Chapter Text
[ This takes place sometime after episode 15 ]
The party has been traveling and talking all day and is now searching for a good place to rest.
“…And with that the dragon flew off ever to be seen again.” Rowan finished spinning her high tail, taking Kieran’s and some of Dan’s attention. Kieran was full of the whimsy of the story as he looked at the small pinkish-blueish dragon laying comfortably in Kieran’s hood, “I wonder if Tortellini will grow that big”. Rowan just smiled and said “You’d have to feed Tortellini a lot for that size” Dan commented as he looked off looking for a place to camp. “What even does Tortellini eat?” Rowan asked, Kieran got into deep thought for a minute, their big eyes somehow growing bigger the more he thinks, the gears turning. Dan thought this amusing, what curious things to think about, as their conversation went on, debating what Tortellini would eat and how much it’s needed to grow that big.
Neph seemed more than on edge, he seemed almost aware. “Lets- here is a good spot for camp” Neph said, tiredness evident on his stressed expression. They start to settle in, finding loose logs in the slightly forested area, a path not too far off from the campsite. The party makes camp and Kieran is still trying to set a campfire and have the same struggles as before, and Rowan goes to help him again. Dan looks at them and his gaze softens, can’t help but smile. Somehow he already cares for them. Dan’s eyes wanders to Neph, yawning, exhaustion pulling on his eyes as he sets up his bedroll. “I can take more shifts, if you want” Neph looked up at him, eyes drooping, “It’s fine, I can still take three,” he yawned. Dan was about to argue before he saw something from the corner of his eye.
He looks away from Neph, his gaze off in the forest. “Dan?” Neph questioned, pulling Kieran and Rowan’s attention. “Dan? What are yo-” Rowan starts before seeing a hand coming for her from the corner of her eye, she ducks as it swings. Rowan scrambles back to Dan as Bandits emerge, surrounding the Party. “Well, well, well” One of the elf bandits says, he has a big scar across his eye, covered with an eye patch, with black messy hair. “It looks like we have some stowaways fellas” he looks to his gang as they giggled smugly. “We don't want any trouble-” Dan started “But we do…” the leader interrupted. “...And if you don’t want any you best give us your money~” The leader threatened, as the bandits slowly came closer, they were outnumbered. The Party gathers closer backs to each other, readying for a fight. “I don’t think you’d like that-” Dan tries to snap back, the leader smirks and chuckles, “don’t I?” “Fine then-” Dan sighed as he hit one of the bandits in their head.
A battle starts and chaos erupts and the party holds their own pretty well. One of the bandits gets Neph grappled by one of them, “YALL BETTER-” The bandit starts before a harrowing roar stops the chaos, almost pausing time. They all look to the forest to a shadowed creepy tiger figure, its eyes illuminated. Another roar fills the air with a sense of fear as the tiger dashes to them. Dan readies themself for the tiger to attack but it just pushes past him, jumping onto the bandits. Some bandits flee but many stay, the tiger chews through them like they were paper, though pointedly not killing any of them. Only a few bandits are left, though they are backing away, the one grappling Neph tries to make an escape with Neph. The tiger leaps onto the bandit, releasing Neph and pushing him closer back to the party. The tiger pins the leader down and roars in his face, spit flying from its mouth as it roars.
The tigers eyes are filled with rage as the leader wiggles out from the tigers grasp and stumbles behind the other bandits. The tiger roars a wordless warning after them, before turning to the party. The party is poised to fight, ready to spring to action, but to their surprise the tiger just stands there and looks at them in cat-like curiosity. Instead the tiger seems to spin, shifting into a 5’3 tiefling with long pointed ears and silvery-blue skin, with purple-silver whimsical eyes and long half up half down silvery white fluffy hair, with white freckles wearing They wear a layered white under layers and purple/blue dress with different silver accent colors and a purple layer over their shoulders before big light brown puffy sleeves at the bottom, with a brown leather belt with many things dangling from it, tall thigh high whited boots with brown leathered bottoms, small earrings, with a light brown pretty bag connected to her belt. She spins to face the party and leans forward slightly and puts her hand out, and with a gentle voice say
“Linarda Starling, at your service!~”