She'd tracked this seeping beast for quite a while now. After enduring the torment of the ooze, she'd taken it upon herself to hunt down whatever creatures remained afflicted on her way back home. No living being deserved to be haunted by this terrible disease. Her lung capacity still hadn't returned completely, so she relied on taking short, shallow breaths. It was highly inefficient and the inefficacy of it all was driving her nuts. Following that strange encounter with the cloaked figure who had judged her culinary skills so harshly, she was feeling more pressed than ever to develop her skills. All of them! Every single skill! Fable grunted as she hopped from the base of one tree trunk to the next. The murky water wasn't welcoming, and she was sure it would be frighteningly cold this early in the spring. The shallows didn't warm up until mid summer. She caught sight of it up ahead, slipping behind another mangrove - it was a sickly thin young doe, slick from the water, but also glistening with the ooze that streamed from its body. The deer was keeping to the shadows and still leaked some of that tell-tale substance. "I'll get you, you poor thing," she muttered, skirting around the edge of the tree as she narrowed in on her quarry.

wc 221
twc 221/1500

Even during the day Grimshaw would resort to hunting to keep his mind and thoughts at bay. There were still some animals lingering around with ooze and things growing from their faces. Although Grimshaw was hunting food for the pack whenever he could, there were times when he felt like mercy killing an infected animal. He had to be careful though to prevent a reinfection of himself, but he was pretty certain that the threat was gone for the wolves.

He had seen an infected deer wandering into the mangrove and despite having a great desire to not follow it into the swampy water, he did anyway for the good of the Armada. They didn't need any infected prey animals getting too close to the pack just in case they all could get sick again. Trudging through the murky water was beyond stressful for the young man but he had to move slow anyway to keep quiet so it helped, plus the water only went up to about midway up his legs. He didn't like it one bit, but it was a far sight from drowning and to keep the Armada safe, he sometimes needed to do things he wasn't comfortable doing.

As he wandered through the swamp, he caught sight of the deer again just in time to see someone else skirting around a tree as if they were hiding from the animal and perhaps about to pursuit. Grimshaw quickly and quietly moved off to the side and approached the other wolf hunting, but kept a bit of a distance hiding behind a tree from the view of the deer, but trying to catch the other wolf's attention without the deer catching on.

505/1500


"Speech."

Fable heard the tell-tale splish-splash of another wolf moving slowly through the murky water. Her eyes flickered over, catching sight of a stranger making his way through the mangroves whose spindly roots reached like deep fingers, taking up fistfuls of earth with them. The other hunter moved confidently through the wetlands as if he was more familiar with them than she was. She watched him out of the corner of her eye and tried to match his movements, wading soundlessly through the water. They seemed to be narrowing in on the same quarry, which was good. A hunt was always easier with a partner. That was, of course, assuming that they were both hunting the doe. It was possible that his quarry still went unseen - or, more gut-churningly, that he was actually stalking her. Fable pushed the intrusive thought out of her mind. Everything since the sickness had struck her suddenly seemed far more sinister; her jovial innocence had been stripped back into suspicion and wariness.

Nevertheless, they both closed in on the doe, coming together to form a pincer-like approach. It was a classic hunting tactic that had served her well before. The doe slowed, and they were close enough now to hear it exhale painfully. This creature seemed to be afflicted with the mushroom strain, like Fable had. She could spot the fungus taking root from wounds in its shoulders and every labored step brought an exhale of spores. Taking it down while staying safe would be important. The deer stumbled on a root hidden by the water and went down quickly, submerging itself in the water. "Go!" she shouted to her mystery hunting partner, launching out at the flailing hooves that splashed around above the water.

wc: 291
twc: 796/1500