Flashback Panic! In the Jungle

[Na'oni]

10th Day of Trip

Na'oni had been in mountainous terrain for a day or two now and while the difficult terrain had slowed her down, she was grateful for the thinning out of wildlife. Now while it says "thinning out", the wildlife only dropped down to normal levels, whereas normally it was at abnormally high levels. 'Normal mountains would...', 'normal terrain would...', well nothing about the Falyndarian jungles was normal. But she had been in the jungle all her life and never strayed far from Taloba so she didn't notice the abnormality of it all. Animals were larger than they were supposed to be and they prowled every layer of the forest, above and below. One has to be able to slip through the jungle quietly, without attracting any attention of the local wildlife.

Barbarians would be hard pressed to hide in the jungle with their bright colored skin but we can hide in the shadows. They mock our height but it just makes hiding and sneaking easier!

Na'oni snickered and stopped close to a tree, leaning against it for a split second so she could rake her sweaty hair out of her face. She felt something soft under her shoulder blades, soft but slimy like the insides of an animal. Holding back a scream, she stepped forward and spun around but what she saw made her clap her hands to her mouth instead of forming fists. It was some....mass of animal bits, reptilian if she was looking at it right, and it twitched and writhed, tangled in the vines. She backed away, eyes wide and hands still clasping her mouth, unsettled by this unholy freak of nature. She wasn't sure if she should put it out of its misery or leave it be and in the end, after a loud inner debate, she couldn't bring herself to get any closer to the nasty thing.

Na'oni almost wanted to walk backwards away from it, she was shaken up and somehow deeply worried about it following her but another argument with herself had logic winning out. She ran away from the area for as long as she could run before ducking behind the remains of a pillar to catch her breath. She scanned the area for any more ruins but the pillar was a lone sentinel in the jungle that guarded her from predatory eyes. She knew she had to be getting close, maybe a day or so more of a walk and her mind shifted to a subject that she'd avoided for the most part in the past days; she wasn't much of a meditating or praying person.

She gave the gods their sacrifices and thanked them for things but she did not think herself worthy enough to pray to a god and ask it a favor. It made her uncomfortable to think about a god taking interest in her for some reason and though she would never admit a fear of them she was very respectful. At least of her gods; with Fek's influence and her feral mind, she was very ignorant of outsiders and their gods.