Tera moved . Movement, sight, these belonged to Aniz Tera.

Her muscles bunched, flexed, and her knees bent. She went low, low to ground, spear coming back. Her weight was balanced -- exquisite, and the implicit taunt shivered through her toes and up in the way she bent her body forward -- but the ...

She had crept slunk slid forward, towards disturbance, towards the not-right, the danger. Many much cover, spread about, calm to the cautious Amm. She did not make noise, did not stir the air. She watched for vibrations left by not-tera, by the blundering awful strangers or prey-fiends who did much ...

Sound, sound, sound ripped through the air. Amm froze in place, hunter's patience, seeing the movement of the tree as it crashed. She lowered the spear, kept it to her hand. It was her claw, her mandibles, and she would not put it down without cause.

The tree was not close to her pond, her nymphs ...

Summer, 122PW
Continued from Thwarted Ambition

Sun and moon had passed over Amm's head many, many times. Too many for reckoning. She had walked the long path, over steppes and low desert, in forest, through plains, over mountains. To one used to flying it was long-step, tired-step. It was a ...

Faster. Faster than this lumbering less-than-fish. He was not worth time, not worth spear, not worth Aniz. As he blabbered and sloshed mouth-juices and mouth-sounds, she watched his body and its language. It was not true language, but that of muscle and movement. I go here and I will do this and I ...

Strangers had no truth to them. They were jabber jabber this and reach grab take that. How could they earn trust and truth when they flapped tongues so loudly and moved with such clumsy ignorance? It was to his muscles that Amm looked, ignoring his feckless tongue and meaningless body-patter.

Gut ...

To stand among the fallen was insult apiece, and it was one Amm gave carelessly as she surveyed the things that had been to hand not so long ago -- though a hand was not among them. Foot down, sideways, she skipped out of reach and noted the position of the big Stranger -- close to her spear. It ...

Fulbert watched Arusa. He watched her without deviation, without distraction, as if he might capture her movements whole in his memory and recall them at any time. He showed no appreciable expression. As her sole audience, perhaps he was not what she might have hoped for. She had his attention, but ...

"I do," he said, "but I've no reason to recommend without knowing the goods in advance."

Almost there. Almost.

Fulbert's eyes glittered with interest. "You might be surprised," he murmured, glancing at her sidelong to reassess her body. He could think of some appreciative men, right enough. Maybe even a woman. "Can't say I've had the pleasure. Would you show me?"

There was a chance the woman was trash, and ...

"Can't believe it 'tall," Fulbert muttered, looking away to roll his eyes. Oh, yeah, this would be a barrel of fun, but. . .she was a performer. Those he could work with.

He steered them towards one of the outflung farmhouses. It functioned as a real farm, of course, but there was something of a ...

"Yeah? Walk with me?" He turned partway away, gesturing away from the pond and the direction both Amm and Nic had gone in.

He knew the way he looked. Disproportionate. His limbs were too long, his body too narrow for what most people considered masculine. He looked young, and that coupled with his ...

"He's not always my friend." Fulbert shrugged, his body language placid. "Suit yourself if you wanna stick around and be dragged up and down the town following Nic's morals, but I got better things to do. Nice lady like you, forced to wallow in the mud with that brat?" He snorted. "Nah, something ...

"Then it won't be your problem anymore, will it?" Fulbert eyed Arusa speculatively. "In fact, why not just let her stay with daddy, an' you an' me can catch something better to do."

Impossible strangers. Flap flap flap. Rude. So rude, with the noises and graceless jerking motions. Amm had showed their patience , she had done what had been asked. None of them were dead. None of them had been bleeding. She had done waitwatchhear like she’d been asked, and they had pulled and ...