Earning Your Stripes [Siiri]

[Cayenne]

Lani greeted Siiri cheerfully, content to clasp arms with her, and once Siiri nodded, she did as well. "It was a good run," she agreed. Her big tiger trailed along beside her, carrying what looked like four or five bound human corpses. The others greeted Siiri by name and with good spirits. "Found a group of humans that claimed they got lost," she grinned broadly at that, her lips stained not by some dye, but by blood. "How lost does one get when they enter by the Northern Pass? Too stupid to turn and go back, no, they kept saying they were from Zeltiva, and wanted to know about us." Her eyes glinted as she threw back her head and laughed. "I promised them that we would get to know each other very well. And we will," she patted the topmost corpse... which actually squirmed and let out a rasping sound. The human was still alive... probably to be sacrificed properly in the Temple. Apparently, they weren't dead. Just unconscious.

Fresh meat.

"We did spot a snake on the way back, maybe an hour out," one of the males, Zeto, spoke up. "Maybe fifteen feet long. Pretty skinny. We let it be. It was coiled around the base of a Mikmik tree on the old path to the Safi groves. Should still be able to find it if you move fast enough. Good hunting!" One of the humans gave a groan through the thick vine bisecting his face, and Lani started laughing at it. They'd all be up, soon, and they would want to show their guests proper 'accommodation'... what with getting to know each other and all. Siiri could well imagine how it would go. They'd find out what the humans had to say, and then dispose of them as they saw fit.

When Siiri approached the grove, she found the large tree that Zeto had described... and she also found that it was definitely lacking a snake around its base. The Safi grove, though, contained plenty of papaya, and the fruits attracted plenty of birds and rodents, which in turn attracted snakes that would be seeking such a prey... making the Safi grove an excellent hunting ground for the snakes. She could hear a faint hissing around her, though it was barely audible over the rustling branches. A quick look over the mossy ground showed nothing, but she could hear some bird calls in the trees. Somewhere in this orchard, there was bound to be a snake or two.

The trick was finding it.

[Siiri]

At first glance, Siiri thought that Zeto was mistaken with his tip. There was no snake coiled at the base of the Mikmik tree. Perhaps rotting vegetation and detritus of the jungle floor had tricked his eyes? But no, a faint hissing sound betrayed the serpent's presence. It was up and about, most likely stalking the creatures that frequented the grove for the fruits its trees bear.

The Myrian scanned the ground to check that it wasn't slithering through the fallen leaves and broken branches. She stabbed the greatsword Slayer at tall patches of weeds to make sure the snake was not lying in wait among them. The snake was not to be found in the jungle floor. That only left the trees.

A couple of squawks and caws issued from above. Siiri gazed up at the myriad of branches of the Mikmik tree. Unlike the papaya trees, it had thick clumps of leaves, ideal for concealment for a stalking serpent. The warrior pictured the snake – from Zeto's description she assumed it was most probably a reticulated python that has yet to reach full maturity or some similar breed – slowly coiling around one of the tree's limbs, patiently positioning itself until it was perfectly aligned to ambush a Bloodbill or some other nesting bird. A slight shaking of the tree limbs and the flight of the other birds perched on the tree would be her only warning that the snake had made its strike.

Siiri did not want this. She did not want the snake sated and satisfied with a kill; she wanted it hungry and aggressive enough to want to fight her. She peered up at the branches carefully, narrowing her eyes to distinguish shadow and leaves from the actual serpent. Its pattern would make it difficult to spot but if it was still moving...

There!

A patch of brown that seemed like part of the bark of the tree was moving laterally along one of the upper branches despite there being no wind. Siiri could just make out the head of the snake as it reared back, ready to spring itself at some hapless avian. She immediately slammed her greatsword at the trunk of the tree, the blade actually severing about two feet of the whipvine creeping up the Mikmik tree and biting about an inch deep into the wood. The tree shuddered, the weapon's impact alarming the birds to take flight, leaving the cheated snake snapping at empty air. It scanned the area as if looking for the source of the disturbance that alerted its prey of its presence.

Siiri did not wait for the creature to mobilize. Sheathing her weapon and slapping on the wrist razors on her bracers, the Myrian backpedaled to give herself room then launched herself at the tree. She planted a foot on the trunk, using it as a spring board to propel herself upward to catch a low hanging branch which she used in turn to swing herself towards the snake. Like an arrow in flight, Siiri flew straight at it, one hand outstretched to grab on to it by the tail.

[Cayenne]

Siiri's movement caused birds of all shapes and sizes all over the grove to take flight - beginning with the Mikmik tree. As the birds taking wing from the tree the snake was in, it set off a chain of reaction: tree by tree by tree, birds took off, flying in every which direction, a myriad of brilliant colour, flashing in the sun. They would return eventually - the grove was far too valuable a feeding ground not to come back to. While the jungle swarmed with edible plants, the Safi was enormous, and who didn't like papaya?

The snake turned on her as she grabbed at its tail. It didn't move fast enough to get its end away from her, allowing the Myrian warrior to grab its tail from where it lingered on the thick bough, just dangling as the snake had been hunting, a mottled mixture of brown and green. Some snakes that Siiri had seen were the bright in colour, from white to yellow to orange to a brilliant green but this was a snake that was well-equipped to blend in and hide. But there was one minor problem.

Siiri grabbed the tail, but in doing so, she was forgetting something very important that she had been taught about dealing with snakes: one always secured the head. The head of a snake was like that of a horse. If you held the head down, you had a far better chance of keeping the rest of it down. Siiri had not secured the head, not in the slightest. She had only Zeto's guess about the creature's size to go for, and he could have been off on either end of the spectrum. What she had done, to jerk at it like that and then to forgo her blade for some wrist razors she had never used before... well, that was risky, risky, risky. It was also very typical Siiri behaviour. She knew that the head was the most dangerous part of the snake, as well as the part that moved the fastest. With the head free to move, the upper body could move... and it was doing that now.

Siiri's weight had pulled the snake off the branch, dragging it downwards. The snake wasn't all that big - Zeto had beenpretty accurate in his estimate - but a python of that size was still dangerous. There was a lot of power in that body, and a lot of muscle. There was a reason the snake was content to let her have its tail, because pulling it downwards had pulled it down on top of her, and the beast was beginning to coil around her throat and torso, cutting off her breathing. She had to act fast, or there would be no need for the Trials after all.

[Siiri]

And this is where pride gets you.

Siiri could almost hear Shara’s voice in that thought berating her for her impulsiveness. Not settling for a clean and easy kill, she opted to tangle with the serpent instead as homage to Navre and how His tigers would kill a snake. In her rush, she even forgot to apply on her body the oil she bought just for this occasion.

But that wouldn’t be a fair fight for the pitiful little snake now, would it?

Her thoughts were cocky and confident but she knew she would pay dearly for that lapse in judgment. The python could easily wrap itself around her now, its coils easily finding purchase with the friction between its scales and her skin. She narrowly avoided having it wrap its sinuous body around her neck by ducking low and swinging it up and around her back and under her armpit. Of course now the python had a clean lock around her torso and it would soon begin to squeeze, depriving her of oxygen and constricting her blood flow.

With both hands she grabbed its body, then reached for the part just below its head. It wasn’t as thick as an anaconda and she was able to maintain her grip easily, even with one hand. Controlling its head was imperative now. She was almost sure it was a reticulated python – with its sharp, backward pointing teeth, she knew it would clamp onto her nearest body part, and once it’s latched onto her there was no prying it away until she was dead or it was. It would become a race as two who gave out first: the python making her pass out from lack of air and eventually choking her or her beating it to death.

Siiri didn’t intend to lose that race.

Keeping her grip on the snake’s body with one hand, she pulled back her fist to deliver a blow on the creature’s head. Not truly knowing how to use wrist razors, she had opted for straight and pointy blades rather than the traditional claw-like design. Rather than fight like a cat with it’s slashing motions, she used the blades as an extension of her fists, punching straight to inflict puncture wounds.

Show me your fangs then!

Siiri didn’t bother speaking her thoughts out loud, knowing she had to conserve her breath for the struggle that would ensue. Instead she just rained blow after blow on the snake’s head, occasionally aiming one of the razor points at the creature’s eye to gouge it out. One had to give: her fist or the snake’s skull.

[Cayenne]

Even as Siiri gripped below its head, the python kept coming, even as it began to squeeze her torso and chest. Every time she breathed out, she could feel the coils tightening around her, cutting off her air some more. Her ears were buzzing, and not from the sound of any insect who had come close, and the buzzing was soon replaced with a slow thump-thump-thumping. She knew this sound. Every Myrian understood what that was. That was her heartbeat in her ears, even as her heart was being squeezed by the coils of a gods-damned snake. Her grip almost faltered - her muscles were beginning to fail to get the air that they needed to move. But the Myrian was driven by a new sense of urgency. She had come this far. She could not die here in the grip of a snake.

Surely Navre would forgive her for not slicing and just going for the more direct route. Desperate times called for desperate measures. She couldn't exactly honor him if she was in the sacrifice-to-be's guts, now could she? Of course not. Besides, she was not a tiger. Try as the Myrians did, they were not cats. If she had picked a gauntlet with razor-sharp spikes coming out of the fingertips... the clawing slashes of a tiger might have worked. But as it was, the wrist razors would have to do.

Despite the thick straps holding them in place, the razors skittered and scratched and ripped at the snake's scaly skin, and the warrior would learn quite quickly that they weren't meant to be wielded that way - using the wrist razors required a different movement. Using them as mere extensions hardly worked - they were a weapon with their own style. The force was different. But Siiri socked the snake out the snout, stunning it as her clenched fist hit it hard, again and again. Finally, she heard the satisfying crack that told her she had smashed in its skull. Not a moment too soon - her vision was going splotchy. But at last, the heavy reptile was limp, its body seized around her. Every part of her was hurting, particularly her chest, her head, and her arms, but she had killed it. Now she had to get it home.

Navre would be pleased.

[Siiri]

Siiri collapsed on the ground gasping, the serpent's body still wrapped around her. The creature had died at last and not a moment too soon. She doubted she'd have survived another minute against its crushing coils. She was already experiencing tunnel vision and small dust-like motes floated around the edges of what she could still see. Taking lungfuls of air, she laid there, unmoving, and then slowly, painfully, she unwound the scaled length of the snake from her torso before drawing one of the bone daggers strapped at her hips. She raised the blade up, pointing it to the sky.

“In Myri's name...” she gasped, still winded. “I offer this fight to you... Navre. Let Syna be my...be my... be my witness.”

The effort of speech made her cough, but she was beginning to feel better as she got more oxygen into her body. She dropped the dagger, stabbing it straight through the snake's smashed skull though she pulled the weapon out almost immediately, only so she could lick the gore and brains off the blade.

“May your strength be mine,” she said in ritual.

Her energy being restored every passing second, Siiri stood up and began slapping her limbs to stimulate bloodflow in them. The python left no permanent mark on her, thankfully. Sheathing her weapon, she stooped down to collect the limp form of the creature. Beside it, she noticed, was the piece of whipvine she had cut off earlier. She wrapped the thing in dead leaves, to sell the useful plant later. She took several fallen mikmik fruits as well, making a snack out of one and stuffing the rest in her pack. Despite ruining one of her new wrist razors, Siiri was in a good mood as she walked back to Taloba.

OOCPermission to put 3 Mikmik fruits and 2 ft of whipvine in Siiri's inventory.

[Cayenne]

OOCPermission granted.

If a reticulated python bit you, after all, it was almost always the end of the road, especially in Falyndar. Scratches could turn septic. A lot of creatures could track one's blood, and it almost always drew an influx of insects. And if you managed to make it back to the city, it was a matter of healing up and dealing with the torn, ruined muscles that the snake had rent and damaged. With their many, many teeth, the damage was always brutal, and unless there were some Rak'keli-touched healers around (and surprisingly, there was the occasional Konti marked by the goddess in Taloba to repair the damage), took a long time to heal.

The trip back to the capital was slower than the trip to the grove had been. Her chest hurt like crazy, but the more she breathed, the less it hurt... after a fashion. One just had to soldier through it. She was a Myrian. She could manage. The snake itself was actually fairly heavy, and even when coiled, took up a lot of space in her backpack. A large parrot squawked at her as she passed, a beautiful yellow-green bird with a crimson-orange front with a gigantic black beak. It was content to just watch her progress, though, so long as she kept moving. The first half of the walk back was fairly uneventful.

She was crossing one of the larger creeks, deep enough that it was almost at her shoulders, when she felt something grab at her boot as she was about to lift her foot. Its grip was strong, and it began to pull her back, and then tried to pull her under. As best as she could tell, it was long, strong, and decidedly snake-like, though all she could see was murky grey around her boot, and then, it was hard to tell at ALL, as the creek bed was disturbed enough to muddy the waters. It wrenched at her foot, giving her another yank, and trying to pull her down.

[Siiri]

Siiri initially felt whatever that had latched onto her boot as a slight resistance. She tried to trudge through with it, thinking to just drag it along with her, but it resisted and eventually pulled her leg to the opposite direction with vigor. Alarmed, her warrior senses tingling, the Myrian immediately spread her base, widening her stance to brace herself against the pull of the snake-like creature in the murky depths. The act lowered her to almost neck level of the water line but it was the only way to keep her other leg apart from the trapped limb so that her attacker would not sweep her off her feet. She just realized that bodies of water like this were favorite hunting grounds of anacondas. At least there were no crocodiles or hippos about; those would even be more dangerous. With serpents – if it was a serpent – she'd have more time to react.

“Friend of yours?” she thought in disgust at the dead python in her pack. Adjusting the bag on her back more securely, Siiri drew her greatsword with the same movement. She peered down and tried to distinguish where the creature was, but the water was too muddy to give her any clue. From the direction it was trying to drag her too, the warrior had a good feel of where it was. She took a deep breath and then plunged Slayer under the water and took a swipe to where she estimated the coil would be, gripping her right hand on the weapon's ricasso to shorten and quicken the swing and give more power to her attack under the water.

She felt that there would be another struggle – and this right after she got nearly choked to death by a python for fighting it almost bare-handed. She just hoped she would have another chance (or ten) to come up for breath in the ensuing rumble.

[Cayenne]

As Siiri braced herself, whatever held her seemed to try to pull even harder, as if it knew that if it could just get her underwater, it would have a much better chance of winning. Whatever it was, it didn’t feel thick enough to be an anaconda, the wide, menacing snakes that thrived in the drenched jungle. But it could have been a young one – it was certainly strong enough. It jerked her again, beginning to shake her leg back and forth from side to side like one of the hunting dogs would worry a bone. The waters churned, and the creek’s bed was a mess – from her leather boots and from whatever was lurking down there.

When Siiri brought Slayer down to bear, the first stab hit the bed, narrowly missing her assailant. The thing jerked her around again, and the motion almost pulled the Myrian warrior under, pulling her mouth below the water's surface. But the serpentine thing must have cut itself in the razor sharp edge of the blade – because a splash of crimson filled the muddy water as well, and all resistance seized... albeit temporarily. Siiri was free to get away, if she so chose, before something else grabbed her – because something brushed her other foot, and was already starting to wrap around it. How many of them were there? She didn’t know what she was fighting, but if she’d cut one, and another took its place… how long would it be before they started working in unison?

[Siiri]

Another one?!

Whatever had brushed against her other leg must be a friend of the one that had just released her. Siiri didn't give it a chance to wrap its coils around her however; she backed off towards the nearest shore, knowing that she would be fighting a losing battle in such deep waters. She had almost panicked when the first creature almost pulled her under, making her swallow a mouthful of the mud-colored water. She wasn't sure if she could outrun the things – the things moved fast enough underwater – but moving to shallower waters would at least even the playing field: she'd at least see where the things were coming from and what they actually were. The Myrian worried she had waded into a den of water snakes.

“'Never fight in a battlefield of your enemy's choosing,'” Siiri quoted from a lesson she received as a child. It was especially apt when finding oneself fighting against the denizens of the jungle. A warrior should never engage an enemy in a setting where it was comfortable – if she must fight on unfamiliar grounds, she had to make sure it was unfamiliar for her enemy as well.

“Syna, shine your light in these waters,” Siiri mumbled. The prayer was reflexive; she merely wanted to see what she was up against, not wanting to fight blind. Too much of a realist, she believed the gods do not assist mortals in their time of need. If they were marked by a god or goddess, then they were already given the means to help themselves in such situations. The woman steeled her resolve and trudged on towards the shore, hoping against hope to get there before her assailants caught up to her, but knowing full well she might not make it there. She aimed to at least make it to a point where the water was shallow enough for her to see her attackers and allow to move well enough to defend herself. Knee-deep would be preferable but she'd really rather be on dry land.

Slayer was held aloft and ready to strike as Siiri pressed forward, her legs straining against the water's resistance as she rushed for the shore. Hopefully, the two creatures wouldn't call more of their friends into the fray.