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Post by MP on May 30, 2023 1:00:29 GMT -6
"Genasi."
She glanced up from reading the tags. Her voice was lower than expected, and slightly husky. If a voice could gather dust, hers was was something buried and moldering, abandoned as these bones. There was no comprehension as she tested the word.
It wasn't a direct question, she reasoned, and it wasn't an answer to one of his. She'd given him nothing but some mouthfuls of food and silence. He surely couldn't do anything with that.
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Post by Sharei on May 30, 2023 1:11:11 GMT -6
The boy tipped his head at her again. The sound of her voice after so much silence had almost startled him, and he stared at her for a long second before he seemed to gather his wits.
"Yes," he said in answer, as if that were enough. But when it became apparent that the response had been unsatisfactory, B3 thought again about what she could mean. Was it a statement? But why repeat it, if so? A question, then?
"A genasi is a..." B3 trailed off, his brows furrowed in confusion. He couldn't tell her, she wasn't personnel. But he had to tell her, she was in charge of him right now.
"A genasi is a half-human, half-elemental spirit," the boy said, his expression clearing. "The water types are descended from Marids - a type of genie."
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Post by MP on May 30, 2023 1:21:19 GMT -6
A spirit? The woman's features bore the hard lines of the wilderness, but her shoulders relaxed a fraction. She had never heard of a Marid, but a spirit could be worked with. All the more if it meant making the wetlands a safer place to forage. The strange necklace bore a human name. Words could lie, but bones did not. It must be true.
She handed it back to the boy, dropping it the last few inches into his palm. Her gaze swung toward the woods, and though they'd wandered and foraged for nearly two hours, she looked unerringly in the direction of the camp. Half human, he'd said.
"Your father is leaving," she said.
Again, the statement carried a questioning note.
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Post by Sharei on May 30, 2023 1:30:01 GMT -6
More words flowed out of her mouth and the boy's shoulders jumped at the sound. He'd been certain that the strange woman would retreat back to silence, and he'd been turning away when she'd spoken.
Now he swung back around, grey around the edges of his face.
"Fa--?" he repeated bloodlessly. "No. That is Shaun Hawkins. He is my - my handler. Uh."
The boy's hands raised and then lowered again as if he, the stoic nonhuman, were floundering.
"A genasi isn't - we don't have contact with our progenitor. We are taken to serve at birth. Shaun Hawkins owns me."
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Post by MP on May 30, 2023 1:37:13 GMT -6
The cold demeanor cracked for the first time. The woman's mouth opened slightly. Her brows lowered as she puzzled over the nonsensical information. A handler, Shaun Hawkins, not the father, raised a half spirit, not his son, and brought him to collect hydra. Was a handler not a parental figure? Was a boy raised from birth not a son? And how could the man come to these woods and still claim ownership?
"He is leaving you here," she said. Reminded him.
Any ownership, kinship, belonging, was forfeit, once the banished crossed the trees. The souls here belonged only to the forest. And never for long. That knowledge - that threat - hung over her head every waking moment. Everyone's luck ran out eventually.
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Post by Sharei on May 30, 2023 1:44:56 GMT -6
Regaining his composure now that the terrible error had been corrected, B3 nodded.
"Yes."
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Post by MP on May 30, 2023 1:49:43 GMT -6
"Why?"
It was no light thing to give a soul to the woods. Everyone knew the stories. Everyone dreaded the promise of that living death. And yet, spirit or not, he didn't seem bothered by the fact. Nothing so far seemed to faze the child, except for the matter of food. The man, too, had ventured far too deep, and with a staggering flippancy. She couldn't understand.
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Post by Sharei on May 30, 2023 1:53:07 GMT -6
B3 tipped his head again, his gaze sliding sideways as he considered how to answer.
"A genasi is an asset. A tool. We are subhuman, lesser, because we are tainted by the spirits. Our handlers teach us and put us to use to exterminate other subhumans. Since there is not enough food to sustain him my handler must return to safety, but the contract must go on. I will remain until the hydra and it's spawn are slain or I am."
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Post by MP on May 30, 2023 13:01:40 GMT -6
'Tainted by spirits?' Extermination? This was a new one, and she'd heard a lot of ramblings from survivors she'd come across. It was ambitious, and potentially advantageous. It would mean the hydras gone from the wetlands. It would mean richer pickings until the wildlife moved back into the region. But it would never work.
"Then you'll die here," she said. "There are two females. They nest together, and it's only a matter of time before another female hatches. Tell Shaun Hawkins to take you home. His plan won't work."
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Post by Sharei on May 30, 2023 14:33:23 GMT -6
B3's head whipped around. He stared at her hard now, his casual slouch all but gone. Two broodmothers? This was news to him, and news to Shaun, surely. It hadn't been in the file, and it changed everything. Confused tracks and odd qualities at nest sites suddenly made more sense.
"You saw?" B3 said, taking an anticipatory step forward. "When did you last see them? Can you point out nest locations on a map?"
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Post by MP on May 30, 2023 14:56:35 GMT -6
She stepped back, her expression shuttering off with cool wariness. The last thing she needed was to guide outsiders into dangerous territory. Other people, other plans, made more mistakes. Demanded resources that didn't last. That's when the group always turned on itself. No, she could trust in no one but herself.
From a safer distance, the woman raised a hand, pointing away to the south east. Give them their directions. Make them go. She would move inland, away from the waterways that she knew the hydras would scatter and spread down once the nest was disturbed.
"They'll have moved on," she said. "The fish are gone."
After all, she did the same. It was a dangerous game, waiting for the fish as they fled the overhunted waters. Staying clear of the hydras that always followed behind. It was a strategy that would get her bitten if she tested her luck much longer. The hydras were multiplying quickly. But so far, the risk had served her well.
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Post by Sharei on May 30, 2023 20:39:21 GMT -6
Southeast. B3 turned his head to follow the line of her arm, his mind already turning. Southeast. The boy's brows knit together as he considered the added danger of the additional broodmother, and what that might mean for a straightforward attack. They were both aquatic creatures with damage absorption, but of the two of them the hydras possessed greater firepower. B3 had the advantage of utility and intelligence. A head-on assault wouldn't serve him well here. He had to be smart about it. Think. What would B6 do?
Confuse them, said a voice that sounded suspiciously like B6's. Get as many of the small ones caught in the crossfire as possible, said A2. Hit them and run, picking them off until the number was more manageable, B7 said in her breathy way.
"B6 says that Hare says that good manners are to thank people when they help us," B3 said. He reached into one of the hidden compartments in his armor and offered her some of the blackberries that he had foraged earlier. There was an earnestness in his expression as he tried to give her them, one snaggletooth fang poking out the side of a faint smile. It was the first real expression he'd made at her that hadn't been flustered.
"Thank you," he said.
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Post by MP on May 31, 2023 3:10:02 GMT -6
She stared down at him, quietly disconcerted. Thank her? For what? Old, worthless information? The woman's eyes moved down to the berries. She raised a hand - not to take them, but with palm out in refusal.
"If you won't leave, you'll need them."
It was the smile that bothered her. The innocence of it, in spite of what he was. The woman went no more than a few steps from the clearing before she paused. Turned back. She looked the boy in the eye, searching for some trace of doubt there.
"You won't tell your handler to change his mind?"
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Post by Sharei on May 31, 2023 10:27:16 GMT -6
The boy stared back from where she'd left him, the blackberries still piled between his cupped hands. There was nothing in his expression but the faint trace of confusion.
"Should I?"
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Post by MP on May 31, 2023 17:21:02 GMT -6
She stared at him. He couldn't even grasp the danger. The woman shook her head, washing her hands of the matter. Let him chase his hydras. She would lie low and wait for her chance. Find her own way out.
It wasn't so difficult. The woman was careful. She gathered where she could, whenever she could find it. She kept moving, making her shelters on the high rocks where the spawn couldn't reach, counting on their presence to keep the unlikely bear away. All predators could be used in this manner. Even the spirit boy.
She saw evidence of his work as the days stretched on. Changes in the fishing stock. Abandoned nests. Half-grown spawn scattered far from their usual waterways. And something was different about the cycle. She saw fewer signs of cannibalism on the remains she found. Fewer droppings. Fewer signs of successful hatches. The hydra numbers were stablizing. And then they diminished. And then, one expected day, they dropped dramatically.
The woman kept careful tabs on the current nesting areas, if only to stay far away. So she wasn't near to hear when the broodmother was slain. But she read it in the fresh circling of carrion birds - far more numerous than she'd seen before. She knew it by the new quiet and the return of prey. And the smell - rotting hydra flesh - was something you couldn't mistake. The woman spent an extra day at her latest shelter, making sure of the fact. Somehow, the fanged slip of a boy had actually done it.
With only one broodmother left, she could leave safely, even with their chaotic movements. But with fewer hydras, the situation changed. Hydra meat was still meat, and suddenly much more accessible than before. Such a bounty could last her months if she was quick about it. She would preserve what she could, store it away. It was always good to have another cache on hand.
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