(SE) Another Step is a Step Too Far

IriS|SirI

Leaving King's End had been a mistake. However, Iris wasn't quite ready to face this reality yet.

Rolling hills dissolved into swampland, cold, wet and putrid. And the brown-haired girl traveled on, jumping to and from gnarled, ancient roots, deeper into the mouth of the swamp. She held her dagger tight and her bow strung and strapped around her chest. Her hair was tied behind in a tight braid, the hems of her long, gray woolen coat flowing damp and muddy around her legs. She was transfixed and resolute to inch a little bit further. To see what lay beyond each new cluster of deep-rooted trees.

Even when the swamp was screaming danger. The incessant buzz of insects was hard to ignore, but Iris focused beyond it, flinching at each creak in the wood and suspicious splash in the murky waters below. And then, the silence grew louder as a call in the distance cut through it like a cleaver. "Meat!" In an instant, she was hugging the side of a tree, eyes darting from mounds of land to the canopies above. The fog was creeping, obscuring the threat in the distance. Echoes of the initial call followed, croaking and chilling her to the bone.

She waited, and it came again. "Flesh." It was closer.

She looked around as her heart's pace spiked, drowning out all other thoughts. Spotting a hollowed out tree trunk broken and bent in half by lighting strike, she left her hiding place behind. In three long leaps she reached the island where her new shelter stood, white with thick cobwebs.  Swatting them away with her dagger's edge and evicting a colorful spider, she sat inside the trunk and listened intently.

The voices were shrill and merciless, calling for blood, flesh and murder. Followed by occasional caws, they swooped above her before she could think of a plan. And then, they flew on, leaving her behind in her dirty refuge. Some distance away, she heard them descend on a pack of animals, unknown to her apart from the squeals they emitted as the murderous corvids feasted.

She waited for what felt like a long time after the sounds died out, huddled in the tree trunk... until she heard something that was very akin to footsteps trekking the marshland outside.

---

Remi

Embers in her footsteps
A fire burns within

& i sing hallelujah, ripped through my veins

The thing about the sort of predator that Remi was, he never attempted to hide. Though he was adept at stalking his prey, unlike smaller creatures who relied on the absence of sound or on ambushes, there was simply no hiding his presence. And so the footsteps Iris would hear would be entirely unencumbered by efforts of concealment. Instead, the manticore would burst through the thick swathes of marshland vines, his paws leaving clear tracks in the mud and the mire for any who dared to try and track him. His tail was curled tightly up and away from where it might inadvertently strike something living, while his wings were tucked neatly against his golden flanks to make moving through this hostile land slightly easier.

That he could smell someone ahead didn't immediately speak of danger or given the demigod a reason to pause. These lands were not entirely uninhabited—he'd been told as much—but that didn't mean he'd go rushing toward the first human-like scent he picked up on. The alchemist might once have been naive about danger, but that was sadly no longer the case. Now his body and mind bore horrific scars that would never heal, and his eyes had lost the laughter and kindness once so common in them.

Nearish to the trunk in which Iris hid, the manticore turned its head toward the pack of birds celebrating their meal with colourful cries.

i heard the hammer drop, my blood in the rain

Coding base by Sky!

IriS|SirI

Iris was becoming resigned to the fact that she was now a tree stump creature. She would live out the rest of her days catching bugs, fungi and the odd rodent. Time would become immaterial. There would be no booze aside from fermented mushroom water.

Whatever was approaching now sounded at least as dangerous as the murderous cries from up above. She’d shrunk into her tree, straining her eyes to see through the undergrowth when the monster appeared. For a moment its colossal wings made her suspect it was the source of the murderous cries, but as it came into view pieces started coming together, lion’s mane, reptilian wings and threatening stinger.

Everything around it was radiating danger, but Iris’ intuition gnawed at her (hopefully that is what was knowing at her). She plucked a rock out of the moss below and tore a piece of paper out of a leather bound notebook. Quickly scribbling down a message in sharp, messy, but legible script, she wrapped it around the rock and threw it towards the beast.

This could easily be counted among the dumbest things she’d ever done, even if it wasn’t for the fact that the rock that was supposed to land in front of the creature hit it squarely in the head. Sitting in one position for so long had made her limbs sore, and her aim wobbly at best. The message inside read: “Yo! Help a fellow ex-Torcher out, gov'nor?”

Embers in her footsteps
A fire burns within