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Another day, another lair task. The war chieftain waited for the others to arrive, giving each a small nod in greeting. Shik might have even gotten something close to a small smile from the horsewoman, but as she lacked experience in the common gesture, it likely just looked very out of place on her face. The other two horsewomen were recognizable to her. She knew their names, knew they were sisters, but little else. She might not have had many friends back on the isle of war, but she had made it her business to at least know the names of those she might have to work with in the future.

Shaheen wasn't trying to pull rank on the others. Indeed, considering how out of sorts she'd been lately with the voices in her head getting worse, it would have probably been better to leave somebody else in charge of this little expedition. But her pride just wouldn't allow for it. She was a chieftain, she was supposed to be a leading example. And besides that, she had been the first to arrive. And so, by the time the others had gotten there, she'd already chosen the 'parasite' that they would use to create their blight; crows.

The town itself was quite obviously a farming community, sprawling and surrounded by fields of crops, with a river winding nearby. The perfect setting for their task.

"So, now that we're all here, I guess we should get started." Some form of excitement for what they were about to do glimmered in the chieftains golden eyes. Harvesting fear by destroying humans...or at least, by destroying their land. It didn't get much better then that.





((I don't really care about post order to start with, so just post when you can and we'll go from there~))

Ever since the event known as prom, Nomiki had taken to following around her little sister rather rabidly. When they were both summoned by Shaheen for a task, Bacca was insanely excited while Nomi forced her concern into a mask of cool indifference. She couldn't always flutter after Bacca like a mother bird.

No matter how much she wanted to.

Landing lightly next to her sister, Nomi immediately crossed her arms across her chest, drew herself up to her tallest (which still only brought the top of her head to Shaheen's shoulder) and gave the other two horsemen a cool look as her wings folded comfortably against her lower back.

"Yes, blood of our enemies."

She sounded almost bored.

Bacca was...a lot more enthusiastic then Shaheen was expecting. The chieftain didn't find this to be a bad thing, by any means. Bathing in the blood of humans actually sounded quite nice. Relaxing, even. Unfortunately, however, that wasn't what they were here to do. She was going to have to burst the much smaller horsewoman's bubble in a moment, though until then she just offered her an answering smile in the form of a smirk before her attention was shifting towards the others.

Nomi was like the polar opposite of her sister, and it seemed as though she was actually bored at the prospect of killing humans. Shaheen frowned a little, feeling both curious and slightly confused at the reaction.

And then there was Shik.

...What the hell was wrong with his voice? As her attention snapped to him her eyes narrowed as she gave him a look that pretty much said "wtf". His entire demeanor seemed different. Like he was attempting to act smooth and refined instead of the rough and brutal man she was used to. What was he....

Shaheen was suddenly struck by an immense and overwhelming feeling of self doubt that was almost staggering as the whispers in her head intensified. When Shik asked his question her eyelids fluttered closed and she took a deep breath to steel herself, trying to concentrate through the sudden cacophony.

And then they faded to more manageable levels once more and she found herself with eyes blinking open, feeling slightly confused. "Hrm? Rocks?" She asked, clearly disoriented. "Don't---Don't be silly, Shikoba." She shook her head and turned away from him, over towards the makeshift cages of crows that were waiting, her attention shifting back towards Bacca and Nomi.

"I'm afraid very little blood will be shed here today. Our mission is to provide a blight, to create panic and discord." This was not the way Shaheen was used to fighting her battle, but it was what was being asked of them to do. "These crows will do the work for us. Imbue them with some fear, but not too much." Even as she spoke, it was clear in the chieftains eyes that she still wasn't feeling particularly well, but she was attempting to push past that.

She concentrated her fear, standing before the cages and forcing it forward, carefully, slowly.....

And then her control slipped. Her fear rushed forward in a much too concentrated mass and she grimaced as she stepped back.

Ooops.

Bacca accepted her bird carefully, fear prickling off of her fingertips as she squeezed the feathery beast.

Shik was here, like a glistening beacon of manliness, pectoral muscles tensed and ready, powerful biceps and triceps all ready and waiting like a powerful weapon glittering on the mantle.

And all their eyes went on him.

Bacca's breath caught in her throat, her thumb sliding up the struggling bird's neck.

The whispers bubbled up in her head, her one golden eye glowing for a moment as her brows furrowed. She was the smallest, the youngest there, the least likely, the left overs, and he was princely prize the vultures all circled around.

Her expression turned bitter towards her sister and chieftain, finally slamming her curved knife into the bird's chest. "Did I do it correctly, Chieftain?" She smiled sweetly.

Shik's chuckle grated on her, and she clenched her teeth against snapping on him. She was struggling just to get through her day, clearly finding even this one small task difficult to accomplish, and all he could do was laugh at her. It made something deep inside of her gut wrench, and brought her anger boiling to the surface, threatening to overflow. Like she really needed a reminder from him of how pathetic she'd become, or have him undermining her in front of the others. No. Just, no.

With some amount of extreme effort, however, she managed to keep her wayward emotions in check. She took a small step back away from the crows, arms crossing over her chest, her eyes almost glowing as she shifted her narrowed gaze to each war sister, then back to Shik again. She felt a sinking suspicion that something was going on here, and whatever it was, she didn't like it. Of course, she also found Shik attractive, but that wasn't what kept drawing her back to him over and over again. She'd known him since childhood. She felt like, at times, she could actually talk to him. These two, however, they were looking at him almost like he was a piece of meat and....

Her eyes widened slightly, realization settling in. He was enjoying it. He was...they were...

Shaheen would have face palmed then and there if it wasn't for the fact that they were in the middle of a task and she was still attempting keep a hold of at least a shred of her pride. The birds began to swell as more and more Fear was pumped into them, and Shaheen knew that it was too much.

"No." Her voice was practically a snarl that she directed towards Bacca. She could ignore Shik. That would just be for the best at this point. Ignore him and what he was doing, and hopefully show to Bacca that she had no interest in playing her little game to vie for his attention. She'd gotten more then her fair share of his attentions, recently, and was fairly certain she could get it again any time she wanted. "They're going to..."

"Explode", was how she would have finished that sentence, except that she didn't have to, because at that moment, they did. Blood splattered against her body, and black feathers rained down from above. A famine horseman muffled his laughter, then offered them locusts to replace the birds that they had destroyed.

"Of course, I agree." She said, her words directed at Shik even though she refused to look at him. "But these were the instructions given to us, to reap fear. If we don't do it correctly, we won't get anything." Except blood. Blood and violence, and carnage. It was tempting, oh so very tempting.

She sighed. "Let's just...do this stupid insect thing and if it doesn't pan out, we'll raze them to the ground."

Bacca's expression was trembling, contorted with a strange mixture of rage and jealousy, "I can do that. Anyone can do that. It's not that hard stop showing off, sister, I'll cut you in your sleep," her voice dipped down into a mutter as she glanced from horseman to horseman, her face flushing, a darker grey blossoming under the greyed half of her face as she glanced to Shik.

She knew she was younger than the other horsewomen. But she could still be impressive. She would win his favor he would see what a great and glorious warrior she was and he would lay at her feet on a pile of corpses while she lifted her sword up high-

The locusts suddenly popped like popcorn.

"AAAAARRRGGGGGGG!" Bacca threw the cage violently against a tree before crouching down with her arms around her head and stifled a miserable sob.

She was not crying in embarassment.

This was a horrible game Shik was playing. Absolutely horrible. He would be lucky if he didn't wake up the next morning with her blade pressed up against his neck. Still, she just closed her eyes and tilted her face upwards, praying to...something, (The great horse lord in the sky, perhaps?) to give her the strength to just get through this task so that she could leave and get away from the other three horsemen who were behaving like hormone driven teenagers.

And Shaheen definitely wasn't about to take part in whatever ploy Shik was attempting to pull off here. Nope. Even though each word he spoke to the others sent a stab of pain deep inside of her chest. Even if she suddenly felt incredibly nauseous. She was just going to shove those feelings deep down inside, lock them up, ignore them until this was over and she could find time to dig them up and mull them over later. Her face impassive, she finally opened her eyes, and turned towards the others.

"Oh, so good of you to get it right, on the second try." She snapped back towards Nomi, the other woman's snide comments finally grating on her to the point where she could no longer ignore them.

"And you, get up, you're embarrassing yourself. Act like a woman of war, not some sniveling child fighting over a toy." Yes, Shaheen was definitely losing her patience.

"And you." Finally, directing her glare towards Shik, which wasn't exactly new. "Stop encouraging them. If you want to take them to bed with you after this is over, fine, but right now, we still have a job to do." She hissed out that last part, then shook her head at him. Disappointed. Clearly disappointed in all of their behaviors thus far. And him telling Nomi he needed to learn control? HA! He was the biggest control freak that Shaheen had ever met! He even somehow managed to be worse then her parents, and that was saying something.

Now, with all that out of the way, she turned, grabbing for a locust and concentrating her fear into it. She still had some trouble, sure, but she could blame that on the insanity, and on the others being as aggravating as they were, riling her up and making her lose her calm center. Still, her locust didn't explode, so it was a far cry better then last time.

1+6+1+3+3(modifier)= 14

11 - 15: You have a LEVEL 2 creature. It is decent, and will do its job, with a moderate amount of Fear concentration.