Chapter Text
I hold out my pearl for the toll master to see, letting them bask in its lustrous glory before tossing it at their feet. The toll master scrambles to claim the shiny pebble before locking eyes with me and waving our party through the gate. I turn and reciprocate the gesture, and the party of nomads pour through, squeezing past the toll masters hurriedly.
The smell of rain is in the air. It was time to find a nest. As the party is splashing through a rich septic puddle warm from festering in the sun, Kit-Ink stops and cocks their head. A straight, glittering strand of red emanates from the sky and falls on Ink. They turn to me with inquiring eyes no sooner than a harpoon hisses through the air and impales Ink through the thorax with a sickly crunch. Their spears clatter away and Ink is lifted from the ground and into the maw of a giant, terrible, hissing, King Vulture. All the rest of the party, myself included, scrabble away frantically and draw a weapon.
Chaos ensues. I raise my spear, but the vulture dodges out of my range. Ink hangs dead in its jaw. I am filled with rage at the sight. I climb up a nearby pole and get ready to plunge my spear deep into the vulture’s neck, but before I can, I see Elder-Sheaf rear up one of their grenades. The explosion throws me into the trash heap violently, sending my head reeling. Ink’s limp corpse falls from the vulture’s mouth as it sways dazedly in the aftermath of the blast. The king vulture’s mask falls to the ground.
Despite my body’s aches I feel compelled to crawl over to Ink. Their blue eyes are still wide with lingering shock, their expression frozen. Dead. I hear the vulture hiss. Spears are flying through the air. Plunging into its wings, face, and glancing off those terrible harpoons. It looks around slowly, and suddenly its piercing gaze locks on me. The closest. I begin to run, but only slowly. I realize I’m clutching Ink’s corpse. The vulture lunges at me. I feel its jaw close around my neck, and I am ripped away from the ground, my tribe, and Ink.
—
I come to in the grasp of the vulture. Every wingbeat sends a wave of pain through my body. It’s so cold. I hang limply; paralyzed by pain and fear.
A wavering yellow line crosses my field of view. It turns green and steadies. Whatever it is, it changes the vultures behavior dramatically. I’m jerked downwards, sending a fresh wave of pain through my body. We fall swiftly, piercing the clouds. The vulture releases and swoops past me, disappearing into pale ochre fog.
Shadows of something solid poke from the fog and hurtle towards me. I flail around, my body tumbling uncontrollably in a futile attempt to right myself. A long shadow screams past me, so close that I could feel it strike the long spines on my back. Another shadow approaches. This one rises to meet me.
—
I come to. Again. Battered, dazed, and scared, but miraculously alive, and blessedly free. I don’t know where I am. The king vulture is nowhere to be found. A couple batflies flit curiously around my motionless body. My spears have disappeared from my back. I feel naked without them but I’m too tired and hurt to look for any more. It’s dead quiet. I just want to rest.
Suddenly I’m alerted by a pervasive rumbling of the air and the ground. The clouds shake heavily. The rain is here. I sit up, scaring the batflies back into their nest and look around for some kind of shelter.
Single drops of water clink sharply on the ground around me. I climb a small precipice weakly, hoping to see something, anything. Nothing besides stony spires piercing the fog in the distance.
The rain is coming down in thick sheets now. I slip and fall, right myself, and through the rushing water I spy the glowing open rectangle symbol of a working shelter. I half-scrabble-half-swim towards it through a rapidly escalating torrent of rainwater and squeeze myself into the pipe desperately.
I land on something soft, warm, and breathing. Alive. I recoil on reflex and slam into the closing door of the shelter. The space is not very big at all. I carefully orient myself as to not get my long spines caught in the mechanism. (I distinctly remember the time Elder-Rust lost a horn to one of these, and am wary of my spines being amputated in a similar fashion.)
Once the door was closed completely, and the roaring of the rain subdued to a dull rumble, I turn my attention to the creature sharing the den with me. It is very much awake now, having been startled by my soaking wet, frantic arrival. It’s too dark to see, but I can feel it squirm fluidly under, over, and around me. I’m too tired to do anything but hope that it doesn’t eat me as I drift off to sleep.
—
I wake to the sound of the heavy shelter door grinding open. The creature is already squirming its way up the pipe as I raise my head. I feel rejuvenated in the way that always follows fed rest. My aching quelled and lethargy banished, I climb out of the shelter and look around. The creature is balancing deftly on a pole, surveying the land. Now able to see properly, I take in its appearance in full.
Slightly smaller than me, a smooth body with a fat tail tinted an incarnadine red. Two-leg paws and two arm-paws, much shorter and thinner than mine. Two dark beady eyes stare back at me; one is marred with a faint scar. A pair of ears crown its head. A spear is set over its back and another is gripped in its left forepaw.
We stare each other down for a beat before it slides down the pole and disappears over the side of the spire. I scramble down after it. What else am I to do but follow? At the very least, I could just find a spear to drive through the back of its head and eat it. But for some reason, I didn’t want to do that. Something about it —the way it moved, the way it looks around, the way it holds its spears— tells me it’s a wanderer. A nomad. Like me.