I first drafted this ages back, but now it has been finished! Ashtani and R'runa's first meeting
He hit the ground with a grunt and a heavy thud. ‘Stupid’ was the only word he had the time to think of before he had to roll away to barely dodge the angered dryad charging him–
But he could salvage this. Somehow. He would have to, or else he’d be lucky to walk away from this on his own two feet, if at all.
Stupid.
Stupid mistakes, stupid… If he just had better equipment, maybe he could have–!
His hand gripped empty air when he tried to grip his sword tighter, and his eyes blew wide at the realization that he had let himself become unarmed. He’d dodged the dryad once, but with a bellow it was already turning around, ready for another go at him. The Au Ra scrambled to get on his feet again, and he did! He did get on his feet, until a swipe of the walking tree’s canopy knocked him right back down.
The wind was struck out of him by the double impact of leaved branches and surprisingly unforgiving forest soil and there was no air for him to groan with, just a heavy ache and a wheeze for breath. His sword he’d already lost, now his shield slipped his grasp too. This was…
This was bad.
Pretty bad!
There were probably worse ways to go than getting whammied to death by a dryad, at least on the glory scale of things—it could’ve been something dumber, too.
But he’d really rather not go at all.
Which was a fate he wasn’t going to avoid by laying on the ground… But when the dryad bent over as if to prepare to spin its entire treetop around, he knew he didn’t have the time to get out of the way, either.
He tried anyway, ignoring how much he felt like nothing but a bruise all over to roll onto his knees, but the pain was making him too slow and oh, how his friends in the Steppe would have laughed at him for being taken down so easily by a meandering tree–
He wouldn’t have the time to get out of the way, he knew that, he knew as much when the dryad feinted one way to draw speed to spin in the other with even greater force–
And never let it be said that at any point he gave up on trying, but he’d barely staggered to his feet when the hit–
Didn’t… Come?
It didn’t come?
Too slow on the uptake, the dryad’s roar of outrage registered before its cause: stone.
With the heavy clap of rock on rock, stone struck up from the ground to hit the dryad. The aftershock was enough to ruin his balance and he fell, again, but that was barely worth his attention. His eyes were rapt on the creature as it was hit a second time, then a third—followed swiftly after by a sharp gust of air that tore through its leaves, shredding its branches.
With a final dying rumble, the dryad’s motions stopped and its trunk of a body gave up under it. He had a moment to worry he was going to get crushed under its fall next, but lady luck took pity on him for once in his life, and the formerly animated tree collapsed in the other direction.
He found himself panting in the aftermath, every breath hurting his abused ribcage and the surge of adrenaline making him hear little else but the rush of his own blood. That was close. Uncomfortably close.
But who–?
Motion at the edge of his vision and hurried footsteps he could only just barely hear alerted him to the approach of what could only be conjurer, judging by the kind of magic he had just witnessed taking down the dryad. He leveraged himself up onto one elbow, just in time for a female Miqo’te to lower herself on one knee next to him.
Without the presence of mind to not stare, he stared—unalike a conjurer, her robe was entirely black with only silver detailing, and she wore a mask in the same colors to the effect that he could only see the lower portion of her face. Her mouth was set in a grim line and behind her, her tail was swishing back and forth in jerky motions. He could practically feel the air simmering around her, so great was the sheer weight behind what he could only call anger radiating off of her. Dubbing it annoyance didn’t even begin to cover it.
She felt furious.
It froze him in place like a deer caught in sudden bright lights, his eyes the only part of him moving as they followed the arch of her arm. She brought her hand up—covered in an armored glove tipped with wicked claws—and grasped her mask, pulling it off her head–
Her anger was written all over her face. Her brows were furrowed deep, her eyes practically burning amidst the black face paint she wore, but for the life of him he couldn’t tell what she was angry at. Him?
What would he have done to deserve that..?
“Well? Are you hurt?” she snapped at him, her mask discarded on the ground next to her. He was the sole recipient of the full force of her glare from that point onward, and that did nothing to help him find his words.
“I–“
“Shut it, you are,” was the growl she interrupted him with. Soothing light pooled from her hand as she reached over to him, and the contrast of her healing magic with the whole rest of her demeanor was enough to give him a whiplash. A conjurer. He’d always taken them for gentle, peaceable things, for healers interested in aiding others with their magicks.
Her? She bled violence into the air around her even as she healed his body.
He swallowed hard in the face of her broiling presence. Just the motion of his throat was apparently enough to catch her attention and her gaze snapped up to his face instantly.
He’d deny the meep he made until his dying day.
“You’re shitting welcome,” she practically spat out as her magic did its work and he could feel his pains bleed away as wounds and bruises were undone by her vicious grace.
How was he meant to react?
What was he meant to say to her? He felt like apologizing for… Inconveniencing her? For making her do what her magicks were meant for?
Was that strange?
“I– Thank you?” he landed on instead, mentally kicking himself for making it sound like a question of all things when he very, very much should be grateful, and he was! He was grateful, because without a doubt she had saved him from a very unpleasant fate. She was helping him right that very moment–
But he really did just feel like apologizing. Several times over, maybe, just to see if it’d calm her down any.
He cringed under the glower she gave him. Seeming to judge her work done—and he couldn’t disagree, he did feel hale and whole again—her hand fell away and the magic softly lighting their surroundings died away. With a huff she pushed herself up, dusting her robe off before bending to pick up her mask and placing it back on her head, hiding her ferocious eyes–
Was she leaving?
When she began to walk away, he concluded she was.
“Wait!” he called out, quickly clambering onto his feet now that nothing… Nothing hurt anymore?
Huh. She was pretty good at what she did, wasn’t she?
Right, where was he… Oh! “What’s your name?”
She paused and her head turned partially to him. For as long as she stayed silent, he almost thought she wasn’t going to answer and would just walk away despite his plea–
But just when his shoulders slumped, she spoke. “R’runa Mishca.”
A beat of silence, then, almost hesitant, she returned his question with, “What’s yours?”
He blinked in surprise before hurrying to answer lest she change her mind when it came to her curiosity and decided to just walk off anyway. “I’m Ashtani! Ashtani Dataq. It’s nice to– Thank you for your help. It’s nice to meet you.”
She stayed quiet for so long he almost thought he’d somehow offended her, and for sure she didn’t return any pleasantries back at him.
But after the silence that stretched long enough to make him fidget and feel all manner of awkward as he tried to think of something, anything to say, she did speak. Another question, no less. “What were you doing here?”
Ah, that… He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, shrugging before he answered. “My employer wanted some treant sap… I wasn’t very good at getting any.”
“You’re a retainer?” she guessed, and he nodded an affirmative. “I see.
“Well, you should be able to get some sap from that, now,” came her flippant suggestion with a gesture of her staff at the dead dryad, but he couldn’t help but get the feeling she was trying to be helpful, almost. In a less than smooth manner, maybe, but he could appreciate the gesture, no? If he wasn’t reading her intent wrong, anyway.
“Yeah, I… I should be able to. Thanks.”
“Hmph.” This time he could think of nothing to say in time to stop her when she began to walk away again, and Ashtani stood rooted in place as he watched her go. She didn’t say goodbye, didn’t look back, and he didn’t find the words to wish her well with either.
Will I see you again? he would have liked to ask if he were a braver man, but he wasn’t, so all he did was watch her go until she left his sight.
But hey, at least he was still alive—and now with one strange encounter to tell about, too.
