Being rejected.
It is a nasty feeling. Being disliked for whatever reason. Not good enough to keep around.
Two years of loneliness. Two years of not being able to talk to a living soul.
And now, whoever they are, they made clear they wouldn't want him around, too.
And that is more difficult to bear than simply being marooned in a completely strange land.
Oh yes, they do keep you around - as a slave, or a prisoner of war, he thought grimly, then stopped.
Where did that thought come from? He knew that he picked up on some things that bothered him, but he wasn't able to put his finger on it, well, for now.
Then it came to him.
No men. No boys. There is a group of three or four dozen girls, almost women, all alone in the wilds, and no man in sight. Second, these girls look all strange with their blue skin and pointed ears, but they looked too diverse to be kin.
So, if they aren't family or clan, what are they?
Are they some sort of tribe of women who capture men to do their menial labor and kill them once they get too old and feeble, like one of these fanciful stories he heard one travelling merchant boasting in town?
Absurd.
But yet... he was constantly under watch, but they keep their distance. They want him to build a cabin for their whole group. And they keep him contained in his own cabin.
Like a prisoner.
And as such it would be his duty to make an attempt at escape. That's what his father always told him. Might he shied away from that choice because on checking his makeshift calender - if a series of scratches could be called that - he noticed that, yes, it would get colder soon enough.
But if the choice is between freezing to death or working to death and getting killed like an old dog once he outlived his usefulness, he'd take freezing.
He stood up and looked to the doorframe.
Night had already fallen. Good. He noticed that the whole lot was gathered around a bonfire. Even better. First lesson: If you wish to see in the dark, look away from the fire.
Picking up his axe and shouldering his musket and makeshift bow, he slowly crept out of his cabin and towards the far side of the clearing, trying to keep the cabin and the lean-tos between him and the bonfire.
Their eerie silence creeped him out. Such a large gathering had to be loud, with people constantly chattering, joking, arguing, cajoling... but not these blueskins. They were quiet like ghosts.
Reaching the clearing unseen, he slowly crept into the forest, and as soon as he thought to be out of earshot, he broke in a run.
---//---
'He's gone!', came a clarion call via sanzai.
'WHAT?!', Argent shot back, her sanzai driving into the skull like a sharp knife.
'He's gone', Coldfire sent again, 'His axe and his strange weapon as well.'
'How could that be?! Wasn't he to be guarded at all times?!', Argent's wide-area sending rousing the other Loroi.
'Well.... How much trouble could a male make?', someone answered.
Ahhh, yes. Argent recognized the sanzai 'voice' as Firebrand's. She was one of those opposed to keeping him around and she seemed to have gathered some like minded Loroi around herself. Argent felt it best to nip any sign of insubordination in the bud.
'What. Do. You. Mean?' Argent sent, enunciating every word.
'Well, after all, he is a male, and he looked already old enough to start feeling the Flames. He'd either come crawling back or he'd die a horrible death by longing. Come to think of it, how he found it in himself to actually leave eludes me.'
Argent blinked. The Flames were an euphemism for that drawback in male biology that would require them to mate, or suffer and die. Did she really....?
'Did it ever come to you that this male is not a Loroi?'
That brought Firebrand up short, but Argent wasn't finished, by far not.
'If he is that similar to us, I'd be solons away from rounding up the whole diral and asking everyone what the tilted field happened that he would have to run away and face certain death. We'd be all regarded as utter failures if we cannot even keep one single male safe, even from himself!', Argent sent acidly, and given her impressive strength in Sanzai, maybe second only to Coldfire, her words probably reached the entirety of the diral.
Coldfire reeled back from the sharpness of Argent's words. She's on a roll. I've never seen her that hacked off.
'And, if you ever had hoped that you would get some even before the conclusion of our trials, here's the wake up call - even if it would have been an option, I think your chances are far in the negatives by now.'
Coldfire heard several sharp gasps as these words registered.
'Listen, and listen well. If you haven't already noticed, he built this cabin here, and one of these racks had the hide of a Poison Claw stretched on it. He lived here for stars know how long and did these things all alone, and we arrived on the scene, trespassed and took over his home and subjected him to forced labor. Of course he would take offense, any true warrior would have done the same! At the moment this male is more warrior than you are, and with your attitude, you'd ever be!'
That was an insult on so many levels Coldfire wouldn't even bother to count. Firebrand spluttered audibly and started to fume silently.
'Everyone, spread out! He can't be far. Remember, he has no sanzai! Do not expect to feel his presence to guide you towards him, because he has none! Now go and bring him back, alive and unharmed. Is that clear?'
Various words of assent answered her over sanzai as the assembled Loroi scattered.
'Coldfire, with me. Let's find out what happened.', Argent sent the moment she headed off to give the log cabin another once over.
She felt disappointed. She was sure Natan decided not to run off. After all, she promised him he would be taken care for. So why the sudden change in his mind?
Or did she never guess him correctly and he just waited for the right moment to escape?
Argent turned to her second in command, Coldfire. 'Did I do the right thing or did I go too far?', she sent tightly.
Coldfire shook her head. 'Firebrand has always been a pain in the butt. She could make a fine warrior, if she wouldn't be that opinionated. Worse, she already started to gather like-minded Loroi around herself, so you had to take swift action to defang her.'
'I mean with Natan.', Argent clarified.
'You did what you thought best. We see now that building that cabin would even be more complicated than we imagined, and a more arduous task. But I am not sure if that had been the ultimate reason for him to flee. Something else must have happened.'
Neither Coldfire nor Argent had an idea what it could have been.
---//---
Those girls were scary.
Indians would call out their war cries to instill fear into their foes, as well a telling each other where they are.
But these girls were silent. Completely silent. Even without speaking a word they seem to coordinate their search well enough. How the hell do they do that?, Nathanial thought.
He had to dig deeply into his bag of tricks to shake them off. Bend a few branches on the wrong path. Backtrack in the own footsteps and choose a different direction or climb a tree, then. Walk a bit through the stream.
It helped little. First there were so many of them, and second, they don't seem to be slouches when it comes to tracking as well.
They were getting closer. Nathanial had to pick up the pace.
Looking over the shoulder, he failed to see the hole in the ground. His right foot stepped into the emptiness, and he toppled over into the darkness, with a scream.
---//---
'Did you hear that? Over there!', Quickriver sent, pointing deeper into the dense forest before breaking into a run.
'WATCH OUT!', came a sharp warning from her impromptu search team mate, bringing Quickriver to a stop.
Just in time. Without the warning, she would have fallen right into the gap in the ground. Shadows and thick undergrowth camouflaged the opening, making it a trap waiting for whoever comes across.
A trap having most recently claimed a victim.
---//---
Nathanial woke up with a pounding head... again. And looked around.
Directly above him, the night sky filtered through a tangle of roots partially covering the hole he must have fallen into, about two or maybe three meters above his head. High enough to knock him out for a bit when falling into it, but not high enough to cause serious injury.
Time to assess my situation, he thought.
He seemed pretty much unharmed, save a few buises, and his musket seems in a good shape, too, save from a few additional scratches on the barrel. Relieved he took stock of his surroundings.
The walls aren't natural. he concluded. They seemed to be made of stone, and if not for the exposure to the elements, they must have been polished to a smooth shine... and they seemed to be made out of single rocks since he failed to see any cracks or seams of mortar.
Most notably, to a side he noticed an indent looking much like a doorframe... with a closed door made of the same stone. Pushing and cursing didn't help, if that was a door, Nathanial quickly concluded that it wouldn't budge.
The opening he fell through was too high above, and without any nooks and crevices in the walls he wouldn't be able to climb up to the hole.
For all intents and purposes, he was trapped.
But that had become inconsequential the moment the first blueskin face appeared, blocking out part of the night sky.
Looking back at his musket, he remembered his silent oath, to reserve the last bullet for himself. Perhaps the time has come.
---//---
'We found him!', Argent heard Quickriver's sending, 'Bring a rope, or better, climbing gear. But... there is a bit of a situation.'
Homing in on Quickriver's mind, Argent and Coldfire quickly reached the site as well as the other warrior initiates of her diral.
'Where is he?' Argent queried.
'Down there, but... be cautious. He seems distressed', Quickriver answered, pointing at the hole.
Argent wasn't sure what to expect, perhaps him being badly hurt. Or disoriented.
What she never expected was the Loroi keeping a respectful distance of the hole, and on peering down, a frightened but obviously lucid Natan.
Even less she expected him to point the dangerous end of his weapon right at his jaw. His arms weren't long enough to reach the full length down to the trigger, but he extended his reach using a branch.
"Sallan!", he said.
With a feeling of regret she realized that the first word he learned of Trade would be 'No!'. But figures, she thought chagrined, he must have heard that one often enough.
"I will get down to you", she countered, mimicking climbing down a rope.
Nathanial caught on quickly. "Sallan! Stay where you are!", he said. Even if none of the Loroi understood the alien words, save for the repeated 'No!' in Trade, their intent and him tightening his grip on his weapon conveyed the message clearly enough.
He was close to killing himself if any of the Loroi would try to approach him.
Argent sighed. How did it ever devolve to a hostage situation? With Natan holding himself as a hostage, as strange as a concept it seems? And, worse, how could she hope to resolve this if she cannot communicate with him?