Completed [Bronze Woods] The Brat And The Hunter (Nathaniel)

[Soshakuakamamushi]

Near the Main Gates of Syliras, 7th of Bell, 30th of Summer 507 A.V

The Fortress City was getting interesting as she spent more and more time there. Aka met a Dhani who was a Syliran Knight a couple of weeks ago, they had a heart-to-heart chat than ended up into something... more. Aka wasn't sure of the true nature of her relationship with Ser Urisu, but she was glad she had a fellow kin and him being a Knight just made it all better. All the interesting things seemed to happen outside the walls so the Viper decided to go on a hunt that morning. She was hungry and wanted to eat a rabbit or two, that should keep her going for days. Such was the very efficient digestive system of the Dhani race. Humans must eat multiple times daily to sustain themselves.

Syna was still on the rise from the horizon. The Viper relished in the warm feeling as her cold-blooded body absorbed the heat, she sighed in contentment as she walked from the Main Gates, two knights greeted her with one of them raising an eyebrow on why would a girl so young ventured out alone, but he made no comment about it. The Viper was wearing her usual black robe tied with red sash and no underwear underneath, she found those inner-clothing to be unnecessary at she needed to take them off if she wanted to transform, not like she had any chest worth covering anyway. A chubby man would have more protrusion than her. Aka openned her scarlet slitted eyes and began to run forward, heading into the Woods. Her twin ebony ponytails trailing behind her as her lithe frame dashed.

This was going to be a good day, at least until she found herself crashing into something soft and warm, but still held the familiar feeling bones underneath the fleshy cover. "W-w-whu?!!" Aka couldn't keep her balance and she tumbled together with whatever she was crashing.

"O-ouch..." Rubbing her head and checking for any bruises, the Viper realized the thing she was crashing was in fact a man, a human man most likely. With brown hair and equally brown eyes, in Aka's eyes, he was like most average joes in Syliras. He carried a bow and quiever with him, most likely a hunter. Aka grumbled in annoyance, her day started out bad because this man was in her way.

"Oh hey!!" The snake girl hissed and pointed an accusing finger at the man "Why are you blocking my way?! Look! You ruined my dresss!" Aka made an exaggerating motion to her loose robe, it was slipping and Nathan could see her washboard chest slightly exposed, Aka immediately corrected it and hissed further at the man. "What are you looking at?!" She was overestimating a man's interest to her child-like form, assuming this hunter would be even bat an eye at her early-teenage body. Her mischievous Dhani instinct kicked in, she wanted to get back at the man for blocking her way, that was a crime, right? Blocking a lady's and causing her to fall down unceremoniously.

Aka fixed her clothes and stood up, putting both of her hands to her hips, slightly leaning forward in an utterly arrogant manner befitting for a spoiled princess. "Heh! You humansss and your slow reactionsss, I know, I bet I wasss to fassst so you didn't notice me right? If only you are at leassst a bit sssmarter... *Sigh* Oh well, it can't be helped..." Aka mocked disappointment and shook her head. It felt good, being the bully for once, she was tired of being scoffed as a mere annoying girl. Little did she realize it was this precise attitude that brought her such treatments.

"Asss compensssation! I want you to accompany me! I want to go hunting, yesss. Maybe you can carry the ssstuff I brought in, like a ssservant, how'sss that?" Aka jeered, she expected the man to be angry and assaulted her, then she could shout for help, blackmailing him. This was one of the few perks of looking much younger than she actually was. Aka assumed she was old enough to be this man's great-grandmother.

[Nathaniel Deveraux]

Nate was having the strangest day. Kat had actually been quiet that morning, not a good omen. The girl was always a chatterbox, and he often verbally sparred with her every morning to get her to do the simplest chores. It sometimes fell to Lea to keep the peace, although he knew in the end Kat was just bored. He wondered how much longer he'd be able to keep his family together in Syliras; sooner or later, Kat would want to fly the coop. And truthfully, Nate was half-tempted to let her.

Then, after the unnervingly quiet breakfast he had, he'd managed to bump into not one, not two, but three different merchants that he'd somehow apparently angered in the past by demanding higher prices for his pelts than they were comfortable giving him. What did he care about that? Though still, it wasn't exactly the most... ideal start to his morning. And then, as he was leaving, he realized he left his quiver back home, so he had to double back to fetch it. All-in-all, by the time he'd left, he was starting to wonder if perhaps he was cursed by some god and didn't know it.

Nate walked past the gates of Syliras, giving the two guards a curt but respectful nod. They returned it and bid him good luck, he smiled and joked that he would need it. He hadn't gotten very far, however, when something bumped into him. Someone bumped into him, rather, and from the sound of that person's voice, it was a girl. Turning around, Nate quirked an eyebrow at the unusual sight of a small, black-haired girl, with her locks in twin ponytails and wearing what looked to be a... robe? It was an unusual dress for Syliras, and Nate wondered if maybe the girl was lost.

She seemed more upset about him "ruining her dress" then being out in the dangerous path to the woods alone, so Nate briefly considered the possibility that maybe she was a Kelvic. He'd only really met two Kelvics so far, Ama the Radiant White Wolf herself, and her mother. but he still remembered how Kala had saved him, all those years ago, and he knew for a fact that Ama could more than take care of herself. So he wondered if maybe this girl was the same and that was why she was so nonchalant about being out her alone.

He raised an eyebrow again at her accusation of where his eyes had been looking. In point of fact, they hadn't been looking at her chest at all, they had been looking at her eyes. They were an unusual color, which Nate took to mean she maybe was in fact a Kelvic, although Ama didn't really have weird eye coloration, just white hair. Nate mentally shrugged. Maybe different Kelvics had different features.

Then she ... "demanded" that he accompany her to go hunting. Well, Nate was going to go hunting anyway, so- wait what?! Hunting?! Her?! Well, then again... he remembered how large Ama had been, even when she was young. He was still stuck thinking like a human. If this girl was a wolf like Ama, she very well might be able to hunt despite her relative youth.

But... carrying her stuff? What was she talking about? She ran into him! She should be carrying his stuff! Also, Nate wondered why she spoke with a slightly sibilant lisp. It was noticeable if one paid attention to it, but after a few moments he decided it probably didn't matter all that much.

"Uh, well, I don't really see any hunting equipment on you," Nate shrugged, smirking at the little girl. "Unless, I dunno, you plan to hunt with your ponytails or something." Nate shrugged. "So are you a Kelvic? Because I mean, I figure you'd have to be, to be hunting without any equipment like that."

[Soshakuakamamushi]

Aka stared arrogantly as her eyebrows frowned with her lips curled up into a grin. Due to her small stature and shorter height, she looked like a spoiled brat girl instead of a proper "mistress". This man was just as averange and non-descript like most other humans in Syliras, they were all caught up in their activites that they didn't even have time to take care of themselves, save for some rich few. Aka actually liked to pamper herself, mainly with cleanliness and skincare, she liked to keep her pale skin and red scales squeaky clean and shiny.

"Huh?" She tilted her head, her twintails bobbed slightly following her motion. Why would she need equipments? She got all she needed, venom, heat-sensing, fast movements, keen senses, and of course her good ol' fire, earth, and lava. She brought all of her equipments within her body, unlike puny common humans who had to bring all their cumbersome weapons. But of course, being the dumb human this man was, he didn't know all that. "I bring all I need jussst ssso you know, ha! Unlike you, I don't need thossse weapon thingiesss." Aka snorted, determining to make the man felt stupid. "Ssss! What about my hair?!" Aka liked her twin ponytails, they were neat and didn't get in the way also showing off her long silky black hair in the process. Her hair was one of the few physical traits she could be proud of in her child-like body so it should be obvious she would flaunt it.

Kelvic? This man thought of her as one of those shape-shifting animal-humans who could transform in a whim. That was insulting, Dhanis were far more glorious than Kelvics. They might have the ability to shift much faster than Dhanis, but they only got two forms, and they lived like mayflies. A few years and that was it, dead; at least most Kelvics were, but Aka was pretty sure not a single Kelvic could outlive a Dhani. She only reached her maturity not a long time ago and she was already over a century old.

Aka stomped to the man and looked at him in the eye, the man could see her eyes were in the shape of reptilian slits instead of round pupils. "No, human, I'm a Dhani! Have you ever heard of them?" Without even waiting for the man's reply, Aka put her right hand to her forehead and shook it in mock surprise. "What am I thinking? Of courssse you haven't. Hehehe~ Well! Enough talk, let'sss go! Who knowss, maybe I can ssshare some of the rabbitsss with you or a deer or a bear! Sssehehehe~" She flicked one of her ponytails and turned around, heading into the Woods. She would glance back and if the man didn't move, she would urge him to do so.

"I'm Aka by the way, what'sss your name? Ssso I can call you sssomething elssse other than 'human', human."

[Nathaniel Deveraux]

The girl was a Dhani? The petch was a Dhani? Nate had never even heard of such a thing. Was that a real species? Well, in any case, the girl certainly exuded confidence, despite her youthful appearance. Nate snorted slightly. He was sure meeting all sorts of interesting people. First Ama, now this girl. He wondered what part of Sylira these "Dhani" came from. Or if they even came from Sylira. After all, he'd never heard of one before; perhaps she was a traveler from someplace far away? But then, if she came from that far she must've started travel when she was a baby! How is that even possible? And where were her parents?

Actually, as Nate thought of it, if she wasn't a Kelvic, then how did he know whether or not she'd be able to handle herself out there? All he knew was, the reason he was OK with Ama tagging along on his hunting trips whenever the fancy struck her was because her wolf form was frankly very, very capable of handling any dangers the woods presented. So he never really worried about her, because anything that could threaten Ama would almost certainly annihilate Nate. But if ths girl wasn't a Kelvic, that meant she couldn't turn into a big animal form. For all he knew, Dhani couldn't turn into anything at all! After all, shape shifting wasn't exactly common.

"Hey, wait just a chime here!" he called, trotting up to the girl as she talked about rabbits, deer and bears. "If you're not a Kelvic, then these woods are really dangerous! Are you sure you can handle the dangers in there? And no, sorry, I've never heard of Dhani before."

Nate could see that her eyes were reptilian slits rather than the normal round pupils of humans. He found it interesting, to be sure, but that still did not tell him anything. For all he knew, that was the extent to which Dhani differentiated from humans, and in all other aspects this was still a young girl out in the dangerous woods, and he couldn't just let her wander out there by herself. What would Kat and Lea say?

"My name's Nathaniel Deveraux, but seriously, please just call me Nate," he replied to the girl. "And I mean, look, I'm sure you're really excited to be outside the city, but these woods are really dangerous. Are you sure it's OK for you to be out here? I mean, where are your parents?"

Where are your parents? Nate blinked. Great. He'd turned into his father.

[Soshakuakamamushi]

Aka was annoyed at the the dumbfounded face the man showed, did he have no knowledge of the glorious Dhani race? What an outrage! The Viper hissed in annoyance as the man kept insisting that the Woods were dangerous for her because she was not a Kelvic. Utter nonsense, she could turn into a venomous viper with lightning fast strike and venom that could kill but the strongest of the strong in a matter of chimes. Not to mention about her fireballs and lava, Aka was sure no bear, cougar, or wolves could withstand a wave molten rock melting their pelt and flesh.

"Are you dumb or ssstupid, human? Why I mussst be a Kelvic to travel out in the foressst? Who ever wantsss to live just a few yearsss then drop dead like them? I'm sure I can handle myssself, you'll sssee!" Aka sighed in exasperation, she appreciated the man worried about her but his worry was horribly misplaced. "Dhani isss an awesssome race! We are born sssnakesss but gain two formsss as we mature, a Dhani form in our teenage yearsss, and a human form in our adult yearsss. Unlike short-lived Kelvicsss, a Dhani maturesss at one hundred yearsss of age. Doesss that explain thingsss to the thick layer of dirt covering your brain, human?" She wanted to tell so much more of her kin, but putting too much explanation could confuse the dumb human.

So his name was Nathaniel, cool name, but bad intelligence. His name combined was long enough for Aka's liking, she could see if he was a Dhani he would be named 'Nataniedeverausa'. "Okay, Nate, come on! Let'sss go!" She continued walking, her barefooted feet trudging on the cool forest ground. "I'm sssure I'll be okay, jussst don't be surprisssed when I transsform okay? I prefer to hunt in my sssnake form."

His question about her parents brought Aka to a sudden pause, she whirled around and looked up at Nathan to stare him in the eye. "It'sss none of your busssiness!" She didn't need him to start comforting her on the slaughter of her nest. It happened a long time ago and Aka wasn't fond of digging up old wounds. The massacred Dhani nest and she didn't even know why it happened.

"Enough, Nate! Let'sss go! Do you want to hunt or not?" She didn't even wait for his reply before gaining some distance from the Fortress city. Once she felt it was secluded enough, she looked around to see if any humans were around other than Nathan. She wanted to transform to her snake form, her amplified senses should prove very useful in hunting. "Clossse your eyess, I'll go change..." She then began taking off her sash and simple black robe. She also removed her hair ribbons, cascading her waist-length black hair down her back. Covering her non-existent chest with one hand and gave her clothes to Nathan with the other. "Can you take hold my clothesss for a while?" If Nathan obliged then she would give him, if he didn't then she would simply drop it to the ground.

"Don't be ssscared now." Aka assumed he would be scared if she didn't warn him about a Dhani's transformation process as Nathan haven't even heard of her race before. While it was pleasurable for the Dhani, it was not exactly pretty to look at, with the squeezing and stretching of muscles and fusing of limbs. "If you want, you can look away." With a nod, she then lay prone on the ground and began to transform.

Her long ebony hair receded into her scalp as her head turned from humanoid to serpentine, her limbs fusing to her body, red scales with black spots spawning from her pale skin, and her muscles shrank. A full thirty ticks later, a normal cobra-sized red viper replaced the small girl. Aka looked up at Nathan and hissed at him, she didn't bother to speak as the man couldn't understand snake-tongue.

The Viper then slithered away, gesturing for the hunter to follow her. She lapped the air for scent, fully utilizing her keen sense of smell and hearing, also detecting vibrations on the ground. After a few moments, Aka's sharp senses tasted the scent of an animal, she lapped some more and slithered swiftly to the direction, using the scent as a homing beacon. Then she could see it, a deer grazing on the ground. She glanced back to the human, see if he wanted to act first.

[Nathaniel Deveraux]

They... turned into snakes? Nate was a bit confused how that would help them hunt. Snakes were certainly good at hunting rodents and perhaps the occasional rabbit, but he needed something larger than that if he was going to be able to feed his family. Still, perhaps she could turn into a snake and escape danger if they encountered any. Regardless, he cleared his throat and quirked a little smile when she asked him if it cleared up anything. "Hey, I'm not dumb!" he complained, even as he followed her down the path. "It's not like I see a lot of Dhani around here!"

Nate figured that she wanted to hunt in her animal form, which Aka confirmed a few moments later, now that he knew she had an alternate form. He mused that the human form must be truly terrible for hunting, since every hunter he'd met so far, from Ama to Aka, had always preferred to hunt in a different form, whether it was as a wolf or as a snake. He supposed there were few real advantages to being human; they were large, not particularly quiet, and lacked any sort of natural weapons like fangs or claws or venom or keen senses. Really, the only reason Nate hunted as a human was because it was the only form he had.

And apparently asking about the girl's parents was a mistake. Were they dead? Missing? Nate had no idea about how the family dynamics of Dhani worked. Did they just... kick them out when they came of age? Did they act more like human parents? He didn't have any frames of reference to work with; Nate tended to avoid snakes whenever possible when out in the wilds. Although he didn't know what snakes were venomous and which ones were safe, it was usually easier just to assume all snakes were dangerous and avoid them as a general rule. As such he had no idea what the child-rearing habits of snakes were like.

Apparently she'd had enough questions and just dashed off, forcing Nate to chase after her. While Nate did like to run, he found himself doing this far more often than he expected considering how dangerous and frankly not-useful running was for hunting in general. It scared off deer and rabbits and humans generally could not run fast enough to catch most prey. Aka ordered him to close his eyes while she changed, which he complied with. Apparently these Dhani were not like Kelvics. With Ama, she seemed quite unaffected by nudity and had no problems transforming right in front of him. The first few times he'd been quite embarrassed, but after a while it just became normal. But seemingly, Dhani did not share in that. Or perhaps it was just this Dhani that didn't share in it.

Regardless, Nate took the girl's clothes when asked, but decided not to look away as she transformed. It was fascinating, to see her hair recede and the bones and muscles reform into the new shape. It was not like Kelvic transformations at all, it was much more... organic. And a bit unnerving, if he was being honest, and he could see why Aka would ask him to look away. Still, it was a very unique thing to have witnessed, and Nate idly wondered just how many in Syliras could claim to have actually seen a Dhani transform before. Regardless, the crimson snake seemed to be indicating he follow her, so he did.

It was rather difficult to follow the slithering snake, since she traveled remarkably fast for a creature her size and the red occasionally blended well with the green and gold of the forest floor. But he kept his eyes glued on Aka's sinuous form, slithering to and fro and occasionally stopping apparently to sense the nearby wildlife. Nate made sure to try to pad forward as quietly as possible, but stopped when he saw the deer a few feet away. Clearly Aka saw it too, and it was obviously the prey she'd found, and he decided it was time to act.

Nate could hear his father's words ring in his head, telling him he needed to try to take the deer down himself, that neither Aka nor Ama was always going to be there to help him track and take down the animal. And as technically true as that was, it was definitely easier to find these animals with help in this fashion. Nate remembered long fruitless days of waiting near watering holes or grazing grounds, watching and watching with nothing showing up. Or trying to painstakingly follow game trails, only to reach dead end after dead end. He secretly envied the ability of this Dhani to simply locate prey, without having to go through all that work. Nonetheless, Nate figured now that they'd found the prey, surely there wasn't anything she could do to take it down, short of biting it.

Not that Nate wasn't sure her venom wasn't probably quite lethal, it was just that she was just a small snake. And while it was certainly true that snakebite was a very common cause of death for horses, he didn't know how close she'd be able to get before the deer bolted. He much rather shoot it with an arrow. Though... he wondered if it was at all possible to get some of Aka's poison, somehow, and coat his arrows with it. That might be quite a potent combination, actually.

Nate quietly drew one of the arrows from his quiver, making sure to be as silent as he could while doing it. Nocking the arrow to the string, Nate brought the bow up and at the same time drew the arrow back in one smooth motion, making sure he stopped the draw at his bicep. He took a few calming breaths, making sure that the target was in his sights before releasing his hold, letting the arrow fly toward the deer. The arrow sailed through the air before embedding itself into the deer's flank, right above the shoulder and a few inches down its side. Nate didn't know it, but if he'd been a few inches down he'd have gotten the animal's lungs. As it was, the deer gave a cry of pain and bolted, its legs unsteady but the surge of adrenaline from pain and fear giving it a new burst of strength and speed.

Nate cursed as he watched the animal flee. He did not bother running after it as he knew he was nowhere near fast enough to catch it, but like the deer he'd hunted once before he knew that this one would stop to lick its wounds, and that would be time enough for them to try again. "What?" he said to Aka, giving her a look. It wasn't his fault these petching deer were so petching hardy! Besides, they still had a chance to catch the thing. Striding forward, Nate made note of the blood marks already drying on the ground, the tiny droplets of crimson leading away from the little clearing they were in and into the denser parts of the forest in front of them.

"Come on, Aka, let's follow the blood trail," Nate suggested, as he strode into the woods and indicated that she follow. "That deer will stop to lick its wounds and that will be time for us to try again. Unless, I dunno, it's an undead deer. Then it might not stop."

Considering Nate's luck these last few days; nay, these last few seasons... no, these last few years, he genuinely would not be surprised to find that the deer was an undead deer. Regardless, he trudged forward, eyes glued to the droplets of blood that led them to their quarry. And in the back of his mind Nate was worried. Because if they didn't bring down this deer soon, then sooner or later something bigger and stronger was going to smell the blood. And Nate really didn't want to be around when that happened.

[Soshakuakamamushi]

Aka watched as the hunter prepared his bow. Her serpentine head glanced back to the deer, her tongue already licking the air, eager to taste deer meat. Nathan looked proficient enough with the bow, at least that was the Viper could see from his determined expression. The male deer still didn't notice them, it grazed on the tasty green grass, its rear facing the duo of hunters. A swift release then the arrow launched from Nathan's bow, singing through the air.

*STAB!*

A clean hit, Aka hissed in delight, she didn't have to work too hard after all. The Viper almost congratulate the human in snake-tongue, but stopped herself due to one teeny tiny little problem. The deer was still alive! It glanced at them both for barely a tick and then bolted off with surprising speed driven by adrenaline and fear. "Ssstupid human... dumb ssstupid human..." Aka muttered in snake-tongue as she glanced at Nathan, her eyes utterly mocking his inability to get a clean hit.

Aka was sure she could not chase the deer even with her Viper speed and agility, that four-legged horned animal was simply too fast. "Petch thisss... aaaagh! If you want sssomething done, you better do it yourssself!" She muttered in snake-tongue, fully aware Nathan couldn't understand it. Aka had the thought of lending her venom to coat Nathan's arrows, but she would not give him that slack, she would prove to him even without weapons, she could take down that deer in an instant.

"Sss.. whatever..." The Viper didn't need the blood trail as she could smell the deer's wound for far away. Aka lapped the air again, taking in scent. The notion of undead deer brought a hiss-snicker to the snake, Galbern would be interested if that was truly the case. A Nuit deer, one couldn't see that everyday. While the human followed the blood, Aka used her natural snake-hunting method combined with a sentient being's intelligence.

Both of them kept following the trail until they found the deer sitting beneath the foliage of a rather large tree, and as Nathan said, licked its wound. The arrow was still embedded in its flesh, the deer occasionally glanced about with its worried eyes. "Ssss..." Aka hissed, flexing her jaw and prepared her fangs before stealthily moving in from the deer's side. Utilizing the tall grass and running no risk of crushing twigs as she slithered along the ground, not walking like humans did. It all went well if Nathan didn't decide to screw it up.

She was just a few feet from the deer's right side now. If the human thought Aka was going to bite the deer, he thought wrong. The Viper concentrated and prepared her res in the form reddish slime, it flowed out from her mouth and coated both her fangs with it. She then suddenly raised her head and with a lightning strike, spit the res like a spitting cobra, targeting the deer's eyes and face. The res successfully splattered the deer, blocking its vision with a red hue, it immediately tried to bolt away in panic.

"Ssss~ Got ya!" Aka flicked her tail and something magical happened, the res transformed into lava, creating a lethal lava mask covering the deer's eyes and face. The molten rock immediately melted its eyes and brain, resulting in it screaming in pain and dropped dead to the ground, instantly killed. Aka then blew more of her res from her mouth in the form of reddish gas, it travelled to the small lava pool then gathered it. Once the pool gathered into a small lavaball. Aka transformed it into a pile of dirt, safely putting it away.

The deer was in perfect condition... except for the arrow and the melting face. Aka then began transforming back to her human form. Limbs spawning from her body, her body grew, her scales receded into pale skin, and long ebony hair flowed from her head. Thirty ticks later, the small pale girl was back. Aka cracked her neck as she shifted into a sitting position, just right beside the deer.

"Hehe~ How'sss that, Nathan? I'm much better than you!" She didn't need some puny bow and arrow, she got her Dhani senses and reimancy. Aka then held out her right hand to flow out her res in the form of a solid res, it resembled the rough shape of a dagger. Aka then willed the solid res to gather earthen material, creating a stone dagger. It was crude and lacked in any aesthetic features, but sharp and durable. "Ssso! Let'sss eat it! Do you want to eat it raw or cook it? If you want to cook it! Gather sssome wood, yesss? You haven't done anything!" She said arrogantly while holding her stone dagger in her right hand.

What the Viper didn't realize was... she was back to being a naked human. Her overflowing self-confidence didn't let her remember to ask for her clothes back.

[Nathaniel Deveraux]

Nate wasn't sure if she didn't hear him or simply didn't care, but Aka didn't seem to care about the blood trail, instead slithering her own way across the forest floor leaving Nate to follow in her wake in an effort to keep up. The crimson snake, as usual, used her special senses as a snake to find her prey which was something he could not do. Once again Nate wondered when he'd get to a level of skill where these deer couldn't just run off even after being shot. Maybe he should really look into the idea of getting a book on poisons or something because these undead deer were seriously starting to irritate him.

They did eventually find his errant deer, still bleeding from its side as it licked its wounds and looked up occasionally in an effort to spot the pair of hunters. Well, to spot Nate; he rather doubted the deer even knew Aka was hunting it too, having been too worried about the arrow sticking out of its side. After all, that was probably pretty painful and took up most of that deer's concentration. Or something along those lines.

In any case, Nate quietly took another arrow from his quiver, even as he watched Aka slither away toward the animal. He assumed that, as a snake, if she was venomous which she probably was, she was going to bite the deer. Which was all fine and dandy but from what he'd seen of these deer, they had the endurance of Knights and the running abilities of a warhorse. He didn't know if even her poison would be enough to bring it down so he readied an arrow to his bow, just in case it was needed.

As Aka approached the deer from the side, Nate tensed. This was the moment of truth; if the animal sensed danger and fled, he'd have about two ticks to fire before it would be too far away. He brought the bow up and drew the arrow back, his muscles bunching as he fell into the familiar archer's stance and carefully aimed at the animal's broad neck. He knew he really ought to aim for a kill target like the head, but an animal's skull was very strong and hitting the deer in a kill-zone like the eye was a very difficult shot to make, even if it was mostly stationary.

But it was with great surprise that Nate saw the snake rear its head and spit some weird reddish slime in the deer's face. Was... was that normal for Dhani? Do they all have strange slime-spitting abilities? Nate's arrow wavered at the end of his bow, he wasn't sure if he was supposed to take advantage of the target's momentary blindness with a shot or not, but that was quickly answered when the slime turned into white-hot lava and burned through the deer's flesh and bone and turned its face into a molten mess. Huh. That wasn't something one saw everyday.

Nate wondered if that was a natural gift of the Dhani race. If so that would make them very potent opponents, to be able to simply spit out lava at will in that fashion, would be quite the advantage in numerous different ways. Though he then wondered how they were able to produce that sort of spit. Did they have special glands that produced it? Well, he wasn't likely to get very many answers from Aka; if this was some secret Dhani ability she wasn't liable to tell him how it worked.

After the animal had fallen dead on the ground Aka blew some more reddish stuff on it, only this stuff turned into dirt to snuff out the red-hot lava. Well that was surprising; that red stuff wasn't just lava? Come to think of it what was that stuff anyway? Nate had never seen anything be able to turn into two different things. It was all very confusing for him, so he tried to put it out of his mind. At least they got the kill, though Nate couldn't shake the feeling that this had been rather "cheap" somehow, like they'd bagged a kill without any of the usual patience and effort that went into hunting.

The snake seemed to be bulging in several areas, and for a moment Nate was not quite sure what was happening. But then arms and legs started to form, and hair flowed back out and after about thirty ticks the snake had disappeared and was once again replaced by a pale-skinned girl. Nate's face went beet-red when he realized that she was now naked. Not that Nate was entirely unused to this; Ama did this sort of thing constantly and she was rather unaffected by being unclothed when she transformed. But Aka just didn't seem like the type of person who would just let that slide, so he cleared his throat to catch her attention.

It didn't seem to work, as the snake girl gave a little laugh, boasting about how she was a better hunter than he was. Truthfully he couldn't deny her words. If he had been hunting that deer, it would have likely taken him at best a few dozen chimes, probably even a few entire bells of tracking, then finding a watering hole or grazing ground, then waiting for another few bells until a deer finally happened along.

And even then it was likely he'd hit it several times with his arrows and not kill the petching thing until it ran into an area he could not, or would not, follow. That or it would stay alive long enough that he'd give up the chase for fear the the smell of its fresh blood would draw the attention of predators Nate could not reasonably handle.

"Yeah, sure, sure, but did you really have to melt the poor thing's face off? Couldn't you have just bit it? Actually, does your species have venom?" After all, for all he knew, her species of snake had no venom at all. He knew there were species of snake out there that had no venom, like the common garter snake. Though with that weird red gooey stuff, who needed venom?

And then the girl held out her hand and some more of that stuff came out, and it formed and hardened into a crude stone dagger. Oh. OK. Nate had heard about magic, of course. Who hadn't? So was that what she was doing? Using magic? Things made a lot more sense now, the girl was a mage. Well, if what she said about her kind living for a hundred years just to become mature was true, then it probably wasn't that big a surprise that she'd know magic. Nate himself didn't know any magic, but he didn't see a need to. He had his trusty bow after all, and he'd heard some nasty stories about what magic could do to you if you got it wrong.

Nate coughed to get Aka's attention, holding out her clothes and looking away slightly. "You... you may want these back..." he offered, as he held them out for her.

"Uh, well, we certainly can cook it, but I think we should probably skin it first, and we need to do it as quickly as possible," Nate continued, not looking to see if Aka took the proffered clothes or not. "The smell of blood is probably already drawing in every predator for miles, and we don't want to be around here when they come looking for a meal."

[Soshakuakamamushi]

Aka's smug grin never left her face, but the moment when the human male visibly blushed, she went dumbfounded for about a tick. Why was he blushing? Then She looked at own body, all bare and without a single fabric on her. "H-hey! D-don't look!!" The Viper finally realized that transformation didn't come with convenient clothes. If she was naked as a snake then she would be naked as a human.

Aka covered her flat chest with her left hand and waved the stone dagger around with her right. "Don't look! Don't look! Give me my clothesss back!" She demanded, running the risk of harming both Nathan and herself with her wild flailing. Thankfully, the human got the hint and gave back her black robe and sash. "Sssss!!" Aka hissed angrily and rudely took her clothes back.

As she put on her clothes, which didn't take too much time as it was only a simple robe and sash, Aka shot a disapproved look at Nathan when he questioned her hunting method. "Why doesss it matter, Nate? We are going to eat the deer anyway!" She couldn't fathom on Nathan's preference to keep the deer's face intact when it was going to be in their stomach later. "All Vipersss have venom, I can bite it and inject my venom, but I think you can sssee it asss well, it'sss a ssstrong deer. I don't want to find out if my venom would be effective then go on a wild goossse chassse again!" A Viper's venom could kill a full grown man within chimes, but a few chimes was still enough for the deer to bolt off again before finally dying due to the venom, a lava spit was a much better - and faster - choice.

Aka put her hands to her hips, glancing around to see if any predators were trying to steal her kill. "You want to ssskin it? Fine~" She waved her hand, her face not showing even an inch of worry. "Take your time, Nate. Why ssshould we hurry? If a bear or big kitty comesss along, I can throw some fireballsss at them and they would run with their tail between their legsss." If there was one thing she could safely assume regarding wild animals, it was that most of them were afraid of fire. "In fact! I expect them to come! More meat for me, more pelt for you, no? Sssehehehe~" Aka then casually walked to take shelter near the trunk of a large tree. She sat down on the ground, watching Nathan. "You go ssskin it! I only want the meat! Hurry up, human Nate! I'm ssstarving."

[Nathaniel Deveraux]

Nate's blush went deeper when the girl insisted that he not look. He wasn't! Not like there was much to see anyway, though he made absolutely sure not to tell the girl that. He had no desire whatsoever to see what she would do if he had. Probably fry him with that red goop. Or perhaps stabbity stab-stab with that stone dagger she was waving around. Thankfully, Aka managed to get her clothes on in relatively short order, and seemed to have calmed down somewhat, explaining that all her species had venom.

Well, that was a relief. And she was probably right, given that these deer seem to have the endurance of bears, even her venom probably would've taken a good couple of chimes before it could work itself into the creature's heart and kill it. Nate briefly wondered how the petch these deer did this. He couldn't even take an arrow to the flank and survive this long. Must be something in the water.

As Aka prompted Nate to skin the deer, he nodded and drew his kukri, approaching the deer from an oblique angle. The first thing he did was make a vertical incision along the deer's stomach, starting from its posterior up until the neck. There was a rather acrid stench as the innards of the deer were now exposed to the open air and Nate knew that if the predators of these wilds were not already on their way to this potential meal, they definitely were now.

Nate worked the kukri up the animal's flank, taking care not to damage the pelt too severely as the sharp blade bit into the soft flesh and fur. The skin didn't peel from the flesh as easily as Nate thought it would, and he had to work the blade in between the pelt and the muscle underneath, and tug a bit to get the thing loose. After a few chimes, Nate had mostly gotten the left side of the deer skinned, but sweat was already pouring down his back and his eyes were watering a bit from the exertion.

The skinning was taking a while, and Nate had to pause frequently, almost every chime really, to make sure that the tip of the kukri didn't poke through the pelt and completely ruin it like he did the first time he'd skinned a deer. At least this time, he had Aka to keep watch but he figured the little snake girl would get bored pretty easily so he figured that he should finish this work as quickly as possible so that she could "eat" and they could leave. He already didn't like how long this was taking.

The next step was the legs, and Nate lifted one of them so as to cut the skin close to the flank of the animal and hopefully get as much of the soft, downy pelt as he could without damaging it too severely. Then he sliced downward, the kukri cutting a thin line down the calf of the deer's foreleg and down to the hoof, where Nate then started shaving the skin off bit by bit until it came off in a rather jagged fashion. It wasn't the best job in the world, for certain, but it at least removed the pelt from that leg. Nate then repeated the action for the other three legs.

Since there wasn't much of a face left to speak of, Nate simply terminated his cut at the scruff of the neck, slicing all the way around and then tugging at the skin, making sure to help by working the tip of the kukri under the skin whenever he encountered resistance. Once again he was very careful not to yank, or even to tug too hard; doing so could stretch and damage the pelt and he'd done enough damage to it already with his less-than-perfect skinning technique.

The arrow sticking out of the side of the animal really couldn't be worked around; the small hole was simply a flaw in the pelt that would have to be factored into its value. Still, Nate made sure to pull the arrow out as slowly as he could, taking care not to damage the skin any more than the missile already had, and sometimes stopping to examine the shaft before continuing. The arrow finally slid out of the carcass with a rather wet sound, and Nate examined the tip to see if it was still useable. While he couldn't see anything particularly wrong with the arrow, his instinct was that this particular one was not reusable, so he tossed it aside and went to work finishing off his skinning.

The last piece was to remove the skin from the back of the animal, and this was the trickiest part. Nate pulled up the tail of the deer, then made an incision just above it, perpendicular to the animal's rump and down the sides until he reached the legs, then down the other side until he had a good long incision across the rear of the animal. Then he carefully slipped the blade into the skin and with a gentle sawing motion tried to separate the pelt from the flesh, but the smell of the kill was becoming overwhelming, there was blood everywhere, and Nate could feel Aka's eyes on him, almost willing him to hurry the petch up. It was clear the Dhani girl was getting quite impatient, but this was by far the most delicate part of skinning the deer.

The gentle sawing motion continued as Nate peeled the skin from the muscle, once again making short incisions whenever possible to ensure that the pelt seperated cleanly. When he was about halfway there, he stood up, and placing his hands under the deer he strained as he flipped it over onto the other side so that he could continue to skin the animal. It had been nearly thirty chimes now. Not that Nate necessarily knew this, but instinctively he could already feel the tingles of nervousness grip at his heart, making it beat faster and harder and a cold sweat dripped down his spine. Something had to be coming now, for certain. He needed to hurry the petch up.

Nate sawed the kukri's cutting edge firmly against the flesh of the animal, and with one final tug the pelt came free. It wasn't the most elegant of pelts, for certain, and it took half again as long as it should have, but at least he got it. Nate looked up at Aka apologetically. "Sorry for how long this is taking," he apologized, "But the skinning's done now. I don't know if Dhani eat their meat raw or cooked, but if we plan to cook this thing I recommend we slice off pieces of flesh and carry it in the pelt to somewhere safer."

The feeling of being hunted was growing stronger by the chime and Nate knew it was just a matter of time before something nasty and hungry would try to claim their prize from them. And despite Aka's confidence, Nate really would rather not be there when that creature, whatever it might be, arrived.