A dense jungle full of surprises and new places to explore! Scientists are still trying to document species found here, while travelers flock here for a sense of adventure. Be sure to make lots of preparations though, as it can be quite dangerous! (+3 Precision, +2 Offense)

Moderator: Retired Staff

Return to Tengel Rainforest

Fight to the Death [oozio/Kestrel]

Postby oozio » 02/17/2018 10:30 PM

please move to the tengel rainforest at the end of the event! thanks.

Image


“Life eats life til the strongest and most piggish life is left.”
― Jack London, The Sea Wolf

The Banatoyle hung from his tail, half-hidden by the broad, green expanse of tessellated banana leaves. He had been waiting in suspension for the better part of a day, and despite his training, he was beginning to fall asleep. To his right were a cluster of bona fide bananas, whose sunripe yellow skin and nonchalant swinging he carefully imitated; to his left, the canopies of trees fell away into a coarse trail, where the underbrush had been trampled into oblivion by generations of hikers. His gaze swept along the trail, pausing at the bend from which he hoped his target would soon emerge.

What thoughts pass through an assassin's mind, when he is alone on his first mission? Does he fret over the sharpness of his silver daggers, the potency of his poisoned darts? Does he pray? Does he sympathize with the victim, whose life is forfeit for gold and glory?

Clementine tried. He knew more about his victim than about his own mother- their name, their associates, their last known address, and the exact flowerpot under which they hid their backup house key. Soon, he thought, he would know all there is left to know.

He trained his eyes on a spot not too far from his tree. When the wind rose, the leaves rustled and shook. The spot of light rippled too, as if it were the sun that moved, and not the shadows.
oozio
Beginner
Beginner
Pets | Items
Keystones: 109
Donate
Joined: 06/02/2017 1:34 AM

Re: Fight to the Death [oozio/Kestrel]

Postby Kestrel » 02/19/2018 5:16 AM

Image


Cavendish Butterfield had been born to be a star.

And so he had been told, from the moment he opened his small, bleary eyes and gifted the world his first high-pitched scream of a whistle.

His mother had cooed at him and announced to all that she—she, Aurelia Butterfield—had produced a child with the most perfect head hollows to exist.

His father had beamed and declared that it was high time another Butterfield whistler was born. He himself had inherited his grandmother’s mild protrusion in his main hollow, which had the unfortunate effect of forcing all his whistles terribly flat, and pushing him down the path of whistling composer instead. His siblings had gone the percussive route, drumming and pounding and tapping on all manner of non-head-hollow-based instruments. (Though in true Butterfield fashion, they of course reached the highest heights of what they could accomplish: any whistler worth his snuff had a Butterfield backfielder pushing out beats under his whistles, and Cavendish’s father had won a handful of Paxton Awards for his compositions.)

This was all well and good, but what they really needed—what would really bring the Butterfield name back up to its old fame and best the Armitages (who had fielded a pair of whistling twins the last generation that were really, dreadfully good) in musical glory—was a whistler. And Cavendish Butterfield was born to be that whistler, and it was only a matter of time before all the world knew.

So where did this soon-to-be star, heaven’s gift to banatoyles the world over, the banatoyle upon whose delicate, fibrous wings all his family’s weighty legacy rested, find himself this sunny Saturday afternoon? Was he training with his great-aunt, Carnation Butterfield, the banatoyle who stole the hearts of an entire generation? Was he relaxing in his family's ancestral home, being fed plump, purple grapes while listening to classical whistling? Was he perhaps out in a meadow somewhere, enchanting all wildlife with his dazzling whistles?

Well, not quite. Instead, Cavendish Butterfield was currently flapping down a dinky, dirty little path carved through the forest, head hollows producing muted, disgruntled whistles, because he had done that utterly mundane thing and lost his keys somewhere in this tangle of trees.

Such is the life of a star, sometimes.
User avatar
Kestrel
Celebrity Specialist
Celebrity Specialist
Pets | Items
Keystones: 50
Donate
Joined: 01/16/2008 8:29 PM

Re: Fight to the Death [oozio/Kestrel]

Postby oozio » 03/01/2018 12:54 AM

All was not well with Clementine's world.

True, the Butterfield heir had finally stumbled into view; true, also, that Clementine was moving into position, his favored dagger already half-slipped from its sheath. But as leaves murmured and everything reshuffled to focus around the lost banatoyle bumbling down the trail, Clementine sensed another hulking figure move in the tree opposite his. Another furtive pair of eyes gleamed in the afternoon shade, and, a little lower, he thought he could see something with a decidedly metallic glint poking through the leaves.

So they had not trusted him after all.

As realization washed over him, he felt the blood that had so obediently resisted gravity all this while go to his head. The hours he had spent stalking his victim felt suddenly wasted; his employers had doubted his ability against a musician, this pampered simpleton whose most exercised muscles were his vocal chords.

Clementine glanced again at the other assassin, who still had no idea that he'd been discovered, whose incompetence was another insult, whose increasingly more obvious sword practically blazed in the sunlight. Down on the forest floor, Cavendish Butterfield wandered in equal oblivion.

I will not, Clementine thought, compete with a half-rate assassin for the head of a music student. I will bring him to the Armitages on my own terms, or not at all.

He released his hold on the tree branch, landing on his feet among the crisp wood chips a few steps in front of the Butterfield boy.

"Hello," he said, baring his teeth. "You're in grave danger."
oozio
Beginner
Beginner
Pets | Items
Keystones: 109
Donate
Joined: 06/02/2017 1:34 AM

Re: Fight to the Death [oozio/Kestrel]

Postby Kestrel » 03/07/2018 3:31 AM

Cavendish’s very first instinct, upon having a strange little banatoyle with the most unpleasant expression on his face suddenly drop in front of him and threaten (warn?) him, was to scream and flap away.

So that’s what he did.

But Cavendish, pampered simpleton that he was, had unfortunately rather little experience in fleeing for his life. And thus, instead of making the most daring escape ever known to banatoyle-kind, he promptly smacked himself in the face with a nearby tree branch.

Cavendish crumpled (really, crumpled, wings folding in and tail curling up) to the ground and let out a rather piteous moan-whistle. It was not the most melodious of noises he had ever made. If his great-aunt Carnation Butterfield had heard that whistle, she would’ve smacked him upside the head and had him practice his tone until his head-hollows throbbed. And then his father would’ve given him his umpteenth lecture on Cavendish’s place in this family, in this world, and most importantly, in the Butterfield legacy.

It was a wonder, Cavendish took the time to muse as he lay on the ground only feet away from the mysterious stranger, that he ever made any noises at home at all.
User avatar
Kestrel
Celebrity Specialist
Celebrity Specialist
Pets | Items
Keystones: 50
Donate
Joined: 01/16/2008 8:29 PM


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests