FanFiction:The Art of the Hunt/Season 2/Chapter 3 - In the Airship

C alli grabbed the rail tightly, her knuckles whitening into pale shades as the Airship went higher and farther from the Academy. The few people about over the mountains and fields looked to her like Alaroth scurrying around in the grass. She winced and turned away, quickly switching her hands on the rail. "Alatreon in Heaven, this is terrifying!" She said to herself. Gamor, who had always loved heights, was right beside her, ever aware of what his friend's thoughts were. He chuckled.

"Afraid of heights? Wouldn't have guessed," He said, lifting an eye and holding the cold rail lightly. "I guess we've never really been anywhere high though--except the Academy. I guess mountains don't scare you, then?" Gamor asked, having never been confronted with a like situation.

"Nah, they're solid and strong. This thing...we've only ever simulated this thing, and that only once or twice. It's quite different..." Calli said, loosening her left hand's grip on the rail.

"Well, a simulator can only do so much," Gamor said as he turned to gather a snack from a nearby storage unit. "Look in the distance instead of down," He continued, popping open the leather bag containing Tanzia Chips and handing one to Calli. "It might help you get more used to the height."

Calli forced a smile and raised her gaze as she ate her chips slowly. Across the horizon, mists obscured the farthest sights, while closer, a forest and river could be seen. Calli loosened her grip and was calmed slightly. "This is better, actually," She thought to herself.

"Thank you, Gamor, really. I'm glad you're here, heh," She said, awkwardly. Though Gamor had never known it, Calli had always felt a romantic attraction to him, finding him to be the only friend who could consistently make her happy. She was thought of as bubbly and fun, but in reality, she was typically depressed and had a habit of changing her behavior to reflect what other people expected of her. Gamor, however, had never expected this. He expected her to be herself; he expected and accepted her for who she was and how she acted.

A gentle wind was blowing far below, moving the leaves of the trees and lazily pushing the light-colored mists away from the far reaches of the woods many miles away. Below them, on a grassy plain, a herd of Aptonoth grazed, oblivious to the travelers above them. A mile or three away from them, some Great Jaggi sparred. All around the airship, on the ground, life was everywhere.

Back on the airship, Noami and Reia sat on a bench, as Noami rearranged the arrows in her quiver. She wanted to make sure she had plenty of paralysis and sleep arrows, as well as at least one hundred normal arrows. If this monster was to be taken down, she'd have to have plenty of ammo. Reia helped her by sharpening each elemental arrow as she took it out; she'd then replace it in its preferred place and move on to the next. As they sat there, they quietly talked about the coming hunt. Both of them had only one thing on their mind: survive this trip.

Katrina, on the other side of the airship, gazed lustfully across the land. They were past the Coastal Lands, and now to the east there stood the Great Desert. To the northeast, on the edge of vision, was the Sandy Plains. She loved aerial views, and had always accompanied whoever she could to take air journeys across the land. Katrina never really knew why she loved airships so; everything they encompassed made her swell with pride and smile with joy. In fact, she, along with Gamor and, oddly enough, Taka, were the only people aboard who knew how to control Guild Airships, besides the hired captain. This was because Taka remembered the skill from his past life, and as for Gamor and Katrina, it was part of their lessons; out of all of them, however, Katrina was the most qualified. She had studied the arts for quite a while prior to the trip.

Taka was manning the stern propeller on the airship, routinely pumping oil into the chassis and gradually refueling the engine as it grew empty. He redirected it to push more true towards their destination, and backed away to fetch himself a snack and take a break from manning the ship. "Gamor," he called out, "Handle the sail for a minute, will you?" Taka lazily said as he sat down. The past few days had thoroughly worn him.

"Yeah, sure," Gamor replied, walking to the back of the airship and taking his place at the helm. The wind slowly began to pick up and he adjusted the wheel accordingly. The wide propeller compensated for the change and the airship returned to its straightforward path. Gamor paid careful attention to the helm, as he did with all his tasks, and allowed the rest of his mind to wander. He looked forward to finding the monster. It is true, he did indeed share Taka's interest with the beast; but Gamor's was not in its beauty or in its biology, it was in its age, the storytelling it offered. Gamor was a storyteller; he was a wanderer. Anyone who spoke extensively with the curious young lad knew this.

As he manned the helm, Gamor let his mind wander after fixing their position and trimming the controls as appropriate. The Captain, who was reading a pamphlet on the new Hunting Planes, took note of their position and tightened his grips, in case anything unexpected should happen. Gamor leaned back against a solid vertical railing and thought about the future.

It seemed amiable enough; they were going to find this monster, destroy it, and come back heroes. People would praise them; their names would be sung. The Tanj Ten, hunters and heroes of Moga. They would hunt for enjoyment, and no longer mere money. All of this and more floated through Gamor's dreamy head.

In his youth, he had never wanted to be a hunter. He wanted to be an explorer, sure, but never a hunter. His childhood home was surrounded by the bounties of forests and mountains; all around him, the wildlife and wilderness beckoned. When he was very young, he went exploring; he was gone for nearly three days before he arrived back home, bounding and bouncing, telling tales of an expansive cave. He told such fantastic stories of the cave! The youth had proclaimed to his parents then that he would be an explorer, and would spend his life searching for riches in caves.

But merely five years later, the lad of eight summers was no longer that, but a lad of thirteen summers. His dreams of exploring were barely glowing; he had seen more and more of life as his years wore on. At fourteen, the prospect of resurrecting his exploring dreams in the form of guild hunting seemed quite prudent; he could make vast amounts of wealth while simultaneously exploring lands no eyes had been set upon before. His young mind knew then that he would be a hunter.

In the present, Gamor thought about all that and sighed lightly. He was finally exploring. As he looked over the horizon, he realized something: in the back of his mind, he knew that he had never imagined the world was so huge. Everywhere he looked was a horizon he had never, in his wildest dreams, conceived or imagined. Looking backwards, he could barely see the First Lighthouse, a tall, intimidating beacon in the distance, insurmountable and unforgettable.

Far ahead of them, but growing ever closer, lay the remains of a base camp. Noami was the first to spot the strange landmark. It was marked by a massive boulder off to one side, with a small clearing adjacent to it, presumably for hunter's landings. Other than that and the barely-visible scraps of the camp, there was no sign of humans having ever existed there. But that was not the most visible part of the camp; as the hunters could tell, the camp was actually on a giant cliff, and it appeared that all around the small plot, land simply fell away. The plains could be seen, and to the east lay the Great Desert.

The airship slowly began to descend onto the cliff and the passengers began readying themselves. Their weapons and supplies would go down on a very special roped parachute, before each of them slid down to the platform, slightly above the boulder.

They attached the parachute to the Supply Box and watched it float down the guiding rope. Then, one by one, they all slid down the rope. When one hit, he or she would collapse to the ground and roll away, to allow the next person down the line. In this way, they all unloaded within just a few minutes and were soon waving goodbye to the guild airship.

On the ground, they began to sort their equipment. Each hunter took his own weapon back, and within a few minutes and after a few minor scuffles, everyone had their own equipment on their backs. Brutus finally took some initiative and began gathering debris from the old campsite.

Not so very long ago, the campsite had been destroyed by an unidentified, huge monster. It was this that first gave them a tip that their target might be waiting here, way out in the Sandy Plains. Nobody had been here for a long time; the Guild seldom allowed missions to areas without either a very well-built campsite or an established Guild Outpost within five miles.

After the debris was cleared, Ali began scouting outside the campsite for some useful materials to set up an outpost. They had previously decided to use this as their center of operations, where they would store the item box and other important items that couldn't be easily transported between camps.

In a little while, she came back with ample firewood and the resources to build a working camp and fireplace. Her and Brutus, with help from Noami, Reia, and Jeren, got to work transporting the goods. Afterwards, Jeren began to dig out important areas; the posts needed new holes, the fireplace needed a new hole, and they would need latrines. He quickly got to work with his duties.

Yuki sat away from all the activity and watched the other setting up base camp. She flexed her hands, watching the armor form fluidly around her hands as she moved, stretching or contracting as necessary. After some personal deliberation, she finally decided to contribute to the activities. She stood up and rearranged her back-mounted weapon, the Gunblade, to make it more comfortable.

"I'm going to go scout. We'll need food if we don't want to eat half our Rations on the first night. Don't follow me -- if you wanna look around, go the opposite way. I've hunted more than any of you," the young woman proudly said. It was, in fact, only partially true, as she was only the second-oldest in the group. Taka, the oldest, had a few words of his own for that little bit:

"Tell me, what's the biggest monster you've ever seen?" Taka asked, standing up from where he had been sorting things in the item box.

"What? A Jhen Mohran. There aren't any larger monsters." She retorted.

"Wrong. So very, very wrong. I like -- I respect -- you, but you've not hunted more than any of us. Please, don't taint my opinion before I have a better chance to know you. I have a past notably deeper than you, I'm willing to reckon." Taka replied. His eyes were a storm of emotion, and if one had looked inside them, they would have, perhaps, seen the plains and forests and little lakes and rivers of the Central World in them.

Yuki was dumbfounded. Noone had ever before challenged her authority on hunting matters. It was an alien thing to her.

"Uh... Huh. OK. Good to know." She turned around, absolutely perplexed, and walked off. Taka went dutifully back to his work.

After several hours of exploring around the area, which was primarily stark and bland, with few deviations from the yellowed sand, Yuki finally spotted something interesting. She turned her attention to it and looked closer. It was a Jaggi, barking at something that she couldn't yet see, as she was observing from a thicket.

She disregarded her wonder and quickly loaded her gunblade. The Jaggi twitched an ear, but paid no more mind to the hunter. It was about to pounce as Yuki pulled the trigger on her weapon, having carefully aimed at the beast. Suddenly, from her weapon erupted an insurmountable gunlike blast, and from it flew a round of Machalite Ore. The Jaggi dropped to the ground lifelessly, its head a gaping hole and its neck squirting blood for a few seconds, leaving its prey in wonder and frightening it immensely. Yuki reloaded the gun and peered around the thicket.

There stood a small Aptonoth, a child, separated from its family. Yuki took aim and grimaced. She had, of course, killed monster children before. A small sandworm could one day become a nation-destroying Jhen Mohran, and though the road to Hell was paved in good intentions, she would not help pave it. But this time, she couldn't bring herself to fire on the beast. Yuki sheathed her weapon and walked to it. She petted the Aptonoth and let it go on its way.

She then walked over to the dead Jaggi. It had bled out, and the area directly surrounding the corpse was stained with blood. She didn't wince or back away, but rather squatted on one knee as she began carving the monster for its meat. Jaggi were never good eating, as a general rule -- being, after all, carnivores. The team wouldn't approve of this meal, not until it had been made into Jaggi jerky or something akin to it. Jaggi Jerky was a treat indeed! Yuki was glad her father had taught her how to make it right before leaving.

After a few minutes of tedious knifework, she got up and dusted herself off. She packed the meat up in a transport bag. The young hunter then looked around and slung the pack over her back. She finally headed back to camp to deliver the food.

On the horizon, the sun was beginning to set. Around her, the signs of life going to sleep were in abundance. Her face lit up in a happy smile, and she admired the Earth for what it was, for once in her life.

For the first time in her life, she looked around at the world and respected nature for its bare beauty. It was quite different, seeing it in this light. It presented the world as a barren, unconquered place. In a world where men, fallible and greedy, hold sway and all people work towards their own gain, is it not the world who is the victim?

As she thought about these things, her shadow grew longer and the campfire smoke could be seen in the distance. Only one more cliff and then some thick bracken, and she'd be at tonight's camp.

Back at the camp, Taka was stocking up the fire and warming up a ration for himself. The guild-provided rations weren't that good unless you warmed them up, as he well knew. Even though he knew the rations would be OK after warming, he wondered, like the others, where Yuki was.

Just as they began to send out a search party, they heard the characteristic swiping of a hunting knife through bracken and branch. They all sat back down, except for Jeren, who knew his cousin had good reason for coming back so late. He spotted the pack of meat on her back and walked over to grab her weapons. He had never been a very good cook, so he deemed it decidedly better to allow her to cook the meat while he maintained her weapon. She understood, and handed over the pack.

"Jaggi for dinner, and Aptonoth tomorrow, I promise," She said.

For the first time since any of them had known her... Yuki looked apologetic.

To be continued in FanFiction:The Art of the Hunt/Season 2/Chapter 4 - Stalking Shadows