Chapter Text
Pure hops off their perch and uses their momentum to grasp onto the monster and wedge their nail into its ribs. A hissing shriek escapes the beast as it loses its grip on the tree and sends them both tumbling towards the forest floor. During the free fall, Pure twists them both in midair and uses the crash landing to dig their weapon into the lizard further. A small struggle is given in response, but enough time finds Pure dirty, and the beast dead.
Air now void of any nearby life, Pure lets themselves breathe and calculate the situation more thoroughly. The monster is scale-like in nature, with formidable claws and teeth to match. Appearance wise, it isn’t a new find, but it was weaker and smaller than the last they had faced. Do they spawn faster than Pure had thought? Could more information be found about such a thing? They drag their nail out of their corpse and sigh, already tired just thinking about the new avenue of research they now have to do. Damn beasts.
They kick the beast over and stab up through its jaw to give themselves a handle with which to drag the damn thing to the castle. They hadn’t been back to the castle in nearly two weeks, but that wasn’t too unusual. They had royal hunter duties to attend to. One cannot control as much territory as the king without needing at least a few hands occupied elsewhere.
Pure adjusts the settings on their metal prosthetic arm to handle more robust tasks. It reduces their speed, but it will make things more comfortable in the long run. The now jerky limb takes the flesh sheathed nail, hoists it and the lizard over Pure’s shoulder, and allows Pure to start heading to the castle.
They wished they didn’t have to use such annoying attachments, but Pure supposes this is what they deserve for losing their real arm. Pale King had been most displeased, despite the explanation. A couple moments of reminiscing has Pure wincing at the memory. Stupid. They were property. Pale King’s property. Of course the King would be mad at some egotistical idiot breaking his things. Pure should really know better than that. The vessel nods silently to them self to convince them self of their misbehavior. They should have known better, and they will-
A flash of red and a quick rustle of the nearby leaves has Pure on the defense. They stop moving and carefully listen to their surroundings. They can’t hear or see anyone, but the thought does little to relax them. A few more minutes of dangerous silence passes before Pure feels safe enough to skitter up the nearest tree for safety. It takes a bit and they don’t like such delays, but trusting their senses has yet to fail them and they refuse to start now.
They toss the lizard onto the branch, stick their nail into the trunk of the tree, then take out a knife. Their father- no. The Pale King. Pale King had once lectured them on the importance of tools. Multitasking is important in some ways, but if you get a tool that can do one thing perfectly well, then you should limit its usage to that task and that task alone. No use in using a nail for a dagger’s job.
They start cutting away at the beast’s flesh and take only the most useful parts before kicking the beast to the forest floor below. No use in attracting more company after all. They wait for the sound of something to crash into the leaves below, but no such sound comes. Anxiety starts to creep in. They pack away the meat with salt, then snatch up their nail from where it was stabbed to flee further upwards. More precious minutes pass.
Pure hasn’t slept all day. The previous day had been trying and they hadn’t wanted to risk any sleep, but today brings them no such luxury. Could they afford another all nighter, or would a nap be enough to bring them to the palace. Mind half distracted, they look back to the forest floor below. Another flash of red is seen. They worry more.
Once the next branch is reached, Pure wastes no time in gathering dead leaves and such for a small fire. It won’t give them much, but cooked meat will fare far better than something so raw. They keep their defenses up and cook the meat in such a way as to remove as much water as possible. As it sits, Pure keeps watch over their surroundings. Nothing is happening quickly, but Pure thinks they can hear... whispers? The wispy sounds weren’t noticeable at first, but as they grow in volume, they start to seem closer. Pure usually wouldn’t be scared in such a situation, but they can’t see whatever is making the sound. Blame it on the light of the fire, but outside of their camp, things seem darker then they should be.
Pure doesn’t like it.
Pure cooks up the last of their meat, packs it away, then slashes the fire off the branch they had planned to call camp. As sparks fly, the whispers quickly surround Pure and go from panicked shouts, to a dead silence. It’s eerie. Not for the fear of the effect, but of the silence itself. The kingdom is lush with greenery of all kinds with beasts to rival it. There is almost always something making noise, but now? Nothing.
Pure stands still for as long as it takes for their eyes to adjust, before striking the first thing that moves. A high pitched raspy hiss rewards them for their accuracy.
“It stings!” Pure quickly rears up to strike again, but as their arm pulls back, it’s stopped. A branch? No- a claw!?
“Why does it sting!?” Urgency peaking, they look back to try and pull their arm back, but more arms and claws grab at them with every movement.
“You said it wasn't one for poison!” Pure kicks away the claws on their legs enough to take a step forward, but they feel more resistance on their last surviving arm.
“Some nightmare king you are. Can’t even steal decent information!” Pure does a complicated twist to release their limb at the cost of broken metal. Was that the prosthetic!? No! That can’t break! Not so soon!
“Divine darling, you know it’s harder to find information when the victims don’t sleep.” In a fit of rage, Pure tosses whatever non speaking bug is behind him far enough to slash at the rest of them and take another step forward. Into empty air. Frantic, they reach behind themself to grab whatever item touches the shell of their palm.
“How many times have I- oop!” Desperate to have any leverage whatsoever, Pure pulls the deep voiced man down with them as they start to fall many stories down. They try to secure their grip to use the fall to their advantage, but the broken mechanisms of the prosthetic do little to offer them graceful grip.
“So it does fail.” Pure jerks their head to the source of the noise, vision too altered to see the face of their assailant. “Ha.” Pure makes to utter a confused note, but their question is quickly interrupted by the man who turns them over, grabs their face, then tilts it down to the rocks below.
“May god help you if you survive.”
A sharp crack echoes through the trees.