Completed [Near The Eastern Docks] What a Cow! (Bovi)

[Soshakuakamamushi]

Near the Eastern Docks, The Jungle Wilds, 21st of Bell, 70th of Summer 513 A.V

Water... oh, how Aka hated being wet. She was a Viper that lived for about a century in the hot Eyktol Desert, of course she wasn't fond of those drowning liquid of doom, especially in abundant amounts. "What... am I doing here?" The Viper in her snake form hissed in disbelief, she actually made her way all the way to Eastern Docks or at least the area surrounding it. Looking at the vast... *shudders* sea in the distance, she couldn't help but cringe at the possibility of being snatched away by some unknown sea monster.

The memories of her patrol with Mamoru at the Kandukta Basin came flooding to her mind, she was actually forced to go swimming, she almost died! Well... that might be exaggerating, but still... she hated water, she hated swimming. But... to survive in this wet jungles, she needed to swallow her fears and actually learn it. She slithered forward, carefully and full of hesitation, to the scary waters up ahead. That's when something interesting caught her senses...

Corpses... bodies... the smell of blood and rotting meat. "Hsss?" She hissed in curiosity and surprise at the same time. She turned her head to the direction where her senses caught the smell and slithered forward, it was somewhere near... getting near and... Oh... what in the name of Sssiku? A shipwreck... washed up on the shore. What happened? Why is it here? Did anybody survive? Questions flooded her mind. It might be dangerous, but the temptation to explore was too great. In the end, the temptress won, Aka slithered carefully to the shipwreck, trying to find anything interesting or maybe, survivors.

I hope I can meet another Yuki... ssso I can have two "toys" to play with... sssehehehehe~ She sinisterly thought in her mind.

[Bovi]

Bovi hated travelling via sea. She tried, as often as she could, to stick to the few caravans that took roads between cities. Occasionally she even settled in a city for a little while. But she couldn't stay still for long, and it was hard to make a living traveling on land only; the traffic wasn't always there. So occasionally, she agreed to helping out on boats. Every time, she worried that the boat would sink. She just knew it would eventually. They weren't safe. Looked like she was right. Bovi hadn't been swept overboard, like the poor midshipman. She hadn't been crushed by a barrel that had broken free like the nice boy who cleaned the boat. She had been trapped under rubble when the boat ran adrift, like some of her companions, head trapped underwater to slowly drown, but unlike them, she had the strength to throw the boards clear of her body. She'd simply taken her bison form and pushed herself up. The ship had been collapsing around them, and she was too late to save anyone. Everyone inside was dead. When she'd gotten out, pushing at the collapsed and splintered hull until a hole appeared, there had been no footprints on the sand. And now... now she didn't know what to do. That had been twenty-four hours ago. Bovi had found some things to eat in the forest, but most of the things, she did not want to try. They tasted wrong, poison-wrong, in her bison mouth. To be safe, she'd stayed in human form and chewed at the preserved meat stored for the journey. Bovi hated meat, another reason why she hated ocean travel, but it was the safest food she had. It would run out eventually. But a boat, or a caravan, or a friendly trader, would find her first. That always happened in the stories. So she sat in the remains of the boat, chewing dried meat, and waited.

[Soshakuakamamushi]

Dead body, dead body, crushed body... Her heat-vision sensed the rough humanoid shapes of blue and green, most likely corpses. Aka hissed in disappointment, but look at the bright side, at least she could get a free meal. Humans weren't exactly to her liking, but... it's free! She slithered forward, hissing a cheerful song when...

"...." She heard something, her amplified senses picked the sounds of... munching? She stopped and focused, yes, it was chewing... she slithered out her tongue and picked up the scent of a living creature. She turned her head to where the sounds and scene come from. It was from inside the ship... her heat-vision picked up the shape of... a humanoid being, but not the dead blue and green... it was the living orange and red glow Sssehehehehe...

She slithered quickly to the broken ship, stealthily navigating her way until her normal sight could see the nature of the humanoid, it was facing her back to the Viper. Unsurprisingly, it was a female human... clothes ragged, fitting for a shipwreck survivor. W-woah... s-so big... Is she a Dhani? The woman's tall and stocky nature reminded Aka of the female constrictors in human form back in the nest, but Dhanis are cold-blooded and from her heat-vision, Aka knew this woman was warm-blooded.

Sssehehehe... a tall one eh... she would also make a good toy!

She needed to find a way to subdue the woman, first would be... restraining her arms by binding them together and created stone handcuffs, then restrain her neck by spitting her res to the woman's neck and gathered dirt to create a sturdy stone collar. She could only hope this woman was not a reimancer as well, at least not the one that could control earth. With the plan in mind, Aka slithered out of the ship and began shifting to her Dhani form. Her upper body transformed to a humanoid shape with the head of a snake, arms spawning from her side, and the very same red scales with constant black spots were also there.

She then concentrated and prepared her Res, creating them on the palms of her hands and also in her mouth, the res oozed out in the from of reddish slime. She inhaled and quickly charged inside, using her tail as a spring to lunge at the woman and grabbed her arms. If she was successful, then Aka would bind the woman's hand together and smeared her res, spitting the res inside her mouth to the woman's neck at the same time. Then she would will her res to gather earthen material from around them, stones, rocks, pebbles and sand to gather and locked the woman's hands together with a makeshift stone handcuffs and her neck with a stone collar.

If she's not successful then... well, Aka better be prepared for a fight.

[Bovi]

Bovi, out of options, was mostly just waiting for something to happen. She didn't expect that something to be the very earth itself attacking her. She let out a bellow, more in surprise than pain or fear, and leapt to her feet, ready to shift... but stone was already wrapped around her neck, and she'd tried to shift with something around her neck before. It didn't end well. Instead, she smashed her linked wrists against the wall, cracking the stone. Stone chips flew... but the stone could grow around her wrists faster than she could break it. If it wasn't for the stone on her throat, she could easily shift to slip the cuffs... but the stone on her throat was what she was worried about. Bovi had seen some pretty strange things in her lifetime, but not growing stone. What if the stone engulfed her? What if she suffocated? Panic built inside her. It was like the ocean, with the ship debris holding her down... Bovi slammed her wrists against the side of the ship again, leaving cracks in the stone, but it wasn't enough. She gave a deep, resonating bellow of pure panic, and fled, bolting from the ship towards the forest.

[Soshakuakamamushi]

"W-woah?!" Aka hissed in surprise. As expected of her stature, this woman was strong. She managed to wrench away from her grasp and slammed the stony handcuffs to the ship's wall, cracking the stone handcuffs, but it was still not enough to break it. The woman's panicked state seemed to not let her notice Aka yet, the Viper in Dhani form hissed in hesitation, perhaps this woman would be too tough for her to control... but then again, she would be locked in a cage in a nest full of Constrictors, there was no way she could escape once Aka captured her.

With that in mind, Aka decided to just go ahead and capture her. She was about to lunge to the woman again, reinforcing her binds and forced her to come to Zinrah, when the woman bellowed. "Ssssss!" Aka's amplified senses in her current Dhani form made the bellow of the woman painful to her eardrums. She held the side of her head, covering her internal ears to dampen the sound.

When she recovered, the woman was already running from the ship, shouting in panic. This did not bode well, both for the woman and for Aka herself. The woman would attract those foul Myrians that way and Aka knew Myrians killed anything they deemed "hostile", and it was very easy to be deemed "hostile" by those humanoid scums.

"Grrrrrr!" Growling in annoyance, Aka quickly slithered, chasing the bound woman. Her inherent speed and agility as a Viper let her close the distance easily, once near, Aka coiled her serpentine legs and launched to the woman, tackling her. They both tumbled to the ground and Aka immediately wrapped her tail around the woman body and grabbed her cheeks, her serpentine head facing off with the woman's humanoid face.

"Ssss... sss... calm down... you will attract dangerous beasts and cannibals with your shouting..." She spoke in Common and tried to comfort the woman, yet she was the one who bound the woman in the first place. "Now then... I'm trying to help you, you ssshould come with me. I will make you sssafe..." Aka used the moment to emit her slimy res from the tip of her tail and brush her tail to the cracked handcuffs. She then willed her res to gather more earthen material, reinforcing the handcuffs, making it brand new and stronger.

"Sssehehehe... you are mine now, ssso... I give you a choice, would you pick being eaten by predators and cannibals in the forest or you can come with me, as my ssslave! Ssehehehe~" The choice was clear, your life or your freedom.

"If you are not comfortable with the way I look then..." Aka slithered off the bound woman and put some distance between them, she then began shifting to her humanoid form. Her form became much smaller, her scales disappeared, replaced by a pale skin, long black hair grew from her head, and her tail split itself into a pair of legs. Her face also turned into that of a girl in her middle-teen years with scarlet eyes. "Ahaha... uhm..." Aka instinctively to cover her naked form, but knew this was the risk of shifting... she would be naked. She swallowed her embarrassment and pointed her right index finger to her would-be slave.

'Ssso~ You are my ssslave now! And I'm your Mistresssss, hehehe~ My name isss Aka, but you must call me 'Mistress', of courssse~ What'sss yoursss, ssslave~?" Aka approached the much taller woman and lovingly - or possessively - rubbed Bovi's cheeks and collar "Ssso... come with me... or I can jussst leave you like thisss... all bound and helplesss..."

[Bovi]

Bovi had barely left the ship when she was tackled to the ground by something much stronger than her. Too strong. It wrapped around her legs, her body, pinning her... no, someone, she realised, getting a good look at their face. That was weird. People weren't usually stronger than her. They also tended not to look like scaly monsters; they usually looked like humans, or birds, or mammals, or sometimes big blue people. She might've been able to put up some sort of fight, had her hands been free, and had she been properly nourished and not still weak from near-drowning and the unfamiliar environment. But she doubted it. The one who had caught her hissed a warning about being quiet, about how she was trying to help... but Bovi wasn't sure how true that was, because the also repaired her cuffs with a touch. Safe... safe was good. Safe was one thing that the forest definitely wasn't. Bovi had a plan for situations like this. It wasn't a plan that required much thought, because it as always the same plan. Get to civilisation. Wait. Get hired to guard a trader and leave. She didn't really have a plan for if somebody tried to stop her from leaving. She snorted in frustration as the person shapeshifted into a human-ish woman (nothing that Bovi hadn't seen, or indeed done, before) and knocked the cuffs one more against a nearby tree, with no effect except knocking a little bark off the tree. It certainly wouldn't be easy to get them off, especially the collar around her neck. She probably could, in time. If nothing in the jungle killed her first. But then, she'd still be trapped in the jungle... and this woman, at least, knew how to get to civilisation. She met the woman's gaze, and didn't flinch as she rubbed Bovi's face. Nor did she attack her. Getting into a fight with somebody stronger than her in the middle of a dangerous environment was pretty much the opposite of useful. "I'm called Bovi," she said eventually. "Take the collar off, and I'll go with you."

[Soshakuakamamushi]

"Oh~ Sssehehehe~ Bovi, eh?" Aka trailed her right index from the woman's nose to her lips, chin, and finally to the collar covering Bovi's neck. How strange, the woman requested for the collar to be removed for her to agree. Did it would make a difference? A collar didn't exactly matter and not so binding as the handcuffs, Aka tilted her head in curiosity, if this woman wanted to trick her into freeing herself then why would Bovi requested only the collar to be removed and not her handcuffs?

"Why do you want to remove them? You look pretty in it, ssssee?" For some reason, Aka was really, really fond of fashioning her slaves with collars. She viewed it as a prettier and more "humane" alternative than "branding" them with hot metal, even Aka cringed at that practice. Collars were so much better, the slaves looked good in it and didn't cause them any physical harm or permanent scars. Aka giggled and rubbed Bovi's face more "I don't think you're in the posssition to make demandsss, Ssslave~ The collar would be there~ The only time I would take it off isss... hehe... never! You will wear it for the ressst of your live. Isss it too ugly? I know my stone collars are not exactly pretty, but I'll buy you a new ssshiny one once we get back to Zinrah, ehehe~ Ssso..."

She then rubbed her hands together and emitted her res in the form of their familiar reddish slime, she then crouched down and began sculpting them in the rough shape of a chain. The res was slowly shaped like a clay until it resembled a 3-feet length chain. Aka then snapped her fingers and willed for earthen material to gather, covering the res from with rocks, stones, and dirt until a rough stone chain replaced it. Aka kept the tip of the "chain" in res form to connect it with Bovi's collar.

"Now, jussst ssstand still, I'm going to put thisss on you~" Aka stood up and fused the end of the chain to the front of Bovi's stone collar. She gave it a few tug to test its strength and nodded to herself. "Alright! Le'sss go!" Aka then began walking to Zinrah, if Bovi didn't catch up or follow her, Aka would tug at the chain, commanding her to follow.

[Bovi]

Bovi took several irregular steps back when Aka reached toward her with the chain, but there was nowhere for her to go. She snorted again, this time with more hostility, although she still didn't charge. If they were going to fight, she didn't want to be restricted to her human form, and she didn't want her hands secured or her neck weighed down. But she wasn't going to just meekly follow the crazy forest person who'd collared her and then refused to take it off. She planted her feet and refused to move. Bovi had strained against bonds before, mostly as part of the occasional bar bet. She'd also pulled entire carts with her shoulders. But that had been in her other form, with properly fitted tackle. The pressure on the back of her neck from a collar being irregularly tugged at was very different to a consistent pressure along shoulders meant to be able to bear such weight. So it was only a matter of time before she was inevitably dragged forward. Once they were moving, it was somewhat harder to struggle; her bound hands made it difficult to keep her balance, especially as she dodged various unfamiliar, dangerous-looking plants. It was somewhat difficult to reach a balance between having too much slack on the chain around her neck to that the weight swung and put pressure on her neck, threatening to snag against plants, and allowing it to grow too taught, so that Aka tugged painfully on her collar. A stone chain... she should be able to break that. Fracture that. If she found a way to do so. And if she had anywhere else to go.

[Soshakuakamamushi]

"Oh come... come on.. move!" Aka gave a hard tug and finally the woman began to follow her. This one was much harder to command than the small female human named "Shirayuki". Then again, Yuki was so small, even tinier than Aka herself while Bovi was much taller and muscular than her. It fitted the stereotype of "bigger is stronger". Aka hummed a happy song as she leaded the woman back to the direction of Zinrah, through the jungle night filled with the sounds of loud insects and... prowling predators.

"Eh... my hair!" Aka grumbled as her rather long hair got tangled in a vine, she usually tied them into twintails by using a rope, but after transforming from her Dhani form, Aka obviously didn't have a thing on her. "Hmmm..." She searched for some small vines and used them as hair ribbons, tying her black hair into their familiar twintails. "Much better~ let's go!" Aka tugged at the stone chain again and continued their journey home to Zinrah, at least for Aka... for Bovi, it would be her new home or cage depending on how she saw it..

OOCFeel free to make a random event happen, Bovi. If nothing happens, they would arrive at Zinrah in my next reply.

[Bovi]

Bovi wasn't in a great situation, but wherever Aka was leading her was probably rather more dangerous than the beach. With every step, Bovi became more and more certain that she should have fled when she had the chance. She kept her eye out for more chances, for further distractions on Aka's part. The woman seemed flighty, so she'd probably be distracted by a pretty butterfly or something. Eventually, she got her wish when Aka's hair became caught in a vine. Bovi scanned her environment until she saw a very long, very strong fine thorn. While Aka worked at untangling herself, Bovi threaded the thorn through a link in the chain near her neck. While Aka cut small vines to tie her hair, Bovi leaned, putting pressure on the edge of the link of chain until, very quietly, it cracked. Bovi gathered the broken link in her cuffed hands as if she'd grabbed the chain to stop it pulling on her neck, and waited. She followed Aka sedately, not trying to pull or put up a fight for fear of dropping or revealing the broken chain. It was a good thing that she was clothed, or the roots and thorns would be tearing at her feet. She jwaited until Aka seemed to take her cooperation for granted, then dropped her hands and dashed off in the opposite direction. Bound wrists up to shield her face from hanging vines, Bovi ran. If it wasn't for the blasted collar, she could shift shape and run properly, but she wasn't at all certain that her bovine neck would be tough enough to break the stone. So she stumbled forward, hoping that she could find the beach again; hoping that she didn't run into anything worse than Aka. OOCYou can take her to Zinrah in the next post if you want to; she doesn't stand a chance against Aka in the forest. Alternatey, Aka could force a promise of obedience from her as a condition of protecting her from something in the jungle. I'm happy to work on your pacing frame here.