Biting wind
Biting Winds
Commission
for
Kooskia
Dustin Feyder
It was a strange night in the savanna, even before anything truly had begun. The morning was sweltering, it is the dry session, as the sun sets clouds gather thick and dark. The moon rises and cyclonic winds rip though the valley. Thin ice grips to the sides of the elephant grass. The shock of the change in temperature sends many animals into hiding. To any brave enough to watch the skies, there gaze is enchanted by a floating hadron dropping though the clouds and settling in the shadow of the moon.
It takes on the shape of a flower cascading with bioluminescence, a blue light radiating off of everything that seems to fall below the floating island. What is this thing? What is it doing? These are questions no one in the savanna could hope to answer. It is what it is. When the moon sets and the sun rises the flower blocks out no small amount of the sun creating a shadowy globe on the land miles long.
The air taste bitter, Niya notices, the wind smells of something she can hardly describe, it is not the scent of death, but it is something more then just a little distasteful. 'what wickedness has befallen my land?' the spotless cheetah whispers to herself.
Cordell, a lost kitten Niya adopted but a few nights ago echoes her thoughts. "that thing in the sky, it doesn't belong here."
Niya's stomach hurts, it has been almost 2 days since the last time she was able to catch a good meal. Mice and rabbits will keep one alive but that is hardly enough to stop the hunger pain. Niya looks to the kitten that she has been looking after. "it has yet to do us harm. We keep our distance and perhaps it will do the same."
"I have looked at it." Cordell explains "if you stare at it for but a moment It stares to stare back"
"speak not of wickedness and hate will not become you." Niya looks to the east. "we go to the water pit then off to the flats. I am hungry."
The two make good time on there way to the pond, few beast have found their way there, the ones that have share a great deal of gossip.
"I saw a stranger at the high rocks" an antelope explains "a wolf with strange markings on his face."
A coyote adds on "one of my pack was claimed by sickness."
A hippopotamus whispers "there is a wooly spider walking near the crossed trees."
Niya finds much off this to be meaningless banter. Is she could she would take a drink thin kill the antelope right now, the coyote is probably thinking the same thing. But there is a rule that no one dares brake during the dry session. Water is neutral ground. No hunter shows their teeth here, (the alligator's being the exception.)
Cordell looks to Niya "Wooly spiders near the crossed trees? They live out in the jungle, they don't come to the flatlands."
Niya is older, experienced, she knows that the jungle and the flats have a good deal of crossover, whenever there is a sharp change in the weather some beast choose to wait out the weather across the borders. "sometimes when it rains the spiders come out this way."
"is spider meat good food?" Cordell asks
"taste like fish, you can only eat the legs and spinner though. Unless you are a hyena or vulture."
Cordell is young and full of wonder "why can't we hunt here?" he whispers with the older cat
"there is limited water in the lowlands, if we hunt and kill here today many might die of fear and there will be less food next year." she looks to the young boy "do you want to try hunting the spider?" The kittens tail perks up and his ears lift, he is cute, innocent, if the need should arise maybe even a worth wile partner for a day. But for now, he is her child.
As the noon hour approaches mother and son walk together, the hold their bodies close to the ground as to stay out of direct sunlight so much as they can. On the hunt the two come across more then a hand full of carrion, the skin is black and oily, diseased and festering. The kitten wants to take the free meat, Niya stops him. Eating cold meat is already distasteful, but the idea that birds and hyenas aren't here already picking at the meat means something is wrong with it.
The two find the spider, it is big as a tiger, wide as a hippopotamus, its body a gun-steel blue, a red stone hart glows beneath its body. The hadron in the sky seems to shift slightly watching the spider as it walks through the tall grass. The monster stops moving, it feels the warmth of the cats nearby. A voice, grinding and electric, high and sexual echoes from its breast.
"Stand before me cats. Give yourself to me. I will take that which makes you beautiful and unique, and add it onto myself."
Eyes wide Niya grips Cordell's tail in her mouth pulling him backwards sneaking slowly away form the extraterrestrial spider, under her breath she whispers "what is...?"
She need not finish her thought, the spider replies "I am the Seeker of Eternity. I offer to let you join me in my quest to become whole."
A forth voice shouts from behind Niya, this voice low and growling. "You are a liar and a trader!" the voice belongs to a white wolf with a flower shaped mark that runs up his nose, around one eye and across his shoulders, he has dark rings around his eyes and fangs that peek over his lips. The wolf looks unrefined, but regal, feral but full of majesty, he is as elegant as he is wild.
Seeker looks past Niya, turning her gaze onto the white wolf with the glowing eyes "King-slayer, Demon of the Flowers, Phantom of Snow, Hetatsubatchi-Una. I am becoming confused. Am I hunting you, or are you hunting me?"
"you betrayed our mother, killed our friends, stood up to have yourself counted with defiler of our way! I failed to stop you at Zion, and I payed for my mistake. My teeth will taste your flesh today."
The spider seems to smile at the wolf "you couldn't protect Cilverant from me. You couldn't protect the Steel Rose. You will fight, you will yield. There are no other possible outcomes."
The voice of the wolf enters Niya's mind, he is calm, collected, this is a calculated act. He is a hunter to his core, this is a distraction. 'Cat, I can't overpower Seeker alone. I will need you to help me. I don't expect you to understand what I am saying only that you try to understand. Seeker is a Changeling from the land of Esper. When she uses her arcana, her hart will become visible. I need you to get along side her, and when you see her hart, touch it. If you fail, she will eat us."
The two monsters run at each other, Tatsu with his mouth wide showing off his sabers, a crackle of lighting splits the air behind the wolf and a cloak of knives pour from the Nether. Seeker stretches her body out becoming a amorphic mass of claws and teeth. Seeker descends on to Hetatsubatchi, Tatsu leaps of to one side and throws his cloak of knives up at the beast.
The knives fail to brake Seeker's armor, instead becoming lost in her jell like body. As water she swings around to attempt to tie herself the wolf. Tatsu's body burns with mania, a sphere of warding seeming to freeze the changeling in place for a few short moments. Tatsu barks at Seeker "I invoke the law of Dominion! This land and all the beast with in are under my protection."
The watery body of the monster bubbles, it pulls and stretches against itself trying to brake Hetatsubatchi's circle of protection "the write of dominion is not yours to claim. You are not our mother, you have no right to this land."
As the slime and the wolf are locked in their mystical struggle Niya sees what Tatsu was talking about, the slime as it peals ever thinner reveals an orb in its back, wrapped in bronze spinning rings. A split decision must be made, can the wolf be trusted? Between mammal and mechanism, Niya will sooner believe that two animals can work together for a grater good then a cat and whatever eldritch entity Seeker is.
Niya calls on all the speed and strength a cat can to dash off to one side then throws herself in the air. Niya smashes through the idioplasmic membrane of the alien life form, she grips the core of the beast in all four paws and her mouth as she falls out its other side. the hart pulled from the monster's body it falls to the ground and erupts in a geyser of mucus. Everything in 20 feet covered in viscus slime.
The hart in Niya's claws dies. The two cats and the wolf left standing silently in the valley, questions of the world they suddenly share burning in her soul. Who is this wolf? Where is he from? What was that monster? Did she really kill it? Or simply force it to go to sleep?