Of Serpents And Savages [Tinnok and Alva]

[Tinnok]

OOCIt's Sweet!

There was a time where it stopped becoming clear. At the beginning everything was so vivid, even in the near darkness. Torches flickered wildly in the near darkness as slithering shadows coiled around not so helpless Myrians, and hisses and war cries punctuated the air like the millions of insects that surely had fled the scene of carnage.

But then it all became blood and screams. Perhaps one day they would tell stories of this battle. Of the snakes living inside a village and the brave Myrian warriors who came down upon them to attempt to rescue the captives. Or perhaps the story would be told on the other side, from snakes combating the ant like numbers of the pestilence of Myrians attempting to thwart their plans.

Tinnok knew that either way...the tale would be told my minds that had forgotten, by mouths that didn't know how much blood and pain went into such a battle...and no tattoo would serve as a proper enough memorial.

But one thing Tinnok did know. And that was she was going to live, and there was only one bloody body in that surging fray of soldier ants that she cared about making it too.

And he had just gotten thrown across the battle field. She would have laughed if she didn't feel like the bloody Dhani had broken her spine. Thankfully she was on her back and not her stomach this time, so as not to get trampled, and golden eyes peered up with hate and rage at two silvery green orbs peering menacingly down upon her.

She rolled to the side to escape the stabbing of the massive blade head into the ground where her body had just been, trying to collect her thoughts...and enough endurance to lift her body off the ground.

Her body was simply not cooperating.

She rolled again, this time feeling the breeze the stroke made when it hit the ground, and the cursing of the snake as she missed for the second time.

And then Tinnok found her feet. it was easier to dodge the massively heavy, but slow attacks of the Dhani now, though her feet were heavier than before, and complaining of over use. She stepped on something sharp enough to slice open her foot as she feinted to the side of the blow, only a pittance of a dagger between her and the wicked weapon being born down upon her.

But it was all the distraction for a weary looking male approaching from the back, and by the time the Dhani finally realized why the half breed was smiling like a child at their naming day...Eagle was at her back.

[Razkar]

This is starting to get tedious...

Razkar coughed up blood and the fug cleared around his eyes as he dragged himself back to his feet. Something creaked in his chest like a branch in a storm coming very close to snapping... but he got up to one knee... then planted his gladius in the ground like a crutch...

He saw Wolf snarling and spitting at the Dhani menacing her, half-snake form swaying from side to side, relishing the sacred moments before the kill-

Should have checked I was dead, bitch.

She was enraged and enraptured in the same instant of time. Their plans, their preparations for such blood to be shed in rituals for their Lady Siku... all had been ruined by these fucking ants, these insects, these... shaved apes, that had rampaged from the jungle.

But there was some, small measure of revenge left to her: she had time enough for this traitor. Green eyes widened as they locked with golden orbs so much like her, rearing up to her full height, towering over Wolf...

"Petchhhhhhhhing traitor..." She hissed thick with bile and blood and disgust, tail twitching. "But... now you pay..."

She grinned, and... the Myrian... grinned back? No. No, that wasn't how it should be, that was-

-until the Myrian's eyes flickered behind her and Tinnok saw that frozen moment of horrified anger, realizing that the male she had swatted wasn't quite crushed-

-turning even as Eage roared out, foam and spittle and blood spraying from his mouth in flecks as the rammed the gladius through the Dhani's back, between her shoulder blades-

-and hung the fuck on!

Screams like the howls of demons erupted from the female as she thrashed wildly, eighteen feet of mortally wounded scale and muscle twisting, contorting, ripping and smashing left and right, arms flailing up and down-

-reaching upwards over her shoulders-

-giving Eagle the opening she needed to dash forward and plant her dagger into its chest-

-then roll backwards as her talon-tipped hands slashed at her, hitting nothing but air-

-and then her snarl of rage became the glassy, terrified grimace of agony when Razkar twisted his gladius inside her... severing her spine.

"Fucking... die..."

With one finally bubbling scream that trailed off into the chaotic darkness, the Dhani died, going slack and limp and useless under him, and Razkar grinned... just as she started falling backwards.

With him between her and the ground.

"O, not a-fucking-gai-"

The thunk shook the ground and even in the madness of that night, with hissing, shining monsters slashing and striking at the innumerable shadows surrounding them, Wolf still had to crush a tiny smile.

[Tinnok]

But the smile was gone by the time she and one other Myrian managed to roll the female Dhani off of him. Gone by the time she offered her hand to raise him to his feet.

Gone when she took a look around to see the dead bodies.

It seemed like Alva's entire fang was dead, though Tinnok saw hide nor hair of the Kelvic herself, perhaps escaped from the carnage and off somewhere. Her own fang had been decimated, though the key members still seemed up and able, and of course....her.

Dhani corpses piled over the Myrian one's, a singular female still fighting off the rising tide of injured soldiers as if she had a chance.

Tinnok didn't care about any of that though, not the hastily put together plans or even the fight, and soon she found her feet pounding against slick earth towards the village, the memory of that elder face first in the mood filling her mind as she ran towards it, realizing she had heard no more screams once the fight had begun.

It was a ghost town, though Tinnok hoped that term couldn't be applied literally. Dark and silent, the buildings loomed above her like dried husks, no signs of life anywhere.

"Dagger Mouth!" She screamed into the silent houses, rushing into one after another.

"DAGGER MOUTH!" She waited only long enough for the silence to fill her ears before scampering to another hut.

"Here."

She thought she had mistaken the sound, that it was a trick of the mind....or something. Tinnok whirled, peering at the largest wooden building, perhaps the quarters for their matriarch, perhaps the longhouse where meetings took place, and stalked toward it like a weary tiger.

Inside she found the scant few remaining of the Dagger Mouth, tied to the walls with thick vines. There were five survivors in total...two of which didn't look like they'd survive the night with the amount of blood coating them. No she had miscounted, one young boy was holding a deathly silent infant in swaddling cloths. Tinnok glanced at them, they at her, and then she turned away, not bearing the looks of fear and hate that came when they looked into her eyes. She held a finger to a shut eye lid before screaming out into the night.

"They're here! We need someone good with medicine!"

Then she wandered over to an empty patch of ground and collapsed onto it. Her mind knew she should collect some prizes from the killing ground, surely there were some good weapons left over from Myrians and Dhani alike...but for some reason she just couldn't stomach the thought. Too many had died...and she wasn't sure if she simply meant Myrians.

She wiped a blood coated hand upon her brow and lay upon the ground, staring up at the mostly covered dark sky, wondering if the small infant would survive...or if it was already dead in that child's arms.

[Razkar]

The snake's hate would not die easy, and the hate of her attackers would not allow them to stop. She roared and hissed and flailed, streaming blood with her swinging arms, her snapping jaws, her tail pierced by so many arrows it resembled a spiked mace. A dozen shadows, some swaying with grievous wounds, surrounded and darted at her again and again, ants bringing down larger prey with numbers and sheer determination.

To any other race, save perhaps the Zith, such a spectacle with have been horrifying. But to the Myrians, it was pure justice.

Razkar got to his feet just as they bought her down. A final shrill shriek split the shadowy jungle and a vast shadow crashed to the dirt and grass with a trio of figures atop it, hacking, slashing, stabbing.

Over and over, until the twitching stopped. Until there was silence.

"Wolf?!"

His eyes swept the clearing and saw Myrian lying or writhing, the bulks of dead Dhani dwarfing them like felled trees... but they had their victory. Whatever nest or sortie the Ancient Enemy had mounted was annihilated. Tinnok was already moving, though, and Razkar marveled at how she eschewed her wounds, sprinting towards the village.

And he hobbled after her, every step a new shudder of pain, shouting after her shadow."

"There could be more, wait for-" She vanished into a longhouse and he growled. "-support, for fuck's sake!"

By the time he lurched over to the longhouse, central to the village of the Dagger Mouth and certainly of the matriarch's, she was seated outside, and Razkar had never seen her look so vulnerable, so... broken. Empty eyes stared into her lap and did not turn to him when he arrived. He looked past her into the gloom of the longhouse... stepped inside.

"Goddess..."

The word was breathed barely above a whisper, plea and oath both.

So much blood. So much horror. But the physical depravity that assaulted his eyes was but the surface of it; the preamble to the masterpiece of torture the Dhani had crafted. Despair... he could taste it, like bile and rotting meat in his mouth. Five pairs of eyes, two dying, three wishing they were, looked blankly at him.

No spark lingered in them, and it was the child that brought him to his knees.

"She won't come back... She must be tired..."

Razkar had heard that tone before, but only in the eerie, listless voices of those who'd had their minds forever broken. He knelt by the boy holding the bundle, and eyes far, far too old for a little boy looked back into his. He forced himself to lean forward and put his palm before the infant's mouth... and there was nothing to stir his flesh.

He felt for its heartbeat on its neck... and his eyes scrunched closed so he would not let his tears fall in this place that had seen too many already.

"Goddess, hear me," he whispered, words almost sobbed, "Cast your eyes on this place where your children were slain. Greet them with your love and strength in that place beyond this place. Grant them peace when they return... and to those they leave behind..."

Wolf was aware of Eagle stumbling out of the longhouse. Aware like you would be aware of the ground: there, and part of reality, but largely ignored... irrelevant. Even when he walked to her and slid down the wall to sit beside her. Eagle didn't each out to her, only barely looked up when a trio of warriors, including Rehkuna, who know some healing, ran into the longhouse.

Whoever was left, their bodies would be aided. But he knew that would not be enough.

A long, trembling sigh escaped his mouth and he bowed his head. So tired. He was so very tired. Finally his body shifted... and he leaned his shoulder into that of his friend.

He let here know he was there. Sometimes, that was all you could do.

[Tinnok]

She heard him sit down next to her, and though she could see well enough, she closed her eyes and pretended the night was utterly complete, and none of it mattered, that she was alone in an empty village, abandoned and not empty because of savagery.

The softest of bumps brought her back to reality, and she glanced over at Eagle, head hung low, eyes shadowed in the darkness. There would be no smiles here tonight, not on such grave occasion, but at the very least there was him, and there was her.

She opened her eyes, and looked out over the scene, forced herself to remember and think of it all. And she sighed softly. Why do you feel such pain? Only he matters, and he is not dead. But that was a horrid thought. But it was true.

Tinnok shook her head, and pulled abruptly away from Eagle, only to hear a barked command.

"Arrange the pyres, get the knives to carve up the Dhani, we leave by dawn to report back to Taloba, and I want no traces of that filth here by the time we leave."

Rekhuna barked, in that tone that left nothing to be questioned, in that tone that implied she felt nothing. Razkar knew better, Tinnok did not. A cold tigress that one. Two stayed in the long house, and both Eagle and Wolf rose simultaneously to set about the grim task ahead.

For there was dead to be buried, and to be cooked...and the time and place for grieving would not be here...or now.

[Praetorian]

Your Diligence Has Been Rewarded! Razkar Socialization +2 XP Weapon: Bow +3 XP Weapon: Ax +4 XP Brawling +2 XP Running +1 XP Ioxera's trackers, Rehkuna's brawlers, and Lidara's... People. Dhani Past the Blockade Myrian Military Tactics Across the Backs of Alligators Dagger Mouth Village Becomes Fang Mouth Nest Plans Change in Battle The blood she has spilt at our side makes up for the flaw in her own. Squashed Beneath a Snake Tinnok Observation +5 XP Socialization +3 XP Weapon: Longbow +3 XP Acrobatics +5XP Weapon: Dagger +2 XP Intimidation +2 XP Ioxera's trackers, Rehkuna's brawlers, and Lidara's... People. Dhani Past the Blockade Alva of the Patient Shadows Myrian Military Tactics Dagger Mouth Village Becomes Fang Mouth Nest The Bloodline I Follow The Shattered Fangs Rehkuna: The Cold Tigress Alva Retired Notes : I loved Tinnok's internal debate, firstly. You've done a wonderful job of portraying her struggle with her heritage. Razkar, you get no Observation nor any Gladius skill points because you're maxed out. Now... This thread? I only have one word for it: Awesomepiterrifantastic! Hahaa I know. It's a mouthful. But it fits! Y'all did a wonderful job of telling the story from start to finish and even managed to make tactics interesting. It was full of twists and turns that made my job loads easier. Thanks for that! Now I will warn you that I only read this thread about 3 times and I was constantly being interrupted by small children demanding creatures forged from elongated plastic air... Things. I just tried and failed horribly to make my job sound cooler. Anyway! If I missed anything, please let me know.