Title-- Breakfast Conversation [The Panthera Walkers]
Rating and Warnings-- G. Wow.
Species and Characters-- Khivetti, an Avan naturalist, and an unnamed noblewoman/mage, also Avan. (Avans are parrot/hawk anthros. Colorful, tall, lean, sophisticated, cultured. Naturalists are the nature-oriented ones, who tend to have a beast as a companion, and mages are, well, mages.)
Summary and Notes-- I love Khivetti. That is all.



Once, Khivetti had sat with a noblewoman, a fine magus, and broken his fast at her table. He had hung up his dull brown-green cloak on the high back of his ornate chair, and he hadn't flinched when she ran her gaze up and down and back up again. She had taken in his armor when she first met him - dirt-brown with splashes of moss-green, leather and sturdy - and when he tossed back his cloak and sat down that morning, she had taken in with equal stoicism his fine silken tunic and leggings that were unembroidered and black against his short feathers. Black when only scholars or criminals chose such a colorless shade; black when it cast a dark aura against his sea-green and sunset-orange and river-blue plumage. Black when it had brought out such stunningly leaf-green eyes that he so often kept hidden and hooded.

Once, he had sat with a woman of the city and shared ripe fruits and melon-wine and freshly-baked bread with her. He'd been working for her, for the entire Council of Hudi-Ykinde, for months on end, and they had been close during the duration of those tasks. And the first morning he ate with her would be the last, for he had done well, and he was leaving his home city once more in favor of the endless woods.

On that day, they had spoken of the enemy-that-was-not. He had been gathering information on Panthera, this 'Walker' tribe, for nigh on half a year for his city that was so carefully keeping its mages and warriors from the incessant Elderwar. Two years hence, they had set him to spy on Lupos, the enemy, and he had done better than almost any other in garnering information and insights. With his white wolf, the Avan naturalist walked the woods as a mere extension of the earth itself, and even the Lupos did not track his presence.

A year and a season after he began, he had returned for the final report and given it to the Council. The very next dawn, Hudi-Ykinde declared its economy unfit for warring and withdrew its troops and healers. What Khivetti had relayed to them was whispered about from city to city in the following months, stirring the pacifists and even making the elitists have second thoughts.

When he had sat with the noblewoman at her table in the city, they spoke of the Panthera, and his voice had the same tone as he had when he spoke of Lupos before his gathered kinsfolk.

'They are .. a part of the earth. Just like the wolves and the hawks, the elk and the fish, they exist as part of that world. As a part of nature. They--'

The woman spoke without looking up, her sun-yellow crest lowered as deft talon-fingers picked the crust from a thick slice of warm bread. 'Being, as you are, a Naturalist, one can only assume you regard the natural world as all that is sacred to Beauty.' A pause, and then her eyes flicked up to settle on his face. 'So one assumes that you say Panthera walk with our very goddess, as part of Her, as one of Her children.'

Khivetti smiled with eyes alone. 'One would be correct in that assumption,' he replied, all too familiar with the noble's way of speech that carefully kept her from committing a social error via a poor guess. 'They live as the trees live - rooted in the soil, reaching towards the sky with open arms.'

The blue-robed magus did not smile in return; she merely looked back towards the table, her meal, and curled long digits around a tall, thin glass of melon-wine. She sipped it carefully with a clink of her curving beak against the rim of the glass, savoring the lukewarm liquid, and nodded as she set it down. 'One understands. Your written report - you will not present it to the Council in person? One assumes you have your reasons, but they are a mystery.'

The naturalist was still smiling as he leaned back in his chair, lean frame radiating ease and relaxation. 'My reasons are my own, milady. What's written is what I would say aloud, and I can't say it makes much of a difference whether I'm there to recite the words or not.'

She looked at him directly then, and he was startled enough to pull himself up into a straighter posture. 'The wood calls to you, does it not?' she asked softly. 'The wood, and your wolf, and .. and Beauty. You hear Her song, I-- one-- thinks.'

'...you're right, milady,' he admitted ruefully. 'I've been working for Council Hudi for two years now. I need a break, and I know where I want to take it.' A pause, and a gape-beaked grin that a commoner would be shamed to show a noble - but he hardly cared for courtly games. 'Plus, I've learned a lot about the right way to live in the last half-dozen seasons. I want a chance to put my heart where my mind's been, and live it out myself.'

The mage drew back slightly at that, tapping her claw-tipped talons together in either dismay or thought. 'One wonders that you think their way is closer to Beauty .. when they do not even follow Her,' she murmured softly, averting her eyes to the open window - and beyond it, the sky. 'One hopes you remain Avan, despite all you think you have learned of better ways.'

Khivetti chuckled. 'Milady, we Avans .. we may be Beauty's favorites, but we're not doing a very good job at living in tune with Her world. Avans are supposed to be the jewels of the earth - but instead, we wind up being artificial trinkets littering the place.' He paused, drained the last of his melon-wine, and pushed back his chair. 'I think I'd rather be a tree than a bauble, no matter how civilized folks would label it.'

To his surprise, she wasn't frowning as she watched him rise, but her talons were clicking restlessly as she stood, as well. 'One will not mention this elsewhere,' she said simply, sweeping a graceful bow with a rustle of silken robes. When she straightened, she found he'd already slung his earth-colored cloak around his shoulders, concealing his black attire. 'And before you go... one last question, if you would be so gracious.'

He paused. 'Of course, milady.' She had such an intent look on her face - a look he imagined she must have worn on a daily basis as an apprentice magus, studying the tomes and then studying the stars and clouds and pattern of the raindrops on parchment. It was rather endearing to be looked at with that sort of inquisitive concentration.

'...one wonders why you wear black.'

The naturalist chuckled again, a fluting and musical sound. 'Don't tell anyone, milady,' he winked, 'but I fancy myself a scholar of sorts. I study life.'

The noblewoman smiled with eyes and lifted crest, and she watched as he turn and left. When she could no longer hear his feet claw-clicking against the marble-and-stone hall, she sat again and sipped her drink. Her eyes were on the sky and green treetops outside her open window as the sun continued to rise.