Get off my lawn! [Aeyt!]

[Rhindeer]

It was a cold day, one that found Jayari bundled up in a fur-lined coat and hat. Her mare, Zala, was a little annoyed by the cold white stuff on the ground, but Banyur horses were strong and stocky and built for the climate so she tolerated it, even if she let out the occasional snort, breath frosting in the air, that let Jayari know of her displeasure.

"We're almost done," Jayari said, patting the mare's neck as though Zala could understand half a word she said. "Just a few more lines to check, then we'll go home."

Five fat hares were already tied to the saddlebags; it had been a fruitful day! And as she rode Zala through the snow and over a stream, she dismounted and headed to check one of the last snares--and cursed.

That one had had a rabbit, but from the looks of it, the snare had been tampered with. And by the footprints she saw in the snow around it...it hadn't been an animal.

"Again?" It also hadn't been the first time. Two of her other traps had shown the same signs, over the course of the last few days. Whoever was doing it was bright enough not to take too much; they were trying to be smart about it, but not quite smart enough.

With a sigh, she mounted Zala and turned her to head upstream, where the final snare remained. "Clever bastard. I swear, Zala, I'm gonna find this thief, and when I do..."

She trailed off, because that was when a dark shape in the distance caught her eye. She squinted, trying to make out the shape. She couldn't see any distinct features from this distance, but she saw just enough to know it was...unfamiliar.

Her eyes narrowed. Perhaps that was her thief.

Either way, it was a trespasser.

"C'mon!" she said, spurring Zala into motion, and they tore off over the grasslands, leaving a cloud of snow in their wake. Reaching behind her as she rode, she drew her bow and had an arrow nocked before they even reached the stranger, drawing to a stop several yards away.

Far enough to be safe, close enough the wind would carry her voice--and her arrow.

"You there! Halt!" she shouted in Duhjari, for she had never learned Common, having kept to her group all her life.

[Aeytrious]

        Cha'Druku did not halt. He looked back at the horsewoman, his deer skin hood obscuring his features, the woolen scarf on his face covering them more, and saw her arrow ready to fly. He did what he had learned to do best these past few years. He ran.

[Rhindeer]

Dammit! Jayari had not left home that morning looking for a fight but the thief had asked for it. With a growl of frustration, she took off after the stranger, Zala's sturdy legs gaining ground fast.

"I will shoot!" she called after the stranger, giving him one last chance. "Last chance! Stop now!"

[Aeytrious]

        Cha didn't doubt that the woman would shoot, but he did not look back and he did not stop. He did call out to her though. It was the first time he'd spoken in months, his voice came out a croak. Plus it had been years since he spoke Dhujari. Not since his mother had died. "Fuck off!" That was all.
        He made sure the one stolen hare and the two he had snared himself were secured well as he continued to run. He was using his telekinesis to push the snow aside, clearing his path.

[Rhindeer]

...he spoke Duhjari?

Jayari was more shocked by that than offended as being told to fuck off. At least at first. That wore off quickly because how dare him! How dare him tell her to fuck off when he stole her kills!

"YOU fuck off!" she shouted back, and aimed her arrow at him—and let it fly.

She'd warned him. 

[Aeytrious]

        Cha heard the twang of a snapping bowstring. It arrived on the winds in seconds and with a swat of his hand his telekinesis brushed it aside. "Nice try bitch." He was not giving up his dinner to some tribal. He may honor and respect their ways, but his own survival was more important to him. So he picked up the pace using his power to not only push the snow aside but break up the ground behind him, making rough terrain. If she cherished her horse in the way he knew them too, she'd be forced to be cautious and not follow him directly.

[Rhindeer]

It was a clean shot, an easy shot. Literally impossible to miss. And yet the arrow snapped on nothing and flew from the man, spinning in the air in two different directions.

What in the...?

And now she was a bitch for defending her kills?!

She barely had time to register that when the ground before her started to break, smooth, snowy terrain suddenly turning to jutting, ragged earth. Jayari had just enough time to avoid it, jerking in Zala's reins to turn her, and Zala leaped over a patch of broken earth and into the fresh snow to the side.

It didn't take a genius to figure out this guy had some sort of magic.

"You'll eat those words when I catch you, asshole!" she called to him as she flanked him now instead, nocking another arrow and letting it fly. "Surrender and I'll go easy on you. Probably. You can't run forever!"

A horse had more stamina than a man, after all. He could run, but eventually he would tire, and his tricks could only stall for so long.

[Aeytrious]

        Cha knew this area well. He knew how it gently sloped up toward the foothills. And he knew his destination, his safe haven. At the top of this easy slope was a wooded area. Just beyond the first trees was a ditch, and in it an old den. He'd found it burrowed in and dug it out. Deep into the earth he'd dug, using tricks he'd learned from the mercenaries that raised him, to make a proper home in the ground. That was where he was headed, and it was about time to fly.
        With a stomp of his foot Cha broke the ground around himself. With another he launched rocks and dirt into the air, and sent a few choice fragments at the horsewoman. Behind his smokescreen of debris, he twisted off his cloak and pack quickly wrapping them into a bundle and then he jumped.
        Cha pushed off the ground with such force that he left a small crater. As he approached the trees, and the ground he angled himself and push at the ground to slow his descent. He dove down the ditch, into the hole that was just barely wide enough for him to crawl through and made his way through the five meter long sloped tunnel to his caves.

[Rhindeer]

Well. Shit.

Dirt and rocks and snow flew at her then, and Jayari had to throw up her hands to keep from getting pelted in the face. Her thick gloves and sleeves protected her from the brunt of it, but a sharp chunk of rock still nicked her cheek—though it was cold enough that she hardly noticed the sting even as a little blood trickled down.

When the air cleared, the man was gone.

Or...not quite.

He was airborne.

A wiser person might have decided at this point that he wasn't worth the trouble, especially someone leading her further and further from home with so many strange tricks up his sleeve. Her father would absolutely kill her if he knew she was doing something so stupid. But Jayari was not about to back down. He'd not only trespassed and stolen, but he'd insulted her in her own tongue! Embarrassed her, even, by outmaneuvering her on foot! She couldn't let that slide. Her pride wouldn't allow it. Who even was he, this thief who knew her language? Someone banished from his own tribe?

He would just keep stealing if someone didn't teach him a lesson.

She quickened her pace, heading to the area where she had seen him fall. Though he had left no tracks, it wasn't difficult to find his hiding spot, judging by the small crater where he'd landed and the little trench his body had left in the snow as he'd crawled down his hole like the rat he was.

Jayari dismounted and examined the hole for a moment, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out on a puff of frosty air. It was foolish cornering an animal—but foxes dragged hares out of their dens all the time, too, and this man seemed a coward to not want to face her. So be it.

She shrugged her quiver off and loaded it onto Zala, along with her bow, and checked that her hunting knife was secure at her hip. Then with another deep breath, she knelt and started to squeeze down through the hole, crawling on hands and knees.

"Found ya, you smelly rat," she called as she made her way down. "You wanna give me back my shit?"

[Aeytrious]

        Cha had a good head start and a lot of practice crawling down his tunnel. He'd first crawled in tunnels like this as a boy when hunting giant horned rabbits in the Draconi Forest. Then as a teen he'd experienced tunneling to get under camp walls to fight bandits and other people his band had been hired to kill. Not everyone could handle the tight space, especially not when it went on for so long into the dark. He had taken to it easily. He quickly came to end of the tunnel, and as he pushed through the elk hide curtain, stood in the space. He had cultivated bioluminescent mushroom spores from the Bothraron and so the room was lit with a gentle pink glow.
        The small rounded area he crawled out into opened up into a larger space. A rectangular room, more than six meters deep and across, with enough space for Cha to stand and even jump in. The floor was covered in animal furs and woolen blankets, the walls of adobe bricks. The ceiling even had support beams and a large beam wrapped in furs stood in the middle of the space. This was his main living space, where he slept, and worked, and trained. It was where he kept his armor, and his weapons.
        He reached up to the lantern hanging from the ceiling and lifted the small latch that let the light out in a small spotlight. With the beam set on the tunnel Cha then moved quickly to pull hoods down over the mushrooms. Next he grabbed his mothers horse bow, tossed his quiver over his shoulder and waited for his pursuer to enter.
        

[Rhindeer]

Light pierced through the pitch darkness, making Jayari wince. What the fuck? She had to squeeze her eyes shut for the rest of the crawl; she was deep enough that there was nowhere to go but forward now, and thank the gods she wasn't claustrophobic, for she still had a ways to go.

Finally, finally she neared the end, squinting blindly in the light and barely able to see with sunspots dominating her vision. She did have the sense to pull her knife from its sheath, though, and she held it out as she started to climb out into the space.

"Say something, rat," she demanded. "We can make this easy or difficult, your choice!"

[Aeytrious]

        Cha let his arrow fly, crossing the horsewoman's path and burying itself in the wall beside her face. "Toss away your knife and come out slowly; hands raised. I was unarmed out there, but now I can easily take your life if you act foolishly."

[Rhindeer]

Thwack! Jayari knew that sound, and it happened way too close to her face, striking the wall right beside her. She flinched, her breath catching, and when he spoke she realized...yeah, she'd maybe fucked up.

She had assumed he was an inexperienced coward. Unable to hunt his own food, running instead of fighting...

So the rat could bite.

Jayari froze and let the knife drop onto the ground. "You're an idiot," she growled as, just as slowly, she crawled the rest of the way out. "Talking about acting foolish when you stole from me. And now this. You have no idea who you've crossed."

[Aeytrious]

        Cha barked out a laugh. She was a foolish girl. "Does it matter who you are? You're out here, a nomad, where I've lived for more than a year, now alone in the home of a mercenary that has killed more people than you have ever seen in your life. Now toss the knife away, and stand. Or I will kill you and eat your horse."

[Rhindeer]

A chill of fear slid down her spine at that not so subtle threat, but the next one made her stiffen.

"W-whoa, hold on now!" Jayari said, quickly climbing to her feet. She held her hands up, blinking as her eyes adjusted, and kicked her knife away from her without hesitation. He had not just threatened Zala. Whatever happened to her, that was one thing, but her horse was innocent in all this.

"You leave Zala out of this, alright? Just...calm down. I just wanted to talk." With him at knifepoint. But that was beside the point.

[Aeytrious]

        Cha knew threatening the horse would elicit a response, and it worked even better than he had hoped. As the knife moved into his range he pushed it further away. Then he stepped forward and pushed the horsewoman against the wall. Held there with a thought he pulled a rope from his bundle he'd left on the floor. "I'm going to bind you now, and then we can have a chat."

[Rhindeer]

Jayari let out a surprised yelp when she was shoved against the wall—but by nothing but air. She was still reeling in alarm, pulling uselessly against the invisible force that held her there, when his next words made her blood run cold.

"Uhhh, no you're not," she said with a nervous laugh, the color draining from her face as her eyes landed on the rope. Her heart hammered loudly in her ears. Shit. 

"Listen, we can talk! Just like this! I'm unarmed now, it's totally fine! Look, I think we really got off to an awkward start so why don't we just start over because you are not touching me with that thing."

[Aeytrious]

        "Holding you like that will tire me out eventually and I'm not in the mood for the splitting headache I'll have tomorrow." He began unwinding the cord, creating looping cuffs to put around the duhjari woman's wrists. "My hope is to have an agreeable conversation where you prove amenable, and I can send you on your way never to bother me again." Cha parroted her words back at her, "we can make this easy or difficult, your choice."

[Rhindeer]

Oh, he did not—!

Jayari opened her mouth, then shut it with a glower, her shoulders hunching. 

"Ha ha, noted," she said under her breath, looking away. "Okay, but listen, there's a third option, y'know. Like you don't have to hold me or tie me. You have my knife, what am I gonna do? How're you doing this, anyway?" she said, giving another useless tug at the invisible force holding her. When she once again didn't budge, she let herself slouch.

It was an effort to stay outwardly calm when inside she was close to losing it. The guy had threatened to kill her—and her horse! 

"Look, I just want my shit back, and for you to stop stealing my shit. Alright? That's it, that's the conversation!"

[Aeytrious]

        Cha could see her logic, but he also didn't want to have to fight her if she decided to be an idiot. Which was likely with how she followed a stranger down a long tunnel in the dark. She obviously had poor impulse control. He tossed the rope onto the bundle and moved toward the rack that held his sword. The ornate hilt consisted of a black crossguard reminiscent of spread dragon wings, the pommel the head of a black dragon with emeralds set in the eyes, while the grip was wrapped in a black leather. When Cha pulled the blade from its sheath, the silver metal emitted a gentle glow. A trophy from some Adelan fool that insulted his band and then challenged Cha to a duel, the sword was made of real argentite. He could likely retire off the sale of the sword, but what use was money to a man living like a hermit. An unbreakable blade that never lost its edge was much more valuable.
        Moving to where his captive would be at the edge of his powers range, about two meters, Cha knelt in a combat ready pose, his sword held at his side. Then he released his hold on the woman and gave her a single word command.
        "Sit."