RP The cost of curiousity

[Slaskia]

(OOC: This is a prelude to my character, Yl'usmia, joining the SNV Gam'trosha RP. There's no timestamp or location for a reason that will become clear later.)

An emerald eye opened slightly to peer between the slats of the window blinds above her. Between them she could part of the sky. A sky that was dark and full of stars, but she could see hints of a sunrise.

Already? she thought with a snort, closing her eye and burying her snout with an arm. She flipped the tip of her tail on top of her head for good measure, the stiff hairs along the last third of the tails length almost completely obscuring her head. With a sigh, she willed herself back to dreamland, back to her imaginary shop of mechanical wonders.

In this imaginary shop, she recollected all the trinkets and artifacts she had found on her expeditions. Where she tried to figure out what they were for and how they were made. Her dreams were a poor substitute for the real thing, however, as her mind wandered off without fail. It would bring up wild possibilities and explanations rather than logical ones, or conjurer up completely new things she wondered even existed. These dreams would only make her hungry for more.However….

“Yl’usmia!” a familiar, but quite unwelcome, voice growled in her ear. She flattened her ears against her skull and curled into a ball, hissing faintly in defiance. The voices owner, however, would not be deterred and she felt a hand grab her by the scruff of her neck and pull her off the straw mat.

“Alright! Alright! I’m up!” she cried out, hating how her body went limp when that happened. The pressure on her scruff went away and she rubbed the spot as she rose to her feet. “What in Azu’s name was that for? I’m not a Yan anymore, Nl’osur!” She then stretched a few times, nearly smacking Nl’osur on the head with a wing: she may or may not have done so on purpose.

The older, orange furred Meikin huffed and rolled his silver eyes at her antics. “Then act like a Se and stop sleeping in so far past sunrise! We have a lot of work to do today.”

“Oh don’t tell me Elder Ak’isora found something else she didn’t like about the roof to the council hall…..” Yl’usmia grumbled. Why didn’t that picky keisu stay on the mainland where everything was already to her liking? she thought. Other’s shared her thought about the that Meiken, but just about everyone kept the thought to themselves. She heard that particular elder insisted on coming along to ensure things were done properly.

“Actually she did.” Nl’osur then added with a smirk. “But the rest of the council overruled her.”

“Oh, thank Rame!” Yl’usmia sighed with relief, grateful that the rest of the council were just as sick of Ak’isora’s perfectionism as everyone else. “So what are we going to be working our tails off on today?”

This time Nl’osur gave a snort of annoyance. “The guards have reported that some of the wildlife are becoming more curious about our settlement, since they have not learned that we are a potential threat to them. A particularly large sumut was caught sampling our fledging garden last night. Thus, council decided that a perimeter fence should be built to help prevent further incursions….”

“Around the garden?” Yl’umia’s ears tilted horizontally as she prayed it was just that.

Nl’osur was already sadly shaking his head. “Around the entire settlement…Ak’isora’s idea.” With a sigh he added. ”Yeah…enough agreed with her on this one….”

Her fur was naturally a light grey: with that statement, she wouldn’t be surprised if it was now completely white. “I hate that keisu….” she grumbled.

 

[Slaskia]

The settlement was a buzz of activity. Meiken all over were busy doing their part to contribute to the community: tanners, weavers, hunters, protectors, and so on. Those whose normal tasks were not pressing, or weren’t needed at that time, were assisting with the new perimeter fence project. This was both good and bad, as some individuals could do more harm than good when trying to help. Elder Ak’isora was in the bad help category.

“Oh no, this log is far too thin…this one too short….,” the brown furred Elder was saying as she ‘inspected’ the freshly cut and trimmed wood. “Gah! Who delimbed this one? There’s stumps left!”

Yl’usmia groaned and she heard Nl’osur grumble: out of the corner of her eye she could see his fur start to bristle. “Elder Ak’isora,” Nl’osur called out as they approached the elder Meiken. “While we appreciate your attempts to assist us in this project, I believe Yl’usmia and I are much better qualified to judge what is suitable or not for the fence.”

Ak’isora looked up at them, amber eyes narrowing and a faint snarl flashing across her muzzle. “Says the ones that can’t get the roof of the council hall right.”

“Function over aesthetics, Elder,” Yl’usmia retorted. “There’s little point in making something look pretty if it cannot do it’s intended function.” Beside her, Nl’osur was nodding in agreement, a faint smile on his face.

“Pheh…,” the elder snorted. “I expect your lazy apprentice to not be able to do both, but not you Nl’osur.”

“Lazy?” Yl’umia snarled, the fur on her neck bristling. “I’ve done more than my share of work!”

“And yet you waste time building those pointless contraptions and studying those useless baubles you find,” Ak’isora sneered. “Time that would be better spent learning things that would contribute to the community more.”

“Oh you mean like making the council hall roof all pretty?” she sat up and flipped both sides of her mane in a mocking gesture. “Yeah right….”

“Why you….”

“Enough!” Nl’osur stepped between them, his wings spreading in a protective posture. “Regardless of how my apprentice choses to spend her free time, her earlier statement still stands: function comes first over aesthetics.”

Ak’isora looked over the pile of logs that had only increased in size while they debated, her fur bristling, before looking back at them. “I do not see how some of those…twigs…will protect the settlement.”

“With all due respect, Elder Ak’isora.” Yl’usmia smirked when she heard the slight mocking tone in Nl’osur’s voice. “You are not a carpenter, thus do not have the knowledge we do to know what will work or not. So please, go ‘help’ someone else.”

The elder Mieken growled at him, her ears fully back. Then, suddenly aware of the looks they were getting, let out sharp huff and sulked away. The rest of the workers breathed a sigh of relief.

“I just know she’s going to make our lives difficult for the next few days…at least,” Yl’usmia muttered as they started to inspect the logs themselves.

“No doubt,” Nl’osur agreed. “By the way, I notice she used present tense when she commented about your ‘studying useless baubles’: is there something I should know?”

Yl’usmia tensed slightly and hoped Nl’osur didn’t notice. “Why should there be?” she replied. “You know that keisu has it out for me.”

“But I also know the main reason you volunteered to come here is the opportunity to explore a new land.” Nl’osur flashed her a knowing grin. “I practically had to tie you to the camp to keep you from running off when we first arrived.”

“Yeah, but I am committed to….”

“And I have noticed that you ‘disappear’ at night for a while. Secret exploration trips the reason you’ve been sleeping in a lot lately?”

Yl’usmia froze in place, her ears twitching with anxiety and guilt. Guilt due to not only breaking her promise to focus on building the settlement before exploration, but also on keeping what she discovered from him: Nl’osur was just as interested in the mysteries of the world as she was. A part of her was nearly bursting at the seams to tell him what she found: actual ruins of a past civilization! She couldn’t tell him though, partly out of fear that he really would chain her to a post, and partly that he would neglect his own duties to check it out himself.

“I take it I hit on something here? Broke the promise you made….” Nl’our said when she didn’t respond, then sighed. “Ah the impatience of youth….”

“I’m sorry….,” Yl’usmia managed to squeak out.

“Just…don’t stay out so late….” Nl’osur chided. “If you cannot hold yourself back, at least come home early enough so you can get enough sleep. We’ll be having early days for a while.”

“Oh joy….”