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Author: KlynnGrey
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Khirya
“Where are you now?” Khirya breathed into the air.
The woods were silent in their way, as much as they could be with the wind moaning off the leaves and branches scratching bark, rough skin in need of rain to soften the itch of insect ways. The barren limbs turned up to the sky reaching for the moonlight that scattered the night in a mix of shadow and twig, ivy and creepers running for the light.
“Ah…a misstep there toad.” Her breath was softer than the wind, softer than the leaves brushing each other.
This was a dark wood, twisted from the shattered moons destruction and never quite returning to normal, something about the magic unleashed.
Khirya liked this place. It drove the storms of her mind to other places and times and left her oddly at piece with a jungle that cursed most people’s minds. The swampy waters lapped at her boots and scattered the light that the creepers strove for making a game of chase and catch that had no end, just the patterns of nature to rend in different forms.
Khirya felt at home here. The snakes found her and wrapped her in warm embraces, the bats kept the insects from her and called out the night. The fireflies gathered at her throat, and around her copper colored hair and tried to land on her slightly pointed ears.
She felt the storms in the earth beneath her. She knew the lighting would form here near her feet and reach for the gnarled limbs above to throw its power into the heavens for all intents looking like it had fallen from the sky in spilled quicksilver.
“Now…now I have you”
A spell is pulled into the world and Khirya becomes another type of predator.
The call of the earth was hers, the storm was an extension of her paws and a weapon she could reach for it at any time even the way she was. The animals about her were another force, one that could heal or harm as she saw fit. Tonight they would harm. The blackest of cats followed her sliding about in the darkness like the shade left by moonlight. Soon another joined them, silent death, a retribution of flesh and bone.
Inside Khirya cried, her tears were cold and waterless but that didn’t change anything, didn’t change the way she remembered the death and carnage of the previous night. It didn’t change the smell that lingered in the back of throat making her want to loose the bile in her empty belly. It would change the way the froglok’s she followed would live their lives and the reptiles that survived around them.
If any did.
The prey traveled fast in these swamps but the water levels changed so often it was possible to see the odd places that left marks. The spoor of the animals was like rotting fish, another sure sign when she got close enough. Her pack had to keep circling to find the scents but the growls that faded and reverbed in the darkness were part of the night. Her companions knew the game was near now; they had a shiftless energy that cried into the night, a vibration that left fear in its wake.
Then they found them, crude wattle domes hunkered down on the banks of one of the many small islands of this swamp. They looked like bee hives turned up, a grotesque parody of something that normally hung from a tree.
The prey she had searched for two days now was in sight and the art they practiced just told her how much these short misshapen creatures had fallen from their more intelligent brethren.
The bile in her belly choice that moment to retch out upon the ground. She didn’t blame herself; the sight that caused it was enough to take most humans to the middens.
Her companions took it as a signal to attack. Three shapes, a blackness of bone and flesh, lunged for the homes of these creatures and the beasts scattered to the reeking winds that surrounded them.
Khirya knew her prey, she had seen even with her involuntary action. She pulled her animal self in and tore after the animal that had killed her mate.
Water splashed over her form and her paws found purchase in the semi quiescent mud as she raced over the ground and broken forest. The beast found its own hold on the land and roared out a croak of fear. It sprang over logs and brush and clinging vines to splash in the water searching for a place deep enough to fade into the depths.
It didn’t find it.
Another spell ripped out of the power around her and natures own spears, quills on another creature, tore from the air and pierced the hide of the prey she rushed after.
Khirya found her claws embedded in the back of the reptile, her teeth digging inches into the animal’s neck. The satisfying crack of bone brought this hunt to an end. Her friends had similar luck and she was happy enough to leave the kill for them.
Her form melted and returned to normal and she called a storm to light the heavens. In the distance she could see one of the creatures watching, close enough to see the fear in its eyes.
She reached down and picked up the body of her lover. She ignored the bite marks that covered its body and pulled the remains to her chest. She looked out over the swamp calling more power so they could see. See and know what it meant to attack one of her kind.
Lighting struck and more of the creatures died before they ran off. The cats she called slunk off into the darkness as if they had never been there.
Khirya smiled into the night but it was a sad smile full of hate for the only creature of the swamp she detested.
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