02.12.10 - Not Too Proud

Location: Western Shore

Characters Involved: Kse, Taye

It's getting dark, but the sun is still halfway above the western horizon line, staining the water deep orange-red. Kse's hunt today has ended not so far from Salamandastron, a half-mile at most, but not really visible at that distance. She brought her prey down in the wet sand at the edge of the beach, and since then the tide has started to rise, so the recent kill is surrounded by a few inches of cold ocean water. The water around the kill is murky with blood, and the jill's muzzle and paws are slick with it. She's on all fours like a feral animal, claws sunk into the flesh of the hip and thigh while she eats, tearing chunks of raw meat away from the abdominal region, which has been gouged open. If the long ears, now waterlogged, are any indication, her meal is hare.

Taye is on his way home to Sala, having just spent part of the evening in Halyard. He's had a couple to drink, but he still looks pretty sharp. He's loping along at an easy pace with his bow and quiver slung over a shoulder. He's keeping in the shallows, himself, letting the extra resistance of the water increase the runner's workout. Usually danger doesn't come from the sea, though, so his eyes are focused on the beach... which means he gets relatively close to the marten and her victim very he turns his eyes to look. And then he jerks in surprise, coming to a sudden halt. His eyes narrow and he draws his bow with a frown. "'Oy! What're you doin', there?" He's... not really close enough to see. Lucky him.

Kse hears the splash of steps in the water, her small rounded ears quirking forward, but it isn't until the shout comes that the jill stops, and lifts her head. This is right after having pulled a thick strip of muscle from the pectoral region, and it hangs in her jaws for a moment as she looks down along the beach toward the still-living hare. Her hackles raise just a little, and her dark gaze is slightly wary, but after a moment she seems to decide he's not something to worry about, and she goes back to her meal. Her head tosses back and she wolfs down the strip of meat, then shoves her muzzle into the torn open chest cavity. Her head tilts to grip a few of the exposed ribs in her molars, and she crunches down, snapping them without much difficulty.

Well Taye's not blind. And that's not a fish she's eating. He feels his gorge rising into his throat at the sight of all that... blood. On her face. And the raw... meat. That whole. Blood and gore thing he has. There's actually a half moment where he feels faint and then he squeezes his eyes shut and reaches over his shoulder, drawing an arrow. When his eyes snap open, they narrow and he notches the arrow to bow. He draws back the bow string... and takes aim. The arrow flies for her back, high up on her spine.

Whether it's the twang of the bowstring's tension releasing, or the /zwip/ of the arrow through the air, Kse hears it and reacts immediately. She jerks around, away from the kill and toward Taye. Just in that instance where she pivots, the arrow strikes, so it sinks into her back just below one shoulder blade - at an angle, and shallowly instead of piercing deep. Immediately a loud snarl surges out of the jill's throat and chest, her lips curled back to bare her long teeth, and the fur down her back flaring up into a ridge that gives her the appearance of increased size. She advances a few steps toward Taye in the shallows, churning up the wet sand under her claws as she goes into a threat posture with her back arched - but she doesn't abandon her kill just yet.

Another arrow gets notched to bow and Taye sights down its length with a gritting of teeth. "Leave it!" he yells angrily. This time he's taking aim for her heart.

Kse stares at the buck. Or, more accurately, she stares at the bow and the arrow trained upon her. A second snarl works up out of the jill, and she goes down to all fours, shoulders hunched and back still arched with that ridge on display. Her head is low, making her more vulnerable underside less visible as a target. "Do not be driving Kse from kill," she growls at Taye, her voice thick with an accent of the far, far north. "She will only be having to hunt again."

Taye's eyes flicker to the bloodied body beyond her and his jaw works with anger and disgust. He takes half a step forward, threateningly. "Don't make me tell you again!" Taye snaps. The bowstring draws back until it is at full tension. "Leave it or I'll make you leave it!"

She's leaving it. She's coming right at him now, while in the near-dark a few shore birds slowly start to spiral down from where they were hovering, way high up, waiting for a chance to peck at the dead. The jill's eyes are locked on Taye as she makes a slow approach, in a direct line right toward the buck and his projectile weapon. After about ten feet her strides quickly lengthen, and she breaks into a hard run toward him.

As soon as she makes a start for him, slow or not, that arrow gets released with a sharp twang towards her main mass. By the time she's picked up to a run, another arrow is notched and this, too, is set flying. He's taking controlled steps backward, to give him as much extra time before she reaches him. When she's within ten feet he tosses the bow to the side and grabs a dagger from his waist, planting his feet for her... uh. Arrival. o.o;;;

By the time Taye ditches his bow, Kse has been clipped by one arrow on the bicep, and the other lodges into the top of her shoulder, at the edge of her collarbone. She snarls as the second hits her, and as she closes that last short stretch at a dead charge. Her head drops further, at about the level of Taye's chest as she slams her weight forward into him. The momentum of her run, of course, adds power to the collision, as her paws snatch for his sides to sink her long claws in.

She hits him like a truck. He's not a small guy, but nor is she a small marten. The air goes out of his chest with a near-soundless 'uhf'. No matter what planting of feet he has, the force of the hit knocks him back into the shallows. He lands with her weight on him with a growl of pain as her claws sink into him. He holds the handle of the dagger in a tight fist, his arm coming around her to stab it into her side up under her arm, aiming to slice in between two of her ribs. His head is almost completely under water and he bucks his hips to try to flip her off..

The dagger sinks in, though not as deeply as Taye intends. Kse's fur is especially thick and coarse, and if the resistance that blade meets is telling at all, she has a fairly thick hide. Still, the buck is rewarded by blood, on the hand that grips the dagger and running down her side. With her claws gripped into the bloody punctures they've made in Taye's sides, the jill counters his bucking by shoving her weight down into him to keep him on his back. This is done with difficulty, though; her hind paws dig into the watery sand for bracing, but it doesn't do much, and the bucking jars her as she tries to get a grip on his throat with her bloodied teeth.

With the way he's bucking and her continued grip into his sides, those aren't so much punctures as gouges at this point. He can feel the scrape of her claws against his ribs. He can hear it, too. He twists to the side when her teeth come for his throat so that they sink into the join of his neck and shoulder, instead, meeting with his collarbone. And as his head turns, it goes under water, his mouth opening in a water-logged yell of pain. He starts to choke, planting his feet in the sand to roll them both, at /least/ over onto their sides, preferably her over onto her back. He yanks out the dagger and tries to stab again, but he's going blind at this point.

Once Kse gets that grip on his shoulder, she's, shall we say.. reluctant to let go. Her jaws tighten, teeth deep in as blood fills her mouth, escaping at the corners to stain the shallow water and mat in Taye's fur and tunic. She gnashes, grinding her jaw side to side while a guttural, thoroughly enraged growl comes out of her. It's lucky for Taye that he's well muscled - if not exactly buff? - because the muscle is all that's between her bone-crushing jaws and his.. collarbone. Still, with her weight pressed down on him, fairly immobile given her grip with claws and teeth, she's an easy target for his stabbing, even if it's without aim. The dagger pierces into her side, now lower down - into the somewhat softer spot at her waist, beneath her ribcage but above her hipbone. The blade disappears into her body, only the hilt visible, and the jill reacts with a pained arch of her back, then twists her body and crashes onto the other side. She can tell that went in deep, too deep, maybe fatally deep. Without sand under them, her back paws kick a little frantically, and her claws in Taye's sides jerk, tearing at him.

You know, Taye liked that muscle. He liked it a lot. He liked it a lot /more/ before she decided to start eating it. It's like that arm just. Stops working right. After that final stab into her side he releases the dagger, leaving it in her side with a choked gasp of pain, water filling into his lungs... until they are suddenly rolling. When his head comes back above water he gasps sharply for air while his arm kind of hugs limply around her. The other starts bashing out her muzzle and snout frantically, trying to get her to release while the claws of her kicking feet and those of her forepaws shred into him. The aim of his bashings shift, then, rather suddenly, and he gouges his thumb at her eye socket.

Kse has lost the advantage of having Taye pinned - now she just holds on tightly, even desperately, as Taye attacks her muzzle without much effect. It can take a pretty good beating, and does, until his tactic changes and he goes for the eye. All at once she lets go with something like a yelp, but lower, harshly grated out of her. Still with a distinct note of pain, though.. it goes past pain, it's borderline agony. Her eyelid is cut, and as for the eye itself? There's no way to tell, the whole thing becomes a bloody mess in a matter of seconds, half blinding the jill. Her claws leave Taye's sides, not at all nicely, but with a hard yank downward and out - opening those wounds further, taking away some fur if not also flesh.

Flesh, too. Taye is a bloodied mess and the force off the yank of her claws out of him rolls him onto his back, back into the water. His head goes under again, for just an instant, and then he's rolling over onto his stomach and pushing himself upward, crawling desperately and quickly towards the shore. His arm, now stupid and useless, drags. Blood is pouring out of his neck-and-shoulder wound and his tunic is a ragged mess at his sides, soaked through. Once he reaches the shore he staggers to his feet clumsily, glancing back over his shoulder. He is not too proud to run.

Kse's fur is matted and wet with blood. The water where they've been struggling in combat is not just a little tinged - it's like what Moses did to the Nile. On a smaller scale, maybe. The arrows are still in her, most of the exposed wooded shafts snapped off during the fight. And where's the dagger? Still in her too? Could be. The jill struggles for a moment on her side in the water, clawing at the sand but finding no grip there, so it takes a painful effort to find her way to her feet. All fours, her head ducked, mouth open as she breathes harshly. As Taye moves she turns, not at all steady, but keeping him in front of her in case she needs to fend off any renewed attacks. Her black eyes lock onto the buck with malice, and she warns him off with a short snarl that turns into a grating cough. This is followed by a small lunge forward, not to really pursue him, just to send the hare packing.

Taye doesn't need the extra warning. He gives her one last look and turns, limping away from the marten. He snatches up his bow when he passes it, shouldering it before he presses a paw to the bloody wound at his neck. Without a backward glance, he breaks into an awkward run, doubled forward. Home. The mountain. It's just a half a mile away... and each pound of his feet in the sand sends blood droplets into the sand behind him.

That little lunge nearly topples her off balance. Kse's body is tense, shuddering a little from the pain of her numerous wounds as she grips her claws into the sand at the water's edge, and lists a little side to side. Fifty feet or so down along the beach, the partially devoured patrol hare is left to whatever gulls and crabs take interest. Kse's own interest now lies elsewhere, inland, past the shifting dunes of the beach. Somewhere where she can take shelter.. and maybe recover. Favoring her injured limb, and leaving a similar trail of leaking blood, the jill makes her slow way across the sand.