur broke free of the forest's web, galloping towards Naveil. Its eyes went wide. Braying, roaring, it skidded to a halt, rearing into a towering menace, cloaking the boys in shadow.
"Jenny!"
Naveil's knife appeared in his hand, but his fingers quivered noncommittally on the hilt. He breathed in gasps, retreating to the undergrowth. Tomma stood firm, reaching for the bridles that coiled the beast's head in haphazard loops.
"Bad Jenny! Be nice!"
Tomma peered over his shoulder at a most certainly not cowering Naveil.
"Y'got too close, I think," He said, tugging Jenny's reins. "Nav's a friend, Jen. Relax some."
…"A friend?" Naveil peered up, that imbalance rippling through his marrow again. Tomma was… he was too much of a wildcard. Earnest and dangerous and pleasant all the same. He'd called Naveil a friend, but Jenny didn't think so. She gave an indignant snort, stomping her hooves. A wooden bell, whittled from ruddy heartwood, perched on a rein, tocking away as Tomma settled the beast.
"M'sorry, Nav. I done forgot Jen's ticked at y'highlanders, too. One thems tried to gut me 'bout a moon ago – forgot the river ain't our land."
A few beats of silence as Naveil's heart calmed and Tomma's gaze fell to the ground.
"I'll, uh," Tomma's voice was small, nearly overpowered by that grating edge in his throat. "I c'n take ya back to tha trail 'fore somethin' else happens. Y'probably got somethin' else worth doin'."

Responding in a whisper, how should Naveil feel..?

• Tomma's nice, but he's too risky. His folk hate Naveil's folk and vice versa – there's no making this work.
• A friendship with Tomma could be worth trying, but Naveil shouldn't get too attached just yet. He should scope this out more.

Tomma fell silent for a beat; his incessant warmth was dampened but not deterred. He let the silence brew, steering Naveil along as some cheeky smile formed on his face. The canopy rolled overhead. Morning light and forest shade swished in the breeze. Jenny was hushed now, so Naveil stole a better look at Tomma's "sweet" companion. She was a mukliute, some long-furred majesty native to the south, where storm clouds fledged their wintry wings among the mountains. Naveil was familiar with the fodder breeds, the walking carpets raised for their shearlings. There were ornamental lines, too – gaunt beasts in gaudy chimes that heralded the Seracs, the only folk who could afford not to sell them.
Jenny was a draft breed, though. At Jenny's shoulder, she was half-again Naveil's height, built heavy-boned and brawny. He caught the slight ripple of muscle beneath her dense fleece. A thick, peppered mane swept from her forehead to her flank, and a tawny-silver brindle stained Jenny's coat. Starry black charred her points, falling in waves over her front paws and hinder hooves. He took her into his mind's eye, studying as much as fast as he could. Old scars shied away around her withers, only discernible by the odd dents in her fluffy outline. Those scars smelled faintly of lowland blight, even in the evergreen breeze.
A steady chopping lurched in on the crisp air, jangling in Naveil's mind, hooking some rogue thought he'd had and throwing it to the wind. He turned, seeing Tomma's thready fingers etching circles into Jenny's chin. The mukliute was clacking her teeth in apparent delight.
"Does she like bein' pet?" It spilled from Naveil's mouth before his wits caught up to the moment.
"Course she do," Tomma replied. A beat passed, and his meandering mood was back in full stride. "Always up for a scratch on th'head – sh' loves up 'hind her ears, but Jen's too tall righ' now. I'll get'm when she settles in fer th' night."
"So she ain't always so… stomp-ish?"
"Not less she's tryin' to keep m'safe, nah." Tomma's hands slid up Jenny's muzzle, and he stopped mid-stride to cup her lower jaw. She leaned into it, bowing like some sleepy snowdrop, and her tail swung loosely. "Jen's all lovin's now – y'wanna pet her?"
Of course not. Naveil passed on the opportunity as politely as possible despite Tomma's insistent urging.

"Oh, you've got someplace t'be, Nav, don'cha?"
"Ah?"
Tomma was a few strides ahead, already busy pulling Jenny across a ditch. Naveil's treads had sunken into the frostbitten soil. He pulled free and passed by Jenny's flank, matching tracks with Tomma.
"Trail's a bitta walk, yeah," Tomma said. "B'ya should get where you're goin' 'fore noon, though – where'y off to, anyway?"
Naveil's face locked up, stuck in some wide-eyed wince. His gaze drifted, and he warily answered, "Jus' hunting." And then he added a "Nothin' special" as garnish.
It appeased Tomma's nosiness, however harmless it might've been. He nodded to Naveil's answer at some lethargic half-pace, like his head weighed a boulder. "Righ', righ'," Tomma cooed. "Forgot ya hill-folk hunt for everythin'."
In a sleepy breath, he added, "Always killin' stuff up, all that huntin' biznin."
"Course we're always hunting. Moors else are we goin' to eat?"
Tomma blanched, and Jenny's tall ears tipped back.
"Sorry," Naveil muttered. "But it's true! What do y'lowland folk eat, huh?"
Now Tomma had shifty eyes, as though Naveil was prying for something he shouldn't.
"I eat 'nuff f'me, an' I'ont gotta hunt ev'day, neither."
That rasp in Tomma's voice cast some edge into his tone, but it was far from aggression – for how expressive the boy was, anger was out of his emotional range. A beat passed, and Tomma's face melted into another rosy-cheeked grin. He was something pliant. The whine of the wind through the overhead greenery must've been wearing his silence thin. The farm boy was liable to spitting scrolls' worth of half-ideas and improv, all at his slightest inspiration. Charm and whimsy dyed his words like lakeglass on sunlight.
Naveil was slipping into a trance. Some compulsion drew his ear to Tomma's odd dialect and scratchy tenor. It left energy in the air, a rallying presence that Naveil could reach out and touch. For the moment, he'd acknowledged Tomma as part of the morning ambiance, akin to the tocks of Jenny's bell. The words were separating, now, spreading and becoming coherent. Naveil listened in, nodding absent-mindedly. He could grasp that Tomma spoke of his usual morning routine, but the poor boy's yarn was a labyrinthine tangle.
Tomma'd wake a hound's-bay past midnight in his hayloft as the old furnace smoked on dying embers and char. He'd hike out to the Marlpools – some mud springs out southwest that Naveil'd never heard of. But before that, Tomma'd scatter grains for Jen and the hens and wake up in the woods. He'd been foraging, and those horse-ear mushrooms were decidedly inedible. And after that, Tomma'd tend to the crater meadow – had Naveil seen the meadow? He had to, someday. In the summer, preferably, when the pale, blooming petals resembled specks of paint on a snow-white canvas. Anyhow, it'd be too late for Tomma to head out to the Marlpools, so he'd head home and wake up in time to watch the Daystar rise.
And if Tomma yapped any longer, his breath would thaw the Everchill.
The woods were thinning, the dense foliage falling away in tidy clippings. Ahead, a wide snake of sandy dirt and crushed grass meandered along neat cairns of gravel. The trail.
Tomma's banter croaked mid-sentence as the dusty old path came into view. Jenny seemed ill at ease, too, as her broad paws stalled in the underwood, kicking up the topsoil as she pulled her reins. She was chopping her teeth again, now at an uneasy pace.
"Tha's the trail, yeah." Tomma's voice was small, barely audible over the forest's hum.
Naveil stepped into the tread-pressed grass and onto the gravel and piney soil. The familiar comfort of Tomma's presence was fading, replaced by the wind's biting chill.
"Tomma?"
"Yeh?"
"Y'coming?"
"Can't."
Naveil felt his brow quirk upwards, and he glanced over his shoulder. Behind a cluster of scrub and brambles, Tomma lingered in hiding, clutching Jenny's slack reins. His throat jumped.
"Tha's highland-land, Nav," He murmured. " 'M not 'llowed any further."
Tomma shuffled in the brush.
Retreating.
"Wait!"
Tomma went rigid, staring back with wide eyes, pressing into Jenny's flank.
"Where's you off to?" Naveil's voice ached more than he'd have liked to admit.
"Home's, I s'pose, I oughta get to m'dog. Why?"
"We'll talk again sometime, right?"
A beat.
"S'pose not. Me an' Jen ain't up here all tha' offen. Not less youse stop 'round the farm or some'in." Tomma shifted his weight. "Y'got other folk for talkin' to, dontcha? Wha's special 'bout me?"

"Iunno. It's just nice talking to you. I guess it's 'cause you're my only lowland friend."

"Oh!" It was hard to tell, as the cover of forest darkness veiled his face, but Naveil was sure that Tomma's smile glowed a bit brighter.
"Well, y'make a nice highland friend y'self, Nav."

･┉━━━━━━━━━┉･★･┉━━━━━━━━━┉･

Like a gash in the land, a riverless bed tore about the western woods. For a half-league, it widened, and the surrounding soil and stone loomed in like the walls of a cauldron. In the pit's far center, the sagely tree of Leafhaven stood, shivering its needly down into the thicket. Mid-morning lighting filtered through its boughs, and its shade danced along the sedges. Brambles, gleaming with frozen dew, curled about the basin's rim and whorled into some natural fence at the bed's narrows. Any boy could clamber through, but a seasoned Havener knew the secret entrance, where the brambles had been plucked clean of their spines.
It was a ways off from the main gates. A mountainous gneiss sheltered some tunnel from above, and a clump of saplings masked the hole from prying eyes. On the other side was woody scrub, and a pile of mossy firewood eclipsed the tunnel's other entrance. Naveil slipped through, the darkness wrapping about him for a beat before the dappled light splashed onto him again, and the pleasant anarchy of the Haveners met his ears. Some shouting match between a hefty mason-boy and a scholar fell flat in the air, absorbed by the morning crowd's chatter.
In a way, competition had ingrained itself into Leafhaven's roots. Beneath the mighty sequoia, a boy became aware of Nature's cruelties. There were winners, survivors, those who basked in valorous triumph, but that glory was fickle as the seasons, and one could not succeed forever. A boy learned to lick his wounds and retreat. So long as he wasn't dead, another sun would shine – there'd be another chance. And some deep, resonant note in that simple lesson struck a chord within Naveil. He'd struggled his way up the ranks, and so had everyboy else. No authority here was permanent, both out of the virtue of competition and simply because the Haveners were still aging. Leafhaven's de facto leaders, two young men bordering their seventeenth winters, appeared as sparsely as snow in summer. Once they'd officially gone, the power balance would go into a tailspin – Naveil'd have to stay on his toes. As his boots pressed on loamy soil, the notion tumbled in his mind like a polishing agate, turning over and over, again and again…

"NAVEIL!"

Naveil'd recognize his tandem's voice with his ears plugged. He slid down the main trail, sidling through a knot in the crowd where some pebbly snowball fight had knocked some recruiter's boy down. In the wind-beaten courtyard, a portly hemlock bowed over a spring, risking its roots for a sip. A bygone rot had eaten its trunk from the heartwood out, leaving an oddly sturdy husk of the conifer. Naveil caught sharp eyes in a whittled window, glowering down at him as he crossed the swarms of Haveners. His tandem was in the dim hollow, cross-legged and bloody-handed over some tiny skinning table. The dark in the hollow's corner shifted, and the flushed face of another Havener melted into view.
"Navvers!" It was Petlon, a wide-faced Serac boy whose face was perpetually red as blushing maple. He wore some ugly shearling jacket, its deep golds and carmines better suited for attracting bees rather than game. "I," he began with pompous flair, pointing a finger Naveil's way, "went hunting, waiting on you!"
"went with him, too," Hidden behind Petlon was his own tandem, a hapless novice who'd fallen for his illusion of charm. The poor boy, maybe five winters Naveil's junior, was quiet as a shadow. "caught a crawly thing with a shell. Hartie's cuttin' it up for us. she's real nice, yeah."
She.
Naveil's gaze flickered back to his own tandem, Hartka, a young huntress, and though she held his gaze stone-faced, her silver-green eyes flashed with respect. Not a veteran's scorn or a scout's veneration, but a mutual's respect.
She was an anomaly within Leafhaven, as she was the first girl to infiltrate their – supposedly – underground community. A plash of umber blood stained Hartka's pastel face – it wasn't hers. It sprayed up from the kill she was gutting, leaving dark flecks on her mock-tweed parka. Her short hair sat in a messy ruffle, catching snow and plant debris in blonde nets. Hartka was a hunter by blood and marrow. Unconventional as she was, one couldn't deny her skills, her inherent killing instinct, honed to a pristine edge on some unseen whetstone. She'd been Naveil's tandem, his trainee, for roughly four seasons, and though he'd love to take praise for nurturing her prowess, that was plainly untrue.
"Moors took ya, Nav?" Hartka asked coolly.
In one hand, she held a rippling agate knife, and in the other, she held Petlon's kill. The meat was somehow stringy and fatty. It reeked like a corpse; it certainly wasn't standard game. The Serac boy couldn't hunt leaves in autumn – it wouldn't surprise Naveil if Petlon had gone carrion-kicking.
Naveil took a seat beside Hartka. "M'matern made me have breakfast—"
"Cakes and syrup?" She turned to him, though her gaze was someplace else. "Your breath smells. You 'ad meat, too – Wait, don't tell me… beef? No, venison! You 'ad venison, Nav?"
"Yep." A moment passed, and he added, "You're gettin' better at tracking, Hartie. Won't even need a retriever at this rate."
Most village girls would blush and smile and giggle like scheming mice at such praise. But Hartka wasn't most. A little smirk crossed her face, and she returned Naveil's flattery with a friendly elbow to his ribs. Petlon huffed. He leaned back, crushing his tandem against the tree hollow's wall. The fledgling whispered some inaudible complaint as Petlon spoke over him.
"Wh'ever. Hartie, dearie, can you do me an' my tag-along another favor, please?"
She rolled her eyes, drying the gore on her knife on her white blouse's lovely lace trimming. "I already gutted the thing, Moors else do you want?"
"Well, my tandem, what's-his-name, can't stoke a fire. We can't cook the meat, dear."
"can stoke a fire jus' fines." A murderous glare shushed the tandem's protests.
"Hartie, dear, can you—"
"No." And there was resolute finality in her rejection.
It must've itched Petlon's soul, as the boy seemed unable to process it. His cheeks puffed out for a beat, and then a red swell came over him, and he shuddered. A bit of steam came out his ears, too.
"But, you've got nothing better to do, Hartie-dear," He tried. "And we could spare you a few cuts for the trouble."
"Don't want 'em. Nav's been tracking some summer-fat rabbits, an' I'm going with 'im."
She hesitated. "Nav?" Hartka spun Naveil's way again. "We're still going, yeah?"
"Course we are," Naveil's voice wavered at the sudden attention.
Petlon's brow twitched. "Well, I'm coming, too. What's-his-name can have the cuts, then."

Responding in a whisper, what should Naveil (and Hartka) do?

• Let Petlon, and more importantly, his tandem come along on the hunt. They might be dead weight, but at least they won't eat whatever they caught.

• Who said Petlon was invited? Tell him off, and don't let him come. His tandem probably won't leave his side, though, so the little boy likely won't come either.