Earning Your Stripes [Siiri]

[Cayenne]

As she took off northwest on the trail, she could only hope that she was mostly done with the gauntlet. She’d made it to the Basin -relatively- unscathed, after all. She actually got to enjoy... ha... a stretch of peace and quiet as she followed the trail. The ape’s tracks were hurried as it fled. Judging by the size of them, they weren’t necessarily fully grown, but Siiri had been surprised by some of them before. There were different sized apes, and this one’s feet looked to be like a kithskin…and she knew well, from past experience, that they did not have to be enormous to be terrible foes.

But at any rate, she was getting closer - the marks were looking fresher, and she even found some reddish hair that she knew came from such an ape, on a thick strand of bark. She had no paths here to follow as predators and prey were going right into the heart of the jungle, further and further away from the capital of the region. In some ways, this was even worse than walking the pathways that Myrians frequented. This meant everything, and anything, could be lurking out here, and she could remember her teachers always explaining to expect the worst. That way they could only rarely be disappointed.

Out here, it could be anything. It could be a scout watching. It could even be a Dhani. It wouldn’t be the first time that they’d found and killed the motherless bastards so close to the city. Contrary to popular opinion, they weren’t stupid – they knew that they had a better chance of finding little ones, and comparatively easy prey out here. She did know, though, that she heard a hiss as her booted feet hit a pile of moss and leaves that had looked solid, and as she stepped away, the pile began to move, the hissing louder, but nothing was revealing itself yet.

Great.

Now what?

[Siiri]

The relative silence of the jungle sent alarm bells ringing in Siiri's mind as she did her best to stalk through the foliage without disturbing the surrounding plants while following her quarry's trail. She felt she was gaining ground on the kithskin - it had to be a kithskin from all the evidence it left in its wake - and whatever jungle cat was hunting it. The quiet only fortified this belief; it was as if the jungle sensed that there would soon come to pass a struggle for survival, against predator and prey, one defending itself to live another day while the other attacking to find sustenance in its victim's flesh.

Siiri made sure to only put one foot in front of the other whenever she heard the small sounds the jungle made, from the random chirps of birds to the buzzing of insects, even the rustling of dead foliage, to make sure that any noise her boots made would blend in with the jungle's own. The sound of a hiss, so different from what she expected to hear from the creatures that she followed, did not escape her notice. It came from the pile of leaves and moss she had just passed.

A hiss only meant one of three things: a giant lizard, a snake, or a Dhani. None of them she liked.

The Myrian's reaction was instant, whirling around as one hand drew her greatsword while the other stabbed her ten footer into the pile, driving its sharp point into the very heart of it. Backed by the strength of only one arm, the force behind the blow was likely not strong enough to pierce the hide of whatever beast that was hiding beneath the heap, but it was not truly an attack but merely a probing jab to lure the creature out. Her quick response likely gave her the initiative if the hidden beast was hostile, and probably saved her life too. Anyone hesitating would most certainly become the victim in situations like this.

At the back of her mind was a nagging question, however. She had strayed far from the basin and she wondered if she was still within the confines of the gauntlet or if what she would face now were true denizens of the jungle. Siiri shook her head, causing her crocodile teeth-bound braids to dance around her shoulders.

She would not be distracted right now.

[Cayenne]

The spear’s tip was jabbed into the mess of leaves and out darted a bright purple lizard - it was lean and long-tailed, and it was moving faster than she could follow it. False alarm, maybe. But that was when she might have realized, as the poisonous critter fled, that it was only using three of its four legs and was trailing blood. The fourth limb, one of its back legs, was trailing after it as it hurried away, broken and useless. All of that analysis had to take the place in a breath - that was how fast the creature was moving, even with a broken limb. The next realization was that that had been an awfully small little lizard to make such a hissing sound. From the leafy pile, though, shot a snake. It was a little constrictor - she knew those snakes like the back of her hand, though it was impossible to tell if it was a Dhani or just a young serpent trying to hunt, and she had clearly interrupted its meal. Sure, it would have eaten the lizard, and died in the process, but still.

That certainly would have been the source of the hissing...

It was just a little snake, hardly big enough to be much of a threat to anything but that lizard or a bird or some of the larger insects, but give that snake another couple years and it would be big enough to kill her. While she was deciding what to do with that snake, she heard a rustle and a whooshing of wind of something big and heavy coming down from above. Either the 6’ frilled iguana with spikes along its back that were as long as her fingers had been startled into movement, which wasn’t uncommon, or it had been dropped on her. With its scrambling claws, it seemed to be aiming right for her, hoping to take advantage of a slightly softer landing than the ground.

[Siiri]

Just that slight movement was enough for Siiri to discard her spear, leaving it stabbed in the middle of the leaf pile as she drew her more potent weapon. Slayer slid free of its scabbard with barely a sound, appearing in the Snapping Jaws' hands as if by magic, so quickly did she unsheathe it. Looking up to note the rate of the freefall of the iguana, Siiri's stance shifted along with the motion, her legs opening up to provide her with greater balance as she pulled the quillon of her weapon close to her chest before lashing out again at the falling lizard.

The Myrian warrior had timed her swing so that her blade would hit the iguana in midair. She knew she could have easily sliced the creature in half and left it at that, but instead she used the flat of her blade to push it away from her and guide its fall to the ground. The small thing would hardly serve as her target for the Hunt itself and she saw no need kill it. While leaving bodies of dead animals in her trail would lead other meat eaters to her, Siiri thought she might attract the wrong kind - like scavengers, which wouldn't prove much of a challenge for her, or worse, big cats, which she did not want to engage considering the purpose of her Trials. Besides, she already had a target for her blade.

Or she thought she did.

The absence of the kithskin and the predatory cat that trailed it left her just a little concerned and also a fair bit irritated with herself. Did she somehow miss their tracks going to another direction somewhere along the way? That was what had likely happened. The chase between predator and prey should have silenced these small fries around her, and yet the juvenile snake did not bother to hide its hiss. Annoyed, she kicked a fair bit of dead leaves to at the iguana to shoo it away, before turning back towards the snake. That one she would not spare.

Her greatsword wasn't called Serpent Slayer for nothing, after all.

"Stupid reptiles," Siiri spat, venting her ire at both lizard and snake. It was irrational anger, she knew, but she needed to hit something now.

"Stupid, petching reptiles!"

[Cayenne]

The iguana landed neatly on Siiri’s sword and hit the ground running, disappearing into the jungle around them. The little snake coiled as Siiri faced it, clearly aggravated at the loss of its meal. She also knew that while it would be strong enough to strangle her if it ever got into such a position, it was not poisonous. So while its bites would hurt and could indeed lead to a life-threatening infection in the dark, sweltering depths of the heavy jungle, it wouldn’t kill her right away. When she stepped forward to bring Slayer down, the snake struck in warning, hissing. The warning display cost it dearly, because as it recoiled, Slayer struck true. The snake was cut in half as its mouth continued to open and close for a while.

If it had been a Dhani, it had been a very young Dhani. Most of them that Siiri had seen were far bigger, which led her to believe that this had simply been a normal snake... the second she had killed in just as many days. After what seemed like a few chimes of opening and closing its mouth, the damnable serpent was still at last. She was going to make an enemy out of Siku at this rate... not that any true Myrian minded.

She heard a roar in the distance, to her northwest. That definitely sounded like a Kithskin warning its predator off. If she looked carefully along the ground, she would see the paw prints of a large cat following those of a much-heavier ape. The cat’s prints were much lighter, despite their size, but Siiri knew well that one didn’t have to be heavy to be a fearsome fighter. But its prints were of a decent size. The dense jungle was only partially cleared for her as the ape had crashed through it, leaving space for its predators to follow.

When she got there, she would find that the cat had apparently left - given up its meal, since the Kithskin had retreated to the canopy. Siiri could hear it up there, making all sorts of racket. Would she go up? Or would she try to force it to go down?

[Siiri]

Slayer sliced through the flesh and bone of the snake, and the violent thrashing of its death throes elicited a smirk from Siiri. Shapeshifting and a beast's strength was all well and good, but nothing could beat superior weaponry.

Siiri - 2, Siku - 0, the warrioress thought in grim satisfaction. Every little thing she did to rid the world of snakes, Dhani or otherwise, only made Mizahar a better place. Siku be damned, Caiyha's daughter or not.

A primal roar in the distance reminded Siiri of her purpose out in the jungle. Her quarry beckoned and she wasn't about to disappoint. She had a jungle cat to contend against after all. Grabbing the lower half of the decapitated snake, to use as gift of supplication should the cat decide to take exception of her robbing it of its meal, Siiri kicked vegetation and dirt around in an attempt to unveil any tracks she may have missed earlier.

And there it was: two sets of footprints, one deep and heavy to the ground as could only be made by one fleeing desperately from danger, and the other light and measured, the steady steps of a practiced killer, a born predator. It led northwest, the direction where the roar had come from. She needed to hurry; if the kithskin was giving off warning cries, she may arrive too late do anything but watch as the jungle cat fed upon its flesh.

Siiri charged through the foliage, her progress quick and easy as the tracks were easier to follow now and the path even easier to navigate, parted as it was by the fleeing simian. She found the spot where the jungle cat and the kithskin may have come to a staredown, the prints so close and circling each other now that one or the other could have reached out a paw to touch the other. But the cat what nowhere in sight and the kithskin...it was still above her, judging from the sounds coming from there. Had it fled or did it successfully repel the cat? She knew them to be strong beasts, but just how strong...

Guess we'll find out.

A wicked grin spread to Siiri's lips as she sheathed Slayer behind her. She had no need for the dead snake now, and it was thrown to the side, the Myrian sparing no more thought of it as her fingers searched for a handhold on the massive tree the kithskin chose to climb up to. The Snapping Jaws warrior could not think of anything to lure the beast back down to the jungle floor, and short of chopping down the tree (and she had not the tools to do so), she couldn't do anything to get it to come to her. She just hoped it wasn't high enough that if she accidentally fell, it would not prove fatal.

If I died from a fall, I'm going to kill that piece of shyke, she grumbled, not realizing how much the thought did not make sense.

The knobby protrusions all around the bark assisted in her ascent, though she slipped more than once from the moss that covered parts of the tree. When she found a branch thick enough to support her weight, Siiri used it as a rest stop to assess the situation before proceeding. She could see the kithskin now, and she wondered how she was supposed to kill it up among the branches, or even just to take it back to the ground. It would be tricky to fight with her sword now, as she would have to concentrate in keeping her balance as well. Should she try to match the simian's strength through hand to hand combat? What if they both fell?

Who cares? Fortune favors the bold.

Siiri stood on the branch and let rip a deafening roar of her own, announcing her presence to the kithskin as well as challenging it to face her. Her slighter frame may make her look less like a predator than the jungle cat, but like the beast that hunted it earlier, she was after the kithskin's meat as well.

Come to me, big boy.

[Cayenne]

The ape, quite frankly, now that she could see it, was a very decent, respectable size. It had to be as big as her. It’s hair was a dark reddish-brown, tinged with green - Siiri knew that, like the sloths that they spotted hanging overhead from time to time, that that green was moss. It wasn’t hard to get it out here. She remembered as a child seeing some of her teachers come back from a season-long patrol - one of the females, Amria of the Murky Depths, had come back with moss in her hair. It had taken a while to get it out. The face pouches of the kithskin told her that it was male, at least, and it was pressed against the massive trunk of the next tree over. It hadn’t expected her to climb up after it - clearly, the critter had thought that it was safe, since the cat hadn’t followed it.

Siiri had proved otherwise. In fact, now that it was being threatened, it began to swell, fluffing up his hair and baring its teeth at her. It had four large fangs, but the rest of its teeth were flat. kithskins were not normally carnivores. They ate some plenty of grubs, that was true, but they were not huge meat eaters. Those fangs were for dealing with some of the extremely tough skins of Falyndarian flora. Siiri vaguely remembered hearing that a kithskin could crack a coconut with its teeth. Had never seen it, but she certainly had heard it. It wasn’t that surprising. Everything in Falyndar could kill you. You didn’t have to look any further from a Riamm. Adorable as a tiger cub, but by the Goddess when they were pissed off...

It didn’t seem inclined to move from where it was hunkered down. It was going to force her to come to it - it seemed to have lodged itself into a very defensible position, and she was going to have to try harder than threatening it to work it out, or go over to it - crossing a couple branches along the way that, while they would certainly hold her weight, they wouldn’t hold that of the ape’s.

Decisions, decisions.

[Siiri]

Watching the kithskin, Siiri knew that it wouldn't go anywhere. It was safe where it was right now, away from her reach or any of her weapons and if she produced something that she could fling at it, it could easily flee in the safety of the adjoining trees by swinging from the many vines that curtained the canopy around them.

Bastard, the Myrian thought. And I thought your kind were just mindless beasts.

Siiri knew she could not let the beast escape her. Without a bow or a similar weapon, she would be hardpressed to chase after it and bring it down, especially if it stayed in the trees. Oh, how she wished for one of Garou's poisoned darts right now...

The warrioress maintained eye contact with the kithskin, keeping its attention focused on her and away from any thoughts of retreat. Let it think that she was helpless to go after it with the distance between them, let it think that it was safe. It would only make it complacent and vulnerable to her intentions once she made her move.

All the while that she was staring at the simian, gnashing her teeth and letting out soft growls of impotent fury for effect, Siiri was slowly pulling out a length of rope from the pack she carried with her. A good five feet of the rough cord and she severed it with one of her daggers. One end of the rope she secured around one of her bracers - the left one - while the other end she tied into a noose that, once secured around an object and pull taut, would tighten quickly and easily. She closed the bag after, making a show of putting it in front of her to catch the kithskin's attention, before letting it fall down to the ground below.

She would have to time everything that would happen next perfectly or she would have to find another prey to take down, or, worse, suffer a nasty fall.

The moment the kithskin's eyes followed her pack's fall, Siiri would leap forward on a nearby branch, using it as a springboard to launch herself closer to the beast. No doubt her move would surprise it, and if it moved to retreat or attack or whatever - as long as it moved - she would throw her makeshift snare at one of its limbs, securing herself to the creature and thus preventing it from moving further away from her reach. She had hoped to have the noose catch around the kithskin's neck so that she could just choke the life out of it, but latching it around any of its limbs would be good enough for her.

Of course, she didn't think through the full consequence of her actions. While the beast couldn't escape if she successfully snared it, the same could be said for her if the kithskin decided to turn hostile and attack. There was also the very real possibility that she would miss latching on to anything and plummet to the ground below.

Small details, really. She'd just have to deal with them when they happened. If they happened.

OOCFortune favors the bold! Hopefully, it will be good fortune or this will be really painful for Siiri... XD

[Cayenne]

There was a reason Myri insisted her people master different weapons and forms of combat. You never knew when one style might come in handy. Unarmed. Ranged. Melee. Bladed. Blunt force. There were so many options and possibilities, and resourcefulness was something that was pounded into a Myrian child’s head again and again and again, and again. Anything could be used as a weapon. A stick. A fish. A rock. A pouch. Dirt. Tree bark. Vines. In the wild, overgrown jungle that Myri’s children called home, they lacked for nothing. Even if they broke their weapons in combat in the jungle fighting against invaders or Dhani, they could just as easily pick up something from the forest floor and continue to fight.. even if it was beating the Dhani over the head with its own dismembered limb.

One could hope that she wouldn’t have to go that far.

As she had anticipated, the Kithskin’s eyes followed her bag as it banged its way down, thumping on every branch before letting out a loud crash that likely would attract the attention of everything else in the jungle. She had to move quickly. A crash like that usually meant something substantial had fallen and might well be helpless, and easy pickings for the myriad of predators that prowled the jungles of Falyndar. Try as they did, the Myrians were not the apex predators, not with all sorts of monsters out there.

The noose idea paid off, at least, partially. The rope successfully went aroudn the creature’s head, but the noose itself caught on the very fat cheek pouches. Siiri’s weight jerked the Kithskin forward, and the creature actually roared as it almost lost its perch, which might have been disastrous - sending both of them to the ground, killing one or both of them in the fall. The strong creature reared upwards, even as Siiri’s weight pulled it down, leaving her dangling. The more she jerked and pulled, the lower the rope got, until it was around the beast’s neck, where she found herself falling even more as the rope constricted around her wrist painfully. With all her weight on it... Oh, Goddess. She hadn’t quite thought -that- part through.

The beast began to choke, grunting and gasping, reaching for her with powerful swipes that managed to just miss, long as his reach was. As the life was strangled from his throat, he fell forward, pulling her up suddenly, over the branch, and threatening to pull her to the ground with her prize if she did not act fast.

[Siiri]

The rope bit into Siiri's bracer and thick as the armor was, she could still feel it squeeze painfully around her wrist as the kithskin's weight tightened around it. Left like that it would likely cut off her circulation in mere minutes. She could already see her hand turn red, in fact. A painful way to lose a limb. As usual, she hadn't really thought about the consequences of her actions, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. And it did work... the kithskin was choking ever so slowly, wasn't it?

Of course now, as the strength left its body, the beast toppled forward, its great weight dragging her up and over the branch. Even with all her strength, Siiri knew she had no chance to halt the kithskin's fall. It was simply too heavy. Her arm would pop out of its socket sooner than she could come up with an idea to stop the both of them from falling down to the ground. There was no other choice - she had to cut the rope. The question was, did she have time to do it?

She didn't.

Even as she scrambled to wrap her legs around the branch, the kithskin's weight inexorably pulled her downwards and Siiri was forced to let go before the her burden yanked her arm off in its fall. Siiri fell with the kithskin.

Cuttheropecuttheropecuttherope...! her mind screamed at her as the ground rushed up to meet her. Her free hand pulled out one of her serrated daggers and she sawed desperately through the cord that linked her with the kithskin. The heavier beast was falling ahead of her, crashing against - and breaking through - tree branches that could not hold its weight, clearing a path for the Myrian's painful meeting with the jungle floor. Siiri would have preferred the branches. She'd suffer cuts and scrapes but they would slow her down enough to avoid breaking anything in her fall.

There were those among her people who could fall from a great height and avoid injury - often they would jump from the city walls, a good twenty feet high structure, just to show off, hitting the ground rolling and rolling to diffuse the momentum of their fall - but Siiri herself never learned the move. Oh, she had learned plenty of falling maneuvers from being thrown around the wrestling mats during training, but would the principle be the same when falling off a tree? Only one way to find out. Or maybe she could just fall on top of the kithskin. The beast should soften her impact enough for her to avoid breaking her limbs, right? She hoped so.

Or...

The rope finally snapped.

With both of her hands free, Siiri pulled out her other dagger and stabbed both blades against the tree trunk that was parallel her. Or tried to. There was no way her blades would bite deep enough into the wood to halt her fall, but at least the teeth of the blades shredding through the tree bark was slowing her down. Not enough to stop her momentum, but it was a marked improvement from her free fall. The daggers left deep furrows on the tree and still she fell, the ground coming closer and closer for her.

"Peeeeeeettttccccchhhhh!" Siiri cursed, not fully aware in her panic if she cried the word out loud or only in her mind. "If I die, I'm petching killing you!"

The last part was addressed to the kithskin, though, suffering tunnel vision from the stress of her situation, she wasn't sure exactly where the beast was now. Had it already hit the ground? If so, she was next. Siiri braced herself for the impact against the jungle floor, reminding herself over and over that she shouldn't absorb the force of the impact but rather allow her legs to crumple beneath her so she could kill her momentum by rolling on the ground. Hopefully, she would only suffer something like a broken leg or arm.

Hopefully.

And then she hit the ground.