[P] bone to rune; skull to dust

[Turhan]

“ bone to rune ”

The smile on the stranger was lost to him entirely, blind eyes rolled beneath the sunbleached, empty sockets of the coo he wore as a headpiece and saw nothing even if they concentrated on Silas who stood before him.  The questions came quickly, he new better to never expect them, but still felt surprised when the Mlendo went after the Elder's strange looks first and foremost.  It lead the old man to believe that Silas was an explorer from beyond - that he had found his way here more or less by some unceremonial means.  The Ilati flicked a heavily jeweled ear to shoe some six-legged stowaway off of him then let out a deep sigh.  It was possible that it could have been mistaken for exasperation - but he was old and breathing was not always easy.  


Turhan's head turned this way and that, as if waiting for someone else to approach them, but in truth he was trying to understand the Mlendo's curiousity.  What words would he need to use to communicate effectively back to the outsider?  Should he just take Silas home with him to eat a meal with the other tribesmen so he could understand?  


"I kill the coo.  It was my Rite. "  He explained the mask first, tried to. A lot of 'humming' and 'umming' made the old man's efforts more noticeable.  "I kill the coo with tooth that healer made."   He pulled his lips back for an impressively wide angle of the fearsome predator teeth that had been carefully filed and long-since maintained.  His hooves had been split at a young age, and upon closer inspection - one could see that his feet were not indexed for such an abnormal modification and they did not splay like toes.  Turhan seemed to do just fine with them all the same - never in his life had he needed to run fast or far, Tinea had been his home and only on the rarest of occasions did he travel past the known lands for spiritual reasons.  


"I show you why.  You come with me, have feast and fire with Ilati then you understand."  The invite was honest and simple, the underlying threat of what would happen to Silas if he upset anyone was not yet revealed - but Turhan did not feel the need to issue the disclaimer for himself or for the rest of his tribe.  If the Mlendo was truly intelligent, he'd live to tell the incredible story of his night in the Elder's den as he broke bread with some of Vespera's most blessed peoples.

T U R H A N
skull to dust

@Silas  Jane Goodall gets invited to dinner by the silverback to eat leaves and nunsutch with the gorillas.   I got nothing.  LOL.