Tales from the Wilds: I
Deep in the Pacaárbeto woods, two youths aspiring to become fully fledged adventurers find themselves gathered around a small campfire outside their party’s tent on their first 'quest' of sorts, to bring back the paw or hoof of a smaller monster to prove their capability. The sun peaks its stellar lights between wide leaves, reflecting off the heavy morning dew. The slightly younger of the two, a horned girl, lets out a yawn.
“This isn’t the last of the rations, is it?”
“Nah, don’t worry about it Mei.” Replied the shorter boy, not looking up from the pot of soup they had mounted over the open fire. “Pretty sure we’ve got enough for at least one more breakfast after this.”
“So we have to find some game today or we’re boned?”
“Eyup. Quick on the uptake, eh? I like that.”
“I try… Hey Kern, food's ready soon, right? Want me to wake up the others?”
“I’m pretty sure the Veston is already up. What’s her face, Lue?”
“Luth.” The two turn around to meet the new voice, a pair of crimson eyes looking down at the squatting teens past the deep groves under her eyes. “Now, can one of you two aid me? The muscle head is refusing to wake no matter what I do.”
“Have you tried a kiss?” The shorty offered with a cheeky grin, but before the pale woman with reddened cheeks could reply the horned girl interjected.
“Kern you dummy, that’s how you send people off to sleep not wake them up! Everyone knows that!”
The others were quite stunned at the revelation. Perhaps that knowledge wasn’t as common as the Regius had thought. Everyone back home would tell her that one should kiss their friends goodnight with a laugh. Or was it siblings? Ah, it doesn’t matter. The boy rose to his feet with a chuckle, so it must’ve just been that they had forgotten. How silly of them.
“Anyway, I think I know how we can wake him. Can you check on the soup while we go and do that, Luth?”
“Fine. Do not dally too long though, it appears to be nearly complete.”
The two teens enter the tent, leaving the perpetually tired woman to herself. Once inside, they immediately pick up the sound of muffled snoring. Apparently, in her frustration, Luth had attempted to wake the thinly dressed dogman by making it hard to breathe. Either that, or to get him to quiet down during the night.
“Hold on…” Approaching Varram, their slumbering Axol companion, the shorter lad uses one of his long limbs on his back to retrieve a small pouch of dried meat from an inner pocket of his coat, a serpentine grin forming as he turns to Mei.
"One of the theengs Oy do, is geh' bums eow' of toigh' spawts loike thees" Kern crouched down next to their slumbering friend, while the horned girl placed a hand over her mouth as she struggled not to giggle at the awful attempt at mimicking the canine man’s accent.
“Axawls in plyces loike thiies cahn be scaehd and crighnky, sao it's impohtahnt yah ayse thaem intao comin eow' of thaeh shaell.” He slowly moved the pillow away from Varram’s face. “Caff'l naow...“
“Oolroigh'. As we ooll knaow, thaese haehy brutes ahh mayt lovahs through and through. Sao boy lurin hiiem eow' weeth thiies-” Kern retrieved one of the strips of jerky from his pouch, dangling it above. Before he could finish his sentence though, the lumbering man leaned forward to catch a bite of the delicious smell, only to overshoot and find his teeth on a set of Magllaeci fingers.
The forest had been quiet and calm that morning up until then, birds chirping and fluttering about to feed their young as well as the simmering of liquid being all that occupied Luth’s ears. All that changed in an instant, a loud roar of pain echoing from behind her. She could not help but groan.