Two Worlds
Dec. 31st, 2019 08:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
takethatnatureThere were dogs barking in the distance. Maxwell's hunting hounds, closing in on his camp. The magician had broken yet another promise. It might have been upsetting if he'd expected anything other than a betrayal, but all he could find it in him to feel about this latest treachery was irritation and a slight twinge of disappointment. The practical problems it caused were more pressing.
"Get in!" Wilson waved his arms at the smallbird, who was dancing in and out of the miniature stone fortress he'd constructed as if hiding from the hounds was a schoolyard game. There weren't enough rocks on this walled garden of an island to build a refuge with a comfortable amount of floor space, and as a result its interior was barely wide enough for a human to turn around. "Do you know how tiny you are?! They'll eat you in two bites!"
Tallbirds weren't afraid of tight spaces, but they had no instinct to explore them either. Wilson could get the smallbird to hop inside the enclosure if he stood directly behind it and then got her attention, but she'd hop right back out again while he circled around to seal the entrance. The closer to the chest-high stone wall he positioned himself, the more she wanted to go around it instead of inside it.
The barking was turning to a thunderous cacophony of growls and snorts, too close for comfort. Wilson tossed his backpack into the grass and pulled on his splintery, makeshift wooden armor. That and a pigskin helmet would make it a lot harder for the hounds to sink their teeth into his vital organs, at least until they chewed the armor into sawdust.
You couldn't make armor for smallbirds, or at least the science machines had no shortcuts toward such a thing. Trapping her in a stone fortification for as long as it took to fight off the hounds himself was the best he could do with the materials at hand. But herding her into it wasn't working!
Hold on, didn't he still have some berries? Wilson rummaged around, then popped Chester's mouth open and found the fistful of fruit he'd harvested yesterday with a fresh coat of drool. It was supposed to be for trail mix, but this was more important. He tossed it between the walls, the smallbird dove after it eagerly, and something barked in his ear and snapped at his ankle. A hound. In one adrenaline-fueled motion Wilson darted away from its jaws and swung his axe at its face, the oversized mis-proportioned mockery of a dog yelped, and the smallbird chirped a battle cry and scurried between Wilson's legs to bury her beak in the hound's underbelly. No! This was exactly what he didn't want! Another hound ran up to the fray, barking furiously, while the first one lunged for the smallbird and got a mouthful of wing. She let out a pained chirp and pecked it in the eye. A third pair of jaws tore at Wilson's elbow, the second hound barrelled down towards the smallbird, and Wilson kicked it in the snout.
More barking, from behind him. That was all the warning he got before a fourth hound charged headlong into him, unable to get its teeth through his armor but knocking the wind out of his lungs. Wilson staggered sideways, ignoring the new hound, and hit the first hound again. The smallbird pecked the new hound in the neck and it brought its jaws down on her leg before Wilson could steal its focus. She let out a plaintive peep beneath the crush of canine bodies, cut off all too soon; blood flew from the new hound's snapping teeth and from a fresh axe-wound in its neck. Eventually he became aware that his axe had splintered into pieces in his hands, and threw it away in favour of a spear.
The four hounds had been reduced to a mess of oozing purple chunks of meat strewn across the grass, and nothing could be seen of the smallbird, not even a bone or a feather. His armor was hanging off him in pieces, ready to give way at the slightest provocation. Chester had been badly bitten, but he was a creature of uncanny vitality that required neither food nor medicine and his wounds were already disappearing.
He had no reason to stay at this campsite anymore. Wilson rummaged through his chests and selected the few useful things he could find room for in his inventory, pushed the components of whatever structures he could assemble into almost-built potential space, and set off towards the coughing, gurgling green-tinged wormhole on the northwest end of the island.
"Get in!" Wilson waved his arms at the smallbird, who was dancing in and out of the miniature stone fortress he'd constructed as if hiding from the hounds was a schoolyard game. There weren't enough rocks on this walled garden of an island to build a refuge with a comfortable amount of floor space, and as a result its interior was barely wide enough for a human to turn around. "Do you know how tiny you are?! They'll eat you in two bites!"
Tallbirds weren't afraid of tight spaces, but they had no instinct to explore them either. Wilson could get the smallbird to hop inside the enclosure if he stood directly behind it and then got her attention, but she'd hop right back out again while he circled around to seal the entrance. The closer to the chest-high stone wall he positioned himself, the more she wanted to go around it instead of inside it.
The barking was turning to a thunderous cacophony of growls and snorts, too close for comfort. Wilson tossed his backpack into the grass and pulled on his splintery, makeshift wooden armor. That and a pigskin helmet would make it a lot harder for the hounds to sink their teeth into his vital organs, at least until they chewed the armor into sawdust.
You couldn't make armor for smallbirds, or at least the science machines had no shortcuts toward such a thing. Trapping her in a stone fortification for as long as it took to fight off the hounds himself was the best he could do with the materials at hand. But herding her into it wasn't working!
Hold on, didn't he still have some berries? Wilson rummaged around, then popped Chester's mouth open and found the fistful of fruit he'd harvested yesterday with a fresh coat of drool. It was supposed to be for trail mix, but this was more important. He tossed it between the walls, the smallbird dove after it eagerly, and something barked in his ear and snapped at his ankle. A hound. In one adrenaline-fueled motion Wilson darted away from its jaws and swung his axe at its face, the oversized mis-proportioned mockery of a dog yelped, and the smallbird chirped a battle cry and scurried between Wilson's legs to bury her beak in the hound's underbelly. No! This was exactly what he didn't want! Another hound ran up to the fray, barking furiously, while the first one lunged for the smallbird and got a mouthful of wing. She let out a pained chirp and pecked it in the eye. A third pair of jaws tore at Wilson's elbow, the second hound barrelled down towards the smallbird, and Wilson kicked it in the snout.
More barking, from behind him. That was all the warning he got before a fourth hound charged headlong into him, unable to get its teeth through his armor but knocking the wind out of his lungs. Wilson staggered sideways, ignoring the new hound, and hit the first hound again. The smallbird pecked the new hound in the neck and it brought its jaws down on her leg before Wilson could steal its focus. She let out a plaintive peep beneath the crush of canine bodies, cut off all too soon; blood flew from the new hound's snapping teeth and from a fresh axe-wound in its neck. Eventually he became aware that his axe had splintered into pieces in his hands, and threw it away in favour of a spear.
The four hounds had been reduced to a mess of oozing purple chunks of meat strewn across the grass, and nothing could be seen of the smallbird, not even a bone or a feather. His armor was hanging off him in pieces, ready to give way at the slightest provocation. Chester had been badly bitten, but he was a creature of uncanny vitality that required neither food nor medicine and his wounds were already disappearing.
He had no reason to stay at this campsite anymore. Wilson rummaged through his chests and selected the few useful things he could find room for in his inventory, pushed the components of whatever structures he could assemble into almost-built potential space, and set off towards the coughing, gurgling green-tinged wormhole on the northwest end of the island.