There was no human throwing her to the ground this time, only Yaris pushing her towards the wall as she sprinted past, hammer in one hand and a short sword in her other, the blade flashing a steel blue in the constant light.
"It must've come from somewhere further up," Eim caught the thrown hammer, shifting it to a two-handed grip, "Ollie?!"
"I can't!" Yaris answered for them, as Ollie drew up beside her, "cooldown of thirty seconds. Switch."
It was a bird, Jump-touch saw, as she peered out from behind Eim. Fat and round like a chicken, with the same black eyes, but huge, almost as big as her. Its plumage of golden feathers had a rainbow sheen to it, and its huge, hooked beak was designed for tearing.
I wish I had feathers.
The bird let out another screech as it ran to meet Yaris, kicking at her with strong blue legs, the same colour as the beak.
It looks so soft.
Yaris dodged sideways, skidding a little on the smooth stone, momentum carrying them both past each other, the bird skidding on its front for a moment before lumbering to its feet and spinning around to charge again.
On the other side, Ollie was matching her speed, hands still empty, "don't go over the edge!"
"I'm not going to go over the edge, I said switch!"
"I'm out," shouted Eim, pressing Jump-touch harder against the wall, "Yaris, it's-"
The bird was moving at her again, eyes caught by the flashes of light off steel.
In her Heart, Shrike opened his eyes and stood, looking around with sleepy eyes and leaning heavily on his cane.
"Listen to me damn you!" Yaris shouted as she charged back at the bird, head low and sword tucked in front of her. "When I say-" the two collided with a crash, her hands going around the thing's neck, her sword clattering away across the stone, Ollie diving towards it.
Whatever she'd been going to say was cut off by her slam. Behind her Ollie was clutching the sword, blood staining the hilt.
"Look out for the legs, you idiot!"
Jump-touch was pushed into the wall once more as Eim took off, heading towards the two wrestlers. The bird was screaming now, trying to reach her face with its huge, sharp beak, but her grip around its neck was firm.
As he moved, Shrike appeared in front of her as if he'd been there the whole time, one hand on his cane, the other raised.
"Eim, dodge!"
The boy threw himself towards the wall without question as something left Shrike's hand, a silvery glow which seemed to become more real the further it got from him.
On the ground Yaris threw herself back, kicking at the bird with her legs, sending it stumbling and squawking directly into the path of the spell.
Everything slowed down as it hit, frost beading over the feathers, condensation sending the beak from a vibrant blue to the dusty grey of deep water under ice.
Eim stepped forward, adjusted his stance, took a deep breath, and then hit it directly in the huge, black eye with the spiked side of his hammer.
Then there was silence, only the heavy breathing and the sigh of the dying bird.
****
"It must have had a nest further up, although the Stone itself only knows how it would get up there. These things are gliders, not flyers."
Shrike was examining the body, running his fingers over the feathers and trying not to look at the mess of a face. "It looks like an adult, I think. We're lucky they're fire aligned, so they're weak to my magic."
Eim was cleaning off his hammer with a rag he'd pulled from somewhere, and Yaris was glaring up the cliff. Ollie was staring down at their hand, where a thin pink scar crossed the palm.
"Pluck some of the feathers then," Yaris said finally, something different in her voice, "and then we'll go."
Shrike glanced up at her, then back down at the bird. "You think there's more of them?"
"Nothing lives alone."
Jump-touch finally pulled herself together to push away from the wall, walking over to the dead animal on surprisingly unsteady legs.
Animal, or monster? What was the difference?
She crouched down next to it, running her hands over the feathers like she'd seen Shrike doing. They were soft, almost as soft as the down you'd find scattered about a nest, despite being full-sized feathers.
The first hint of rain and this poor thing would be waterlogged down to the skin.
"Are we gonna eat it?"
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Yaris blinked down at her, "eat it?"
"Sure. It's meat, right? Do… Are dungeon monsters inedible somehow? Poisonous?"
Were they planning to kill it and then just leave it here?
Yaris shook her head, looking back up the cliff, "I guess you can put it in your [Pocket Zone]. I never considered that, then we can deal with it later? I don't think any of us know how to deal with it though."
"It'll sell for good money, if we can get it back to town," Shrike stood up awkwardly, "if we're planning to go further in, I guess we can try roasting it or something?"
Jump-touch shook her head. Humans. "I can clean it, if we don't then-"
****
It took her some time to convince them that yes, she could clean out a bird, that she had, in fact, lived in a society that ate mostly meat for most of her life. It took even longer to convince them that yes, she also knew how to cook it, and even longer still that they should wait a few days before doing so.
Now it was carefully hung in a corner of her Heart, far away from anything else, and they were moving at what was almost a run, Shrike grumbling on Yaris's back.
"What was it like?" Eim asked Shrike, panting and trying not to look at the view.
"It was just like being in a room," he had his own eyes shut, "I told you I can wal-"
"Stop complaining," Yaris sounded as out of breath as the rest of them, "either talk or shut up, but stop whining."
"Okay," he breathed out, "Okay. It was just a room with a stone floor and… No walls. Don't ask me to describe the walls, I might throw up if I think about it, and I don't think Yaris brought a clean shirt."
"If you throw up down the back of my shirt, I will chuck you clean off the edge, I swear it."
"I could kinda hear what was going on, if I focused on it. I couldn't see what was happening outside, but I could hear you guys shit-talking me."
"We weren't-"
"You called me a cripple at least twice."
"Well aren't you?" Ollie piped up, jogging along beside Yaris, "you don't seem to think it'll get better, or you'd stop walking on it."
He grunted, and after a moment's introspection, Ollie tried to change the subject. "Hey, maybe it'll be worth something, and we all registered the kill, right?"
"It wasn't a monster, just an animal angry we were near it's nest." Eim was still staring straight ahead.
Jump-touch broke in. "What's the difference, anyway? Between an animal and a monster, I mean."
"Monsters need magic to survive. Some of them look like animals or people, and they even eat and drink and shit like people, but if they're outside a place with the right level of magic, eventually they'll die. They're also not born. The dungeon, or people, create them out of magic."
"Oh."
She thought about that. The Mud People had been created they said, not born. Somebody had created them out of nothing, and then commanded them to go out and kill.
They'd done what was asked of them, but in the wrong order. They'd killed him, stepped outside, and then realised they didn't know what to do with themselves now.
They'd hung around there for a while, either days or years, it had never been quite clear, slowly becoming people, but eventually they'd had to leave. Somebody had driven them out. None of them had ever said they were starving, though. They hadn't eaten at all from what she remembered.
"Monsters are always angry, it's in their nature," Ollie looked back at her, then bared her teeth in a grin, "they'll eat you up, if they get the chance!"
"Ollie, please. This is hard enough already."
She thought about it as she jogged, staring out over the slowly narrowing ravine. What had been an endless vista when they started was now turning into a hugely wide valley, a wall rising up on the other side and slowly working its way towards them.
Were humans created or were they born? She had never questioned it. What about kobolds? She knew that new ones joined the village sometimes, but she didn't know where they came from. They were always somewhat crazy when they arrived, and then if they stuck around, they would slowly calm down, realise they knew the Given Tongue, or learn Other if they couldn't speak, and become a part of the whole.
Only one had appeared though in her whole time living there, and that had been Feather-paw. They'd grown up together, the only youngsters in the village.
She missed him. He would have taken out that chicken-like snap, it wouldn't even have been a fight.
Then he would have demanded she cook it for him, whining and flitting about and not resting until it was almost burnt, the fat seeping out through the crust.
They would have eaten it together with their hands, laughing as they burnt their hands and mouths.
Why couldn't he come with me?
Because the humans would call him a monster, duh. The thought went through her with a jolt. They only think of other humans as 'people'.
Was that true?
It couldn't be true, right? Eh-rik in the guild had seen her paper and not shouted "no, a monster! Get out!" and the man in the little office had seen it as well and not said anything.
The man in the little office might've been an Earth person in deep disguise though, so she wasn't sure he counted.
"Are there," she hesitated to ask; what if they kicked her out of the group, and she had to make it all the way back to the city on her own? Past the giant chickens and the slimes and all the other things which might attack her.
"Are there what?" Eim glanced back.
She shook her head. "It doesn't matter. I'm thinking stupid things."
He hummed, a long note that almost sounded like words to her kobold-trained mind. "Well, if you start to think something smart at some point, tell us, and we'll throw you a party."
He's making fun of me?
He was probably making fun of her, but not in a mean way, more like he did with the others. Play-fighting.
She stuck her tongue out at him, and he laughed, so she'd read it correctly. Cool. Humans had so many facial expressions and different tones of voice; she assumed to make up for the fact they didn't know how to speak properly.
The cloud of birds below had disappeared, scattered or elsewhere. The metallic glint was gone too, had the predator eaten and left?
She went over the fight again in her mind as they jogged. I wish I had feathers? Where had that even come from?
Having feathers would be great, sure, but was it really what you were meant to think in the middle of a fight, when there was an angry bird bearing down on you?
She hung back, stretching her arms out ahead of her and staring at her smooth brown skin. If she did have feathers, she'd want them to match her skin. She'd want them all the way up her arms, with just the odd blue one thrown in for a bit of variety. She'd always liked feathers. They were soft and warm, and it was a big regret that she hadn't managed to grow any of her own.
She stumbled, and one of the humans looked back, rolled their eyes at her and went back to thinking about whatever humans thought about when they were running.
She lowered her arms.
If she was supposed to be human, then why didn't she look like one? All the ones she'd met so far had looked similar. Either long straight hair in different colours, or no hair at all. And they all had pale skin, and were all tall.
She was short, her hair was different; still puffed out into a depressing cloud around her face, and her skin was a completely different colour.
Nobody had questioned it except An-jel, and the human had blamed it on her being dirty, which she wasn't! She had always looked like this! No bath would change it, it didn't scrub off. She couldn't shed her scales to reveal a different colour underneath.
What if I'm not human after all?
Maybe I could grow feathers!
The thought was hopeful, and she let it buoy her along as they travelled.