He Sure Can Run Fast for a Drunk (Sliver)

by **Valkyrie** on October 26th, 2012, 6:34 pm

Date: Fall 53, 512

The Red Diamond Tavern was a popular place for all residents of Avanthal but it always caused problems for Icewatch. Any place that encouraged drunken citizens to congregate was a source of trouble for forces of authority. A large part of keeping peace in the city dealt with keeping the Red Diamond drunks in line and most guards were quick to gripe about it. In the evening guards knew to stay close to the place so that they could be nearby when trouble started but daytime was a different matter. The residents of Avanthal were an industrious and hard working lot so most didn’t have time to sit around drinking and causing problems.

That day it was Sliver’s turn to patrol the section of the city containing the Red Diamond Tavern, so of course things had to go awry. The wolverine just couldn’t catch a break in this city. Sliver was strolling along pleasantly, it had been a quiet day, the sort that made one honored to be a guard of the city. Many citizens had begun to recognize Sliver and several gave her polite smiles or waves. Rounding a building corner, the Red Diamond pulled into view in the distance, the door swinging open to allow a man to clumsily exit. As Sliver trod slowly forward she realized it wasn’t clumsiness inhibiting his gait, it was drunkenness. The man could barely keep himself upright and almost slipped on the ice several times, something that would embarrass most citizens raised in the icy North.

The man stood in the snow stupidly, perhaps unsure of where he should go next. The bow and quiver on his back indicated that he might be a Frostfawn hunter, possibly drowning his frustrations with the closing of the Icewall Gates in hard cider. A young woman passed the drunken man, a stretched canvas wrapped in cloth under her arm. By this time Sliver was close enough to see the man’s face as he watched the woman pass and hear him call out rude propositions to her. The woman looked at him indignantly but seemed to think better of saying anything in return and so continued walking. The man spat out several swears and gestured rudely. He grabbed the bow behind his back and clumsily fitted an arrow to the string. He pulled the string back and could barely sight the woman before his drunken fingers loosed the arrow. The man’s drunkenness had affected his accuracy and aim, thankfully, and the arrow buried itself in the woman’s arm. She screamed shrilly and dropped her canvas to the ground.

“That’ll teach you a lesson ya Skyglow slut.” The man slurred with a laugh. He turned with a self satisfied smile and looked directly in the eyes of Sliver, still fifty feet away from him. He froze for a single moment, and then ran.

OOCIf you need any further moderation or information please PM me.

by **Sliver** on October 29th, 2012, 3:53 am

Sliver wasn’t one to complain unless it was to the twins or their bondmates, and didn’t seem to mind breaking up bar brawls and less violent quarrels as much as the others. She figured it was something about humans uninhibited by their regular checks and balances, it made them more like animals, and she could understand this, even if she was swift to dole out punishment and make sure nothing serious ever occurred on her watch at the Red Diamond. A couple of the workers there jokingly said that if she ever left the Icewatch they’d pay her to be a bouncer for the place, but Sliver just shook her head. She knew that if she ever did anything to jeopardize her time in the Icewatch, she most likely wouldn’t be staying in Avanthal very long.

With all that, it was only the daytime and very few people stayed in the tavern during the day, she figured she’d check in with everyone, stay on post about a bell then make her way down the rest of her route, that was until she saw the man. Her eyes widened as he drew his bow. Even in his slow, haltingly pathetic pace at which he drew the bow, Sliver was nowhere near in time to stop him from injuring the woman, and when he locked gazes with her, he would see the fierce and burning rage that lay beneath dark eyes. To shoot an innocent person because of your own inability to handle alcohol was no excuse in the eyes of the Kelvic who despised the mind numbing stuff. She ran up to the woman, who looked a bit dazed, and pointed in the direction of the clinic. Even that gesture took a bit too much time in her eyes, but it was a necessary one. Sliver’s head whipped back and forth, she wasn’t sure if he had turned right or left, but her nose caught the scent of the fermented cider, warm on the cool air from being expelled from the hunter’s throat. She was off.

She set her pace to somewhere between a sprint and a jog. She was no marathon runner, she was a stumpy weasel, and most of her hunting relied on luck, and ambushing prey not chasing it down. Sure she could ground a rabbit and bite its legs mid leap, but it was a chancy event to say the least, and who knew how much mileage this man was going to get before he tired or ran full on into a building.

As she turned the corner she saw no sight of the hunter until she glanced nearly two blocks away to see a flailing, yet swiftly running silhouette shoving anything in his way out of it. The wolverine sighed, so much for pacing herself.

“Icewatch, coming through!”

The streets cleared for her as she raced after her quarry, people flattening themselves against the walls in an effort to make room. Little by little Sliver could visibly see herself gaining on the hunter. He kept glancing back and cursing at his luck, and the wolverine was grinning with the taste of victory in her mouth. He began alternating his routes, leaping down alleys and swapping directions randomly. He stumbled, and threw himself from wall to wall, but his tactic of throwing the wolverine off of him began to work as her energy began to wane. Suddenly she turned a corner and there was no hunter in sight.

She whirled wildly about, eyes fixating for just an instant on every individual in her peripherals just to be sure they weren’t him. Dark aqua streaked hair, tanned skin and lanky build with that build. As she eliminated figure after figure the Kelvic began to panic, had she lost him? No, that scent, it was close and still fresh as it wafted through her senses. She removed the other conflicting smells, red snapper from a wandering Coolwater, oil paints still drying as a student rushed to their class, plants of varying kinds that could survive the harsh conditions collecting what little sun available as they climbed up the sides of homes and sat in window boxes. All of this was entirely inconsequential, save that man and his stink.

Mahogany eyes flashed upwards and to the right, a grimace sinking into her face that would probably remain plastered onto her features until this trial was over. She knew which way he was going.

by **Sliver** on November 1st, 2012, 12:16 am

He was a clever drunk, she’d give him that. What better way to escape her senses than confuse them with as many conflicting smells as possible? And that was how the wolverine found herself at Frostfawn Hold.

Her fingers kneaded into her scalp. She had lost that stench alright, the one that was his. There were a myriad of others just as strong or perhaps stronger, dried blood was everywhere, though this was mostly from the birds of prey and their necessary food, perhaps some from the various hunting dogs as well. The smell of feces and urine clouded her olfactory despite the care that had gone into keeping the place clean and the scent of freshly laid down straw. Her eyes drifted upward and surveyed the scene. Whoever he was, he had to be tired, for she certainly was.

So her pace was a bit more relaxed as she made her way around stables, pens, and cages. If anyone came up to her and inquired, she informed them she was of the Icewatch and was hunting a drunkard. She gave the man’s description to several people, but she could see the guardedness in their gazes as soon as she had finished. Everyone remained rather tight lipped after that, but no one dared tell her to try elsewhere, so she proceeded relatively undisturbed.

After checking inside the larger spaces, in with the horses who snorted and nickered at her, and she growled warnings to them in kind, Sliver began to patrol around the outside and rear of the buildings, realizing how fruitless this all was when the man could have slipped in anywhere, or perhaps even doubled back and returned to the main part of the city. No, no, she thought to herself, perhaps that second option was not so likely. It narrowed down her search certainly, but Frostfawn Hold was still an expansive place, and the main source of her ability to track was going to be severely diminished here. After a couple bells the Wolverine sat down on a barrel to finally catch her breath, deciding instead to watch the comings and goings from afar, perhaps if the people of the Hold believed she had gone, they might show signs of where her quarry was without her needing to lift a finger.

She wondered if they would have turned this hunter over before all of the problems this season had started happening. If the City was open and perhaps if the tension between the Holds was not increasing by the day, surely these people would react with more shock when they heard the man shot a woman in the arm! But most of their emotions, the one’s of sympathy and shock, had been feigned, most badly. Did they think someone of another Hold deserved what they got? Had problems really become that…horrible? The wolverine felt suddenly very removed from the conflict. In the Icewatch, unity and loyalty were what mattered, it was why your Hold name was forsaken when you joined, yet it was also this action that separated them as if they were a limb cut off, from the civilians. On the one paw this was good, it would do no good for citizens of Avanthal to see their protectors in the same light they would see their store clerk or local chef, but when something like this happened, the Icewatch would always be the last to learn of it, a certain level of trust would always be lost, or…would it?

Sliver sighed and realized she had just been staring off into space and not really observing those around her. She truly believed that if worse came to worse that the Vantha would stand together, she just wondered exactly how bad it would have to get within the icy city for that to happen.

It was then that a young girl with a couple adolescent falcons perched on each shoulder came up to Sliver and waved a bit shyly. She was a cute thing, dark hair that formed into neat loose ringlets streaked with gold, light green eyes staring up at the Kelvic. Sliver couldn’t help the smile that tweaked at the corners of her mouth when met with young things, human or no, and lifted an equally uncertain hand in greeting to the young girl. One of the hawks nibbled at her ear lobe and the child giggled and push the head gently away, and then beamed at Sliver.

“I loike yo’ hair.”

Sliver couldn’t resist beaming back.

”I like yours more.”

The girl giggled with delight, and Sliver tried to hold this light hearted moment close to herself for the future.

“What is a badger doin' here?”

Sliver cocked her head to the side.

”What makes you think I’m a badger?”

The girl giggled again, this time clearly amused with how slow the wolverine was.

“I can smell it silly! My ma says I have the best nose in all of Avanthal.”

Sliver chortled and leaned in close.

”Ever heard of a wolverine before?”

She shook her head to the negative. Sliver nodded solemnly.

We usually don’t live near cities, and we are pretty close to badgers, but a little different. We’re the color of a grizzly, with the tail of a dog and light patches like Polar bear fur.”

She pantomimed wildly while she described herself, much to the little girl’s delight, and she disturbed the birds on her shoulders greatly as her shoulders heaved with laughter.

“That sounds silly!”

Sliver nodded. ”We are rather silly to tell you the truth, when you see one you’ll know what I mean.”

The girl pulled at her dress and nodded, clearly storing the information away, perhaps to check it with an elder, or just to remember in the future. After a long pause it was the child’s turn to lean in towards Sliver.

“Are you looking for someone?”

Sliver nodded, eyes lighting up. The girl peered from one side to the other, anxiously checking to make sure no human eyes were on her before continuing.

“Mama said to stay away from him, but I saw her put him in the chicken coop.”

Sliver ruffled the girl's hair and rose.

”Thank you.”

The girl just giggled and ran off, her two charges clinging desperately to their perches as she lurched to and fro.

Sliver’s smile evaporated, however, and her normally careful steps were heavy with intent as she marched towards where she had seen the chicken coop.

It was a ramshackle thing: Painted an off white that had clearly just been applied over previous layers without scraping it off. Of course Frostfawn would be too proud to ask any builders or painters to aid in the restoration of a building as simple as a chicken coop, and it made the Kelvic smirk. Her footsteps quieted as she approached, a few clucks and coos of the nearby birds not enough to raise any kind of alarm, even if the fowl did give her a wide berth. Fingers reached slowly for the door, then flung it open with a forceful heave, eyes straining to catch a glimpse of what was inside even before the door had passed before her vision. It was empty. No, that wasn’t quite true, for out the back door a figure was peeling away from the building and making a mad dash into the woods surrounding the Hold. Sliver snarled, her legs pumping out of the yard and continuing after her quarry. She thought she heard the echo of a giggle as she sprinted past the Hold, but over the beating of her own heart and the thumping of her feet, she couldn’t be sure.

by **Sliver** on November 1st, 2012, 6:50 pm

By Morwen she needed to work out more. The Kelvic knew that running was an integral part of guard duty, and if she hadn’t known that she would have learned it on the first few days, but no matter how many lap they ran at the Stadium, it never seemed to be enough for when she was actually chasing someone. She was already tired from the first go around, and so she refused to full out sprint this time around. Something about slow and steady getting somewhere sometime…she couldn’t recall the phrase and threw it form her mind.

She could see the hunter, his bow bobbing wildly up and down across his back as he heaved himself at a respectable pace in to woods, much farther and they’d have two crimes on their hands, the woman’s injuries and leaving the city without permission. The man did not really seem to care, however and just kept running.

Sliver didn’t know much about alcohol. She imagined the adrenaline fueling him had taken some of whatever inebriation had claimed his senses, but how lucid was he really? He had evaded her thus far, and impressive feat, but he couldn’t be that cognizant could he? She was just reminded of how much she despised any liquid that would remove one’s mental faculties to such a degree that one would shoot a woman in the arm, beat a spouse or child, or fly into a rage. She was angry enough as it was that she would never gamble with a substance that make her already limited control of herself even less so.

She smirked, despite the fact that her lungs hurt and her legs had begun to feel sore from the distance she had covered, the feeling of exertion was always a comforting friend for the Kelvic, and something to be enjoyed instead of hated or avoided. Her mind drifted to her mother for a moment, and knew that if her canine parent could see her now, doing the same job as she that her tail would wag with pride, black eyes glowing with affection. A pang hit her chest then, thinking of her mother back in Sahova, wondering if she were all right.

These memories were banished in an instant when Sliver realized she was catching up to her quarry…no that wasn’t exactly true, for he had stopped entirely and she was quite aware all of a sudden that the point of another arrow was pointed straight for her, this time without all the shaking and the trouble. She gasped as the shaft loosed from the bow and flew at alarming speeds towards her. His aim was still off, for instead of getting her forehead or heart, two places of clear deadly quality, it sank into her shoulder with a dull and wet smack, her body jerking to the side at the force of the blow.

Sliver howled in pain, clawed hand grasping the arrow as her breath let loose into hot steam that evaporated around her face. If he was slowly sobering, the next shot might be significantly more deadly, she thought to herself. She needed to get to him, and fast. There was no time to take the arrow out, so she just kept running, pace quickening with the urgency this chase posed.

The hunter, seeing as he did not fell his pursuer, had begun to run again. Sliver chided herself for not dodging the blow, but an attack was the last thing she would have expected from the fleeing hunter, and his motives were utterly confusing to her. Had he given up on any chance of a light punishment and just wanted to kill his would be captor so he could escape the hand of the law at least temporary? Regardless his list of felonies were piling up, and Sliver couldn’t imagine that any authority figure would be kind to the hunter at this point. The realization dawned slowly upon her that she was backing her prey into a corner, and his list of options were running dry. A grim thought slipped its way into her mind, but she shoved it out swiftly and continued on her way, the hunter still in her sights.

He loosed two more arrows at the Kelvic, but this time she was ready. His aim was improving, that was for sure, for the second one grazed her scalp, anticipating her dodging movement, and Sliver couldn’t help but be impressed by her opponents hunting skills. It was clear his life was devoted to this task, which may have been the reason he was so adversely affected by the closing of the gates and the rule forbidding citizens to leave the city. Just as she had come to realize the man’s more desperate state, she also came to terms with the fact that she was dealing with an individual highly more skilled than she in ways of exerting oneself and weapons. She would have to get into close quarters with him to stand any kind of chance at winning a fight with him, and even that was risky, his skills other than running and his longbow being unknown to her.

Sliver’s mind turned like the propellers of a windmill in a summer storm as she tried to figure out her options against her opponent. Even as she did this she gained ground upon him. His three attacks on her had let her gain a lot of ground on him, and it was clear that while he had remarkable endurance, he had spent himself all too fast, while Sliver had been pacing herself almost the entire time. She had synchronized her movements, keeping a beat that she made herself maintain even as her breaths grew quick and shallow with exertion.

And then he stopped. He didn’t lift his bow, and his eyes, whose color she couldn’t yet make out stared straight at her. It was clear he was spent and Sliver slowed her own pace until she stood about 20 yards away, dark eyes assessing her opponent as he did the same. About a chime passed of the two sizing each other up before he cleared his throat. Whatever final confrontation was about to take place, it would be here and now. When he spoke his voice was deeper than his complexion and build would otherwise indicate.

“So, You going to take me back to the City?”

Sliver gave him one more long glance, arms folded in front of her, body tensed. He had made the chase as hard as he could this entire time, there was no reason for him to suddenly give in now. One lip raised in a silent growl before replying, her tone rather dead and apathetic.

“That depends. Are you going to let me?”

He smirked, showing white teeth. It was a self-deprecating expression that was also filled with a sorrow that Sliver could fully understand, losing one’s purpose.

“And I thought all the beasts were dumber than pounded thumbs.”

Sliver shrugged in response and the smile disappeared, transforming into a grimace of utter disgust.

“You don’t understand, and never will, weasel. Oh yeah, I heard of ya. Some little rodent looking to score big with all the bears or something? Sounds pathetic if you ask me. They got you runnin’ around, doin’ odd jobs none of the others want to do? You’re just like us but you don’t want to see, you’re lost and stupid for all those smarts. And I aint goin’ back there. So just try it.”

Sliver fumed. How did everyone in this gods be damned city know of that infernal nickname? The next weasel she saw she was going to eviscerate. Now the hunter smiled again, clearly pleased to have so obviously hit a nerve.

“Oh, I see I upset you a bit, huh? What you thought you were just gunna chain me up and take me back like a good little dog? Think again, Icewatch. I’ll die before they put me in Svanhildur. I belong out here and that’s the end of it.”

And that’s when he slung the bow over his shoulder, nocked and arrow and shot it straight at Sliver’s chest. The motion was fluid, clearly practiced, and Sliver could even see how the wood was worn on the handle of the bow from this action being repeated over and over again. He was a master of his craft, and his craft was death to the things that the people of Avanthal needed to eat. Suddenly the Kelvic was on the receiving end of the hunter’s wrath, and an uncertainty hung around her that she had rarely ever had in her life. Am I strong enough to take him down?

by **Sliver** on November 5th, 2012, 12:46 am

She stared into his eyes, they were broiling and swirling, silver, teal, orange, purple. She had never seen such a varied hue ever come out of a Vantha, and she wondered if perhaps this hunter had never been stable, maybe always had a taste for drink and needed just a shove to go off the deep end. That would be convenient, wouldn’t it? A simple way to write him off and make his existence logical to her, she sighed softly, knowing it was never that simple. Her steady unchanging eyes held his, as if willing him not to shoot that arrow, not at her, not ever, just to put it away and come with her. Though she wouldn’t speak the lie she wished to tell him that it would be all right, and once he had sobered up things would be better. He had most of the truth of it, however, his life would never be the same, regardless of whether it ended here or in Svanhildur. Her gaze caught the trembling of his hands, the quivering of the bowstring as if she had projected her thoughts into his mind and filled him with uncertainty. When the arrow was loosed she barely had to think about sidestepping it, but she doubted she’d be so lucky if he drew it with real intent, as he had when she was chasing him. Now he looked furious and he began pacing around, waving the bow in the air. Sliver felt powerless. Any move toward the man would give him reason to attack, and retreat was not exactly optional. So she stood as if her life depended on it, fastened in the same exact spot in the snow, eyes watching for a change in attitude, for the violent streak to return.

“I knew this would happen. I knew it. The Icewatch has become full of themselves, they forget their Holds, see themselves as the manservants of Morwen, and this is what happens, they think everything they do is Morwen’s will or some equally ridiculous load of frosthawk leavin’s. They close the City, putting honest folk out of work, and for what? To make sure we all starve? You think Coolwater and…the pathetic farm that Winterflame has can keep this city fed without the meat Frostfawn hunters bring in? I think not, I THINK NOT!”

Sliver opened her mouth to protest before realizing that back talking the man with a bow might not be her best option at this point. She gingerly poked the arrow sunk into her shoulder blade, thinking of her other healing injuries as well. Meanwhile, the hunter seemed to have taken her silence just about as well as he might have a verbal response.

“What? Not going to defend your almighty bear cult, weasel? Afraid you’ll make me angry?!”

He whipped around with alarming speed, drawing and firing an arrow into the trunk of the tree directly to her left. Sliver blinked.

“Well I’m already angry, if ya haven’t noticed.”

Sliver blinked again. Something approaching fear was sinking into her stomach. Her options seemed few. Cross the distance between her and the hunter would almost certainly be fatal, running away from a hunter however, did not seem like an intelligent move either. Eyes scanned her setting, trying to find a place close enough to provide cover from his deadly aim.

There. A fallen tree roots splayed up in the air. The trunk was thick enough that her whole body could hide behind it. If he wanted to kill her, he’d have to get a bit more in her range. Now, it was about thirty yards away, the next step was making it there. For now she had to stave off those arrows.

“I don’t see much point arguing actually.”

She shrugged, trying to look as nonchalant as possible. Her quarry smiled, chuckling a bit.

“You know what I realized? You remind me of a wolverine I once hunted. It was all tough, growling, spitting, making sure to tell me who was in control, but as soon as one of my arrows got it’s legs it was clever enough to know it wasn’t going to make it. In fact, it looked a lot like you do now, searching for a way out.”

Sliver dashed behind the tree, wincing as she heard the thunk of another arrow. When she peered around she saw that it had split the first one in half. The wolverine took in a deep breath and tried to convince herself to remain calm. Natural flight instincts had begun kicking in, telling her to run as hard and fast as she could away, but she knew it would be pointless, that one of those arrows would find her back and she would be finished. The wolverine shivered, and then peered around. Where the hunter had been in the middle of the clearing was now an empty space.

A raw anxious fear shot through her like a bolt of lightning and she could no longer keep herself at bay. The Kelvic sprinted as fast as her legs would push her off the ground towards the fallen tree, legs pumping, and breath gasping from some hidden depths within her lungs. Pain pulled at her from her injured leg, the throbbing in her shoulder as well as the scabbed gash on her arm with every movement. She heard nothing, no arrows, no footsteps and she slid into the dark alcove the tree provided, panting and out of breath.

After a moment her head popped up over the tree trunk. This hiding place had been a good idea when she had known where the hunter was, but suddenly he could be approaching her from any side, and she had no idea which way he went. She took a long breath from her nose and attempted to calm herself. The sound of her own furiously pumping heart was going to block out any chance of hearing the hunter’s approach, if she would even be able to do that.

Each chime that passed increased the wolverine’s anxiety, yet her breath calmed, and she opened her senses to the wilderness. A gentle and cool breeze caressed her sweating face, pulling away some of her radiating body heat. She heard a few distant bird calls, the rustling of branches high up in the tree tops from side to side. All she could do was wait and see. She refused to give in, she refused to…Sliver stowed away the false bravado for another time, for now she just needed to ensure her own survival.

by **Sliver** on November 6th, 2012, 12:38 am

It was so hard to keep the panic at bay. The wolverine had always been aware of the fact that she was far from the top of Mizaharan food chain, but she had still mostly felt the part of the hunter, even if half of the hunting she did could fall under scavenging as well. She had been tracked by hunters before, but it had always seemed like a game to avoid them, not a horrible roll of the dice.

She knew it was useless to think this way, that it would get her nowhere, but her fear was gnawing like termites from the inside out, and she felt frozen. She knew that if in that instant the hunter came up over the tree trunk she would be like a deer in the firelight, asking to be shot and her misery put to an end.

She had to think of an alternative, a way out, there always was one. He had surprise and his clearly expert bow skills on his side, what did she have to bring into the equation? It was clear the only chance she had of surviving this encounter was either running and hoping to make it back to the City, or getting him into close quarters, making the bow a non-option. Both were chancy and had low survival rates, but Sliver could find no other options for her to take, no other open doors or roads to travel down. She rolled tense shoulders, then took stock of the arrow. This was going to be a clear advantage for her opponent in a fight if she was able to get close and personal, a weakness that needed to be, at least in part, removed from the picture.

The wolverine grabbed a hold of the haft of the arrow and snapped it off with one fluid breaking motion, teeth snapping together like a bear trap as the pain surge through her body. She ripped off some of her jacket, and then counting to three, ripped the arrow out from the back, unable to prevent the cry of anguish that escaped her cracked lips as she did so. For a few tense moments she sat there panting, her only thought in the world being the pain imbedded in her shoulder. Thick blood already began leaking from the hole, however and Sliver needed to act fast. She wrapped the cloth tying it tightly, despite the pain and making several knots to make sure it wouldn’t slip off of her shoulder. She gingerly rotated her arm a few times, testing out her handiwork. It still hurt as much as anything, but she could throw a punch if she needed to, and it was just going to have to do.

Next was the fact that she had revealed her position. While she couldn’t imagine the hunter hadn’t known where she was already, she had still sent out a beacon, showing her weakness and asking to be finished off. He would be coming soon, probably not wanting to prolong this event any longer than she. Sliver took in a deep breath, and centered herself. She had to survive, for herself, for that woman he had shot with an arrow, and to protect this city, to make sure that when people said her name, a hint of awe hung in the name even if they were calling her by that horrible nickname which she just couldn’t seem to shake. She had to survive, and if she didn’t? Well she clearly had never had a place in the Icewatch in the first place.

That was when she heard it: A footstep. He was quiet all right, but Sliver had always found humans lacking in the basic understanding that just because they couldn’t hear their own footstep didn’t mean other creature’s with superior hearing couldn’t, and apparently this man was no different.

The second and third steps confirmed that she wasn’t simply being paranoid, and now Sliver tried to judge his distance. He was approaching from almost directly behind her, not from the sides, a bad move on his part, for he wouldn’t have distance on his side when he peered over the tree trunk. If the Kelvic could be any judge of distance she would probably guess his approximate distance to be about 20 yards and closing, and she kept careful tabs as his steps grew incrementally louder, and her time until their show down diminished.

He had to be directly on the other side of the massive trunk when the footsteps stopped. Sliver held her breath, not wanting to give anything away as she heard hands run over the rough bark as if planning their next move.

Slowly, painstakingly the Kelvic turned, feet shifting in the loamy earth so that her body was facing where the hunter would surely come over the top of the tree, ready to face her. Legs bent, every muscle thrumming with the tension of the fight about to commence.

And just like that his face was above the tree. His eyes were the color of dead moss, and had a look Sliver associated with raging wild animals more than any Vantha. With one fluid movement he was perched on top of the trunk like a cat that had cornered its prey. Sliver vaguely wondered if this had been his plan the whole time and this entire charade of her chasing him had just been an elaborate ruse to lure her into the area where he felt most comfortable. Well the joke was on him for it was both of their elements that the adversaries now resided, and she would not let a human dethrone a creature of the wilds so easily. Even as he finished perching the bow was already notched and pointed at her heart. So this was it.

Sliver calculated the distance in between her arms and the tip of his bow, his speed and hers in these close quarters. For the first time she did not think of the odds of survival, and she imagined that her eyes had an equally wild quality as they glared into the hunter’s and lunged for him. Though the arrow loosed in perfect timing with her motion, Sliver’s hand snaked out and plucked the arrow from the air, clinging to it as she leapt onto the trunk and her opponent, he would learn exactly what it meant to corner a wolverine today, that she was certain of.

by **Sliver** on November 6th, 2012, 6:20 pm

In an instant the wolverine had been flipped on her back onto the ground. She rolled to the side, hearing the thunk of an arrow imbedding itself in the ice just where she had been, and knew she needed to eliminate that bow or this fight would be over much too quickly. She whirled around. The hunter was still perched on the log and she lunged at him a second time, catching him in the middle of notching another arrow. She grabbed the bowstring and snapped it into his face, triumphant as a red line split his features in half. She had to press her advantage now and punched him in the face, her injured arm complaining loudly as she heaved the blow, grabbing his bow as he fell off of the trunk. Somersaulting backwards so that the tree was now in between them, Sliver snarled and attempted to snap the bow over her knee. She had assumed that one swift and vicious movement would be able to break it, but whatever wood the weapon had been carved from was much too sinewy for her abilities. So the wolverine did the next best thing and wedge the two bow ends as close together as possible, sliding off the string from its holds and tossing it to the side. Let him try to shoot her with that bow now. She tossed the wood away as well and lunged back onto the trunk in order to continue the attack.

Turns out that was exactly what he was expecting of her. As both of her hands landed palm first, gaze trying to see her opponent, his fingers grabbed one wrist and jerk her violently forward, forcing her to face plant onto the ice ground below. She heard him chuckle with amusement, and she growled, attempting to get up. He had the advantage now, however and she felt his foot on her back, the entirety of his weight keeping her pinned to the ground. She rocked her body, trying to gain some leverage, but in an the instant when she felt the weight from the foot release, the hunter full on body slammed her, and the air left her chest in one heaving breath. She squirmed, rotating so that they were facing each other, and attempted to kick him in the groin. He had gauged this move as well, however, and locked her leg between his own in order to prevent her from injuring anything tender, elbowing her viciously in the face.

Sliver felt the warm rush of blood exit her nose in flood, slipping down over her lips and filling her mouth with its warmth. She inhaled, taking in a big glob of the crimson liquid before spitting it into the hunter’s face, leaning forward and fastening her teeth around his ear. She couldn’t be more satisfied by the ear piercing cry of pain that streaked into the empty stretch of woodland as she ripped off his ear, leaving a bloody hole. She began to rise in order to begin heavily kicking her opponent, but his strong grip forced her back down beneath him and one hand ripped off the bandage on her shoulder, eyes wild with pain and rage as he shoved his index finger into the wound. Sliver howled, struggling and flailing, anything she could do to stop the agony of fire that seared through her body at his actions. The fight had escalated so quickly, both opponents feral with rage, exhaustion, and desperation.

Finally when Sliver could take it no more she slammed her head into his. The resounding crack left both of the adversaries dazed, a new throbbing issuing from the front of her head as well as her arm, but it allowed Sliver to shove the man off of her, finger exiting the wounded hole and making the Kelvic cry out one final time.

She leapt to her feet. It was not so nimble of an action, more clumsy and painstaking, but it brought her into an upright position. She walked slowly over to the man clutching his head and kicked him in the ribs. He cried out and began to curl up defensively as Sliver just kept kicking, and kicking him. She stopped when he stopped whimpering, wondering if she had killed him. She had heard the crunching of bones at her blows, and knew that something was most certainly broken, but was still unsure of the hunter’s physical state.
It was then that he rolled over, grabbed her by the ankle and threw her to the ground, slashing at her leg with a knife. It was a thin cut along her shin, barely a flesh wound compared to all his other actions, but it still enrage the wolverine. She freed her foot and kicked out at him, but he just kept coming, rising up shakily on two feet, knife in hand, and pouncing on her like a rabid leopard. The knife sank into the meat of her thigh, and he dragged it down as far as his weakening limbs would allow, opening up a nasty gash a couple inches deep.

Sliver moaned. Every inch of her body was screaming to her to make it stop, to end the horrible torment that this man was putting her through. For a moment she lay paralyzed, partially wishing that he would just finish her and be done with it. It would end her pain and she could move on to whatever came next. A smile appeared on her lips at the thought of resting, and for a moment the sweet ecstasy of Dira’s embrace called to her, a very real and entirely promising proposition.

Then a flood of images swept back into her mind: The child being dropped from the sky, the white cloth covering the dead hunters, the maimed Icewatch member: The fear in the gazes of Vantha young and old when she patrolled the streets. And then this pathetic excuse for a Frostfawn, getting drunk and deciding his life was over, which the more Sliver thought about, she knew it was. What had the City come to? And what had she come to that she was willing to give up so easily? What would her mother think of her now, seeing her pathetic and bloody form giving into to this criminal? Sliver knew precisely what she would think, and frankly had her own opinions on the matter. Dira be damned, she wasn’t going to die today.

He began crawling over her body, lifting the knife up to try to get a more fatal wound in, and Sliver brought one leg up, kneeing him in the face and grabbing the knife. She only used knives when skinning dead hunts, but now she knew exactly what to do.

Having knocked her opponents back, she lunged forward and sent the knife plunging into his chest. A spurt of blood dribbled out of his mouth only an instant later, but Sliver was not going to make the same mistake twice. She thrust it into his chest again, and again, and again, and again. She kept on stabbing until his stomach was a pulpy mass of eviscerated organs and blood, hands and arms covered with the already cooling lifeblood of her kill, knife entirely crimson save for where her palms covered the hilt.

Sliver sat back slowly, dark eyes grim and empty. The hunter’s own gaze had frozen in a cold icy blue, mimicking her own lack of emotion. Two blood soaked fingers left streaks upon his tanned flesh as she closed his eyes, and though Morwen was her true Goddess, she thanked Dira for taking his life and leaving hers, thanking Morwen as well. She attempted to stand several times before successfully achieving the stance, then paled at the amount of blood that surely belonged to her staining the ground beneath her.

Promptly she fell back down. She re-applied the bandage on her shoulder, and then began to cover up the wound on her leg, covering it with strips of cloth and then removing her belt and crossing it over the wound twice to apply pressure, creating a horrible excuse for a tourniquet. When she rose the second time she became starkly aware that if she fell again she might not have the strength to get back up.

And on top of all of this the wolverine glanced around her, suddenly realizing she had not kept track of how far she had run into the forest, and was quite unsure of exactly where she was.

The prospect of staying overnight in this forest was a daunting one indeed, and the chances of the Icewatch finding her out here were slim at best. She paced slowly, retrieving the hunter’s unstrung bow and using it as a cane to aid in walking, sticking the bloodied knife into her jacket. She may just need it before the day was through.

by **Sliver** on November 6th, 2012, 9:58 pm

The Cold set into her bones rapidly as the sweat from her fight cooled against her skin, and her body set to shivering though it had been an oven of heat only moments before. She slowly traced her steps at a more relaxed pace from where she had made her mad sprint from the tree, examining her surroundings. She could still make out the faint tracks from her foot prints, but an aggressive wind had sprung up and had cleaned away any of her evidence of passage from that point onward. Sliver contemplated picking a direction and just heading out, but knew this for foolishness. Instead she began to circle around the base of the tree in ever increasing circles in an attempt to track precisely where she had come from.

This was a grueling and slow process. Her joints were stiff and every movement sent aching throbs through her body from her leg and shoulder, not to mention the headache she had brought upon herself from head butting the hunter. She would stop for only a chime, and did not allow herself to sit. To sit and give into the cold pulling at her to rest her eyes would truly be a death sentence, and it just couldn’t be. As she traveled outward, farther and farther from the tree her frustration grew. She knew she couldn’t give into it, her patience was only so low because of the harrowing events of the day, she would not give up this easily normally when tracking, or so she kept insisting to herself, feet making audible crunching noises on the ice as she created a spiral pattern.

A bell had passed, and Syna was sinking much too low in the sky for Sliver’s liking when she saw a print in the dimming light. She slowly and gingerly bent over to inspect it, making sure it wasn’t just the trick of the light or her faltering mind, but it was clear. It was deeper than her own tracks, and had clear boot treads making it the hunters, but this mattered little for they had come into the forest from the same direction. She then began her circles again, this time not needing to continue for the same amount of time before finding another track. Her saving grace had been how much heavier the man had been, letting his tracks last a little longer. Three more tracks later and Sliver had gotten a general direction, and proceeded at her snail’s pace, slightly encouraged when she found a few more sporadically along the way.

Her luck unfortunately, would not hold. Darkness set upon her so much faster than she could have imagined, and with it, the path she had been following. Her eyesight was better than any humans, but this did not give her night vision. She used what little she could still see to find a tree with large roots that popped up above the ground with a nook that would shelter her from the wind. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do. Sliver glanced around. Sleeping in the tundra of Taldera with no back up to keep watch was a dangerous proposition. Normally she would have climbed a tree and just slept in the comforting folds of branches, but there was no way her strength was going to allow her to get up, and if it did no guarantee she’d be able to get down again either. She would have to set some kind of alarm system, a prospect which did not appeal to the wolverine who was in this wilderness without any supplies save the clothes on her back. Her stomach grumbled, reminding her that she had also not eaten all day, and she removed a lint covered piece of jerky from within her jacket, softening it with spittle and letting the juices fill her mouth, soaking the meat there for several chimes before consuming it. It was the only food she had brought, which meant that if she was stuck out here for more than a day after this point she was as good as dead, and was ever thankful that she had not shifted in her pursuit of the many or her weariness may have consumed her already.

The jerky gave her a bit of energy, albeit little, and so Sliver rummaged around the ground around the tree. She was no trap maker, and had none of the supplies required, but she gathered up as much tinder as she could in the area without losing her positioning near the tree and scattered it in a semi circle about twenty feet around her sleeping place. It was far from being a well thought out defense grid, but hopefully if anything crossed the boundary she would wake up.

The Kelvic hesitated a long moment before sinking to the ground, but when she did a sigh of relief escaped her mouth as if she had just collapsed on a feather bed. She positioned herself in the crook of the tree, head leaning on the oh so comfortable tree bark and despite her fear of the coming night, instantly fell asleep.

She couldn’t tell if it had felt like forever or only the slightest instant had passed when she heard the loud crackling of her perimeter being breached. Sliver shot up, both hands grabbing the tree bark and dragging her weary body to its feet. She winced in pain as her shoulder panged with the effort, but she was on two legs once more, knife in hand, the warmth of her fingers making a sticky mess of the dried blood on the handle. Her breathing was heavy, too heavy to not have attracted the attention of whatever had crossed her boundary, and tired eyes strained to see whatever lay just out of her vision. Whatever it was seemed to be sliding across the ground with a lot of effort, and was also breathing heavily. Sliver wondered if it was a wounded animal. If it was it could be good or bad depending on the creature, and she stepped forward, as if that couple of feet would clear the darkness in order to glimpse whatever was making its way towards her.

When a form slowly started coming into view Sliver shook her head, trying to figure out if she had hit her head too hard and was hallucinating. It looked almost human, no that was definitely human hand that dragged a nearly motionless body forward through the leaves, groaning softly. A serious dread sank into her stomach, and the figure’s head rose. She looked into those emotionless ice blue eyes of the hunter, staring imploringly at her, clearly seeking her aid as it struggled towards her, blood pouring out of its mouth. Sliver wanted to run, to bash the creature’s head in with the knife, but her body was frozen with terror. Inch by inch the abomination made its way towards her, silently asking for aid while receiving none. Finally its hand grasped her boot, fingers feeling the material. It dragged itself closer, then yanked her foot, pulling her to the ground. Sliver felt the warmth of its life blood on her body as it crawled on top of her. Those blue unblinking eyes, mouth open in a scream silenced by the knife she had by this time dropped on the ground. Its dirty and bloodied fingers reached up, caressing her face.
Sliver woke up screaming. She jumped up from the earth even faster than in the dream, ignoring the searing pain as she looked left and right in a panic that the zombified corpse of the hunter was still crawling towards her. It took her about ten chimes before she was positive that wouldn’t be happening, and a faint lightness breached the sky, heralding the coming morning.

Sliver took her bow cane and found the trail where she had left off, having marked it with a few unmistakable footprints of her own. The Kelvic shivered in the chill of the early morning, and then proceeded at her slow pace along the path, back towards the city, back towards the barracks, and away from this madness, feeling as if the gaze of those two icy eyes were watching her the entire journey homeward.

by **Valkyrie** on November 11th, 2012, 4:52 pm

Sliver :

You Will Be Collected if Worthy

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, please send me a PM and we can figure it out.

Closed He Sure Can Run Fast for a Drunk (Sliver)