Stubborn [Secondary Dom Training/Solo]

In a twist of seemingly unfortunate fate, Ayero had been separated from Nai and Gaad during an unexpected and rapidly occurring sandstorm. The high winds and blinding sand had carried the traveling companions far apart on their way back to Heliohapt during the last leg of their journey. Buried in a thin layer of sand, the half-Fanalis had lost consciousness at some point. When she awoke it would be midday and she certainly wouldn’t notice the creature that had slithered over the bump in the sand caused by her body, curling up atop her stomach to rest. Groaning as she caught a mouthful of sand, the woman’s throat seizes in a coughing fit as she desperately attempts to clear it. Finding that all of her limbs were still attached, she claws at the sand surrounding her, wriggling her body free.

Propping herself up on the palms of her hands, the halfling is greeted with a low hiss. Squinting in confusion, she raises a hand in an attempt to rub some of the residual sand from her eyes, but only succeeds in rubbing the sand into her eyes. Grumbling in frustration, the Fanalis tilts her head downward to find the source of the noise. Coiled tightly on her stomach is a snake-like creature with scales black as night and a simple yellow diamond pattern down its back. It raises its head to lock its red eyes with hers and her muscles turn stiff as she’s afraid to move with this foreign creature sitting on top of her. Swallowing thickly, she and the creature stare at each other for a few long moments before Ayero decides to make a move. Her right hand flies to her left hip where her talwar rests, but as her fingers tighten around the hilt a searing pain rips through the muscles in her arm. Grimacing, she realized that the snake had read her moves and sunk its two fangs into her arm. But this wasn’t the sort of pain associated with an animal bite, it had an intense burning quality to it that brought only one explanation to mind. Poison.

Collapsing back into the sand as her limbs were already strained from being whipped around in a sandstorm, she lets out a sigh of exhaustion. She peers back up at the snake who had already curled itself back onto her stomach and was again staring at her with large, lidded red eyes. ”Bet you can’t do that twice.” The woman huffs. Seemingly able to understand, or at least not liking the fact that she had made noise causes the snake to hiss, baring it’s sharp fangs. ”Sorry, sorry.” She lowers her head back down into the sand with a pout. After a few minutes the pain in her muscles begins to ebb away and she takes a chance at speaking again. ”Fortunately, it looks like you haven’t managed to kill me.” She comments while glancing up at the snake who hisses lowly at her before suddenly straightening. Struggling animal noises could be heard in the distance, strange yips and yowls signaling that there was some sort of fight taking place.

[517/2000]

Slithering off of the woman, the snake glides hurriedly over the sands toward what appeared to be a larger snake fighting a jackal. The large snake rears, hissing wildly at the predator who bears it’s own canines. As the snake lunges down to bite, the fleet-footed jackal dodges with ease and clamps down on the snake’s neck with its powerful jowls. Hissing desperately, the smaller snake charges at the jackal only to be mule-kicked away. Landing in the sand several feet away, the serpent struggles in pain.

Watching from a distance, Ayero feels the pain in her arm begin to ebb away. Standing slowly and shaking the excess sand from her clothes and hair (or as much of it as she could manage), the halfling glances off into the barren distance before shifting her gaze to the battle unfolding before her. With a heavy sigh, she draws her sword and approaches the fight with a fast walk. The two battling creatures pay her no mind, engrossed in their own violent struggle. She draws her blade as stealthily as possible and leaps forward, slicing the neck of the jackal with ease. The animal goes limp, dropping into a small furry heap in the sand. The larger snake pauses for a moment and raises its head to the woman as it processes what had just happened and hisses violently before retreating to a burrow underground.

The younger snake who had borne witness to this battle slithers over to the underground nest, hissing eagerly for its mother. As it reaches the lip of the den, the mother pokes her head out from the ground accompanied by those of three baby snakes. The two speak in a conversation of hissing and spitting while the halfling woman looks on with mild interest. Shaking her head, she figures that it would be best to start moving. Squinting off into the distance and shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand, she spies a tiny dot of a distant outpost. Breathing a sigh of relief, the woman sets out for her destination with the knowledge that she won’t be hopelessly wandering the desert until her death.

Ahh, I hope they have plenty of water…and fruit, I could really— A sudden cold, scaly sensation winds itself around her leg and causes her body to seize up. Careful not to move too much, she slowly turns her head and tilts her gaze downwards to see a length of black scales wrapped around her legs and crimson eyes peering up at her with curiosity. Not missing a beat, the snake flicks out its long tongue and trills a low, friendly hiss at her. Letting out a startled cry, she shakes her leg violently with a troubled look on her face. ”Oh, no. No. No. No. Go back to your mother. Get off of me!” She tries in vain to command the creature and with an aggressive jerk of her leg, manages to send the snake skidding several feet away into the sand. But the creature doesn’t seem bothered by her rejection, simply twisting its body so it’s back onto its belly before slithering after Ayero once more.

[1046/2000]

How did he sneak up on me like that…? I didn’t hear anything… As she continues her trek, the halfling ponders how the snake was able to approach her without her noticing. A sudden thought dawns on her. I wonder if… She stops suddenly and whips around, unsurprised yet not exactly pleased at the presence of the young snake not two meters behind her. She says nothing, only giving the beast a hard look before turning on her heel and continuing on her way. Unfazed, the serpent continues to trail noiselessly behind her, gliding over the dunes effortlessly. This went on until she had reached the outpost, periodically stopping to see if the snake was still following her. Each time the creature would stop and peer at her with a curious lit in its red eyes.

By nightfall she had bartered with the merchants in the camp for a place to sleep. They were heading away from Heliohapt but were kind enough to point her in the direction of the city, about half a day’s walk from here.  As she settled down onto a spare cot that had been lent to her, the snake came slithering out of the darkness. Frowning, she recalls that she hadn’t seen him while conversing with the people at the camp, had he hidden himself somewhere?

”What do you want from me?” She mutters at the beast, trying to sound irritated but can’t keep the sleep from her voice. With a soft hiss of acknowledgement, the snake sidles up to her and coils itself near her stomach. ”You really are a stubborn thing, aren’t you…?” Reaching out, the half-Fanalis places a hand on the snake’s body, surprised at how cold the creature’s skin was. ”You remind me of someone. He was stubborn too.” She brings to mind the old man in her merchant caravan who had cared for her and Kai like a father. Kabu was a Heliohapt native who had no children, instead choosing to journey through life from one adventure to the next. Unlike many of the elderly, Kabu hadn’t learned to go with the flow—he was stubborn and persuasive, often using his sharp mind and trickery to get things to go his own way. With a sigh she removes her hand and catches the snake’s great lidded gaze with her own. ”You’re a stubborn old man, Kabu.”

[1442/2000]

”Well…I’m not really sure that there’s much you can do, miss.” The shopkeeper scratched at his hair with an earnest glance cast at the young woman. ”Are you certain?” The halfling interjects sharply, standing somewhat stiff due to the black serpent having wound itself around her waist. ”He certainly seems to have taken a liking to you.” The man muses, crossing his arms with a wry smile. An intense Fanalis-grade glare is her response, but her attention is pulled away from the shopkeeper when Kabu extends toward a bird’s cage, hissing lowly. ”Hey! Kabu, get back here!” She commands and the snake obeys, retracting back to rest it’s head on her shoulder.

”You’ve named him.” The man states, rubbing at his chin with a raised brow. ”Are you sure that he hasn’t grown on you, miss?”

”What? No! Don’t say that, I just—well, I…” With a sigh of defeat, she places a hand atop Kabu’s head, right over the yellow diamond pattern. ”…What does he eat? Besides birds.” She finally asks, defeated. Seeing as how Kabu had followed her into the city, Ayero fled to a pet shop it hopes that someone would take this creature off of her hands, or at the least offer some advice on how to rid her of it herself. Unfortunately the man running the store only carried more household pets, domesticated cats, hunting dogs, birds, rabbits, etc. He didn’t know much about Kabu’s species of snake but he was able to point her in the direction of the city’s great library, assuring the woman that they’d have some literature on desert beasts.

She notes that Kabu seems pretty clever, shielding himself within the shadows of her cloak and blending in quietly with her dark clothes. You take after your namesake nicely. She muses to herself as she passes through the steps of the grand building, nodding at the guards. She doubted that they would have granted entrance to Kabu. After locating a tome concerning desert creatures, she convinces the scholars in charge to let her borrow it for the evening, leaving some Huang as collateral. With a wary eye they shoo the woman away and she flees to the inn, looking forward to fresh water and relaxing on a bed that wasn’t sand. Collapsing onto said bed, Kabu settles himself around the frame of the headrest as she opens the book. ”It says here that your kind can grow up to 5 meters long…yeesh. Looks like you’re just a baby, then.” She comments, flipping the page. Her quip is meant with an indignant hiss. ”Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” She waves him off. ”Eats small mammals, secretes poison from its fangs in order to weaken its prey…” She mumbles, eyes almost glazing over as she skims a paragraph full of information she had already found out the hard way.

”What’s this? How come you didn’t tell me that your saliva has healing properties?” She admonishes the snake, pointing to a line of text while Kabu hisses shortly in response and slithers over her shoulder to peer at the book as if he could comprehend the words on the page. ”Ah…not until you’re a bit older, though.” Further reading provides more detail and she finds herself patting the snake on the head with a reassuring smile. Catching herself in the affectionate act, she straightens up and flicks a stray lock of hair from her face and resumes reading.

Ayero had stayed up for nearly the entire night reading the passage about Desert Snakes over and over to the point where she had every fact committed to memory. True to her word, she returns the tome to the library the next morning and inquires about any other readings they may have on desert creatures. After assuring her that they do not, the staff shoos her away quickly (perhaps due to the bags under her eyes giving her a rather frightening appearance). As the days passed by, Ayero found herself less and less annoyed with Kabu’s presence. He was indeed a cleaver creature who seemed to comprehend human speech. She was even beginning to grow used to having the beast wind himself around her body.

Traveling alone was often lonelier than the halfling would like to admit. It was true that she occasionally found companionship in her fellow travelers but those were few and far in between, long stretches where she was simply on her own were more common. Kabu’s presence began to change that though, he always seemed to have something to say about everything and she often found herself having conversations with him (though she didn’t necessarily understand what the snake was hissing in reply, she swore that she “got the gist of it”).

A week after she had returned to the city with her new companion, the red headed woman enters the pet shop once more. ”Good day, miss. I see that you’ve had a change of heart, hmm? How can I help you?” The shopkeeper chuckles, pleased to see that the young woman had allowed herself to bond with the snake. With a gracious smile, the woman follows Kabu’s gaze to a cage teeming with golden-footed mice from Balbadd. ”Good day, we were just on our way to lunch. How much for the mice?”


[2000+/2000]

[Exit]