Don't ask rat-orical questions

He hated the swamp.

He hated the Climb, too, of course. He wasn't overly fond of the Oerwoud, for that matter, and ever since Torchline had gotten its heat back he'd been visiting there a lot less often. Halo was really just the best place on all Caido, but here he was.

In the swamp.

Well, barely. The fields of King's End weren't all that far behind him, because why go any further into the muck than he had to? He just had to find a swamp rat, meet it in single combat, let it hit him, and then murderize it. Technically the last part wasn't necessary, but fuckin' swamp rats, amirite?

And maybe bait would have worked better, but he hated wasting good meat on rats, so he was stalking (wetly) through the swamp when the sound of something thrashing drew his attention. Boreal rumbled from the branches she was hunting along and started to run, forcing Tal to follow. A panicked whinny gave him his first clue, and he got the second when he stumbled into a small clearing where a young unicorn was half-submerged in a patch of quicksand.

And a half dozen pairs of blind, beady eyes peered hungrily from the far edge as a family of large, muscular rats chittered and shifted hungrily, waiting to see if the meat would manage to drag itself close enough to shore to become a meal.
Morgen

You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet

We know why Tal was out here, so let's quickly sketch out why Morgen might be here. Though there weren't many of his herd that were considered new born anymore, that didn't mean that all of the foals weren't thinking like they hadn't been born last night. So it was that the wrangler and his trusty unicorn companion were trudging through the asscrack of the continent looking for a lost foal.

" Tell me again why we can't just hobble 'em young until they fuckin develop some brains b'tween their ears?" Pinning her own ears, Sweets' snorted and mentally communicated something that had the wrangler huffing out an annoyed breath.

Ignoring her bonded, the unicorn suddenly jerked her head up, ears perked forward. The mud beneath her hooves squelched and tried to clamber up her legs, but she was off before it could get a good grip. Unable to do much more than jig-jog given how absolutely shit the footing was, nevertheless the mare carefully picked her way through the groping branches and patches of quicksand.

Bleating stupidly, the young unicorn's eyes rolled back into its skull at the site of the rats, causing it to sink even faster.

"Shit shit shit," Tal said eloquently, freezing for a moment as he took in the tableau. He had rope in his bag, but no idea how to make or throw a lasso. He could try and chase the rats off, but that wouldn't do any good if the unicorn sank too far into the quicksand to get out while he did so.

And anyways, the unicorn was closer to the rats than it was to him.

With a grimace, Tal raised his voice in a holler as he unlimbered his axe. "Help! Anyone! We need a hand!" Something was coming closer - he could hear the jingle of metal and the creak of leather nearby - and he just had to hope they were friendly.

Thinking on the fly, Tal headed for a tree on the edge of the clearing and began to chop at its base, intending to make a bridge across the quicksand so he could get close enough to the unicorn to help. Boreal leapt from her branch and coasted above the unicorn, crooning reassuringly before her path brought her towards the rats. She let loose a jet of fire on the biggest before flapping back up into the trees.

The rat shrieked and rolled to drown the flames and its family scattered under the assault, ears and noses twitching furiously as they compensated for their blindness. The pack split, flowing around the edges of the quicksand at a swift scamper and heading for Tal and the sound of his axe - and the sound of hooves pulling free of the sucking mud just beyond him.

Why wait for the main course to be ready when a pair of appetizers had so conveniently presented themselves?

You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet

Stupid enough to get itself caught up in the quicksand, the foal wasn't equipped with the brainpower to adjudicate friend from foe just now, and honestly, we can cut him a bit of slack. Far as he could tell, there was a man with an axe yelling, a dragon blasting fire, and some hungry-looking bags of garbage with teeth looking to make him into a snack.

"Oh no you fuckin' don't." Unlike Tal, Morgen doesn't take in the finer points of the scene, but instead blinks it all in in a single go; there's the foal and the rats. Twisting with ease to suggest the movement had been practiced many a'time before, Morgen retrieves his lariat from where it was tied to the back of his saddle. Slipping his fingers between the loops, he tosses it over the colt's head though doesn't pull it tight. Instead, he dallies it around the horn of his saddle as he dismounts, running his palm down the newly attached anchor line.

"Any o'yous wanna make a meal of him gotta come through me first." The wrangler hollers as he edges toward the edge of the quick sand. It's then that Tal comes into view, or rather, that Morgen's mind opens enough to register him. "Same goes for you." He calls, because who the fuck knew what anyone's agenda was these days.

The Feverlands have quite a reputation for its noxious fumes, rampant death, infernal decay, and that wonderful yellow fog that really gives the skin a fresh glow as you wander into its depths.

And ah…now you’re stuck.

Your feet have somehow become wedged in one of its many quicksand-like areas! Maybe you can find a way out – there might be a branch nearby. Or you can snag a friend.

Before the gore crows, blind swamp rats, and all those other lovely things do!

Honestly, what did you expect?

Boreal was tiny for a dragon, but she was big for a companion and the foal could be forgiven its panic. Tal, on the other hand, was still lanky and not nearly as badass threatening as he might have wished to appear. The strange man's arrival was initially met with relief when he proved ready and able to throw an accurate rope, but the charge of the rat brigade and the rough warning quickly brought the habitual scowl back to Tal's lips and his hackles up in fine fettle.

"Whaddya mean, me? I was tryin' t'save it first!" Which, upon further reflection, was a stupid thing to be arguing about but there wasn't time to reconsider his words. Tal stepped back from the tree to prepare for his own trio of oversized vermin and--

Oh. Shit.

The squelch was bad enough as he felt his foot sink past his ankle without slowing. He stumbled, trying to keep his balance, and his other foot quickly followed the first. "Fuck! Uh, I mean... foal's all yours!" His holler ended with a whoof of expelled air as the leading rat leaped and hit him dead in the chest, claws scrabbling at his shirt and the Vest beneath as it tried to sink its nasty yellow teeth into his shoulder.

But Morgen had three rats of his own to deal with, coming around the edge of the quicksand at speed and aiming to swarm him rather than his unicorn. At least for the moment.

You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet

Ignoring Tal's protests for the time being, as Morgen's gaze pivots between the foal and the rats, he misses whatever signs there might have been from the ground about it's ability to bare his weight. Sinking in up to his knee, the wrangler barks an abrasive string of curses as he hollers an instruction to the mare behind him that she ought to fuckin' stay put.

"Gee thanks." He grunts to Tal before turning to glare at the rats. 'Y'want me? Come on in, beautiful.' With a mental ping sent to Sweets about what he was planning on doing, Morgen lets his hands run farther up the coil of rope as he nudges himself farther into the quicksand. It was a ploy to get the rats stuck as much as it was a necessity: the longer the loop stayed over the foal's neck the higher chance that its struggles would have it tightening to the point it couldn't breathe.

Trying to work his way deeper and deeper in until he could place a fist between the coil of rope and the foal's neck, Morgen relied on Sweets' to tell him the rats either were or weren't taking the bait.

The companions definitely deserved a bonus today. Boreal made another strafing run, breathing fire down on the other two rats trying to circle around behind Tal and catching her claws into the one already on him. She tore it loose and the pair hit the ground in a tangle of snapping teeth and scrabbling claws.

His Vest had protected him from the rat's bite, and Boreal's counterattack gave Tal the time he needed to stab out with his Special Delivery Dagger at the other two vermin. "You're welcome!" he hollered back to the rider, too focused on his own predicament to see what was going on nearby. He might have been stuck, but he was able to kill one swamp rat with a lucky shot between its eyes. Its sibling paused in its attack, realizing somewhere in its vicious little brain that the numerical advantage was rapidly dwindling.

Morgen's trio of trouble were mostly focused on the meat in the sand and two of them bounded after him. Lighter than the human, it just meant they were able to go a little farther into the pit before their clawed paws squelched down and didn't come back up. They were only a short distance from the man, but their squeals of hunger were quickly turning to panic.

The third had been slower coming around the bend and, lagging behind its compatriots, heard their protests and quickly began to backpedal. It shifted from foot to foot at the edge of the sand, listening to the sounds of Morgen and the foal and lying in wait to attack when they were still mired and unable to run.

Sweets was far too big for it to attack on its own, and smelled like prey, not predator, so for the moment the rat ignored the unicorn.

You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet

"Didn't think that through, huh?" Morgen asked as the rats struggled to stay...a'float? in the quicksand. Keeping himself still, the wrangler let one hand sink slowly into the muck so that he could bring out the knife he kept in his belt. Trying not to wriggle more than was necessary, he pulled his arm out (not without a few grunts of effort) and stuck it between his teeth.

Glancing at Sweets to give the mare a few silent commands, Morgen wrapped an arm around the foal's tiny neck in order to loop the lasso over himself. Now pinned in place with it but at least with some sort of anchor to keep them from going under completely, he could turn his attention to the rats.

"I 'uckin' 'ate 'oo 'uckers" Was all he could really manage with the knife between his teeth.

Meanwhile, Sweets was moving away from the still-on-ground-rat, around the circumference of the quicksand. At Morgen's nod she began to back up until the rope tightened around her saddle horn. Flickering her ears for confirmation, the wrangler nodded again, tightening the rope completely around his middle and taking most of the air from his lungs with it.

Sparkling conversationalists that they were, the rats who had tried and failed to accost Morgen hissed at the sound of his voice and snapped yellow, gangrene-laden fangs in his direction. One tried to paddle back towards shore with limited success, but the other was a vicious cuss that continued to try and scrabble towards the human and foal even if the exertion only made it sink faster.

The slow rat paced back and forth at the edge, nose and ears twitching madly as it tried to determine what was happening. From the sucking sounds of the swamp the prey was indeed coming closer and it chittered eagerly, saliva dripping from its narrow jaws in plague-ridden gobs.

Boreal, meanwhile, had managed to get behind her opponent and blunt, heavy jaws closed on its neck. She shook her head viciously and her own thick neck bunched, muscles straining to lift the large rat as she sent a whipcrack down its spine. The beast went limp, its shriek suddenly cut off, and she spat it out with revulsion.

The third rat of their little group shifted back, head turning from dragon to man and hearing no other rat sounds close enough to matter. After another moment of hesitation it turned and fled, and Boreal tensed to go after it.

"No chase!" Tal called firmly to the dragon, struggling to move forward against the weight of the sand that went up to his knees. Boreal snorted her frustration but obeyed, huffing at him to hurry as he waded out of the shallow edge of the quicksand that he'd fallen into.

"How're you doin'?" He called out to the cowboy, not knowing that the other man was feeling a little breathless; all he could see was that he'd somehow ended up deeper in the sand than the courier had, but at least he had hold of the foal now.

You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet

Despite the rope digging into his ribs and back, this little tactic of his was working a damned treat. He'd be bruised to hell come sunrise but for the moment it seemed at least both he and foal would make it out of the fucking muck in more or less one piece. With her ears still pinned, Sweets' continued her slow plod backwards, all the while shooting nervous but threatening gazes towards the rat pacing back and forth on the bank.

As soon as the ground beneath his feet began to solidify, the wrangler heaved the foal upwards as if there was some invisible bank over which he had to get the little creature. Fumbling for the rope, he tugged it off, before sending his companion a mental note to get them the fuck gone. Needing no further instructions, the big mare lunged forward, nipping at the foal's neck before bullying it toward the trees.

Removing the knife from his teeth before hauling himself out, Morgen glances toward Tal with a dry smile. "Doin great, thanks for askin'." He mumbles, before taking aim at the rat in the quicksand. Narrowing his eyes as if to judge whether or not the creature would be able to cause him any more trouble or if it would slowly drown, he glances back toward the courier. "Y'know, I've heard they pay for shit like this in Stormbreak. Mud's supposed to be real good for the skin."

"Get 'im." Tal's voice held a self-satisfied glee as he redirected Boreal towards the little group on their way out of the quicksand. The dragon huffed eager agreement, crouching and then launching herself over the treacherous stretch of liquefied sand and mud. The slow rat didn't know what hit it until it was too late and pale scales were tumbling end over end with muddy brown fur. It cleared the way for the foal to make it safely out and Tal to begin making his ginger way around the quicksand pit's edge.

As Morgen pulled himself free that just left the two rats still caught in the trap; too big to float and too short to touch bottom. Tal spared them just enough of a glance to be certain they wouldn't likely make it to shore before he regrouped near to the stranger and began to try and wipe himself off with... well. Variable definitions of 'success.' "Yeah?" He perked up at the mention of making a little extra on the side out of this misadventure. "We gotta spa-thingy in Halo, too. Wonder if Ru uses this crap--uh, stuff," he amended hurriedly.

If the shit was worth something, maybe he shouldn't call it 'shit', yeah?

"Thanks for the heads-up. I'm Tal. Was that your unicorn?" The little one, the big one, whichever. He wasn't picky.

You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet

Drenched in mud that seemed to still be trying to drag him under even though his feet were planted firmly on the ground, Morgan removed his hat from his head and wiped roughly at his brow with the sleeve of his other arm before sighing tiredly. "I mean, anythin' that comes from far away usually goes for a premium." The wrangler says with a shrug. "Ain't just regular mud, but mud brought all the way from the treacherous pools of the Feverlands." Morgen wanted to be rid of the mud just as quick as he could, but that didn't mean it wasn't worth nothin'.

"Morgen." The wrangler replies as he places his hat back on his head. "Yep. The foals were just weaned which makes 'em a bit antsy. Didn't expect one to come this far, but.." He shrugs, splaying his hands. "Appreciate the help though. Can't say I was too prepared to take on a whole pack of those fucks."

Tal wrinkled his nose, being introduced to marketing techniques in an unexpected situation. He nodded slowly, however, recognizing the sense in the cowboy's words. He wasn't used to thinking about mud in the same way of other more saleable goods, but hail, with the right spin...

A slow grin spread over Tal's face, a flash of white through the muck he'd mostly smeared wiped off. "Thanks, Morgen!" Some good advice he'd be keeping in mind. Now if he just had something to carry the quicksand in. Hmm.

He cleared his throat and gave a sharp nod, starting to extend a hand for a shake and then, seeing the dirt on it, retracting it with an uncomfortable clearing of his throat. "Uh. Yeah. I was huntin' 'em but I wouldn't've been able t'handle the whole pack on my own," he admitted with a grimace. "They were more than I was expectin'. Glad we ran into each other today."