Bait and SsSSsswitch

It was a surprisingly warm winter day. The snow was melting off the ground, if only slightly. A small group of beasts travels towards the woodland market. It was safer to travel in numbers after all, although that saying might lose some of its luster when one is being led away in bonds.

The slender, scrawny squirrel has a rather dejected look, as one usually does with their paws tied behind their back and a noose around his neck. The rope belongs to one Crossclaw. The bounty hunting vixen carries a short sword at her side, wearing a vest and trousers that leave her stomach exposed for better or for worse. Given her love of ale and good food it leans towards the worse.

The pudgy vixen trots along whistling a merry tune as she leads her captive bounty to the woodland market.

You room-page, "somehting a little different than the usual story >.> did you want to log?"

Alongside Crossclaw walks a bundled up fox. Balatro wasn't exactly sure how long they'd already been walking. Most of the time he'd spent strumming away at a stringed instrument he always carried with him. He was far from bad at the instrument, but it was constant, and the real torture began when he sang. "Ooooh there once was a fox who lived in a box! And the poor dear fellow did sayyyyyyyyy!!" His voice could only be described as metal grinding against glass, and that was if one was being nice, though he didn't seem to notice very much.

"And the poor dear fellow did sayYyyYYyYYy!" The bounty hunter sings along with the bard, her voice just as off key.

"For the love of all that is holy, you don't actually like his singing, do you?" The squirrel moans as he travels along, nearly stumbling along the path.

"Oh no. He sings like a dying elk. I just love watching you squirm." The pot bellied vixen says to her captive. "Makes the trouble of haulin yer skinny arse back to the market all the more worth while." As the party walks the fox pauses.

Up ahead there is a small pack laying on the side of the path. The bounty hunter steps lightly towards the pack, a leather back pack. She sniffs the air once or twice and gives it a swift kick. A couple of pastries come tumbling out of the pack.

Balatro came to a stop in the middle of composing his latest song on the fly as they came upon the pack on the ground. "Well that's a touch strange, don't you think?" He remarked, looking at Crossclaw curiously. "Imagine some poor beast wandering around without their pack of food!" The fox rubbed his own stomach, shuddering. "I can't imagine the torture...eugh..." In the following silence, a soft hiss drifted through the air, light as the breeze and barely audible.

Unfortunetly for Crossclaw her rumbling stomach drowns out the hiss in her ears. "Ah yes, poor poor beast. You know we should return this pack to him. With a finders fee. I'm sure the merchant or baker who owns this pack won't mind a few pastries missing, right?" The vixen chuckles as she sits down cross legged, handing her fellow foxy traveler a muffin. There was enough food in the pack to fill even the most gluttonous hare.

The squirrel prisoner twitches his whiskers, "Can...can I have a pastry?"

Looking up to the squirrel the vixen gives him an odd glance then sighs. "Fine. You can have ONE. Here. Let it be known that Crossclaw is not cruel." She leaves a pastry at his feet. Licking his chops the thief reaches for the pastry, until realizing that he can't due to his paws being bound behind him.

Balatro seemed ecstatic to be handed a muffin. So happy, in fact, that he put it in his own pack and began to strum away at his instrument again. "Ooooohhh what a great day to be eatin with the mateys...well...matey. Say...I'm havin a rather hard time thinkin of what rhymes with matey!" At that moment, another hiss sounded through the air, this time clearly audible. The blue furred fox whirled around, looking for the source. "Oy! Somebeast best stop with that!" He exclaimed.

Even the squirrel heard the noise at this point. He twists in place, tail twitching eradically behind him, "What was that? Crossclaw did you-" The bounty turns to find the fox head and upper torso completely swollowed. The sound of munching can be heard through the bag as the vixen fills her greedy gut.

"No...of course not..." The squirrel gives her flank a kick. She yelps tossing the bag away from her. Muzzle covered in pastries the fox hisses at her bounty. "Wot wot WOT!" Her ears twitch to the sound of something rustling in the bushes.

"Such delectable victimsssssss..." Came a deep, flowing voice through the woods. Birds had long since stopped chirping in the trees, and the wind brought with it a terrible smell. "Ough! I say, that's a right awful stench if I've ever smelled one!" Exclaimed Balatro. "Riiight Tulip?" It was almost impossible to figure out where the voice was coming from. Only that it was getting closer and closer with each second.

"YeEEeeeesssss. It is ssso nice to find such...ample beasts in the middle of wintersSSss." Comes a soft chuckle from the other side of the road.

"Ah lovely." Tossing the bag aside the vixen draws her short sword. "Good news bard. You get to write a balled about how Crossclaw the bounty hunter staved off some bandits with lisps.

"Cut me loose fox! I can help!" the fox turns to her bounty and laughs. Fat chance of that happening.

At the prospect of writing another ballad, Balatro readies his instrument, grinning nervously. "Kek..kek..kek.." It took the party a moment to realize that one of the voices was laughing, and when that was figured out, it sent a chill down their spines. The foliage off to the side of the road rustled, and another hiss rent the air, far closer this time. Finally, the source revealed itself. First, the massive scaly head...colored a blood red. Then, the rest of the body, bunching and relaxing as the huge snake slid along the ground, not too far from the group.

The vixen looks up and up until she finds the head of the beast. Her jaw goes slack as her sword arm goes limp. With out looking at the squirrel she cuts his bonds. "Ok, if we work together maybe we can..." The vixen turns to watch the squirrel bolt away, dashing down the road. "Yeah...that was about expected."

The bounty doesn't get far though. A second snake, slightly smaller than the other and with green scales and fins down her head, appears like lightning, wrapping her self around the fleeing squirrel. "Squirrels!" She shouts, "Ssquirrily squirrilessss! I love squirrels! They are ssso fluffy and cuddly I could jussst eat them uuUUuUUup."

Aglaeca slithered forward in a blur, smoothly navigating around Crossclaw and wrapping around a now terrified Balatro. "W-Woah woah, hey now!" Yelped the fox, keeping a tight hold on his instrument. "Tulip, thisssss one hasss an inssssssssstrument...he mussst be a musssic beasssst!! Can I keep him?" The massive red head turned to look at the other snake almost innocently.

"Ahhhhh, you alwaysss get the fluffy onesss." Tulip pouts before biting down onto the squirrel, sinking her teeth into the flesh of his back. Even if he survived the venom he probibly won't survive the hole in his liver and spleen. "Ffffiiiiine." She tosses the squirrel aside, leaving him gasping in shock and twitching sporadically as the venom does it's work. A few strands of poison still drips from her fangs. "But that ssstill leavesss one foxy left. What sshall we do with her? Can you sssing foxy?"

"Y-yeah! I can sing! I can sing rather well! Do ray me do! And all that, hah hah!" The vixen finds herself very crowded now. "Pe-perhaps we can come up with some kind of deal! No need to eat me I'm all skin and bones under this fluffy fur!"

"Yessss, quite a bit of sSskin it seems..." Tulip chuckles at the plump bounty hunter.

Balatro momentarily forgotten, Aglaeca leans his head down towards Crossclaw as well, eyeing the vixen curiously. "She looksssss tassstyyyy!" He chimed in, his own terrifyingly large fangs showing. "Maybe while we eat her..." He slowly turned to look at Balatro wrapped in his scales. "My foxy here can play ussss a nice tuunee...and if we don't like it, we eat him too.."

The vixen eeps as she leans backward. Behind her the adder draws closer. "Tassty fox isss tassty! And plump...and juicy..."

Crossclaw doesn't take long to weigh her options. She doesn't know if she can out run them, she knows for sure she would lose if she fought them, the only option left is to use her natural foxy charms! Come on wit and gile, don't fail her now!

"Oi! But there is only one of me and two of you. And as meaty as I may be...there won't be too much fox to go around! Bu-but if you let me go..." She shuffles her feet, offering a forced smile, "I can bring you a rioght tasty beast. And failing that, well, if you spare me for a month then...then I can have plenty of time to soften myself up for a meal! Yeah! I'm a rioght gluttonous beast, put on all this winter fluff in barely a few weeks! N-no need to eat me here and now..."

Fortunately, Aglaeca was easily excited. "More beasssstss you sssssay?" He hisses slowly. "If that'sss the casssssee, we'll let you go, but we'll follow you sssso you can't run." Towards the end of his sentence, Aglaeca's voice turned very sinister and dark, and the snake's head leaned dangerously close to Crossclaw.

Crossclaw closes her eyes as the snake draws near. She wonders where the bite is going to come from. The head? The back? Is the snake cruel enough to swollow her /alive/?

It takes a moment for Crossclaw to realize that she is not digesting in the stomach of a large snake. Opening one eye she gulps again, "Wot? I mean, sure! Ye-yeah! There is a market place, just west of here. I can...uh..." what can she do? Kidnap a beast and drag them to the snakes?

If she had to.

Better yet...why go that far? She could just hire herself onto a merchant, lead them away from the market and down a short cut...

This...this might work.

Crossclaw might very well live to see tomorrow...but a whole lot of beasts wont.