Flashback Over the Hills and Through the Woods

[Sliver]

Over the Hills and Through the Woods 50th of Spring 512 A.V. She noticed the ice first. Thus far the Kelvic's journey had been over rocks and plains, not very green, but grass that grew in one form or another. There were patches of forest, and though the temperatures had dipped slightly, the wolverine's northern blood had heated her body well enough despite her sleeveless dress. Then came the ice and snow. At first it was a distant and foreign thing up on the tops of mountains. She could see snowy clouds, but they were well out of her reach. Then patches of ice became much closer, not quite melted at the beginning of the day, or trapped in rocky crannies where the light simply couldn't reach. About her third day of traveling, grass becoming more yellow and more sparse, it snowed very lightly, barely dusting the ground. It was then she knew that she was reaching a sort of end to her journey. It would be harder from here on in with the cold to contend with, no less the creatures, but Sliver was an over confident beast, and wasn't especially worried since the trip thus far had come to little. Around mid day she stopped and checked her rations. Dried meats and fruits, and a fresh rabbit corpse that she munched on, savoring the juices and breaking open the frail bones to suck out the nourishing marrow. Rabbits never had enough of it with those tiny legs of theirs, but it was something at least. Regardless her little check confirmed that she would need to do some more hunting, and it might be prudent to complete it before the landscape completely transformed into tundra before her eyes. And thus heralded a very painstaking day. Now to understand a wolverine you have to understand a couple things. They can run fast when they want to, but they're no wolf, a bit too much bulk and bit less legs make them an awkward beast to put it mildly. So when you hunt as a wolverine it isn't about speed, at least not for the most part, it's a bit of luck, usually a good pinch of intimidation, and the right ambush. Wolverines are partially scavengers, and also omnivores, hunting isn't their main agenda. So when Sliver caught wind of a fresh kill, deer by the smell of it, she smirked to herself and set out at a comfortable jog to site. Her approach slowed as the pungent stench of death overwhelmed her senses. Stooping low behind a scrubby bush the Kelvic peered around to see an old doe being torn at two wolves. They weren't large, most likely adolescent males split from their pack and searching for a new one. Sliver smiled at her good fortune and leapt out of the brush hooting, screaming, and growling all in equal measure and as loud as she possibly could. The pair of wolves looked up from their lunch and tried to assess the threat level of the humanoid, ears pinned back, muzzles turned upward in something between a snarl and a whimper of fear. Sliver cursed at them in common and Pavi, then rushed them, bowling one wolf over and bodily shoving the other one to the ground. None of this was meant to instigate a full on fight, it was all int he nature of showing dominance over the wolves, to show them whose kill it really was. It took several chimes of the male canines, utterly bewildered by the strange display, but after a few good kicks and wallops with her bag the pair slunk off with their tales between their legs and Sliver smiled triumphantly, looking at her prize. Part of the reason the two had probably not cared much if she took their kill was clearly because the doe had been rather picked over, but as a scavenger Sliver was used to using every bit of meat, organ and bone left to her, so after taking a few yummy bites of the slowly cooling raw meat, she removed her skinning knife and set about to making herself some dinner to go.

[Sliver]

There was something utterly soothing about skinning a kill, even if it wasn't her own. It was the culmination of the fight, which in this case had not been very violent, but had nonetheless caused the blood to pump and her heart rate to accelerate. In this moment, the dicing of skin and flesh, she could calm herself and relax, while reveling in the fruits of her labors. Of course this sense of complacency was always heightened when the kill had been her own, but Sliver was not one to complain. Once her stomach was full, just enough to keep her but not stuffing too much into her gullet, she began to slice and strip the meat to take with her. She wrung as much of the juices out of the raw meat as possible, and wrapped it up in dried leathers suited for this purpose. This evening if she was lucky she could construct a fire and smoke some of the meat in order to preserve it until she found some more food. In the end Sliver filled her rucksack with as much meat as wouldn't weigh her down, and took a leg bone with her to gnaw on as she walked. She sucked in a lungful of the cool mountain air drifting down to her from above, enjoying the change in weather, regardless of the dangers this would pose to her in the near future. She tried to keep appraised of her surroundings, to pay attention to detail as any smart animal would, but her full stomach and pure glee at pushing those two wolves away from their kill put in her spirits much too good to waste time with mere details such as...paying attention to her surroundings. So as Syna slowly lowered herself into her mountain cradle, she missed the set of wolf tacks signalling a pack that had passed this way all too recently, and proceeded forward completely ignorant of any present danger. Her legs were sore with the days exhaustion by the time she found the small cavern in the set of hills she had been walking along. She cautiously smelled her way around before entering, making sure any scents she found were weeks old before entering the unknown expanse of darkness. Inside it was warm and quite cozy, if a little damp, and deep enough to feel safe. Towards the back it was clear that more than one hunter had found this exact same resting spot, for the remains of fires long past lay upon the scorched ground. A vent in the ceiling provided an outlet for smoke, and Sliver couldn't believe her good fortune. She lay down her pack, lay down her pup tent as a bed roll, and went outside to gather firewood and tinder before dinner. By this time dusk had fallen on the mountainous setting so Sliver was operating in low light conditions. Her eyes still provided a fair amount of sight even in the faint darkness, and she collected all the wood she deemed necessary for a single night in one massive armful before returning to her cave. She was just bending down so as not to smack her head against the ceiling when she heard the snuffling low growls as well as the very audible sound of teeth tearing apart flesh coming from within. Then two sets of glowing eyes stared straight at her from the shadows. At first Sliver believe that it was the two adolescents come back to seek revenge on her, but this theory was swiftly debunked as three other pairs of eyes rose in unison to glare at her. Suddenly the Kelvic found herself very outnumbered. Time was of the essence, whether she was in wolverine or human form, she couldn't out run wolves for long. Sprinting out and dashing up the hill she searched for any kind of tree with low enough branches to climb, it was her best and potentially only option. The sounds coming from behind suggested a substantially more relaxed pace on the part of the wolves, but this was only because of they had not yet caught her scent and matched it with her belongings. As soon as this happened, surely the hunt would be on. Eyes roved the darkening tree line for any sort of appendage within reach. The farther she ran, the more she saw of high branches from mostly coniferous trees that made up most of the tree population in the area. This was not a good spot to be in. Even as she continued sprinting, energy already waning from her limited stamina at such a speed, she heard the sound of paws smacking against hard ground and scrabbling over rocks in an attempt to reach her. At least they were struggling with the steepness of the incline. Tense ticks turned into panicked chimes as the light dimmed and the chances of the Kelvic finding an appropriately positioned branch slimmed considerably. She heard the eager snarls of her hunters behind and tried to pump more energy into her burning legs as she trampled overgrowth, attempting to keep her distance. Then it hit her. Sliver fell to the ground, cursing fluently her head ringing with pain. The cursing turned to a whoop of joy when she realized what she had full tilt run into was in fact a tree branch. She leapt up, pulled herself onto the branch, then search for a second. Arms reached, fingers curling around another which she half leapt, half scrabbled along the tree bark up to. Once she had taken five branches, sitting on the sixth, she was confident of her distance away from the wolves, who by this point were snarling and snapping at the base of the tree, clearly infuriated by their quarry escaping them in such good time. Sliver then leaned against the trunk of her savior, rubbing the bark affectionately. She had heard that there were people who could speak with trees like anything else, and she hoped that the plant would absorb some of her thanks, even if she couldn't explicitly talk to it. The cold winds bit at the rather exposed Kelvic, but she had only herself to blame for this event, so she gave herself no room for any pity, only self loathing for being such a fool. If a pack, even as small as this one had been so close, she should have seen the signs, despite her good mood. Sliver folded her arms across her chest and lowered her head onto her chest, closing her eyes and attempting to get some rest in the long night to come. She wasn't very worried of falling out of the tree, for she used them for situations like this more than she cared to admit. Even so she sought out a wider branch after a few chimes, settling into this one, and dozing off into some fitful rest after several chimes.

[Sliver]

Morning came and with it a splitting headache from her head resting on a pointed branch sticking out from the tree. Tired eyes blinked a few times, clearing away the last remnants of sleep. Glancing downward the wolverine saw that the ground was clear of wolves. Apparently they hadn’t wanted to wait her out, or perhaps had caught the scent of some prey that didn’t have the ability to climb away from the grasp of their jaws. She took the time to climb as high in the tree as its branches would allow to make sure she didn’t make the same mistake twice, but the forest seemed to be clear of any danger. Lowering herself down considerably slower than her ascent the previous evening, Sliver landed on the loamy earth with a soft thump. Eyes scanned the ground from this lower vantage point, but the musky scent of wolf was much fainter than before, and Sliver’s confidence about their distance increased with each passing moment. First things first the Kelvic made her way back to the cave. Just as she imagined any meat that she had had was gone, and even the dried fruit had been smashed and ruined beyond any use. That was it for her rations she supposed, she would need to do some serious hunting to keep up stock. On the plus side her pup tent and bag remained mostly undamaged, so she folded these up and strapped them on her back, picking up a singular piece of dried fruit from the ground and munching it as she jogged out of the cave and back up the hill. It was just past the tree she had spent the night in, probably no more than a hundred yards further when she heard a telltale snap and was suddenly hoisted bodily into the air by some contraption. A moment later Sliver was hanging suspended, swinging lightly in a large rope net. She was really off her game as of late. She struggled to take her bag off her back, the rope net tightening around her and restricting movement substantially, but eventually was able to weasel it off of her and grab her skinning knife from inside. It only took about a chime of attempting to cut through the rope that she realized it would be no use. Besides the fact that the knife was exactly robust, made more for easy jobs where it only had to puncture a tough substance a few times before neatly fileting it, it was clear the rope had been made to resist tampering, tar coated the ropes, gumming up the knife and rendering it useless. Wiping it clean as best she could the Kelvic returned the blade to her sack and looked around, shifting her body in order to rotate and try to assess any weaknesses in the trap. There would be plenty of ways to destroy the net that of course would only be helpful if she was outside of it, however that was clearly the design choice and after spinning around a number of times the wolverine began to get dizzy and ceased moving all together, just remaining as still as possible and letting the gentle rocking of the net commence. So then her thoughts began to cycle through the possibilities. First of all this might just be a misunderstanding. The person, attempting to catch a large animal, perhaps even a couple wolves might just release her and she could be on her way. Of course the flipside of this, the fact that tar coated the ropes, the strength of the rope…it could potentially mean bad things. Perhaps a sentient being was the intended victim. These thoughts led down a very dark pathway, the kind of dark winding road of possibilities that made Sliver remove the skinning knife, attempting in complete futility trying to free herself again. Two bells and two raw hands later she gave up, this time for good. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen, and apparently nothing she did or thought of was going to sway the events that much. The day dragged on. Sliver watched in agonizing boredom as Syna slowly crept across the sky, the feeling of mild discomfort that her position in the net initially gave her rising into a painful soreness that couldn’t be alleviated no matter which way she turned. As dusk settled in the hills, the Kelvic woke up, having slipped into a restless slumber due to exhaustion from lack of food and water. When she heard footsteps approach she was too relieved to care if the individual who had caught her was friend or foe. She heard a mild grunt, perhaps of surprise, behind her. The footsteps paused, their previously steady pace clearly contemplating their next move. Perhaps this was a good sign, if the trapper hadn’t expected to catch a humanoid it could mean this was a big misunderstanding. Sliver attempted to rotate the net to face the stranger, but that was when she felt a hand on her side and a needle puncture her skin. She opened her mouth to protest, but whatever she had been injected with had an instantaneous reaction. All she managed was an indignant grunt before the wolverine was out cold, her last sensation the faint feeling of falling to the ground.

[Sliver]

When Sliver finally came to it was slowly and sluggishly. Light slowly crept into her vision, and she was aware of a pulsating throb at the back of her head, reminding her of how she spent the last day or so. She lifted her head stiffly, but almost immediately lay it back down due to the swimming pain that penetrated deep into her temples. She heard a movement to the side of her, the sound of swishing cloth and boots scraping floor boards. "I apologize. When I realized what you were I upped the dosage of my sedative in case you were one of those bears. I think I can rule that out now due to your reaction." Sliver snorted and coughed, and tried to sit up again, falling back once more. She suddenly realized her arms and legs had been restrained by leather straps, and though she could lift her head, some device was preventing her from turning it to see her captor. When she spoke her voice was hoarse and her throat felt as if she had gone months without water, which simply couldn't be true or she would be dead...right? "Wh-What did you give me?" All things considered this was probably the least important question she could have asked right now, but she was confused, a bit scared, and more importantly angry at her new circumstances, all while being addled by whatever this person had drugged her with. She forced herself to focus on the voice, to determine at the very least the gender of her captor, but even their voice was distorted by her ears which didn't seem to be capturing sounds correctly either. When the voice spoke it sounded deep and thick, and Sliver couldn't tell if it was the drugs or that was the true sound of the person when they spoke. "Milk of the Poppy, as well as a few other pungent herbs readily found in the Talderan mountainside. The land is harsh, but a treasure trove for those with a keen eye, which it just so happens I have." Sliver didn't much care if this person had four eyes in which to see plants on the ground, she wanted to leave, to get away. Even as this thought passed through her mind, however, she was overwhelmed with a new wave of exhaustion, and try as she might her eyes refused to stay open. The idea of what this person might be doing to her while she slept brought forth a wave of unbidden terrors that she had not experienced since her time on Sahova, but she simply had not the strength to stay awake. With a grunt of helplessness her eyes closed and a small pathway of drool exited her mouth, sliding down the side of her face as she collapsed into another drug induced sleep.