Comm: Exploring | Shaken Loose

Zanrak shifted in the high cantle saddle she and Yejidei had secured to Rakhera’s back. They had added a thick roped halter with chains over the masked tokota’s nose.

 “You may insist you are ready for the next stage but I don’t trust this girl,” Yejidei had said after securing the chains in place. “I’m sending these three with you as well.”

Zanrak looked around her at the other tokotas venturing on the light expedition with them. One was a tawny merle Rakhera and Béchamel had met once on the outskirts of the costal Pilitak outpost, Artemis. The other was a curly-maned greying dun tundra named Novae and then there was Ish, a huge greying red-brown dire with pangare. 

“Trust your instincts,” Yejidei had advised before sending the party out the gates of the training center. “If you find you’ve made a misjudgement the tack might help save your life. Remember your emergency dismount.”

Zanrak took a deep breath and then exhaled, glad to have left her carved mask behind to allow for full visibility on this trip. She would have trusted Rakhera with her life until a few months ago.

The human girl cleared her throat when snow swirled up around them and Rakhera began fidgeting from the tightening in her thighs. She forced her biggest muscles to relax and directed her attention to the other tokotas.

“Ah, Artemis. So, I heard Rakhera and Béchamel helped you and Hakken find your pack by the orca carved bluffs. What happened to you after that?”

“The rogues took over the territory,” Artemis said. “We’ve splintered off but we’re mostly in hiding. What happened to Rakhera? She was more…awake the last time we met.”

Rakhera barely bristled.

“It’s a long story,” Zanrak said. She turned to the others. “Are you two members of Artemis and Hakken’s pack?”

“We met her at the base of the Tåniya Mountains,” Ish said. “She was hiding out in a cavern, nearly starved.”

“Hey, I wasn’t that badly off,” Artemis said.

Novae laughed. “You were ready to gnaw our ankles off for food! If we had not rescued her from the Malina Mountain she would have been buried under a massive melt this past summer.”

“Fine, thank you. Can we leave it be now?”

“Human,” the brown dire turned to look at Zanrak, “you know this range almost as well as your pack. Which of the four sisters is the Old One sending us to explore?”

“The third sister, Ticasuq.” Zanrak gestured ahead of them at the slopes to the thinnest of the mountains on the Tåniya range. Pines and dotted the mountain’s slopes and clustered near outcroppings. “We didn’t spend a lot of time here since there were a lot of illegal poachers when I first joined Rakhera’s pack but Yejidei says the TCA’s been active about cleaning up the suffusion of criminals. For now it’s safer than it was thanks to negotiating for help from the local dires.”

“The source of questionable activities in the north, hm.” Artemis shook out her fur, the star marks dancing on her dark colors. The mischief in her eyes made an initial test out of her mouth; “The place where dires and criminals come to hide out and scavenge the bare prey that dare venture here. Yes, I see how it’s perfect for a foray with an unstable tokota. It’ll be like walking on unpacked snow over a sudden cliff.”

“Keep talking and we may yet see an avalanche today,” Rakhera snarled.

“Easy,” Zanrak attempted, reaffirming her grip on the reins; the chains over Rakhera’s nose jingled. “They’re here to watch out for us.”

Ish wound around Artemis and lowered his head to match his eye level to Rakhera’s. “I have the authority to act accordingly if we run into trouble – no matter the source.”

“…hinderance…bossy…” was all Zanrak caught of Rakhera’s muttered response.

“We will be alright,” Novae said. She bent her head to examine prints as big as Ish’s in the snow. “See here? The dires are still patrolling the area. Maybe we’ll see a local one while we’re here and it’ll bless our future steps – and your progress with your pack leader." 

Rakhera snorted. “If we survive an encounter with any of them. They’re not known to share territory.”

Zanrak frowned, wondering for not the first time about the details that had prompted a dire pack from this area to take in Rakhera when she was much younger. She had asked Voev, the young dire that was part of their pack but he had not been old enough to understand his parents’ reasoning.

The snow crunched under the tokotas’ paws. Clouds crept over them, slow moving and light. Ish was glad for his thick fur and assessed the rest of the group quietly. Artemis’s dark colors would not have been ideal for life in the white scape of the mountains and he shook his head when she pounced into a drift and came up with nothing but a spray of snow. He turned to Novae and nodded approval as the greying dun tundra led the way to a small corpse of trees to their right. She circled around a trunk while the others passed and looked up just as a squirrel leapt from one tree to the other, shaking branches that shed snow onto the group. Zanrak laughed but Rakhera grumbled and laid back her ears. Ish observed the masked tokota’s stiff, unhappy movements and frowned, sensing trouble.

“Ish, look! Guys, come here!”

Artemis was pacing at the top of an embankment and wagging her tail. They joined her at what turned out to be more a ridge as the other side dropped off in a steep sweep. Beyond that they could see all the way to the bottom of the mountain where the white blended into brown then the rich summer green and amber of Verinant Valley.

“Wow,” Novae sighed, her breath forming before her. “Everything looks so small.”

Ish nodded agreement. He raised his head in appreciation, the tingling of wonder spreading over his skin as he took in the view. He was sure the others had a similar experience until Artemis interrupted the moment;

“Hey, if we tipped Rakhera over the edge do you think she’ll take the rest of the snow down with her avalanche so we can see what color the rocks are under all that white?”

There were times when Ish applauded Artemis’s light teasing as it emerged once she was free from her too heavily disciplined past – though it was rusty from disuse. This was not one of those times.

Rakhera did not even snarl in warning before leaping for the liver pointed merle tokota. She latched onto the fur at Artemis’s shoulder and pulled her off her feet. Novae leapt in a moment after, trying to turn Rakhera away from the smaller female but the black tokota whirled, knocked the curly away, and turned back to Artemis. Now she was snarling as she pushed Artemis, scrambling, back along the ridge. Novae rolled to her feet and made to leap for them again but Ish planted himself in her way.

“Stop! You’ll push all three of them over the edge.”

Novae sputtered. “B-but we can’t just let her–”

“I want that human clear first.” He followed the squabbling tokotas up the ridge, Novae close to his flank.

At Rakhera’s silent attack Zanrak was seized with shock. She kept her seat only by years of practice riding Béchamel during hunts and the high cantle of the saddle. She yanked the reins to turn the black tokota’s head but the chains did nothing. Rakhera was single-minded in her rage and it was too late for an emergency dismount. The higher up the ridge she chased Artemis the more precarious the footing and Zanrak gave up on trying to redirect Rakhera’s head and clung to the saddle. Frustration welled up in her and turned to anger. She had been riding with Rakhera for years, why hadn’t she seen the break in temper? Why couldn’t she do anything but cling on now? How useless!

Then it happened: Rakhera’s back end dropped as the ground gave way beneath her. Instead of a yelp the dark tokota roared and snatched a mouthful of the mane under Artemis’s neck. As Zanrak tipped she sent a prayer to the swirl-marked god of tokotas.

Aippaq, see what’s left of our pack safely onwards. If you can forgive Rakhera let her rest in your meadow…

Teeth clamped onto the hood and neck of Zanrak’s jacket and she was plucked from the saddle. The human imagined it was Aippaq blessing her with mercy and flight – but the euphoria ended when she recognized red brown fur of Ish’s back. He swung her around and Zanrak reached out by reflex. She clamped her thighs just under his shoulder blades though her muscles struggled with a broader back than she was used to. Attuned as she was to the energy around a tokota from her years with Rakhera’s pack she opened up easily to the spiritual connection to sync with Ish. She went with him when he lunged forward at the top of the ridge but his teeth snapped on empty air.

Cracking echoed off the mountain crags around them followed by the sound of giant tumbling chunks of snow. The brown dire reared back from the edge as snow dislodged and crumbled down the slope after Rakhera.

As quickly as it began it ended. Some of the snow slid to a stop at an outcropping a few meters below them where Ish and Zanrak could make out Rakhera half buried in a drift that sloped back towards the mountain as if she was at a mouth of a tunnel into the mountain. The dark tokota began shaking off snow and came to her feet without any signs of limping. Good. She would be dealt with later.

Heartbeat in her ears Zanrak turned again with Ish; Novae had managed to pull Artemis back and they had tumbled to land at the base of the trees behind them. They were a tangle of limbs at the moment but when Ish barked they yipped in response: We’re alright.

Ish turned again and Zanrak followed his gaze above them. The clouds were darker and no longer drifting away. They caught a brilliant snake of lightning dodging among the shades of grey followed by a grumble of thunder.

“Get up,” Ish said to the others. “Head back to Xineng Center.”

“What about her highness,” Artemis asked.

He barked in warning and she jumped backwards, ears and head low. “Careful next time you practice your teasing where it is not welcome, sub. Human, you have rope?”

Zanrak felt at her belt and presented the loop still secured there. 

“Good. You and I will retrieve the foolish tokota. You two go, now.”

His tone brooked no argument and Novae shouldered Artemis down the slope. 

“I think you need to leave this place,” Ish told Zanrak while she knotted a harness for Rakhera with the rope.

“Yes, clearly it’s unsafe for us on Ticasuq.”

“No, I mean the Tåniya range.”

Zanrak stopped and looked down at the dire. He had turned his head to gaze back at her.

“This place is not good for her and if she stays here she will degrade further – like today. I can tell you want her to get better. She has scars that go deeper than whatever happened to your pack this winter and the wound that event opened has exposed the other injuries to her spirit. The dires on Ticasuq are strict but not without a connection to Aippaq. If they saw fit to save her as a pup–” 

“Wha- how do you know that?”

“Listen. If they saw fit to save her and you wish to stand by her take her away from here.”

Zanrak swallowed but the fear remained lodged in her throat. Ish’s words and the sheer power of his energy shifted something in her. The something pushed aside the fear and deep down she knew he was right. She was reluctant to venture further than the base of the Tåniyas for her own reasons but Ish was right.

Ish turned back around and she bent to completing the harness. Below them Rakhera paced at the cavern entrance.

- FIN -