Surviving Felarya, take two.

"No, I haven't. It isn't just me, none of the Naga's there do. Naga's and the various smaller races are all part of the same society, so it's only natural that we see them as people." Ha'dara leaned back against a tree and tried to guess how long the fish would last for "Just being big enough to use another race as food doesn't mean you have to."

Verira had silently crept out of the tree she was lying in and popped up in front of ha'dara. "but you could at least try it, some humans actually like it and if you don't like it just push them back up" She said with a smile.

"True, I could try it, but that brings the problem of the morals I was raised with and killing sentient people." Ha'dara turned to look at Verira "Someone I met said that once you do something you see as wrong, it is easier next time and harder to stop. I'm sure I could stop, but I'd rather not take the chance unless desperate."

He reached up into a tree and pulled down a piece of fruit, "Plus, I intend to try and find a way back to my world, and if I'm capable of eating people, I wouldn't likely be welcome there." and eating it.

"but if you eat humans you would most surely get bigger faster and stronger" Verira said and gave Ha'dara a flick on the forehead. "that way you wouldn't have to worry about anything, you could rule your world" She paused. "if you ever do get back that is...besides, you don't have to tell them, so how would they know?"

Ha'dara raised an eyebrow "I don't eat humans and I'm already bigger than any of the Felarya Naga's I've seen, and since I'm a Ki user I can increase my speed and strength at will." he almost laughed, but stopped "Rule my world? Not likely. I'm an explorer, my abilities are lower than the actual warriors because I focus on exploring over gaining power, not because of my diet."

He listened to the second part about not telling anyone and frowned "Good point, though I'm still not very fond of the idea. Anyway I haven't tired to convine you to stop eating humans, so is there any chance you could stop trying to convince me to start? I really don't like the idea."

“Oh, nonsense. I know you don’t like to eat living meat. I’ve got some dried fish that would be good for the road. They taste good and will keep well,” The dridder mother said, “Oh, and my children have a couple of new pets, just so you know.” The dridder mother scurried to the pantry, and began wrapping up a large batch of dried fish in a silk cloth.

The children looked up as their older cousin came into the room. They squealed with delight upon seeing their beloved relative. They largely forgot about Rose and Aeille for the moment as they rushed to see their older cousin, clambering up onto his back and shoulders, turning their rapid fire questions on him.

“Hi cousin! Did you come to play some?”
“Could you take us for a ride?”
“Didja bring your armor again?”
“Got any new stories to tell?”
“Could we go with you? I bet I can scare off those nagas!”
“Do you think I’ll be as tall as you soon?”
“Did you see our new pets?”
“Yeah! We got a couple of fairies, a blue one and a neko fairy!”
“The blue fairy was hurt, but we’re nursing her back to health.”

This last few questions and statements set off a flurry of new activity. Several of the dridder children climbed off their cousin to get Rose and Aeille and bring them forward to show the larger dridder.

“So, um…hi?” Aeille asked uncertainly, looking up at the huge dridder and removing some of the bandages covering her face. “Um…I’m Aeille, and the neko is Rose. Good to meet you mister…um, what’s your name?”

"Thanks Aunt, I really appreciate that" answered the big dridder. before he got swarmed by his younger cousins and his ears assailed with their chatter, he smiled.

"Whow, slow down tykes, I'll stay as long as I can, really, but I do have to go soon. I'll take you all on a big ride when I come home tomorrow, I promise. I did, I did bring my armour, it's just over there behind me, but dont touch it, it's really sharp, you don't wanna cut yourselves again do ya? I do have a few stories to tell, but I'll tell them all and more tomorrow, I promise. Heh I bet you could at that, maybe when you get a little older and bigger I could take you on a patrol, But you have to eat lots to get big and strong, and you have to work hard, train every day so you can fight like we do, do that, and listen well to your mother, and you'd be a good warrior. Yup, eat well, and train hard, and you'd be big and strong before ya know it! Hmm? Pets?" The big cousin answered each question, but raised his head a little.

"Hi, I'm Soren"

"i'm not a fairy"Rose says looking up at soren and then at the dridder children, a couple were holding her hand,although she had no idea why it was quite obvious that escape was impossible,with two large dridders around,not to mention the children and all he webs.Rose jumped slightly one of the dridder children had started stroking her tail again,she let out a long sigh looking down at the dridder children,before she atempted to work her way through the crowd bak to the sleeping web the children had given her,this was not easy as the dridder children were all around her and she found it difficult to move around them.

Eventually however rose made her way back to the sleeping web were she sat down, laying upon it's soft silk that made it,rose watched the dridder chilldren curiously,half her mind was telling to run for it because she was scared,the other half was telling her to stay,so she didn't let the children down,more thoughts went through her head as she watched the dridder children.

"hmm...how about this then?" Verira said and put her palms together. "what if you eat only meat for a day" She said with a smile "and i will eat only fruit for a day" That statement gave a shake from the tip of her tail, to the top of her head.

“Soren. Well, good to ack!” Aeille shouted as one of the dridder children grabbed her and started climbing up Soren. The child climbed out onto his hand and held up Aeille for Soren to see closely.

“See! Here’s the blue one! She’s got a busted wing, but we got her bandaged up good,” The child said, pointing to all the silk bandages that had been wrapped around Aeille. “We’re taking good care of her. She’ll be good as new before long!”

“This is rather embarrassing…” Aeille grumbled, but the dridder child paid no heed to her as she showed off her medical skills. “Hey! I’ve got an idea! I know a game that you can play. The humans call it soccer. Wanna try it? Do you have a ball we can use?”

“Sure! Lots!” Another said, and rushed off to another part of the web, and dug around in one filled with toys, returning with a crude rubber ball.

“Right, here’s how it goes,” Aeille explained. “In this game, you form two teams. Each team tries to kick the ball into the other team’s goal to score points. The trick is, you can’t use your hands or arms to move the ball. Anyway, we’ve got eleven dridders, so we’re going to need one more player if we’re going to have even teams.”

“Cousin Soren? Wanna play?” Another dridder child asked.

“Um, he might be a bit big. How about you ask Rose?” Aeille suggested.

“Hey neko fairy? Rose? Wanna play soccer with us?” one of the dridder children asked, coming up next to the sleeping web where Rose was resting.

Soren smiled and said, it was a pleasure to meet the two of you, I'll have to miss out on the game of soccer, Aille is right, I'm a bit TOO big for that game, and besides, I gotta go talk to your mother, OK?" he said before getting up off the floor and straightening up, he scuttled out of the nursery and towards the pantry.

"Pets, ey aunt...? Heh, that was probably a good move, it'll get the kids used to being around bi-peds, but the injured blue one, she's a storm sprite... Be cautious with her" Soren said, then smiled again. "She seems nice enough though... Aunt, We need to talk, or at least I do..."he added, his attitude changed dramatically.

Ha'dara thought for a second "Sounds fair. There are enough animals and fish around." He started thinking again, then raised an eyebrow "As for what you said before, how will I know you haven't been sneaking a few in when I'm not around?"

Rose smiled getting to her feet,she glanced down at the dridder child and ruffled her hair gently with her hand,she looked around the children seemed realy exited about the game known as soccer,rose giggled "ok ok i'll play and....i'll even go easy on you because your children"rose says a grin now upon her face,'maybe' rose thought 'maybe i could sneak away during the game i don't want to stay around here with a bunch of dridders,' rose smiled looking around her "so were are we going to play this game then?"

Verira flicked Ha'daras forhead again. "you'll know that, because i'm staying with you for the whole day, to make sure YOU don't brake the deal" She said with a sly smile. 'i think i'm gonna ease a few humans into his mouth while he's sleeping' she thought and giggled.

Ha'dara rubbed his forehead "Easy on the flicking, are you going to do that every time I say something?" before looking around "There isn't much to do...how do people not go mad from boredom here?"

"hmmm..." Verira said and looked at the sky for a little while, then back at Ha'dara with a smirk on her face. "we, eat, sleep and...well, eat some more" she crossed her arms in a way that they pressed against her breasts. "oh and sometimes we have sex" She said with a giggle.

Ha'dara looked slightly uncertain about the last part and stayed silent for a few seconds, thinking, before finally saying "...I think my interest in exploring is starting to return..."

Verira flicked Ha'daras forehead yet again, though this time it was quite a bit harder. "i you actually think i meant , that i wanted to have sex with the guy, who made this giant wound on my tail, then you're really messed up" She said with a mean glare, while holding the part of her tail with the wound in front of Ha'dara.

“Yes, Soren, I know,” The dridder mother said, wrapping up the fish in silk for her nephew. “I’ll be careful with her. But right now, with her wing damaged, she can’t use her magic. Besides, I think she’ll be grateful I didn’t eat her or her neko friend.” The dridder mother paused as she noticed Soren’s tone changing. “What is it Soren? You can trust me. Tell me what’s weighing on you.”

<><><><><>

“Yey! Thanks Rose!” The dridder children said, helping Rose up and pulling her over to the middle of the room. A couple of the children pulled ropes of silk into new positions to make goals for themselves, as the rest began dividing themselves up into teams. There was much arguing over which team got to have Rose on it.

Aeille, temporarily forgotten at the moment, shrugged out of most of the silken bandages, and experimentally flapped her wings. She grimaced and immediately stopped, as the wing hurt too much to move. She tried drawing on her magical ability to grow, at least to Rose’s size, but she only managed to gain an inch or two after even heavy concentration. Grumbling, he ran over to Rose’s foot and started climbing.

“Phew…that’s harder than it looks…I wish I could fly…” Aeille said, breathing hard as she finally pulled herself up onto Rose’s shoulder. “Well, things could be worse…playing nursemaid to a bunch of children beats getting eaten any day. Besides, they are really cute.” Aeille stood on Rose’s shoulder, so her head was just outside her ear. When she started speaking again, she spoke soft enough so only Rose could hear. “But if you want my advice, don’t try making a break for it just yet. You’re the kid’s newest toy right now, they’d notice you went missing pretty quick. Wait a little bit for them to loose interest, and –YIPE!” Aeille dropped down to lay flat on Rose’s shoulder as the rubber ball came flying in their direction, with the dridder children running after it. Having started the game of soccer, the children forgot most of the rules and teams, and simply had fun chasing the ball and kicking it around. A few of them, to get around the ‘no hands’ rule, instead used long strands of sticky silk to grab the ball and fling it in a new direction.

Rose giggled "ok this is fun"she says, dodging the ball again as it went flying straight past her head again she managed to kick the ball,but the ball bounced hitting the cave wall and into one of the goals,the ball bounced straight back out hitting rose in the face,surprised rose fell back landing softly on her butt.Rose couldn't help but laugh she found what had just happened to her quite amusing,she looked around her at the dridder children before lying back onto the cave floor only o find that for some reason she couldn't get back up again the floor wasn't very sticky so she figured the kids had done something to her "hey um little dridders what's going your not gonna play doctor with me like you did to Aeille only i can't get up"

"Well, you've beel like a mother to me ever since I was smaller than your kids are now, when the war claimed my parents and my siblings... so I want to know from you, do you think I should be fighting a war for a cause I don't beleive in?" Soren asked, his heart was being tugged in many directions, he didn't beleive he was treasonous, he would definitely fight to protect his people if they where threatened, but the Nagas never pressed the innumerable opportunities to strike down the Dridders beyond their own borders, it was always us driving into them and being repulsed... the Dridders where the clear agitators.

(I’ve decided that the dridder mother will be named Elvari, or Elvi for short)

“Soren…I’ve struggled with this very question myself,” Elvari said softly. “I’ve questioned myself every time I look at my children. Is this the sort of world I want them to grow up in? Where they would be expected to become soldiers to keep this pointless fighting going? When …when…” The dridder pause a moment, emotion catching up to her. She fell silent, and dabbed her eyes with a silk cloth. After a moment, she composed herself and resumed speaking. “When they brought back the body of my husband, I swore I wouldn’t lift a sword again. I devoted myself to being a mother, now that the little ones had no father they would need me all the more. Nor would I risk leaving them orphaned. I believed it was the right thing to do, and I persevered with it, despite the obvious disapproval of the elders.”

“What I’m trying to say, Soren, is you should do what is right. If you don’t think fighting in this war is right, then you shouldn’t. It won’t be easy, but it can be done,” Elvari said, hugging Soren again. “Whichever way you choose, you can count on me to with you all the way.”

<><><><><>
Most of the dridder children continued playing their unique version of soccer, continually snagging the ball with silk ropes. However, a few clustered around Rose.

“Hey Rosie? Are you okay?”
“That hit with the ball looked like it hurt.”
“Can you still move your arms?”
“Maybe we should bandage her, like we did with the other fairy?”

The dridder children quickly agreed on this idea, and lifted her up out of the way of the other children playing with the ball. They quickly set about wrapping anything that remotely resembled a scratch in silk.

“Just smile and nod, Rose, you ain’t getting out of it,” Aeille said, riding on Rose as the dridders carried her to the sleeping web. The dridders decided that feeding their ‘patient’ would be a good idea, and a couple snuck off into the larder. They returned with a silk wrapped bundle filled with candied fruit. They offered some to Rose, but mostly snacked on it themselves. Before long, all the children were huddling around and digging into the silk bundle to get themselves some of the candy.

"it's rose,not rosie"Rose says taking a handfull of the candy and quickly eating the fruit down she smiled looking around at her bandaged body,there was silk almost coating her entire body she noticed that a couple of the children seemed to have taken her pants and panties away from her body.Rose smiled to herself looking around at the dridder children she could see the exit clearly from here,rose sat up looking at Aeille a smile on her face,Rose looked again at the dridder children "so um kids what do you wish to do now"

"Yes, I know, but there's more to it... I'm worried about our people. I Know the history well enough to see that no matter how long or hard we fight, we'd never win this war. I mean they fought us to a stand-still at every turn, then theres at least 2 separate Guardian interventions against us, and then the desert nagas that wiped out our southern borders... Fate isn't on our side in this fight... And why should it be, WE started all this because of racial differences, not because the Nagas actually did anything wrong... I don't believe the propaganda the cheiftains are spewing out..." Soren stated, letting all his pent up emotions fly...

“Soren, don’t think you’re alone. There are many beside you that feel this way. I feel that way too. But we dare not speak out against the chieftains yet, and risk their anger. We would only be drowned out by the hot heads and the war mongers who lust for battle,” Elvari said softly. She glanced toward the door.

“Soren, I’m going to share something with you. I beg you to say nothing of it to anyone else,” Elvari said, practically whispering now. “There are those who believe this war will doom us and our culture. Some say it is only a matter of time before the Guardians tire of the race of dridders as a whole, and reach out their hands to silence us once and for all. Some wish to find a new home altogether, away from this war. A few are looking for places where we would be safe from the nagas and the chieftains anger. I know that you are a loyal soldier and a good dridder, but there may come a time that we decide to stop serving a chief that keeps sending dridders to die for no reason aside from his own hatred.”

<><><><><><>
The dridder children clustered around Rose, debating what they should do next.

“Hmm, what to do now?”
“Hey, how about we show her our secret place?”
“I dunno, can she climb up there?”
“She’s a neko fairy! She doesn’t need to climb, stupid!”
“Do ya wanna come? It’s really pretty.
“Yeah, it’s got a good view.”
“We’ve got some treasure hidden there too, shiny rocks, pretty feathers and-”
“Shhh! The treasure supposed to be a secret!”
“But so is the secret place!”

“A good view? A good view of what I wonder. The forest maybe?” Aeille wondered, just loud enough for Rose to hear. “Hey Rose, I’d like to see this ‘secret place’ of theirs, might be worth looking into, once we’re tired of being pets. Buuuut, with my wing broken, I can’t fly. You mind if I hitch a ride with you?” Aeille asked. Before Rose had a chance to answer, Aeille already found herself a comfortable spot nestled under one of Rose’s silk bandages.