The Voluptuous Vulture (Dye, Mac)

[Jeremiah Maccabee]

The Voluptuous Vulture (Dye, Mac) The 51st of Summer 512 Northern Wildlands, Near Ravok Whack! … Whack! … Whack! The sound echoed through the tall firs that lined this part of the western shore of the lake. Mac leaned the axe against the fallen tree and pulled off his shirt, exposing a fine collection of scars front and back. His shirt was drenched in sweat, as was he. He walked across the small clearing and took a long, slow drink from his water skin. Shin'ta looked up expectantly, no doubt hoping for an apple. “Sorry girl,” Mac said to the gray-white pony. “I gave you the last one this morning. I'll pick some more up next time we're down at the trading post.” Shin'ta looked disappointed. Or at least Mac imagined she did. She wandered off to find more scrubby grass to munch on. Mac didn't have her tethered to a stake. He knew she wouldn't wander far and he wanted her to be free to run if a predator should appear. She was old for wilderness travel. She couldn't carry heavy loads like she used to. Mac knew he should find a home for her in the city and pick up a younger horse. But they had been together for a long time and knew each other's moods. He wasn't ready to let her go yet. He shaded his eyes against the sun sitting high in the eastern sky. Ravok was visible to the southeast, a few hours distant as the crow flies, two or three days on foot. He couldn't make out the eastern shore. It was a big lake. His camp was simple: a tent, a fire pit with a spit over it from which he could hang a pot or piece of meat, a few clothes lying around, heavy saddlebags. The entirety of his worldly possessions were located within a few meters of where he was standing. And that was the way he liked it. He liked a hard night of strong drink and wild women in the city, but the next day was likely to find him headed out of town again. “Mac, your problem is that you're rule-challenged,” Rill once told him. “That's why you always get into some kind of trouble with the law when you stay more than a few days in a city.” It was true. Mac had spent more than his share of nights in local jails for various minor – and sometimes not so minor – altercations. He picked up the axe and went back to turning the wind-fallen tree into firewood.

[Dye]

A screech was heard. A bird plummeted into the lake. Dye's mind was completely blank of all but the pain, the excruciating pain, the numbing and agonizing and horrible pain of the barbed arrow through her fragile wing. It had torn right through, left a gaping hole where there should have been elegant wing, what would she do, WHERE IS THE PETCHER!? But her mind was blank, and there was water all around her, and she floundered in the liquid that was so dangerous for a bird such as herself, especially when she couldn't flap her wings to get out - there was so much pain, her right wing felt as if it were on fire, it hurt, IT PETCHING HURT!!! Flapping once, again, she tried to work her way out of the water, but each pump of her large wings sent fresh shocks of pain coursing through her veins. The water running through the puncture wound was full of minute debris; each time it flowed through, it felt as if tiny grains of sand were rubbed into the gaping hole. It really, really petching hurt. It was hard to admit, but this proud vulture needed help. She was going to die without it, but she needed to kill the disgusting piece of offal who did this to her.

[Jeremiah Maccabee]

A piercing screech rang through the woods. Mac straightened up as a shadow flitted across the clearing followed by a second screech, closer and louder. He looked up to watch a very large bird tumble inelegantly into the lake not ten meters from the shore. At first he thought it was diving for a fish but dismissed that idea when it became obvious that the bird was floundering. Had he thought about it for a moment, Mac would have stayed right where he was. But he didn't. He dropped the axe, sprinted across the short distance between him and the shore, and plunged into the water. He waded out toward the thrashing bird and soon found himself neck deep with the bird still a couple of meters away. It was at this point that he remembered that he didn't actually know how to swim. He managed to close the gap with a kind of dog-paddle and threw one arm around the bird's body. It immediately stopped thrashing, choosing instead to dig its toes into his thigh. It folded one of its meter-long wings in while leaving the other trailing in the water. Mac thrashed and splashed until his feet found the bottom and he could drag himself and the water-logged bird to shore. He let go of the bird and sat down gasping and coughing up water. His thigh was bleeding from two sets of puncture wounds. “Damn,” he said. “That was one of the stupider things I've done in my life.” Which was saying a lot since Mac had done a lot of stupid things in his life. OOC : Modded Dye with permission

[Dye]

A sudden swirl of lights heralded the transformation from elegant vulture to nude woman, Dye coughing up the water she had inhaled in a spray of liquid and bile. "PETCH!" The shriek of her descent was mimicked in her voice at that moment, the pain far from bearable. Her body was fully uncovered, but any onlooker would be too distracted by her decimated right arm to notice the luscious body she possessed. A large section of her right forearm was totally missing, looking like something had taken a chunk of her flesh from right above the elbow. Muscle and bone exposed, even the air gently caressing the wound sent her into worlds of agony. A small line could be seen across the white of the bone that was visible. She would need major medical attention, surely, but that was not the thing on her mind. Aside from wanting the pain to stop, there was one thing she wanted.That petcher is going to die, I am going to slowly claw open his throat, pull his bones from his still writhing body, and let him watch me eat them! But still the pain, the agony, wanting to die or to heal just to get it the petch over with! "PETCHING OFFAL!" OOCSorry about the shorter post, I'll try to make the others longer.

[Jeremiah Maccabee]

OOC : I wouldn't be overly concerned about length. The ideal post reveals character and/or moves the story forward. It should be as long as it needs to be to accomplish that. Descriptive detail is a nice plus when you have time to develop it, but I see it as frosting on the cake. Personally I like dialog a lot, but its hard to do in a forum format. Mac was starting to get his breath back when the vulture transformed into a woman. Mac liked women. Especially naked woman. He had seen his fair share of them. But this one took his breath away. She was short and a little heavy for her height. But the weight was distributed in all the right places. Ample breasts, ample hips, a great ass, a tiny waist … a perfect hour-glass figure. She had ice blue eyes with long feathery lashes and long black hair. A tattoo of a vulture leaped out from her upper chest, wings spreading across the tops of her breasts. He took this all in with one quick sweep of his eyes. “Damn, woman. You just shorted out my brain and someone needs to restart my heart.” Then he noticed her bloodied arm. He grabbed her by the wrist so he could look at the injury. The wound was deep, exposing the bone. It didn't look broken, although Mac was hardly an expert. Of more immediate concern was the amount of blood she was losing. “First order of business is to stop the bleeding,” he said. He trotted over to where he had left his shirt, retrieved his hunting knife, and cut the shirt into long strips. He put two strips together and wrapped them around her arm, covering the open wound. “This is gonna hurt,” he warned as he cinched the bandage tight. Then he picked her up and carried her over to his tent where he deposited her inside on his bedroll. He tossed a blanket over her. “I'm gonna get some water boiling so we can clean out that wound. Then we'll see about stitching it up. Try not to bleed all over my bed.” He gave her a grin and disappeared outside.

[Dye]

"So glad I've amused you." Her icy eyes clamped shut, the feathery lashes catching within themselves to form an impenetrable web of black. She so desperately had to avoid touching the wound, it hurt so horribly... Why won't the pain stop!? And the man grabbed her wrist and pulled, eliciting a cry from the vulture. She was so desperately helpless, the man was hurting her, why didn't she just claw his throat out and be done with it!? She could preen and tend to her wounds elsewhere, she didn't need this vagik of a human bothering her and irritating the wound! "St... Stop the bleeding? Oh no, no, just leave it be..." Then he pulled the bandage tight around the wound, and that inhuman screech came from her mouth once again, followed by quite the imaginative string of expletives. She was still cursing as she was lifted into the bulky arms of the older man, until she looked up at him in awe. Why in Rhysol's holy name is this man helping me? Logically, I should be killed. What is he doing!? The rest was well appreciated, as was the blanket, but as he left the tent she called out to him with all the venom she could muster."I'll make sure to bleed as much as I can!"

[Jeremiah Maccabee]

He stopped and slowly turned to face the small, bleeding girl lying on his bed. He wasn't smiling now. She was proud, angry and had a serious attitude problem. If he was going to help her he was going to have to fix that right now. He took a quick step toward her and leaned in close so that his face was only inches from hers. His voice was calm and almost a whisper. “Lady, I just frickin' saved your frickin' life, and if I don't take care of that frickin' arm you're never gonna frickin' fly again.” He raised his voice. “So shut that sassy little mouth of yours and let me help you. Otherwise I'm gonna toss you back into the frickin' lake.” He upped the volume a notch more, almost shouting at her as he carefully enunciated each word: “Are we clear on that?” It was suddenly very quiet in the tent.

[Dye]

Responses whirled through her mind, but none left her mouth. She so wanted to respond, be snappy, witty, angry, but she had lost the ability. She had lost the energy to do much of anything. The wound had taken its toll. She was injured so often, she should have been used to things like this. Blood was spilled, by her hand and by the hands of her former masters, and she could have sworn she would have been more resilient. However, her fragile wings were the only place she wouldn't bear to lose. The blood loss, the loss of flight, the plummet into the cool waters, it had hurt both her body and her pride, and everything was going black... Petch, the man won't let me go, I need to go, need to get back to the city, get stitched up... Then even her mind had gone silent. She had lost consciousness.

[Jeremiah Maccabee]

Shin'ta had been running at full gallop without a break for several bells, twisting and turning to avoid fallen branches, clumps of bush and huge tree roots that reached out to trip her up. She broke through some underbrush and found herself on the rutted, now-you-see-it-how-you-don't wagon trail that connected the smattering of farms, hunting lodges and other lonely outposts of civilization that dotted the southwestern end of the lake. She was breathing hard, snorting and shaking her head. Sweat poured off her weary body. The girl was leaning forward on Shin'ta's neck, unconscious. She had been in and out of consciousness the entire time. The only thing that kept her from falling off was the powerful arms of the man sitting behind her, almost cradling her. And he was just barely hanging on, using Shin'ta's mane to keep the from being thrown into the bushes as the horse turned this way and that. She was a Mountain Pony. Mountain ponies are sturdy, sure-footed horses, making them excellent pack animals. They were also known for their endurance, which made them good for long, hard rides. Like the ride she was embarked upon now. But after twelve bells of running full out interspersed with brief walking breaks, Shin'ta was reaching her limits. She stumbled and caught herself. Sweaty hair kept clumping over her eyes. The knees of her front legs throbbed. Finally the man relented. “Whoa,” he said, pulling back on the reins. “Let's walk a while, old girl.” Darkness was descending and a full out gallop didn't seem like a smart idea in the dark. Mac was worried. When the girl had passed out, he had walked over to Shin'ta to talk through his options. Not that he expected the horse to answer. But he thought better out loud. “We got a decision to make, old girl. I can try to patch her up and hope I don't botch it too bad. Or we can ride for Ravok and hope she survives the trip long enough to get her to a healer.” He knew how to clean out a wound and although he had never tried it himself, he had once watched someone stitch up the wound with a sewing needle and thread. But he was worried about how much blood she had lost and how much more she would lose with him poking and prodding her arm. And he was worried about infection. And about the possibility that he'd mess up her arm so bad that she'd never fly again. Mac didn't know a lot about Kelvics, but he suspected that being unable to fly would be a fate worse than death for her. Shin'ta nudged him with her nose and tried to reach into one of his pockets. “I hate to ask this of you, girl, but I'm thinkin' we got a long, hard ride ahead of us.” He left everything where it was, wrapped the girl in a blanket, got them both on Shin'ta and began the long ride to Ravok. Now he was wondering about the wisdom of that decision. The girl's injury had continued to bleed, seeping through the bandages, which he had to change several times. She was deathly pale. She had woken to a semi-conscious state several times during the ride, but the last time was been four hours ago. He could barely detect her pulse. It was a moot point now. He had made the decision he had made. Now they would have to live with the consequences. They rode into a small outpost less than a bell later and caught a water glider across the lake to the Ravok Docks. Mac carried the girl to the Healing Hand and waited in a hallway while they worked on her. A pleasant young woman relieved him of eight gold mizas to cover the cost of treatment and told him he could get five of it back as soon as he presented her registration papers. A few hours later they told him to come get her and take her home. Her arm was wrapped in heavy bandages and loosely tied across her mid-riff. She was still unconscious. One of the doctors explained: “The injury looked a lot worse than it really was. We cleaned it out and stitched it up. She is going to be weak and tired for a few days, and the arm is going to hurt for a while. But with some rest and food, she should recover just fine.” Mac rented a room at Tarsin's Boarding House, put her to bed, and soon fell asleep on the floor leaning against the foot of the bed, wondering what would happen to Shin'ta, who he had abandoned on the western shore. LEDGER : Room at Tarsin's for three days, 1 gm Medical costs, 8 gm Total: 9 gm

[Dye]

Waking up in a strange room with an even more strange man always irked her. Her arm ached when she didn't move, but when she did - It was hell. Dye knew pain from whipping, pain from blades and the pain of a thousand little flames every time she were to try to shift with the cold shackles of a master on her wrists. This pain was different, it was cold and seemingly eternal and it petching hurt! She tried to get to an upright position with one arm, failed. Attempted once more, failed. Finally resigning to rolling to her left and propping herself up slowly, the vulture inspected her right arm tentatively, much like a bird slowly checking itself for wounds. It was tethered to her body loosely, wrapped in now slightly bloodied bandages and aching like all hell, but it was there, felt whole, and would likely heal. It must heal, I am worthless - DEAD without it! No bird can be left without a wing. She looked to the man at the foot of her bed, the same man who had dragged her to shore and possibly saved her wing, if not her life. He looked old. Not handsome, not brave, not dapper or any other positive adjective that could be invented in the imaginative mind of a sociopathic zealot. Just old. Oh, and she was naked. Petcher.