Solo Chasing Phantoms

[Tinnok]

Chasing Phantoms
30th of Winter, 513 A.V.

It was strange faring in the jungle for herself. Tinnok had always thought of herself as independent, even by Myrian standards. She had always seen the jungle as her home even before Caiyha blessed her with a mark, and she had learned many things about the wilds from a young age. Yet her position as a witch stationed just outside of Taloba had afforded her access to the city whenever she had need of anything, even if going into the city was a thought that chafed her severely.

So now she was in the thick of it, far away from Zinrah, Taloba, the Kandukta basin, her long legs taking her miles and miles away each day. The fear of getting caught by Dhani claws or a Myrian arrow still kept her awake at night, but slowly...had begun to fade.

That, however, left her traveling in entirely unfamiliar territory, only knowing which way to go by the vaguest of directions. She knew the place where Tskanna went to die was on the outskirts of Falyndar's realm, in a land not surrounded by the giant trees she used as beds and hideaways night and day. It was in the Northeastern corner of the wilds, and so she used Syna to guide her, tracking her over the course of the day and keeping her behind one shoulder or another when she walked.

That was the easy part.

Tinnok had bought supplies for her journey, her nuts and dried meat and fruit, but she tried not to dip into her stores when there was plenty of plant and animal life around her. During her journey the witch began to realize just how unprepared for the wilds she was. Yesterday she nearly stepped into a pit of quicksand, toes curling over the edge of a hole, sliding in ankle deep, and only stopping just in time because she heard it hissing within whatever chasm the sand led into.

Her confidence continued wavering today as she began to lose track of the plants around her. Was this black berry one of the one's used for dyeing, or perhaps the one used to coat arrows with poison? Or was it just a snack?

In order to test them she grabbed a handful, and rubbed the juices first upon two arrows tips. Better to see if they helped her with a hunt than eat them and get a stomach ache or worse. The half breed gripped her longbow in one hand, the two coated arrows sliding into one of her many belts as she moved forward. She had expected the wildlife to be more abundant the further she got from Taloba, which to a certain extent was true, but it was also a span of land that saw very little of sentient life, so all of the creatures were more wary of her, even given her mark. She was just a foreign intruder, at least until she showed herself to be otherwise.

Tinnok's form bent her feet padding softly along the ground, yellow eyes darting one way and another, but keeping track of the bark and ground most. The ground was damp, perfect for her feet to make no noise as well as keep track of animals that had been that way recently.

The first set of tracks she came upon her hoof marks, not horse, splayed like a deer, one of the small jungle varieties. She bent carefully, running the tip of her finger around the edges of the track ever so gently and frowning. The earth had hardened and dried around the mark, which meant it was older. How much so she couldn't say, however, so Tinnok decided to simply look for newer marks.

She found claw marks in a tree, but once again, could not tell how fresh they were. She paced around, looking for disturbed brush, perhaps the claw marks were fresh and she simply didn't know how much so. She found a crushed layer of ferns and set off through the jungle, body bent low, wondering if she was even hunting a creature that was nearby.

[Tinnok]

Success, at least in part, didn't come till nearly two bells later. Tinnok walked slowly, scanning the ground, following sets of tracks at random, first the old deer ones, then a scattered section of brush. Her eyes could pick out much, but she didn't know enough of animal patterns and hunting to give her the information she so desired. Her luck changed, however, whent he half breed found a small brook, the muddy soil at the edges having caught deer prints. These ones were clearly fresh, no dried edges, even though they were several feet from the brook. At this point Tinnok crouched low, and began proceeding with quiet caution, her eyes sifting back and forth as if she could slice apart the foliage with her gaze.

Step by step, using the damp soil to mask the sounds of her feet she edged just far enough away from the water that the mud wouldn't suck her feet in and proceeded slowly. She had gone barely fifty feet when she saw a flash of a white tail and saw the small herd of deer making its way along the bank of the water supply. They were another fifty feet ahead, but that was close enough to be worrisome if she made one false move, so Tinnok stopped there and crouched down low, ever so slowly drawing her bow and taking out one of her long distance arrows (covered in the unknown berry juice), and notching it against the well worn groove in the weapon.

Her eyes watched the steadied, unhurried pace of the deer. There were 5 in total, a single stag at the head she could pick out by the horns, two young does, a young fawn, just starting to lose the voracious spots in his coat, and one older doe lagging behind the others. She had her perfect target. Unfortunately from this vantage point her shot would most likely go into the deers rump. If she was able to get a leg she might be able to catch up tot he old doe and finish off her kill quickly, but the optimum shot would be to curve her arrow upward slightly and get it into the deers neck.

As the deer drew away Tinnok paused, thoughtfully, knowing she was running out of time. With a single breath she drew back her bowstring fully, fletching surging past her cheek, fingers lingering behind her ear, keeping her elbow down, her stance steady. She had one shot and it had to count.

twang

She chose the leg, and the arrow hissed through the air, striking the older doe in the rear, a bit to the right, and higher than she had wanted. A distressed squeal carried towards her, Tinnok already up, bow over her shoulder a dagger in hand as she sprinted full bore towards the deer. The other four, younger and nimbler deer were leaping into the jungle. The female was half collapsed, but Tinnok had not struck a tendon, had not entirely crippled her prey, and the deer was dragging itself on three legs, the fourth working to support the rest of her weight, struggling to catch up to her companions.

A thought grabbed Tinnok then, a strange primal urge, and the dagger was suddenly sheathed. Her bare calloused feet slammed off the earth and roots, trying to make up as much ground as she could, and as she did she pulled at a power within her, to do something she was quite familiar with. As she released her djed a sort of sigh escaped her mouth, something very strange that she didn't understand yet, but a need fufilled in using her magic. The currents of magical power were ushered slowly down her arms and legs, pooling sluggishly around her fingertips and toes, pushing outward at her nails, thickening them and sharpening until she had claws in place of nails, curved and sharp.

She had ten feet between her and the deer, but her pace was picking up, she was drawing further, not closer, her leg not limping quite so badly, she being slowed by her use of magic and whether the deers recovery was the inadequacy of Tinnok's shot, or simply adrenaline, the huntress couldn't be sure.

Her lungs burned with exertion, but Tinnok stretched her strides as far as they could go, made up a few more feet, then dashed diagonally towards a tree trunk, running up a long root and dashing directly towards the bark, she leapt and planted herself against the rough surface, pushing off with both feet and lunging up and over the deer to land upon her back. The claws on her fingers dug into the deers side, a satisfying ripping of fur and skin giving way to oozing crimson. Both hunter and prey skidded and went down heavily in the dirt. Tinnok's claws on her feet could get no purchase, her body no designed like a jungle cat to find maximum purchase, and another honking squeal escaped the deer. Tinnok suddenly realized she was missing a key component to this equation, even as her fingers dug deep into the flesh of the struggling deer. Her grip loosened so that she could wrap her arms around the deer's neck, feet curling around one of her back legs, throat growling in fury at how her prey struggled. She is fighting for a life you seek to take away, this is how the world works...this is just the simplest starkest reality of it.

She found her mind strangley clear, which was good, because if it hadn't been she would be starkly awar of how much her muscles burned, how a bruised was forming on her inner thigh from where the doe had kicked her, and she wouldn't have had the focus to summon up a bit more djed within...this time inside her mouth, filling her teeth, sharpening and lengthening them somewhat, until they seemed too big for her mouth. She wrenched herself around the deer, one hand grabbing viciously onto its skull by the ears and dragging its head back as her other hand dug into its chest. Then her mouth was at its throat, teethsinking into the precious artery in its neck, sinking throught he fur deep intot he muscles and tissues. She had tasted fresh meat before, but never like this...

Blood filled her mouth, almost choking her, and she ripped out a chunk of flesh spitting it out and sinking her whole face into the remaining gaping hole, severing the artery there and lapping up the blood as the deers struggling grew weaker...fainter...then in just a few ticks, petered out all together.

There was something wonderfully exhilerating about the whole thing, but just as quickly as the flame of life went out in the deer, so too did that strange and wild urging that the half breed had received fade away as well. She slowly removed herself from the animal, face and neck awash with blood and gore, and let the djed holding her teeth and claws in place seep back into her body. Once she had double checked all her teeth to make sure they were indeed back to nomral, she bent over the doe, closing now blank black eyes, and whispering a prayer.

"Would that I had more skills of the beasts in the wilds, so that your suffering could have been less. I thank you for the life you have given me, and it will give life in return. Praise Caiyha, and all her realms."

She dipped two fingers into the blood of the deer and drew two wavering triskelions on the back of each of her hands, a sort of completion of her ritual. She then gathered up some mud from the bank and stuffed the bloody wound of the deer, removing the arrow from its rump, seeing the remains of the berry juice almost as an afterthought. She turned to see another cluster of the bushes and leaned forward, her hand brushing agains thte underside of a leaf and drawing the appendage back suddenly when she realized it was...fuzzy.

That was when the memory clicked...Maia Berries. They were poisonous, but not a poison that would help you on a hunt...they would simply rip open your insides and make you shyke your brains out until you died. She mentally thanked Bala she hadn't eaten them to test them.

Leaving the bush alone Tinnok went back to the deer and hefted it up around her shoulders. It was heavy in death, but still small, and she wasn't going to stop her trek until nightfall and she had found a safe place to camp. The deer would slow her down, but at least she would have dinner for the next few nights as well.

[Tinnok]

Slow...was an understatement. Syna was sinking low in the sky when Tinnok stopped, barely two miles from when she had hefted the deer on her back. She attributed this to a number of things. One the use of magic, she had never used Morphing on her teeth before, and in hindsight realized it was a foolish manuever to try it swiftly in the middle of a hunt. The other was the bruise the deer had given her on her thigh. It had become yellow and purple, flowering beautifully...and quite painfully as she had walked, making her gait more a limp than a walk.

That coupled with the energy she had spent on the hunt, combined with the fact that her prey was wrapped around her shoulders and her muscles were there...but not meant for this made her progress slow to a crawl. Tinnok was more than frustrated, but she told herself it was impressive she had gone as far as she had, and left it at that.

She estimated about a bell...two tops before Syna dissappeared beyond the horizon and gave way to Leth's domain. She stopped at the base of a large incline, leading into what she could only assume were the cloud forests that surrounded much of the jungle wilds, and rested her legs and arms for a few chimes in the lee of a massive jungle tree, calming her senses with her palms rested on the gnarled roots. She didn't have much time though, so she cut her break short, drank a long gulp of water from her skin, and went to work on her deer.

It was rough work. Tinnok was not good at skinning her kills. She didn't bother witht he skin on the skull or down past the thigh on the deer's legs, carving off the hide from the neck down, sawing at it with her sharpest dagger. She ripped the flesh in her hurry in several places, and knew if she had a hunter of the Tempered Steel clan looking over her shoulder they would say she had ruined the pelt beyond recognition. Though she rushed this part of the process, she was carefuly when cleanign the blood and leftover muscle attached tot he underside of the skin. If she was ever going to get better at skinning and tanning it would start now, so she scraped the excess off gingerly, and rubbed the underside ont he bark of her tree to dry it off. It would help if she could hang the deer, but she did what she was able to, putting the small deer on umbrella leaves to keep the meat she was going to carve from picking up loose dirt and debris.

The skin she draped over a gnarled root, then she began carving the venison off the bones of the creature. Two legs would be roasted tonight for supper, the stomach wrapped in leaves and kept, the rest...?

Well Tinnok had had an idea of what would happen with the rest of her kill, and her assumption was right. As the dusk closed in, she heard the sounds of life. She had promised herself on the day Caiyha had marked her, never to spend a single day taking her gift in vein. She may be running from all sentient life in the wilds, but no plant nor animal as long as she wasn't a fool, would ever harm her intentionally. So while any other being would need to take care when they heard weighted rustling approaching their campsite...Tinnok's ears simply tried to identify her guest before they arrived.

This time it was a small pack of Akila hounds. Only four, the alpha female heavy with pups, and grateful to share her meal. Tinnok set up her fire, and once her legs were roasting, stomach wrapped and packed away, let the hounds have their fill of the rest of the carcass, watching them intently as they tore and ripped at the remainder of the deer, ripping off the flesh she had missed, getting at every piece of meat and snapping several legs to get inside at the marrow within. It was a gruesome scene, but one the Witch sought to embrace. The pregnant female had her fill first and ate much, then curled up a few feet away from the witch, large dark eyes sliding almost shut to pop back open at a stray noise. Tinnok reached out cautiously, allowing the female to sniff her before placing fingers tentatively on her bulging stomach. A light rumble erupted out of the canine, but it was more a purr than a warning. Tinnok smiled as she saw images and smells flash into her mind of the pack's progress through the jungle in search of food. And she could tell the puppies would come soon. When she fell asleep int he lee of her tree, backpack as a pillow, she had content company with her, and the witch couldn't have been happier.

[Tinnok]

When she woke, the land was white. Slowly, and strangely Tinnok stretched out a hand in front of herself, seeing the form of it vaguely in the mists that had come down from the mountain she was soon to be ascending. It had infested itself everywhere, and though she could make out the deep brown earth beneath her, the tree roots sheltering her to either side, that was almost as far as her vision would reach. Each root disappeared into a grey blanket which swirled and eddied when she swept her hand across it. It was still warm as well, Falyndar was rarely ever cold, but a strange damp moisture seemed to seep into her skin with the fog, giving her chills.

She grinned, loving the sensation. Crawling forward slowly on hands and knees, Tinnok realized she was alone, the Akila pack had left, leaving only the bones of her deer to prove they had existed in the first place. She check the embers of her fire, sticking her hand in deep to make sure there was no chance of accidentally setting fire to the woods, but the wetness that covered her had cooled and drowned any embers that could have festered in the ashes overnight. Tinnok looked out into the blank slate of the world feeling at once fearful of the unknown, and exhilarated by the mysteries this weather pattern gave to her. She wanted to whisper a prayer to Makutsi, but thought that even the simplest sound of her voice might ruin the strange silence that fell over the world then.

It was still dark, due to the fog bank, if Tinnok could guess she imagined Syna was just about to rise, or had just crested the horizon, but it was hard to tell in the expanse of grey. Tinnok slowly and ever so quietly packed her things and armed herself for the day ahead, standing and looking around in awe to see she could see no better than before. She took a step forward only to freeze in place when beneath her feet she could feel a sudden vibration of the earth. She took two small paces backwards, flattening herself against the trunk of the tree The vibrations grew louder, and she heard a loud bray, muffled by the fog before a form exploded out of the foliage not 10 yards from her. It wasn’t hard to make out the long thick forearms, and strange white head of the Nandhai. Its massive arms surged forward, picking up its back legs which half kicked half lifted entirely off the ground in an awkwardly potent running gallop.

And then it was gone, disintegrated in grey, the only evidence of it even being there at all the vibrations that were rapidly fading away. Questions darted through Tinnoks mind, why was it alone? What was it doing so high in the mountains? But most importantly, what in Caiyha’s name would make the massive Nandhai, even one alone, run so fast in such a panic?
Tinnok took a half step away from the tree, peering ineffectually through the fog. What came next she did not see…only felt. Something passed by. It made no vibrations of the earth to warn her, no growls or snarls, or yips, but she felt a breeze wash over her, a buffet of air made by the passing of something enormously fast and lithe, and a small clearing of the fog, while revealing nothing, showed her that something had indeed passed her by.
And that was about when Tinnok began running. She knew the direction in which the Nandhai was moving and that was all she needed. She wasn’t interested in it so much as whatever thing was hunting it, her mind trying to process every possibility.

What began as a hardcore sprint, however, stopped short almost immediately when she practically ran head first into the trunk of a great tree. She skidded to a halt, realizing that her normal tactics weren’t going to work in this fog. She leapt upon a root, and kept her eyes panning between the small bit of ground she could see and the patch of haziness before her. This way she could jump from obstacle to obstacle, and keep an eye out for more looming trees. She was not graceful, nor quick this way, and an impatience built up in her gut when she realized she was probably far behind whatever had passed her. That was when she heard another muffled braying, far…too far away for comfort.

She picked up her pace as much as she could, caring not a bit for stealth as her feet pounded over the ground. She had more than one close call, ducking under a low hanging branch, twisting beneath twin boulders, lunging over an earthen crevice, but at the very least she was nimble enough to avoid such obvious pitfalls…or so she thought when her arm careened into the side of a tree trunk, her clenched fist punching the bark and slicing the skin off her knuckles at the speed she was going.
Tinnok bit her lip to avoid from cursing, not that her stamping feet were very quiet, and paused a second to overcome the sharp and immediate pain, before carrying on at a more careful pace. If this was a hunt, if whatever the hunter was was successful, she would have a chance to catch it in the act of eating its prey, and as long as it was a creature of the wilds, it would know she meant no harm…or so she could only hope.

She padded forward, this time, deciding to be a bit quieter. If the Nandhai was taken down…if that was even possible, it would be cornered, or surrounded by whatever was hunting it, maybe driven into a trap, it would stop moving at some point. She tried to put a directional head on the last bray and took long strides towards it, praying she wasn’t heading in an altogether incorrect direction. She paused again when she caught sight of a broken branch, marking the passage of the Nandhai. It’s prints were visible in the soft soil, a huge tree branch lying cracked off to the side. Tinnok paused, glancing around at the seen, and bending down to fully assess the details in the thick fog. As she scanned over the wreckage a red smear on the edge of the branch caught her eye. The beast was already wounded…perhaps it had been with a group and was driven away by this hunter, driven mad by the pain of whatever injury it was suffering. Tinnok’s legs began pumping, though she didn’t start running again, learning from her previous error as she started following the trail of utter wreckage that would lead her to the Nandhai.

[Tinnok]

She hadn’t heard any braying for chimes, but knew she was on the trail still due to the broken stems, branches, and crushed foliage, smattered with half prints of the creature running as fast as it could. Tinnok could almost feel the Nandhai’s terror, and could sympathize with such a feeling, but simultaneously wondered if the creature knew its demise was at hand. As she strode on the wrecked path she noticed more blood, and not simply drops or smears. She suspected if the ground had not been soaked through with the heavy wet fog that she would be finding more stains of blood in the soil as well. This was a clever tactic, both tiring and weakening your enemy before you had to lay another damaging and perhaps final blow upon it. It did all the work for you, while all the creature chasing it had to do was keep pace, an easy enough task with a trail this obvious. Tinnok couldn’t help but marvel at the talent that was displayed here on this hunt that she was simply observing, and it quickened her strides, her curiosity utterly piqued.
When she heard the death throes of the creature, her heart froze a moment, her body locking up. A bemoaned wail of pain and fear cut through the fog like a knife, but even before it could finish its last horrifying note, a gurgle that signaled the creature’s death rung out as its echo. Tinnok realized whatever it was…was close.

She slowed her pace, crouching low, paying attention to every detail. Every fiber of her body urged her to hurry or she might miss whatever ghost had done this, but if she hadn’t even seen or heard the creature…it was far more quiet than she, more than likely it would be spooked by her presence. She crept forward, foot by foot, yard by yard, not realizing she was holding her breath until her lungs ached for oxygen and she slowly, painstakingly sucking in air through her nose before blowing it slowly out of her mouth.

She didn’t realize her body was quivering until she nearly slipped on a wet stone, every muscle in her body going taut as she caught herself on a log, a chunk taken out of it by a foot or hand of the Nandhai that probably would have destroyed the thing if it had been any bigger. She nimbly used both hands to flip herself up and over the log…and that was when she saw it…a long brutish arm of the creature not a bell before she had seen careening down the hillside.

Tinnok froze and dropped low to the ground. During this time Syna had rose, and was evaporating the fog one particle at a time. Tinnok had been so focused on her task she hadn’t even noticed that her visibility had increased, minutely at first, but more and more so, so now she could see the body of the creature, its throat ripped out, claw marks in its belly and haunches that had caused it to slowly bleed out as it had ran.
Her eyes darted one way, and another desperately searching for the creature, and even with those golden orbs that caught so many details in her sparse decades of life…she almost missed it.

There at the corner of her vision stood a brilliantly disguised creature. What at first she thought was mist shrouding the thing was its fur. The cat…as it most definitely was a cat, was small, impossibly small to have taken out a massive Nandhai. It stood barely three feet off the ground, its ears rippling as if in a breeze, strange and wispy. Its coat was the color of spun silver…of rain, of the colorless mist that surrounded them. And this whole time that she had been assessing the situation, it had two glowing white eyes trained at her, not moving, though it seemed to. She could only confirm this fact because she could see one paw, and its fur was not as long there, dissipating the glorious illusion in part.

Tinnok dared not move a foot, and her yellow eyes locked with the strange white ones, both creatures staring into one another’s souls. Tinnok was alarmed to find that she did not feel any emotions, see the cat’s thoughts…it was as silent in mind as it was in body. She reached out her hand, hoping that it seemed peaceful, but even as her arm shifted, the creature disappeared into fog, gone completely, Tinnok left wondering after a moment if she had even seen it at all, and that this was simply some elaborate dream.

The half breed stared into the empty fog for nearly 3 chimes before she forced herself into motion, walking around to the head of the Nandhai and crouching down low, cradling its great head, a weary tongue lolling out of its mouth, coated with the blood of its final moments. Tinnok stuck two fingers into its mouth and licked the blood. She had never had Nandhai meat before, as it was such difficult prey to hunt due to their numbers and size, but that cat…whatever it was, had made the task look as easy as stealing a Vom skewer from a toddler. She stroked the thin coarse hair covering the beast’s head, still not willing to break the serene silence that came with the fog in the jungle. She also felt a wrenching in her gut, to think that she had driven the animal away from its kill. It may have seemed easy, but all animals needed to eat, and the body was too freshly killed for the cat to have gotten more than a taste of the Nandhai’s blood. Her brow furrowed. She could leave the corpse to the true killer, but what guarantee that the cat would be back?

Deciding to risk it, Tinnok rose and glanced around her. Spying a suitable tree nearby with overhanging branches that could give her a good view of the Nandhai below, Tinnok summoned up her djed and formed her morphed claws and toes, setting to climbing the tree and finding a suitable perch that would be comfortable enough for a day of just watching. This would take her off track of her journey, yet the half breed could not see the endeavor as anything but a learning experience. Whatever this cat was, she wanted to see it again, to learn about how it was so stealthy, how effectively one alone could be at hunting. Perhaps it would be better if she left, for the cat might sense her presence, but this way she had a chance of glimpsing it again. Once high enough in the tree, getting a good view of the continual dissipation of the fog, Tinnok slid off her pack and most weapons, curling her legs around the branch she sat upon and staring in utmost concentration down at the deceased Nandhai.

[Tinnok]

This of course, grew boring quite fast. At first Tinnok simply kept her eyes open, blinking when needed, and focused within, letting the Nandhai become only a vague object of focus as she tried to clear her mind and center her body and thoughts. Of course, for a novice such as herself at the art of meditation, this was increasingly hard, especially when the flickering and now distant images of the strange fog-like cat seemed to keep flickering in and out of her mind, as well as all the questions she had about the creature. It seemed as if this place and altitude, the forests that were constantly wet almost 100 percent of the time would be the best environment for the creatures. High altitudes meant colder weather, but mixed with the constant heat and rainfall of Falyndar made for the perfect recipe for ground bound clouds.

She blinked rapidly and once again tried to return to a peaceful state. In the end these questions could only be answered by the arrival of the feline in question, and if she didn’t keep her focus on the Nandhai, she might miss another precious glimpse of it. She inhaled slowly, but deeply through her nose, trying to picture that the intake of her breath was bringing the same calmness of that very creature she had seen, and on her exhale, through her mouth, she tried to dispel her own nagging curiosity and persistent thoughts. She managed four more even breaths each one clearing her mind slightly more before the questions and inquiries popped up again like weeds. She blew out air through her mouth in a loud frustrated sound, and decided this just simply wasn’t going to work.

Instead she rummaged in her pack, yellow eyes darting every other tick to check the forest floor and the Nandhai once more to make sure there was no rustling of foliage or glimpses of silvery fur she was missing. She came up from the pack with her journal, a rather haphazardly crafted piece of work, but one which she was proud of nevertheless. She untied the long leather string that kept it bound, unfurling each flap of Dhani skin that kept the parchment within from getting drenched on a daily basis. Flipping open to a blank page, Tinnok slid out a nub of charcoal, and glanced back down to the Nandhai body. First she began jotting down its aesthetics in a rough scrawl at the side of the page:

Long forearms, a very muscular upper arm, hard knuckles that support much of the weight when walking, shorter back legs, sloped back, curved mouth

Once these observations had been filed away, Tinnok began to draw broad dark strokes with the charcoal, attempted to capture the shape of the Nandhai’s front appendages. She was not good at drawing, and rarely practiced, so her first few attempts ended in curses, which she quickly remembered to curb due to her true purpose here. She paused for a few chimes, taking in her good view of the Nandhai’s arm again. Their arms behaved just as her own did, but where she had a wrist that led to her hand, there was not a lot of space between the back of her hand to her fingers. For the Nandhai this was a much longer stretch of bone. She wondered if this added somehow to flexibility there, or perhaps it was due to how much the Nandhai put its weight on its hands that area had to be able to support most of its weight, thus it needed to be longer, heavier, and thicker. She jotted down a few more notes:

Large hands, somewhere between a foot and a Myrian hand to carry weight, yet still be able to use as a grasper, to pick flowers or catch insects.

She began drawing again, but whereas before she was attempted to outline and detail the arm, she just drew lines now. First there was a short one, upper arm to elbow, at the elbow she made a short line to signify the joint. She made a large circle around the top of the arm to signify the Nandhai’s muscle there. Then she continued down, until she felt that there was where the Nandhai’s wrist was, wherein another line was drawn. Then she carefully made a shorter line illustrating the hand, drawing a couple of little squares to illustrate the curved way the fingers were when the creature’s walked.

She wiped her right hand, which was the hand she had been drawing with across her face, getting charcoal all over her cheek without realizing it. She then set the nub into the crease of the pages and examined her own hand. The whole purpose of this endeavor was to attempt to copy the ligaments with morphing. Svan had told her it was easiest to morph with models, and it seemed only logical, that the more she understood the workings of her model, the easier it would be to transform and mimic their traits.

Slowly the half breed felt as if she was getting a hang for morphing. Utilizing Reimancy always made her crave more, and once the feeling passed, it always charged Tinnok with a thrill of fear that made her not want to use the magic again. Morphing, though difficult, seemed more in tune with her, both when she pooled her djed in order to shift her skin and body, and simply in general as she was a Witch of the wilds. This allowed her to learn more and understand the creatures she cared for and observed in her domain, and someday perhaps, would allow her to walk among them in their guise.

Tinnok’s eyes blinked rapidly, for when she reached for the Djed within her, she felt it well up slightly faster, almost as if it read her thoughts and agreed. That or she was simply getting slightly better at the act of shifting and commanding her magical energies throughout her body. Either way, she guided it down both arms, deciding to start in her hands and work her way up from there. She collected her djed there, and began to slowly lengthen the bones. At first she began with the bones that led to her fingers, but not the fingers themselves, only the ones that branched off from the base of her hand where it connected to the wrist. In doing this she had to stretch her skin as well, in addition to the muscles that powered motion in those otherwise useless sections of bone. She began on her right hand first, watched her hand lengthen, staring in a mixture of disgust and calculation as she watched her right hand lengthen, appearing almost monstrous as it stretched first and inch, then another. She stopped it there, mimicking this process in the other hand, the growth quicker the second time around, her fingers appearing too short now for her strangely elongated hands, her thumb drawing back from her other fingers and appearing more like a little stub off to the side of her hand than another finger. She nodded at this observation, however, it meant that her alterations were accurate, as this is how many monkey’s hands looked when they had opposable thumbs, the appendage drawn away from the other fingers.

She breathed in deeply through her nose and out of her mouth, the next stage of her transformation was going to become more complex.

Word Count1,244

[Tinnok]

She curled her right hand so that each of her fingers was bent down and all she could see was up to her first knuckle, she focused the djed in each of these areas, lengthening them somewhat. She flexed her longer hand, testing it, curling up her fingers as a Nandhai would and placing it knuckle first against the bark of the tree. She was missing the chorded muscles they had to support such use of their hand, but first she repeated this process on her left hand, and next, set about to imitating the Nandhai’s fur. For this, she had need of a closer view of the body, something she was reluctant to do, for if the mysterious silver cat was nearby she’d surely scare it off for good, but if it was as clever as it seemed, it probably would know she was up in this tree anyway.

Funneling a bit more djed into her fingertips, she formed her hooked claws, laying her longer palm across the tree bark and digging her fingers in before traveling down to the forest floor. There she stood a little ways away glancing at her arms. She slowly pulled away her claws, letting her fingertips return to normal, and with this receding of djed, pulled the energy up both of her arms. It would be most efficient to shape and regress her legs to fully utilize her new and longer hands, but for this time, she worked a band of djed around each arm, pulling the bone and muscle and skin from it to lengthen without needing to fill up her entire arm with her magical energy. She smiled softly at this more energy efficient idea, but beads of sweat still appeared at the corners of her brow, dripping slowly down her temple.

First she lengthened her forearms, but only a couple of inches, then she shifted the bands of djed up to her upper arm and did the same. These were small adjustments, but when she looked at her arms she could see the obvious difference, her arms now hanging around her knees. Tinnok bent forward, knees dropping, laying her knuckles on the ground and simulating the Nandhai. Her torso and body were not aligned correctly to fully mimic the movement, but she got the idea as she crawled forward on all fours.

When beside the Nandhai she held her body upright for a moment with her new elongated arms, and then dropped to the ground heavily, curling up her legs beneath her, trying to find a relaxing position to lay her arms in. She began sinking her fingers into the short coarse hair of the Nandhai. It was a bit wiry, but thick, covering the entirety of the animal and discouraging insects from being able to find their way down to its more sensitive skin, so harsh were the hairs there. She sifted through them, fingertips getting a sense of the thickness of the hairs. She lifted up one of the Nandhai’s arms, looking at it’s leathery hands, looking to where the hair started, around the middle of the back of its hand, starting as the thinnest of tapers and quickly widening to engulf the wrist and all around the arm. It was a dark brown with a few color variations, but Tinnok focused on the main color of brown, directing her djed there and watching as small dark follicles sprouted up on the back of her hand. For now she focused on the accuracy of the hairs. Her control of djed was not as precise as she’d like and so at first when she pulled djed strands into hairs they were far too long, she pulled them back, thickening them somewhat, then pulled up more to copy this original base, her breathing getting heavy. Part of her mind warned her that her energy and endurance would run out before this project was complete, but she was determined to try, so much so, that for now, the Ethereal Jaguar, had been forgotten.


Word Count672

[Tinnok]

The hairs began to spring faster upon her hand, filling in the gaps until she could not see her skin, and once she was confident with the model, she replicated the band of djed, hover it just beneath her skin and holding it place as she forced the follicles through her skin, slowly moving it up her arm as her scaled flesh filled in with thick fur. She only did this process on her right arm, deciding that it would be too much to try on both arms simultaneously, but by the time she was at her forearm, almost to her elbow, she could feel her power waning.

Her flesh was still a much lighter tan, her skin not so thick or leathery, her hand not so muscled, her body the same, and not able to fully utilize these appendages. She assessed these faults in her work, but did not despair. With every attempt and test, she could feel her power growing. Next time her capacity to mimic the Nandhai would be greater. Tinnok let her eyes close, instead of watching the change happen, she decided to feel it through the awareness that was her Djed. It was like a million tiny fingerprints that ran over her bones and muscles, sliding along her veins and enveloping her very innards. First she pulled back the hair, letting it slid back into her flesh. She then worked on changing her arms, working each change in reverse. Her arms shrank back to normal size, and then her knuckles, then finally the bones in her hands. Her breathing was heavy, her focus on making sure each bone and ligament was back where it had been before, and in the end, she was satisfied.

It felt like walking on sore muscles when she pulled a sliver more of djed back into her finger tips and toes, allowing her to climb back up to her perch. These shifts, however, were almost second nature by now, so used to the sharp hooked claws was she. Releasing these transformations when she collapsed upon her branch was like letting out breath being held. Tinnok leaned back against the trunk of the tree, carefully folding up her journal once more, and replacing it in her pack, staring up at the endless green of the canopy above her. Her yellow eyes flicked back down wistfully to the Nandhai and the surrounding foliage, knowing it fruitless now to hope for the return of her feline.

Instead the half breed folded a leg up beneath her, folding her normal sized arms in her lap and nestling against the tree trunk, exhaustion from her experimentation and chase of the cat catching up with her all at once. Tan lids shut slowly, and drifted almost immediately into a dream world periodically interrupted by glowing white eyes and fur that swirled and changed like the fog rolling off of the mountains that surrounded her.

Word Count488

[Tinnok]

She woke in the darkness, to the very audible sound of something tearing at the Nandhai carcass below her. Her first thought was that the strange mist cat had returned, then she immediately squashed this thought, smothering her hopes of seeing it again. More than likely it was a scavenger taking advantage of the free meal, which had been sitting there for many bells.

A faint bit of moonlight let her eyes adjust to the darkness somewhat, but certainly not enough to identify whatever was below her. She shifted somewhat, her whole body tensed as she leaned forward, some small sliver of her mind hoping that would somehow lend her to hear what was below her. It instead reminded her of her serious usage of magic that afternoon, and released a pained grunt from between her lips unbidden, her arms feeling as if she had been lifting ton boulders.

The tearing and ripping of flesh immediately ceased. There was a momentary pause of utter silence broken only by the shifting of leaves and a few faint chirps of frogs nestled safely in their bromeliads, and then a humming growl deep in the back of somethings throat started up. In the dark shadows Tinnok saw something shift, and in the faint light of Leth's glow she saw two milky white eyes reflect the light. Her mouth opened to speak, but it was her mind that reached out, cannoning forward with the brief eye contact she was given in the darkness to reach out to this creature.

This time, she was not met with a blank slate, a wall without contact, but a very audible annoyance. A sharp bright mind behind those strange pupiless eyes assailed her, she had disturbed its meal, and had the audacity to do it not once but a second time. Though the witch couldn't quite believe it, she found herself apologizing profusely. It was not that she had wanted to do anything of the sort, she had simply never seen a creature like the cat before, and while they were on this topic...why had it fled in the first place?

To this, she was met with a silence once more, but this time it was the cat's turn to be a bit ashamed, if not defensive. The Witch saw images of lonely misty mornings, great hunts and chases, coming out with the fog, and returning to the peaks of mountains, receding with it like the tides on the ocean. Essentially it came down to the fact that the jaguar was young. Most of his life had been alone and it also seemed that he entirely enjoyed this...for the most part anyway. She could feel the conflicting thoughts in his mind. He knew what she was, inherently, but he seemed to resist this contact, also knowing that the beings that walked upon two longs were dangerous.

Tinnok inhaled deeply, drawing from her magical essence to summon her claws once more, which now felt like a great exertion. Pack over one shoulder, journal shoved into a pocket she lowered herself from the tree onto the ground, approaching the jaguar cautiously and releasing her djed as soon as she reached the ground. She made a promise of what he already sensed from her Phylonura, that she would not harm him, though she wondered if she could share in his meal, he begrudgingly accepted and she began to set up the tools that it would require for her to cook her food.

She took her time forming a pit for her fire, digging out a small trench and circling it with rocks, clearing away any obvious brush that might catch alight,, collecting it in the middle for tinder. There was always plenty of fuel about, and she collected this and placed it in a pile next to her pit, most of this happening as she stumbled about, not so gracefully. Every now and again she would catch the faint reflection of those milky eyes watching her with a mixture of disgust at her clumsiness, and curiosity. It humbled her somewhat, for she had grown into somewhat of an acrobat since her exile, yet this creature made her look like a stumbling child in comparison.

Once ready she got her flint and steel and spent a few tense chimes getting a spark and sending into her tinder, leaning down and blowing encouragingly until a wisp of smoke, then the beginning of a flame lit up her circle. The jaguar hissed and growled at her, shifting fur raising in hackles she was quite familiar with. Ignoring the somewhat petulant outburst, Tinnok flipped a dagger from her belt and cut a hunk of the Nandhai off of a spot relatively untouched by the jaguar, slicing three segments which one by one she impaled on sticks and fastened in the ground so they hung at an angle over her fire, which she added larger sticks to to ensure it would continue to grow.

With ample light now Tinnok sat back, arranging her pack and examing the shifting shadows its rippling fur made upon its body. Truly the creature was small, long in body and whipping tense tail, but this did not take anything away from the awe which she felt gazing upon it. They made eye contact and she could sense the jaguar's confusion as it felt emotions it was not familiar with. The half breed sat with legs crossed, summoning up the foggy (literally) images of the hunt she had witnessed this morning. Were these kind of hunts usual? No the Nandhai was a rare and tough prey, but tasty enough to be worth it. What were its normal prey? Akila hounds, monkeys, agouti, tapir, ocelots, smaller prey were easier to chase because it was so fast, but larger prey were not impossible, as displayed by the Nandhai.

Sensing more annoyance at her pelting of mental queries, Tinnok let the silence resume, the jaguar returning to eat, and her tending to her meat, which she rotated over the fire. She ate in more silence, finishing one section of meat and wrapping the other two up. It seemed the Ethereal jaguar also slept in the trees so as a show of friendship, Tinnok used the length of rope in her pack to tie two of the legs of the Nandhai up, using some new found energy with her meal to summon up her morphed claws once more and ascended her tree with the rope, using it as a pulley to hoist the Nandhai's body above the ground and keep it suspended for the night, keeping any would be scavengers at bay. By the time she was done, she was sweaty and exhausted, and couldn't tell if the feline was grateful or upset at her, but regardless when she curled up in the lowest branches of the massive tree, on the opposite side from where the Nandhai hung, the jaguar found a perch a branch above her and stretched out to fall asleep.

The Witch found herself falling asleep with a smile upon her face once more.

[Tinnok]

When daylight broke again, this time Tinnok rose with it, half expecting her jaguar friend to be gone. In fact he was still there, not encircled by the fog this morning, gently batting at the strung up, half eaten Nandhai carcass swiveling from the tree. The Witch cleared her throat so as not to surprise the jaguar, but he only gave her the most casual of glances to acknowledge he knew she was up.

Shifting she stood up, arms outstretched and stepped from branch to branch, working her way over there while occasionally hanging onto support branches, then untied her string around the trunk and slowly proceeded to lower the Nandhai back down. The jaguar didn't take long to leap down from his perch and set back into his meal, Tinnok staying up on high to eat hers, observing the cat in more detail. In the true daylight, still growing in the early morning, she could discern the faint dapples int he rippling fur, the strange pointed tufts on his ears, and a lithe muscular body that flowed under his fur.

When she had finished another strip of meat she inched further out, looking at the cat and drawing into her magical power again. There was still a soreness of exertion, but she felt confident in using the magic anew. She willed her djed to flow down into her arms once more, and part of her intention was to replicate her experiments of the previous day. Her eyes closed and her breathing slowed. She wasn't going to look at her work, she wanted to feel it happen within. One breath, two, three, and then she began, her mind focused on the large arms of the Nandhai. First her fingers, bones thickening, though only minutely, and lengthening, skin and muscle stretching with them. She worked on both hands simultaneously, finding it easier to mirror the magic in both appendages as opposed to working in one then the other, though she was sure it expended more power.

Then her arms, lengthening them, both fore arm and upper arm, each a few inches, feeling them slowly droop more over her legs.

Next, however, was something new, and not in her sketch book. First she picture the feline when she first saw him, poised in the fog like the illusion he seemed, taking a single step back and utterly disappearing, then the illusion dispersed, the realization of its shimmering, longer fur, and sleek features. The silvery lengths, tufts, the greyish purple dapples that enhanced the shading of the fur. She had imitated the Nandhai's course fur, but even though she had never touched the feline, she knew it was an entirely different element. It was fine, soft, flowing like wind made material. This she could see plainly, and it was this that she summoned forth, beginning with the back of her hand, forming it in a triangular shape that faded into her skin. She felt an itching as she imagined the delicate hair follicles springing from between minuscule cracks in her scales. She waited patiently, gauging time spent to the length, her eyes itching to open and check her work, her mind refusing to let them. Slowly she moved her djed up under her skin and up her arms, until she reached around her elbows. After all this was complete she came to the realization that her breathing was much heavier than before, as if she had just run at a sprint for a bit too long. She took a moment more to tie the djed off a tthe tops of her arms, a sort of mental reinforcement to hold her transformations in place, then slowly opened her eyes to see two monstrous foreign limbs hanging in her lap.

For the most part the fur was correct, it was sleek, silver, and even contained the correct colored dapples, though they were not as elegantly placed, more as if she had painted them on with a brush too large. The fur was too short, however, and did not rustle like the jaguar below, whose white eyes were focused on her, apparently having witnessed quite a bit of it, and it was her turn to feel a bit of awe coming her way, to which she smiled.

She flexed her fingers, running one hand over her arm to feel the soft fur, satisfied at least with that. Then, slowly, she stood, walking carefully out as far as she could upon the branch she stood, bending her knees, and lunging into the air towards the nearest tree. Her arms were awkward and heavy, but she was able to grab onto a branch much more easily than before, both hands clasping thicker fingers tightly around the wood and swinging her powerfully up. She let go at the peak of her swing, feet kicking, and had a moment of childish pride and glee as she shot a quick shot of djed into her feet, her toenails thickening and curling so that when she hit the next tree trunk she slid somewhat down it, then her claws hooked in and she flipped backwards, letting her arms fall down and grab onto another branch. From here the ground was quite close, and she hung, lowering herself to her fingertips, then dropping some 15 odd feet, knees bending again and tumbling a bit awkwardly, but finding it quite easy to push herself back up to her feet once she had landed.

She stood, an already tall creature with strange, furred and elongated arms swinging at her sides, the jaguar a bit impressed at the display. The word and image of monkeys flashed into her mind, but not with the insult she had come to expect. She gave a deep bow, then collapsed on the ground, slowly releasing her djed.

The two creatures, from different worlds spent the rest of their morning and into the afternoon with each other, despite the fact both of them knew it was quite a waste. Tinnok eventually retrieved her things, the jaguar ate all it could of the Nandhai, and she took a bit more meat to cook that evening. There was a pang of sadness as the Witch departed from the jaguar, her fingers running through his silky fur once in way of goodbye, but also a thrill as she turned and walked away, one glance over her shoulder showing he had already disappeared. Now that she knew these creatures existed she vowed to find them again and learn from them, for she had found the ultimate hunter to emulate, and had only begun learning.