piece of the wild

Melita

Eating fire is your ambition
to swallow the flame down

Curiosity had rarely failed Melita. Or so she’d claim, regardless of any negative outcomes. Throwing caution to the wind, her nimble legs and long strides had snagged along the beaches of the new island, intrigued, enticed, by the pale stone and ivory sands. Fangorn and Sila followed close behind, much more inclined to be vigilant and heedful, as their companion bounded in great leaps near the closest red fern.

“Neat! Look at this!” was an announcement to both dragon and vampire gourd as she crouched closer, tilting her head this way and that to inspect the plant. Snagging at a nearby stick, she meant to merely move it out of the way, or to see more emblazoned, crimson pigments along its stem, when it nearly seemed to snap at her.

And the tiny wooden piece, which crumbled like kindling, leaving only a short segment still left in her hands. “What the fuck,” was an uttered whisper, but rapt and fascinated all the same. Not even remotely surprised that this world had another kind of flora that fought back, she proceeded onward, with Fangorn and Sila grumbling their worries near her ankles and shoulders.

to be lit up from within, vein by vein
to be the sun

Tal didn't even want to know why the customer wanted bitey flowers, but a job was a job. Maybe she wanted to send a special bouquet to her ex? It was something to consider as he looked across the cream and crimson shore with a resigned scowl on his face and his hand resting on Boreal's horms. The pale dragon chortled smokily and nudged him forwards with her broad head, causing Tal to stumble and shoot her a wounded look.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm goin'. What's the rush?"

Did that stone look kind of like a skull to anyone else? Tal swallowed hard and gripped his Dagger tightly, easing along a path that looked like it had been made by...

Uh. Well. That was something else he didn't want to know.

But then Boreal's head rose up and her nostrils flared, catching a familiar gourd-ian scent. With a bright carol of greeting she bounded ahead to find Fangorn and say her hellos while Tal scrambled along behind her, pale eyes suddenly bright with hope. "Hey, if Fangorn is here does that mean-- Oh! Hey, Melita," he called to the redhead who appeared around the corner, trying to play it cool as soon as she came into view. "What, uh... what are you... I mean, how've you been?" He managed to catch himself before Boreal had to step on his foot to remind him of his manners, and he rubbed the back of his neck to hide the faint flush against his sun-browned skin.

Melita

Eating fire is your ambition
to swallow the flame down

Fangorn’s warning and greetings to Boreal combined were enough to send Melita’s head upward, away from the malicious plants, turning, swiveling, to see Talyson approaching. She hid her inward groan well (kinda) in one of those half-hearted sighs. By happenstance, he must’ve managed to survive the war, and if the Honeybee was shocked she didn’t say so. Sila murmured something in her ear (probably a companion akin faction of ‘be nice’ that didn’t quite register in the youth’s mind).

Brushing the remnants of the stick, merely splinters now, out of her hands and onto the outer portions of her dress (already stained), she tried to conjure and counter the mish-mash of an inquiry. “Fine,” she murmured, because she was – ignorant that Nate had lived and perished all over again, not yet seeing if her other uncle had made it out of his refuge, and snaking her way through foreign islands simply out of habit. “You? What’re you doing out this way?”  

to be lit up from within, vein by vein
to be the sun

He'd been working hard to 'get good' over the past two years and he was no longer the scrawny weed that Melita had saved in the Climb, but his hair was still shaggy and his skin was still browned by sun and wind. He jumped over a vine that slithered and snapped at his feet like a snake and made a rude gesture at it before turning back to the Honeybee with a rueful grin.

If he rubbed the back of his neck any harder the skin was likely to come off.

"Had some deliveries t'make in Haulani," he explained, wincing a little at the fresh memory of Flora's mourning misery. "An' while I was there, a lady hired me t'get some fancy flowers that she said grew out here. Bitey orchids, or somethin', she called 'em. I thought they'd be easy t'find, but everything here bites."

As they spoke, Boreal was breathing a warning trickle of flame at a knife-edged fern that rustled menacingly in her direction. It shied away from the heat and she harrumphed in satisfaction and went to sit beside Fangorn, perhaps looking for solidarity in numbers.

"I, uh, I don't suppose you've seen anything orchid-y around here?" he asked hopefully.

Melita

Eating fire is your ambition
to swallow the flame down

Melita continued to remain unimpressed – her facial expression one of vague disinterest. Swiping at a low branch, she turned back the way she was going, figuring if he was going to follow, there’d be opportunity to lose him in the thickened portions of the noxious, predacious forest. Maybe something out here would eat him.

She muffled the laugh behind her mouth, listening all the while, dropping her hand and skipping amidst the fronds and ferns, indifferent to the savage display as they snapped at her  - too fast and swift, too bemused by the art of their brutality. Fangorn rumbled along behind her, occasionally displaying his fangs at the plants nearby, Sila resting on her shoulder, pondering over flames.

Had the Honeybee seen any orchids though? “Not yet. Maybe some are further in.”

to be lit up from within, vein by vein
to be the sun

Melita's obvious disinterest only seemed to add to her aura of effortless coolness that Tal envied, and he redoubled his determination to try and impress her.

Or at least, get her to stick around for a conversation.

Perhaps ironically, if Tal had been alone he likely would have had more difficulty with the writhing flora. If he'd paid more attention to the snapping flowers and strangling vines the strangeness of the place might have unsettled him into making a painful mistake. Instead his eyes were mostly for the Honeybee's auburn mane as she slipped effortlessly through the hungry jungle, dodging more on instinct than intent and more graceful because of it.

'So, uh, what are you doin' out here?" he asked belatedly, scrambling far more with his verbal footing than his physical. A root humped up suddenly in his path to trip him but he bounced over it while Boreal growled and snapped at it, hurrying after him with her tail lashing from side to side to deter nibbles. "What's this place called, anyways?"

Melita

Eating fire is your ambition
to swallow the flame down

It’d likely a cold day in the Climb before Talyson ever managed to impress the Honeybee – slayer of KingMakers and a series of other debauched frivolities. As such, the fact that he couldn’t take a hint without the direct manifestation of ‘get lost’ coming from her mouth settled her features into a darker, furrowed set of determination.

Snagging at her staff, she knocked at a stirring set of vines angling for her arm, relishing in the way they visibly retreated from her presence. Stalking and stomping further, predacious in her own caliber, she wiped out ferns scorching their way towards Fangorn, before bothering to answer. “I was being nosey.” Wouldn’t anyone saunter into a new land? As for the name of the place, she shrugged her shoulders. “Heard some calling it Metacarpal Island. Don’t know why though.” Maybe it went along with "the Fingers". Get it?

to be lit up from within, vein by vein
to be the sun

Melita was in her element here in the primal forest. Tal watched with admiration as she staked her claim to dominance against the vicious vines and frenzied flowers that tried to attack her - and then, even more quickly, tried to get out of the way of her staff. Sticking close, he didn't realize that the carnivorous plants were giving him a respectful berth simply by his proximity to the Honeybee, and he deftly dodged the grasping roots and thorny teeth of those that tried regardless.

He grinned at her answer and Boreal caroled draconic agreement, even if she only understood the tone and the gist of the emotion behind it. Curiosity had surely killed the cat, but it had to catch it first!

The island's name had him wrinkling his nose, however, and her admission of ignorance forestalled his initial followup. "...Oh. Huh. Weird, but okay." Sorry, Mel. Tal wasn't a local and had never been to the Fingers, so the reference didn't come naturally to him.

He followed after her in silence for a little while, attention half on her and half on the island around them, with its endless hunger and current lack of likely-looking orchids before piping up again with: "D'you think Fangorn is related to these guys? Distantly, I mean, but... well, there's some similarities..."

Melita

Eating fire is your ambition
to swallow the flame down

“Who knows. But if they start getting up and moving around we’ll probably have some issues,” notched with a toothy, fanged grin for emphasis, immediately obliterating a plant crawling towards Sila’s tail. The flora might’ve squealed had it been anything sentient, but instead visibly retreated from her presence, shirking into the background as they forged their way along interwoven paths.

Then she paused for a moment, crouching to glance at another crimson flower that could’ve been an orchid in the right light, but then further along the reddened roots, she spotted something eerily familiar. Brows furrowing, staff still in her hand, she traced over the hardened, pale surface of something else altogether. While Fangorn scooted closer to take a look, her eyes narrowed. “Is this bone?”

to be lit up from within, vein by vein
to be the sun

"A lot of 'em are already movin'," Tal noted, grinning back at Mel. He heard a rustle behind him and turned with a warning slash of his dagger at a scarlet fern with stalked eyes and razor-edged leaves that was stretching towards his ankles. "These roots aren't doin' a very good job keepin' 'em in one place!"

Boreal looked up from where some of those roots were dangling from her mouth as she munched happily on something that hadn't fled fast enough when it had tried to take a bite out of her, attempting innocence. Tal just snorted and patted her head before easing over to where Mel had found - a bitey orchid??

He whistled low and extended a tentative finger towards the brilliant red flower--

and sure enough, the petals unfolded and it snapped at him. He jerked his finger back, wincing as the little pest scraped skin but didn't draw blood, and he made a slicing motion with his dagger from a few feet back to neatly severed the stalk from the roots that were already pulling themselves out of the ground for escape. Collecting his prize he peered over Mel's shoulder at what she'd found, mouth tugging into a frown.

"Kinda looks like it, doesn't it? That's weird..." Tentatively, he reached passed her and reversed his Dagger to knock on the pale surface with the pommel. "Definitely not stone or wood."

Melita

Eating fire is your ambition
to swallow the flame down

Paying no mind to Talyson’s assault or the impending damage, she focused her efforts on the wilder proportions of roots and earth, snagging and tugging while she continued to study. She’d seen enough bones in her lifetime – perhaps the results of an unfortunate childhood spent on edges of survival and promptly watching worlds, and people, fall apart. She traced over it lightly, before furrowing her brows further, gilded eyes bearing witness to Fangorn’s vines interlocking over a few more brandished petals, so she could see better.

And the more she saw, the more she surveyed, the more she noticed that there were multitudes of others. “Tons of them,” was a murmur, peeling back another crimson root to find more woven into the ground. Some reminded the Honeybee of fingers or toes, before long arches of femur heads or shoulder blades; a bizarre making of the world before them. “How would…,”

to be lit up from within, vein by vein
to be the sun

Talyson was less intimately familiar with the detritus of abandoned mortal coils; the hunts of his youth had been for ningo and snowshoe hares, and though recent experiences had broadened his horizons somewhat in that regard he hadn't lingered over the task of flensing and cleansing of meat from marrowed bone. He hadn't thought the substrate of the island to be anything beyond pale stone until Melita drew his attention to it, but as she stripped back roots and leaves and they began to look around at their surroundings more closely, Tal couldn't quite suppress a shiver.

"Oh... fuck" he murmured eloquently as the sheer scope of the island abattoir sank in. The scarlet foliage covered most of it, but now that he was looking for it he could spot the flecks of white and ivory beneath the sinister leaves as far as he could peer through the jungle's shadows.

Kneeling to scrape back the bloody lichen covering a pale 'log', Tal's brow wrinkled in concern."Some of these are pretty big, too. Not somethin' a few toothy flowers could've brought down."

Melita

Eating fire is your ambition
to swallow the flame down

Her thoughts meandered to the KingMaker, and other creatures of such monolithic size, prowess, ability, and danger. Hands still clutching a tinier bone, maybe a fragment of a finger, a long, slow breath unfurled. “During the war, we had a monster come through Torchline – three heads and all that. Maybe something like that could’ve…,” and she gestured lowly to the roots, to the system, built upon portions of bone.

Her jaw clenched, pondering the state further. If they should even be there. If they should be warning others. If something else lurked in the midst, waiting for the right opportunity to strike. Eyes narrowing, she placed the pale enamel back down to the earth, where she watched the plant take back hold of it. “Do you think this whole place might…?” She didn’t even finish her speculation. Perhaps she didn’t really want to dwell on the notions.

to be lit up from within, vein by vein
to be the sun

Tal snatched his fingers back from a snapping snapdragon, but he was listening to Melita's tale of the monster that had threatened the coast during the war with a furrowed brow. He nodded slowly, following her gesture, and scooted back a little from the 'log' that looked more like a giant thigh bone the longer he stared at it. "But... it was killed, right?" Or so the local gossip had indicated, since no one was talking about currently rampaging three-headed monsters in town.

Boreal growled and lashed her tail as something tried to chomp down on the tip, whipping it in annoyance and sending a small but fierce carnivorous turnip flying deep into the bushes. It let out a high-pitched whistle of rage, but where it landed there was a sudden fierce thrashing of vegetation and the tinny shriek cut off abruptly. Tal swallowed hard and edged back closer to Mel and Fangorn as his eyes swept the jungle around them, noting the way the trees seemed to sway closer even though there was no wind. "Might be," he agreed uneasily. "Really, really hope it's not, though." Carnivorous flowers were one thing. He could handle those. But an entire carnivorous island? That was a problem his little knife wasn't going to be able to cut.

"Think we should, uh, scout it out some more or... I dunno. Report this to someone?" He wasn't quite sure who was in charge of that department. But he was distinctly glad it wasn't him in this situation.