Casually they walked through the emerald glades of The Hunter’s Wood. The newly vitalized grass brushed softly on their legs as ferns and low branches tickled their shins. The golden bathing light of the sun snuck through the lush canopy of trees overhead from time to time washing the environs with a renewed majesty that captivated the hearts and souls of the mighty Exalts who proudly tread along the fertile path.

Rewards are often measured in jade or silver, or often enough wit ha promise of greater power or returned favors to be named later. The Chosen of the Sun who followed the Prince of the Earth, Peleps Ahroun, all could feel in the very depths of their souls this day that while no kings ransom awaited them at their destination they had been given a gift that none before them could ever hope to boast: they restored life to a barren land.

Life, a most precious gift that is far to often taken for granted, especially here in the wild where left unchecked nature is allowed to run as it was intended, free and unbridled by the will of man. Pride swelled in the breasts of each of the great warriors, though each chose to show it or hide in their own way. Every yellow mote of sparkling essence that shimmered and danced under the canopy replenishing the energy of the wood left them each thinking:

”I did that. Without me all this beauty would have ceased to be. What do you say to that?”

Water could be heard roaring up ahead as they entered a clearing just at the base of a small cliff that was only a few hundred feet high. Build against the rocky moss covered wall was an ancient hunting lodge itself also covered in dangling moss. From far above a raging stream poured of the cliff face making a waterfall a misty neighbor to the old cabin.

The stream continued on flowing past the clearing that must have about fifty yards out from the cliff face in a sort of half circle. Peleps Ahroun turned to face the Exalts. “Well, here we are. No worries, the spirits of the wood will misdirect those looking for us for the time being. They look out after their own, and trust me, they owe you guys one.” He grinned, and unveiled by taunts, insults, or greed an almost sincere compassion could be seen lingering behind his luminous purple eyes.

“There are provisions inside, and you’ll find clean clothing. Take some time to situate yourselves, I’m sure you have questions but we have eternity so be patient.”

The tension from the conflict in the clearing melts away from Mei-Ying much as her anima melts into muted colors and bleeds away into nothingness as they walk under the verdant forest canopy. Hu dozes on her shoulder, looking eerily decapitated with his head tucked under his snowy, speckled wings. Long before they reach the hidden lodging Mei makes a playful grab at Callum's much larger hand, but playful or not, she doesn't let go.

At Peleps words, she nods and asks, "I do, actually. Why are you helping us? You're exalted of the Dragons, so it's unlikely your alliegence is to the Unconquered Sun, and we have very little in the way of goods or money, and even less in the ways of getting those things, so it can't be your mercenary streak. Not to seem ungrateful, of course."

Callum looks down as Mei grabs his hand. He makes no effort to break the contact and says nothing. Behind the layers of cloth that hide his face he smiles slightly.



Callum disentangled his hand from Mei's and dove directly into the pool beneath the waterfall. Within minutes he clambored out dripping wet but clean of the foul sludge that was the remains of the Keeper.

The Prince of the Earth was already a few steps ahead of the Twilight Caste Sorceress when she addressed him. He didn't turn to face her, only slightly turned his head back to her showing her half of his handsome feature and rogue's grin. "Why, why... always with why? Ah well, wondering is healthy my lovely demi-jour, is it not? It broadens the mind, opens you up to all sorts of stray thoughts and possibilities."

Callum threw himself into the water and the glib exalt's shoulders dances in the tell tale movements of a chuckle. "You need time to yourself, as do we all. As I said, you shall have your answers but please tend to yourself and to your comrades. All in time demi-jour. All in time, until then, broaden your mind."

He grinned his devil's grin and winked at her before walking off in the direction of the waterfall disappearing moments later behind the misty wall of water.

Mei-Ying actually starts to follow him, not wanting to let him get away so easily...then stops herself. The man was probably Water aspect. Who knew where he was by now.

She shakes her head, but breaks into a smile on seeing Callum's antics.

"Are you going to shake yourself dry now?" she asks teasingly.

Calllum emerges from the water as Peleps walks away behind the waterfall. Still dripping, but at least clean, he returns to Mei's side. Before he has a chance to speak she asks:



Grinning behind the now soaked cloth wrapped about his head Mei only seeing a mischevous twinkle in his eyes as warning. "No but I thought I'd do this instead," he says as he picks her up and tosses her into the pool of water with a great splash. He moves as though to do the same to Rysha but catches the humorless look in her eyes and shrugs before diving back into the pool himself.

Mei-Ying emits a shrill scream that wouldn't be out of place from a schoolgirl finding a frog in her desk, rather than a sorceress empowered with the unquenchable power of the sun. There is a splash...and she is gone. Only Hu, having flapped up to a tree branch just before Callum lunged, with the uncanny prescience that birds seem to have, remains of her. For a moment.

When she rises back out of the water, her hair hangs straight down over her face down just past her shoulders. Her peasants blouse, now soaked, clings rather revealingly to the shape of her, and her white linen shift underneath it may as well not even exist. After a second she reaches up and parts the black curtain of her hair to reveal her face. Her dark eyes flick from Callum to Rysha and back...and she bursts into laughter and sinks back into the water down to her neck.

"I -will- get you for that," she promises Callum, still laughing.

Rysha stripped herself slowly, methodically, without a trace of modesty and with perhaps more than a bit of coldness in her eyes; if a hot blush threatened her cheeks at the sight of Mei-Ying laughing and water-soaked, the chill in her small, tight smile cut it as cleanly as a blossom sheared from a branch. Laying the last of her garments aside, she stepped down into the water and set to work on cleaning herself with the silent, grim precision she might have applied to one of her weapons, washing the slime and grit from her long hair, combing the tangles away with her hands, and distracting herself from the byplay between her companions in the process.

When she sees what Rysha's doing, Mei turns quite red and blurts, "Rysha!" When Callum turns to see, she quickly reaches up to stop his head from turning and calls, "Are you sure you want to do that? Peleps is probably still watching us..."

"Huh, what's the ... oh! Well that's really only slightly more than we've already seen." Callum shrugs and swims toward the opposite shore. "I'll be back in a bit, I need to get dry." With that he walks off into the forest some ways.

Rysha glanced up at Mei-Ying, a look of surprise touching her face, her hands never ceasing their gentle work at her hair. "One becomes accustomed to a certain lack of privacy in the pits, and modesty is... well, suffice to say a long-discarded luxury." She leaned down to douse her hair again, then came up for air with a flick of her head that showered droplets of water out across the surface of the stream like a fan. "I'm sure Peleps is a big boy who's seen plenty of unclothed women in his time."

She watched Callum go with perhaps a hint of uncertainty in her eyes, not quite looking at Mei directly in the sudden half-privacy. "I wanted to thank you." Her voice faded away for a moment, catching in her throat, before she could gather herself to continue. "For your courage and your foresight back there. You were remarkable."

Perhaps ten minutes later Callum emerges from the woods. His clothing is still visible wet but has been wrung out and most of the excess water removed. As he enters the glade he keeps his right side toward the pool but Rysha and Mei are both able to get their first significant look at his disfigured left side as he pulls his shirt back on. Nearly a full half of his chest is a red mass of scarred flesh. His left arm is similarly disfigured in much the same way as the left side of his face.

Though the both of them were aware of his disfigurment they had never seen so much of it at once. The scarring is such that he must have been saved only by the infusion of solar essence, in it's own way this explains why Callum can be so uncompromising. Not only has he lost his family but his life was spared only by the intervention of the Unconquered Sun.

Mei-Ying gives Rysha a startled look and swims up to the edge of the pond next to where she's sitting. She pulls herself up onto a rock, wet clothes and all, unconsciously pulling her light robe closed over herself as she does, though it doesn't do a lot of good.

"Me? I wasn't the one running up the side of that thing. I had some ideas of what it was and how to fight it, but..." She shrugs and looks into the water.

"Anyone could have come up with those ideas, really. When it came to the actual battle, I feel like I didn't really pull my weight. I just stood there while you took all the risks."

With a smile she returns her eyes to Rysha.

"Thank you though...it does make me feel a little better to hear you say that."

Rysha's smile is as gentle as it is warm. "I just hit things. Rather well, admittedly, but you're the one who told me what to hit. We'd have been entirely lost with you, no mistake."

Mei-Ying's cheeks turn a fetching shade of pink and she puts her hands against them.

"You're making me blush," she giggles, deceptively girlishly.

"I guess...it just didn't feel very...heroic. Useful maybe, but not big or grand. Still, I suppose there'll be plenty of battles to come for me to prac..."

She trails off on seeing Callum come out of the trees. Her expression is not one of revulsion at his scars, but of sympathy and compassion.

"Oh Callum," Mei-Ying murmurs under her breath.

Rysha half-turns, lokking after him, and her expression turns faintly sad, some of the coldness falling away from her face as she takes in his wounds. "He's suffered a great deal." She kicks across the water, fetching up a few feet from Mei-Ying and reaching up to squeeze her hand gently. "I suppose I should remember that more often when I want to beat him about the head with a heavy stick."

Mei Ying gives Rysha a reproachful grin.

"You wouldn't really do that. He's nice! It wouldn't kill you to be nicer to him too, you know."

"It might." Rysha finally breaks into a smile, looking up at Mei Ying with a sly look in her eyes. "I could break my pride fatally, and then you'd have to nurse me."

"You know... if you two made out that'd be so hot." The shady voice of Peleps Ahroun came from just off to the side in between where the two ladies were conversing, having somehow sneaked within just a few feet of them. An ear to ear grin stretched across his face in hopeful approval.

We winks a dirty wink at Mei, his smile still bright white and eager for a show. "Don't worry, I won't tell yer dad."

Mei Ying emits a startled, horrified squeak and rolls into the water, frantically clutching her sodden robe around herself.

"You see, Rysha? I told you!"

Rysha pulls Mei behind her easily, her other hand coming up, and a stone whips by Ahroun's head rather too closely for comfort. "Peeping, lecher? How predictable."

His eyes zipped to the side where the stone whizzed past. He remained calm, but Rysha knew she'd startled him. "You wound me my Desert Rose. I saw nothing until you ladies turned around to face me." He winked again. His tone became a bit more serious, as if he was no longer fooling around with them via wit or foolishness. "Seriously ladies, I just came to tell you that dinner would be ready in an hour or so and that I took the liberty of setting you out fresh clothes and some towels with which to dry."

He pointed to his right where upon a flattened stone rested just what he described. He turned and walked slowly towards the cabin. "Take care my sweets, and lighten up a bit, it's just skin."

He chuckled as he spun a thick branch around in his hand that he was doubling as a walking cane.

As Callum shrugged on his damp jacket he saw Peleps talking to the women, Mei all but leaping into the water to protect her dignity. Callum shook his head, Rysha and Mei were as dissimilar as any two women, and here he was caught in their wake like driftwood. He finally forced his good arm through the damp leather sleeve and shrugged the coat into some semblance of comfort. Had it been just he an Mei he might have been willing to endure the looks of pity and the questions but with Rysha he felt no sense of closeness, and he would hardly stoop to providing yet more ammunition for Peleps to skewer him verbally.

Callum began to take stock of the clearing and the woods along the border, mentally cataloging the plants available. He gathered up several handfuls of three different flowers, though he could not say why he suddenly felt that it was the correct thing to do. Returning to the pool he sat on the grass and began to peel the petals off into his mortar. After a few minutes he began to work the petals into a fine paste, as he did so a pungent fragrance rose up out of the mortar.

He smiled, somehow he had tapped into that well of knowledge that his shard contained and pulled this formula from it. He added some of the water from the pool and mixed it into the paste thinning it out until it was sodden and just loose. He reach back into his pack and removed a small section of cloth, clean, and mostly dry despite the afternoon’s activities. Placing the mixture into the cloth he wrapped it up tightly and squeezed the moisture out into the washed out mortar.

As he watched he could not help but look at his two companions, noting their curious looks in his direction as he worked. Finally he was satisfied and placed the mortar by the pool. He stood and stretched, the cold from his clothes had worked its way into his back as he worked and he knew that tomorrow would see some soreness. “I need to locate some herbs, I will be back soon,” he said as he walked into the forest whistling for Eilein to follow.

[OOC: Should the ladies investigate, they will find that Callum created a pleasant smelling perfume from the wild flowers that he has left out for them.]

"All right, Callum," Mei calls after him. With a look into the trees, she sends Hu to discretely shadow him and Eilein, just in case.

She then pulls herself out of the water near the new clothes left by Peleps and gives Rysha a self-conscious smile.

"I suppose it IS a little silly to be so..." she shrugs. "Embarrassed. We'll be traveling together for a long time after all." The sorceress, having girded herself with the unassailable power of reason, thus takes a deep breath and starts to peel off her waterlogged clothes.

The beauty she reveals fully lives up to the promises that previous glimpses made. Where Rysha's body is a marvel of athletic perfection married to idealized amazonian physique, Mei-Ying is more demure. Soft and smooth and lacking the tan of exposure to the elements, none of Rysha's impressive musculature but rounder and curvier in just the right proportions. Anyone trying to judge between the two would have difficulties saying which was more beautiful...but they are distinctively different nonetheless.

Blushing down past her shoulders, Mei-Ying avoids Rysha's gaze as she picks up some of the clothes left on the rock to see what looks like it will fit best.

"So," she says with casualness that can only be born from discomfort. "What do you think we should do now?"

Callum wanders through the woods occasionally picking a few herbs or roots and stuffing them into his bag. Eilein trails along with him her heightened sense of smell aiding him in locating certain roots. "I have a bad feeling about this whole thing. Something about that guy rubs me the wrong way." Eilein barks a response which produces a sour look on Callum's face, "No that is not why. It doesn't bother me at all that he was flirting with the women." Another series of barks and Callum scowls, "Fine, you know me so well, you must be right. I jealous and worried that they may listen to him instead of me." Callum rolls his eyes but he knows that Eilein is right, the thought only deepens his scowl.

For a good solid minute, Rysha can't find the words for an answer. Or, for the matter, remember the question. She stares at her companion... her friend... with an expression on her face caught somewhere between affection, admiration and something far more primal and less comfortably put into words. When she finally stirs herself to think again, and then to speak, she can barely fit her voice to the words. "Find Peleps and drop him down a well. Only punishment imaginable for tresspassing on... on beauty like yours."

Mei-Ying laughs, simultaneously pleased and embarrassed, and gives Rysha a playfully reproving look.

"Well thank you...you're very beautiful too though. Sort of...strong and sleek, like a hunting cat. I could definitely use more sun though...at least working in the village is better exercise than sitting around a library all day."

She shakes out a blouse and drapes it over her head and shoulders. It's a light olive green color that fits Mei snugly, with a neckline that's scooped from shoulder to shoulder, held in place by thin ties.

That done, she starts fishing around again, finally selecting a simple sarong-style wraparound skirt.

"So you really don't feel awkward at all undressing around other people? Did you have no privacy at all?"