lmaooo unhinged thought but
"glad to see you haven't become food for the vultures" for the "Talenna and Thalia escape the Circle together" idea?
hehehehehehehehehe you can have a little bit of depressed Thalia and pissed off Talenna uwu ass a treat
Rated T: For semi-graphic depictions of the cleaning of dead animals, ~750 words
Carrion | By Exalted_Dawn
“Glad to see you haven’t become food for the vultures.”
Thalia started, her head snapping up from where she had buried it between her knees, cradled in the mud-stained, tattered skirts of her robes. Her face was sticky with dirt and tears, causing the strands of her currant-stained hair to cling to her cheeks and shroud her eyes. Through the shredded curtain of tangles, she could see the deep plum color of the Ansburg robes, torn at the knee by the clean cut of a dagger.
Her lip wobbled and pulled tight, before she dropped her gaze again.
“I see your plan to be found by the Templars has failed.”
Maker, why did she have to come back? It had been three days since she left– she should have been miles away by now. Thalia wasn’t sure whether she should feel relieved or mortified. Though, she was probably too hungry, too tired, to feel much of either.
She just wanted all of this to come to an end.
“Why are you here?” she whimpered, the weight of her situation coming back to bare.
Rather than an answer, something thudded to the ground at her feet. A dead rabbit.
“I figured you might be hungry.”
“No- why are you here?” she repeated again. Why would she come back? She should have been long gone. Returned to her clan or whoever was waiting for her. She had made it plenty clear that she had no intention of staying around, and Thalia, she… she wasn’t sure what she wanted. She still wasn’t sure.
But then, she supposed most of her life had been decided for her. Stands to reason that she would not even be able to pick a direction to walk in.
Another wave of emotion surged against her chest, pressing so hard against her ribs that she felt like they might break. Her body ached with it, the need to simply break down and cry. But what good would that do her?
There was a scuffing of earth beside her. “What do you mean? We need to eat, do we not?” The sound of snapping branches shifted to snapping fire. The hollow thunk of wood being piled on wood. A campfire.
Her body was bumped as the woman sat down beside her, grabbing at the rabbit and setting to work cleaning it. Well, if nothing else, now she had a good excuse to keep her face hidden. She wasn’t sure watching a rabbit get skinned would be good for her appetite.
But that begged the question–
“You came back just to feed me? Why didn’t you just keep the rabbit to yourself and keep traveling?” she mumbled. “I believe you said something about me ‘having an obligation to live for myself’...” The sharp snap of that memory echoed in the back of her head. A snarl. A slap. Disappointed, disapproving eyes paired only by a harsh, scarred scowl.
Now though, even the scoff she made sounded empty. As if she could not even be bothered with derision. “We both know there’s no Void-born way you would be able to survive out here on your own. I was the one that pushed you to leave that tower. It would leave a bad taste in my mouth if you were to die out here now.”
Great. So she was just a burden then.And a pointless one at that.
“You would have a better chance of making it back to your family if you just left me…” she grumbled.
“Aye, probably, but I don’t want to deal with the guilt, and over a shem no less. I’ll make sure you live long enough to make it out of these woods and to some city or something. After that, if you want to give up and turn yourself over to the Templars, then that’s your choice. But until then, we’re stuck together. So do me a favor, shem-”
Two more ‘thunks’ against the ground in front of her. One dull and the other metallic.
Thalia lifted her head– it was another rabbit. And a knife.
She, Talenna, was looking at her again. Her eyes were sharp. Expectant. Impossibly, irrationally expectant.
“Make yourself useful,” she said flatly, and turned her attention back to her own half-cleaned rabbit. “You might not care, but I have no intention of becoming carrion for the birds. And for that-”
There was a disgustingly wet tear. Talenna took a leg and stabbed it onto a stick. Ew.
