Through the Phantom Canvas

[Quietus]

The mountainsides of the Vytirn clan territory awoke to a sleepy splendor. The sunrise blanketed the lands in shifting hues of saffron, rose, and violet; a glimmering in the jungle canopy as the colors caught drops of dew casting the horizon in ethereal radiance. Rearing their beastial skulls into the light of the rising sun, the Drexl sang in the commencement of the day with greater vigor than they had in the last several months. Today was a day of celebration and happiness, for She had been found at long last.

Slowly crawling its way through the jungle of the eastern slope, a small caravan of clansmen walked in silence. Their faces were dark, shoulders hunched, and eyes heavy with fatigue. It had been nearly two weeks since they left for the Mantek tribe to the north upon the word of their elder Shaman Greyskull, and though many had left in a sour state, hissing under their breath of the old man's senility, they returned now changed men. Greyskull had been right and his visions had lead them straight to the battered, broken, unconscious, but still very much alive body of their missing leader. The men were tired, but filled with overwhelming relief and comfort upon seeing the fires of their village burning hot and bright. After 17 long, arduous days, they were home and their leader was alive.


Sahti was normally up with the rising sun, but lately the young girl had grown anxious. She dreamt of the caravan returning with a corpse of their beloved leader, the carcass swollen and rotting, face drawn in a hideous silent scream. The images so real, so graphic, that she often woke in a cold sweat with her heart beating at the back of her ribs. Pra Herra would tut and tsk, asking the girl what was wrong, but Sahti said nothing for fear that spoken words would make these dreams true. Her dream that night, however, had been strangely devoid of the gruesome scene and instead showed her only the great heaving forms of the beasts as they winged across the skies. They were jubilant and singing, groaning in the winds. Sahti sighed in her sleep and smiled, she could almost hear Kefka's horn, calling from the slopes of their return...

"Sahti, Sahti! Pah, useless girl!"

Sahti suddenly found herself being shaken and awoke with a start. "I'm up," she mumbled, blinking the sleep out of her eyes, "-gonna get a buckit of water-"

"Water? Girl wake up, the men have returned and the beasts are singing! She's alive, alive! Riversaw's mercy! Don't you hear your brother's horn?"

"'was just a dream Pra," Sahti rubbed at her eyes, slipping her toes through the loops of her sandals and stumbling to her feet to find a clean smock.

Pra Herra was an older, large woman who retained some element of her youthful beauty. She was stout and strong, vigorous and vibrant, outspoken and bold. The eldest sister to the late Chieftain Riversaw, she could not bare children and therefore never held a mate, but made up for her losses by taking in children orphaned by war. Sahti and Kefka were her newest pups, though Kefka was well on his way to his coming-of-age initiation. "Not a dream, little Sahti, I heard it just now..."

"How do you hear anything anymore." Sahti snipped as she quickly brushed her hair and posed before an aged mirror, inspecting her naked figure for scratches and ticks.

"I hear what I need to hear. It was faint, but I know what I heard! Get dressed-"

Sahti rolled her eyes as she pulled on her clothes.

"-and go wake Zekahl Cor. Quickly now! Het het!"

Grabbing a handful of fruit, Sahti tumbled out the door but not without making several faces at Pra Herra's back. Sahti was the quintessential youth of her people: limber and strong, tan skinned, bright eyed, and dark haired; willful and stubborn to a fault, courageous...but only just so. As she trounced across the vine and wood bridge towards the central hub of the village she could feel her heart flutter. She'd never once directly spoken to the Zekahl himself, for one so young as she it was terribly taboo and against customs. Sahti remembered once that she'd pretended to be asleep when Zekahl Cor had come to visit her Pra's Alcove. She couldn't remember why he was there, but she'd squatted at the end of her bed, watching through the slivers in the wood panels. She couldn't be sure, but Sahti thought that he knew she was watching - he'd glanced directly at the spot in the wall she'd been peeking through.

Reaching the center moor, Sahti rounded the bulk of the Coven Tree and proceeded up the staircase spiraling higher and around until finally she found herself at the home tier. Fingers wound in a fist as tight as the knot in her chest, Sahti took a deep breath and knocked loudly on the entrance.

[Tuuka]

They stood shin-deep in the river, ducking low to toss handfuls of cold water over their heads. Though the sun had only begun its climb into the sky, the morning had long since begun for this trio. Nearest to the rivers bank, one sluiced water across his forearms, washing away the first layer of grime that swallowed almost every inch of skin up to his elbows.

“Do you hear them calling, Tuuka?”

The figure who stood directly in the path of the current turned, frowning faintly at his brother. The horn wailed triumphant, its victory-cry muted only by the ferocious shriek of the drexl circling nearby. Tuuka nodded and began to lowered himself to his knees, the water-line rising to cut across his abdomen.

“I hear it,” he said, looking down at the reflection of himself for a moment – hair and flesh slick with sweat, a fresh cut across his right temple. He had cleaned the wound, but fresh blood trickled from the wound, in a streak that ran like a tear alongside his eye. It would heal of its own accord, without any stitches. More importantly, it was only a scratch compared to the damage the three of them had done. The eastern clans would be none too eager to encroach upon their territory again.

“I hear,” he repeated. “And if she's alive now, she'll be alive when we're done.”

[Cor Drakken]

He could still remember the Solstice festival.

Never one for celebrations, he'd always taken the border patrols and guard duties no-one wanted. Every celebration, every festival, Cor had avoided them like a plague. Until his nineteenth year. He'd passed his trials and earned the right to be called a Beast Lord, the first of his brothers to do so, and the youngest in generations of their tribe. Cor couldn't avoid the Solstice celebration this time, no matter how much he'd wanted to.

So he'd found himself at the central fire, the center of attention, his least favorite of places. Quite contrary to his more solitary nature. Movement caught out of the corner of his eye drew his dark gaze, a bit of bright blue ribbon wound around thick, dark locks. All of fourteen that season, Des was taller than most of her year-mates, and in spite of her physical maturity, the impish gleam had yet to leave her dark eyes.

Her smile though...was somewhere between mischievous and wicked. Cor shook his head and grinned in response, accepting the traditional cup of spiced cider from her. Larger hands captured her slender ones, holding them around the mug as he sipped, lingering briefly before letting go. It was enough to set his heart to racing for a moment, a feeling he'd never experienced before.

Or since, if he was going to be honest with himself.

Cor stood, the early morning hour one of his favorites. The skies lit with the fire of the morning sun as it rose, heralded in by the flocks of drexl waking to the new day. His dark eyes half-lidded as they peered over the mug of kaff in his hands.

Seventeen days, he mused, since the scouting party had gone off on another search. One he would led himself, were it not for the Shaman's warning against it. Freeing one hand, he pressed it to his temple and muttered under his breath. Their tribe loved Des, almost as much as he did, and the fractures that she could smooth over with the softest word seemed to have become gaping chasms in her absence. He wasn't sure how much longer he could hold them together by himself.

Absorbed in his thoughts, Cor didn't hear the distant horn amidst the shrieks of the drexls taking to wing and circling through the sky. It was the knock on the door a level below his balcony perch that brought him out of his reverie. Kaff in hand, he strode through the quiet interior, clad only in a soft pair of breeches, bare feet padding near-soundlessly across the wooden floor and down the short stairs.

Cor sipped at the still-hot kaff and opened the door, gazing down at Sahti with a faint smile. "Bright morning to you, Sahti...does Pra Herra have need of me?" his voice rumbled from deep in his chest.

[Quietus]

"Wind hail you, Zekahl Cor," Sahti bowed deeply, taking her time in rising in order to force the blush from her face. Pra Herra always spoke so fondly of Zekahl Cor and his 'dashing good looks' and it wasn't until she got close that Sahti even knew what she meant. Something about the man was terribly unsettling, she wasn't sure if it was the height of the tree, the charming smile on his face, or the fact that she was speaking to him personally that made her stomach flutter.

His question caught her off guard.

"Ahm...no, I mean yes!" stupid, stupid! She bowed again in embarassment, "the drexl...I mean the horn! Pra Herra said she heard the horn and to tell you to come right away, Sir!"

[Cor Drakken]

If Des were there, she'd have been snickering at him.

He couldn't help himself...a tiny bubble of laughter passed his lips as he grinned and reached out to touch Sahti's cheek. "Alright...alright...I'll be there shortly. Go and tell Pra Herra that you've completed your task."

It was all Cor could do to not drop his kaff and race off into the center of the tribe, barefoot and shirtless as he was. Instead, he maintained the decorum his position demanded of him until Sahti was out of sight. Draining the kaff as quickly as the temperature allowed him to, he went back inside and changed out of the breeches and into a pair of dark leather pants. Boots were next, and his usual leather vest remained behind as he actually heard the horn.

It was close. Perhaps at the outskirts of the village now.

Cor bolted out of the door and only half-way raced down the stairs. He leaped over the side and hit the ground running, weaving between startled villagers who were also rushing to the scene.

[Quietus]

"Pra Herra! Pra Herra!" Sahti scrambled through the crowds gathering at the edge of the camp, push-shoving her way through until she found the tell-tale glimmer of the silver beast claws dangling at the broad waist of her Pra. She jumped at the woman, taking hold of her by the arm and swung forward with glee, "I did it!"

"Did what child? Let go now, you're too big for swinging like that-"

"I found Zekhal Cor! And guess what!" she squeeled.

"What now, speak up."

"He touched my cheek!"

Pra Herra chuckled, "What an honor! Never wash that cheek, never never!"

"Never never!" Sahti giggled.


In the trees beyond the river, the horn sounded again. The people cheered as the first of the search party breached the edge of the woods, their noise only growing louder at the first glimpse of the wood and twine stretcher carrying their once-missing leader. The team walked stiffly, clearly tired and hungry, slowly making their way closer and over the bridge that separated them from the clan. Cor arrived just as they did, and stopped short to allow the man a chance to see the face of his mate.

Desdemona was covered in a heavy blanket with naught but the skin from her shoulders up showing. She was unconscious, terribly pale, bruised, and with many wounds crudely patched. Darker blotches on the blanket told of further injuries unseen. She was alive, but in rough shape.


~~~~


"I wouldn't be so sure," a dry, rassp voice sounded from the opposite side of the stream from Tuuka, and there he would find the hunched figure of the clan's Shaman: Greyskull. He was carrying a large basket filled with herbs, plants, and roots, and seemed to be laboring with it, but despite the trying times of war and unrest, he smiled his crooked smile.

"I see the Eastern Clans have taken-" Greyskull eased himself down through the waters, walking stick in his left hand, basket in his right, and carefully picked his way across the waters, "taken a bite out of our lands again. Ah, and you as well, Tuuka." The Shaman pointed a finger to the blood on the man's face.

[Cor Drakken]

He forgot to breathe, once he reached her side.

He'd wager he'd also seen worse injuries, had worse injuries...come home to her covered in more blood. But that was his job. To lead the warriors into battle as the clan's chief Beast Lord.

Never Des. Never his Desdemona. Not like this.

Heedless of the half-heard protests, he carefully wrapped her yet another blanket that was thrust at him. Cradling her in his arms, Cor carried her himself, her head on his shoulder, until he'd reached the Shaman's area of the camp. Save for Pra Herra and by default Sahti, no one else followed them inside as he settled Des on a soft cot near the fireplace.

[Tuuka]

Tuuka - still smearing away dirt and blood from the lengths of his arms – merely watched as the shaman crossed the shallow waters of the river. “Don't sound so surprised, old man,” he replied, his tone as brittle as sun-bleached bone. “As surely as a cannok shits in the woods, we will war with the Eastern Clans until every last drop of Rider blood had been spilled.”

The others said nothing to this, though their kept their eyes down as they went on cleaning themselves. Tuuka touched his the wound on his forehead, glanced at the glistening blood then scrubbed it away on the coarse, sodden fabric of his tunic. Wading through the water, he came alongside Greyskull and took the old man's basket before offering him a hand up the slight incline of the rivers bank.

“She'll be needing your help then, if she's on the edge between this world and the next.”