The Tribes of K'haren - Completed

Chapter 10.1

When they woke up in the morning, they ate something together and for once, the atmosphere between them was rather light and cheerful. It was as if Raf'ney-krush had just decided to be nice to them. Kran didn't trust it though, he was sure Raf'ney-krush had something on his mind. But he didn't want to be the one to ruin the morning so he played along.

Since they hadn't flown very far the day before, their gseirut stayed up in the air for much longer this morning. Kran realised that it had grown quite a bit since they had run away. The frequent flights had made it grow muscles much faster than Kran had ever seen before on a gseirut. But other than that it was thin. Disturbingly thin. As if it used all the food solemnly to grow muscles. Normally, gseirut were rather soft to the touch because they had a thick layer of fat around their bones. It kept them warm when they flew very high and it protected them from attackers.

When Kran told Nume about it, she seemed rather surprised, too. Her father was responsible for making the gseirut leather they built their tents with so she knew a little bit more about the creatures than Kran did. Her father had made her learn all about his business before her brother was born because he'd feared not to have a male offspring to take over his job one day.

Now Nume had a closer look at the skin while they were flying just above Raf'ney-krush who was riding on the baymout down below. The gseirut's skin was rather thin and not very stretchy. Nume supposed that might be due to its strong growth in the last weeks. However, she didn't know very much about male gseirut.

The young males usually left the tribes all of a sudden and were never used for food or to make stuff out of their skin and bones. Every once in a while, a young female would go missing around the same time, but usually, the females stayed with the tribe for their whole lives. If one got injured or too old to keep up with the herd, it was killed and used, otherwise, the phraio only sacrificed gseirut once a year, on the day of the Godfather's Honour.

'We should maybe ask Raf whether we're going somewhere where there's a lot of grass. I think it might be dangerous to spend another day in a place like the Open Wound where it can't eat.' She said to Kran.

'What's his name?' Raf'ney-krush asked later on when he was having a closer look at the gseirut.

'It doesn't have one.' Kran replied carelessly.

'Oh but you have to give him one! He's kind to you, he listens to every word you say and you don't even bother to give him a name? Now that is really rude...' Raf'ney-krush stated, crawling up on the gseirut's back. 'Look at my baymout, I call her Bay. Not very extraordinary, I know, but it is a name for sure. And she knows it. Don't you, Bay?'

The baymout lifted its head and looked at him curiously. When he didn't say anything else, it huffed and lay its head back on its mighty paws.

'What do you think about Gorm? Something short is always good.' the half-dretho suggested despite it being a bit ridiculous, after all, Gorm had been the name of a dragon admiral he'd once met. Nume gave Kran a meaningful glimpse. Neither of them approved even if they didn't know the name's origins.

'How about Luthi?' Kran asked.

'I like it. Sounds cute. Luthi.' She let the word roll over her tongue several times. Then she smiled and went over to the gseirut. 'Hello Luthi, how are you?' She went on talking to him while Raf'ney-krush was still climbing around and having a look at different parts of the animal. Meanwhile Kran was glad Nume didn't know Luthi had been the name he'd given his pet flower once. The fact that he had had a pet flower was probably the only secret he still kept from her and naming it after an ancient king didn't help convince him of telling her. She'd probably keep mocking him with it forever.

'I can't see any injuries, I shall need to have a look at its dung later on though...' Raf'ney-krush climbed down again and came to Luthi's head. Without hesitation, he used his whole body weight to push his arms into the rather unwilling creature's mouth. Luthi struggled and tried to get away from the man but he didn't give him a chance. When Raf'ney-krush pulled his arms back out, his clothes were soaked with spit and spotted with rests of grass. 'His teeth are fine, too.' He concluded, wiping his arms clean on Luthi's fur.

'How come you know so much about gseirut?' Nume wanted to know.

'I'm old.' Was the only thing he replied.

'How old?' she insisted.

'Very old.' He had already climbed back on Bay's back.

'Raf, why won't you ever...' She started, but his angry glance stopped her. 'I mean, Raf'ney-krush,' she then tried again.

'We're leaving. There's a place nearby where we can stay for the night, we should reach my friend's camp tomorrow.' Raf'ney-krush interrupted her. Within the blink of an eye, he and Bay were about to disappear in the distance again.

They travelled on quickly, Luthi flew for much longer periods at a time already. Raf'ney-krush lead them to the east and a little way back up north but he refused to tell them were exactly they were going.

In the evening, Nume caught him looking at some old map but he didn't want to show it to her. He kept his distance from her and Kran, he always slept on the other side of the fire, cuddling with Bay, while they lay close to Luthi most of the time. The gseirut had already taken to Raf'ney-krush and seemed to admire him wherefore it often tried to be around him, but it was just too scared of Bay to come close after dark.

When her conversation with Kran ended because he wanted to get some sleep, Nume once more felt how much she missed her home. She didn't want to admit it though but it kept her up nearly all night wherefore she felt horrible in the morning.

By the time they finally reached the place where Raf'ney-krush had wanted to go, Nume could hardly keep her eyes open anymore. She smothered a yawn and tried to wake herself up when she climbed down Luthi's back. There was nothing interesting to be seen, they were standing on a large field between some big boulders with flowers and bushes and Luthi had already started grazing but Bay seemed to be rather nervous, as if something was not alright.

'Wait here.' Raf'ney-krush demanded. Then he ran off, leaving them behind with a calmly grazing gseirut and a nearly panicking baymout.

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