AnnouncementSpoiler Content Warning for gore

  [colpse]Dawn really wished she had found a weapon.

  She knew she would have to make do, but seeing the first creature she found, she was wondering if it was a risky choice.

  She followed the trail of something off of a creek, just a couple of miles north through the wooded pass out of the temple city. The pass itself was only a mile and a half wide, at the least point near the city. She'd heard the water during her careful exploration of where she believed there might have been a road. Not for hundreds of years, though. She tracked its smell - weird that she could follow it so well - and looking at it she didn't love the idea of trying to kill it unarmed. It'd probably fight back.

  It was a big lizard, scaled and resting in a hollow, that hadn't yet seen her. From what she could tell, though, it was shaped more like a big cat. Like a lion with scales.

  She thought about trying to fashion something out of wood, but she had yet to see any good candidates lying around and she hardly had a saw. She'd just have to subdue and kill something with her bare hands, and maybe her fangs. Dawn didn't even have cws.

  But the pang of hunger hit and she looked at it and her first thought was that she'd just make do. Which invoked further consideration for why the fuck she thought she could take it anyway. Instinctually, she kinda felt like she was hungry and that was a meal. She still wished she had a weapon. But how would she go about it? It was just lounging around, like a cat would. Not fully asleep. She'd have to sneak up on the thing and hope her venom does the trick.

  Over a grueling and heart pounding several minutes, she moved around to the edge of the hollow. Sliding across the roots and dirt of the overgrowth, she hardly made a noise, and she always kept an eye in every direction. Dawn had become rather used to processing the panorama, but here she found herself frayed by the stress of the moment. She had to pay attention.

  Concentrating, she coiled herself up near the edge of the hollow, and lunged.

  The lizard had loafed itself like a big hairless cat, and she found her target on its right shoulder. With an internal promise to rinse her mouth out ter, she plunged her fangs in and felt the venom breach the beast's body. She restrained its arms and head with her own, pushing up its jaw with her upper left hand, and bracing around its left arm with her lower left appendage. It struggled for a moment, filing to try and find purchase, but Dawn found herself instinctually wrapping her tail around its body, constricting all movement. It was either weakened by the venom, simply weaker than her in general, or both. It stopped struggling thirty seconds ter, dead.

  Dawn was left impressed with herself and pondering the gruesome affair of eating the thing. She had no way to prepare it, and she didn't want to even attempt eating it like an actual snake would, let alone that it seemed impossible. In the end, she tore it to pieces, which was actually rather strenuous work, but she felt much better after eating. It was hardly beef tartare, but it was close enough, and still warm. Like the serpent.

  Though she was now covered in blood, and thankful her robe was already red.

  There were also some eggs, and after realizing they were probably fertilized, she decided to try eating one whole to avoid seeing the contents, which worked. Dawn still felt very strange about it afterwards and decided to leave the rest for someone or something else.

  After a rinse in the creek, she headed back to the incomplete bones of what was once a road to forge north again. At an increasing rate, she was noticing things like the direction of the wind and odd smells in the air. There was more than one creature stalking the pass, and that was before the smaller animals Dawn startled or snuck past in her careful advance.

  It would have been difficult terrain if she had legs, but slithering around between the roots of the undergrowth was easy given her size. It left an un easy feeling, though, since Dawn knew that also made her an easier target to spot. She kept a steady pace until she lost the road during her movement north, having been so focused that she didn't realize the complete ck of ancient cobblestones or markers.

  So she doubled back to find it and ran into two more big lizards, which were as surprised to find her as she was them.

  Dawn was terrified until she had one smmed by the neck into a tree. It had pounced jaws first when she blocked it with her upper arm, crying out from pain as it bit her. Her desperate fil turned out to be more of a reactive tackle, and Dawn's grasp at the beast's neck was firm enough for it to release her arm, leaving her three more to subdue it.

  She winced as the second lizard attacked lower down her tail, and broke the neck of the first with all four arms. Tooth and nail from a dinosaur punk wasn't enough to stop her from constricting the other surprise assaint either. She didn't wait for the lizard to suffocate, wrenching its neck with a neat crackling noise.

  She was tired and wired after the fight. It hadn't properly occurred to Dawn that something might follow her scent.

  It turned out the ancient road curved more to the west than heading directly for the nearest settlement as she had hoped. Maybe there was some side path to it?

  The sun was getting low, now, and Dawn realized it'd be dark even faster with all the tree cover in the woods. She could see in the dark but it wasn't her favorite time to move around, supposing that old human habits die hard. In these woods, though, there was a need to be somewhat hidden. Dawn climbed into the branches of an old growth maple and lounged coiled around its gnarly limbs.

  As she drifted to sleep, she pondered on the adrenaline. The rush both hunting and fighting were giving her seemed terrifying or even dangerous. Anticipation built in her from expecting more fights against wildlife in the ensuing days. It shouldn't have been so exciting.

  The next day, she was rudely awoken by a barking cacophony of discordant tones increasing in volume and frequency. Her eyes snapped open and she saw the source from the backs of her hands which were draped down the outside of a coil.

  Dogs. That was the first thought. But no, they were worse. They didn't seem to have eyes. Their teeth were brutal, bck and permanently bared. Their limbs were just wrong, with too many joints and two wicked cws on each foot. There were a half dozen of them circling the trunk of the tree.

  The threat of the creatures tore Dawn between two emotions. Terror at the horrifying monsters circling the tree, and furor at their interrupting of her rest. They could have at least waited until ter in the day.

  Dawn caught sight of the sky and realized it was far from morning; she had slept longer than intended. Regardless, she didn't think trying to wait them out was wise. Something about their horrible barks was foreboding and she could make out bits of glittering magic inside them too.

  And something else. They had to be destroyed.

  As she coiled, she felt her blood rush, and her lunge was like an injection of pure electricity. The ensuing carnage was excessive, reminiscent of some old fighting game. The monster's blood was too thin, and too dark. Their flesh smelled wrong, and after the first came apart, Dawn promised herself not to bite one unless she absolutely had to.

  She didn't need her fangs at all anyway.

  They bit, and it hurt, and she even bled from the wounds they inflicted, but she had noticed the previous day that terrible maws and cws had only superficial effects upon her flesh. Her scales healed up nicely, and her skin looked merely scarred from the fights with the lizards. Dawn came out scraped up and motivated to get away from the foul things. Echoes of their barks seemed to come from the distance and it further encouraged her. They could have been waiting for more, or for something worse. Figuring the things would be able to smell her as well, she tried doubling back and disjointing her trail a few times, even climbing and springing between trees once, which she hoped would get them off her tail.

  Of course she lost the road again but she wasn't too worried, it went too westward for her taste and she wanted to look at the nearer settlement first. The problem was that her amateur attempts at covering her trail had left her a little lost. She'd stopped paying attention to where exactly she was going, but she at least knew where north was and that was closer to the way she wanted to go.

  Though, she could look with the Eye again. Just a quick peek to get a bearing. She didn't want to drain herself or whatever that was from the other day. The snake woman just wanted to see where her target was.

  It opened with just a bit of concentrating, and Dawn thought that she might be getting the hang of it. She had only been a little off of the right bearing for the settlement, but she corrected herself and- hey! There's a grouping moving her way, and a body sized dot of warmth a couple hundred feet from her already!

  The Eye quietly slid shut and Dawn tried to think fast through the bout of madness it incurred. She was trying to look quickly so she didn't get enough detail, but it didn't seem like anything big. It could reasonably be a person. Why one? Maybe being chased? If that, she hoped they weren't hostile. Probably a scout, right?

  Dawn strained her natural senses, looking for heat in the cool forest, and slowly moving forward. Her eyes darted around the environment in improbable ways, with help from her improving visual processing abilities. For her efforts, she spotted him first.

  There was a very well hidden green man in a tree. She could only kind of see him but her thermal sight made it clear what Dawn was looking at. A guy in a tree, wearing something akin to patchy camoufge, with green skin and long ears.

  His head turned and his eyes fixed upon her. Dawn was surprised to see someone else with slit eyes like her own. Light yellow and a bit more catlike compared to Dawn's green snake eyes. The man was also, unsurprisingly, very surprised to see her, and after a moment beholding her glory, he bolted like a bird on the wind.

  Dawn followed slowly, carefully. She didn't want to walk into a trap or startle anyone. The taste of her onlooker was on the wind, and he was heading right back to the group she had seen.

  It was only then that she noticed the forest thinning as she went north. There were wider gaps and more regur clearings which gave Dawn the room to see further and further. Of course she heard them first, echoing through the trees, but she couldn't tell what was being said.

  Then Dawn realized they were speaking a different nguage. Shit. Should she even try if she couldn't communicate? Human contact was what she needed and it wasn't helping to be a scary monster coming out of the woods and speaking in tongues. Shit!

  She could see them now. They were a ragtag band of people, dressed for combat, but clearly carrying supplies for a journey. One was probably a wood elf and there were a couple humans with some sort of cat person as well, but the others were more of a mystery to her, including the man from earlier. One woman's skin was even blue! Maybe they were goblins. Not really the short tribal kind like the fantasy Dawn recalled. Why blue skin, though?

  They were talking and nervously looking at the woods in her direction. Dawn had taken the extra minute to move to the side, though. She wanted a minute to look. She wasn't sure how to approach this. It didn't help her nerves that she made up her mind right when their conversation trailed off.

  Still hiding, she called out,

  “Hello! Can anyone understand me?”