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| Lions and witches and buffalo, oh my!; Open to one. | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Wed Aug 13, 2014 5:11 am (267 Views) | |
| Sapphira | Wed Aug 13, 2014 5:11 am Post #1 |
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Even the most mundane of locales could become the most beautiful and wondrous of places, provided the proper circumstances and an open mind. A frozen wasteland could become a wintry work of art; a ruined city could become the legendary site of a fabled relic, one that would draw upon the poetic and artistic minds of the not-so-general populace; or a vast plane of dry, stunted grasses withering in cracked soil could become a sea of rolling golden hills and seemingly endless expanses of hidden wildlife. Such was the case of the Debon Plains, the farm country south of Kellen, and the Arid Scrubland south of them. As the sun lazily drifted across an azure sky dotted with streams of white, a massive herd of buffalo rumbled slowly across a particularly flat stretch of land. Here, the taller grasses and rolling hills had given way to sparse brush exposing long-infertile soil that even the farmers to the north would not touch. There were wild horses to the north but here, the buffalo could see all predators that would stand against them. Thousands of them shook the ground as they moved, watching for any signs that danger was near; but they were content in their numbers and the raw power of their collective. They were so confident, in fact, that even the pride just a mile south of them dared not attack. The vast majority of the morning was spent by the lions in comfort, for the lionesses had gone well out of their way to bring back meat aplenty that morning; yet the buffalo were too numerous and too powerful as a group, and only when the herd thinned in the autumn months as they began to travel north to the rocky hills - wherein generous quantities of shelter, water, and food awaited - would the lionesses begin to take down their numbers. The pride, however, was not alone on these plains; they, too, were being watched. To her, the great cats of the vast Imythessian wilderness were among the most fascinating creatures to exist. They were powerful and proud, hence the common name of their groups, and few creatures saw them as anything other than the top of the food chain. They had gotten there with a keen intellect that only animals clever enough to survive in harsh and volatile environments could boast. Even the hyenas more than a dozen miles to the east dared not attack them; then again, hyenas were callous scavengers and little more; they could be vicious, yes, but no more than any other animal that preyed upon the weak. Yet as the morning slowly stretched into afternoon, a warning call was sent along the ranks of the buffalo. The herd began to shift its direction, moving off to the west to avoid a scent that the lions had been pondering for more than an hour. A couple of lionesses had returned to the pride with their noses stung by an awful stench and their eyes accosted by an eerie sight. The pride’s observer decided to investigate, and what she saw put a gleam in her deep blue eyes that simply should not have been there - assuming she was sane. Well…she was sane by medical standards. But her chaotic, somewhat sadistic nature had created a curiosity within her that usually did not exist; the scent had drawn her to its source, just as it had drawn the lionesses. She was a predator, it was true - but of a far more lethal variety than that of the pride. A great thunderstorm had washed away much of the dust and debris that tended to accumulate in places such as this just before dawn. The last remnants of the storm were gone by now, burned away by the sun and blown away by the same wind that drove the few clouds high above her head. Yet before her lay something that could not have been here during or prior to the storm, for it surely would have been washed away as well. The wind blowing in just the right direction could have easily prevented the pride from picking up the scent; yet considering the direction of the wind that morning, the hyenas should have been all over it. After all, it had blown the scent in their direction - and in a place like this, the stench of burning flesh could have been picked up for miles if the wind was right. The direction and speed of the wind had shifted several times today, as it was often wont to do, and now the blackened corpses of eight travelers lying upon severely charred ground were known to all. If the sun had indeed burned away the moisture that had undoubtedly doused the flames by which the corpses had once been beset, it may have been that they had grown so dry as to burst into flames once more. That would certainly explain the shimmering air as heat rose above one corpse in particular, the left shoulder and upper arm of which were now burning once more. The humanoid traveler smiled and closed her eyes as she inhaled deeply, savoring the stench. She had always had an odd nose, enjoying the smells that others deemed unfit for the nostrils of those whose minds had developed intellectual capacity that grew beyond mere animal instinct. She opened her eyes once more as she exhaled with a grin. Her eyes lit upon a pile of ash that had once been a hand severed from its owner, and she stepped lightly upon it with her left foot; it sank slowly, crumbling into gray-and-black dust that scattered in a tiny cloud. She held back a chuckle, containing it within her throat as her eyes rose to the corpse just ten feet away - a corpse whose arm was half-engulfed by orange-red fire. What had happened here, the woman could only guess. There were bandits throughout this area, though they mostly stuck to the main road; that road was nearly twenty miles to the west and a major thoroughfare for trade. What would bandits have been doing out here? There could have been hunters out here, she supposed, although such a thing in this area was dangerous. Killing one buffalo would result in a stampede; killing several would result in a loss of limb and/or life for the one who killed them. Of course, there were those for whom such a thing would have been simple - a powerful witch feared enough by Kellenites that she wasn’t allowed in their town, for example. Of course, rumors tended to fly rather swiftly and villainesses couldn’t always be so easily detected; it was rather simple to appear as a mere traveler seeking rest and relaxation, and perhaps a bit of trade, without ever invoking the ire of people who feared an “evil entity” that they had never actually seen. The witch knelt beside the corpse and ran her left forefinger along the side of its skeletal maw, tracing the outline of what must have once been its lips. She made a cooing sort of noise and then winked at it as though it were still alive. It was random mindlessness born of boredom more than anything else. Of course, it might have looked rather awkward to passersby - but who would pass by in this area, for one; and for another, who could say what had truly happened? She hadn’t been here when these poor, unfortunate souls had been burned, possibly alive. None of them, from what the witch could see, were wearing any sort of jewelry. She picked up a coin purse of dark-brown leather near the corpse’s hip, yet found it empty. She tightened the string to close it and slipped between the ample cleavage revealed by the day’s attire, a form-fitting gray dress with a low and broad neck squared off at an angle. She carried little with her, yet she had what little she carried stowed in a hidden place nearby. Her fine Elven boots of black leather and pointy toes ground into the scorched earth as she rose and heeled marks into the ash as she slowly spun to survey the scene once more. Her eyes lit upon a stranger that was in turn surveying her, and she curtseyed politely as she smiled. Her eyes remained locked upon those of her observer despite her slightly bowed head, her sun-touched auburn locks falling to frame her lovely face; it was angular, that face, and yet rounded in an attractive manner. She was like a child stuck somewhere between her teen years and those just before puberty began, and yet she was as tall and well-developed as any full-grown woman. Her shapely form was comprised of long legs, curvy hips, and a gently sloping yet well-endowed torso. Her flesh, though pale and freckled in the face, was smooth and gleamed as though shining with some inner light. Her ears were hidden by her locks but if there was a more perfectly attractive human, the observer had likely never met her. The only explanation, in fact, was that she was not entirely human at all - but rather a mixture of human and elf, an assumption aided by the grace with which she had been moving through the scene of this obvious crime. She spoke with a slightly melodic voice as she rose to her full five feet and six inches once more, yet there was as much strength as subtlety and sweet harmony in her tone. “It seems this place is not as wild as I once thought,” she declared, “although the lions and the buffalo would have us believe otherwise.” |
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| Vucsau | Thu Aug 14, 2014 9:10 am Post #2 |
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Being as he spent most of his time as a bird, Nevermore often found himself with the free time to ponder the mysteries of the world. Sometimes he would think about the sun, about how it was merely a single speck in the sky among countless others which were mere sparkles against the inky blackness of a clear night sky simply because of how close it was. Sometimes he wondered about why the winds went in the directions they did, as they seemed to hold little relevance to one another from day to day, as if warring for their direction to take hold over all the others, with the strongest turning into gale force winds which made it a struggle to travel in his avian form. Today he questioned why the Calling so frequently led him to death. Rarely did it lead him to a life being saved or preserved in some fashion or another, instead choosing to show him situations he could not be of any service, helpless as he and his companion, Corvus, watched the horrors of sentient behavior enacted upon one another. Very rarely could Nevermore act in the defense of others, but he did nothing when it was obviously beyond his influence. At least there was some solace in this scene before the birds, with the bodies dead long enough that it would have been impossible to help them short of having the claws of a god. The female humanoid who had been there when the ravens arrived didn't seem to have any obvious hand in what had transpired there, at least as far a Nevermore could tell from his perch. Hopefully it meant she wouldn't see them and think a raven meal would be a good way to sate her hunger, as had been the case with other encounters with strangers of the wilds in the past. Corvus cawed as his head tilted to one side, inquiring to his companion what they were supposed to make of it. Nevermore did not respond vocally, instead choosing to watch the scene with one black bird eye fixed on the girl as she turned to examine him in kind before speaking, either to herself, a delusion, or to Nevermore, the raven could not say for certain, but he assumed it was the final option, which to him hinted at an astute mind, though it could have easily been mistaken for one of those odd individuals who attempted to communicate with animals while having no true idea how to communicate with them vocally. Quietly the larger of the two ravens, the one which referred to itself as Nevermore when asked, cawed to express his interest in the female's behavior. The sound didn't hold any definition in the language of the intelligent carrion birds, much like a slight humming sound in response to a question. A bit complicated, perhaps, but that was it. The ravenoid preferred to not share his humanoid form with strangers lightly, as they often chose to attack the somewhat demonic looking form on sight. |
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| Sapphira | Thu Aug 14, 2014 4:57 pm Post #3 |
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It was a peculiar thing to speak to a bird. Druids did so as a matter of course; the Elven peoples communed with animals on a regular basis; and witches often had familiars with whom they conversed. The witch was of the opinion, however, that birds were far more intelligent in general than many of the animals that the Elven peoples considered sacred. Witches in particular often consulted the scavenging fowl of the night - black birds, crows, ravens…so it was as much with curiosity as it was with a desire to break the silence and speak her thoughts aloud that drove the witch to speak with this particular pair of ravens. The one to the left spoke not at all; the one to the right acknowledged her presence, at least. She did not ignore the birds. However, neither did the witch’s eyes land solely upon them. She gazed upon the charred corpses and began to pick out specific details as though she was indeed speaking to herself. Yet had she been alone, she likely would never have communicated her thoughts to the animals nearby. “Eight,” she began, “an interesting number.” She eyed the torsos of the corpses, studying their shapes and sizes. She imagined what they must have looked like in life, for they surely could not have been that slender while wearing such armor. And why had the armor not been taken in the first place? Yet only six suits of armor were worn. There were no wagon tracks. “A journey on foot…warriors…guards, perhaps?” She eyed the raven that had spoken with a smile, cocking her left brow. “What say you, raven?” she inquired of the bird. “Perhaps of noble blood or deep purses?” Her eyes lowered to the corpses once more. “And yet…” The witch toed one of the corpses; its head fell off and rolled along the ground until it dropped into a none-too-shallow depression. The ground was slightly sloped here, as a small mound of earth covered in the sparsest of yellow grass barely rose above the otherwise mostly level terrain. The depression was several feet to the north and the east of the well-cooked fellows, and she pondered it curiously. She knelt to inspect it, for the depression did not seem natural. “Curious,” she murmured. Then her eyes rose to those of the talkative raven. “Wouldn’t you say, raven?” Her eyes lowered to the depression once more. “A strange thing to be found here…as though…” Her eyes swiftly rose to the sky as though expecting a pillar to fall at any moment. None did. After several moments, her eyes slowly lowered to the skull. She picked it up and, smiling, began playfully tossing it from one hand to the next. She giggled. “Somebody had fun with their blades,” she noted as she took a look at a jagged crack in the forehead. She ran her thumb along it. This was not the blade of a sword; it was far too jagged for that. What, then, had killed this poor man? Indeed, he had not been slain by fire. He had been dead when the flames had licked his body, consuming it as a raven would consume the eyes of an uncooked carcass. “The eyes are a crow's meal,” she said in a thoughtful tone, her smile gone. There were marks along the edges of the eye sockets, marks only visible once she had begun to wipe away some of the ash; part of the skull crumbled, mostly around the eyes, but she had seen what she had seen. She tossed the skull down into the depression after one last look at both, and then she stood once more. She sighed as she pondered what might have occurred here. She looked around once more. There was nothing of value here; whatever had been, it was gone now. She did not look at the raven as she next spoke, too intent upon the murders. It was mere curiosity that drove her now as she slowly and carefully walked among the bodies. “A strange thing to burn a man alive, is it not, raven?” she inquired. She gestured toward the distant lions and the buffalo far beyond them without actually looking in that direction. “The lionesses do not cook the buffalo that they take, nor do the buffalo burn their own in a funeral pyre.” Now she gestured in the other direction, though the hyenas she knew to be in this area were not there today. “The hyenas take their meals half-rotted…” And at that moment, she sneezed violently - not once, mind, but twice. She removed a handkerchief from within her dress, drawing it from between the fabric and the space where her left breast met her shoulder. She dealt with her nostrils and then sneezed again, prompting her to use the handkerchief once more. “Ugh,” she declared before looking at the raven. “I’d wager a fortune, raven, that you have no quarrel with the grasses.” Edited by Sapphira, Thu Sep 11, 2014 5:28 am.
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2:37 PM Jul 11

