"I think it depends on what the harpy's like," he guessed. "I don't think they all like the same things."
He glanced down at himself, trying to see what he had on him to offer to the harpy. All he had was a snake. Some birds ate snakes, didn't they? But sacrificing the snake on his shoulder felt wrong, especially when the snake was giving him a horrified look - almost like it had somehow read his thoughts.
"...Maybe you can give it some tomatoes?" he suggested.
"Sure." Ari quickly conjured up a few juicy red tomatoes. "Now... should I just put them in the middle of the path or something and hope the harpy sees them? 'Cause I don't want to be anywhere near that clawed nightmare." Ari shuddered. "Like seriously, she sounds scarier than a cookie made of broccoli."
The human paused. "...Wait. How'd I know that? What's a broccoli cookie?"
"Well then, we could split up, each of us carrying a tomato. The harpy can follow only one of us, and whoever she follows, you bribe her with a tomato. So in that case, the rest of us will have a chance at survival."
It was only until he was finished saying this that Amoku realized how cruel it sounded.
What a foolish idea, Tarkin thought. This thing wouldn't be reasoned with. There was only one way to win in the wild: being intelligent enough to know when to fight and when to run. Right now they needed to stall this thing and run as fast as they could in the opposite direction. "I hope you're joking," he said thinly, giving Amoku a dubious look. "Why would a harpy, who appears to be carnivorous, have any interest in a red fruit?"
"The artist deals with what cannot be said in words. The artist whose medium is fiction does this in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words." --Ursula K. Le Guin
Some nearby leaves rustled and someone new made themself known. "A harpy? Sounds rather serious." A rather tall man emerged from the foliage, looking very out of place in the jungle setting. There were various pieces of jewlery hanging from his person, and they were generally dressed more for fashion than for practicality. A runic-looking eye was tattood onto his chest. It was almost imperceptibly glowing red.
"I feel like I should know something about them... ah well. It's nice to see other people, been a little too long, I believe." He smiled charismatically and introduced himself as Fabian.
i can't beleive it's not gender! artim/artos/artims/arself my name is the same as my user, or you can call me jan Laso!
Loki resisted the urge to jump when the man - Fabian - appeared out of the bushes. Even the snake on Loki's shoulder seemed a little startled. He had a feeling that people suddenly appearing was normal here; it seemed like their group kept running into new people everywhere they went.
"You, uh, have a thing on your chest," Loki said. He didn't want to seem rude, but what if he didn't know it was there? Magic could be unpredictable and dangerous. For all he knew, that rune would curse Fabian into becoming an animal.
Loki gave the snake on his shoulder a little tap on the head again.
Then he looked at the others in the group.
"I don't think it's a good idea to split up," Loki said. "That's the plot of every single horror movie."
He didn't remember what horror movies he had actually seen, but he knew those were a thing that existed.
"But I do think the tomato is a good idea," he added. "She might be an omnivore who...just...happens to like human flesh?"
He gave an awkward smile after he finished. That didn't even sound good to him. Why would someone eat a person when they could just eat plants? The harpy lived in a jungle. The plants were definitely the easier food source here.
Feeling incredibly embarrassed, Loki turned back to Fabian to give an introduction of his own.
"I'm Loki A. Lias. I don't know who I am besides that, but I feel like I'm a shapeshifter-"
Loki paused.
...Why hadn't he thought of mentioning it before? That didn't feel like a secret. What he actually looked like was the secret. With a name like Loki A. Lias, being open about shapeshifting made sense.
And shapeshifting could be useful, couldn't it? His mind was already racing to come up with a way that his shifting could somehow help the group.
Queenie raised an eyebrow at the term 'shapeshifter'. Was this all a prank? Some kind of sick game someone was playing on Queenie, and, evidently, Bobby as well - something told Queenie he wasn't this good at lying.
Induced amnesia.
Queenie had experience with that. She couldn't remember it, or even what end of it she'd been on, but the familiarity was too certain to mean anything less.
"If it eats meat, let's give it meat," Queenie said, "This is a jungle, you just have to trap something a little dumber than the harpy to use as bait. Honestly, why are we still debating?"
"I can do that," Tarkin said, whirling and stalking away into the jungle. He knew how to trap, and he knew how to kill. He would have preferred the direct approach of destroying the harpy, but the girl made an excellent point. Feeding it something might at least distract it for a short time while they got far away, preferably underground if they couldn't get out at all.
"The artist deals with what cannot be said in words. The artist whose medium is fiction does this in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words." --Ursula K. Le Guin
"It seems you all have this handled well enough. I'm afraid I'm not of much use here." Fabian pushed down his sunglasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Oh, by the by, I'm blind-ish? That's why the tattoo is glowing, I believe it's how I see."
i can't beleive it's not gender! artim/artos/artims/arself my name is the same as my user, or you can call me jan Laso!
Ari frowned at Amoku. "Don't be rude, you heard Fabian. He's blind-ish! No need to rub it in." Turning to the rest of the group, she asked, "So, once Tarkin gets back with some meat, what's the game plan? Just run blindly through the jungle? Remember, we have no idea where we are." Suddenly she perked up. "Ooh, you know what? I think we should build a treehouse!"
"To be honest, I am too." They paused, then looked slightly surprised. "Well, I wasn't expecting that! It doesn't seem to be only the tattoo... say, is there a bird or a squirrel about..." He traced his finger through the air, then pointed at a spot in a tree overhead. "There."
i can't beleive it's not gender! artim/artos/artims/arself my name is the same as my user, or you can call me jan Laso!
When that failed, he raised a hand up to shield his eyes from the light. It wasn't that bright, but it seemed like the kind of thing to do when trying to see something far away or hidden behind other things.
"I can't see it," he said. He strained his ears. If he focused hard enough, he could hear a rustling up above. "I think I can hear something, though?"
He glanced over at Ari.
Almost every part of him wanted to say yes to the tree house idea. Tree houses were cool, and Loki had a sneaking suspicion it had been a long time since he had been in one or had one himself. But building a tree house felt permanent - it felt like the kind of thing you would do when you weren't moving from place to place.
Loki wasn't sure he was ready for that here.
(Or even at all.)
"Running blindly through the jungle sounds like a good plan to me," he said. "Maybe we'll find someone who knows how to get our memories back."
(doesn't show tattoo, but it's clearly visible.
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