…..:::::|. Berenice Coastal Dales .|:::::…..

Halycind had knelt down in front of the red-leafed tree and removed from her thigh a white leather roll, fat with tools.

“I’m glad you let me come with you, considering this is my first time seeing you pull.” Siin was squat with his tail wrapped about his booted feet and chin on the basket weave of his fingers. Their heat had cooled only enough to get the job done, so coy looks had been passed between them for sometime as she readied her workspace.

“I'm not someone to learn from but...I was taught by the best.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

She smiled, even as Taphsel's schoolings flooded her mind. "Just as the primeval materials we used to craft our wears in primal days bygone,” She recited as she placed everything she’d use on the rolls in the grasses in front of her. “So does the Puller heed his song with the living.” She placed other bits, from her thigh holds and pouches, neatly along the top of her work area. “Careful and sure and loving." Then she took a readying breath.

"What's that? Poem?" Siin bent lip.

“It's something Taphsel used to say.”

Taphsel had been so particular about the work area that she minded it, even with out him standing watch over her. Though she always felt he watched over her, she had soundly picked up on that notion to 'never work dirty'.

“What did you call these leaves, again?” Siin asked.

“Uaxsa.” From the tool-set she pulled out eight needles and eight syringes and a set of finger-gauges suitable in size for the amount of pigment Strider asked for. “You’re from Buraamira and you’ve never heard of Uaxsa Leaf trees?” This was always the hard part for her. Taphsel had drilled into her brain tables of conversion in volume, filament vibration, and speed of the pull but it was easy for him, she thought. He had magery to help hone his sensitivity to such tiny numbers.

“If I’m from anywhere, I’m from Ashok. I was stolen to Buraamira, remember? How do you know about’em, anyway?”

“Taphsel, of course.” Measuring an uncertain thing like colour had always taken such brainpower for her. How much colour did a dress need? How much colour did a set of paints need? How much colour did a suit of armour need? One wouldn't want to take more pigment than was necessary; for both the sake of the extractee and for the life in the potency of the pigment. She calculated on eight vials based on the length of fabrics and threads for the lace-tatting Strider had delineated in his commission from the Queen. “Oh, you know they’re sweet if you chew on one. Here.” Halycind had remembered something fun and handed Siin a leaf from those that had fallen to the soft grass.

“Oh? Nice.” His teeth took it from her held out fingers and he chewed growing happier with each roll of his jaw. “Creamed Ice would be good made with this.”

“I’ve done that. Gather some leaves up. I’ll make some for you.”

“Oh. Goodie.” He hopped a bit closer to her, smiling and gathering fallen leaves.

Halycind grinned at this pixie and went back to her numbers. Their summations caused her a small pinch of pain in the left of her forehead. Recovery from her fight with the Ghostgale was still taking place within her. She reached down for a vial the medics had extended to her and popped the cork. She needed a clear mind to extract colour.

Siin’s caring hand reached out to rub her back in comfort and she hummed her gratitude.

He was honestly thankful for his ability to control his urges for she indeed needed to heal more before he made her his mate.

Upon inserting, into the trunk, root, and soil of the tree, this elaborate setup of gauges and needles and bottles and strings and filament—Stainpulls had a horridly exacting occupation—Halycind gently wiggled fingers into the gauges to begin the slow pull of red pigmentation from the tree's living make-up. As she did so, Siin saw each finger-ring of the gauges had a tiny needle in its band.

"Your fingers are pierced as well?" His eyebrows rose in concern.

“We are all connected are we not?” The initial siphon would take some time and she found herself whispering to the tree her intentions and its safe well-being, in the interim. “If I pierce this beloved life-form, so should I not also be pierced?" She could almost hear it wince as the first of the pigment's elements dripped into a solution in a vial to hold the elements of its colour in perfect stasis.

"Pullers do this every time?”

“Yes.” She schooled, as she was extracting and glancing at the gauges. “The Fine Mages taught Taph if we were to take from life we were to give it ours also. I hold this value quite dear.” She felt fully satisfied with the stoutness of the philosophies she’d learned from her adopted father and grinned largely to herself even in this task.

Siin was intrigued with her in the moment and thought all sorts of things about her character. Even now as a vicious fighter and with some of her life’s disappointments, she’d still remained that sweet kind little girl he’d wanted to share all his time with.

“Also the filament seems to...understand me better when I'm pierced." Halycind whistled softly to soothe the pretty tree being hugged by glowing wisps of light. Then she very delicately plucked at a few of the strings on the gauges.

"What is it made of? The filament."

"Silver."

All his schooled knowledge shot around in his head and he wanted to scoop her into his arms to kiss the brilliance of her intuitive mind.

Silver was a conductor of lightning’s charge. The best conductor. So, of course it would ‘understand’ her well. Thoughts, themselves were made of lightning’s charge. Pullers used this silver filament as a conductor of mental energy. He huffed in happiness for all those old mages at the Villa would have never stumbled upon this kind of discovery.

On a growing hunch, he wanted to prod that brilliance further. “You mentioned before your tutors said you didn't have the focus for something like this. How are you so into such a fine craft?”

“I dunno. I like doing this. I like sitting with life and just...watching it, encouraging it, existing in communion with it.”

“Halycind…”

There he went again saying her whole name. She turned to him giving his address the attention it had beckoned. “It takes an extraordinary level of concentration to do this.” He said to her with a mix of warmth, warning, and arousal in his eyes.

“I’d always thought so. But. I was told I wasn't good at concentrating.”

“Clearly, that's a lie.” He bit, watching her turn back to her task. “And Taphsel must have know this.”

“Perhaps...but it's different from lessons thrown at you by some old greying wolf who smells of barley.”

He chuckled a bit.

“When I pull, at every movement of my fingers or my thoughts, I'm thinking of my effect on this creature or this flora or this bit of sand. I'm interested in its life, its existence, what it was doing before I arrived, whether I was hurting it or not.”

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Siin was growing hot, again, and that kiss for her was on the edge of his lips. “Do you at all know why you just said, what you said, the way you said it?”

“I believe so, I am curious. Like you’d mentioned before. Curious of every effect and every choice I make on this life-form. Are we in sync? Do we know each other intimately now.” Her knowing eyes glanced to her friend, becoming intimate with how her mind worked.

“And that's what makes you not anything like what they said you were. Dummies don't' truly know why they like or dislike a thing. Or someone.” He couldn’t hold it any longer he had to tell her. “My stars, woman, you are astonishing.”

“What? No, I'm not.” She burst with shy laughter.

“Academic mages don't talk like this. Hedge mages do.” His mind was buzzing with potential and he couldn’t keep his own summations straight in his head. He thought based on how Taphsel taught her this skill, that he might have become something of a Fine Mage himself due to showing such ritual and rigid ethical code. But what was making Siin’s heart beat fast and magical blood flutter was the possibility that Halycind May have also shown some measure of talent. “Do you know if—“ His Speculah frolicsomeness almost bubbled to the surface again. “Do you know if you have a penchant for magecraft, yourself?”

“At times, I thought so.” She shrugged. “But I mostly think it's just the Carabaaniel force thing. However, they say my mother could reach into the minds of men that weren't even wolvkin.”

That was something he wanted to hear. “Wow. Ok. That's a talent.” He’d, now, watch for anything else in Halycind he could nurture.

“They said she carried many talents.”

“Had you tried?”

“I don’t think I ever did. I didn't think much of anything I could do, really.”

“You should. Perhaps you can haunt all kinds of people or maybe project a dream?”

Halycind scoffed lightly, “Knowing me, I’ll probably conjure up a bed to sleep in.”

“Make it large enough for two.” He toyed with a darkly happy grin.

Halycind chuckled pleasantly shocked. “Does the hint of some ability excite you?” She slipped him a once-over, laughing.

He tried to control his face but it was a massive failure. “I’m a bit of a sparkle-tart, too.”

“Oh, well don’t get too riled up. Beyond what I’ve told you I haven’t seen anything. And, I hadn’t heard much of what my mother could do with any other talents. They knew she had none for fighting, though. Seems I was the only child of my den that took to swordplay, well.”

“And you do a fine job at that.” He had a huge smile plastered to his face now.

“You're very good yourself, warcaster. I can’t even place what to call your fighting.”

“That’s because its a combination of Zhuer strikes, Buraam ground arts, and the Villa's Edgecaster styles. The dyne-strike you saw me do before...that was a form of Edgecasting. Albeit performed by a slinky Zhuer, so it looks better.”

She’d laughed at his confidence, though now she knew fully she’d seen this type of armour he wore before and suddenly understood what he’d meant about Villa Edgecasting. This was what those magi wore. “Oh, you’ve a whole branch of magi who do that type of fighting, don’t you?” Looking him over again.

“Actually, everyone in the Villa is an Edgecaster. It’s the house style. It’s just some of us want to do it with big magic.”

She laughed with great mirth at his ambitions and his own chuckle melded in with hers.

“Magic enough to protect you.”

“You little—” She gripped her chest and continued her glee watching him finally admit the truth of why he chose to be aBn.

“Oh, you—” She huffed another laugh calming into all her thoughts of him. “You really are still Siin.”

“I am.” He was glad to see her reassured.

“Wow…well, I’m still just a wolf.”

“A very effective one, clearly. The agency even to this day still learns from you.”

“But we don't have pretty titles for our fighting…it's just…fighting. Something takes over us during a threat or a hunt where we can feel the trees in our follicles. Smell the separated scents of every living and dead thing around us. Hear heartbeats. Breaths. Smell what makes a man afraid. Breaks in their footfall. Blood on the wind. We don't have a name for it…it just feels like…

“The Hunt.” He said with her.

There eyes stayed on one another.

“Yeah, and when it rises in us, we cannot seem to cease the chase.” She continued and he watched as her eyes grew in their hot amber glow. “Until whatever it is, is caught…” She trailed as she smiled at the teal growing in his.

“That is madly bewitching.” He whispered.

“Really?” She said staring on him. “I’d always thought it sounded…feral.”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean.”

She laughed softly.

“Our only equivalent is whatever comes over us when we eat fresh death.”

She tilted her head, curious. “Do you…still do that?”

Siin, not wanting to brooch this topic at all, pulled his steady gaze from her in shame.

“Siin.” She was looking at him like the little girl that would feed him freshly killed creatures in the woods. Watch him slobber as his eyes blacked-over while he sank his teeth and tongue into deep dietary needs. “It's alright. You can tell me.”

It’d been so long since he’d ever spoken to anyone about his feeding compulsions, he thought the trees here might blather his words to the world and scorn him for eating dead things. Then he shook some of his apprehension away and looked at his friend who’d fed his urges before in youth.

“I. I try not to let anyone see me. I normally take in fresh death when everyone's gone to sleep.”

“Like in Rahielle?”

“Yes. Sometimes a bird that might have hit glass, small creatures crushed by cart-wheels on the road. Livestock I might have hit with a rock. Other…things.”

She scoffed as her eyebrows raised. “I can't say that's not attractive to me.”

He straightened a bit in his squat beside her, working her pull still. “How in the world is that attractive?! No one has ever said that was attractive.”

“The same reason us going feral is attractive to you.”

“Oh, well. Fair.” Then his eyes slipped up to her half in shame. “But you all normally stick to animals.”

“Oh?” An intrigued eyebrow shot upward on her interested face. She knew exactly to what he was referring. “You ate the Haggius.”

He was scared to ask, but she didn’t let go of his gaze. “Is that…off-putting?”

Halycind rolled a hot desire full of imaginings back down to what she was doing. She didn’t mind if he ate all of her enemies. “Considering I was holding myself back from ripping open a woman's throat in the Ladi…I can't judge you.”

At once, Siin’s whole body relaxed as he sighed and he half thought she was weird for liking someone who was indiscriminate about from which species he took in meat.

She answered the sour thoughts of himself. “I can see why people don't like our kind. Yours and mine. We're animals to them.” She uttered honestly. Then she shared her gaze with him once more. “But there is something refreshing about being an animal with you, Siin.” She only stared for a time letting him get used to the truth of her words. “I don't feel like I have to pretend to be anything else.”

He was truly at a loss for words staring at her. And even as she went back to her pulling he let his heart fill up with all he felt for her. Even though he’d made decisions about his life with Percival in the infirmary he was thinking some of them were wrong.

“I'd always felt that with your people. That kinship. And especially when I was taken, got lost, and thrown in with others who treated me like that animal. I never wanted to be back by your side, running the woods, sitting with your den, howling at the moons, more in my life. I was so scared that would never happen again.” He was staring on her with a wholly unintentional sorrowful come-hither look; like he wanted her to save him.

Halycind’s will to keep this man from the deepest crevices of her heart was falling apart staring into his wanting eyes and she was losing the fight with herself on keeping her lips from his.

She took a breath.

They both did.

And, near shaking, she pat his knee. “Well. You're back now. And I’ve got my friend back.”

Little twitches of the gauges and syringes signaled the completion of her extraction.

“Oh, you're done. That didn't take long.” He was almost relieved for the distraction.

“It took two pachs, Siin.”

“It did?” He said as she corked all the vials and bottles and rolled up the cases. “Seemed like no time passed at all.”

“Let's get this to a Mixer.” She said as she disassembled her tools and neatly put them all away. “I'll deliver the stain after we rank up with our betters.” Halycind thought of Taphsel once more as she stood to stretch her stiff body and smiled.

“Right. Let's.” Siin was huffing, richly, from all the morning’s emotional trials. No one had ever sent his heart in circles like this.

In reflective hums, Halycind and Siin both hooded themselves once more, bid farewell to this lovely Place, and let the morning sun happily warm them as they hopped rocks and boughs back into town.