It was not just in the fabric of Mila’s shirt. That would be too simple, too easy, too straightforward. Her leap through the canopy had been pristine, even with her head tucked down and to the side at the last moment. Her landing, such that it was, had also gone exactly as she meant - she had hit a sturdy enough branch chest-first and caught onto it, arms over the top and momentum swinging her tail up and around.
Unplanned for was how much of the sickly leaves would come with her, on punching through the outer foliage. A bushel of the flimsy brown things had joined the last bit of her flight, and then promptly found themselves squished between a ballistic kobold and her jarring landing.
Squished enough to press out whatever putrid juices and oils held in the dying leaves, which her shirt gladly sucked up and then dumped down her front, letting it work its way near-immediately into her scales.
Each flex of Mila’s muscles as she pulled herself up onto the branch just worked the juice further in, gifting the kobold in an omnipresent squelching.
“It’s all over me!” She rightfully complained, trying to shake it off as she found her feet, only to find the slime still there.
“Better than ants?” Rora tentatively gave, trying to pick out the silver lining.
Mila shrugged and waggled a hand. “I think I might’ve preferred the ants,” was a joke, mostly, but it did not make her feel much better. Once she was sure her boots were keeping traction and the branch itself was sturdy, she began stepping down it, away from the trunk.
Even though the branch was much narrower than the moonlight bridge, a part of her was more comfortable picking her way across it. She understood trees, could feel the bark’s texture through her soles, might even be able to catch herself if she slipped.
She was not going to slip, but if she did, she would catch herself.
A lot of that was probably the illusion of control, why folks felt more comfortable behind the wheel of a car than as a passenger in a plane, even if the latter was safer by sheer numbers.
Not that Mila was ever all that comfortable behind the wheel either, but. The principle probably still applied here.
“Toss over the first rope!” Was her call, once she had walked out. She tried to shift around and see out through the veil of dying foliage, but the wind was moving the leaves too much, leaving her to only catch glimpses of the others.
Thankfully, between her yell, the safety rope attached to her harness, and whatever bits and pieces of her own pink hide they could see, Hughestace was able to eyeball her position. The coil of rope that shot through almost took her by surprise, but thankfully was not quite on track to hit her. Instead, Mila managed to sink down, one hand finding a hold on the bark to get her three points of contact while the other swept up and out.
Mila missed the main coil but snagged the line trailing behind it, hooking it at her wrist and pulling up as the coil of rope ran out of slack with a sudden thwap and began to fall. Rora had the other end of the tail, Mila reckoned, which swung the coil’s weight down across her own arm, pulling her to the side but not enough to be dangerous.
Once she had restabilized, Mila carefully released her grip on the bark and grabbed hold of the rope to begin reeling the coil back up to her, the world’s most disappointing prize fish. “I got it, give me a moment,” was her status report, to what might have been a distant grunt from their elven marksman or might have been a breeze.
Coil acquired, Mila slung an arm through it and began hauling it toward the trunk of the tree, not actually getting all that far before she let out a soft, “gods damn it,” and shucking her coil off. From there, she began to unravel the coil of rope, taking it in both hands to feed out more slack as she went.
Thankfully she had more than enough actual rope, but the trunk itself, event this high up, was big. Larger a diameter than her arm span, certainly, and not kind enough to have perfectly spaced branches for her to walk around the trunk that way. That meant she was lashing her anchor the annoying way.
Taking a step back, Mila rolled out her shoulders, the now completely uncoiled rope held in one hand twice over - she had a bight held fast in her palm with her thumb, and played with the working end with her other fingers, getting a feel for the weight. It was always more weight than she thought it should be, and she added a bit more length to what she had in her hand before, after a moment’s hesitation, throwing the end of the rope and swinging it towards the trunk of the tree.
Instead of the working end sailing about the other side for her to catch, there was a thump of rope against tree and then the tension of the line from her throw vanishing as the end dropped.
Mila clicked her tongue and quickly reeled the rope back in, finding it quite unharmed and giving it a considerably longer length in her hand. And this time, when she threw, she mistimed when she released her grip, letting the rope get all wobbling in midair and causing it to sink low and get snagged on a different branch on the other side.
That was more annoying to get back from, as the rope seemed very attached to whatever had caught it over there, but with a few sharp tugs, Mila freed it and set up once again, doing her best to ignore that some newly juiced leaves now clung to the rope.
Third time was the charm though, thank anyone paying attention to her, as the throw was delivered perfectly and the working end of the rope snapped around with a crack. It even stung as she caught the rope in her other hand, the sign of a job well done.
From there, it was business as usual. She threaded more rope around, the bark making it a bit of a chore to shimmy about but nothing stopping her, and then set to work putting together a lashing that she knew would not slip, sending the end of the rope down, over, up, and through. She gave the anchored line a full-body tug to make sure and, satisfied with her work, called out, “We’re good over here!”
Message delivered, she shifted to the side slightly, making sure that the rope line would not bump her as it was fastened on the other side. The branch she was on was at an angle from the rope, thankfully, which was going to make her job a lot easier going forward.
Waiting was not bad, at least, and gave Mila some time to try and get the slime off her front. How effective that ended up being was a matter for one-sided debate, however, and the debate was firmly not in Mila’s favor. She was forced to accept it with a mournful sigh.
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“Anchored on this side!” Came the signal, and Mila snapped back to it. This time, she used the working tail of the rope making up her harness and tied a quick, small bowline from it, around the new doubly-anchored line between tree and mound of the dead.
Once she tested that the bowline was secure, Mila gave another signal, “Crossing over!” She bobbed her head for four beats before deciding that no dire warnings or concerns were going to be voiced and then moved forward, taking the anchored line in both hands, and getting a good firm glimpse of the open space below. There were a couple branches in between her and the ground, which was not reassuring at all.
But she was not here for reassurances, she was here to collect foliage and kick ass, in a roundabout way that she would have no direct part of. With that in mind, she kicked one foot over the anchored line and, with the barest hitch in her breathing, snapped her other foot over to the other side, faster than gravity could take her.
She rotated, rope pulling at her gloves just a little, but easily kept her grip and locked heels onto the line as she swung below, the world’s pinkest sloth. After her wobble evened out, Mila began to move, walking her two hands up the length of the rope before bringing her feet up one at a time, boots and scales keeping the rope from biting at her legs.
It was an incremental advance towards her team, but it was not bad at all. Another cycle through and she had inched her way forward once more. On the sixth or so iteration, Mila knew that she had gotten a hang of it and began to speed up, crawling her way across the line upside down and trying not to giggle at the unintentional pun. She had the hang of it, indeed.
Her positioning prevented her from looking down, which was nice, but after a surprise exit out through the leaves, it did mean that Mila was stuck pointedly not staring up into the eye-wateringly bright sky. The thought of going blind for stupid reasons preoccupied her for the rest of her journey until she heard a soft clearing of a throat and glance over to find Naw-Naw right there, towering above.
“Howdy?” Mila offered up with a sheepish smile, before twisting further to see Rora.
“Let me, Mila,” accompanied two metal clad hands grasping Mila’s legs and guiding them down and away onto solid moonlight. Mila could have gotten there herself, but she was not about to turn down the assistance, nor the electric little shot that went through her at the touch to her calves.
Rora made sure to have firm grip on Mila’s shoulders before she dismounted there, too, and once more Mila stood tall and feeling good, having secured the first step in their plan. “Thank you, Rora.”
Rora still looked a little nervous, but was going to say something only to be cut off by Aluca, who was busy leaning in and eyeing Mila. “Wow, those leafs really did do a number on you. Damn.” There was a clink of metal as Rora turned to look up at him, and the man melted back, hands up at the three glares fixed upon him, Naw-Naw having joined in as well.
Not that he was wrong, exactly, just awful at timing. “Hughestace, could you wash me off a bit?” Mila decided to ask, looking over to the man whose role was, in part, mobile gardening hose.
Not that he minded doing so for himself, at least. He always managed to seem to be sparkly clean and untouched, even after weeks out between places. Everyone else got the odd hosing off or shower or what was needed, but that never matched up to how spiffy fresh he managed to keep himself. Which was entirely bullshit.
Hughestace did not grumble at the request, he never grumbled as such. But he did give a look at the coils of rope he had in hand, as if to try to communicate that they had other things to do and that cleanliness and comfort could wait. Mila made sure that her double blink was wide and glassy-eyed, no spark of recognition showing at his intent.
He caved near-immediately, handing the ropes off to Naw-Naw before moving up to Mila, focusing a few seconds before water began to flow forth from nothing below his hand. It was not a geyser or anything dangerous like that, but enough that the water could come down at an angle, enough for Mila to move in front of and scrape at her shirt and vest, getting what she could off.
When Mila peeled her shirt from her chest at the neck and shifted to get water against her scales, the elf sputtered and promptly ripped his eyes away, which just set Mila to shaking her head, rolling her eyes, and laughing softly. She was no mammal, there was nothing there to be scandalized by, but her teammate was busy putting his own sensibilities on her.
Just in case, though, she turned minutely to face Rora and tipped forward, pulling the neck of her shirt even wider as she stuck her tongue out. The knight just laughed, giving a wink and a slight shake of her tail that inadvertently rocked Rora’s whole body.
It was cute, and Mila felt her shoulders ease a bit as she straightened back up, sliding her other hand into her shirt to wipe at the leaf goo, getting a lot of it off, but not all of it.
It was not a full minute before the water came to an end, Hughestace still staring up as his hand retracted and fell. Naw-Naw took his place and handed the coils of rope over to Mila, who shrugged them on over one arm and her head before turning around, doing her own little wiggle to show off for Rora.
“Back to it, then!”
Hand, hand, heel, snap the foot up, and she was once more slothing it up and away, making good time with none of the previous tentativeness. Her body had already learned the motions, knew the pattern, and now she carried on executing on that knowledge that she could *feel* in her muscles.
Dismounting from the line was less energizing this time around, and required a bit of a swing of the hips to get, but her tail deigned to help, wrapping itself around the rope and providing another point of contact as she landed her feet on the branch, letting her smoothly pivot with her hips and pop her upper body up and away from the rope.
She gave it a second, but no vertigo crept into the corners, so she shrugged and began to look around, eyeing the couple of branches that were close enough to scrabble up to as she untied the bowline from her harness to the traversal line.
Best to start with the branch she was already on, she supposed, turning and beginning to strut her way from the trunk. Part of the challenge would be eyeballing how many of the offshoots she could tie together with one rope and still have enough to tie it to the traversing line - misjudging would mean having to untie them all, only to redo that work.
She passed the first two off-shooting branches before pausing at the third. The rope was pretty long, but she also supposed she would need to worry about weight too, both for weight on the main line and hauling the actual branches. Three felt safe-ish, then.
Having decided, she got one of the coils off and unwound it, careful not to let it drop. Losing supplies because she got careless would be a pain, or dangerous if they were needed and she had to go retrieve them down below. They did not want to needlessly test their dead-ant-smell theory, even if it all had lined up so far.
“Lashing the first branch!” She let her team know, before creeping out onto the limb. This one was up at an angle and was much less sturdy-feeling, even if Mila herself was not particularly worried about her weight being the straw to break the camel’s back. With that in mind, her tail hung low, feeling out the bark behind her as she kept a grip with one hand, just in case.
The precaution proved unnecessary, thankfully, and she got up to the spot where this branch itself had a cluster of offshoots, exactly what she was looking for. She tied her rope to the main piece above the branching point and, once she was satisfied with its secureness, picked her way back down to the main branch and moved back to the second branch she had passed on her walk down the primary branch and.
It occurred to her that there were different names for these kinds of branches. There was the trunk, obviously, and then there was the branch she was doing all her walking on. Then there were the limbs off of that branch which she was tying the ropes around. And she was doing that above limbs of those branches and it was just ‘branches’ all the way down.
As she continued her work, tying the same rope to the two other branch-branches, she wracked her brain for what the different terms were for the different powers of branches, but she inevitably came up empty and mildly annoyed that she did not know.