[Flashback] Pest Control (I'sona)

by **Razkar** on October 18th, 2012, 4:17 pm

T'Umka just sneered down at the shivering Charoda like she's just soiled herself. Uxlop and Feryna turned briefly from their staring match against the wild, dark jungle beyond the stream, intrigued by the stream of Common. Their intrigue was short-lived. It wasn't like anything important was speaking.

Thus it fell to Razkar... again.

He and T'Umka stood at either end of the tiny Charoda in the thin stream, unsure whether of not she would just vanish the second she hit water. Apparently, that was not not the case. Bound hand and foot, she simply lay there, twitching and wincing and shivering, but taking her fill of her natural element.

Razkar sniffs once more. There it is again. Strong now, more pungent, cloying like rotting food but... not. Damn it, why could he not remember?!

The babble of Common jerked his head down, and he realized she was speaking to him. Cold. He knows that word. But he just shrugged, gesturing around at their half-naked bodies in the sticky jungle night.

"No clothes. No, ah... blanket. Not help."

Those eyes kept boring into his own, and he felt his pity start to evaporate. What did she expect him to do? Rush out and get her a blanket in front of his comrades? What would happen then, did she think? They wouldn't gut, bone and joint him for such blatant treason against their race? How could she be so blind?

But he knew the answer to that: they were the opposite of Myrian. Fluid water, not solid earth. Curious and flighty, not hateful and territorial. Peace, not war.

Razkar shook his head and unsheathed his sword, the creature's eyes snapping open in fear. Instantly the babble becomes louder, lapping water becomes splashing, frothing as the sword is raised-

-above Razkar's head as he cut three palm leaves the size of her torso off a low-hanging branch and dropped them at her feet.

She stared at them dumbly, barely noticing him sit down crouch down behind her. Doing something to her bonds, un-

The rope around her wrists falls away, sawn through.

"What the Hells do you-"

"Shut your mouth, boy," the Myrian behind her snarled, sounding more animal that sentient, "What did I tell you earlier?"

Flushed as he is with his success, T'Umka keeps his mouth shut, knowing better than to face Razkar when he is in one of his... moods. But Draksyl will love this, and he will love telling him. But the other two turn at the voices and see something different.

They saw Razkar gently place the blade of his gladius against the creature's cheek, just below her right eye.

"I cut rope. You use leaves. Get hot. Try run..." he tapped softly, blade gleaming in the moonlight and for a fleeting second she could see her reflection in the short sword. "... I take eye."

Razkar got up and leaves his captive to warm herself, still in the water. He sheathed his sword, snorted to dispel that irritating scent from his nose, and growled lowly at her.

"Hurry."

----------

She was angry. She was outrage and fury incarnate, sliding her huge body through the vines and undergrowth like a four-legged snake. Her senses were overwhelmed, battered and invaded by the stink of those apes. Her larger kin had submitted to them, forsaking their jungles for the stone place. She did not understand them.

But she understood territory. She understood intruders.

She understood vengeance.

by **I'sona** on October 20th, 2012, 11:30 pm

The Charoda lay silently, unsure and heavy. But she understood his threats and flinched back, escape? She wouldn’t. She knew better now. These people were like things hiding in her nightmares. They did things because they could and for no other reason. He could free her but would not. They would not. It was not their way and she would accept that because she had no choice.

Instead she rubbed her wrists and huddled into herself, watching the one who had cut the leaves for her carefully. He seemed to be in charge and she watched him carefully. The other one had been in charge too and he had used his weapon to cause all the pain. Still she gave a shaky smile, not daring to speak anymore after he told her to hurry. Using her hands she cupped water and splashed it over the spots where flesh was gone or when terrifying red lines showed. After she shifted again, sitting up and tugging the leaves over her, slowly and cringing each time her body throbbed.

In her mind she wished to speak, to make things make sense. At the same time she wished to not understand that this was only a short break, that they would continue and then she would be another that never went home.

Her hand twitch anxiously and she curled into herself more, her shivers not just from the cold. She didn’t want. Didn’t want at all. Who knew if the next swing would give her death or brief comfort. Bowing her head she tried to face away from the stares of the other Myrians, her gaze only peeking up every few seconds.

The throbbing continued but mostly stayed near patched of missing skin and the smaller cuts stinging insistently. The others seemed impatient but she would be content to never moved from this spot again. Once more her eyes filled and she didn’t stop them from falling. She was scared. She did not want to be but she was. She was scared, tired, in pain, pain that seemed like it would never stop and she just didn’t understand.

That probably scared her most of all.

She could barely understand her own thoughts let alone theirs.

I’sona gasped painfully, her lungs sucking in the air greedily while her body soaked up the water and barely any warmth her body could muster under the leaves. And once more her mouth babbled to fill the silence, her words as shaky as her limbs, her Common mutilated and squeaky. “Again? Hurt again?”

It was framed as a question but it wasn’t really. She knew it but some part of her grasped at some straw that the answer would be no.

by **Razkar** on October 21st, 2012, 12:10 am

Razkar's throat tightened in something between panic and embarrassment, eyes flickering to the sides of the streat where the brother and sister stood guard. No, they looked to the jungle, watchful and ignorant. But T'Umka...

The younger Myrian snickered and Razkar felt his blood burn inside him.

"Fish's got a crush on you, sir."

A statement, but with enough of an inflection to make it a question. Razkar turned to the younger warrior and impaled him with a glare made of pure hatred.

"You're suggesting a senior warrior would consort with this petching abomination?"

That was designed to throw a scare into the kid, but this time it didn't work. T'Umka was the hero tonight, the prodigy who had brought down a hated foe alive with one arrow. Draksyl already has his suspicions of Razkar. If T'Umka went running off now...

"No. But I think you might just have-"

With a snarl Razkar snatched his gladius out of his belt but what T'Umka lacked in stealth he made up for in speed. He'd stepped back, drawn an arrow and notched it in his bow by the time Razkar had his own weapon readied. The arrow quivered minutely six feet in front of him, the stunned and stupefied Charoda quaking underneath it.

Uxlop and Feryna turned around and with an almost-simultaneous shout ran over, spear and warclub held in respective hands. The woman spoke first, knowing her feminine tone would get through to them.

"Stop it, both of you! This-"

"You saw it!" T'Umka snapped, not taking his aim or his eyes off a smoldering Razkar. "He helped her! He stopped the questioning! He's a petching traitor-"

"You're a dead man. Here or the arena, but you're dead." Razkar's face belied his tone. Stone-cold calm as opposed to the reddening fury on his countenance. "And I'm going to be the one that kills you."

"Go petch a fish, you-"

The deep, bass roar from the treeline shattered their conversation into fragments. The Charoda whimpered in abject terror as a long, animal sound seemed to fill the whole jungle. Even in the Myrians, it raised primal, prehistoric emotions and fears, memories long-buried when their kind scurried and hid from that sound.

T'Umka's aim wheeled around to the noise, but now it shook visibly in his hands. Razkar's left hand fumbled for his axe, and after two tries, he finally got it into his palm. Uxlop and Feryna both raised and readied their weapons, closing in with their two comrades and their prisoner just as training described.

The scent came back, a hundred times stronger, but fresher, rawer and a lot closer than it was before.

"Tiger droppings."

T'Umka turned to him and was stunned to find Razkar's own face drain of color. He repeated the words again, swallowing heavily.

"I smelled them earlier. They're... There's a..."

"Goddess..."

Razkar blinked away his terror, even as he heard twigs snap and breathing from the blackness that was not the tread of monkeys or the inhalations of mice. Something big and angry was right in front of them. They had to leave.

"We-We gotta go back."

"What about the-"

"Throw her over your shoulder," Razkar said bluntly, not looking at the younger man, forgetting his quarrel for the moment and concentrating on doing his duty. "Grab her and run back to camp, we'll be right behind you. She's what matters."

T'Umka didn't even bother replacing the arrow in his quiver, he just tossed it down and shoved the bow back over his shoulders. He bent down and picked up the Charoda, ignoring its scream of pain and sending palm leaves flying.

Rakar turned to the other two, eyes shining in the darkness with fear and readiness. Yes. He'd rather have them than that bastard.

"You two, get-"

But before the plan can advance any further, a nightmare in orange, black and white exploded out of the darkness and buried Uxlop in a tide of frenzied, clawed fury.

"RUN!"

OOCIt's not a Myrian Tiger, since they aren't found outside Taloba, "just" a regular tiger

by **I'sona** on November 2nd, 2012, 3:54 am

OOC :

Her brain was still trying to process precisely what had happened. Perhaps she was dreaming, still washed up on the beach shore but the roar that seemed to reverberate through the ground told her otherwise. I’sona couldn’t do anything but flop for a moment, feeling very much like a fish that had gotten wash up on shore, the hard shoulder knocking the wind out of her with each step her took. Her breathing mirrored his, fast and panicked and she didn’t bother to stop the any noises no matter how much he shouted.

The blur of orange had her frozen in terrified fascination and she watched as the shape didn’t get smaller, it got bigger. Either they were slowing or it was quicker. She wasn’t sure. It reminded her of how blood made the sharks come, maybe it was the same with the land animals? Except they had legs, four very fast legs and just as many sharp teeth. But the Charodas eyes wouldn’t shut, instead she watched, a strange fuzz floating through her. The man on the ground was red and now so was the land beast. And they just left him.

For almost a moment her gaze seemed to meet with the creatures and she felt no satisfaction in the likely the death of one of her captors. She felt sad for him but there was always something bigger. “Down! Down! Down!”

The scream of her voice, raw and terrified had her thumping heavier as the Myrian ran with her, she didn’t want to be like this. She didn’t want to go back with them. They would be more of she would be eaten. As she jerked around, her teeth sunk into the Myrians flesh and she released quickly, bile rising in her throat and hearing the shout.

She barely felt the ground beneath her, couldn’t really feel it between everything else and could only let herself be shoved off the fallen Myrian and watch the tiger inch closer and shoving herself towards the nearest cover.

by **Razkar** on November 4th, 2012, 4:53 am

"NO!"

Feryna didn't run. That wasn't just some male under that tornado of furious animal, that was her brother. Her blood. Razkar got ten feet and spun his head around, seeing the woman fly at the beast with a shriek of hatred.

"GET OFF HIM!"

Uxlop's chest was split like a melon. Blood fountained out of his mouth, eyes open wide in agony, begging for death rather than a savior. The tiger jerked its head up, yellow eyes flashing evilly in the faint moonlight, seeing another puny man-thing running towards her, screaming and closing fast-

"No!" Razkar yelled, stopping his run. "Don't-"

The tiger leapt, and Feryna got in one good swing from her club before seven hundred pounds of primal animal rage slammed into her. Teeth first.

Razkar watched, mouth open in shock and fear. She shouldn't have screamed for that long. When the beast ripped open her chest, paws the size of her head slashing holes large enough for Razkar to put the edge of his hand through, she kept screaming. Her right arm raised and the tiger ripped it off at the elbow with something close to contempt. She kept screaming.

Only when it snarled, teeth as long as Razkar's fingers bared in the moonlight, and bite her throat down to the bone, did the screaming die to a gurgle, and then died completely.

Razkar didn't move. He was going to die her, frozen and with his weapons in hand, but helpless... terrified...

Move. Move, damn you!

The yelp behind him snapped him out of it.

----------

"Petching bitch!"

T'Umka roared in pain as sharp needle-teeth bit into his back, making him spasm and drop his wriggling prisoner into the underbrush. He spun, furious, saw her squirming away from him, skin still shimmering from the stream.

The young Myrian looked up, saw that traitor Razkar just standing there, and Feryna...

... oh, goddess...

T'Umka didn't want to die for this petching fish. He didn't want to die for Razkar. He didn't want to die in this jungle, eaten alive by something that wouldn't care that he was some mother's son and sister's brother. He was young and wanted to live.

But with shaking hands, he reached up for his bow and arrows.

----------

She would eat well tonight. These creatures were tough, resilient, but large and well-fleshed. Blood dripped down her face and into her gullet, clotting her fur, and she relished its warmth and spice. The last creature, which she suspected was a female, tried to fight.

They were so stupid. Better to run from her kind. They could not hope to win.

Her head jerked up at the sound from ahead of her. A yelp, as if in pain. But instead she saw another creature, struck dumb and still like the deer she had eaten a few days ago. Uncomprehending and terrified. Dead and just not aware of it yet.

But it had heard the sound too, and ran from her as fast as his legs could carry, crashing clumsily through the undergrowth and vines snaking across the ground. She roared at his impudence and started to bound after him, closing the distance in-

-her roar became a bellow of pain as the arrow sliced into her.

----------

Razkar thought T'Umka was aiming at him. The boy was terrified, his bow wavering, but it was up, string drawn back, arrow locked. Razkar's terror was briefly eclipsed by naked anger, and his lips drew back to curse his murderer for his-

-the arrow flew past him and struck the tiger in the shoulder.

It howled and clawed at the shaft, smashing the wood to splinters but the hated head was still deep in her flesh. She roared again and scratched at it, distracted for a moment-

Razkar ran, then saw that T'Umka was... lighter, than before.

"Where is she?!"

"Sh-She bit me! I-I dropped-"

Razkar scanned the ground frantically, but already the jungle floor had swallowed her. Plants and shrubs knee-high provided all the cover she would need. All it would take would be a sharp stone and those bonds would be loose. He ran to T'Umka, parting at the low leaves desperately, searching, hoping...

The tiger roared again, eyes fixed on T'Umka as he groped for another arrow.

Fangs bared, she charged.

by **Razkar** on November 19th, 2012, 6:15 am

Something snapped in Razkar. Or maybe snapped into place. When the wounded tiger roared and charged towards T'Umka, he remembered. His fear... didn't vanished, but lessened. Retreated from paralysis to a cold block in his stomach, but one he could work around, ignore.

Conquer. Like the beast.

The thing moved fast, impossibly so, but he still raised his ax and slashed at it as it went by. The keen blade flashed in the pale moonlight and he was rewarded by the thunk and splash of blood. The tiger roared again, pain eclipsing its anger now, right front leg cleaved through. But Razkar had no time to enjoy his victory.

She turned to him and lashed out with a paw the size of his face.

Razkar jerked backwards and the claw missed face, but not his shoulder. Daggers gouged into his flesh and he cried out, spun around and knocked backwards by the blow. So much strength! Out of sheer desperation he slashed again, keeping the creature back, but already warm, sticky liquid was pouring from his shattered shoulder.

She roared again, edges of its mouth pulled back to show every glistening tooth. Shoulders hunched up, furious, wounded, limping but still lethal, she-

-another arrow thudded into her side, and into her lung.

T'Umka barked in victory, reaching for another arrow. Sweat seemed to cover him now, body rank with it and fear, but he remembered, too. He was conquering his fear as Razkar was, and-

The tiger braced itself on its backlegs and launched itself at him.

Razkar would remember T'Umka's scream for a long, long time. His victorious smirk crumbled in a blink when he saw the massive beast spring towards him, hand frozen above his shoulder. He flung up his bow as if it could save him, stop her, make even the slightest difference.

She hit him like an avalanche, and sunk her teeth into his head.

Razkar was on one knee, teeth gritted, left arm useless. He watched as her huge head was tossed from side to side, ripping into T'Umka's skull, tearing away flesh, snapping his neck. But she didn't let go, bearing him to the ground and biting down, harder, harder-

-until he heard the crunch of T'Umka's skull.

"RRRRRAAAAAAAAAGHHHH!!!"

He did not know if it was fear or anger that moved him, but something did. He was dead anyway. He knew it. Once this thing was done with T'Umka, she would return to him, and he could not outrun her. So better to die this way, with blade in hand and deep inside his killer.

Razkar threw himself onto her back and buried his ax between her shoulder blades.

He was ontop of her for maybe moments, but it felt a lifetime. Warm, soft fur, sticky with blood of Myrian and her own. A strong, beating heart he could feel even through her fur. Her agonized bellow as the ax blade slammed through her hide and into her, a mortal wound but not before she bucked him off, throwing him to the side, now weaponless.

He backpedaled as fast as one arm and two legs could move him, which was to say, not much. She turned to him, hatred beyond a mere animal writ large on her bloody face.

She was dying. She knew her leg was done for and her back was pierced. She could feel her life begin to ooze out of her... but she was not dead yet. And she would not die easily.

She had one more death in her.

Barely ten feet from Razkar, she threw back her head over T'Umka's decimated corpse and screamed her defiance to the jungle. Then she braced herself and-

-two spears shot out from the darkness and into her side.

"BRING IT DOWN!"

Running figures flashed from the treeline, all holding weapons. Draksyl had scored one of those hits, but knew from bitter experience these monsters were not so easily slain. Razkar saw him take up another spear, running straight for her even as she turned, slower, confused, angry-

-and skewer her right under her head.

Still she fought. A twisting, blood-spilling, slashing and snarling beast that was still death to all close to her. But now she was outnumbered. Razkar was reminded even at that moment of a scorpion he had seen enveloped by army ants when he was a boy. It dwarfed them, a hundred times their size, but there was hundreds, thousands to her one. For every one she killed with pincers and stinger, ten took its place, all of them biting, ripping, stinging...

As the dozen Myrians surrounded the tiger, that was what he thought of.

Ax and sword and spear rose and fell in the half-light of the moon. Blood splattered and arced. Shadow creatures... his people? he could not see... screamed and barked and danced close for a strike and then away, escaping those terrible paws and their evil claws.

The tiger was hewn a dozen times in moments, and the blows kept coming. Her strikes became lazy, weakened, and finally stopped. Right before Razkar finally passed out, blood caking his shoulder and chest, he saw Draksyl stand over the softly snarling beast, and bury his sword into her eye up to the hilt.

And then all was black, blessed oblivion.

by **Razkar** on November 19th, 2012, 2:24 pm

Razkar woke in pain, and when he saw Draksyl's scowling face above him, his mood did not improve.

"You live," the scarred veteran said, then spat off to one side, "Tough little krok."

Razkar opened his mouth to speak but no words came. His throat was so dry and tight it seemed like he was being strangled, and he coughed and coughed until Draksyl tipped a sip of water into his mouth. Then he realized he was on his back... under the trees... and his shoulder-

He winced when he tried to sit up, Draksyl's hands suddenly on his shoulders. The rest of the raiding party was in the clearing, sharpening their weapons, cooking lunch... skinning a massive, orange and black carcass.

"T... T'Umka..." he finally managed to rasp, trying to ignore the scratching, inescapable agony south of his neck, "What... He died... Did... Feryna..."

Draksyl shook his head, a glimmer of sadness in his one eye, but nothing more.

"All dead, boy. You would have been, too, if we didn't hear that petching thing roaring like it was. We came running. Seems... we came a little late."

Then he drew a dagger and placed it against Razkar's throat.

The world stopped. Stone ceased on steel. Steel ceased on meat and hide. And it ceased on Razkar's neck, but all he could do was stare upwards into Draksyl's cold, black eye.

"And the petching fish made off, too. You failed, Razkar. Three of my party dead and to no end. For that alone, I should kill you."

Razkar wanted to be afraid, but all his fear was spent. After matching blade against furious, giant tiger, this scarred and grizzled old man held no terrors. He glared back, breathing shallow, and growled.

"Then why... don't you? Why... Why even save me? To let... let me know... before?" He snorted, choking down a cough as he did. "I... tried... to bring... bring it back, and... and a petching... tiger nearly killed me. So do... do it... or get that... petching blade away from me."

Another long, contemplative silence. The jungle seemed to be deciding as much as Draksyl was. A hum of insects and distant animals that seemed to be a massive discussion. Do we let this boy die here, far from home and clan? Or do we spare him?

What to do, what to do...

After an eternity, Draksyl slowly lifted the blade away, but drew his ugly face close so Razkar could smell the bile on his breath.

"If not for your mother, boy... you'd be dead."

Razkar stayed silent. When Draksyl stood and left him there, he looked down and saw the ant heads stitching the claw marks in his shoulder and chest. Several dozen of them, jaws bigger than their heads, biting into either side of the cuts and holding them together. An old Myrian technique that used the tiny killing machines for healing, not harming.

He felt pain in his arm, but that was good: it meant he wouldn't lose it. He let his head thunk back against the ground, thanking Myri for his survival. His mother would be furious, anyway. Draksyl would spin a tale of suspicion and hinted treachery, but...

But he would prove nothing. And Myrians were not so savage to execute without good cause.

Razkar closed his eyes again. He thought of his village. He thought of T'Umka and Feryna and Uxlop and prayed they found their way to Myri and their home. He thought of the Fish Person...

... and breathed a silent hope, deep in his most secret soul, that she had found her people again.

by **Traverse** on December 21st, 2012, 3:10 pm

Thread Awards!

I'sona :

Razkar :

Additional Notes :

Questions, Concerns? PM me and we'll be to the bottom of it. Safe Travels!