[Lucius Atius Cato]

The voice coming over her shoulder would have demanded the attention of anyone paying more attention to the real world, but Pavan rarely did that. Still facing the Pid, she raised a hand behind her, gently shushing the Rohn as she addressed her clan’s mount. “How many times?!” he would be able to hear her mutter. “Are we not feeding you enough? Akalp was right – you never think about anything other than food!” Then a gasp. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t pretend to hear that!”

Palming the Pid off for now, Pavan turned to face the stranger. Her face showed something like embarrassment tinged with exhaustion, like this kind of thing was not something she was unfamiliar with – she did drive a very hungry Pidanda. “Yes. This is my bug.”

[Lucius Atius Cato]

Aha! Finally, she had it in her grasp. Pavan the Pid-Driver seemed elated by this, letting out a sharp breath as a kind of stifled celebration of the imminent destruction of that which had bothered her for so long. The Pid itself was menacing, its countless articulating legs, body clad in dull armour, scuttling closer and closer with each passing moment. As it drew closer, Pavan drew her knife made from whittled Thrisde mandible and brandished it at her opponent. “This is the last time you get in my way!” she snapped as she brought the blade across her enemy.

The last real lock of hair on her head fell into her hand, removed from her body, like the rest of her hair, for blocking her line of sight or getting in her face one too many times. She was left with a few very short patches, some peach fuzz and bald spots covering the rest of her head. Much more practical.

Now she was free to look up and see the spear-wielding rider in front of her – the one about to be set upon by [one of] the biggest[s] bug in the shi. “What are you doing?!” she screamed down at the capped head of the beast she was sitting on. “We don’t eat people!” Normally Pavan would take a moment to appreciate the falsity of her exclamation – of course we eat people; just not now because food wasn’t that scarce – but right now she was sliding down the front hood of the Pid’, landing in the loose soil in front of it, spreading her arms in an effort to command it to stop. It didn’t. So she took her big stick and bashed it between the eyes a few times, grunting “stop” with each blow. That seemed to work.