"I... feel like they're supposed to be," Jerica answered, still perplexed. She'd never actually seen a rhino in person before today, but from what she knew, they just kind of went off and did their own things. "They're definitely not herd animals... so where the fuck did a whole stampede come from?"
"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus "From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf "A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni [they/he]
"Well..." That was a fair point. She glanced over her shoulder. Where they'd originally woken up was almost out of sight at this point. "There might be more this way, but we know they're that way."
She sighed and shrugged and kept walking.
"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus "From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf "A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni [they/he]
Why Jerica wanted to keep walking this way, Evaline didn't know. Something felt off about this. Did Jerica not feel it too?
Evaline almost wanted to say something, but she didn't have any facts to back her opinion. Jerica wanted to avoid the kidnapper's demands, and she could understand that. But was this really the right move?
She may be anxious, but she was still more inclined to risk. Until something happened, she figured it wasn't worth bringing up since Jerica still seemed confident.
Silence filled the air between them, but Evaline couldn't help but notice that the sky was darkening. Not in the way it would when night was falling, but rather graying, like an impending storm. Suddenly a light drizzle of rain began to fall down, and then it started to pour.
If they weren't in their current situation, Evaline might have been in an awestruck wonder that she was experiencing rain. But now was not the time to be shocked or amazed or anything, especially when she looked back and noticed that the way they came from was still completely dry. It was like this was the sky's way of teasing them, telling them they were going the wrong way.
"Still think we're going the right way?" she asked with a monotone voice, staring at Jerica as the water began to soak their clothes and hair, clinging to her skin.
Jerica felt uneasy as clouds rolled in overhead, but just in the little valley that they were in, the rest of the area as disgustingly hot and bright as before. Rain started pouring on them.
So, a magician. Was Biryn behind this? He was one for mind games... though she figured he wouldn't be able to help himself from coming to gloat if he was behind this... but it was hard to say.
The further they walked, the heavier the rain got. She ignored Eve's quip and instead crossed her arms and walked forward with an angry scowl. Biryn was sorely mistaken if he thought a little bit of rain would dissuade her.
The rain started coming faster, each one feeling like a razor as it pelted off her skin. Then, the rain began merging to tiny pieces of hail. She snorted. This was getting obnoxious. She took a few more steps. Something hit her in the head, knocking her over. She grunted, pushing herself back upright as she looked around, but there was no one. She looked back down and saw a piece of hail about half the size of her fist on the ground.
"Oh fuck you!" Jerica grabbed the hail and threw it as hard as it could. It shattered against the nearby cliff. She looked around, small pieces of hail still pelting off her, as she tried to get a glimpse of wherever the magician was. She still couldn't see anyone. "Show your face you coward!"
"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus "From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf "A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni [they/he]
Evaline had continued to walk forward with Jerica, but stopped as soon as it was downpouring on her, almost starting to hurt. That didn't stop Jerica from marching forward though, and Evaline only stopped and stared.
She didn't understand this woman, and she especially didn't understand when she still kept going despite the rain magically turning into hail, and she withstood a giant piece and threw it in the air like they were made out of cotton.
Jerica was... something, alright. She seemed indestructible. Curiosity was getting the best of Evaline, and now she wanted to know her power. But she knew the question would inevitably be turned to her, and she'd rather avoid that.
It was best to not have her strange traveling companion die from stubbornness and hail, even though it was obvious she was a hot head, and she knew there was going to be long, tired nights ahead of them. Evaline didn't have patience for certain types of people, and that included stubborn hot heads.
"Stop it!" she yelled at her through the rain and hail, although she wasn't sure if she could hear her since she was a bit further behind. The water had completely soaked her clothes and hair, and it was starting to feel cold and uncomfortable.
"No one's coming! If you go any farther, you'll get hurt!"
The longer she got pelted, the angrier she got. She had had enough. She'd played along -- almost got trampled by an entire herd of solitary animals, been patient with the world's slowest walker, and got clobbered with a giant piece of hail -- and she wasn't in the mood for it anymore.
She could hear Eve screaming behind her, but the roar was too loud to hear what she was saying. Jerica decided she didn't care enough what she had to say to turn back. Instead, she put her forearms over her face to protect her head as much as she could, put her head down, and pushed onward.
If they were trying this hard to keep her from going this way, then that meant this was exactly the direction she needed to go.
"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus "From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf "A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni [they/he]
Well, it wasn't like Evaline didn't try to warn her.
There was no way she was going to follow Jerica. It hurt enough from where she was, and she couldn't imagine being casually pelted by hail that was the size of her fist. How that didn't knock her out unconscious, she didn't know. Frankly, it seemed there was a lot she didn't know about this place, and now was not the time to test any theories.
She stared at Jerica walk further, but eventually turned around and headed back to the dry, sunny area, glancing over her shoulder every once in a while to make sure she was still alive.
Jerica kept pressing onward, curses getting louder and more creative with each fresh piece of hail that struck her. She turned the corner and... stopped short. There was nothing there. A cliff that rose straight up for hundreds of meters, with no hand-holds whatsoever. Dead end. She'd come all this way and it wasn't even --
"YOU FUCKING FUCKS!" Jerica shouted as loud as she could, lifting both middle fingers as she turned in a slow circle. She didn't know where they were, but she wanted to be sure they saw.
She stomped out of the valley, the hail gradually turning back to a stinging rain, to simply dumping buckets upon buckets of water on her, and then finally to a light drizzle before she got back to the sunny meadow.
She was absolutely soaking wet and frozen to the bone, even though the air that met her now was hot. Her hair and clothes were plastered to her body, and she couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. She scowled and stormed back down the path, jaw clenched, never slowing as she got to Eve. "We're not going that fucking way."
"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus "From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf "A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni [they/he]
Evaline had made it back to the sunny meadow, in awe as she turned back around and could see the weather getting worse in front of her. Rain was not supposed to be like this, right? She was too tired to be amazed or think much about it, because she was soaked to the bone and was starting to feel cold despite the sun's warmth.
She sneezed as she watched Jerica head back, and she had yelled something she couldn't hear over the white noise of the rain. Evaline stepped back a few times to give her room, and she narrowed her eyes at her when she said the most obvious thing in the world: they couldn't go down that way.
"Thanks for clarifying that," she said, trying to sound sarcastic, but sounding more tired than anything.
Her gaze lingered on her slopping wet clothes, and if she had the ability to look at them from a third person perspective, then it was no doubt that they probably looked like a pair of wet cats right now. Biting back the chills, she looked around and noticed an area that had more trees and bushes.
"Let's go over there," she said, pointing to that spot and already walking. "We need to dry off."
Jerica was violently shivering, hail still cold on her neck as it began melting down the back of whatever these fucking clothes were supposed to be. She looked down at herself. The fabric was clinging to her tightly, so wet it was visibly dripping off her pant legs and sleeves.
Eve was right. They needed to dry off before they got sick.
Jerica looked up at the sky -- it was already late afternoon. There was no chance they'd be able to make it past where they'd woken up if they walked back the other way now, and there was more shelter this way. Not that it was enough. They were going to have a long night of no food and barely any shelter, but there was very little she could do about that just then.
She didn't have the patience to wait for the clothes to dry out in the fading sun, but she started towards where Eve was walking, undoing the buttons down the front of her outfit as she walked. She shrugged out of the torso of the contraption and began wringing the sleeves as she followed Eve, getting as much of the water out as possible.
Just before they got to the trees, Jerica bent down swiftly and untied her boots then kicked them off -- right side up so more sunlight would get inside -- and stepped out of the pants portion of the clothes. She briefly wrung out the legs and then threw it down, spreading it across one of the larger rocks in the area. Then she wiped herself off with her hands, flicking her wrists to get as much water off of her as she could as she walked towards the trees in her sopping-wet underwear.
Wordlessly she bent down and began gathering dried twigs and sticks on the ground, then grabbed two small, angular rocks and walked back towards the rock her clothes were drying on. She turned her back to Eve as she arranged the sticks, then hit the rocks against each other several times, focusing her actual attention on tapping into the R'hyk to speed up the molecular vibration of the twigs until they burst into fire. She fanned the flames gently, gradually adding more twigs until she had a tiny fire going.
"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus "From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf "A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni [they/he]
Evaline walked towards the trees, their sloshing footsteps sounding as uncomfortable as it felt. She wanted to feel angry and annoyed and irritated that this all could have been prevented if Jerica agreed that they should have followed the dragon's path, but this was just as much her fault as hers since she didn't outright reject the plan.
Well, maybe it was a bit more Jerica's since her hotheaded stubborn self kept on going deeper, and Evaline had to wait for her. But she was far too tired to even mention it.
By the time she reached the trees, Evaline glanced back and saw that Jerica was already undressing herself and wringing out her clothes. Evaline gave her a silent nod, and then sat down on a dry rock to take off her boots and socks.
Immediately wanting to peel off the cold itchy feeling of her clothes being stuck on her skin, she unbuttoned the jumpsuit and then let it fall down to her feet. She wrung it over a patch of grass, and did the same to her hair, which took some time. She did her best to flick the water off her skin, but it didn't help when her bra and underwear was also soaking wet. Trying to not think about the uncomfortable thought that someone had changed her undergarments without her consent, she also took them off, now fully unclothed.
Evaline was wringing everything over the same patch of grass, which she was sure was being oversoaked at this point. She heard a few thumps and looked over to see Jerica smashing some rocks together before it burst into a fire. Raising a brow, she walked over to the fire with her clothes and boots, her hair draped across her shoulder while dripping the occasional drop.
She didn't get to see it very well, but it almost looked like the fire was not made by the archaic friction way she had done a few times. It was almost as if Jerica had amplified the frictional force that resulted in a spark. But that couldn't have been her power, could it?
Just what was this woman's deal?
Thinking this through, she set a sleeve of the shirt down on the flat rock neat the fire and then sat down on it, putting her knees up to her chest as she set the wet clothes in front of her.
Jerica glanced at Eve before looking back at the fire, but she did a double take. She'd expected a reaction at her stripping down -- everyone she knew seemed uncomfortable with her 'idgaf' attitude towards nudity. But this was extreme. They didn't even know each others' last names, and here she was with her tits out. "What the fuck?"
"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus "From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf "A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni [they/he]
Jerica scoffed, gesturing at her, too shocked to even put in her distress into words. 'What?' Apparently, she made a habit of getting naked in front of Ainsleys people she just met. "You just gonna sit there naked?"
"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus "From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf "A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni [they/he]
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