[hr][hr][center][h2][color=f7941d]Othen Perelyn[/color][/h2][/center][hr][hr]
The expedition so far had been a rather major, but also rather expectable disaster. They had made far more progress in exhausting their resources than in distance covered. Their water supplies were nearly gone, and their horses had become a series of food sources for vultures and the like. Ironically, it had been the one given to Othen that had collapsed last. He had not covered a single mile not walking on his own feet, simply because he had not dared to put his near 400 pounds of bodyweight alone on one of the poor animal's backs, given the circumstances. So it had had more rest than the others. What Othen was hoping was that, at least, the carcasses were aligned in a straight line and not in a circle...

He had not built up a real tent, but a drastically simplified variant that consisted of just two poles holding two corners of a plane whilst the other two corners were on the ground weighted with stones. Beneath that he was sleeping, or, to be more precise, he [i]had been[/i] sleeping. Emmett's light footsteps had not been enough to wake him, nor had it been Floure performing her strange ritual. Grace's rant towards Emmett however had made it across the critical threshold - and he really would have liked to return the favor with even more loudness, right from his tent. But there were things to be considered: The fire had diminished into a fading smoulder, so the argument of it revealing their position to everyone was no more. He wouldn't trap himself by going the extra mile on what he thought himself of being a bad idea to do, so he left his place, guided through the darkness by the voices reaching his ears.

When he reached the scene, his now adapted eyes gave him confirmation of what he had already been afraid of when he had woken up. As much as Othen would have construed a natural event causing this nightly gathering as a pleasant variety of the daily routine - a dead tree surrounded by nothing but sand in the midst of the Badlands just couldn't be that. So he turned his attention towards the more likely cause - Emmett. The boy had just given him a near perfect fit occasion with his 'No maybe you’re going to give me a good thrashing so I can learn my lesson?'. Othen didn't know what the fuss was all about, but hearing Emmett speaking in the tone he did right now was enough reason to firmly believe that he was the ultimate cause for this deprivation of sleep.

He pushed himself by the two ladies and did not stop his approach until Rook's nephew was in range of his massive hand. He grabbed the boy at the upper arm and turned him around. The next step on the escalation ladder would be lifting him off the ground so he could shout at his face from even closer. [color=f7941d]"Emmett ? What have you done [i]now[/i] ? Why am I not allowed to sleep tonight ? Hm ? I could give you a 'good thrashing' if you would like."[/color]