Spotted

A lone man traversed the jungle with practiced steps, a fishing net draped over his shoulders to keep the bugs at bay and a long fishing net in his hand. He kept a single knife on his hip, but the blond man paid it no attention.

The jungle was kind to Leandro. From the small amount of time he spent under the sun he could tell it was harsh, yet the canopy shielded him in shade. He had long grown accustomed to the humidity - he even found it relaxing. And when the air was too thick, he cupped his hands and filled them with moisture from the air, and he drank it. It blended with the sweat on his hands, but he didn’t mind.

Every few trees he passed he checked for spider webs - he distinctly remembered his brother bringing him jars of live spiders and silently demanding him to identify them. Perhaps, Leandro thought, he would stop to visit his brothers and sisters, since he would not be far from their old home. If he could find Tereza, he would stop and visit her as well. It had been a while since he last visited, although the last time he was able to visit her, their youngest brother had died. It had not been pleasant, and he did not relish the idea of revisiting Seran.

But he needed to replenish his supplies. He would need a small amount of money to pay for the flint, more if he wanted to purchase spare knives. He supposed he could get by with the one he had recovered, but it was nice to have multiple tools - some for gutting fish, some for carving spears, some for cutting fruit from trees. He’d gotten used to it - spoiled. Surya would be ashamed, Leandro thought with nervous grin.

As he trekked through the mud, hoping to find a sister river to the one he had drifted down before, he stopped. He ran his hands over a nearby tree, fingering the wounds left by a territorial jaguar. “Well isn’t dat somet'ing...”

He half expected to be attacked right then and there, and he braced his net. It was almost exciting - to come close to one of the cats was dangerous but rewarding. They were beautiful animals - in more ways than one. Leandro’s understanding was that their pelts were worth more than just a few silvers. Amongst the chaos in the market, he had seen their pelts sprawled out across a table with a woman yelling, 'Only twenty silvers,' for a shredded pelt. Leandro was more interested in watching one climb.

“Here kitty kitty,” Leandro murmured, eying the trees for any sign of a nearby jaguar. “Where are you?”

He had no real intention of hunting a jaguar - he was far too concerned with finding his next adventure to bother hunting large and dangerous animals. That was more of Surya’s forte - he could bend the trees to his will. Leandro could wash the jaguar downstream, but only after he found the river.

He kept walking, a little more alert than he had been before. Spiders were still a worry, and he continued to examine the trees as he passed by. There were more claw marks, long gashes across the higher trees - that Jaguar had been climbing. Maybe chasing monkeys - Leandro wouldn’t mind seeing one of those either. "De jungle is kind today."

sweat ran across Lestelle's closed eyes. It was horribly hot in the middle of the day. Her vine hammock had held her comfortably through the night, but the comfort hadn't helped her nerves as she laid awake last night.

As the the forest grew dark the night before, Lestelle had stopped to collect a sample of Healer's Tea leaves that were growing along the dirt path. Unknown to her, as she placed the leaves in her pouch, a silent spotted hunter crept in the leaves behind her.

With her pouch filled, Lestelle called down a thick vine from the trees to carry her back into the canopy, wrapping it around her forearm. But as she tied her pouch closed with her free hand, vicious teeth and claws backed by two hundred pounds of muscle dug into her arm and back. By reflex the vine quickly pulled Lestelle up, so forcibly that it nearly dislocated her shoulder. Below her Lestelle saw a large jaguar, with her own blood on its bared teeth.

The vine brought her up at least thirty feet, setting her down near the base of a thick branch. Lestelle leaned back against the trunk of the tree, gripping her wounded arm. She reached into her pouch, and took out a clump of tea leaves. She didn't have the equipment necessary to make a salve of is, so she started crushing them in her hand. An angry growl drew Lestelle's attention down below her, and she saw the jaguar climbing after her, already a third of the way to her branch.

She spread the crushed leaves into her forearm, coagulating the wound enough for her to use it to climb. Then she ran down the length of the branch, which was almost twenty feet long. Near the end, she climbed down and gripped onto the vines on the underside of the branch. She wove these vines into a hammock below her, and grew leaves all along their tendrils, hiding her from sight. In a few moments, she heard the low growl of the beast stalk above her, then pass by. She never heard the beast climb or land, so she stayed alert for hours into the night, eventually falling asleep near dawn.

Now it was just past noon, and the heat and humidity had woken Lestelle up. As she stirred, her arm ached. The wounds were beginning to heal, but the were sore and stiff. Hopefully she hadn't gotten an infection, but she'd have to prepare a potion back at home to be certain. As she wiped the sweat from her forehead, she heard a soft man's voice. "Here kitty kitty..." Lestelle turned her head and moved some of the leaves below her.

A blond man was looking up into the trees. He had a fishing net across his shoulder and was walking towards Lestelle. Lestelle rolled onto her stomach and pushed more leaves apart, enough for her to stick her head out. She called down to him "Hey! Up here!"

Startled by the sound of a woman's voice, Leandro braced his net like a polearm. He paused, looking up into the trees again. A woman with red-brown hair peeked out between some leaves, and upon closer inspection Leandro surmised that she was suspended by the vines around the branch. "What are you doing up dere?" he called.

He approached the tree she hung from, noticing stains of blood on some nearby leaves. It occurred to him that the woman might be hurt, that the jaguar's prey had been her. Leandro tensed at this thought, and listened. The forest was quiet save for chirping insects and distant bird-songs, and the soft squelch of mud beneath his boots. When he reached the base of the tree she hung from, he set his net down. He had it in his head to climb up to get her, but how would he get her down?

He gathered his net and ran forward. "How did you get up dere anyway?"

If she was indeed injured, it was a good question. Maybe, if she was like his brother, and his mother, and she could bend the plants to her will, she had caused the tree to reach down and gather her up. Of all the possibilities, likely or not, Leandro preferred this one. If it was true, she could get an even better vantage point, and would help him find the river quickly.

"My boat is only a kilometer or so dat way," he called, waving back the way he came. He shrugged the mesh to give his arms more room. "Dere's a river down this way - can you see it?"

Leandro was a well muscled man, more than able to carry a canoe full of fish, but he did not relish the idea of carrying an injured woman miles through dense jungle, filled with all manner of creatures who would gladly do them harm. As much as Leandro enjoyed traversing the mucky floor, deadweight was no better than a carcass. Perhaps, in his boat, he could speed them each upstream.

He wouldn't leave immediately. If she was wounded, she might not even want him to.

It was times like these when Leandro missed living with his family in their makeshift tree home. If it had been him, or Surya, his mother would have scolded them for their recklessness and politely ask Dian to fix them, and his brother would silently oblige. But his family was far from here, and there was only him, the woman, and perhaps a still-lurking jungle cat.

"Do you need help?" he asked. He didn't specify - getting down, getting to a healer, he just hoped she wouldn't think he knew what she needed. "I can take you to de city if I get my boat on de right river."