After Tem took some time to collect themself, they reopened their eyes and let their body relax. Upon view of the disfigured food bar in their palms, they gave a disheartened mutter and drew back their claws. Raising the foodstuff to their nose, now that it was unintentionally opened, was curious of what exactly was in this ‘Food Bar’. The scent was reminiscent of their fathers protein bars that they most definitely didn’t sneak for themselves once in a while.
While the scent was most tempting, there were other creatures that found Tem far more enticing.
Disrupting the peaceful and casual grace of the meadow was a pair of wild, savage jackals that were making a straight cut towards the innocent cat child.
Tem’s ears started to flicker, clearly hearing something malicious was rapidly making a descent on them. Without haste, they yeeted the food bar back into the bag, tossed the bag around their chest, and popped the butterfly knife in between their teeth.
Run was what their instincts told them, and that’s what they did as they bounded off on all fours. The constant and death defying howls from the jackals rang in Tem’s ears, further fueling their adrenaline as if they didn’t have enough already.
No way am I gonna be some stupid animals lunch.
No way.
With their unceasing speed across the meadow, something strange within the environment started to occur. Trees started to fade in, filling in the emptiness of what was supposed to be a limitless green landscape. Only from there did the vegetation grow more extensive, varieties of redwood, firs, and pine trees surrounded them completely. Tem was able to maneuver and wind through these new obstacles with ease, sliding underneath or jumping over fallen trees with a cats grace and even go so far as take sharp turns in order to lose the jackals.
Don’t look back, don’t look back, don’t look back.
Tem snapped their gaze back, which would prove to be an instant regret as the jackals emerged from the brush, taking a faster and quicker route to keep up with their prey. The jackals chops were flowing with froth, panting and letting out yowls as they started to close the space between Tem.
Crap I looked back.
Redirecting their gaze to what was ahead of them, Tem continued moving forward, feeling their muscles begin to burn and ache from all the exertion. Setting their sights on the nearest tree, Tem spun and lunged up the trunk to the safest branch that was out of reach of the jackals. As they clambered and securely set themself down to rest, their flip flop slid off and fell into the jaws of one of the jackals, which they happily tore to shreds.
Pocketing the knife that had built up quite a bit of slobber from being in between their teeth, Tem wiped their mouth and gave the jackals an earful. “Hey screw you guys! My flip flops were a gift!” Tem shouted down at the pair angrily and proceeded to give them each a bird. The jackals shared a look, and began leaping at the base of the tree, yowling and barking at Tem.
As Tem caught their breath, they couldn’t help but watch the jackals in amusement. Their lip curled into a mischievous smile, “You dog brains can jump and cry all you want, but both of you ain’t getting a piece of this!” they hollered mockingly, “So I’d get lost if I were you two. Go find a stupid squirrel or something.”
But the jackals did not cease their attempts to climb the tree, strictly determined to bring down the prey they chased all this way.
(
@RiverStorm if ya wanna interact, they should be in the same forest as Aros)
(Ooh dope, lemme yeet Aros in Tem's direction to dispose of dem jackals)
Endless trees. It just seemed like a vast sea of trees, a far cry from the city's ocean of buildings.
Aros did his best to step lightly, taking every chance he could to only step on the patches of moss-- But they were sometimes few and far between, so that didn't happen every time, causing him to create crunching sounds with many falling footsteps.
His throat felt constricted, lungs under pressure and stomach knotted up from nerves; his sly eyes flickered back and forth, hypersensitive to every movement, inspecting every shadow. Occasionally, birds would glide down nearby, catching his attention-- And he noticed that when they flew they almost seemed... Too slow, lagging in flight. He shook his head, glancing over his shoulder before focusing back on the path ahead of him, his left hand reaching out and dragging across the bark of the massive trees as he passed by them.
He also donated a good bit on his concentration on sounds, but he hadn't made out anything that sounded threatening yet. Mostly the rustling of leaves, birds caroling their soft hymns of nature, the winds whistling through the trees' trunks, and--
Jackals?
He vaguely remembered hearing them while he was in the cave before they quieted down, but now they were definitely much closer to him-- Seemingly simply on the other side of a rocky outcropping-- Their howls more yippish and excited, as though they had found prey.
Aros slunk forward, slinking into the shadows and flattening himself against the rocks, gritting his teeth. He needed to keep moving forward to escape this accursed forest, but he wasn't about to walk right into a jackal-fest.
A grin slid over his face.
It wasn't a horrible time to perform some safe reconnaissance with his rare expertise.
He raised his hands, one dangling over the other, his fingers strained and outstretched towards each other. Green slits of light began sparking between his fingers, intertwining with his hands and sizzling with energy.
A wispy form shot away from him, slowly materializing to look like a spitting image of himself, not different in the slightest fashion. His eyes sparkled, staring down himself; before his mind splintered, entering into his aberration to claim it as his prominent palace of cognitive thoughts, leaving his actually body with enough conscience to mirror blurry peripheral vision-- He could tell and vaguely make out where that body was, what was happening to it, and move it with a little extra bout of clumsiness.
Aros's allusion form moved swiftly over the outcropping, skipping from boulder to boulder, whereas his actual body moved more sluggishly, creeping around the rocks, but very effectively staying out of the sight of the jackals-- And whatever it was that they had seemingly confined to a massive fir tree.
Allusion-Aros skipped forward, eyes darting up the tree, immediately realizing the thing they had treed was a person, to be exact, a person with cat features.
He moaned, realizing he definitely couldn't just leave them, imagining his mother's disappointed face at him running away from the situation.
So, he stopped directly behind the snarling jackals, a smirk spreading over his face. "'Ey, idiots!"
As the creatures whipped around, his mind regressed back into his body, leaving the fake him to distract the canines, and returning his focus to his body with the dagger-- Of which he began fumbling with the sheath of before finally removing the weapon and peeking around the boulders, just enough to get a good line of sight.
The animals weren't too far away, and based on the last time he practiced with his adoptive father, he also wasn't too bad of a throw.
He positioned the dagger in his hand, before hurtling the weapon.
He actually didn't expect it to hit, but it did, connecting directly with the animals upper neck, making it fall over flailing. Its companion seemed to stall, indecisive about its next move towards its utmost survival, before spinning around and fleeing into some brush.
He heaved a sigh of relief, glad to not have to kill another one, but felt callous to the one he did-- Having had to help his adoptive family put down sick animals before, and he simply told himself the creature most've been mad to attack the person in the tree in the first place.
Shaking his head, he slid back further into the shadows to stay out of the small cat-person's sight, his sight transferring over to his allusion form, looking up at the other person quizzically, and spreading his arms away from his body slightly. "Hey there, I guess. You good, man?" He called cautiously, watching them intensely, suddenly highly suspicious of this person-- Knowing they could be anyone, possibly even involved in why he was in the forest in the first place.
