At dusk, in a hole in the ground, lay a decaying body. The smell was what drew Maina closer, as it was unusually putrid, even for the humid marsh on an evening such as this.
Grimacing at the sight, she crouched down and held her lantern out over the gap to get a better look. Avinus was a fascinating plant. This was the first time she had seen something other than a small animal triggering its effects. She guessed that the pit was about five meters deep, but it was quite small in diameter. Maybe a meter across. The corpse itself was bent at an angle, jackknifed at the hips and neck bent off to the side.
The body was human, and, while severely bloated from decomposition, she did not identify the face to be anybody she knew. It seemed a lone wanderer had strayed into clan territory. Shame. She wondered if she ought to try and move the body where others would not see it. That seemed... Like a lot of effort. All of a sudden she found herself wishing that she had never investigated at all. Curiosity would eventually kill the cat.
With the dense, charged air and distinctive pressure of the area, the scent hit her receptors almost as fast as it would have were she in the water. Ahead, the territory of the fiery tree-dwellers. Coming from a nearby river, her appetite, though whetted, drove her to investigate nonetheless. The soil here, with its peculiar electric field-laden boxes hidden just below the surface, she knew to avoid. Cretoxyrhina generally kept to clearer, less stagnant waters, but had made a bit of an exception for now. The underground lakes closer to the rocky cave-dwellers had seen its population of eyeless fish migrate for the time being, forcing her to move back towards the surface.
Breaching out from the swamp's edge, she sluggishly regained her bearings, all the while crushing a small waterfowl in her jaws. Her eyes rolled back in place as she stood upright. The scent of carrion was now incredibly near. Cretoxyrhina wriggled noiselessly on all fours through the brush, her latest prey shaking with every turn letting loose feathers here and there. The existence of an electric field, though well-minimized, nearby gave pause to the opportunistic predator. She clawed away an overhanging fern--immediately, her footing began to drop off, the dirt previously under her slid down into a deep crater. Leaping back, Cretoxyrhina peered into the pit for but a second. The antlion vine, as she understood it, lay sprawled out in the center of the hole, a left-out carcass of a victim presumably had flattened the black plant somewhat. Its essence remained inside the corpse, an invitation for any unaware scavenger to join the original victim. There was nothing for her here. Nothing save for the owner of the stifled electric field. Armored, the figure appeared towering, from the ground level-view Cretoxyrhina had in her present position. She rolled her eyes back for a second, distending her jaws to gobble up most of the bird she still had hanging from her maw. Then, after fixing her eyes and jaws, she returned upright, more than matching the figure's height. Hair, it matched the sheen of the cave fishes' scales under light. Very bright, Cretoxyrhina noted to herself.
The predator awkwardly looked down into the pit and back to the figure. She held out a leg from the waterfowl, left uneaten purposefully, as a couth offering. From her throat came soft warbles, quickly suppressed as they made no intelligible sound here. The moonlight glinted off the tips of her teeth as if to cast a spotlight on her foreign presence.
Not expecting to hear anything but the buzzing of insects, the mender whipped her head up to the source of the rustling with a start. She stood abruptly and backed away from the pit, drawing her blade with her free hand as the stranger emerged from the foliage across from her. The figure was... Small. Stout and feminine, in a feral sort of way. At first sight, it did not appear to be anything she couldn't handle, but she kept her weapon drawn nonetheless. Looks were oft deceiving.
Speaking of appearances, the stranger had made a show of devouring the fowl it held between their jaws. Watching closely, Maina kept her expression neutral, though she could not help the slight furrow in her brow. The display was rather grotesque. Still, interesting. Even more so was to watch as she her stood to her true height, seemingly growing before the woman's eyes. She stepped back, her mouth falling open slightly in astonishment. The damp grass squelched beneath her feet. While humanoid, this person gave the impression of a predator.
Slightly less predatory behavior was the offering of a gift. In fact, the stranger looked almost sheepish, if the gentle sounding noises she emitted were any indication. To further emphasize friendly intention, she guessed.
Cute. Maina hesitated a moment, then sheathed her dagger.
"...Thank you." She carefully reached out to accept the gift. It had been inside jowls and god knows where else, but it was a peaceful gesture. Also, best not risk being offensive.
"Hunt in clan territory often?" So much for not being standoffish. She wished she could take back the words after she said them. They sounded harsh but honestly she had not intended to be hostile. She was more fascinated with who stood in front of her than she was threatened.
The sun continued its slow descent behind the treeline, surroundings darkening. The glow of the swinging lantern cast shadows all around them.
Upon seeing the sheen of the single metal fang shrink out of sight, Cretoxyrhina had relaxed her shoulders. When the tall one accepted the morsel of food, Cretoxyrhina could not help but form a toothy, cloddish grin. She noticed a stray feather stuck in her upper teeth and quickly dislodged it, letting the tiny, red-dyed item flutter away in the air. Whatever the tall one held from their off-hand seemed, to the predator, to do quite a number to the surrounding area which, from her eyes, seemed incredibly bright as a result. Their words sailed through her ears. Some she recognised through repeat exposure. The tall one's calls were soft, a nice change for Cretoxyrhina's ears relative to the thrashing of fish. Without nearby water, she would have to try and reciprocate in their language. "Tea is. S- Soljer." Her speech quickly backslid to the same gentle warbling. Embarrassed, she began to look around, in no particular direction. She'd found previously that doing so helped in keeping her head from subconsciously positioning itself to bite. Steeling herself, she sunk a little to point with her chin at the carcass in the pit. The sound of Cretoxyrhina clearing her throat would, underwater, send a shockwave of fear through marine life. On land, it was more akin to a muted sneeze. "Frsure. Was?" she coughed out. To the best of her ability, Cretoxyrhina shifted her head from the pit back to the tall one.
She pocketed the duck foot. Obviously, she did not plan on eating it, but she imagined a hound or something would if she happened to cross paths with one. The larger animals that lived on their territory often killed and ate what little game was available. Domestication really ought to be considered. She shook her head and tucked that thought away for a rainy day. She had a larger predator to concern herself with at the moment.
Her features and posture relaxed somewhat as the other's did as well. Her eyes flicked over to the corpse and then back up. "Another wanderer, like yourself. Clearly not as wise to the area."
It was at this point that Maina clued in; the stranger did not speak her language but was trying to communicate anyways, each set of broken words punctuated by inhuman growls and chirps. In that case, best to keep it as simple as possible. That way, she could gauge exactly how much of what was said was interpreted.
She noted that the stranger looked slightly strained. The healer pointed a thumb towards herself. "Maina. Of Solarisclan."
She then pointed her index finger at the outsider, hoping the motion would translate.
Maina. Of Solarisclan. A Maina. OfSolarisclan...? She blinked rapidly to keep her eyes in position. It was very likely that if Cretoxyrhina had blinked at slightly different intervals, she would have missed Maina OfSolarisclan's forelimb pointing. Name. The predator was aware of this one. Heard through the brush or caverns, the chirping of the tall ones, like this Maina, included that particular sound somewhat frequently. Worried about frightening the Maina, she concentrated on repeating clearly what she had heard the group of Maina-likes repeatedly refer to her as some time ago. ""Cr... Creto-ὀξύς." Her accent cast a large cloud over the tail end of her speech, she scratched lightly at the sides of her neck instinctively to combat it. "Cretoxyrhina. Name." Keeping the warbling to a minimum, she sunk back to the ground again, looking closer at the likeyourself in the pit. If there was no antlion vine at play, then very possibly could the carcass there have become a shared snack for her and the Maina. But the essence rendered anything it occupied un-food. Looking up, she asked as best she could: "Lure. Maina lure?" The semiaquatic predator shook her head without waiting for a reply. The Maina didn't seem to be hungry, the offering vanished in seconds, presumably down her gullet. Nevertheless, the antlion vine took no prisoners and Cretoxyrhina now took no chances. "Iya ...φαρμακος. Toobad, is there in." She waved a hand at the pit's contents.
"Cretoxyrhina." Name indeed. The words that escaped its mouth were foreign and alien. Sort of... Threatening. And sharp. Fitting. She repeated it a few times, rolling the sounds over her tongue, mimicking the pronunciation a little better each time.
"From?" Questioning would be unlikely to yield any useful results with such a language barrier. Though it seemed obvious that the hunter was doing just that-- hunting. "It's dangerous, here. Other Solarisclan might be angry to see you." She felt slightly as though she was talking at the intruder rather than to her. Frustrating.
"No lure." While the idea of using the plants as traps had been thrown around, manipulating nature in such a way was folly. In the marsh you could barely watch your own step, much less someone else's.
"It is too bad, hm? Does wonders for the insect population though, " She muttered, swatting at a mosquito that buzzed near her ear. "unfortunately. You can't eat?" Maina jerked her chin towards the body. No one that she had known of had attempted to remove a corpse from the clutches of avinus. Cretoxyrhina had made no move towards the corpse despite eyeing it hungrily. She would have liked to see someone try.
Cretoxyrhina warbled again. MainaOf seemed to misunderstand. That worried the predator, given the subject matter. "Toobadtoobad." She stepped back and scratched into the dirt a (very) rough sketch of a Treedweller. The crudely-replicated but still unmistakable Solarisclan style of apparel etched into the ground would catch anyone the lightest bit familiar with Lalonia by surprise. Pointing to the pit and its contents, Cretoxyrhina shook her head: "No lure, lure." Then, she depicted the antlion vine, dark and spiraling, entangled around the Treedweller's leg. "For. Sure." A line was scratched in, between the vined-up leg and the rest of the biped. "Haste. Lure, o-k. Haste."
