Paved with Good Intentions (Malady)

[Colt]

20th of Winter Khasr mumbled and stumbled out of his tent. He couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t nightmares or anything like that, but he just couldn’t sleep. A feeling of urgency had settled over his camp, and all he could do was fidget and roll and try to get comfortable. But no matter what he did, he just stayed awake, and so had decided to clear his head with a walk. For an almost straight ten days the Drykas had been here on the plains, longer than he ever had before, living next to a herd of wild striders, and a certain black bay in particular. The stallion was strong, fast, belligerent, and had a positively volatile temper. He strongly reminded Khasr of himself, actually. The she-leopard that lived almost on top of him wasn’t as bad as Khasr had thought she would be. She had a gift for staring, but he had learned to resist, and he couldn’t help but admire her beauty when he saw her. There was also a pack of hyenas nearby, but they had never shown the slightest inkling of interest in him. The stream was bursting with life even in the winter, and providing for himself was a simple and easy affair. His traps provided most of it, The grasslands were uneasy. He could feel it in every step, every breath. Something wasn’t right. He looked into the tree nearby, but try as he might, he couldn’t find the she-leopard. He slung his javelins over his back, wary, and slipped into the grass. His feet had walked this path many times before, and the moonlight was enough to know where he was going. He reached the lip of the valley, and his heart stopped. The striders were gone. The sound of hoofbeats made his head turn, and he saw the black bay, hide blacker than black against the world around it. It was a ways away, but he knew it was looking at him. It pranced, but did not approach. The bay turned reared, powerful muscles rippling, and neighed. The sound echoed over the empty land, and the man couldn’t help but feel like it was trying to tell him something. “What is wrong?” Khasr whispered. The stallion’s forefeet returned to the ground and it spared him one last, long look, then wheeled and plunged into the grass.

[Malady]

She was sure she had scraped all of the fur off of her cheek by now. Her lids were locked in tight on her poisonous citrine-yellow irises. If she were to squeeze them any tighter, she was certain that she would force them into her throat. The pressure alone made her dizzy and sick inside, rocking and rolling away her mind. She was sure that if a breeze rolled by it would pick her right up and take her away, as light headed as she felt. In the tight embrace upon her consciousness, Malady had begun to rub her check across its temporary pillow. The shallow rivets of the tree bark did not make for a luxury hold, acting like sandpaper againist her coarse fur. Pretty soon she felt her blood would join the severed hairs, staining the tree with her concentrated essence. The Zith female had flown here in the early morning as the sun had begun to rise. She had lost track of the time of that night, consumed in the obsession of disemboweling some helpless creature. As the deadly rays had begun to rise, she realized she was too far from home to make it back for that day. She scampered to a thick tree and nestled up inside of it for the time being, seeking refuge from the day's abuse. However, as the day slowly crawled on, she realized that the heat was going to be menacing and thick. It had crawled into her every pore and crept into her consciousness, suffocating her from the inside-out. She wasn't sure how she was going to survive through the remainder of this day, but going the long way home wasn't going to help her any more. She was sure by the time she made it back she would be unconscious, and its not like she had any friends in the clan to rescue her. Then her ears caught a sound. A sliver of golden iris peaked from behind soot-colored lids, and her visage grimaced with the pain of the glaring sun. Even from within her seclusion, the light was still painfully bright. Yet the sound persisted, rousing her from her trance-like state. Her weight shifted forward until she was crouched on the unyielding branches, peering through the foliage to the slender grasses below. A cat was gazing up at her, and she lifted her lips to expose her spear-tipped teeth. She made a rocking movement, preparing to lunge for it, but as she did it disappeared smoothly within the jade sea below. With a sigh she sat back, waiting for the heat to dissapate so she could escape to the cool humidity of her cave. Before she could relax, another whisper of movement held her attention once more. Unlike the first time, she was glad to see it wasn't a stealthy predator, but a slow human looking alert below. A smile twisted her fur-covered features as she thought of the game to come. The humans were always the most fun to break. Malady began to whisper in the strangled language of her kind, a guttural and unbearably harsh sound at the best. It was a sound so complex and uneven that there was no denying it was a language, not just some tortured animalistic groan. "Time to play, my pretty little Drykas boy," she whispered ceaselessly, creating a cacophonic hymn. The jagged noise fought ferally againist the halcyonic breeze, sparring its way to the startled human's ears.

[Colt]

He threw his quiver down and kicked the ground, sending dirt shattering. Something was wrong, very wrong, and he felt a heat deep inside him, and it wasn’t the warmth of pride or the thrill of success. It was searing anger, burning resentment, and blazing hatred. There was a dull whine in his ears, but he ignored it. What had happened? Where had the striders gone? And gods, why now? After years and years of solitude, practically exile, for the sole reason of his lack of a strider, he had been close, so close. He could remember the times he had been so close to the bay that he could have reached out, stroked it. But it was gone. He could feel hot tears welling up. The whine was getting louder. “Damn it!” he screamed, kicking a stunted little tree so hard it nearly uprooted. No. Wait. Khasr took a deep breath, and the heat in his head cleared. They weren’t gone, they just weren’t here. He didn’t need to be in their exact spot the whole time. He was fine. He just needed to go back to his camp, wait until morning, then follow them. A herd of horses was easy to track. As he calmed, he became aware of the whine once again. He wasn’t imagining it, and as he listened, he realized that it wasn’t just a whine. It was a whine, a rumble, a screech, and a growl simultaneously, each noise rolling and grating and clashing to create a sound so inhuman that it was both terrible and beautiful, both wonderful and horrible to listen to. He turned, searching frantically for the source, and took tentative steps towards it. He followed his ears as best he could, puffy eyes less than functional in the darkness. And it was because of his lessened sight that he didn’t see her until he was directly below her. Uttering a fearful cry, Khasr bolted.

[Malady]

It would seem that there would be two returning to her cave tonight.

Now that dark had fallen over her aerial perch, her golden optics could freely expose themselves without fear of burning. Desperately she desired to swiftly return to her cave and immerse herself in her self-imposed exile. There she could escape into the folds of her cool humid confinements and everlasting darkness. However, she could not pass up a perfectly fine puppet. It had been so long since she had feasted upon such a divine creature as the human species, being reduced to creatures even more lowly than they. Her pitch black talons gripped her perch with a ferocious determination, sinking into the firm bark of the tree. The violaceous sap from the tree oozed onto her pitch bone extensions that replaced the dull and useless nails of mere human appendages. Malady’s Zith hands, twisted, thin, and delft, were lethal slicing tools, more weapon than body part.

The purple syrup congealed on her claws, resembling residue of deathly blood, devoid of all oxygen and life. Her people often used it to aide the sick, mixing it with animal’s blood to help them slip into a world of unconsciousness, away from the perpetual world of pain and malice that they resided in.

The thought of a hunt consumed her every thought, driving her mad with the promise of flesh. The taste of human blood snapped over her taste buds and the obsession turned her vision crimson. Thick saliva hindered her speech, making her call gurgled and strangled. The septic fluids escaped her maw and fell, splattering on the branches below. As the human stumbled forward, her claws scraped eagerly across the bark, taking the sharp edge off of her barely contained excitement.

The closer the human stumbled, the louder her chanting became. It was all she could do to quit from leaping from the ledge. Finally he seemed just within her range, and his head snapped up, and their eyes met…

…And as he sprung away, she lurched down towards him. The Drykas male had been crafted to maneuver over these rolling emerald plains, but all of her life the bat-like fem had been trained to arboreal transit. She escaped the clutches of the hideout with ease and grace, her small form seemingly immune to the snags and snares of the branches. Her feet had almost sunk into the plush jade carpets of the land before her gray-furred wings unfurled and grasped the rolling currents of the skies. Muscles inconceivable to mere humans took instinctual hold and led her over the flora. Unlike land travel, she was not inconvenienced by earthen obstacles, and the plains were bare but the exception of a few trees here and there. An ecstatic screech filled the night-filled air as she neared her target, his scent clouding her senses and poisoning her mind with anticipation.

[Colt]

Fear and adrenaline rushed through his veins, through his ears, through his eyes. Every sound, sight, smell; it was all thrown violently into perfect, crystalline detail. His heart pounded louder than a drum, even louder than his feet on the ground. Nothing Daha had taught him, nothing in his experienced had prepared him for this. Her chant coursed through him as naturally as his own blood, coming to a glorious and horrific crescendo as she forsook her throne in the skeleton of a once-glorious canopy of leaves. He heard the barest whisper behind him as she ascended, heard the snap of her wings unfolding, and felt the throbbing in the air as they forged a path through the night. Her alien words and the beat of her wings and the sound of the wind wove together as fluidly as her voice, personifying his terror. And still he ran. What had once been dark was now easier to see than it had been in daylight. Nothing escaped him as he flew through the plains, suddenly agile and graceful as an antelope. His feet were light and quick, and he slipped over the lip of the valley and streaked down the slope. Everywhere, signs of the horses that had once been there stared at him, shaking their heads. You should have listened. He wove through a patch of bushes, startling a flock of crows into flight. He felt her behind him, felt her joy. Perhaps it was the connection of one denizen of the Sea of Grass to another, or perhaps it was simply a realization: he had walked this path before. Hunter and hunted, it was a path that was familiar, constant, a path he had walked a thousand times. But never before had he walked it like this. Never before had he been the prey. She uttered a cry of ecstasy, and it mingled with his cry of desperation. It wasn’t just this path he knew, it was this song. He had sung the song of the hunt before, many times before, and knew every part by heart. He had no difficulty remembering the part of the hunted, and screamed again out of sheer instinct, forceful and overwhelming. He knew she would catch him. His strength waned, his lungs were in agony, and his legs had lost all feeling. He heard her approaching from behind, but his body would not obey him, would not pull ahead to safety. He could not escape.

[Malady]

A day of nesting in the gnarled fingers of the tree had done her well. Her mind was now crisp and awake, resonant in its sharpness. She had become an entity set on autopilot, governed by instincts. Not one thought crossed her mind, for her path was already mapped out, pre-selected, as if written in stone. She did not need to second guess herself, for that lost speed and time, and questioned her ability to take down this creature. Confidence was the drink of the huntress, caution was its crippler.

The fierce gales given birth to by her sinewy wings buffeted her fur. The lackluster, ashen pelt that blanketed her form whipped and fought in the wind, throwing her body into a shifting silhouette of dingy hues. Burgundy tufts pulled at her streamlined figure, their masses fighting against the current, throwing the sharp angles of her extremities into discord. Her hair was becoming one tangled mass, a crown of fire haloing her head in a ghastly inferno.

The hungry cries of her lungs rang into a rugged harmony with the defeated wails of her prey. Sickly jaundice-hued irises had rolled back, arching with her ecstasy. The glaring whites of her sclera were her only sight, leaving her blind. Her raven talons shuffled and twitched, clanging against one another, birthing a harsh grating noise to the wind. They were sharpening, preparing, for that memory of the thud against flesh, the yielding pop, and the firm keeper of muscle encircling her blades.

She remembered in great detail, her last meal of a Drykas. Their meat was tough, and gamey, just as the meat of their beloved beasts. The delicacy was their blood. It ran spicy and hot, fiery as the passion of their souls. That was a cocktail she knew she'd be enjoying very soon, making her salivate even more. The thick tendrils flew into her pelt, marking her as even more wild and uncivilized a creature.

Her day of resting had prepared her for this, keeping up her reserves, saving her for this moment. She was arrogant enough to think this was fate, a plot conceived by gods, leaving her this kill as a gift. She knew she had done something right to deserve this creature, and thus she couldn't apprehend anything but success. She arched her back, howling a victory cry to the winds, and rushed forward with the last bit of her strengths, intent on capturing this male.

[Colt]

He wished he could say that something had snagged him, tripped him, but he couldn’t. He had taken a stride, bent forward with speed, and the other leg had simply not taken the next. He fell, not even uttering a grunt of pain as his body rolled and skidded over the rough rocks and plants of the plains. He lay there, ignorant of the pain and unable to move. He was a hunter. A predator. A stalker in the grass. He had killed beasts big and small, swift and strong, living as a part of everything around him. Yet here he lay, broken, in the same place into which he had chased so many other creatures. How had it come to this? They say that when you are about to die, your life flashes before your eyes. He had never put much stock in such things, but his mind began to spark, reliving his memories. He remembered his childhood, the odd one out, seen as a bringer of bad luck. He remembered a black asp, and he remembered beating it to death. He remembered following a man from the pavilion, losing himself in the Sea of Grass and Daha’s teachings. He remembered his first hunt, his first prey, his first kill. He remembered his brother, full of hate and spite, and remembered living outside the tent just to avoid him. He remembered glassbeaks calling out in bloodlust, remembered running and leaving Daha to his fate. He remembered fleeing from the taunts, the shame, remembered becoming truly one with the grassland. He remembered a dark-haired Diamond girl, he remembered her laughter, and he remembered running away from that, too. No. Perhaps it was bravery, perhaps it was stupidity, perhaps it was just his goddamn pride, but something flared in him. A small fire that tugged at his heart and mind. He didn’t want to die like this. Predators didn’t fall and wait for death to come. Slowly, he rolled to his feet. His muscles were loose and liquid, and he kept his balance easier than he could remember ever having done before. He could see a shape, black on black, undulating as it slowly grew larger. He faced her, arms by his sides. He didn’t even have his javelins to defend himself with, but he didn’t care. He was done running. And she came. Despite everything, Khasr found himself admiring her. Muscles corded as she flew, moving with the same sinewy grace that he was so used to moving with. Her hide, though matted and dirty, was a solid gray and red, and he found himself wondering what she would look like if she were to be cleaned up. It was an interesting thought, at least.

Every inch of her body was taunt with the promise of capture. Her wings, which had been on a pattern of wild flapping and gliding, now folded at a harsh arrow angle. The span was flexed enough so that she was keeping the air under the leathery flaps, swelling them like balloons, their rises looking hilly between extended fingers of bone. One outward reach of those modified fingers that created her wings would send her soaring skyward, but for now they were tucked so as to give her speed. She could feel the gales whipping her hair into one solid mass, tangling it like a wild creature. Tears streamed from her optics, the water being torn from her sclera like a demon from an exorcism. They made her eyes itchy and dry, causing uncomfortable spasms to irritate her vision. In her arrow-like dive ahead, it distorted her path, causing her to swerve wildly off her path. A wicked scream tore from her trachea, breaking the still night like a knife through mud. Straight through, no struggle. Her clawed fingers reflexively reached for her face to shield her from the harshcurrents, causing her to be distracted even more. A tree. Spinning, uncontrolled, across the ground. Wings, broken? Maybe. Flashes. Color. Blackness. No clear images. Fear. Pain. Stupid mistake. She was sent tumbling wildly across the broken foliage, sending shards of bark and root and rock into her body, some not exiting out as she passed. She wished for the hard scales of the Dhani snake-women, and not the coarse furs of her own kind. Perhaps then she'd be the one damaging the earth, not the earth striking her with every tumble and lurch of her body. Her assent was loud and uneven, a rocky chorus of grunts, moans, and snapping branches. Her arms grasped wildly for a halting hold, and finally she found one. Unexpectedly a rocky outcropping broke her path, causing her body to snap around it with a powerful clap and the ajoining scream that came with the impact. She laid there, intent on sulking and assessing the situation. But the memory of the hunt rang through her on the messengers of adrenaline. Instantly she sprang up, muscles sore and torn, but she was not dead, not yet. She clacked her arrrowhead teeth in warning to the human--she was still on the attack, and she would not easily be persuaded otherwise. Her wings flexed, and she found they were not broken, but they were weak and shaken. This would be a ground battle tonight.

[Jackalope]

Khasr :

Experience
+2 Observation
+1 Unarmed Combat (That tree didn't see it coming!)
+1 Running

Lore
Taking out Frustrations on Inanimate Objects
The Feeling of Being Hunted

Makes me sad Malady isn't around anymore, because I feel like you two threaded very well together. Lemme know if you have questions.