The Spirits of Ikhosombo [Zulu and Zorayda]

[Zorayda]

Whispers of a wild wind... Murmurs of a rage that cannot be sated... Such is the fate of the spirits who have been violated by the crimes of their kin...

---

'M-my... home... Mom, where are you? Everything is...' She padded silently through the trees of Ikhosombo, darkening the ground in her wake. This... this place was familiar, but--the colors, everything was muted, swirling--

'I can't... smell anything...?' It was like her nose was filled with nothingness that clogged her senses. Her hearing was muffled, like the grassy ground was pressed directly into her eardrums. She couldn't even really feel the ground beneath her feet--just the pressure of her bodyweight as it pushed her into the ground. Had she gone and been bitten by a snake? Those ones with venom that could dull your senses and kill you... Her tail lowered instinctively and she froze in place. Was she... dying? Dreaming, feverish as her Pack murmured over her in prayer to the spirits?

She lifted her lips in a snarl, but her ears did not catch the growl that rumbled from her throat. Neither did she feel the humid forest mist against her sensitive gums--just the movement of her face drawing itself over her teeth. What was happening...?

"Nashira."

A voice, deep and commanding, startled her. The voice sounded like the speaker was right next to her, speaking at regular volumes--heard clearly even though the normal sounds of the forest were muted. She whipped around, not noticing that her paws did not even disturb the leaves on the forest floor. A huge, horned figure stood before her, more solid and real than the strangely discolored trees they were surrounded by. 'An... ibex?'

The regal ibex dipped its chin slightly to look down upon her with hollowed eyes. Neither of them moved, but the striped hyena felt a sudden, instinctive fear and unease in the presence of this otherwise calming animal. It kept silent, the two just looking at one another--her gaze fearful, slowly giving way to irritability, his gaze unwavering, demanding...

"Nashira." His lips hadn't moved, she was sure of it. She was watching. Her mane bristled.

"Nashira."

"Nashira!"

And then she was swept away by a swollen forest creek, the water unbearably cold, making its way down her nose, throat, windpipe--

"Augh!" The striped hyena was awoken rudely when a series of coughs wracked her body, attempting to rid her of the water that had seemingly drowned her in the dream. "What the hell?!" she snarled, whipping her head about to see a darker male of the Pack smirking at her. On the opposite side was another male, laughing so hard he was having trouble standing on his own four paws.

"Oh, you sons of--" Whack!

The laughing abruptly stopped when she reared back to club the nearest juvenile male right in the muzzle with a large, powerful paw. He blinked stupidly before touching his face with a paw, expression darkening when he drew it back to see blood. "Get 'er, boys," he rumbled, fixing her with a glower.

Nashira met the first attacker head-on, smacking him down to the ground easily with a paw--but then there was another one, flying at top speed and ramming her right in the throat. She lurched at the unexpected headbutt, and that was all it took. Despite exchanging a few hard blows with the others, there was little even a powerful hyena could do when faced off against an unfair number.

"A'right, that's good." The dark striped male smirked at the bloodied female as she glared up at him, her golden eyes burning with frustration. "We was jus' tryna' wake you up, is all. Pack leader told us ta make sure everyone was up n' ready for the Ritual today." He gave her a nasty wink. "I told 'im that me n' the boys'd be more than happy ta come and personally make sure you in per-tick-u-ler was up an' around first thing. Ain't that right?" he asked the others, who gave immediate rumbles of assent.

The Ritual was what every Pack member was required to attend to the morning after every full moon. It was believed that Ikhosombo's ancient spirit guardians faced the most difficult enemies--the enemies being disturbed or angered spirits--on the full moon, when it was said the most negative feelings were amplified in their plane. The Pack all gathered to give thanks and their good feelings, offering happy stories and pretty baubles or trinkets to keep the good spirits strong. Some trinkets were just pretty riverstones or clean birdskulls, but others could even be the tufts of deceased Pack members' fur or newborns, asking for blessings on the new pups or wishing the dead a happy afterlife. All of these positive feelings were supposed to help keep their home safe.

Though how Rashimbe expected Nashira to be happy after that little wake-up call, she wasn't sure. The males all turned to walk away, satisfied with their work, when the larger female snorted. "Yeah, you better turn tail, Rashim, or I'll give ya a hole in yer ear to match the other one you've already got," she taunted, even as she limped a few steps after them. Rashimbe snarled, ears pinned as he fixed her with an ashamed glare.

Nashira cackled, even as he sent his boys after her again. Oh yeah, she'd have something positive to share with the spirits, all right.

[Tamber]

The smell of misty, cool morning air was rivetingly present this morning, as if Jelani was doing his first rounds in the whispy clouds above the mountain. High on the cliffs he was, but at least a mile of stone jutted into the purple morning sky above him. As stirring as the air felt here on the foothills, near the ridge overlooking the canyon forest, he imagined what it must feel like to traverse the snowy peaks that so often hid behind those clouds. No one went up there - only loners, and few were strong enough to handle it.

The idea of training enough to scale the highest peaks of the mountain suddenly set Jelani into swift motion. He leapt down from the flat space where the herd had gathered for night, and before he could take two breaths his legs led him down the rock face and out of sight. His cloven hooves anticipated and gripped the irregular, bubbling shapes of dusty rock with each step - gravity took him down and his body took care of the rest. An ibex can float down the steepest of surfaces as if on autopilot and land each leap with style. Jelani was no different, except for the fact that he wasted no time getting better at it than his family and peers.

His destination was the eastern canyon rim, where he was to take the morning guard shift. His predecessor had already left post at sunrise, so Jelani arrived to meet only the vast landscape of forest below. He clopped and trapped up to the highest edge, where the earthy smell of trees and river swept up to greet him. As he peered down into Ikhosombo forest, he saw faint glimmers of the river, where the trees parted and let the morning sun cast harsh reflections off its surface. On the cliffs there was scarcely more than an eagle soaring about and searching for rabbits, but amongst the trees, the sound of songbirds was like a symphony.

There was something else in that early morning forest greeting, a sense of unwellness that contrasted eerily with the pleasant sounds and smells. Ikhosombo was beautiful to behold on any day, but over the past couple of years it had taken on what could be described as a bad attitude. The deeper one went into the forest, the more poignant it became, so Jelani was thankful his job primarily involved walking the cliffs outside its boundaries. To him it felt a little like resentment, or impatience. Everyone said it was the spirits becoming angry, though all the animal factions interpreted that differently. The elephants were notoriously spooked by it, and the birds who used the forest as a breeding ground were in more of a frenzy than usual to get their chicks raised. The hyenas tried to combat it with rituals. Some individuals joined spiritual orders so they could commune with the spirits more clearly. The chimps had gotten so irritated that they moved south years ago.

The ibex preferred not to talk about it. To them, the priority was to protect the inhabitants of the forest and keep political agreements sacred. Spirits were not of much interest to them, and like the other cliff-dwelling animals they had the luxury of being separated from the cloudy feeling that seemed to shroud the forest and cause unnatural things to happen.

Jelani's first order of business was the same as on any morning: walk along the rim until the herd was visible. The herd, in this case, was the highly revered and strictly protected herd of Giant Eland that called the forest home. The Eland had named the forest years ago, long out of memory for anyone except the elephants. "Ikhosombo" they called it - "shelter."

The elephants remembered when it happened, when the Eland moved out of the savannah brush and into the dense forest of the canyon that crept along the Western side of the mountain. Some said it was because of climate changes - other said it was because predators had been destroying their numbers. Regardless, the Eland claimed the forest and garnered much support from the local wildlife, since the species was considered somewhat sacred in the region. A pact was made so that predators agreed only to take so many eland and preserve their herd. Weaker ones tended to sacrifice themselves in order to respect the pact, and most predators were respectful of the privilege of taking such an impressive animal as food.

Recently, however, radical factions of predators had all but wiped the herd out, and the ibex who had stood guard over the land for decades stepped up their game. Jelani was a product of these generational influences - among other things, he was committed to supporting his family's commitment to protecting the Eland from those who would seek to harm them. Like the others in his herd, Jelani wore a purplish stain on his back to represent his lineage and responsibility.

The young ibex pushed off with his powerful shoulders and clopped along the rim, his eyes peeled for those over whom he watched and guarded.

[Zorayda]

Nashira hunched her shoulders, head low. Her mind was always clouded with anger and grief when she came here... She'd learned years ago not to look around at the families gathered to say their prayers and give the spirits stories of happiness. But she still could hear them, laughing, shouting, mothers scolding their pups to quiet down. The gruff voices of the males would soothe their mates when they cried over lost loved ones, encouraging them to think happy thoughts.

She only had a single, smooth riverstone. It was small, and a plain sandy color, but there were veins of rich brown running through it, winding around and giving the otherwise plain stone some interest. Nashira had been holding onto this for a while, safekeeping it below a certain tree she'd always used to hide things of value to her. The stone was placed with care at the side of two skeletons, where grass had grown through the ribs.

"I got stronger this year," she whispered, beginning her intimate speech with these beloved souls. "If we wrestled now, I might actually beat ya, Dad. I guess it was thanks to Rashimbe an' his idiots..." She stole a glance over at the dark hyena, who was sitting and talking next to his mother. His dad had died a few years back--when... that happened. Nashira turned back to the bones. "Guess he still don't like me much. We all changed when... well, y'know..." Nashira lost herself in thought as she usually did during the Ritual. Why had Rashimbe suddenly changed on her? When they were pups, they'd been the best of friends--exchanging wild stories, playing tag, laughing together. He'd even gone so far as to say they'd get married someday... but that was kid stuff. It was all different now, and he hated her. Nashira supposed it had something to do with his father's death, but as to what, she never did find out... She sat in melancholy silence for a moment, listening to the breeze in the trees and the murmurs of her pack.

Bresh, their leader, was telling the old dead leaders how the pack was doing. It had been tradition for as long as anyone could remember, though it was only in recent years that males had taken over instead of the matriarchy. Bresh stood up and shook out his shaggy copper mane before addressing the pack with a silent command. He stood on the hill above them all, against the moonlight--a sign to go home. The pack murmured their goodbyes to the spirits, leaving one by one.

Nashira, as usual, stayed behind. Never would she allow herself to cut loose emotionally in front of the others--especially Rashimbe--but now that she was alone, she allowed the tears to roll down her face. The young hyena did not cry in front of anyone. That was a known fact to anyone in the pack who knew her. However... everyone needed to let go sometimes. Nashira was no exception, and she let her emotions take her mind into overdrive, remembering not only happy things, but all the sad, all the wrongdoings, anything she worried over, the fact that 3 years had not taken the sting away from losing her parents...

The salty tears stung the wounds inflicted upon her by the pack bullies, but she didn't really care. Finally she stood up, face still wet, and stumbled away from her parents' resting place. Her paws took her nowhere, but at the moment she wasn't worried about getting lost. Her nose would take her home... eventually. Now, she needed to be alone.

Nashira shakily found herself in a sort of clearing, a little into the eland territory. Well, not that the eland could really claim a territory nowadays, their numbers being so few... Nashira's pack had been one of the reasons for that. She sniffled and continued walking, her tears starting to dry up and her head clearing. Walking and taking in some scents aside from her pack felt nice... unlike others of the pack, Nashira readily enjoyed anything unfamiliar. As a pup, she remembered her mother often scolding her for getting into about everything, and annoying prey animals because she'd been curious.

Her mood wasn't lifted all that much, however. Something in Ikhosombo was... sick. Or, at least, it felt that way... A lot of the animals living in the forest had left or felt the unease that nobody could put a reason to. Nashira had other things on her mind, most of the time, but when she was alone, she could feel it somewhere in her heart. Something was just... off.

She finally stopped and sat on her haunches, giving a wide yawn that stretched her lips over gleaming fangs. Now she was near a few of the cliffs, where a lot of the mountain-climbers traversed. The hyenas were a little less clumsy on ledges than their savannah counterparts, but nowhere near the expert level of the prey species who were born with the right bodies. Nashira lay down on her belly, head upright as she simply watched her surroundings. She could smell the eland nearby, though they likely knew she was there as well--hence her inability to see or hear them. There was no way she felt like hunting alone at the moment, however... in fact, it was the last thing on her mind. Right now, she just wanted a little peace and quiet to ease her unsteady emotions.

[Tamber]

The forest proved to be quite still today, at least as far as Jelani could gather. He had failed to locate the Eland for the first hour or so of his shift, and Jelani became increasingly impatient at their propensity for elusiveness. Finding the Eland had gotten progressively difficult as of late. Jelani had seen them up close a couple times. As he remembered the way they towered over him, he tried to fathom how such titanic animals could be so much like forest ghosts.

"Jelani!"

A voice echoed on the rock face behind him. He turned to see Cashile, a fellow cliffguard from his herd, who gestured to climb up and speak with him.

Cashile was a few seasons older and a tad above Jelani in command. This was strictly a consequence of vetting rather than skill or smarts - Jelani considered himself far superior when it came to what really counted as a guard, and higher-ups had said as much to Jelani privately. But Cashile had all the benefits of a more seasoned young male, and he clung to that privilege with a fiery paranoia. Today he was visibly on edge, as he tended to be. Jelani had no reason to believe the forest was in any upheaval today, so he approached his herd-mate casually.

"We've got traffic farther south," Cashile said. "Looks benign, but we need more bucks on the scene."

"And you're not there because...?" Jelani said sardonically.

Cashile seemed to be in no mood for the less-than-serious attitude Jelani reserved specially for him. "You obviously needed me here. You're wandering aimlessly. Someone has to find the herd today."

Jelani smirked. "I'm glad you noticed my inability to contribute from the other side of the canyon," he said, referring to the location Cashile had been assigned to cover this morning. "What would we do without you, buddy?"

As Jelani turned south to follow orders, Cashile lunged toward him horns-first. Jelani leapt as soon as he heard the snort from Cashille's nose, and he landed ten feet down the cliff unscathed as Cashille stumbled onto his forehead, disoriented from attacking nothing but air. Jelani used his momentum to continue toward the supposed "traffic" that demanded his attention.

"You watch your mouth, boyscout," Cashile called after him, "or you'll have uncle's horns up your-"

"Thanks for finding the Eland for me, Cashile!" Jelani called as he trotted away.

His trot south was as serene and orderly as his rounds before, if not more so. The deep purple twilight was slowly lifting into a hazy daylight. Before long, he could see three of his herd mates gathered on a relatively high vantage point, watching the other side of the forest. Jelani followed their gaze to see the first visible movement of the day - the hyenas arriving back at their headquarters.

For a moment Jelani panicked at the thought that Cashile had been right in his concern - they were coming from deeper in the forest, where the Eland tended to hide. But he soon remembered that there had been a full moon the night before, and the hyenas' monthly ritual must have taken place accordingly. He breathed a sigh of relief, followed by a chuckle - Cashile had gathered four bucks to combat the most routine thing imaginable.

He tromped off in the direction of his fellow ibex. Though the path he took had that familiar rocky texture to it, it was disconcertingly close to the shadow of the trees, and for a while Jelani could feel its eery fingers brushing up against him. There was an aura of some presence, so intense Jelani could swear there was a band of enemies watching him from behind the trees.