[SE] Bringing me out the dark

Thal grins, letting the compliment settle without confirmation. The confidence in her skills hasn't wavered, but she's become increasingly aware of her limitations and how those abilities compare to those of others. The new scars along her arm and back prove as much, a reminder that she's stronger than most, but not strong enough. 

Following Colt on the path, she can already feel the heat of daylight fading along with that of the bodies in her hands. A flash of disappointment comes in a quiet flick of her tail, dismissing the notion that she'd be eating her portions raw. "Cold blood doesn't taste good." Too viscous. Too sticky. There wasn't much blood left after cooking it, but at least the meat was warm, and Thal prefers that over a cold, lifeless meal. Ideally, the prey would still be squirming beneath her, but alas, she feared these tiny avian hearts would have burst before she had her fill. 

By way of agreement, Thal shrugs her shoulders, returning the smile with a fanged one of her own. "I'm not much of a chef, but I can cook some meat." And considering her refined pallet, 'charred' isn't going to be on the menu tonight. 

She takes in the space while Colt gathers wood, scanning the worn stone and firepit remnants. It's clearly a favored spot, used by more than just the rancher. Old logs and sturdy rocks surround the ashen pit, enough space for Thal to set her kills on one rock and perch comfortably within range on another. Her tail has slowed a bit, but it still waves a quick pace behind her, and when the kindling is in place, it snaps sharply to summon the magic, a fire bursting to life as she casually asks after Colt's 'spooky tales.' "Yeah? Like what?"

I just want you to set me free.

Thalassa

Colt

Love's just one of them words
That gets thrown around
So I ain't gonna say it, no I ain't gonna lie
If you were my last breath, I'd just wanna hold ya

With the jungle so dense and so deadly, it doesn't usually result in survival to try and cross it in the dark. This campsite, so near the water and favored hunting trails, mean it is a tried and true resting place for safety. Better to sleep here and go your next path in the Suvahasi in the daylight. Even with their charcoal bandanas, she and Thal would not survive too many direct run-ins with the poisonous flowers.

Content with the fire that erupts into life once she's placed down their fuel, Colt grabs her own log-seat nearby the ancient. She works to untie the grouse, spearing their little bodies on a long, thinner brush branch that she flicks the leaves and stems off of to make it a soother, single roasting pole. "Mmhmm," Colt answers absently, focused on the task at hand, though her mind wanders to those old stories. "You know the hills of King's End?" Colt asks, more for conversation than answer. "Well, one of them is actually a massive toad," she says, sounding as if she means to inform Thal instead of entertain her.

"Legend says that it sleeps for years at a time, burrowing down into the ground and hardening itself with mud. It stops breathing nearly, and its heartbeat becomes mild. Both get mixed up with local storms, breathing for wind, heartbeat for earthquakes and passing thunder, so no one ever notices. Eventually, grass and flowers grow over it, and it becomes part of the landscape entirely." Colt hands over one bird-laden stick to Thal, suggesting to the Ancient that she handle the roasting. "When it awakes, usually with a strong rainfall, it's hungry."

If you were my last shot of whiskey
I'd press you to my lips, take a little sip
Swirl you around and around and around
Then I'd shoot ya down

As Colt begins to prepare her portions of meat, Thal follows her lead, snagging a nearby branch and stripping it of excess pieces so that the grouse can slide easily onto it. She nods to confirm her familiarity with King's End's hills (no matter how little it is) but throws up a skeptical eyebrow at the claim 'one of them is actually a toad.' Even if she doesn't believe it, Colt proves to be a skilled storyteller, and she can almost picture the rolling hills, earthquakes, and strikes of thunder.

Once the sticks are ready, she sets them across the fire, leaning forward on her rock as she directs the flames to curl and lick at the meat with casual ease. If it looks like the fire is creeping too close or the meat is getting cold, Thal gently nudges the flames as she grins when she thinks of a hangry hill. "Let me guess, it eats naughty children who don't finish their vegetables?"

I just want you to set me free.

Thalassa

Colt

Love's just one of them words
That gets thrown around
So I ain't gonna say it, no I ain't gonna lie
If you were my last breath, I'd just wanna hold ya

A laugh loosens from the expectant press of her lips as she pauses for effect with the meat exchange. Her wig hair catches the firelight, shimmering as she shakes her head in answer to the question she knows is only half asked, half offered for her to continue. "It eats everything." The correction is laid out with the low current of breath always reserved for things that are too big or terrifying to shout around, so are instead urgently whispered.

"In one sweep of its tongue it can eat ten men, and its croak is so horrific to hear that it drives animals mad with the desire to flee. Once tamed beasts scurry off into the wilds, never seen again." Her gaze watches the fire that Thal manipulates effortlessly, though behind her eyes the giant visage of the world-eating toad plays out. "He is terrible," Colt goes on, one hand shaping her story with her. "But... he is also very dimwitted." Her teeth flash in the firelight with a grin. "He needs only to be tricked into feeling full, and he'll settle back into the ground again."

She has long stopped believing in this tale. Barely did so as a young girl, too skeptical after falling for the tricks of other stories and jokes, her embarrassment on full display then. Yet there's no denying that this current weather pattern is well suited to awakening the mountainous toad. Luckily, they are not near King's End. "It still requires some bravery, to get close enough," she asserts, and at her feet she kicks over some small stones and old burnt things. "The town would gather up a bunch of stones and straw and things they no longer wanted, arrange them to look like men or creatures with heads and arms and legs, painted on faces, and lure the toad towards where they lay like a buffet." Colt's legs suddenly sweep around the little things she'd been moving over, kicking them behind her, the soft thunks peppering the log she sits on. "Then gulp, he'd eat them all up, and have no more room for anyone alive. He'd hop away, laden down and thinking himself content, and fall asleep once again."

A story about being wary of what is so freely given, or what appears too good to be true, if one empathizes with the toad. A fable of surviving what feels like impossible odds with a bit of thinking and teamwork, if one aligns with the villagers. A demonstration that things aren't always what they seem, even mountains. Colt doesn't really know the point, but she's always like that one in particular. "Of course, this was only learned after years and years of battling with the toad's appetite. It'd be easy for anyone to turn to ritualistic sacrifice instead, and there's likely a reason why he prefers to eat the shape of men over cow even after all that time... certainly makes all the graves there make sense."

If you were my last shot of whiskey
I'd press you to my lips, take a little sip
Swirl you around and around and around
Then I'd shoot ya down

Although superstitious by trade, Thal isn't one to believe in fantastical beasts and spooky bedtimes stories, but she can sometimes enjoy a good tale just for the sake of it. Gods know sailors are good enough at that, tucked into their cabins late at night or laying under the stars as they drift at sea, sharing quiet words that weave cautionary tales or suspicions to explain the unexplainable complexities of sea life. Yet even those, Thal has never given much weight to, so giant toad hills coming to life register low on her list of believable worries. 

She lets Colt continue anyways, rolling her eyes when the toad falls for a pile of rocks and hay dressed as food. Amusement glints in her eyes, glowing from the flames as she controls the cook on the various grouse. Wouldn't it be nice if all giant creatures were that dumb?

When Colt concludes her story and its questionable moral, Thal is beginning to reach for a stick, a silent indicator that the meat is done cooking. "See, this is one of the many reasons life at sea is better. When a kraken kills people, their bodies just sink to the bottom of the ocean. You don't have to worry about graves ruining a perfectly good field." Dismissing the fact that Thal finds the idea of being buried extremely uncomfortable.

I just want you to set me free.

Thalassa

Colt

Love's just one of them words
That gets thrown around
So I ain't gonna say it, no I ain't gonna lie
If you were my last breath, I'd just wanna hold ya

Colt needs no further indication to dig in than the reach of Thal's arm. She mirrors the ancient, pulling the roasted meet out of the heat and closer to her range, letting it cool a moment before digging in. The other bird bodies, uncooked, stay by her side, ready for some trade with the locals tomorrow when they set out from this camp and back to the desert. They'll want the fresh food, and the feathers are worth something to them as well. All she'll ask for in return is more of their goodwill. Less of a barter, more of a gift, exchanging appreciation of their tips and tricks thus far for her successes.

"Oh, that sounds miserable," Colt says with a wrinkled nose at the idea of her body sinking into the ocean depths. "Cold and bloating amid the water? Picked apart by crabs until I turn into silt?" She shudders at the thought. "I'd rather turn to ash, or let the meadows take me back and feed me into grass." Something full circle about that, to her, given how much she's depended on those very hills.

Though her expression wavers from slightly horrified to marginally smug. "Why, you worried about ghosts coming to get you when the bodies are just buried?" Having grown up with so many graves, Colt doesn't spook quite so easily from the echoes of death. "Maybe that's what the toad's croak really was...all his eaten victims wailing from his belly, trapped for eternity in the space between living and resting with Mort." The idea is terrifying, truly, but she shrugs it away and reaches to tear off a grouse leg.

"Besides, at least with graves you know where you might get haunted. With the sea?" She shakes her head. "You'll just sail along, unknowing there's a dead soul beneath you about to board your ship and scare you."

If you were my last shot of whiskey
I'd press you to my lips, take a little sip
Swirl you around and around and around
Then I'd shoot ya down

Her fangs rip into the first bird, barely letting it cool more than a fracture before swallowing it down to settle deliciously in her stomach. As she's licking her fangs, Thal mirrors Colt's disgusted expression. "Bones get picked clean so fast in the ocean. Better than your organs rotting and turning to dust trapped in the dirt." Getting eaten by some ocean creatures is just as much 'full circle' as being digested by plants. 

She shakes her head when accused of being scared, even going so far as to roll her eyes while ripping a larger piece from the fragile carcass. The wing tears off in the process, her free hand forced to leverage against the new piece so she can shred the meat off it, all the while giving Colt a playfully unamused glance in exchange for her attempts at spooky theories. 

Swallowing a portion of grouse large enough to finally chip away at her bloodlust, Thal leans back more comfortable on her rock, tail slowing. Colt's suggestion of ghosts boarding her ship is met with a bit of laughter. "No. Most of the ones at sea sing. Ever heard of sirens?" She grins wide enough that her fangs flash bright in the firelight, looking as bloodthirsty as her ancestor's horrifying cousins, the creatures who sing and drag sailors to their deaths. 

Shrugging her shoulders, Thal adds, "Sure, there are plenty of restless spirits roaming the ocean, but just like them, if I die at sea, I won't be tethered to one spot. I'll be free to roam and ride the currents wherever I want." Thal points her spotless bone at Colt like a wagging finger. "Sounds a hell of a lot better than being buried in the dirt to rot."

I just want you to set me free.

Thalassa

Colt

Love's just one of them words
That gets thrown around
So I ain't gonna say it, no I ain't gonna lie
If you were my last breath, I'd just wanna hold ya

What's full circle for Thal is a square for Colt. Returning to the sea makes sense for a sailor, but returning to the dirt suits the rancher better, each of them finishing their loop by ending where they began, giving back to what had given so much to them. It'd be unsuitable, she thinks, if she were to add herself to the mix of the ocean's shapes and flows.

Nodding slowly, Colt glances towards Thal as she reaches to bite into the leg she's torn off. "Yeah, I've heard of sirens. Sounds terrible, being lured to your own death like that." A trick you'd only fall to once, so fool me once and I'm dead seems to be the better quote for the sea. Certainly doesn't afford fools for very long.

The meat is perfectly cooked, tender and succulent, and Colt's grin deepens with a grateful "mmm," added to the divine flavor for fresh food and meat. Living off so much dried fruit, nuts, and cured meat had begun to get to her. It's why the locals will be just as glad to get some of these spoils too. "Oh I see," she murmurs, popping a finger in her mouth to suck off the juice. "You're afraid of being bored when you die, so you want to haunt everywhere you can."

If you were my last shot of whiskey
I'd press you to my lips, take a little sip
Swirl you around and around and around
Then I'd shoot ya down

Her shoulders come up in another shrug. "There are worse ways to die." Certainly ones where you aren't lulled by sweet music and beautiful imagery. Thal would much rather be seduced by a siren than buried alive or frozen into stone - just the thought makes her want to cringe, particularly since the latter is a very real possibility for an Ancient. 

Colt's finger pops from her mouth, her statement making Thal laugh as she tosses her empty bone into the fire. "What? Like you'd rather be stuck in some in-between for all eternity? That's how people go mad." Perhaps some might argue that moving on to Mort's Halls would be the perfect ending to their lives, but with no one to meet there, she isn't as excited about the prospect of spending eternity roaming sterile hallways, forced to make small talk with strangers forever. Give her a little bit of chaos.

I just want you to set me free.

Thalassa

Colt

Love's just one of them words
That gets thrown around
So I ain't gonna say it, no I ain't gonna lie
If you were my last breath, I'd just wanna hold ya

Steadily, Colt consumes the rest of her grouse, tossing the little bones into the flames which flicker and rise up in greed for the skin and fat still clinging, much less the marrow to get to beneath. "Oh, there's no doubting that," Colt agrees to worse deaths being on hand. She rather thinks being gobbled up by a giant toad, for instance, would be awful as well. "I wonder if they stay seduced as they're eaten too. Is that better, or worse, to never know when you go? Smiling at your own demise, thinking it something wonderful?" Colt shivers. There might be more painful ways to go, but that lands in a way she doesn't like. "I'd definitely want to know. I'd prefer immeasurable pain over fake affections and ignorance."

The idea of Thal being bored to tears in the soil earns another tilting laugh from Colt. She deposits her last bone into the fire, reaching to rub her hands in the dirt and wipe them off thereafter. "Not an in-between, or that's not what I consider Mort's halls. I think those would be nice." She presses her smile in, leaning back into a stretch as the night wears on. "I don't want to go there sooner than needed, but it seems like it'd be nice, once I do. I wonder if it'd finally feel peaceful and happy there." A nice quiet after all the turbulence of life. Not that she's complaining for the ups and downs of now, not entirely, but there's an appeal to final rest as well that she can appreciate.

As they talk, the fire starts to bank low, and eventually they succumb to sleep in the little bit of rock and cleared jungle here. Enough to get them through the evening, and then they can creep out once they can see in daylight again, give those birds to the natives, and head on towards other desert tasks.

[FIN]

If you were my last shot of whiskey
I'd press you to my lips, take a little sip
Swirl you around and around and around
Then I'd shoot ya down