Girls afoot and atop other horses are collecting back towards the gate, having searched the outbuildings and cleared land. The horses whinny greetings, the girls turn to stare at the riders heading out. None of them try to catch their attention. They have not found the errant hunter. Not that Lashan had really expected that they would, given where the girl was last seen. She'd had to have Vena tell her how old Galli is and really, anything about her.
The two horses take them at a ground-eating lope out past the carefully tended fields, through the weedier cleared area with its saplings trying to become trees, and beyond to a trail the hunters favor, half overgrown now from weeks of little use. Lashan leans back, cueing Thistle to take it slower. She watches the path - while she's an excellent tracker she'd only need to be a middling one to be able to determine that someone's disturbed the foliage traversing it - and spreads out her other senses, dropping most of her shielding. No contact yet, but also no sense of strong distress.
Then the boy decides to run his mouth. Lashan laughs harshly. "It's a wonderful thing I thought I would never know, to have willful children who care if I live or die." With a certain amount of amused malice, she adds, "May you come to know that binding yourself, one day."
She turns in the saddle - Thistle flicks his ears but continues - to open a bag and take out, yes, one of her short swords with scabbard and swordbelt. Exactly what Pretah had suddenly intuited was there. Yes, she's going to strap that on to lie over her thigh rather than trading.
no subject
The two horses take them at a ground-eating lope out past the carefully tended fields, through the weedier cleared area with its saplings trying to become trees, and beyond to a trail the hunters favor, half overgrown now from weeks of little use. Lashan leans back, cueing Thistle to take it slower. She watches the path - while she's an excellent tracker she'd only need to be a middling one to be able to determine that someone's disturbed the foliage traversing it - and spreads out her other senses, dropping most of her shielding. No contact yet, but also no sense of strong distress.
Then the boy decides to run his mouth. Lashan laughs harshly. "It's a wonderful thing I thought I would never know, to have willful children who care if I live or die." With a certain amount of amused malice, she adds, "May you come to know that binding yourself, one day."
She turns in the saddle - Thistle flicks his ears but continues - to open a bag and take out, yes, one of her short swords with scabbard and swordbelt. Exactly what Pretah had suddenly intuited was there. Yes, she's going to strap that on to lie over her thigh rather than trading.