Dancing Underneath the Trees

"You are being careless!"
Bryar was annoyed.
"What would have happened if you did not return?"
Bryar was beyond annoyed...Bryar was mad. When she returned to her hut in the tribe's camp the tribe Elders were waiting for her, and they were angery. She had left the hut, not only in the dead of night, but also without her escorts. She had not been outside of the tribes camp once without her escort since becoming Priestess, and they were not about to let her start it now.
"You should be more like BlueBell."
Bryar snorted a bit at this comment. It was her grandmother that one of the oldest of the elders spoke of. She had been the Priestess until about a year before, when her extreme age had finally gotten her called to join the Great Sky King and the Great Frith in the sky. The Priestesshood then was passed on to Bryar, since she had been born with the birth-right of the white ears while her mother had not. And even if her mother had been born with them...she and her father had been dead for nearly two years.
"If BlueBell were still alive I'll tell you now that we would not be having this conversation."
Bryar stood from her seat, glaring around the room, "are you all quite finished?"
The group of Elders were silent, but their eyes were all blazing.
"That's better," Bryar muttered as she walked closer to the Elders.
"Now, I left the tribe because I had a very important meeting with the locals that could not wait."
"That is no reason not to..."
"And I highly doubt they would have taken me seriously if I had taken my babysitters with me, do you not agree?"
They were all silent again, but only a few were still silently fuming.
"Glad that we all agree. And in light of you bringing up my grandmother, if it were up to her we still would be in our old homes starving! It is thanks to me that we are away from a dying forest full of danger."
"How do you know this one isn't dangerous! This one could have hunters...Giants! Giants have nearly wiped out the whole of the Speaking Elk"
Everyone in the room, Bryar included, shuddered. Giants saw Lapins as large, eatable, rabbits. It did not matter to them that they spoke and had intelegents, they were food. Not to mention the fact that Giants at their old home had been responsible for many deaths, Bryar's parents included.
"If there were Giants we would have heard them already, they are not excatly silent. Besides no one in my meeting mentioned them. And as for the Speaking Elk...we will be smart enough to move before we are all killed. Speech does not mean intelligence in their case."
There was a small murmer through the Elders as they discussed her actions. Bryar's temper was at an end.
"Am I not Priestess!" She shouted, "am I not the head of this tribe?"
The Elders hair bristled a bit, "it is not that Priestess Bryar," said the oldest member of the Elders, Cottonseed, who had always envied her grandmother "it is not that you are not our ruler...it is if we are wanting to stay with such a wreckless Priestess or not."
Cottonseed looked around at the other Elders, they nodded at her.
"We will let you know in the morning what we are planning."
Bryar blinked hard, what were they going to do.
"See you tomorrow Priestess Bryar. Whatever we decide will be for the best intrest of the tribe...that's all."
The Elders left together, Cottonseed with just the tinest smirk, and Bryar sank to the floor of her hut. Her head in her hand she sobbed quietly until sleep found her.

So...no one is updating this...so I will. Maybe I'll get someone started. Plus I hate for good stories to go unfinished.

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Bryar awoke before dawn, stiff and still a bit angry. She quickly dressed and prepared herself for the Tribe Elders to come back with what they had decided was best for the tribe.
She had just taken her seat in the Priestess chair, when the Elders piled into her house. She sat primly, awaiting what they had to say. Hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.
It was Cottonseed that spoke for the group.
"Bryar, we have come to a conclusion," she said, a smirk tugging on her lips. Bryar's hopes for a slap on the wrist were waining.
"What is it Elder Cottonseed? I await your 'just' ruling."
Cottonseed stoof away from the group of Elders and walked up to Bryar, who stood as she approached.
"Bryar, it has been decided, and agreed on by the majority of the tribe, that you are to be excommunicated."
Bryar stood stock still, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
"You...you can't do that. I am your Priestess. The Great Sky King has chosen me!"
"And last night, he chose another," Cottonseed said as the Elder's parted to show a frightened Lapin youngster behind them. She was young, perhaps half of Bryar's age, and shaking with nerves, but upon her head rested her ears, not white.
"No," Bryar whispered, stepping closer to the young Lapin, hand out stretched to touch one of her ears. She was just about to graze it, when another Elder held her hand back.
"Do not strike the child," Cottonseed growled, holding the 'new' Priestess close to her. "You are just angered that the Great Sky King agrees with us instead of you."
Bryar was not paying her any attention, she was sniffing the air around the young Lapin, trying to see why her ears smelt so funny.
"Auntie...she's scaring me," the little Priestess said softly. That grabbed Bryar's attention.
"Using your neice as a cover to be rid of me Cottonseed? How low can you get? I dare say you painted her ears as well."
Cottonseed's eyes grew wild, and she shoved the child back toward another Elder, hissing for the child to be removed. When she was gone, Cottonseed turned back to Bryar.
"You, my dear, have been excommunicated. And, as the rules of the tribe state..."
"I am never to see or speak to anyone of the tribe again. I am allowed to take my spear to defend myself, and my family if they choose to come. I understand this," Bryar said, her head held high as her spirit was being crushed.
Cottonseed grinned a bit, "yes, for a normal Lapin that is true...but for a excommunicated Priestess, the rules are different."
Bryar felt her nose twitch with nerves, "how different?"
"You still get the spear, and if you had any family they would be free to go with you," Cottonseed sneered, "but because you are a Priestess, and so much higher than the rest of the tribe, you must be punished further."
"How," Bryar said in a soft voice, dreading what was to come.
"We, as the Elders, must destroy the one thing that made you our Priestess. We must destroy your ears."
Bryar took an uncontious step back, seeing now that the other Elders had surrounded them as they had been speaking, "you are mad. I...I will die without them. I will not hear predators coming!"
Cottonseed smiled, "I am sorry Bryar dear, but the tribe has spoken."
In a matter of seconds the Elders were upon her, tearing and biting at whatever they could get at on her. She let out a cry of surprise at first, then used all of her energy to try to escape as soon as possible. By the time she scrambled out though, most of the damage had already been done. She moved swiftly to the place in her hut that held her spears, and took her best one, then left her home for the last time.
Bryar ran straight into the woods, without a backwards glance. She ran for hours, trying to find her way to something that looked familiar, but everything looked the same. The fact that her ears were near shreads and blood caked had not helped either. Finally, be it bloodloss or her lack of sleep, Bryar found herself collasping in a clearing near a small river, heedless of the dangers that could be around her.
Her sleep was deep and restful, and when she awoke it seemed to be morning again. She frowned, looking around herself at the unfamiliar surroundings. With a sigh she edged closer to the river to see how badly she looked. Her reflection was a blood caked mess, her ears seemed to white ribbons around her head. If it wasn't for the nose, she might even have passed for...human.
She shuttered at the thought, turning her eyes away from herself. She began scrubbing the blood from her face, and her ears, trying to be delicate and whimpering every once in a while. She was nearly done when a voice came to her ears.
"What the hell happened to you?"
The voice made her jump, backing away from the river. When she looked up, she saw a boy in the river, eyes full of bright mischief and a smile on his face.
"Nothing 'appened to me," she hissed, her accent of Lapin, which she had been fighting around the others in the woods, seeming thicker while talking to someone who was not part of her tribe...or what had been her tribe.
"Oh...cause those ears, they look painful."
Bryar looked at one of the shreaded ears and sighed, "they are. I was disgraced...so I lose my ears."
"You should try wrapping them in seaweed"
"Seaweed? What is that?"
The boy dove below the water, returning in a moment with some squggigly greenish plants.
"Wrap these around them, it would help."
Bryar did as he said, trying her best to keep an calm face.
The boy frowned, "geez...what a punishment. And I thought my rules were tough. Is it that way for all two legs?"
Bryar's fur bristled, "I am not a common 'two leg' human!" She shouted, "I am Lapin...I am Lapin Priestess. I am..."
She paused, forgetting that she had no tribe any longer. With a sigh she pulled her knees to her stomach and rested her head on them.
"Oh...sorry Miss Lapin, but I am new here. I do not know the, um, natives. My name is Turtle, a merman," he said. She looked at him, puzzled. "I am Bryar, Lapin," she said, sniffing him...his scent seeming slightly familiar.
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Too tired...code later.