Anywhere I Wander, Anywhere I Roam

[The Washoe Wasteland]

A wanderer wandering the wastes, searching, searching for things? Any things? Easy to spot, easier to miss. Friendly but flighty, flies well, but can't fly. Well spoken, but can you understand him? Forecast: Dusty, with a lot to learn. - The Forecaster

The group of geckos were in a fine uproar, if one had eyes to see it. They chattered and screeched, and some might have been amazed enough to continue watching, despite the danger that six geckos posed most travellers. Their attention, and likely the attention of most unlikely passersby, would have been drawn to a rocky crested hill not a stone's throw away.

It didn't take long for the geckos to overcome any of their hesitancy and begin ascending the hill, growling menacingly the whole while. The reason why could be heard with a little concentration. A baby gecko's cries could be heard from the outcropping, weak and distressed. One of the geckos, likely the baby's mother returned the cry and rushed even more quickly up to the outcropping.

Upon reaching the outcropping, the geckos slowed down, even the mother; within the rocks was a small clearing, where the small gecko laid, bleeding from a gash down its back, and one leg was obviously broken. A prime spot for an ambush, and the geckos seemed to know it. Still, they were aggressive, with the mother quickly running over to her child to check on it. The other geckos started to move in cautiously when a blur manifested from the shadows between some stones, and leaped onto the mother, hook clawed toes digging into the mother's back while a snout full of teeth clamped down on the stubby neck and tore out a portion of flesh.

The other geckos rushed the newcomer, who managed to leap out of the way and onto a rock. The geckos jumped and scrabbled, but the odd creature was out of reach. The larger creature hissed and jumped down, landing on another gecko, but the quick attacks of the other four kept it from finishing the kill; it shot up and away, scratches along the base of its long tail beginning to well with blood. The fortunate gecko shook itself, two puncture wounds on its back signs of how close it came to death.

A red light flashed on a small collar about the creature's neck, and a static filled and fuzzy voice echoed throughout the area:

“...Help!... He—” a bout of static broke up the voice, only for it to pick up again where it left off: “–lp!”

[Chirp]

He was rapidly getting frustrated with the device affixed around his neck, he was. It had hardly been used, and still it refused to work properly most of time, it did. Most frustrating.

The geckos continued their attempts to climb his perch and maul him, and he couldn't blame them, but sitting in the darkening clearing was almost three days' worth of food, and that wasn't something to give up easily, it wasn't. The situation made him wish he had accepted the offered weapon back when he first left the Laboratory.

He hissed, prompting one of the geckos to flare its fins in challenge. He waited, and jumped on it, claws on his fingers and toes gouging into the creature but not doing mortal harm. He quickly jumped back to his perch, and chirped slightly in pain. They'd gotten another swipe off at him for his foolish action.

He watched the geckos patiently, waiting for another moment to strike, while the translator around his neck continued to sputter and spit static, garbling his calls for help. If he could find some shelter, it would make the calls a much better option, since he wouldn't be as much of a target as he was now.

He flared the feathers along his neck, and hissed again.

"Help!... He... help!" the collar sputtered, prompting an internal sigh of frustration again.

[Dreams When Bitten]

Gecko blood splashed against the dusty brown rock face nearest the perch as one of the talking avian's attackers pitched forward, minus the pitiful remnants of its head. A heartbeat later, the thunderclap of the rifle that did the killing rolled in the distance, signalling an attack that had come from far off. Far up the craggy hills ahead lay a stand of Ponderosa pines, behind any one of which the gunman could be located.

ker-TOWWW!!!

Another bullet hit short of a Gecko, but not before pinging as a ricochet to maul one of its stubby legs. It shrieked in terror, and limped away frantically.

[Chirp]

He jumped at the chance, though the rolling clap that slowly made its way from the hills nearly made his heart leap out through his chest, it did. He took his chance despite that, and jumped down, mangling the wounded and fleeing gecko with a vengeance.

He turned slowly, fixing his eyes on the remaining three, of which only one wasn't bleeding. The geckos were confused and somewhat frightened, they began to run back to the rocks. He was quicker though, jumping to the top of one stone and then back down on the other side, hissing threateningly and causing them to flee the stand of rocks and down the hill. He watched the distance curiously, wondering if the gunman or gunmen would take another shot.

[Dreams When Bitten]

"Chat gnotkeh kushka tipkee osh."

The woman who had fired the rifle spoke low to the man by her side, not bothering to budge her white-painted face from the cheek weld she had against her weapon.

The man, likewise smeared in white paint with spots of blue across his forehead, shook his head. He spoke in a whisper, but there was disagreement.

"Waa nachee kitka koos sing Yupi"

At this the woman moved her head from the rifle far enough to shake it slightly.

"Tatkee koos battucappo kula? Nitka tat. See hallee tipkee osh, se?"

The man started to say something in return, but stopped short, seeming to defer to the woman with the rifle. He turned to the trees, and cupped a hand to his mouth, mimicking the sound of a bird call.

Even farther away, the barest movement in the trees could be seen. Unless one was looking specifically for such a thing, one would never see the seven other riflemen moving from their hiding places, disappearing further past the ridge ahead.

With a confident smile, the woman nodded to the man, who took her place at the tree with his own rifle at the ready. The woman stepped into the open. Her first steps were cautious, eyes panning the nearby trees and anything that might offer cover.

With the geckos in retreat, she approached the strange creature that made words. Her rifle, a Winchester lever-action lovingly adorned with nightstalker skin, rattles, and other fetishes, hung lightly in her grasp, neither trained on Chirp nor far enough that she couldn't bring it up to bear on him in a heartbeat. Still, her face was etched with cautious curiosity as she crept forward. Her mouth opened and she spoke careful words.

"You make the battucappo talk? Are you shaman, and lose your true body?"

[Chirp]

From her vantage point, the woman could only see the creature's silhouette, and a gleaming eye in the shadows of one of the rocks. It moved, and static sounded through the area again, with small parts of it recognizable as speech.

"Shaman? ... not shaman. My name is ... And... battucappo? Hm?"

As the static slowly quieted, the creature's head poked out from his hiding place, slowly.

Around his neck was a weathered leather collar, set in which was a round metallic object with a dome of clear glass or other clear substance. As the static picked up again, the dome flashed red.

"... transl... my voice... bro..."

A clawed finger came up and tapped the object quickly, causing a burst of static followed by its sudden quieting. The creature chirped low and long, sounding resigned to the frustration of his malfunctioning gear.

[Dreams When Bitten]

She was herself no shaman. Her knowledge of the Back-When and the artifacts of the ancients was limited to practical things, like using and maintaining her Wind-Chaser. She had never seen a necklace and amulet of such power, to contain one's voice. Why one would put one's voice into an amulet was beyond her. Some battucappo were versed in the Back-When, but very few visited the Hipi for trade.

Still, it was unwise to take an encounter like this as coincidence. Ponderosa had guided her to this creature-who-could-speak, and she would certainly listen, even to the point of abandoning a war party if necessary.

Her eyes travelled back to the stand of trees, where Crosses-High-Water watched over her disapprovingly. She made a sharp gesture in his direction, and that was that. The war party disappeared through the trees. She was alone, with creature-who-could speak, and would be charged with making sure they both returned to her people safely.

"Can't make the talk? Can you listen and follow? Not safe, here. This is Yupi land. They find us, they take our spirits."

[Chirp]

The collar sputtered softly again. The creature tilted its head curiously.

"...Fo... food?"

It chirped, and looked back at the clearing where the dead geckos lay. It looked back at the woman. Finally, it nodded, and stalked back into the outcropping, digging into a crevasse and pulling out a small bag, whose contents jingled and shifted slightly while the creature managed to settle it over his head, and fastened it tightly around one shoulder. It nosed and picked up the not quite dead gecko, and stalked back out of the outcropping.

"...I'm rea... do... ind... questions! ... first I have met... ome."

[Dreams When Bitten]

Perhaps she was wrong, and the creature was indeed capable of making battucappo talk, but the words she knew were little help to bridge understanding. It could be High Tongue, a kind of shaman speak of the Back-When that was beyond her understanding.

The creature-who-could-speak certainly had a knack for killing geckos, and even while showing the signs of tell-tale nips had managed an impressive showing for itself. Still, lording over a pile of geckos much too big for itself was only inviting trouble.

Hoping to drive a better offer, she pulled her gecko-skin pack from her shoulder, working the leather drawstring free with a deft twirl of fingers. Reaching inside, she found a well-used gasketed mason jar, full of a few greasy strands of dried meat preserved in its fat. It was Jurkee, a treat that had been around since the Back-When, and a good choice for compact nourishment for those who travelled light.

She worked the gasket free with a soft pop, and fished out one of the strands of dried meat, offering it toward creature-who-could-speak with a look that angled for a sales pitch.

"Is Jurkee, food from my people. Easier to carry. Come, come. We must not stay in this place."

[Chirp]

The collar sputtered again as the creature stalked up to the woman's outstretched hand, and with a bobbing motion almost too quick to be anticipated, the jurkee was snapped up. The tough meat went down quickly, and the creature visibly paused, slowly working its jaw up and down... it was actually tasting the food.

The collar sputtered incoherently, but the buzzing sound didn't sound very enthusiastic, if one could judge the reaction by the collar anyhow. The creature picked up the dead gecko and started bobbing its head in an odd motion, the gecko's limp limbs wagging morbidly back and forth, as if gesturing in time with its killer. The woman looked at him curiously for a moment, puzzled, until the collar buzzed and spat out a coherent phrase, if a bit stilted:

"...we go? ... I da... ere mu... ger... fir... get... do."

[Dreams When Bitten]

She took some time to think about the gestures and the garbled words the creature had for her.

"East, there are battucappo who know of many things from the Back When."

She pointed to it's collar.

"This is where your voice is? Maybe they bring it back."

[Chirp]

"...at s...s ... prom... ... b...ng ... t... sp... it d..."

Despite the less than coherent response, the creature seemed to be enthusiastic about the idea, if the flailing gecko's arms and legs and the tongue now lolling out of its mouth were any indication.

The odd creature's head bobbed up, tilting in the direction she had pointed, as if he could see the place from where he stood.

[Dreams When Bitten]

With the creature's affirmation of her plan (or what she guessed to be as such), she led the way, keeping off the foot paths and staying near the Ponderosas. The creature followed close by, and she would stop occasionally to make sure they kept together. This was Yupi land, and the Light-Bringers were every bit as keen-eyed as she was. It would do no good to make mistakes. The one thing that protected them more than anything was the understanding that the path they took was far from one that war parties would normally take. As they moved further away from the shores of Mother Taho, the signs of Yupi markings grew less and less. There were no totems, and no fingers of smoke from fires in the distance. Dreams When Bitten's posture reflected the easing in tension, and she began to pad barefoot through the woods with a bit more confidence.

"My name is Dreams When Bitten. You have a name? I look forward to hearing it."

[Chirp]

In what he would later term an "odd event", the collar cleared slightly, though the background hiss and sputter warned that the device's newfound stability was only temporary at best.

"...My name is-" and the creature chirped two notes, the first low and warbling up to the second, higher note. "...no di... ...ansl.. ... But, ... chirp... de... Drea... ...n Bitte... ... very poetic, yes."

He drew up roughly next to the woman he'd met, and matched her pace. The moment they had left the more open areas, he'd calmed down, and now his eyes darted back forth, and his head bobbed about to keep his surroundings well seen, but the quick, agitated movements of before were gone.