RP:A Bad Man for My First Time

Summary: Having already agreed to hunt bipeds with Orikahn, Aira struggles to find the most palatable way to go about it. Orikahn clearly doesn't understand Aira's misgivings. Eventually, they manage to find some common ground, enough to suit Aira's conscience anyway. The hunt is still on.

Hunter’s Lodge

Orikahn sorts through their combined pile of arrows, setting some to the left, some to the right. He's being especially critical. "Crooked." It looks straight enough, doesn't it? No, into the reject pile it goes. "Too dull." The broadhead seemed fierce enough this morning. "Too much curl." That feather had been straight enough when stuck it in for fletching. Never mind that, now. Something about their upcoming hunt is really bringing out Kahn's inner perfectionist. He sits in his loincloth, cross-legged by the fire, absorbed in preparations. "We'll start with humans," he nods sagely, eyes on a flint broadhead as he tests the razor's edge on a bit of arm fur. At the lightest shake, a few dark tips float to the floor in a bunch. "Someone alone. A farmer. A fisherman." The cat eyes down the arrow's shaft and sets it in the "good" pile. "Out where no one else will see. If they catch us, they'll come find us here." Sure, Kahn's stating the obvious, but it has to be said. Poaching was one thing. Murder was another. "Don't stop shooting after the first arrow. Just fill him up, one at a time."

Aira sits in a chair with her legs tucked under her body watching Orikahn work, sorting through their assortment of arrows with an extremely critical eye. She had given up protesting after he shut her down after the first handful she tried to defend and simply watched him since, idly braiding a lock of her hair only to undo it, and eventually twist the strands again. Aira had been mostly quiet since Kahn had asked her to hunt a biped, but that's because he mind was racing. She supposed it wasn't much different than hunting game, man was a creature just like a mare or boar. But still, something was sticking in her mind and she knew she needed to come to terms with it before this hunt. Her vulpine tail gives a twitch, and then her russet colored ears do the same only half listening to what the sabercat is saying. "Hmm?" She mumbles before tearing her gaze from the hearth and focusing on her mate. "What if we hunting someone who wasn't good. Like my brother and fiancé?" She suggests.

Orikahn begrudgingly gives another arrow a passing grade, and the pile clatters as he picks up another. "Ah, yes?" His ears perk. Aira hasn't said much for a while, and Kahn's obviously eager to engage her on the subject of the hunt. "Your brother and fiance," fond recollection warms his expression, "were a savage hunt. We were brazen and sloppy." Busy hands slow to a halt as the memories wash over him. Then he blinks. "You want to hunt someone... not good?" The cats ears swivel this way and that, and his tail snakes a wide, slow S as he imagines watching a farmer farming or a fisherman fishing. "Would you know?" It's an honest question. Kahn's eyes fall suspiciously on Aira, as though there's some hidden gift she hasn't told him about. "You can tell? By looking? Or some other way?"

Aira holds her breath without realizing it, waiting for Orikahn's response to this. If she was being completely honest with herself, agreeing to this hunt had left her slightly anxious. Poaching a random fisherman or hunter for no reason other than sport was troublesome. That person could easily be her. She was not strong and intimidating in the way that Kahn was, although she would never admit to such things. Yet, she still wanted to do this for her mate, she could see how much it meant to him, how important it was. "Well, generally not by just looking at them," she says with what she hopes is a nonchalant shrug. "But there are problematic people everywhere and people are willing to give you information if you know what to ask or how to flatter them." Aira felt that if she were to murder someone that at least if they were nefarious individuals, she would feel better about it.

Orikahn listens as best he can, but it's very difficult, because the way Aira describes it, all of this is really starting to sound like extra work. "We can pick them out ourselves," he tells her, doing his best to sound assuring. "You'll have me along. I can spot an easy target," he points at his eye, then points at some imaginary point in the distance, "from a mile a way. TsssSUHK." The onomatopoeia is his interpretation of an arrow in flight. "You worry too much." Aira's misgivings are lost on Orikahn. It's plain that her mate doesn't grasp her concerns, not even in the faintest. "Forget about, uh, problematic people. No problems. Goes smooth. Good juju." For all his good-intentioned assurance, old Kahn's managed to be utterly dismissive...

Aira scowls at Orikahn's dismissal of her suggestion and begins to gnaw on the inside of her cheek, a nervous habit she had picked up somewhere and hadn't been able to break. The soft flesh was already raw and soon the huntress tasted metallic on her tongue--she was bleeding. How could she explain this to him, who didn't see anything wrong with the act? Who so easily snuffed out the lives of two men in minutes? Aira couldn't sit still so she pushes herself out of her chair and begins to pace back and forth, still chewing on her cheek and drawing even more blood. "I'll do it," she says suddenly, although Aira does not meet Orikahn's eyes. "I'll find a target, I mean."

Orikahn goes back to arrow-sorting while Aira gnaws. She stands to pace, and he reaches into a nearby bag for a strip of jerky, driven subconsciously to hunger by the imperceptible tint of blood on the air. One might suppose her agitation and sudden silence might stir Kahn out of his little routine, might catch his attention and prompt concern. "Pah. That head's so dull I could stand on it." The arrow fails. It isn't until Aira actually speaks again that Kahn pauses. "You?" His brows raise. Orikahn appraises her. She wants to pick her own target? Perhaps this is a sign of initiative. If Aira's this eager to prove herself, why not let her take the chance? By all the savage powers, well, he owes her this much at least! "That's good, hmm." Kahn hums his approval. "Your hunt," he indicates her with the arrow in his hand, "you pick your trophy. Now THAT'S good juju." Only when she doesn't meet his eyes, only then, does something seem awry. Only then do Kahn's internal alarms start buzzing. Rather than go to work, he watches her pace. Eventually, tail thumps audibly on the hide floor.

Aira feels the knot in her chest lessen slightly as Orikahn not only agrees to allow her to pick the target but seems encouraged by it. She suspected this would become easier, that the more she hunted this specific breed to more normal it would become. But still, she suspected the first time would be the hardest. Now the vixen's mind races with how to -find- an appropriate target and a list of possible contacts begins to flood her consciousness. She doesn't even realize she's still pacing or that Kahn was watching her until she nearly almost walks right into him. Blinking she looks down at the sabercat. "What?"

Orikahn taps Aira's thigh with the feathery end of an Arrow. "You're full of snakes," he explains, "or fire ants." As always, plain words elude the saber cat. In another time, in another life, he might have come right out and said what he was thinking. Perhaps, in a way, he is. "Ash in your eye." To emphasize, he theatrically rubs the corner of one eye and squirms uncomfortably. "You stink of troubles." Alright, Kahn. You've made your point. At the very least, he's finally taking notice of Aira's emotions. Arrows finally forgotten, he empties his hands and rubs his face right on her leg. "Is it because you are nervous?"

Aira arches her brow at Orikahn when he makes his observations about her, her tail flicking out against his arm when he pokes her thigh with the arrow. She's not sure whether she's relieved he's noticed her anxieties or even more troubled. But as he rubs his face against her thigh her hand moves to give his ears an affectionate scritch. Aira's quiet for several moments before she finally answers, vulnerability in her tone. "Would you be angry with me if I said yes?"

Orikahn cranes his neck, hungrily pressing his ears closer to the scritches. As the silence stretches, the rumbling of a purr swells up and stretches likewise to fill said silence, right along with the popping of the fire and the lonely howling of the wind through the trees outside. "No, I was nervous, too," Orikahn admits through a smile. His eyes are drawn happily shut. "Men have bows, just like you, and things worse than bows. I had hunted and eaten every creature of the flesh before I ate a man." His face turns to touch his cool nose to her palm, to brush his lips and his fangs against her fingertips. "Just like you," this last is a soft afterthought, "when I was so much younger." Three eyes peek open to slits, looking up to regard her face, and behind that feline stare, Orikahn contemplates Aira's eternal elven youth. "You can be nervous, kit. It's no sin."

Aira's fingers continue to scratch Orikahn's ear, the pads of her thumbs making slow circles along his fur as she waits for his response. It doesn't take long and his words surprise her, so much so her fingers still and her mouth falls open slightly. It was hard to believe that this great hunter seated before her could have ever been nervous, especially when it came to a hunt. In the pause of her ministrations, Orikahn turns her face to press his nose against her palm--skin which had been as soft as supple leather upon their initial meeting now rough with callouses. When his eyes finally open and he looks up into her face she decides to be just a little more vulnerable. "I think it would be easier for me, if the man was someone bad. At least for my first time. Can...you grant me that, Kitty?"

Orikahn perks his whiskers at her question, and he teasingly tries to catch her thumb in his foreteeth. He doesn't try very hard. "It's already your hunt," he chides her playfully. His head pulls away, and Kahn sighs, regarding his piles of arrows afresh. "Don't ask me, the choice is already yours. Maybe if you're feeling uhm... iffy," that was a good new word he'd learned from Aira's books, "you can ask the great spirits. They'll tell you the way, if you can reach them." Orikahn picks up an arrow, holds one end to his eye, and stares straight down the length. "Let's finish this pile and tuck in. Make the bed."

Aira doesn't try to pull her hand away when Orikahn moves to nip at her thumb and she smiles down at him, something genuine that reaches her metallic eyes. She felt better, lighter. Not only would she be able to control the terms of this hunt but Kahn had been nervous too, and some how that made the vixen feel less weak. She simply nods when he references the great spirits--they hadn't visited her in a long time and the huntress took that as a good thing. When he bids her to go make the bed while he finishes the last of the arrows she considers crouching down and snatching them from his hands. Reminding Kahn that this was -her- hunt, after all, so she would tend to the weapons while he prepared the bed. But Aira doesn't argue with her mate, not tonight at least. Instead, she leans down to brush her lips against his brow before leaving his side to prepare the bed for sleep.