#fly pupa

[anemoiajouska]

sob

[catofulthar000]

> You're back!!!!

Not back hive, but back on Alternia! Settled into the tropical foothills of a gigantic mountain range. The ground reaches up far above the clouds here, and the jungle is dense and lush, untouched by any troll strongholds. This would certainly be considered an uninhabitable zone, but nowhere this side of Alternia is truly uninhabitable to you.

Though the jungle teems with countless aggressive and dangerous beasts, none are a threat to you, and through their combined knowledge of the landscape, you know where to find food, shelter, and exactly how to avoid the deadly flora of the jungle.

You've made camp inside a small cave, sheltered from the frequent but brief hot rain showers. You're so far from any civilization, it's not even acidic, which is good, because it means you can give it to the cub you've yet to name.

You know you'll have to help it learn to hunt, once you run out of meaty rations from the carnival in the next day or two, and you know it's going to be painful, for you. Being near any beast that dies is always uncomfortable and a little upsetting, but the little guy is a predator after all, it's only natural.

If you have to help locate some safe squeakbeasts for him to pounce on then so be it...

[catofulthar000]

> You have been so distracted lately!!! Kept conveniently busy and out of harms way in the dangerous world you’d tumbled into in your escape from reality. You were no longer wandering the wilds of Lopside, range limited to the clown populated carnival, where a certain Someone can keep an eye on you, and let your moirail know you were alright when they asked. 

You get regular food and baths and a safe place to sleep, and there are no awful hags or ghosts or other malevolent entities to do you harm here, at least not if you keep your nose out of the wrong carnival attractions. The real reason you’re still hanging around though is the egg.

The clowns apparently found it abandoned, no mother to keep it warm or care for it when it hatched. It was big, and reaching out your mind you felt the life inside it, still ready to thrive with the right, careful care.

You immediately built a big incubator for it, creating a tent of your own and tending a small fire inside to keep it toasty. The egg needed occasional turning and a nice soft nest, and you spent hours watching over it, talking to it, singing, letting your mind touch the developing one inside to keep it company. You slipped off sometimes too, to visit with the nice dragon you’d met or interact with the clowns a little, but most of your time was spent with the egg.

You were going to take such good care of this egg, and whatever came out of it, and nothing bad was ever going to happen to it and it wasn’t going to die this time because you weren’t going to fail and it was going to be healthy and happy and alive and everything would be fine and wonderful!

... yeah.

And then,

and then...

it hatched! At last! An awful, pink and fleshy beast poking it’s head out from the cracking shell with vivacious peeps and squeaks! You cried you were so happy, carefully discarding the shell and making sure it was warm and comfortable before feeding it it’s first mashed up meaty meal. 

As the days went by, the beast’s fuzz and fluff filled out, stripes already starting to show dark against it’s bright white coat. You were so pleased, hand feeding it bits of meat the clowns gave you and cleaning up after it It wasn’t long before it graduated from crawling and screaming to wobbling about and screaming, fuzzy little wings sticking out for balance. You were so proud!

It’s grown quickly, now a sweet little cub chick that climbs over you with sharp claws and gnaws on your fingers when you don’t have a bone for it. You’re so glad it seems perfectly healthy and strong.  Still, you can’t help starting to feel... restless. too sedentary, possibly even, contemplative. That simply won’t do, and, you certainly don’t want to overstay your welcome. Maybe it’s time you headed back to more familiar pastures. Not hive, no, but, Alternia. You can still care for the little beast there, you’re sure. You won’t make a silly mistake like passing out where the sun can rise on you after flying yourself to utter exhaustion. You could handle Alternia just fine, and no one would have to worry about you there! 

Yes, you think it’s about time move on....

[catofulthar000]

> You've been flying.

All night you've been flying, until your back burns and your wings sting and you can't fly any more. You don't know where you're going, where you're running away to.

How do you run away to neverland when you made home neverland....

You're wings loose the strength to keep you in the air. They barely have the strength to control your fall as you plummet towards the grassy fields below.

Where are you? You haven't thought about where you're going. You haven't thought about anything but the wind rushing in your ears.

You land, hard, but it's still a landing. Falling to your hands and knees in the grass. You just barely have the energy to flip yourself over on your back in a way that accommodates your horns. You sprawl there, breathing hard, no tears left to cry, and thinking just about how much your body hurts, about the bugs crawling around in the dirt under you, and the birds flying above, and how nice the breeze feels on your hot skin where it rustles through the grass....

[catofulthar000]

> You have been...

Distracted.

Very successfully distracted! Lured from the dangerous wilds with promises of food and soap, and most importantly, a beast in need!

You've thought of little else for the past several days. You're hanging around the carnival to help care for and look after it. This means you're also somewhere safe where you can get actual food on a regular basis and not be in semi constant mortal peril.

You're safe, at least, for now, even if you're still not thinking straight....

[catofulthar000]

> Oh yeah,

You found a DRAGON last night.

Another, real, actual dragon!!!!

He wore glasses and gave you tea....

[catofulthar000]

>The wind blows through the branches of the old oak, thick boughs swaying and creaking, clattering together like a storm as you sleep fitfully. 

You dream....

You wake up slowly, vision blurry as you blink blearily, trying to clear the murk from your eyes but it clings to your lashes. Your body feels like it’s made of lead, and when you try to lift your arm it just drops right back down after hardly raising an inch.

It drops back down onto something cold and... sticky.

You feel the soft texture of wax as honey oozes between your fingers, nose filling with the thick, treacle smell of it, mixed with decay and dead insects. The colony collapsed. You try to raise your head, managing to focus on the hive, small and curled in on itself. The overgrown combs are all brittle and crumbling, honey dripping from rib bones and pooling under you as the last, dying bees crawl out from empty eye sockets.

You try to pull away, but you’re body’s still so heavy, and the honey’s so sticky. You squirm and it only makes you slide closer. You open your mouth to cry out and taste honey-

You jerk awake suddenly as a dead branch cracks and clatters to the ground far below, gasping, the taste of death and honey still on your tongue. Coughing, you scramble to your feet on the branch, squinting into the wind as it howls across the moors. How can the fog still be so thick with the wind blowing like this?

It’s not until your sleep bleary eyes focus that you see why. That thick fog is a churning sea of misty figures, the howl and roar of the wind their battle cries as they clash, replaying whatever ancient battle left their arms strewn across the marsh for miles. You tuck yourself closer to the tree, watching wide eyed as spectral arrows arc through the air and hundreds of ghosts are cleaved and gutted and bled into the soggy ground.

You don’t dare move, afraid of being caught by one of those arrows if you’re seen, and you sit up in the old oak for hours, until the last specters burn off in the moonlight, dragging their injured comrades away.

You decide you don’t like it here. Once the coast is clear you set yourself to flying again, off in search of somewhere less morbid and awful and full of dark dreams to explore....

[catofulthar000]

> You decide to put as much distance as you can between yourself and that decrepit little hut...

Off you fly, over the swamps, until the trees begin to thin, though the ground is no less soggy. Marshy moors covered in shallow pools wreathed with fog stretch out below you, twisted trees rising up sparsely from the sodden earth like grasping hands.

It does not look welcoming, but you’re accustomed to nature being out to get you. Flying lower, you skim over clear, still pools that stretch between the winding clumps of heather and sage. Your wings fan the fog from their surfaces like retreating ghosts, but you take note only of the fat frogs and insectoid dragonflies that live here.

Your feet skim above the ground mostly, only coming to rest on the highest, driest looking ground to give your wings a rest. As you walk along a grassy ridge you spot a shape, far off, through the fog for a moment. Squinting, you walk towards it, still mindful of where you step. Another shift in the fog and you see what it was- a huge oak tree, sitting up on a hill that rises above the marshes.

Well! That seems like a perfect spot to rest! You carry on towards it- and nearly trip down the ridge as your foot catches something solid and sharp. Hissing, you hop in place a moment, wings fluttering to lower you to the ground where you can clutch your sore foot.

There’s a small scratch on the top where it caught on something, a few small beads of brown, and as you glance up from it you spot what tripped you- a helmet? Half dented in, the metal twisted and grown over with moss. You frown, confused, gaze shifting further where you see the hilt of a sword, rusted and half grown over, and a fragment of a shield beyond, more armor and blades dot the marches all around you, the remnants of some ancient battle...

Maybe you can find yourself a dagger! Of course, you hope for a daggerlance, but after several minutes of flitting from hillock to hillock, the best you can find is an admittedly fine looking dirk. You certainly won’t complain, stowing it away in your bag for now before setting your sights on the tree once more. 

You’ll venture through the fog and fly up to find a spot high in the branches to rest the night, snacking on some food you foraged earlier for dinner before closing your eyes...