Suddenly Lizards! Part I
A lone traveler tries to catch some fish. A lizard wants to have her for dinner. A kidnapping ensues...
Conclusion to come soon
Mossflower Woods: Bank of the River Moss
You are on the muddy bank of a large river. Grassland surounds you. The ground is soggy here and deep with murky water in some places. Insects buzz around you.
Exits: [W]est, [E]ast to [R]iver [M]oss, [U]p [R]iver, [D]own [R]iver
It's been two weeks. Two bloody weeks now, and you'd think Ram would learn how to fish. But here she stands, or squats rather, ankle deep in muck for upwards of an hour now, with not so much as a ripple to excite her. The river here is so slow it seems almost dead, and she peers down into its glassy surface, gazing at her reflected silhouette with heavy lids. She is no stranger to the heat of the sun, but the lack of wind and the buzz of late summer locusts makes it seem warmer than it is. She blinks slowly and wipes a drop of sweat from her temple. Her stomach growls.
A fish can be seen in the water, dancing around the hare's feet, as if taunting her, 'here I am! try and catch me!' The fish then swims away as a shadow looms over the hare. In the water can be seen the relection of a tall, green scaled lizard standing almost directly behind the hare, staring at her with unblinking yellow eyes with a grin that shows off all his pointed teeth. "Having any luck?" He says in a chipper voice.
Ram's eyes dilate as her focus shifts from the surface of the water to the lithe fish beneath. She squints at the animal, so close and so far out of her reach. When the shadow rises behind her, she is almost glad for the distraction, as wary as she is of strangers. Nothing is quite so disheartening as one's own failures. She straightens, grimacing as the muscles in her thighs, stiffened from their prolonged exertion, scream in protest. "Fortune does not wish to smile on me today, it seems." She turns and smiles in the face of the lizard's leer, her speech rolling off her tongue in a way quite foreign to the ears of Mossflower. "Perhaps I have picked ze wrong place."
The lizard chuckles, "My tribe findss it good sspot to fissh. That iss why we own it." The reptile appears to be a tall creature but not quite a monitor lizard. His scales are green with bony ridges flowing down his spine. He appears to be well fed, at least more well fed than Rue, and leans heavily onto his spear like a walking stick. The tip of the spear has several spikes on it instead of one long point. He wears a leather loin cloth and bead vest.
"Perhapss fissh lack propper... motivation to come to you." His own accent is broken, if only slightly. He steps around the hare and into the water, tossing what appear to be scraps of meat into the water. He waits for a moment, then with uncanny speed thrusts the spear into the water with a great splash. When he retrieves the spear it has a fish squirming on the end.
"Ah...own." Ram's smile shrinks slightly. But if the lizard is here to punish her transgressions, he shows no sign of it. She is strangely unfazed by the lizard's appearance and attire. She steps aside to allow him to work his magic with the fish, and if she is horrified by his use of meat, she is also very curious. She is too hungry to be judgmental; a fact which is obvious in her gleaming eyes when the lizard retrieves his prize.
A look the lizard hardly misses. He smiles again at her, shouldering the spear and not offering to share. "Yesss, tribe ownss pond. But tribe iss not here now iss it?" He laughs, "You can eat what you catch." The lizard nods his head and begins to walk away. He pauses in mid step, turning as if to tell her something he just forgot. "I am Skar. And I am thinking that maybess fisshing is much hard work, no? Much eassier to go where food is already being ssserved, yah?" He leans on the spear again, "My peopless are having...uh, what isss the word. Meal. FEAST! Yesssss, celebration. Before winter comesss and we go underground. We eat. Drink. Dance. Maybe misss hare would come too, yesss?"
Ram follows the fish with her gaze, her eyes widening as the lizard turns and saunters away. She moves to follow him almost without thinking, her footpaws making sucking sounds on the muddy shore, her makeshift fishing pole dragging behind her in the grass. She stops when he pauses in his stride. "Skar. Well met! You may call me Ram, if you like." She says this almost to eagerly, and catches the desperation in her voice. And so she coughs, embarrassed, and diverts her gaze to the ground. "I would not wish to take away from what food you may need for ze winter..."
Reptilian laughter fills the air. "Doess Sskar look like he is lacking in food?" Says the portly lizard. "No no, you come. We make great feasstings yah? Fill you right up with foodss and wine, show woods that not only treelanderss are hosspitable ya?" He begins to walk, pointing with the spear in the direction they are going. "Where are you from? You're accent iss funny." He then asks, "Are there more of you?"
The lizard's laughter seems to set Ram partially at ease. She responds with her own awkward chuckle and meets his gaze again. "I...I do not know ze customs of cold-blooded beasts. Not dose zat sleep, anyway. I would not wish to intrude." She falls into step beside Skar, winding the line around the pole of the fishing rod as she speaks. The repetitive motion seems to comfort her. She even grins at his questions. "You are direct. Most only look, do not ask. Or if zey do, zey sneak around it. I am from ze soud. You know ze wastes zere?"
Skar scratches his head. Trying to make out what she said, "Soud? Oh! Southland. Wastes. No, Skar's tribe is here. I do not get out of the woodss very much except to go hun-...er, fishing. Yesss, yesssss, fishing. My tribe loves fish. Not like barbaric tribe to south that likes hunting beassties." The lizard holds a branch up from a low hanging tree for hte hare to go through. "Very good thing Skar found you and not other lizardsss in area. They would give you meal, oh yesss, feed you up. Make fat. Then make YOU into meal. Very bad lizardsss." The lizard then tries to change the subject, "You come from...wasstelandss? Why did you leave?" He asks very directly.
A cloud passes over Ram's face at the mention of such vermin. "I...am aquainted wid such behavior, yes. In my home. I dought zat was because food in ze desert is very scarce. You say it happens here?" She ponders this bit of information for a moment, her pace slowing. She still follows the lizard, but is very clearly proccupied. When she ducks to clear the branch, she forgets to thank him, busy as she is searching for something inside one of the many folds in her clothes. "I...er...you can see my home was not safe. Zat is not a good reason to leave?"
It doesn't take long before smoke can be seen on the horrizon. Covered in trees the village would probibly go undiscovered save for the wall surrounding it. It is made of wood with spiked notches at the top. Lizards can be seen walking into and out of the camp from this distance, carrying fruits and fish into through the gate. "There. See! Home ssssweat home. Come! Come! We are almost there."
Ram's pace has slowed even further, until she sputters to a halt, her head bowed, her arms elbow-deep in her robes. She rummages around for a minute or more, answering Skar with a single, distracted syllable. "Huh." At length she pulls from her person an ebony pipe, elaborately carved, and a barkcloth pouch. She peers up at the lizard with an arched brow, and then at the village beyond, administering the tobacco with paws so practiced she hardly needs to look. "Quite ze operation you have eh?" She clenches the now filled pipe between her teeth, tucks the pouch away, and then begins to pat her body once more. "Ahh...you would not happen to have any flint, would you Skar?"
"I don't ssmoke." Says the lizard. If nothing else the lizard can add good lung quality to his list of good qualites. "But they do come in handy out here in the woods." Skar reaches behind him producing a flint in his paw as if by magic. He hands it to the hare.
sp "Many danks." The hare plucks the stone from his paw without second thought and strikes it against the bowl of the pipe, which seems to be ringed with metal. It ignites on the second strike, and she inhales with quick staccato pulls until the pipeweed glows and smoke rises into the air. It is tobacco, yes, but there is also another smell there, spicy and sour, and she breathes it in with a relieved sigh. "Many, many danks," she reiterates, passing the flint back to him. She does not move, not just yet; she's too occupied with enjoying the first drag of the pipe it seems.
This makes the lizard somewhat nervous despite his attempt not to show it. By now the fish on his spear only twitches it's tail every so often. Skar stands there somewhat awkwardly. The village is hardly a hundred meters away. So close...yet so far. And he is running out of small talk. "You need break? Come come. I will get you wine in the village. Very tasty." He leans against his spear again, tail twitching behind him like a cat.
"No. No break, just, ah..." she searches for the right words, but finds her vocabulary somewhat lacking in this regard. At least as far as strange lizards are concerned. And so she merely shrugs it off and continues on her merry way, her eyes half-lidded now. She pulls her headscarf down further over her forehead as she walks, gazing through the scarlet screen at the surrounding vegetation.
The village looms ahead. The smell of cooked food is strong. Fruits, veggies, and...something else...some kind of meat. Perhaps fish of some sort? A pair of guards dressed in wooden armor greet Skar with confusion regarding his traveling companion. There is a quick exchange of words in thier own language before they give Skar an increduous look. Finally the guards nod in understanding. They step aside and the lizard gestures for the hare to come.
If only he can get her through the gate...
It is unclear to Ram exactly what does it. Maybe it is the tone in the lizards' voice as they speak their native tongue. Maybe it is the sight of the encampment in action, the scurrying figures animating her own thoughts. Maybe...maybe it is the smell, for truth be told, it is not the first time she's come across such an odor. And the smoke helps, of course. It always does. Fire licks at the corner of Ram's mind, flickers behind her eyes. She hears drums, far off in the distance, and hissing laughter cutting through her thoughts. "I..." She smiles at the new lizards, but it is defensive now, it is meant to distract from her hesitation, from the way her footpaws dance back. She feels the wet fur there, feels it creep up her limbs to her chest, to her neck. Feels it scalding, feels... "I am afraid I don't feel very well," she sputters, teeth clenched around the pipe. "My head. It pounds. I dink it is ze heat, likely." she takes another step back. "Ruins ze appetite."
Skar hisses with laughter, "Nonsense! You are fine. Come on in, we will throw you great uh, welcome feast and...and..." The lizard trails off. Still smiling he says, "You arn't buying it, are you?" The guards step forward, each one around their portly counter part. The other lizards heading into camp pause, watching the scene. There are about half a dozen of them give or take.
One lizard would be enough to give Ram pause, even a portly one. But six? The doe's eyes dart from one to the other. She dispenses with pretense at almost exactly the same time as scar, her expression tightening from a false grimace of pain to genuine fright. She continues to back away, her shoulders hunching. She looks at the fish on Skar's pike. It's dead now, it's tail hanging limp, eyes wide, mouth gaping.
Just like the hare will be! Eventually. There is a lesson in here somewhere, about giving 'fish' the propper motivation to come to you. Or in this case, to an encampment of meat eating lizards. Skar sighs, "Ok, I see where diss is going. Look." He says, trying to keep the situation calm. "We are not bad beassts. You don't run away, we will make you comfortable. All the food, wine, dancing that you want. We even eat you after you are /dead/. Very nice, yah?" The lizards tone grows darker. "But you run, you make usss chassse you." His laughter is divoid of laughter, "We have to murder you with ssspears. You don't want to be murdered with ssspears. Very painfull. Much blood, much pain. So why don't you jussst come on inssside, yeah?" THe lizard says in a patient and understanding way like he is trying to reasons with a stuborn beast. One could almost feel he is sincere even. Like he was being logical.
One only can imagine what sort of life these lizards lead to make Skar believe that. "You...you are going to run...arn't you. Thisss makes Skar sad. You seem like a very nice bunny too. Much shame in stabbing you with spears." The guards begin to walk towards the hare from either side.
The approaching guards cause Ram to quicken her pace. She glances over her shoulder to spy the ground behind her and....trips on a root. Down she goes, flat on her back, fear-rounded eyes shutting tight as she knocks the base of her skull. Her knees curl up around her chest. But hey, at least she's saved the pipe from spilling. Quickly, she rolls to her side, placing one paw on the ground to steady herself. The other grasps the back of her calf, where, one assumes, she may have scraped her skin on that root.
The lizards tense at first, thinking that the hare is about to bolt. When she falls they seem to relax. Yes, easy prey indeed. The guards move to surround the hare, one reaches down to lift her up by the arm.
"See? See what happenss when hare runss away? Bad thingsss happen." Skar trots over slowly gesturing in the air as he does. "Skar doesn't know why thiss is so sscary. We give you much better deal than thossse Southern tribe barbarians give you. They jussst shoot you with arrow, then eat you. Very uncivilized." he gestures for the guards to take her back to camp.
Easy prey, or easy to overestimate? Ram hasn't survived this long wandering on her own out of sheer luck. Her eyes remain shut, teeth clenched, until she feels claws close around her bicep. Her paw flashes out then, having pulled a knife from where it was concealed behind the braiding of her sandals, and aims to puncture the side of the nearest guard. She rolls onto the balls of her footpaws and grabs her pipe now, flinging the embers at the next guard to approach. Her eyes are open now, and wild with fear, but also an adrenaline-fueled rage. “You think the lizard tribes were the barbarians?” She asks, almost out of breath. She barks a laugh. And then, while her would-be-captors contemplate her question, bolts.
The guard immidietly lets go, screaching out a wail as a hole appears in his hide. The other takes the burning embers to the face, collapsing to one knee and dropping his spear as he tries to get them out of his eyes.
The lizards by the village are by now, seeing that something is going wrong but it has yet to register to them that they should do something about it.
Skar makes a panicked squeak. Taking a step back from the hare. He steels himself though, growling, "You jussst had to go and make things difficult!" He swings his spear with the fish still on it downward, trying to bop the hare over the head with it.
The spear comes swinging down, but only hits dirt: Ram is off and running now. Her breath comes in gasps and pants, betraying her fear and her previous claims to barbarism. She is fast, that much is obvious, but the terrain is unfamiliar, and in her state, every stray leaf is the looming head of another lizard. Her path is erratic and diverges from the woodland trail, and Mossflower's underbrush slows her way considerably.
The lizard hisses in his own language. Her speed ballences out the lizards knowlage of the area. By now the other villagers know that something has gone terribly wrong and that they should help out. They dash in after Skar, forming a sort of possy after the beast.
"Get back here!" Skar shouts, throwing his fishing spear at the fleeing hare.
Over the hills and through the dales Ram runs, having no concept of place or direction except “away from river.” Which works just fine for a few hundred meters. After a time, however, she dashes through a thick covering of branches and comes face to face with a cliffside. Her momentum is too high – she is unable to stop herself in time – and she collides with the natural wall, knees and paws falling to the wet clay ground. She hear the rustle of leaves, the stomping of footpaws. That itch in her mind begins again, whispering to her like ropes whisking across her fur. She cries in pain, but ignores the premonition, scrambling to stand once more.
The lizards come just in time to see the hare biff it on the wall. They collectively cringe and say, "ooooooooo." After a moment Skar and several others take the lead in surrounding the hare. "Well...that was ssmart." The reptile gestures for the others to grab Ram. They brandish their claws at her, drawing closer like velociraptors ready to pounce on a gazzel. Which...they exactly do the next instant...
Ram still has the knife, and she holds it out before her, trying to be as threatening as possible...but she's lost the element of surprise now, and, with her back to the wall of dirt, any hope of escape. When the attack finally comes her resistance is weak, more meant to stave off any real injury than to break free; part of her has already accepted the inevitable. In quick order the lizards have lashed her arms behind her back and removed the tiny weapon. They chuckle and mutter to each other in their reptile tongue while the hare stares at Skar, her breath ragged and heavy.
Skar leans down on one knee to look the hare in the eyes. "Hey, don't look at Skar like that Ram, prey can only blame themssselves for being caught." he says to justify luring the hare to her own demise. "And really, I never lied. You will still get to partake in the feast! Jusssst not quite the way you imagined." He gestures for the lizards to take her. Their quarry securred the lizard carry the hare off with ease, heading back to the village...
