And here's chapter 4, please read and review, any comments would be amazing, the good, the bad, etc. Chapter 5 next Friday.
Chapter 4: Oranges and Cherries
You'll never know as much as you knew when you knew nothing.
"How do you know those other hunters?" asks Abhari, aimlessly peeling a fruit by the fire.
Gavin had tossed it to her when they set up camp, called it an 'orange'.
She'd asked if the fruit or the color came first.
He'd started, surprised "Uhm…. I have no idea." And laughed.
They'd been tracking the stag for a little over a week, following its trail up through Morgan's spiral all the way to Glencarrn Sperrins when they caught first sight of it.
It had taken her breath away.
Shining white coat like a beacon in the sunlight, antlers like branches of ivory and hooves of pearl.
He was a handsome creature to be sure.
On closer inspection, she'd been able to see swirling patterns carved in his antlers, like the curling sprigs and vines around Caledon, dripping in frosty dew every morning. She envied the person whom he trusted enough to carve such intricate designs.
Gavin had let her approach it, moving silently from shadow to shadow, he trusted her to be quiet, after all, it was his heavy armor that had startled the creature off when he'd first run into it in the Grenbrack cavern.
Or maybe it was the stench of undead that spooked it.
Either way, he didn't want to take any chances.
She had gotten close enough to see the designs when the stag lurched, whipping his head up from his grazing, ears erect and eyes wide, searching. She froze in place, senses on edge.
She hadn't been the one to alert him, she was sure enough at that.
And that was when the other hunters came, a sylvari woman of birch skin, black scarring across her bark and a head that looked a bit like a pine cone.
She suddenly didn't mind her head of thorns.
The woman had jumped at the sight of the stag, pointed and yelled "There it is!"
One of her companions shot a net from his rifle, heavy stone weights meant to wrap around and strangle its prey.
Marrow had jumped into its path, taking the net down before it could reach the stag.
The sound of his strangled cry had her arrows trained on the other hunters, her prey gone with the white sylvari's blatant shout. In the back of her mind she heard the stag bolt, a splash of water and the canter of hooves on rock then packed earth, and he was gone.
"Sariel!" Gavin ran from his hiding spot, grabbing the sylvari though she wrenched her arm from his grip with a hiss as if his touch was poisonous.
"Gavin! You cost me the stag," the woman's eyes flashed to Abhari when she stepped out of the shadows. The sylvari's dark green eyes remind her of the marsh infected with undead. She pointed a ghostly pale finger at Abhari, "Your pet got in the way."
Gavin grabbed her arm again and pulled her away. Abhari could hear him shout at the sylvari but not the words, it was his matter and she had Marrow to tend to. She cut the net free of her dog, touching his bruises with the healing magic she'd learned from another ranger at the Verdant. He was on his feet without a care in the world in an instant and already prancing off to get himself, and consequently, her, into trouble.
The engineer scowled at her when she tossed him his shredded net, but she smiled, lips pursed thin and eyes narrowed.
Gavin told her that that smile was contempt.
"You basically laughed him off."
"Oh… was that wrong?"
He choked on his water, snorting "No! You were justified, Abhari." He chuckled, wiping his mouth "I'd have done more but you handled yourself well."
When Gavin was done telling off the sylvari, Sariel, the stag was long gone and they began their arduous task of tracking in the dying light.
Thus, their humble campsite in the grassy knoll between Caer Verdant and Sleive's Inlet, essentially where they started.
The marsh sounds were crickets tonight, the constant chrrrrrrr buzzing in the back of her consciousness where she was expectantly listening for the moans and groans of undead.
The area was known for its infestation of the walking departed and she was surprised that the stag had fled this way.
But this pool of mud and high arcing roots, cliffs and rocks covered in spores, was where the tracks led, so they followed.
Marrow was laying on his side by the fire, twitching and shnuffling in his sleep.
She reached over and slapped his paw amiably, smirking when he didn't wake from his dreams.
Gavin's smile is brief when she looks up at him, waiting for an answer.
He sighs and murmurs "Ah, Sariel." He said the name with… not disgust or distaste, more… impatience.
"She runs you thin, doesn't she?"
He smiles at her "You are learning fast, sapling."
She blushes and ducks her head.
Fresh from the pod, she didn't know much about body language or inflection. This week with Gavin had taught her much.
"She is…" he considers for a moment "brash, young and hot-headed…" another pause, pursing his lips "…her pride will be her downfall."
"What will be mine?" she asks without thought and he chokes on his water again.
Her ears burn, she didn't know the sap in her veins could burn so hot, and she feels her cheeks and neck flush with warmth when he gives her an astonished look.
But then he smiles and laughs "Abhari, you're turning into a black cherry." That does not help the color in her cheeks.
"Cherry?" she asks shyly, wringing her wrists, "I-I've heard people describe me like one but… I've never seen one." He gains a catty smirk.
"Here." He digs in his pack, and tosses her his prize.
She catches it over the fire, it is a small thing, purple tint to the rich dark red, skin polished to a brilliant shine in the flickering light of their humble fire.
"It's a fruit, like that orange." He gestures to the half peeled citrus in her lap.
"But its got a pit, like a peach. You can eat it, just don't swallow the pit… or the stem." He adds when she opens her mouth to pop the cherry in.
She blushes and removes the stem, throwing the fruit into her mouth, rolling the cherry from cheek to cheek before biting in.
She winces when her teeth hit the hard pit he'd warned her about.
He snirks at that but doesn't comment.
When she swallows the cherry and spits the pit she cringes at the bitter taste.
She covers it with a hasty bite into the orange. The juices burst in her mouth surprisingly and she lurches forward to catch the drops dribbling down her chin with her hand.
Gavin laughs until there are tears in his eyes "Ah, I'd forgotten what it is like to be young and new to the world." She's too busy wiping away the juices and sucking the flavor off her fingers to blush.
"How old are you, Gavin?" she asks curiously, trying to imagine him as a sapling fresh from the pod… she can't.
His eyes fade to a memory "Ah… nine years I think, feels like centuries though."
"Hmm." She doesn't ask to elaborate.
She'd met other sylvari like Gavin. The years evident on their face, Malomedies most of all. Being firstborn he was twenty-five, but sometimes he reminded her of a human she'd met who told her he was forty.
She didn't want to turn out like that, she wants to stay young and curious forever, though she supposes that is a naïve thing to say. Naïve is better than worn and tired, right?
"I never want to stop wondering, Gavin." She picks at the remainder of the orange peel shyly, glancing up when he doesn't reply.
He is watching her, she can see the sadness in his eyes but the crinkle of a smile at the corners.
"You don't have to, Abhari, you can wonder for as long as you like."
"Then why don't you?"
He sighs, and doesn't reply for a long time.
There is only the crackling of wood between them, the occasional hisssss when the lapping tongues of the fire strike a damp core of wood before burning out the water hungrily.
She wonders if she has asked him a bad question again, but the silence says it is too late to take it back.
Finally, he hikes up his shoulders in a shrug "I guess… I guess I let the world get to me. It is tough, out here in Tyria. I remember the Dream, soft and warm, I did not feel this… hardness when I was asleep, and I was… unprepared." He looks up at her from his gaze into the heart of the fire, his eyes are shining, they make her shiver.
"Don't get caught unawares, sapling." He swallows as though it is hard to say "Expect the wounds and they will not sting so much."
She has nothing to say to that, so she doesn't, fiddling with the discarded cherry stem and debating another bite of the orange.
"Give me that." She's startled when he speaks up, snapping her head up to see his hand outstretched.
"The cherry stem," he beckons and she shyly hands him the stem.
"A human taught me this. You can tie it into a knot like this." Her eyes widen when he pops the stem into his mouth.
She can see his tongue against his cheeks, focus knitting his brow. After a moment, he stick out his tongue to reveal a loosely tied knot in the stem.
She laughs and claps her hands, he smiles, pleased.
Then she hands him the orange.
"Can you do anything with this?"
"Uhm… let me try." He peels a slice off, she's surprised when it comes off in a perfect wedge.
He too pops that in his mouth, turns it around and smiles and she laughs, covering her mouth when she guffaws and tears leap to her eyes.
"Gavin!" The orange slice covers his teeth and his mouth forms against the shape of the wedge, making a beaming grin that makes her stomach hurt.
"Where did you learn that?" she wipes the tears away, breathing hard but unable to regret the pain in her lungs.
He swallows the wedge, humming with the sweet taste.
"Just now, seemed an obvious thing to do." She takes the orange and peels a slice herself, fitting the wedge against her teeth and smiles.
"Hwrr d'I looork?" she asks and he covers his mouth, keeping his laugh down his throat.
"Stunning, Abhari, you look absolutely marvelous." She's pretty sure its sarcasm, but the blush comes to her face anyway and she ducks as she swallows the wedge.
The silence that falls on them isn't uncomfortable, between the crickets, the sound of the forest, crackle of the fire and the gentle sighs from Marrow, it is content.
She picks at the orange, nibbling on the individual wedges and deciding it is her favorite fruit thus far, though she supposes she has many to try before she can say that for certain.
"Abhari?" She jumps and whips her head up, surprised at the sound and quickly going red… well, redder, when his lips pull thin in a smile.
"Thank you."
"Whatever for?" She tucks her ear, ignoring the tinge in her cheeks and brushing the dulled thorns close to her temple.
"You remind me what the world looks like. It seems time has a way of dullingyour sense of the beauty of it. I think I may have found the cure."
"And what is that?" She tries to ignore the blush this time, she cannot blush like a newborn for all eternity...she hopes.
He laughs under his breath "A friend who sees the world for what it is, and not for what it is underneath."
She leans forward, elbow on her knee and head in her hand, brows knitting.
"But by the sound of it… I will see what is underneath someday, won't I?" And she sees his smile turn sad, just the slightest.
"Perhaps." He nods but doesn't elaborate.
She guesses she will just have to wait and see what the Dream has planned for her.
"Get some rest, Abhari. Tomorrow we will continue our hunt, the stag has nowhere to go."
The inlet is a shallow marsh with no way out beyond where they sit, and the Caer sits atop a small cliff with a spiraling path from their vantage point. If the stag tried to escape through here, they would catch it, or the wardens above would at least spot it and shout warning.
She stands to prepare her arrangements, throwing the orange peel into the fire, burning a sweet scent.
"You too Gavin, who else will wake me at the crack of dawn if you are not well rested?"
He snorts "I suspect your dog will. With a troop of angry drakes at that."
"He apologized for that." She smooths the ruff of Marrow's foliage.
He didn't actually. Once the drakes were dead or scared off, he plopped down on his stomach with a happy grin, begging for breakfast scraps.
"Doesn't make it any less so." Gavin says with a laugh in his throat, "Goodnight Abhari."
"Sweet dreams, Gavin."