Spirits of the Earth

"Hmmm..." Makani frowned as he examined the tooth, swishing it around in a bowl of salt water to dislodge the blood and leftover bits of flesh. He had extracted it from an older woman not long ago, as she had the sore tooth and an impressive amount of swelling, and sadly, it looked like the thing was far too rotten to be of any use.

With a low sigh, he tossed it away into a bush. Oh well. Not every tooth could be a winner, and there was usually some decay involved in any extraction. But sometimes, it wasn't so far advanced as to render it useless. The healthier the bones, the more potent the magic, after all, and decaying bones only lead to a rotten sort of magic.

He would just have to find some healthier sources. It was about time he got off his ass and replenished his stock.

With a tired sigh, he rose to his feet and stepped inside his home to examine the jars and bottles and baskets that lined the walls and tables of his cozy hut, all of them filled to various degrees with bones and teeth, all organized by animal. He kept their claws, too, and some of the bones were carefully labeled when they were particularly special.

He tapped his short nails along one of his shelves. Hm. More rabbit, he definitely needed more of that; Noelani was apparently having difficulty conceiving. More hawk, too, and perhaps some boar tusk.

And so, taking up his spear, Makani headed back outside and strode into the jungle.

Time to collect some bones and meat.

Kiri was perched in a low branch, hidden by thick leaves and vines. She crept along the branch with her spear held in one hand, moving with an almost feline grace as she kept an eye on the boar snuffling his way through the foliage below her.

Her wings arched up slightly as she came to the end of the branch, prepared to extend and slow her fall when she jumped to make her kill.

She moved silently, bare feet barely bending the branch beneath her as she swung down. Her spear pierced the boar just behind his skull, passing straight through his neck and killing him almost instantly, painlessly. Pleased with herself, she braced a foot on her prey and jerked the weapon free, huffing out a breath as she ran a hand through her hair to push it back off her face.

"Well! Very nicely done!" Makani said as he stepped from behind the tree he had been crouched behind, and twirled his spear over his head and across his shoulders so he could rest his arms along the shaft. His wings shifted along his back and he flashed the girl a jaunty smile, looking from her to the dead boar and back before stepping closer to get a better look.

He had been hunting the boar, too. Only he had been hunting from the ground. Had a nice, clear shot lined up and everything, but alas. She was quicker and neither he nor the boar had seen it coming.

"Good, clean kill," he said, noting she'd stabbed the boar through the base of its skull, no doubt severing its spine and piercing through the brain stem. Dead would have been instant--and its skull would be nicely in tact.

He cocked his head. "I don't suppose you'd mind giving me some of its teeth?"

Kiri started slightly, surprised, and instinctively fell into a crouch with her spear raised as she turned toward the voice. Strange, she was usually much more vigilant.

Oh. Just another hunter. She relaxed and straightened up, nodding slightly. "Thanks," she murmured in acknowledgement of his praise with a small nod, her eyes flicking over his form to take him on. The man must have been hunting the boar too- ah, well.

Her brow furrowed slightly at his question and she cocked her head to the side. "Ah...I suppose you can. But why on earth do you want them?"

Makani raised his eyebrows in surprise, as though her question was the unusual factor here--and not the his collecting bones.

"Why wouldn't I want them?" he asked, blinking. "They're very valuable. Oh, the skull too, if you don't mind. You can have the brain, I'm really mostly interested in the bones."

"Oh." She glanced down at the boar with a small frown. "Um. Yeah, sure." Why not? It wasn't like she was going to use the bones.

"Are you a shaman or something then?" Kiri asked, tilting her head at him as she bent to begin the process of binding the animal to make it easier to carry. After a moment, she added, "And where will you be taking these pieces?"

If it was nearby, it would probably be easier to cart the boar home with him and butcher it there.

"A shaman? Mm...hm, no, no, not quite," Makani said with a flippant wave of his hand. "Nothing so strict and rigid and ceremonial. Ew. What I do is far more...intuitive. Also more experimental."

He bent down to help her--and to also take stock of the animal. While she worked he lifted its lip to check the state of its teeth, clicking his tongue at their condition. Not too terrible, but there was an abscessed tooth. That must have been terribly painful for it. What a good find.

A quick look over revealed some other old injuries. If he worked fast, before the creature's spirit was gone, he might be able to take advantage of those, too.

He realized a second later that the girl had asked him a question, and he blinked up at her. "Hmm? Oh, yes, right. Where. They'll be going to my home, of course, but if your home is closer we can go there to work. It makes no difference to me."

Kiri chuckled and tilted her head at him. "I'm about a day's journey away. I only asked because if your home is close it will be much simpler to just butcher the creature there."

She glanced down at the boar with a small sigh as she finished binding it, closing her eyes for a moment, and murmuring a quiet prayer, something she'd neglected to do when Makani's appearance surprised her.

She stood with a quick shake of her head, lifting one end of the animal with a grunt as she did. "Right, lead the way then."

"A day away? Oh, oh my, no. My home is far closer," Makani said with another click of his tongue. "The creature's spirit will be long gone by then. I need to work while its energy is still fresh, still tethered to this world."

Walking around to the creature's other end, he hefted it up with a soft grunt to help carry it. His wings ruffled, a few feathers shaking loose and drifting away. Adjusting his grip, he gave a jerk of his chin to point the way as he started to walk, taking the lead.

"This way, now. Step lively, while its body's still warm."

She nodded quickly and bent to heft her end of the boar. Her eyes flickered to the dropped feathers as she started to move.

"Are you in molt?" Perhaps it wasn't the most polite question, but if he wasn't, dropping feathers like that could be a sign of illness. And even with what little she knew of this man, she had an odd feeling that he might not notice such a thing unless it was pointed out to him.

"Excuse me?" Makani said, snapping a wide-eyed look at the woman. Had he heard her correctly? Implying his wings were shabby? Really? What a rude thing to say! "Am I what? Of course not. Why would you think--"

He trailed a look to his wings as he spoke, just as another feather fluttered loose. He paused, watching its twirling journey to the ground. He pursed his lips and gave his wings a good shake, and in the process shook free a couple more.

He frowned, then signed and began to walk. "...Perhaps," he conceded, though he had molted earlier that year. Hm. Concerning. "Don't concern yourself with it."

Kira had to bite her lip to keep from laughing as this odd shaman watched his own feather twirl to the ground with all the befuddlement of a toddler going through his first molt. She managed to give him a straight face when he looked at her again though, and nodded quickly.

"Alright, if you say so." He was the wise man here, not her. With a mental shrug, she shifted her grip on the boar as she followed after him.

"What exactly are you going to use them for?" she puffed after a moment. "The teeth?"

"I'm not really sure yet!" Makani admitted with a light shrug. "But I'm sure I'll need it at some point. It would make a potent vitality spell, or--ah! Fertility, too. That's it. I was really looking for rabbits, but I wasn't thinking! A boar is far better for that."

He spoke as though Kira would know what he was talking about, excitement lighting up his features as he flashed her a bright grin. "Thank you, huntress! You solved a problem for me! This'll do very nicely, especially since it's male. Perfect."

"Umm..." Kiri blinked, eyes going a little wide as her feathers fluffed up slightly. "Yeah, uh, sure... What did I do exactly?" she asked with a little laugh, bemused.

"Why, you killed the boar, of course," Makani said as though she was silly not to realize it. "And you made me realize that what I was seeking was not what I needed! So thank you for being where you were at the same time I was where I was!"

"Ahhhh....yooooooou're welcome?" Kiri shook her head, bemused. "So, what exactly is it that you needed, anyway?"

"Well, bones of course," Makani said with a raised eyebrow, as though it were, once again, totally obvious. Hadn't he told her that before?

But for her sake, he decided to elaborate, pausing briefly to adjust his grip on his end of the boar. They were almost out of the jungle and to his home; thank goodness, too, because he was not meant for this work.

"It's for magic," he said. "My kind of magic. Blood and bone, pain and pleasure, extremes like that, they are all fantastic ingredients in my sort of work. I need things that connect to that, that connect to the world and life in its rawest, most potent forms. It can be dangerous and unpredictable, but goodness knows it works."

He flashed a smile and a shrug. "You see, my friend Noelani wants a child, but she's had trouble conceiving. I tried to help her in other ways, but once we ruled that out, it's time to consult the spirits."

"Oh." Kiri turned that over in her head a few moments, considering. Hefting her end of the boar a bit higher, she asked curiously, "How do you use things like pleasure and pain as-- as ingredients? Aren't they just...feelings?"

Of course, she was no shaman, so what did she know, really? Still, she couldn't help being curious.

"They are feelings, that's true, yes, but they can be, ah..." Makani pursed his lips, searching for the right word. "Harvested, you could say. Extreme emotions leave an imprint. They linger for a while in your very flesh and blood. They are a part of you, and they change you--for a time. I'll give you an example!"

He looked down at the boar, motioning to it with his chin. "This boar was killed quickly. You were an efficient hunter, and it died before it could be afraid. Have you ever tasted the meat of an animal that died terrified? I have. There is a difference in the very flavor--it tastes terrible. Whatever happens when the animal is afraid, those extreme emotions--it stores in the flesh. This boar will no doubt taste delicious; it never even realized it was dead. Emotions, feelings, they are part of us down to our bones."

He smiled, looking satisfied with his explanation. "And that is how you can use it as an 'ingredient'. If I'm you're in pain, your blood will be different. If you're in pleasure, your blood will be different. I can use human blood for all manner of things, but some magics need a different component when human sources aren't enough." He cocked his head. "Does that make sense?"

"Um...yeah, I think so." Kiri tilted her head to the side, looking down at the boar. She'd certainly eaten meat that had been toughened by fear or rage, so...she supposed it made sense that the same thing happened in a human body.

"How do you get the blood then?" she asked, unable to stop a morbid sense of curiosity. "Doesn't cutting someone open then change their blood again?"

"Ah, here we are," Makani said as they stepped out of the jungle, revealing a modest hut constructed of bamboo and thatch. "We'll just set the boar down on that stone slab over there, to the right of the doorway. Anyway!"

He guided them both over, and carefully lowered his end of the boar.

"It's all in the execution. When done on a person, it's not like I'm gutting them. It's a small, precise cut here," he said, tapping his inner elbow. "Or a prick of the finger. Or anywhere else that bleeds well--with a goal of not actually damaging the person. A finger will do for a little blood, an arm for more. I keep my knives sharp enough that you hardly feel it when it happens, unless I want you to feel it. If you're quick about it, the blood won't have time to change. But sometimes, you want it to change."

He stretched, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck. "I use my own when I can. I'm used to it, so it hardly bothers me--unless I need it to, in which case I have ways to improvise. Someone new to the matter might get nervous, of course, and that can affect things, but that can also be a good thing depending on what we need. Really, it all depends. There are...ways of gaining whatever effect you need." He paused, looking at her, trying to gauge how comfortable she was with the topic.

It could be a queasy subject for some people, and very easily misunderstood.

"So long as you have the continued consent of all involved, of course."

"I...think I understand," the huntress said slowly, brow furrowed as she turned his words over in her head.

Now that she'd started asking questions, her curiosity only seemed to grow. She bit her lip, debated the merits of holding her tongue, then caved and asked quickly, "How did you learn all this? I mean-- look, I'm no shaman, but the elders in my village don't talk about anything like this. Who taught you?"

"My grandmother," Makani said as he drew his blade and knelt by the boar's head.

"Magic runs in my family's blood, but my mother had no...inclination toward it. No instinct for it, no stomach for it. Minor blood magic, yes, but the kind Mama Kawelo taught was...too much for her. She thought it too dangerous. She didn't want me to learn, but Mama Kawelo insisted. She taught me everything I know."

He lifted the boar's lip to get a look at its teeth, then rose to head for his home, reaching inside briefly to grab a pair of wooden pliers. He returned to the boar and pinched a tooth between them, then began to wriggle it gently. "I take it you don't do much magic?"

Kiri shook her head. "No. None really. I--" She paused, tilting her head from side to side, debating how much she wanted to say. "Well, when I was younger I was fascinated by it. But I never had the...the...I don't know what you call it. The knack, I suppose."

A hint of wistfulness had entered her tone, though she quickly tried to shake it away, offering a quick, friendly smile.

"Oh?" With a wet crunch, Makani removed the first tooth and set the bloody thing aside before going for the next. "No knack, you say. But did anyone attempt to teach you?"

"Well...no." She shrugged. "But I mean, why bother, right? I was never levitating things or talking to plants or having visions as a kid, so why waste time on it?" She smiled again, though the wistfulness-- almost regret-- in her voice was plain.

Makani cocked his head, birdlike, eyebrows knit. "Would you have been able to hunt if you weren't shown?"

"I—" She blinked. "No, I guess not. But it's not really the same is it? You have to— to have a knack for the thing to do magic. Don't you?"

Despite herself, there was the tiniest hint of hope in her voice.

"Mm, that's..." Makani tapped his chin in thought and left behind a smudge of blood, but if he noticed or cared, he didn't show it. "Debatable, I guess is the best way to put it. There are some people who try and try and try and can never do a lick of anything 'magic', and there are those that slide from the womb bursting with the stuff. Then there are those who show no promise at all, but who can learn it if they're just shown the path. Or a different path. Maybe those that 'lack' magic just haven't been shown the right kind of magic for them. Maybe the right kind of magic for them hasn't even been discovered yet. I don't know. The gods work in mysterious and frustrating ways."

Makani finished extracting the teeth he wanted as he spoke--he left many behind, apparently disinterested in those ones--and then shifted over so he could get to work gutting the creature. He slid his knife into the soft belly and began to slit it open, steaming guts spilling out. "And then there are those, I'm told, who make deals with gods or spirits or magical creatures to get their power. I don't know how true that is, but..."

He gave a little shrug. "If you've never really tried, you never really know. It's like that with many things. Most things we view as natural talent are just the product of hard work. You can teach yourself to do almost anything."

Kiri stared at him for a long moment, processing that.

Then her eyes lit up with the kind of fire she normally only felt after a good kill, a skilled hunt, and she leaned forward onto the balls of her feet.

"Teach me."

She meant it to be a question, but the passion in her voice made it a command. Flushing, she tried to rein herself back and added, "Um, please?"

Whoa!

Makani's head snapped up from his work, rare surprise in his eyes and raised brows, and he froze in his work.

...Teach her?

He looked down again, at the pile of bloody teeth and the offal spilled over the earth, and then back up to her. Teach her? Really? While there were many who dealt in the primal arts, and many even who dealt in blood magic--it was common enough--even many of those grew squeamish with the sort of work he performed. And yet here he had told her subtle details about it, details that were enough to make others grimace, and her eyes had lit up and she was asking him to teach her.

But then again, hadn't he had the same reaction when Mama Kawelo took him under her wing?

"Oh, uh..." It still took him aback, took him a moment to gather his thoughts. "Well. Yes. I mean, if that's what you'd like. But it's bloody work. Often painful. And it requires, well, sacrifice. You're really interested despite that? I only know my kind of magic, so it's the only magic I know how to teach."

The huntress's eyes flared with excitement. "I am. I'm interested," she assured quickly. "I want to learn. I'm used to pain and sacrifice-- becoming a good hunter requires both. Please. Teach me?"

It was clear that she was more than a little naive about just what exactly she might be getting into, but the desire to learn was very, very real. She was practically bouncing on her heels, feathers rustling with anxious energy.

Makani stared at her a moment longer, unblinking, as though waiting for her to change her mind. But there was a fire in her eyes that said, quite clearly, that she meant her every word.

For now.

And just like that, Makani found himself thrust into a role he was in no way prepared for--and yet, he couldn't say no. Maybe the girl would reconsider and nope on out of the arrangement later; that would be disappointing, but not surprising. Maybe she wouldn't have any intuition for his sort of magic. But maybe she would. It couldn't hurt to test the waters, lest his family's tradition die with him.

The mothers of his children hadn't been fond of the thought of him teaching them.

"Very well," he said at last, and rose to his feet, fluffing his feathers. He stooped to pick up the teeth he had pulled and nodded at Kiri. "Go ahead and continue butchering the boar. I need to go prepare a few things and--"

He stopped short, blinking in sudden surprise. "I don't believe I even got your name."

"Oh." Right, she'd never really introduced herself. With a smile and quiet chuckle, she relayed, "Kiri. I'm called Kiri. Nice to meet you."

She bobbed her head to him once before she set in to continue butchering the boar. With her skirt tucked up toward her hips, she didn't have to worry too much about getting blood on her clothes, so she just tied her hair back with one of the leather chords that normally hung around her neck, dangling teeth and shells.

"Kiri," he repeated, committing it to memory with a nod. "I'm Makani. Nice to officially meet you!"

He turned to leave, pausing only briefly as his eyes caught sight of the teeth on that cord, but that was curiosity to sate another time.

Right now, he had a ritual to prepare.

With a thoughtful, "Hm," he stepped inside his home.

Time to get to work, while she worked.

She looked up at him with a friendly smile. "You too."

She turned her attention back to the boar. Enough successful kills meant that she was a relatively skilled butcher, and she managed to work through the task quickly enough.

She wasn't exactly sure what she should be doing next, so she to cleaning the skin from the meat and laying the pelt off to the side.

Makani finished up shortly after Kiri did, and stepped outside to check on her progress. He hadn't expected her to finish so quickly--or maybe he had just been slower than he thought. Time did tend to run away from him, especially when he got absorbed in one thing or the other.

"Oh. You're done," he said, eyebrows raised as he saw that she had not only butchered the animal, but taken care of its pelt, as well. "And then some," he added, obviously impressed. He had expected her to do well, considering her obvious experience, but she had done better. So far she had proven that she was quick, and that was a promising sign; if she had any aptitude for this, then there was a good chance she'd be a quick and bright study. Even better, she had shown she was good at following orders, and at exceeding them.

The only possible concern with that was that she might go above and beyond before she was ready for that. He'd have to keep an eye out for that.

"Very good!" he said with a clap of his hands. "Follow me, then. You'll need to wash up, and then we'll get started."

Motioning her to follow, he headed around the side of his home and pointed at a well-traveled path that Kiri would find ended in a freshwater spring. "Clean yourself, and when you're ready, meet me inside."

A little pleased with herself that he seemed surprised she'd finished so quickly, Kiri gave him a quick grin and nodded as she stood up, already wiping her hands over the fabric on her hips. Following him as he directed her toward the spring, she nodded again and all but chirped, "Thanks. Be back in a few then."

She set off down the little path, her steps soft as ever from years of habitual practice, though there was a bit of a bounce to her gait. When she reached the spring she stripped quickly and set to washing her clothes before laying them out on a nearby rock, then jumping into the water herself.

Getting clean was a relief, especially after work like butchering-- she wasn't unused to it, but she couldn't say she liked the feeling of being covered in blood and entrails... Alright, not covered, but close enough!

Once she felt suitably scrubbed, she waded from the water again and grabbed her still damp sarong. She was loathe to put on clothes that were still rather wet, but didn't see that she had much of an option. She decided to forgo her breastband though, as there didn't seem to be much point to it if she wasn't going on another hunt. Besides, if she wasn't wearing it she could let it dry properly!

Kiri picked her way back down the path toward Makani's home, calling as she came within view, "I don't suppose you've got a clothesline or something where I could hand this?" She brandish the damp cloth to indicate this,

Makani was waiting for Kiri just outside his home. He had built up a small fire in a well-used fire pit and was kneeling next to it, letting the flames lick the blade of the gleaming knife he held. He looked up when he heard Kiri's approach, and nodded to a nearby tree. "Oh, I usually just toss my things over a branch to dry," he said.

Ever the bachelor.

He pulled the knife from the fire and looked it over, running his thumb lightly over the edge. It was a different knife from the one they'd used to butcher the boar, with a carved bone handle etched with delicate designs, and judging by the whetstone on the ground, he had freshly sharpened it. He turned it this way and that, inspecting it, before he rose to his feet with a soft grunt.

He nodded to Kiri, finally looking at her. "You look comfortable," he said, noting she was as bare-chested as he was. He couldn't imagine wearing something that squeezed his chest all day long, practical though it was. "Good. The more relaxed you are, the better this will go. Come."

He stepped inside his home, and when Kiri followed, she would find that it was dark inside save for the candles, one at each cardinal point, and at the center was a simple bamboo mat. Atop it were two small bowls fashioned from gourds, filled with a steaming, fragrantly earthy liquid, and Makani motioned Kiri to sit on one side of the mat as he knelt on the other.

Moving to hang her breastband over the most convenient branch, Kiri shrugged at his comment and replied, "Well, I don't exactly like wearing wet clothes-- and there's really no point to the band if I'm not doing anything too strenuous, y'know?"

Cocking her head curiously as she followed him into the house, she asked, "Why is it better if I'm relaxed?" On a hunt one had to be constantly alert; she would have imagined a similar concept applied to magic. What if something went wrong?

Of course, he was the expert here, not her.

At his direction she took a seat on her side of the mat, looking around curiously before folding her legs and letting her hands come to rest on her knees. She looked back to Makani, waiting expectantly.

"It's better to be relaxed because my kind of magic is all about feeling," Makani said as he laid the knife across his knees and met Kiri's eyes. "It's about instinct and letting go. Other types of magic require...mm...restraint, I guess you could say. Discipline. And this requires discipline, too, don't get me wrong. But it's different. There are few rules, and few right or wrong ways to do things. When you get really comfortable with it, when you really let it flow through you and speak to you...that's when you know you're one with it."

He cracked a small smile. "It sounds easy, right? But so many struggle with it. Society is filled with rules and rights and wrongs, and burdens and tasks and so much thinking and worrying, but that doesn't really exist among other creatures. You just...are. You are your feelings and your instincts and your passions and your emotions, in this moment. And that's what this kind of magic is. Besides that, your emotions will effect your work. If you're nervous or stressed or upset, it'll show in your blood and flavor the spell. We're going to do some work here now, and for this to work without any...side effects, you have to be calm."

He took a deep breath, and motioned to the gourd before her as he picked up his own and took a sip. "Kava root tea," he said. "It's good for this sort of thing. We're going to form a connection with our blood so I can properly monitor you. The process can be a little jarring, and if you freak out, it could be...unpleasant for us both."

Makani took another large swig, watching her. What he left unsaid was that the tea was as much for his own nerves as hers. Maybe even more so. After all, he had been through this process once before, years and years ago as a youth when he'd agreed to the training, but it was his first time sitting on this side as the teacher. What if he fucked it up? Maybe he should have put a little more consideration into the matter before he'd agreed, but...

Well, what had he just told Kiri about living in the moment? He perhaps did that far too liberally. And more honestly, he was curious, and his curiosity had always been both his delight and his doom.

"Okay," his new pupil said slowly, trying to process his words. She mirrors him, picking up the gourd and taking a sip of the tea, cranking her nose for the strength of the flavor.

"So...how does this work? What exactly should I be expecting?" If she knew what was going to happen, she figured she'd be less likely to "freak out".

"Right," Makani said, taking another sip of tea. The true test here would be in how Kiri took his next few words. Makani was giving her ample opportunity to back out, just to play it safe. Besides, impulsive as he was, he did want to do this right. This was potent magic they were dealing with—the most powerful sort, in his opinion. There was no room for error.

"This is a binding spell," he started, and lifted the knife. "I'm going to cut your palm, and cut mine, and then we'll clasp hands and let our blood mingle. Er..." He paused, thinking of how best to phrase this. It sounded a lot stranger when he actually had to say it out loud.

"I'm going to, ah...we're going to exchange blood," he said, meeting Kiri's eyes. "Some of mine will flow into you, through the cut, and some of yours will flow into me. You'll feel hot all over, starting from your hand and traveling to your toes as it works through you, and it could feel...intense. We'll be connected, body, mind, and spirit. I'll be able to feel what you feel, and vice versa. Don't worry!" he added, holding up a finger. "We won't be able to know each others' thoughts. Just feelings, and intense sensations."

He cocked his head thoughtfully, turning the knife over in his hand. "My teacher did this with me, long ago. She explained it's to better monitor the student, make sure they're safe and not getting in over their head. It makes it easier to pull you out of a bad spot, too, if necessary. It's not a permanent thing, either. It fades with the flow of your blood, so you have to repeat it every week or so. But like I said, it can be intense, especially at first, and disorienting. And it's an advanced spell—my life will essentially be yours. As teacher, I will take the brunt of the binding. To be blunt, if you do something foolish and get yourself killed, I likely won't survive it, either."

He let that sink in a moment, expression somber, before he flashed her a smile. "Not that I'm concerned! We're perfectly safe here, and my teacher and I both came out fine! But just in case you felt like cliff diving anytime in the near future."

He held out his palm and hovered the blade just above it. "Still interested? Any questions?"

Kiri listened intently to every word that came out of his mouth, attempting to understand. It was...a lot of information, and none of it had even existed as a possibility in her life until a few hours ago. It was quite a lot to take it.

She thought about her answer, brow furrowed. She wanted to learn, she wanted to do what Makani could, for him to teach her. But she knew this was not a decision to be made lightly. Was she really ready to commit to this?

"Yes." Lifting her eyes, the huntress nodded sharply. "I'm still interested. I want to learn." She tilted her head a bit to the side. "I...don't think I have any questions." She took a breath, then slowly held out her hand.

"Okay. Ready when you are."

...And she wasn't phased by any of that?

Makani stared at her. Was he more nervous about this whole thing than she was? Funny that, considering she was behaving about as impulsively as he was! But the weight of it all was beginning to settle on him the closer the binding drew--the fact that he would be actually responsible for another human life.

He didn't yet move the knife.

"Then it's my turn. Just one question before we begin," he said, still watching her curiously.

"Why? Why do you want this? This is more than simple blood magic, but you said you're ready for pain and sacrifice. What drew you here? What draws you to this?"

Her mouth opened, then closed rather sharply. Her frown was back, three little lines deepening between her brows. She thought her answer over for several long moments, wanting to be as honest as possible-- and, truly, a little curious herself. She was mostly acting on impulse: why did she want to do this?

"Because..." She paused, licked her lips, then continued slowly, "Because if I can learn this, I feel like-- like I have to. I never thought magic would be a part of my life, but for some reason when you said it could be..." Kiri shrugged. "I felt like a had to take a chance. Like-- Oh! It was like lining up a shot!"

Yes, that made sense, at least in her mind. A little more eagerly, she leaned forward and tried to explain, "It was like my life is this-- this massive, long-range hunt, and up until now I've just been waiting for that perfect shot. That one moment that would let me take down the biggest, most dangerous game I could ever track. And when you told me maybe I could do this, learn this, it was like that shot just clicked into place. My vision narrowed to that point, my whole body was the bowstring, and this, what I could learn here, is the arrow."

Realizing she'd babbled a bit, she suddenly fell quiet and sat back. "I, um...yeah. Sorry if that doesn't make much sense." Clearing her throat, she dropped her eyes and shrugged, hoping her answer had been what he was looking for.

A long pause followed Kiri's words as Makani processed them, weighed them.

And then...

He smiled, let out a soft laugh that sounded almost relieved. "That makes perfect sense."

With a quick flick of his wrist, he sliced a line down his palm that quickly welled up red. The knife was sharp, so sharp the pain came seconds later, but he was used to the sting of the blade--welcomed the familiar sensation, even--and didn't even wince. He cupped his hand to keep the blood pooled there, careful not to drip as it darkened the lines of his hand like ink, and then motioned for Kiri to extend her own hand.

"I get it. That sense of...meaning. Of purpose. I've felt it. I might not have described it the same way as you--I'm not as much a hunter as you seem to be--but I felt that same pull when I first started, like it was a piece of me I hadn't known I was missing until I found it. And then, when I began--" Another quick, controlled motion and he cut her palm cleanly then set the blade aside, "--everything just fell into place. Take my hand, now."

Blood had filled his hand, was dripping over the sides--but it didn't fall. Instead, it swirled, curling around his hand like living tendrils.

The huntress let out a breath of her own, relieved at his acceptance. She extended her hand again when he beckoned, already bracing herself for the sting of the blade against her palm.

Listening to his words, she almost didn't notice the way his blood began to twine through the air-- at least until the knife cut across her skin and she hissed in a sharp, quick breath. She didn't relish pain, but she'd certainly had worse.

This really isn't so bad, she thought as she cupped her fingers and watched the blood begin to pool in her hand. Carefully, she reached out to do as she said, pressing her palm to his and wrapping her fingers around his hand.

Almost immediately she felt a sort of tingle, beginning where their hands touched and slowly spreading up her wrist into her arm. Quietly, almost reverently, she whispered, "How long should we...?"

"Shhh!" Makani hissed. "Just wait. You'll know."

And sure enough, as Makani closed his eyes and concentrated once more, Kiri would be able to feel that sensation grow from a tingle to heat, not so hot as to be uncomfortable, but warm enough to sweat. Makani focused, breathing calmly through his nose and out his mouth as the heat coursed through them, up their arm, into their face, into their other arm and down through their core. Perhaps he should have warned her about this part; when he'd first experienced this, he'd thought he'd peed himself when the heat shot between his legs--which had made his teacher laugh to no end--but it seemed that was a rite of passage, so now it was Kiri's turn. It traveled down lower, curling in their toes, her blood, her essence coursing through his veins as his coursed through hers.

And that was when the other sensations came.

A flood of emotions hit him like a kick to the chest, all of Kiri's current emotions all at once before he was able to grapple with them and sort them, put up his own mental wall and let them trickle in slowly. His mind reeled, dizzy and euphoric as for a second he could feel her entirely--the throb in his cut hand, and the throb of her pain, side by side, aching in time to the different paces of their hearts.

And no doubt she could feel him, too, though he controlled himself. Kept himself calm, let his emotions filter in slowly, so it wouldn't knock her over. Calm. Soothing. He projected those at her, hoping to ease her in. He knew what to expect so it was easier for him, but for her? Well, his first time had been terrifying and jarring; everything had bled together in a confusing jumble until he didn't know himself from his teacher. He may or may not have had a panic attack.

Finally, he opened his eyes and looked at her, hand still grasping hers. "How do you feel?"

Kiri began to tense as the heat poured through her system-- then she suddenly gasped, her hand clenching almost spasmodically around Makani's and a shudder rippling through her whole body.

It was strange and new and intense and terrifying and wonderful. She could feel his heartbeat like it was pounding against her own chest, the pulse of his blood-- her blood-- their blood echoing in her ears.

When it was over she simply sat there, shaking slightly and trying to remember how to breathe. finally, she sucked in an almost painful gasp of air and lifted her eyes to Makani's face, her own eyes wide and slightly glazed.

"I--" She shivered, then shook her head and turned away as he stomach suddenly rebelled.

When she wasn't sick all over the floor, she took a few more deep breaths and straightened up again, then nodded slowly. "I'm...alright?"

Despite himself, Makani laughed. He didn't mean to, but her amazement at being alright tickled him. Maybe it was because it mirrored his own wonder after his first time doing the exchange with his teacher. It could certainly feel almost like dying, in a way. He'd been told by those that came close to death that once the fear and pain passed, euphoria and acceptance set in and suddenly they weren't afraid anymore.

This experience was similar, albeit with far less danger.

"Of course you're alright," he said with a small grin, and pat the back of her hand with his other one as though to soothe her. "I told you it would be intense, but it won't kill you. Worst that could happen is you panicked during it, and...well, that would be unpleasant, but nothing you wouldn't survive. The worst is over now, though."

He let some of his emotions seep into her through their connection, a sense of warm accomplishment and pride that she had taken this so well. Certainly better than he had. "This will feel a little weird, but I'll be sure not to overwhelm you. I've had practice so I can guard you from my emotions, let you feel only what I want you to. You'll learn how to do that, too, with time. How are you feeling? Any wooziness? If you're going to get sick, I only ask you do it outside."

"I'm..." She gulped in another breath, then managed a shaky approximation of a smile. "I'm not...going to be sick." I don't think. "I am pretty dizzy though..."

The sense of warmth and pride that wasn't quite hers seemed to settle somewhere near the center of her chest and she took another deep breath--less shaky this time, her heart rate finally starting to even out. The second smile she shot him was a little less wobbly, and some of the color was returning to her cheeks.

"Well, that was...a lot," she chuckled after another moment spent taking stock. She glanced down at the cut along her palm, tilting her hand slightly from side to side as though changing the angle might change the way it looked. Wait--learn to guard from her emotions? She looked up at Makani again. "Am I--so you're going to feel whatever I feel? I can't stop that?"

Oh dear. She'd meant what she'd said, she was determined to learn all he could teach her, to see this through, but that...not just physical sensation, but emotion? She wasn't sure she liked the idea of forcing what she felt on someone else, accidental or not.

Kiri flinched a bit and gave him an almost sheepish look. "Ah...sorry in advance?"

Makani bit his cheek to keep some of his amusement inside when he saw, and felt, the moment realization hit her. He could feel her concern, but he could only imagine what she was thinking: worry, perhaps, that he would spy on her most private, embarrassing thoughts and feelings. Or worry, perhaps, that she would inflict those embarrassing thoughts and feelings upon him.

It was tempting to tease her, but he also knew better. Now was not the time for that. Now was the time to reassure her in her moment of vulnerability, like a good teacher should.

He reached and took her wounded hand in his and turned it palm up so he could trace a finger along the bloody slit. "You can't stop it yet, unless you have some natural and surprising aptitude-which, who knows? But you'll learn. And yes, I will feel what you feel, but I can block you out, too. Don't worry, you won't be inflicting me with anything I don't allow in, and should you need a time of...privacy for whatever reason, by all means, let me know. But don't concern yourself with me."

As he moved his finger up and down along the cut, Kiri would feel it begin to warm and tingle, almost to the point of pain but just shy. The flesh began to knit itself together, working from the inside out, until all that was left was drying blood over fresh pink skin.

"Besides, the pupil shouldn't apologize to the teacher, it is the teacher's job to teach, with full knowledge that you're a messy little fledgling." Done with his task, he reached off to his side where he had set some thin strips of cloth. He used one to wipe the excess blood off his palm, and another to begin the process of wrapping his hand.

"You're very lucky, by the way," he said as he tied it off. "Lucky that you have done this with me, and not someone else. What you did here was actually incredibly foolish, you know."

Kiri sucked in a sharp breath as he traced the cut over her palm and she felt it begin to heal. It was...odd. She'd only had magic healing once or twice before, and that was through poultices that simply sped up the natural process—well, she supposed that was essentially what was happening now, but...

It was different. She could feel her flesh knitting together. She swallowed once, staring at her hand in bald amazement as the cut was replaced with new, pink skin. Shaking her head slowly, she glanced up at Makani as he wrapped his own hand.

So. Many. Questions.

"Foolish, mm? Which part? Agreeing to learn magic out of nowhere, or agreeing to learn your magic? And why do that?" She gestured to his bandaged hand. "Why can't you just heal yours the way you healed mine? Does it not work on yourself or something?"

She scrubbed her palm against her thigh in an effort to remove the drying blood. "Also, do you want me to help you with that?" Wrapping your own bandages was never easy—doing it on your hand was just a nuisance.

"Agreeing to learn this magic from a stranger," Makani answered, fussing with his bandage. Tying it one-handed was not easy, and it kept coming undone, but he was trying not to show his frustration. "Blood-binding yourself to someone you don't know. Everything I told you could have been a total lie, and you'd be tied to me, life and blood and all. That's incredibly dangerous, my dear. My magic--this magic--is incredibly dangerous used the wrong way. So consider this your first lesson: as long as you are under my tutelage, you answer to no one else."

The bandage unraveled again and he let out a long-suffering sigh and just stared at it, frowning. Perhaps the ritual had affected him more than he thought; his patience felt thinner, and that was usually his first warning that he was tired. Or hungry. Or both. He could weather the effects better than a novice, of course, but that didn't mean it hadn't still hit him like a club to the gut.

He glanced up at Kiri and held the bandage and his hand out for her to take over for him. "Please," he said, and thought for a moment on how best to answer her questions.

"Why I can't heal myself...hmm. I suppose it's kind of like how you can't tickle yourself," he said, but then he laughed.

"No, but seriously. All magic has costs and limitations. This magic costs blood and pain and flesh and bone, sacrifice. When I heal you, I am sacrificing my own energy and giving it to you to hurry your body along. But I can't give myself the energy I already have. My energy, my body, is already working to heal the wound as much as it already can with what it has, and it has a little less after I healed you. Now, if I were to take it from somewhere else, say, kill a rabbit or steal it from you via our bond, then I could heal myself. But our magic needs a source. Does that make sense?"

She couldn't help wincing a bit as he highlighted exactly how risky her choice had been--but she also couldn't make herself regret it. Despite her trepidation about the specifics, learning this...it just felt like what she was supposed to do.

"Well, clearly you don't think I'm a complete idiot, or else I doubt you'd have offered to teach me at all," she pointed out with a vaguely self-deprecating, lopsided smile.

When he acquiesced to her help with the bandage, she scooted a little closer and took his hand between both of hers so she could re-wrap the thing, moving with the quick efficiency of someone who'd performed this sort of action so many times before that it had become second nature. She was careful to keep a light tension on the bandaging as she worked, but not so much that the pressure would become uncomfortable.

And she listened as he worked, absorbing his answer like dry soil absorbed rain. "So...I could heal you, if I knew how," she surmised slowly, "just by using the...the energy that I have? Is that the right word?"

She finished wrapped the bandage and tied it off briskly, then sat back and cocked her head. Her wings fluttered a bit, fanning out for a moment before sweeping back in close to her spine in an old, contemplative habit. "Yes. Yes, I think that makes sense." She thought a moment longer, then asked, "This source--does it have to be, I dunno...proportional? Like, you said killing a rabbit--isn't a death more...weighty, I suppose, than healing a cut?"

Makani's lips quirked when she commented that he must not think her a total idiot, and he let out a soft snort.

"Mm, yes, I suppose so. Something like that. Really I just felt a moral obligation to get to you first before you got yourself killed—the same way I have a moral obligation to stop a toddler from tumbling off a cliff," he said, but there was a teasing glint in his eye as he said it, because while that was partially true, he also wouldn't have agreed had he not thought she had potential.

Her genuine curiosity and attention to detail, that pure spark of passion and wonder he saw in her, was very important to this work.

And she was asking all the right questions, latching onto the nuances of what he said and calling out what seemed off.

"Good observation," he said as he flexed his bandaged hand when she was done, admiring her work, so much neater than when he did it himself. "Death is more weighty than a cut. So indeed, killing a rabbit to heal my hand would be vastly overdoing it—but it doesn't need to be proportional in both directions. Wasteful as it would be, you could kill a rabbit to heal a stubbed toe if you really wanted to, though I don't recommend that sort of...gratuitous disrespect and disregard for life. It leaves a mark on you. All the same, you could do it. But you would need far more than a rabbit's sacrifice to heal me if I were mortally wounded. You would need a human to bridge that gap. Not because a rabbit's life is worth less, but because human spirit and rabbit spirit is too different, too incompatible, for it to work to that great a degree."

He paused, realizing he may have gone on a tangent. "Hm, but that, ah, tampering with humans lives? Is not something we do. The potential is there, and you should know of it. But the main idea is that everything has a price and the greater the ask, the greater the cost. That's also just one side of what we work with here—I stay away from a lot of that and mostly work with dead things. Usually. For the most part." He smiled. "You can avoid a lot of ethical conundrums when things are already dead, you know."

"A toddler?!" Kiri retorted with dramatic offense, pressing her newly healed palm to her heart. "How very dare you."

She let the playful demeanor drop when he continued explaining how the type of magic she was now...apprenticed, she supposed, to him to study required sources. She nodded along as he explained, sorting through the information he gave her as quickly as she could.

It was all...overwhelming. The concepts, the general idea, that she could understand easily, but when she thought about the implications—a rabbit life could not be used to heal a mortal wound. But a human's could.

The idea made her shiver. She nodded emphatically when Makani cautioned her against using this magic with a reckless disregard for life. "That I get, I think," she murmured. "The—the mark it would leave. When I was first learning to hunt, my brother, he taught me that thanking the animal was just as important as making a clean kill. Maybe more."

She was quiet a moment, then her eyes suddenly widened and she jumped to her feet, wings snapping in tight to offset her sudden shift in balance. "Gods' tits, the boar! I completely forgot, I promised Larae I'd get my kill back by sundown tomorrow, if I don't leave now—what time is it...?"

She darted to the door and peered outside, trying to judge the sun's position by the angle of light through the leaves.

Makani couldn't help but smirk a little at her comment about thanking the animal, but he bit his tongue. It was important, but not for the animal's sake. The animal was dead and likely quite upset that it was dead; he knew he wouldn't care about the intentions of his killer, however necessary his death was; he would pissed. The thanking was for the hunter—a ritual to make them feel better, to reassure themselves of their own humanity and compassion, to acknowledge the weight and sacrifice of such a permanent act.

At least, that was how he saw it. And he still performed the ritual himself, because it was important to always feel the weight of his actions. Life consumed life, and one must never grow flippant. The moment one could take a life and feel nothing was the moment things grew dangerous.

He opened his mouth instead to agree with her--but that was when she bolted upright and his wings fluffed out in alarm, his back going rigid and heart leaping into his throat in a brief moment of alarm. He relaxed again when she spoke, letting out a breath.

"Good gods, you are a jumpy little thing," he said with a light laugh, and pushed himself to his feet. "But I suppose we did get side-tracked. Ah, are you going to need any help with that?"

"I'm not jumpy," Kiri protested, shooting him a quick look over her shoulder. "I just...lost track of time, is all."

She glanced at the body of the boar, evaluating its size even as she considered his offer.

"Well...if you don't mind, yes, actually. That'd be really helpful." She knelt to gather her hunting spear from where she'd left it by his door, then glanced up with a wry, crooked smile.

"Don't suppose there's a spell we could use to make carrying the meat easier?" She didn't sound as if she really expected there to be, merely trying to make a joke out of her own sudden anxiety.

What exactly was she going to tell her family about why a blood witch was helping her lug her kill back home?

Shaking her head, she ran her fingers back through her hair and added, "It's a long trek though—you really don't have to help me if you'd rather not." The offer of help was appreciated, and she would certainly relish the chance to continue pestering him with questions, but she didn't want to be a complete nuisance.

Makani waved a hand. "It's a long trek from here to anywhere, my dear," he said. "It's not an issue. I got what I wanted--teeth--and also got something a little extra--a pupil--so I see no harm in taking a little evening stroll with said pupil."

Back stiff from sitting so long, he gave a big stretch and stepped outside his home so he could unfurl his wings to their full span. He let out a satisfied sigh, popping his neck, and then took a look at the hanging meat to assess it.

"Unfortunately, you'd have to ask a different witch for help with, say, levitating spells and such. I've no experience in that. I do, however, have a different kind of magical solution that has been passed down through history since the dawn of time..."

He held up a finger for her to wait and ducked back into his home. When he returned, it was with several sacks made of animal hide. He tossed one to her with a grin. "Load up," he told her, and began to pack his own sack. Two-hundred pounds of meat should be manageable between the two of them, and he was fully prepared to carry the heavier sack.

Kiri snorted at him, catching the back he tossed her easily and setting about loading it with the butchered animal's meat.

"You don't have to take me the whole way, y'know," she said as she worked, more for the form of the thing than because she thought he would really change his mind. "But, ah...thanks."

She tried to keep the distribution of weight between the packs as even as she could manage—it wouldn't be the first long trek she'd taken back from a hunt.

"Fair warning: my mother is going to want to meet you," she told her new mentor as she hefted her pack with a grunt. "And my brothers and sister. And probably my aunts. And my grandmother."

A slow, amused grin spread onto Makani's face as Kiri spoke, saying he didn't have to come all the way, warning he would have to meet her family...

He cocked his head, a hand on his hip, and peered at her knowingly. "Hmm...it almost sounds to me like you're more nervous about the possibility than I am," he mused. "I can't be the first man you've brought home."

Her automatic reaction to that was to snort and reply, "No, of course not--"

She drew herself up short as she actually thought about it. Her brow furrowed, lips moving around a handful of names as she ticked them off on the fingers of one hand. Surely someone had met her family...

Oh.

Hm.

"Er...yeah, actually. I guess you are." She laughed a little awkwardly and shot Makani almost a sheepish look. "I mean, it's not exactly the same sort of thing, but uh...yeah."

Makani's grin broadened, delighting in her awkwardness. He had no idea what the deal was with her family or why she was being so odd about it, but he had a mischievous streak that was dying to find out.

"Ah, I see. So I should be on good behavior, yes? Make a good impression, be polite and respectful, and definitely not mention the ritual blood orgies?"

Kiri might have been a little more taken aback by the playfulness, if she wasn't still feeling the gentle after-effects of the binding ritual. She wouldn't say she was feeling his mischief, precisely, but she thought that she caught onto it quicker than she might have usually.

"If you can manage it," she sniffed, crinkling her nose at him. Then she sighed and ran a hand back through her hair. "Actually, now you say it, my mother would probably be thrilled about any sort of orgy. At least then she might get the grandbabies she's been harping about."

Makani burst out a laugh, wings fluttering with mirth. "Oh, I think I like your mother already!" he said. "She sounds like a treat. Wait. Are you more concerned about me meeting your family for their sake or for my sake?"

He returned to his work, loading up his sack until it was full and tying it shut.

"Yours!" Kiri laughed, shrugging the pack into a more comfortable position before she turned to check on his progress. "All of my siblings have at least one kid--I'm the only one left for every maternal figure in my life to fuss over!" She waved a hand at him broadly. "Listen, I won't say they wouldn't be...wary of you teaching me blood magic. So maybe we downplay that a bit. But at this point, if they thought you were gonna knock me up, I don't think it would be a dealbreaker."

She rolled her eyes dramatically, making it clear that she was joking, though it was the sort of joke that needed to be grounded in reality. She considered a moment, then said a bit more sincerely, "I think you'll like my brothers though. Well, two of them. They tend to be a little less..." She waved her hand again, casting around for a word, and after a few moments decided on, "Meddling."

"If you need to get them off your back, you could always borrow one of my kids," Makani offered with a wry smile. "They're perhaps a little old to play the part, but the offer's still there."

He slung his own bag over his shoulder, shifting his wing to make sure no feathers got trapped beneath the strap. "How many siblings do you have, anyway?"

"Noted," she chuckled, nodding at him as they started to move. "And I've got five siblings--four brothers and a sister." She shrugged. "I'm the middle child--three older brothers, one baby brother, and then my sister is...almost exactly a year younger than me." Once she started in on her family, it seemed to be a comfortable enough topic that she just started going. "Belani, my little brother, he's twenty now, nearly twenty-one, his first baby was born just about two months ago--"

She suddenly seemed to catch herself and glanced at him. "Ah--what about you? Siblings?"

"Aha, the middle child, are you? What a place to be! Normally, the middle child is the most neglected--not as precious and needy as the youngest, not as pressured as the oldest, just sort of there. Seems you have the opposite problem, mm? You're the holdout, so you get the most attention, like it or not. Congratulations, you have broken the stereotype!"

He pushed a low branch back as he passed and held it back to wait for Kiri to pass as well. "As for me? I'm the oldest of seven. Two brothers, four sisters, one maha. Of course, being the oldest, I decided to make my siblings' lives all easier by being the weird one. Let's see...I've three boys of my own, two of them twins. They stay with their mothers in the village proper. Hmm. I haven't seen any of my family in a while, come to think of it..."

He frowned a little at the realization, and shrugged. "I'm usually just so busy. Someone always needs something, you know."

"Oh, lucky me," Kiri snorted, ducking under the branch he held. "Then I just had to go and decide to learn blood magic from a stranger, huh?" She snorted again, more at herself this time, and rolled her eyes. "Gods, maybe my mother's right."

She laughed a bit when he identified himself as the "weird" sibling. Well, she couldn't exactly say he wasn't, from what little she knew of him. "And I'm sure all your siblings are grateful for your sacrifice," she teased as she hopped over a fallen branch and began picking her way along a game trail through the trees.

"How old are your boys?" she asked, glancing back at him. She found that she tended to quite like children--as long as there was a proper parent in easy reach to hand them back to if they got fussy. Expression sliding into something between curious and sympathetic, she added, "I can imagine you're...busy. This--what you do. Do you get a lot of people coming to you for help with...well. Stuff?"

Oh, well done, Kiri. Incredibly articulate.

Makani grinned. "My boys are four and two--ah, the twins are both two, roughly speaking, I mean," he said. "Like I said, a bit too old to borrow, but they're still cute?"

There was a hint of something in his voice as he said it--or maybe just some flicker of micro-expression in his eyes. It had been a while since he had seen them. Not that it particularly mattered; they received no shortage of loving or cherishing among their families, and they barely even recognized him. Two different mothers, two different accidents, two different attempts at a relationship. It was...rough. Of course children were a blessing, but they were also extra work he hadn't meant to burden those women with--because as it turned out, he couldn't stick around to help. Village life didn't suit him.

And yet, the selfish part of him was hoping one of those boys would have some talent for this that he could pass on. Then again, perhaps with Kiri here apprenticing under him, he might not even have to worry about that if things worked out.

It was a busy life, and a bit lonely. Primal magic and blood magic was one thing. But some viewed his craft as too dark.

"It does get rather busy, especially at certain parts of the year. A bad flu rolls through the village, for example, and you're getting zero rest. Even worse if you happen to catch it, too. Still, the work must get done, and that's only an extreme example. People come for everything. Fertility help, a broken bone, an infection, hair loss, you name it. Everyone needs something." He fluffed his wings. "And as it turns out, I was born to serve."

She felt...something. A tingle of emotion that didn't feel quite hers, which she assumed had to come from the binding ritual. She couldn't precisely place the feeling, but she knew it wasn't a good emotion, exactly. Wistful, maybe?

Trying to lighten the mood a bit, Kiri shrugged and joked, "Honestly, my mother is so mad for grandbabies that she probably wouldn't even care if I just turned up with some random toddlers." She hopped over an exposed root, wings flaring just a bit to catch a soft cushion of air as she did. "It's not that I hate the idea or anything, it's just...not a priority. Anyway!"
 
She turned to walk backward a few paces, ducking easily under a low branch as she did. "How long did it take you to learn all this? You said your grandmother taught you, right? When did you start?"

"Aha! Well, there's an idea: just steal a random child and present them as your own. I see no flaws in that plan," Makani said with a wink. "Your mother gets off your back, the child's parents get a few full nights of rest, and the child gets a fun and confusing adventure. Everyone wins."

His wing caught against a branch and he paused to untangle his feathers from the grasping twigs and leaves. Spacial awareness wasn't always his strong suit, especially when distracted.

Tossing a few dead leaves to the ground, he cocked his head at Kiri's question.

"Oh...hmm...I was about, say...fifteen, sixteen? Somewhere around there. She wanted to start me off earlier, but I didn't think it would be for me. I wasn't really like you, throwing myself at the opportunity, much less an opportunity from a stranger! It was my own grandmother, but she was a little scary to me as a kid, and I liked my simple, comfortable life. I thought it would be boring. It was only when I saw her save someone's life that I thought...hmm...maybe..."

He flashed a sheepish smile. "I sort of eased into it, waded into the shallow end and learned how to float before I swam. You've jumped into the deep end with both feet and no clue how to swim."

Kiri laughed, nodding along with his assessment. She couldn't say he was wrong. "Yup, that's me. All heart, no head--least that's what my grandmother always says." She shrugged. "I think she'd probably be less surprised that I took you up on the spontaneous offer of an apprenticeship and more surprised that was all I did. Says I'm too impulsive--I dunno."

She shrugged again and spun on her heel to face forward once more. "She'd probably be less nagging about it if it didn't work out for me so well. Following hunches, I mean. Lining up my shots." She tossed a quick grin back at him as she referenced her admittedly odd metaphor for how she had felt when he first offered to teach her blood magic. "My mother says I'm lucky, but that I should be careful with the luck. It always runs out eventually."

She rolled her eyes. Luck was all well and good, but she liked to think she got by on at least some of her own competence. And what her grandmother called "impulsiveness", she called "following her gut". And thusfar, her gut had never steered her wrong.

"That sounds like jealousy to me," Makani said wryly, giving his wings a little ruffle. "Then again, I don't really believe much in luck, except for the luck you make. I don't really like the idea of some...invisible force being arbitrarily in control of things. Convenience, sure. Some things just fall so easily into place for one reason or another, and other times you have to work harder. But I like to think the gods are less, mmm...dickish, and perhaps have better things to do in general, than to screw me over personally."

He cocked his head curiously. "Hunches, 'lining up your shot'...you just sound intuitive to me. Animals have a knack for that naturally and humans don't listen to it enough. Perhaps you're just more tuned in because you're too curious to tune it out. That can be its own magic, too."

"Exactly!" She beamed at him over her shoulder. "Intuition. I never did much care for the idea of luck, anyway. I mean, it's all well and good to blame things that go wrong on bad luck, but then that means nothing you actually accomplish counts either, doesn't it? It's just "good luck"." She rolled her eyes. "Sure, it was a nice coincidence that we were hunting the same boar, but you chose to offer to teach me, and I chose to accept. I don't think that's luck."

She glanced at him again, then added with a small smile, "But you maaaaaaybe shouldn't be so quick to defend me when you meet my family. The most agreed-upon pass time back home seems to be riding me for my impulsiveness."

Makani cracked a grin. "Who said I was going to defend you against them? Oh no, no, no. Who am I to interfere with a time-honored tradition?"

The path widened up enough for him to fall into step beside her, and he nudged her playfully with his elbow as he did. "I've barely known you a day and I've already gathered plenty of fuel to add to the fire."

"Oh, gods help me," Kiara groaned dramatically, tipping her face up toward the heavens. "What have I got myself into?"

She shot Makani a sidelong sort of grin and returned his little elbow nudge by swerving slightly to let her shoulder bump into his. "Maybe I should just take the boar from here by myself after all," she chuckled.

"Oh, you want to take the boar by yourself? Have at it, my friend!" And with a cheerful grin, Makani hefted the bag off his shoulder and slung it around Kiri's to test her strength. If she wanted to carry two-hundred pounds alone, he was definitely curious to see her try!

"Oof!" Kiri staggered under the sudden increase of weight—the damn board had weighed more than her!

"Well," she puffed, admitting defeat easily and dropping on of the sacks. "I would have put it on a leaf mat to drag, rather than try to deadlift it," she laughed breathlessly. "But fine, fine, you've made you're point."

She knelt, shifting to get the strap of the bag she'd dropped over her shoulder. "Now. If you'll excuse me, I feel like I should at least carry this a couple of steps. My pride demands it."

Oh. Makani's eyebrows raised as the girl announced she was going to carry the sacks, at least a little. With an approving smirk, he stepped beside her and made a small spectacle of stretching out his arms and wings, back popping pleasantly, silently showing off how nice it was to be free and unburdened from all that weight.

"Pride makes us do silly things, doesn't it?" he remarked as he watched her, not offering to help until she relented. "Who are you proving this to, out of curiosity? Yourself, or me?"

Kiri huffed--partially at him, but mostly from exertion--and gave a slightly vague nod. "Me. Mostly. I think." She managed a few more steps before she simply dropped to sit on the jungle floor. Tipping her head back to look at him, she let the sack he'd originally been carrying slide off her shoulders.

"Alright, I give."

Grinning in sheer amusement (Kiri was such an interesting, silly thing), Makani bent to gather up the sack and slung it back over his shoulder with a grunt.

"And...is your pride satisfied with the results?" he asked simply, peering down at her with his hands on his knees.

"I believe it is," she replied primly, though her smile was equal parts self-deprecating and mischievous. Properly shouldering her own sack once again, she got to her feet with a sharp exhale and rolled her head from side to side to crack her neck. "It's a fickle thing though, my pride. I try not to indulge it too often, but I've got to sate it every now and then or it never leaves me in peace."

She scrunched her nose up at him before starting off down the trail again. "C'mon! Should be there by dusk if we move with purpose."

"With purpose! Noted!" Makani said as he fell into step beside her--at least, when the path would allow it. When it narrowed from trees and brush, he let her walk ahead of him and followed single file behind her. After all, she knew the way.

"I'll also note you're in charge of our pace. I've no idea where we're headed." Coming up beside her again, he gave her shoulder a playful nudge with his own. "Not that I'm calling you a slacker or anything, slacker."

"Oh, no," Kiri laughed, stumbling a bit when he nudged her shoulder but recovering quickly enough to turn the stumble into a nudge back. "No no, I've indulged my pride quite enough for one day, I should think. No foot races for me."

She hefted her sack and added with a slight, crooked smile, "Not that I'm afraid of one, though. Maybe another day."

It was a rather long trek back to her mother's home, but strangely she didn't feel nearly as tired as she should by the time she could pick out the shape of it through a gap in the trees: situated comfortably just at the edge of the village she'd been born into, it was one of maybe three houses that nearly brushed up against the jungle itself.

There were three children playing outside the house, and as Makani and Kiri approached, the seemingly oldest raised their head and peered into the steadily darkening trees. When Kiri raised her hand, they called over their shoulder into the house, "Maaaaaamaaaaa! Kiri's back!"

Another of the children piped up with pure mischief in her eyes, "And she brought a stranger!"

"And a boar," Kiri protested with a laugh, dropping her sack so the youngest of the three could jump up into her arms once she was close enough that a running start was doable. Glancing sidelong at Makani, she quirked one eyebrow and muttered, "Sure you're ready for this?"

Makani would have been lying to say he wasn't tired by the time they reached Kiri's home.

But he made a good effort not to show it, and took an extra effort not to let anything slip along their connection. For all the playful shit-talking he'd done and teasing her about her pride, he wasn't about to let on that he had his own pride issues, too, and his sack of boar meat had somehow seemed to grow twice as heavy over the course of their journey.

Of course, they wouldn't be so lucky as to take a little break upon arrival, because no sooner had those homes come into view when a child's voice rang out.

Followed by another announcing Kiri had brought a stranger.

Makani snorted a laugh at that (ahh, a child's unfiltered honesty never got old) and grinned over at Kiri's question. "I'm one of seven," he said, eyes flicking from one child to the next, ending on the one in her arms. "I think I can handle three."

"Oh, the kids aren't the issue," Kiri muttered back. "You should really be nervous about--"

"Well, it certainly took you long enough."

Rolling her eyes, Kiri turned toward the woman in the doorway, who apparently had come in response to the children's summons. "I wasn't even gone the whole day, Ma," she said with a crooked grin, shifting her niece onto her hip so she could hold her with one arm.

Her mother, a pleasantly plump woman in her late fifties who shared the blue streaks in Kiri's hair though not the violet, folded her arms and raised one eyebrow. "I wasn't talking about the boar," she said meaningfully, and looked Makani up and down.

Oh boy. Kiri gave her new mentor a look that screamed, I warned you.

"Well, the boar is heavy, and the immediate issue," she responded brightly. "Mind calling in some reinforcements?"

Her mother smiled and placed two fingers in her mouth to give a short, sharp whistle. There was a scuffling noise behind her--evidently the "reinforcements" Kiri had asked for.

Without waiting for her other progeny to make an appearance, she approached them both and nodded politely to Makani. "Well met, stranger. I'm Hekila. It's not often Kiri returns to us with new folks in tow."

[welp, according to autocorrect, Kiri is Kirk now, lmao.]

Oh dear. Makani knew that look, all right. The one that said mama was hungry for some grandbabies and hoped he was the solution.

He returned Kiri's look with an amused smirk. Guess this would be a test, then, to see if Kiri's mother was capable of terrorizing him. He generally thought of himself as calm and unflappable, but he was open to being surprised. And in the meantime, he was also very, very open to leaning into the joke.

He shifted the pack on his shoulder and smiled warmly at Hekila. "Well met! I'm Makani. Your daughter just sort of found me and I somehow ended up adopting her. Still not quite sure how it happened, but we've become quite close in such a short amount of time."

Of course, he was talking about their connection. But from the grin he flashed Kiri, he was also quite aware that Hekila would likely only take that one way.

[Lolol has definitely happened to me more than I'd like XD]

---

Ooohhhh boy. He was playing a dangerous game with that. Kiri shot him a quick Are you sure about this? sort of look as her mother raised her eyebrows.

"Have you now?" Hekila asked with a pointed look at her daughter.

Kiri had just opened her mouth to start to explain, "Well, we--" when the reinforcements she had requested arrived.

"Well now, who is this?" Her sister, Akila, gave Makani an almost identical look that their mother was giving him as she knelt to help Kiri with the boar. Ioani and Pika, two of her older brothers, circled the both of them before one moved to help Kiri and the other offered a hand to Makani.

Kiri sighed, admitting defeat. She was never going to get a chance to explain this properly until they were all settled. Which, knowing her family, could be days.

"This is Makani," she huffed, abandoning the idea of a proper introduction.

"Makani," Akila repeated, grinning at him. "I've gotta say, you're not my sister's usual type."

Makani simply beamed back at Kiri. Hey, he wasn't the one that had to live with her family! He shrugged at Hekila, wings fluffing. "Oh yes. Close close."

But before Kiri could attempt to salvage the situation, the reinforcements arrived and circled them like sharks. He felt like he was being weighed and measured and judged, which was fine, why wouldn't he be as a random stranger showing up with Kiri and hinting at their closeness? He offered his pack to Pika, secretly relieved to be rid of the weight after carrying it so long, and that was when one of her sisters sized him up and made her statement.

Not her usual type, huh?

He snorted and shot Kiri a sidelong look. "Ahh, she has a type, does she? Interesting. But you know, sometimes too much of the same thing gets dull and you need a little break in the monotony. If you eat honey too much honey, no matter how good and sweet, you'll eventually grow sick of it."

"Mmmm." Akila grinned, clearly loving the excuse to torture her sister. "She usually doesn't go for, ah, such broad shoulders."

Kiri groaned and bapped the side of Akila's head with a quick flex of her wing. "Can we get on with this? Look, I brought food! See? Food!" She gestured expressively to the packs she and Makani had hauled through the jungle. "It wasn't easy to drag all the way here, either, you bunch of ingrates."

"Thank you, Auntie Kiri," one of her nieces said sweetly, tugging on the hem of her skirt. She looked down into her guileless little face and her shoulders slumped. She couldn't even pretend to be irritated with the kids.

"Alright, chick, c'mere." The child reached up, giggling, and she bent and scooped the girl up into her arms.

"Well, won't you come in for something to eat?" Kiri's mother offered Makani as her brood clucked and moved around them in a carefully choreographed dance of curious laughter. "It seems there might be a story to tell."

"Oh really?" It took every ounce of willpower not to wheeze with laughter. Broad shoulders, huh? He slid a look over at Kiri and winked. "Guess there's always room for exceptions."

As Kiri wrangled the children, or they wrangled her (it was hard to tell the difference), Makani turned to Kiri's mother and smiled graciously at her. "I would love that. And I'm certain Kiri would love to tell the tale of our whirlwind meeting and everything that blossomed from it! Isn't that right, Kiri?" he called, just to put her on the spot.

Hey, she'd as good as challenged him.

Ohhhhh she should've known she was going to regret baiting him.

Giving her new mentor a very dry look over her niece's head, Kiri replied brightly, "Of course! I guess it really is quite a story, huh?"

Her siblings tittered at that, the whole throng of them now ushering the two into the house and toward the rather heavenly smell that was emanating from it.

Kiri quirked one eyebrow at Makani. Hey, she'd play the game as long as he would, if he was up for it.

"It's a fabulous story! And you have such a way with words."

Makani flashed her a cheeky smile. Honestly, he was just curious to see how she'd spin this. He was fairly certain she wasn't going to go with honesty, because "I bound myself to some blood mage I bumped into in the jungle and we're in each other's heads" would probably sound rightly batshit and dangerous.

But hey, that was her choice to make and her consequences!

"Something smells amazing," he said as they moved into their home. "Gods, it's been a while since I've had a proper meal. I'll admit I'm a boring cook."

More laughter from her siblings and mother--and it seemed an aunt, who smiled up at the chattering group as they were corralled inside from where she was stirring a sauce over an open fire.

"Well, there's no boring food in this house," she said with a quick wink. "Whether that means it's good is sometimes a matter of debate."

"Oh, don't scare the boy," Kiri's mother tutted, which earned a theatric eyeroll from her daughter. She rather thought Makani might not quite qualify for the boy moniker anymore--although, she thought the same of herself and girl, but her parents, aunts, uncle, and grandmother all seemed to vehemently disagree. 

"It's a pity for you Kiri's not much of a cook either," Akila teased, elbowing Kiri gently before taking the child that she still held to free up her hands. "Sounds like the two of you might be needing a third influence if you ever want a decent meal."

Kiri stared up at the ceiling and mouthed a silent prayer for mercy.

Boy? Makani thought with an amused look at Kiri, both eyebrows raised. That was a word he hadn't been called in a good decade or so, but it was kind of endearing coming from the older woman.

And they were worried about scaring him off! Adorable. Kiri was more of a flight risk than he was, he thought as Akila mentioned a "third influence" and Kiri stared at the ceiling as though begging for divine intervention. Oh no, he was in his element here! The chaos was interesting, the air abuzz with a frenetic but warm energy.

And suddenly he realized with an unexpected pang that he had missed this. People. Family. Crazy, loud get-togethers, drama and all.

He shook the thought away. "The more the merrier, I say!" Makani said. "I think the biggest challenge would be finding someone willing to put up with us. Kiri's quite the handful and I can't say I'm much better. It must be why we work so well together, right Kiri?"

He playfully swatted Kiri with the tip of a wing, winking at her. None of what he'd said was a lie, this was a partnership of a sort and they were working together. But he knew damned well how her mother would interpret that.