[OOM] Kazic III - Cä-Iudän.
Kazic III doesn't have a day or a night - the sky constantly glows with shifting patterns of warm, pleasant colours. It does have a generally accepted time when most people are asleep, though, and now is it.
There are still guards, though. They keep around the edge of the settlement, and occasionally give slightly wary glances towards the green flashes off in the distance. They're probably nothing: Some quirk in the atmosphere or something similar, but they could be the signs of a distant battle.
Their attention isn't really caught until shapes start shifting in the trees, mostly silent and not quite visible. One guard murmurs something to another and heads off into the forest, gun hefted high to shoot anything suspicious looking.
He returns a moment later, with spots of red around his mouth, but looking chirpy enough.
"Just an animal," brightly, to his companion, setting a hand on his back and steering him towards the forest. "Come check if there are any more."
As they walk, he reaches up to wipe at something warm leaking down from his eyes. His hand comes away red, and he wipes it on his furs as the two vanish off into the forest.
There's a sharp, strangled scream, and then they return, both smiling merrily, dabbing rapidly reddening pieces of cloth at their eyes.
-----
In the Tae household, things are a lot less bloody, but very loud for this time of the not-evening. The old, heavily armed woman who Guppy, Teja and Kate met earlier is milling about, trying to keep control of four unruly children. One of them, a young boy, is rushing around making starfighter noises, while Lyman has hopped up on a stool to laboriously stir a vat of some kind of stew, and a young girl holds two makeshift dolls of cloth and wood in each hand.
She's keeping close to Guppy, Teja and Kate. The show is clearly for their benefit.
"'I shall defeat you, Anabellizzastein!'" She squeaks in the voice of one doll, a greying, one-eyed cloth thing with bright pink hair. The other doll, hairless and extravagantly dressed in scraps of fur, replies (in a much deeper voice): "'It's too late, Chieftain Ranalin! I have already unleashed my monster!'"
Jaq is staring out the window, brow furrowed. He is hit in the head by a large, reddish cloth doll tossed at him by his sister.
"Jaq!" The young girl calls. "I need you to come and play the monster!"
"In a minute."
The old woman settles down near Teja, Kate and Guppy, propping a gun up against her chair.
"It's crowded here, but we manage to get by."
There are still guards, though. They keep around the edge of the settlement, and occasionally give slightly wary glances towards the green flashes off in the distance. They're probably nothing: Some quirk in the atmosphere or something similar, but they could be the signs of a distant battle.
Their attention isn't really caught until shapes start shifting in the trees, mostly silent and not quite visible. One guard murmurs something to another and heads off into the forest, gun hefted high to shoot anything suspicious looking.
He returns a moment later, with spots of red around his mouth, but looking chirpy enough.
"Just an animal," brightly, to his companion, setting a hand on his back and steering him towards the forest. "Come check if there are any more."
As they walk, he reaches up to wipe at something warm leaking down from his eyes. His hand comes away red, and he wipes it on his furs as the two vanish off into the forest.
There's a sharp, strangled scream, and then they return, both smiling merrily, dabbing rapidly reddening pieces of cloth at their eyes.
-----
In the Tae household, things are a lot less bloody, but very loud for this time of the not-evening. The old, heavily armed woman who Guppy, Teja and Kate met earlier is milling about, trying to keep control of four unruly children. One of them, a young boy, is rushing around making starfighter noises, while Lyman has hopped up on a stool to laboriously stir a vat of some kind of stew, and a young girl holds two makeshift dolls of cloth and wood in each hand.
She's keeping close to Guppy, Teja and Kate. The show is clearly for their benefit.
"'I shall defeat you, Anabellizzastein!'" She squeaks in the voice of one doll, a greying, one-eyed cloth thing with bright pink hair. The other doll, hairless and extravagantly dressed in scraps of fur, replies (in a much deeper voice): "'It's too late, Chieftain Ranalin! I have already unleashed my monster!'"
Jaq is staring out the window, brow furrowed. He is hit in the head by a large, reddish cloth doll tossed at him by his sister.
"Jaq!" The young girl calls. "I need you to come and play the monster!"
"In a minute."
The old woman settles down near Teja, Kate and Guppy, propping a gun up against her chair.
"It's crowded here, but we manage to get by."