Stumbling over Success
Jers Kelit had never been someone who people would describe as "friendly looking". He had a very serious personality, bordering on dour much of the time, which reflected in the lines of his face. That his face was also marred with many small nicks and scars from his time in the forest, or his service with the militia, didn't help.
Right now, he wasn't just "not friendly", but downright furious.
"What the drek were you thinking?" he hissed at his son Delv with a glare, waving to where a squad of Jaegers had, for lack of a better term, taken custody of what was unmistakably a young Roachrhino. A very young one, if his eyes didn't betray him. Obviously nervous, though the canister of tree sap that a girl was presenting it seemed to help keep it from outright panicking.
"Capturing animals - ANY animal - is a job for a large team of very experienced, very well-trained, and very well-equipped hunters, woodsmen, and Jaegers. NOT two students who haven't even finished their apprenticeship, and whose ONLY duty it was to accompany the sap gatherers to safely get some more experience in the forest itself!"
"We didn't capture it!" Delv protested.
"Oh?" Jers drawled. "I suppose I'm hallucinating that huge, armored critter over there, then? Or maybe you're telling me that you stumbled over it somehow?"
"Yes!" Delv answered, earning a confused glare from his father. "We did stumble over it, kinda…"
"Explain," his father prompted him with a frown.
"Well, okay. The group we were with had reached their work area, and we - that is, Krinn and I - figured that it was kinda boring to just stand around, and not really getting us much 'experience' in the forest. So we went to the supervisor to ask him whether we could help to patrol the inner perimeter, because it could give us some actual experience. And I figured that it might let me shoot a Tree Louse or two for dinner, and… well… erm…"
"Out with it, boy!" his father scowled.
"I… er… kinda like spending time alone with Krinn," Delv admitted somewhat bashfully, but then quickly pressed on. "The supervisor figured with other hunters and militiamen patrolling the outer perimeter it should be safe enough, so he gave us the okay. We went out, kept up regular check-ins with the group via radio, took out some pests, called in when we came across anything dangerous, like Grenade Fruit, and so on. Except that, well, we came across this little guy besides his dead mother. I'm not sure what killed her, or why they were alone, rather than with a herd. Krinn wanted to just kill him and get a bonus for all the meat and the skin and carapace, but I remembered how they were trying to figure out how to tame and domesticate these, and how you'd you'd gotten favors for bringing the whitecoats pieces of meat for study when they'd still been working on that, so I convinced her that we should at least try and bring it back, so they could try out their theories on it. Except that, well, I didn't have a clue how we'd manage that, until Krinn remembered that her dad had accompanied some whitecoats when they'd been studying what the animals here eat, and how Roachrhinos had that horn so they could get through treebark and at the sap, so she stayed there while I went back to the group, convinced the supervisor of the idea, and returned with some canisters of raw tree sap. Krinn fed it, getting it to follow us, and, well, here we are…"
Trailing off, Delv shrunk in a bit on himself as his father's glare intensified. He had to admit that in hindsight it really was a strange story, and probably not the smartest, but at the time it had all seemed like a really good idea.
"Fine," his father grumbled after a while. "So you and… Krinn… were just being incredibly reckless and stupid, rather than suicidally so. Doesn't mean you're going to get off punishment-free. Let's start with grounding you for the next three months, during which time you will also be doing all of the chores in the house. And no network-access, either. In fact, I think I'll take away your datapad altogether until your punishment is over. I will also be talking with your mother about what further measures we should take, so that something like this won't happen again."
"Yes, father," Delv sighed. He definitely wasn't looking forward to the near future, in particular the long rants and lectures he'd undoubtedly get from his mother. But watching Krinn how she was feeding the Roachrhino calf with a grin - a grin that widened when she noticed him looking at her and prompted a smile of his own - he figured that it was worth it.
