#kichi lohro

[sliptohk]

Prompt# 20: BANTER

(Thanks to @whitherwanderer for today’s prompt!)

"Did you fall into the bog, Ghemala? You reek of it!"

"Only the one time!"

"Its clear by sight, if not scent. Mud-caked is not her usual choice of fashion. You ought to have seen this without needing to ask, Kichi."

"That aside, you are the one that prefers swimming in the shallows. Goddess knows the leeches seem to treat you as kin by now rather than merely acquaintances."

"What can I say? Be it leech or spoken I am a very charming sort!"

"She says mere moments after pointing out the stink of her sister."

"But I did it with such an endearing wink and wiggle of my eyebrows!"

"She did wink at me!"

"Total loss of facial control may not be the virtue you think it is, sister."

"You do it all the time, Fen!"

"Slander, I articulate carefully with my expressions!"

"Hm. Only for a mudslide of words to spray from your mouth."

"Mudslides don't spray, Ahchaka."

"There must be some degree of spraying that comes of the whole affair. The earth is sodden, after all."

"All I know is there must be a better word for it. Flows?"

"No. That would make it sound faintly praiseworthy. Its just loud and irritating. It does not flow across my ears, it batters and bounces like... the boulders in the mudslide."

"You just dislike that grandmother listened to my plan instead of yours."

"It was no plan! You just suggested doing nothing!"

"Doing nothing is still a plan, its just not one that requires a great deal of action."

"I would have peppered them with arrows and sent them on their way. Khenma agreed with me."

"I did not."

"Why are we even discussing this again? All I did was mention Ghemala's smell!"

"Just a little verbal side path! Look, it even got Khenma to lend her thoughts!"

"It did not."

"Your words, then. We can build our way up to your words!"

"Here comes another mudslide."

"Oh? I heard nothing, where is it?"

"... not an actual one, Ghemala."

"In that case I think I want to take another swim! Care to join me Kichi?"

"Swim? I thought you said you fell."

"Just the one time! Which was not this time."

"And I shall see my beloved little sister does not jump on you for that. Come on, little Chaky!"

"I hate that nickname! Now let me go!"

Mehhzi heard as the sisters bickered, hardly taking the spare moment to look up from the arrow heads she ground from rock and bone. At the very least it provided her a distracting background of sound to work to as the aged huntress continued that comfortable routine she had learned so long ago.

[sliptohk]

Prompt #26: When Pigs Fly

Ahchakha offered between bites of seared catfsh, "Mor Dhona? Its close. They probably have craftswomen."

"There would be certain advantages to it." Fen tapped a finger against her chin absently at the suggestion.

"What about Ishgard?" Kichi offered with a grin. "Your trader friend mentioned it opening up, no?"

The inventor shook her head, a frown crossing her face at the second suggestion, "I hear its terribly cloudy, obscures the moon. How can I properly worship Menphina if her eye cannot fall upon me?"

Her sisters nodded in understanding at that logic. To think of living outside her gaze would be unthinkable! Khenma spoke at last, never looking up from the nuts she was pounding into a fine paste.

"Ul'dah."

"It does have something of a reputation, but I hear the skies are clear and its practically crawling with tradesfolk. Not to mention the wild game outside the city!" The thought of the hunt nearly had the tall miqo'te reaching for her bow to go course for a fresh kill.

Ghemala grinned widely, lifting a finger as she chirped out happily, "There's always Gridania!"

Motions stopped, the sisters all pausing to look over towards her for a long moment until they each broke into loud laughter at the absurdity of the suggestion! Even Nefalia looked up toward her fully grown sisters from where the wooden ornament she was painting.

"Oh, I needed a laugh, but come on sisters! This is an important decision!"

[sliptohk]

Prompt #12: Tooth and Nail

The blinding light of the mid-morning sun shone down upon the sleeping hut through the dense canopy, only the slowly rising temperature offering any hint of it as the windowless structure easily kept that unwelcome glare away from the dozing huntresses. Nestled among the tangled furs and sleeping bodies, the Lohro daughters peered about to give faintly perceptible nods to each other before they began to extricate themselves from the pile. A delicate task for the kits as each one of those dreaming miqo'te was ever ready to spring into action at the first hint of something strange. A necessary trait given the dangerous lands they called home.

Khenma and Kichi were the first to the door, an easy enough task given that Eir was content to let them sprawl across each other. Ghemala had to slowly squirm her way free from the loose embrace of her mother's arms even as Fen and Ahchaka carefully extricated themselves from between Vazhra and their own mother, Chiku. Young as they were, the ability to move silently and deftly was one of the first things any young Lohro was taught and they were soon all pressed up against the door to carefully squeeze it open just enough to slip through before letting it shut once again. Fingers moved in simple signs, only a portion of that huntspeak most other tribes had reduced their proud tongue into, but a necessity for the moment given that spoken word could very well give them away. Fen kept it simple, the direction clear.

<Larder.>

Stepping along the outsides of the wooden platforms between the huts, they moved on without the creak of shifting planks. Faint muffled sounds from the herbalist's hut where Lehz either worked, or noisily slept judging by the snorts, unti they spotted their target through squinted, watering eyes the sun forced upon them. It was practically a battle to be the first inside and out of the light, elbows catching on ribs and hands pushing back on their siblings' faces as they made their way in as chaotically as one could expect from young children. Despite efforts to retain some semblance of order, Fen finally let out a displeased sigh and bodily pushed the lot of them in ahead of her to displeased hisses and flashed teeth as they stumbled forward.

With a faint hiss of her own, the red-haired huntress jabbed a finger towards their prize upon the top shelf within, "Stop squabbling! Its there!"

It could be forgiven, eldest among that that she was, that Fen actually expected her younger sisters to band together to tackle the goal in front of them. But where the promise of the more comfortable low light of the hut had driven them to jostle each other for entry, the even greater allure of that otherwise nondescript little sack drew a mad dash from the more excitable of them. Small limbs flailed as they tugged and scratched in a selfish attempt to be the first to reach that prize!

"Stop pulling me!"

"Then stop scratching me!"

"Hm." A faint pause as Khenma stood beside Fen, raising a hand to her jaw after a wayward elbow clipped her mouth. "That knocked my tooth out."

The eldest turned away from the Ahchaka, Ghemala, and Kichi as their forward momentum was entirely arrested as they just wrestled about on the floor instead. A far louder racket than she had wanted when she offered the plan to them the evening prior. Carefully holding Khenma's chin to turn her at the right angle to spot the new gap between those kitten's teeth.

"That was the loose one right? Its alright, you're supposed to lose those. Mine fell out a few seasons back. Just make sure to find it! You know Cholm will want to make a charm from it!"

With that matter taken care of, Fen strode forward, reaching out to start to drag her remaining sisters from that scrum and back to their feet. It proved far more difficult than she expected, as they seemed to prefer being in that pile as if it brought them one step closer! Garments threatened to tear with ominous sounds of stretching seams, forcing a losing battle to get the lot of them to stop, only for scrabbling hands to catch her ankles and drag her down into the pile itself.

"You're pulling my braids, Gehmala! Kichi, stop biting Ahchaka! You know mother will ask about i- Ahchaka, stop biting me! I just said that mother will see those marks!" The youngest of them, Ahchaka merely showed her fangs before delivering a second bite after that first.

It was a shame she had yet to start shedding her teeth.

Only Khenma noticed as the door opened once more, though she only looked upward from the close examination of her lost tooth in that impassive way of hers. It likely would have been longer for the others to notice if the sweet tones of the youngest of their grandmothers hadn't danced out from the grey-skinned artist's lips. Plum tresses curling about her shoulders as she gave them all an indulgent smile.

"My darlings, its rather late into the day to be looking for a snack, is it not?"

They paused, slowly glancing up toward that beaming face as she lowered herself down to her haunches beside their pile. She was hardly a tall woman, among miqo'te they would likely have recognized her as being rather slight in comparison to the other huntresses. Though all adults looked large to the young kits. Particularly when one was caught in the middle of a caper and could only look up with guilty expressions towards Ze.

"Look at all these sleepy expressions!" Whereas Fen had to scrape and scrabble with her sisters, their grandmother merely offered her hands to guide them two by two back to their feet, "Perhaps a tune or two will help you rest. Mayhap 'The Swallow Cries'? Or would you prefer something a bit more apt to the situation, like 'Kittens in the larder'?"

Ghemala's brow furrowed as she looked up into those amused, yellow eyes, "That's not a real song."

"Give me a night or two, my beloved granddaughters, and it shall be. Now lets go. You do know you would never have gotten away with it, hmm? Your mothers would smell that candy on your breath when you awakened." She turned to lead them back towards the hut, her own steps quiet even without that careful creeping about.

Ze never noticed, attention focused on those four, when Khenma almost casually climbed up to pluck a single round piece of hard candy from that bag before tugging it closed once more. Swirls of red beneath that almost translucent service earned a curious look as she briefly mused how one managed to put markings inside solid objects. Only for the thought to vanish with the sweet as Khenma popped it in her mouth and wandered off after her siblings.

[sliptohk]

Prompt#21: Crunch

Kichi and Ghemala ought to have been doing something more pressing, that much was certain, but that would have been an accurate presumption in most situations. There was always some form of work to be done about their home, be it foraging for fresh foodstuffs, simple repairs or maintenance of their elevated paths, even mere training with one of their aunts or grandmothers. But as was often the case, the moment they found something amusing they dropped all responsibilities and enjoyed the spectacle.

It was rare that Nefalia was scurrying about without some form of supervision. Given the dangers of their homeland anything from a beast to a simple fall from the canopy could be deadly. Not even taking into account some of the more dangerous things tiny hands could find if they tinkered with the wrong alchemical compounds within the workhouse Fen had commandeered after Lehz's disappearance. With her two elder sisters following close enough behind to head off such potential disasters, the child had minimal opportunities to really misbehave.

At least if it had been two of her more responsible kin.

Clutching that small bag in one hand, she scuttled about with eyes moving guiltily even as she continued to pop the roaasted hazelnuts in her mouth as soon as the previous snack was swallowed. Munching her way through that bag and deeper into trouble if Eir were to come across the little bandit capering around with her favorite treats undoubtedly stolen from the top shelves of the larder.

"Ought we take those away, Kichi?" Her sister spoke as if the thought had just occurred to her. Likely it had after observing the scamp for some time.

"It would be much funnier if we were to stick the bag in Ahchaka's things when she finished them."