[Comm] Statue and Storm

The sky was grey. The sort of grey that preceded storms and their accompanying floods. Not ideal weather, in other words, for the sort of thing that the two ketucari currently digging in the mud were up to. Heat permeated through their pelts, a wretched humidity that clawed at their lungs and threatened to drown them on dry land. Yet, side by side, they dug.

They were on the north side of a massive pillar of stone, surrounded by lush greenery and the buzzing of flies and skittering of small rodents who had lived long enough to realize that a ketucari was not likely to attack something much smaller than a cat. Ketucari presently engrossed in frantic digging were no threat at all. They were really more of a threat to themselves, in the heat and coming storm. Great clumps of mud were dragged up and scooted behind the ketucari into a mesh bag.
This wasn't how things were usually done, but they didn't have much time. As if to remind them of this fact, a distant rumble rolled across the sky.

The kadin's head snapped up, and she fixed her blue blue blue eyes on the tumultuous sky, as best as she could through the thick jungle growing above her. The roiling clouds slid past them, moving rapidly west. At her left, the toa made a triumphant noise with his front half in the earth, and began to grunt with the effort of hauling himself back out with what he'd found.

"Found it?" The kadin asked, turning her attention to her companion.

"Part." he answered, blue sides heaving with effort. He pulled himself out of their hole. His face, chest, and forelegs were caked with the dark mud. He held what appeared to be a large, mud covered rock in his paws. It was nearly as large as his head. "There's two more." he added, eyes shining. "You were right, Deja Vu. It's all here."
Though her dark feathers masked it, Deja Vu was covered in just as much mud. her crest of feathers stuck together when she flicked them in interest and dove back into the ground. In moments she was dragging herself back out with another section of rock. While she braced it, her companion slithered back into the hole to drag out the third piece.

Thunder rolled again. From the east, a susurration filled the air, approaching the pair. Rodents scampered into hiding, and the ketucari braced themselves. With the strength of a stampede, the gale preceding the storm slammed into them hard enough that the toa skidded back almost the length of his legs, leaving a thick track through the mud. It passed, leaving them in momentary silence, except more distant leaves inviting the storm. At once, the humidity and heat plummeted. More slowly, the grey sky darkened, and took an almost yellow hue.
"Timing couldn't be better." Deja Vu said, speaking over the gale. "Lets get these back to Alcmene before the storm gets here."
"Bit late for that." the toa answered, shaking himself. The distant applause of the leaves grew into a roar, growing ever nearer.
Overhead, lightning lanced across the sky.

The pair took some ropes from their supplies and carefully, swiftly knotted the statue parts, and tied two to Deja Vu, and one to the toa. Their bag of mud they threw over the toa's shoulders, and as one, they turned and raced south, between the quaking trees and jagged stones. Their burdens heavy, but they were triumphant. Now it was just a matter of protecting the lumps of grey statuary until they could be repaired.

==

What had followed on the tail of the gale was a wall of water roaring out of the sky. Deja Vu and her companion slopped between ferns beaten flat by the rain, and splashed through puddles and the transient waterfalls sloshing off of the cliffs around them. A series of droning whistles accompanied the storm from somewhere north, HianLian's Flute crying out with the wind.

The toa took the lead, using his broader shoulders and to make space between swaying branches. Ducking and weaving until he took them into the space between two towering cliff faces. Uphill against the mud, through rising water that sucked at their paws and begged to drag them back down. "Almost there!" He called back to Deja Vu. The kadin sank her claws into the earth, which grew more solid with every foot of purchase. Between these mountains, the ferns disappeared, and the trees grew thin. The path was narrow, and if they didn't hurry it would drown them. So they hurried. Deja Vu's shoulders burned with the effort put into her climb, and her companion panted, snapping at the water. But they made good progress. The cliffs widened about when their ears popped, and they surged forward across the top of the plateau to the sturdy wooden house that was their goal.

Single storied, approximately the size of a barn, just as red, with a dark sloping, almost waving roof. Bright golden light gleamed from its thin windows. Even as they approached, the broad door swung outward, silhouetting a massive ketucari.
"Inside!" a kadin's voice demanded. "There are towels, shake yourselves off as well!"

They barelled past her and skidded to twin stops. The toa deposited his bag of mud and statue piece with heavy Thunks against the wooden floor, and shook himself violently like he was wringing out a rag that was himself. Beside him, Deja Vu sidestepped the flying mud and water to drop her own chunks of rock, and followed his lead.
Their host closed the door behind them, slid the massive bolt across it.
The roar of the rain changed in tenor, now separated from them by the shingles on the roof. Lightning cracked and thunder barked.

From further inside, voice rang out. "Amihan!" from a smaller black-and-tan toa, and "There you are, Deja!" from smooth-feathered kadin with a golden coat.

Amihan, the blue toa, shivered and grabbed a towel, tossing it over himself. "Hey Des. Tess. Sorry if we worried ya." he lowered his head to greet his mate, bumping foreheads with Des. "Didn't realize it would come in that quick."

"Speak for yourself." Deja Vu huffed, striding over to Tess to rest her chin across her shoulders. Tess rolled her eyes, took the towel Des offered across, and wrapped it around Deja Vu's shoulders.

Behind them, their host was investigating their haul. A massive kadin, with yellow fur stained with a dark purple pattern and points, and tall arching horns from atop her head. Scars decorated most of her. More impressive than any of that, however, were her tusks.
Separate from her primary tusks, one of which had been replaced with a gold implant, the kadin had another set that jutted from alongside her nasal passage, out into the air in front of her. The right capped in golden jewelry.
Her eyes were fixed on their goodies, casually rolling the statue bits.

"Which one of you found it?" she asked.

"Deja Vu did." Amihan answered, turning to face her and take the chance to press his side—still sopping wet—against Des's. "Did we get it right?"

Deja Vu wandered deeper inside. The space was large. To one corner, a ketucari-friendly kitchen. To another, the floor dipped into a living space with rice-mat flooring and plush cushions. Behind her, a complex rack of clay with a modified clay wheel, and in the final corner, a space marked by privacy screens that blocked their host's nest from sight.

The vibrant kadin ignored Amihan's question, instead sitting back and carefully placing the pieces of the statue atop each other. As she placed and rotated the pieces, their whole shape became clearer. The base had broken away from the feet at some point while it was under the earth. The entity depicted by the stone was posed not unlike one of the river dragons from Earth, body coiled and folded like waves. Its face almost feline but for the defined lips and outwardly curled teeth. Tusks. A hooped ring between its nostrils. Its tail wrapped in more rings. The body itself had broken into two pieces, but the kadin put them together.

"Didja think I was gonna trick ya?" she asked, finally meeting Amihan's eyes. He looked away, laughing, and nibbled the base of Des's frill. Des, to his credit, allowed this with no complaint.

"It's Hian Lian, there can't be that many buried statues of him around here. Even if this is his zone." Deja Vu complained, stepping into the living area and throwing herself across some pillows, quickly followed and joined by Tess. "Why'd you want us to grab this thing anyways?"

"Cause you're going to fix it." Said the kadin, flicking her tail and snorting her bemusement. "And restore the belief to it."

Amihan blinked at that, perking his ears. "Magic, Alcmene? You want us to put magic in it?" he straightened himself, leaning forward, grinning. "What kind?"

"It's like his vestiges." she said. "But stone." she shifted, grinned. "You'll see once you've fixed it."

Amihan looked at Deja Vu, Deja Vu looked at Amihan. They shared the look, uncertain and wary. Deja Vu's ears angled back, Amihan's feathers ruffled. Truthfully they didn't know their host very well. She'd been quite helful since they'd left the Horns, and they'd been learning a lot from her, but she was forceful, and not always forthcoming with information.
If she knew their thoughts from their expressions she didn't show it. "You are going to fix it." she said, simply, leaving no room for questioning the decision. "It's important to be able to restore the artifacts you dig up." She stood, turned, and wandered towards the clay wheels.

"Alcmene," Amihan ventured, swallowing his nerves. "What do you gain from us fixing that for you? Or finding it?"

She paused, looking back at him over her withers, expression strange and unreadable. "…You're not ready to hear about that. Ain't a happy story." she said, and grabbed her clay. "You able to take a two-legger form? Makes this part easier."

"I can." Deja Vu said, and trotted over to the wheels, body Changing as she went, into a human woman with black hair. Alcmene jerked her chin at her.

"Tie that hair back, you don't want it in the clay. Amihan, you want to learn or do you want to stand there looking stupid?"

Amihan sighed, turned to give Des's frill a lick, and then strayed over. It was important to learn, even if they didn't fully trust their host. …And with the thunder rolling overhead it wasn't like they had much other choice.