[Thayle]

@Manticore

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It was easy to wander out here in the wastes. It was all wide open spaces (oh, and so many small, cramped places, too) and no one to tell you no. That part was important. He understood the allure of being one’s own boss, though he didn’t necessarily approve of the complete, irreverent, WILD freedom found beyond the maze.

But, yes, he understood. It was funny, really. How different everything was. From the people to the places, there was such a wide array of designs and flavors. Today, he found himself beside a river. It seemed to roar, off in the distance, like a caged beast. He had never known that water could make such a sound, and yet it did. He did not know a lot of things, but he was learning. Quickly. He’s been following the riverbank for hours, searching for the source of the sound. The sun was high in the sky but the heat didn’t bother him. He’s known worse—and, there was a steady supply of water should he thirst! So quest he did, until something just HAPPENED to interrupt him!

The days after Capricorn left her beneath the tree passed in snatched waking moments, like snap shots strung out, still wet, missing frames. She slept often and she slept deeply, either without dreams or among deep horrors that threw her back to life, gasping all over again. Her ribs hurt, her legs hurt. Muscles she did not know existed hurt. But most of all she was hungry.

She stuck to the river because there were fish, and occassionally she could steal a meal from something smaller-- like today. A fisher cat had taken a rabbit and left it for just a moment too long. It chattered furiously at the she-wolf, narrow muzzle deep in yearling flesh in it's lunch. It was so angry it sped along the bank and between the striped prophet's paws.

His surprise in the damsel by river’s edge was nothing compared to a great many things—interest, curiosity, and oh, hunger, too. The creature from which she stole whipped by him, but not fast enough. A swift snap, and the fisher lost more than its lunch. Somebody back home had once said something to the effect that it was eat or be eaten. He knew which he would choose.

He brought the hunter down the bank and dropped it, limp and lifeless, far enough from water’s edge that it would not be swept away from him by nature and all of the opportunistic things that lived in it. He clears his throat, attempting to bring her attention his way if she had failed to notice him so far, gamey offering at his feet. Lone wolves were almost always desperate. He would see what figure she cut. His was a friendly enough smile and a relaxed shift to his weight. “Sorry,” he explains without preamble, “The wind was in your favor today.”

People often reach a moment of exhaustion so deep it strips the gloss from life and the primal fear of death. It's not often a true resignation; rather, like a rebellious teenager who has faced injustice in the form of petty grievences, decides that nothing matters. Thayle, so hungry that her stomach was doing flips at the thought of a drop of blood, decided at that moment she didn't care if the Old God came for her, no matter what form, because she was hungry and she was going to eat this rabbit and death could go fuck itself.

She changed her mind immediately once she heard a spooky stranger voice.

A strangled gasp just barely replaced the scream that wanted to ring out instead, and she snapped her bloody face towards the second striped wolf she'd seen in the passed... however long she'd been out here. Entrails dangling from her mouth and blue eyes wild with fear, she decided that nevermind she wasn't ready to die horribly afterall.

"Okay," is all she could manage to fumble.

The starving, desperate thing turns towards the Old God risen, for that’s what her mind made him. His eyes pierced through the veil and when he smiled, the blood was on his teeth, too. She was afraid and he was the unknown. That was enough to turn him into a monster. That was funny, too—because it was half-true. Which eye do you think is the smiling eye? Which is the one that will see you dead? For a moment they both lock on her in harmony, fisher’s blood wicking between the daggers in his mouth, and then—

The smile fades. His eyes close. He hangs his head just slightly, not prostrating before her but abashed—he’s sorry, can’t you see it? “I did not mean to startle you. I did not even realize you were here until I was nearly upon you. I will leave you in peace, never fear.”

And so he lowers his head to seize his kill, fangs hovering over the nape of life recently taken as his eyes open again, glimmering crescents, sunrise, sunset. “But,” he adds, pausing, lingering, teeth hovering, promising, “If you are still hungry, you may have this.”

A storm brewed in her chest, all thunder and heavy clouds, swarming and churning. She held her burning breath as the male smiled, the tendons tensing in her legs as she prepped to make a pointless dash. He would overtake her quickly, but maybe she could use the river's current, if she could keep her head up.

Her ears twitched when his head lowered. Pulse a fluttering mess she felt the threads of conciousness unraveling and fought against them. If only she wasn't so tired. The pose he'd find her taking, leaning away from him, paws splayed and gripping, would tell him that she did not believe any promise of his departure.

But her eyes followed the point of his nose as he hovers above the fisher, and she felt the light weight rabbit in her gut, taking up so little room. Saliva pooled in the back of her maw and her throat bobbed when she swallowed.

"...For what?" she asked, finally, in a gentle shrewdness. She had been raised to know that no act of kindness was without debt.

Why, he might have said, you are a clever thing, for all that you are skin and bones. But he didn’t, because while he found her interesting, that was not the path that would lead him where he wished to go. Instead he drank in her fear and tilted his head just slightly. She could flee, if she wished, and he would not pursue her—not as she thought, in either case. But, he would prefer if she didn’t. It sounded tiring, and she looked tired enough already.

“Nothing,” he says in a way that suggests he doesn’t think she’ll believe it, “I am not so hungry, after all. I think you could use it more.” His teeth hover and prepare to snag it, and as the bottom set graze cooling fur, he adds, softly, “Relax. I am not going to hurt you.”

He plucks up his kill and approaches slowly, knowing better than to corner a frightened animal. Several feet away he tucks his head before swinging it up and out, tossing the fisher which lands with a dull thud by her feet. His tongue swipes out over his lips, cleaning up what little of the cat remained. “If you care for company, I am in no hurry, but my word is gold—I will not trouble you.” He pauses, then adds, the other shoe falls, “…Save for this. What is roaring in the distance? I have been walking all morning and not found it yet.”

He was right; she didn't believe it. When he approached, his size cut her sun in half and cast her in shade. She froze beneath her tan fur, pupils nothing but dust against blue sky, electricity numbing her toes. He was big.

You've seen bigger, a quiet voice whispered. Yes. Yes, she's seen much bigger, but it didn't matter. He had jaws too, and from them he flung the weasel's corpse. It landed at her paws in a stirring of dust and bloody mist. She winced, eyes darting from it's broken form to the stranger she should not lower any shields for. In the end, the tender scent overpowered her, and she pulled it to her chest. Slender jaws, soaked with chords of spit, snapped chunks of meat from the fragile bones.

"What is roaring in the distance?"

"Rapids, and, falls," she replied, swallowing the liver. "I haven't seen them. But you can tell. The current gets faster."

“Hmm,” he muses, lifting his eyes from her and looking past her shoulder and stiff back at the horizon. “You may think me a fool, but I’ve yet to see a great many things. Rapids and falls? I look forward to them.” He lowers his sights again as she digs into the meal—small, but more than she’d had thus far. He smiles at her, marveling how hunger turned something that must have once been beautiful ugly. The world was a strange and wild place, and it had wicked turns indeed.

“Thank you,” he adds, genuine to a fault. She had not asked for his company, and so he moved to step around her—in a wide circle. He may not have seen many things beyond the valley he’d called home, but he’d gotten as far as he had because he WASN’T a fool. “Good fortune to you, Wayfinder.” He assigned her a name because none was given and from there he didn’t look back, following the riverbank as far as he might (or not…) go without interruption.

She left little of the fisher— only the hair and innards she couldn’t stomach— and buried it in the bank. There was no reason to leave more lures than she had to.

He was vanishing, and she was glad for it on reflex. But the storm in her chest spiked, because he was leaving her behind, and she was afraid.

“You must have seen rivers?” She remarked. How unthinkable! Did the land guarded by the fringe face drought too? “They are not often soft...”

She made quick work of his offering—starving things always did—and before long he heard her behind him. He pauses and a single eye peers over his shoulder (less eerie when only one of the mismatched set focused). He stops his forward march and turns to meet her once again upon the bank, smiling mildly and listening to her prepare her tethers. He, for one, did welcome the company.

“The land I am from is very dry,” he responds in kind. “I have seen rivers since, but nothing so loud as this. It can be heard for miles! An unusual thing indeed.” He takes the rope she has thrown between his teeth and slowly, gradually, near imperceptibly begins to draw her in. “I take it that this is not so uncommon? This world is a large place.”

She saw him begin to turn back towards her, and her belly brushed the grass once more. Her legs trembled under the slight weight they held. His respect for her space was not lost on her, and for that, she would have supposed if she could think properly, should count for something. As it was, fear pooled on her tongue and slipped passed her lips-- afraid of him, and afraid of the space he would leave behind. She didn't know if she could stand more bad dreams in the lonely night.

She swallowed rapidly when he spoke, and realized that she, perhaps, held some sort of expertise here. It was as pleasant as it was alien, and she proceeded carefully.

"Well," she started, swallowing again. "Yes, there... are many rivers. They connect to each other. Like... a body." Blue eyes darted from him, chancing a knowing look to the rushing edge next to them. "If you follow one upstream, you'll find it's source. Downstream, where it empties."

Her fear is palpable if not palatable. He assumes gods become used to lesser things groveling at their feet, but he was merely the child of beings on high and so he couldn’t presume to know. Perhaps in another place and under different circumstances he would be pleased to find a subject prostrated before him, but today he found it bitter and grating. His smile doesn’t waver though inside he finds himself frowning. You don’t have to be afraid, he might have said, giving her all the more reason to fear him. The only people that said such things were the ones you should be afraid of.

Instead, he tilts his head with genuine curiosity and parrots her, “A body? How strange. So many things grow here. The earth where I grew was cracked or dusty. Like old bones.” In the distance the heart of this great beast beats, and he swivels an ear towards the tumultuous falls before refocusing on her. “You must be very busy,” he ventures, “But this fool would enjoy your guidance, if you’ll have me.”

If she accepted or if she didn’t, it would be the same. He knew. “I am Manticore.”

A breath wheezed through her nostrils as she tried to steady herself. She had seen a god before. It towered above the sun and loomed across a field of bloody flowers. If she had known Manticore's claim to lineage she may have laughed, but only because in the end, what difference did it make if the god was tall enough to swallow clouds or as big as the fringe dires from her home? They both had jaws that fit nicely around her neck.

"That sounds... like a difficult place to live," she said. "My home, it was lush, once. But it was dying."

He said she must be busy. Ah. Well. Her schedule was booked, truly. Startling at grasshoppers and all.

"I don't know how much I could help," she continued. "I am... not familiar with this region either. I'm sure I would slow you down." He gave her his name, and she just barely restrained a wince. How she cursed herself for the alias she always seemed to be standing next to. "I'm River."

He knew well that the size of your gods didn’t matter. They would push you for precipices and rip your voice from your gaping bleeding mouth without thought. They would swallow the pieces that should be hidden, and they would regret nothing. In this, they towered, and would always be high above and untouchable. But gods could die, too. Did the fearful one know that?

“It had its moments,” he admits, thinking of the narrow river. Then, he thinks of the tar lit with dragon’s fire. He thinks of the sheltering forest burning to the ground. “But it was dying, too.” He was wrong, in a way. The crater would replenish itself even as its denizens threw themselves into war. Still, it was not the home he knew, nor would it ever be again. It had a scar. Scars changed people. They changed places, too.

“Ah,” this amused him in the way small coincidences did, but he spares her the obvious-- no wonder you know so much about RIVERS -- and instead smiles warmly and welcomes her to his side. All contributions matter, or were you made to feel that you were useless? “I am in no great hurry. I suspect you are more help than not. You have already taught me something I did not know.”

With a few reluctant stops and starts, the girl who has seen more gods than most slinks along side a prophet. She left space between them-- enough that she would have time enough to recognize and react to a lunge-- because while she was desperate, she was not a fool. Not that much of one, anyway.

"Thank you," she said, and meant it. "Do you want to find the source or the drain?"

He neither presses her nor pushes her away, accepting her comfortable distance as a fact. Her fear proceeded her but she pushed through it—he casually glances over at her and reevaluates the lines of her body. They curve to earth, as if wishing to be part of it. He wonders if beneath the fear there is something else—how deep he might have to dig to find it. We all have wellsprings at our hearts, but they, like gods and men, were not created equally.

He faces the sun and he smiles. “The source,” he decides, taking a step towards the roaring in the distance. “It is important to see where something starts if you want to follow it through until the end. It is a journey to get to where we are going. Do you agree, Wayfinder River?”

"Oh," she said, musing in a tiny voice while walking besides one of the biggest breeds in their world. What an odd sight it must be, for any spying strangers. "I don't know. It'll carry you downstream no matter where you fall in. But, it's good to know if there's something sick upstream. Because the poison will carry. You, um. Want to be above it."

“Then we will find the source and then we will go beyond,” he responds, not in kind—softly, but not small. He would be gentle for her, as rivers could choose to be gentle, water rolling gracefully over stone and turning it smooth and harmless over eons. She was afraid, and she had every right to be afraid. He could judge her for her fear without understanding it, or he could be patient. He found that patience worked best when facing friend and foe alike. You never really could tell.

“There was a river where I was born. Perhaps half as wide as this,” he nods towards the angry swells. “It emptied into a lake whose shores shrank every year. I never once saw where it came from. Somewhere in the mountains, though I never did climb them.”

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TBC