Dead Empress Backwater heroes in a half-shell

Random Event: Dacian, a turtle tries to snap at your toes! All welcome, with a heads up to @Sharlee, @Jacynth and @Mira!

Dace had been chewing upon a particularly tasty stick when something crawled out of the brush and into the small clearing he was occupying. It was different than anything he'd ever seen before, promptly piquing his curiosity. Toy abandoned, the child jumped onto his paws and quickly approached the critter.

The turtle flinched backward, very clearly put off by the invasion of its space. The pup didn't know what annoyance looked like upon such smooth, scaled features. He giggled, pushed it further, stomping his tiny paws at the animal. It snapped at the air, turning itself and its hard shell away and attempted to make a run for it. Not so fast.

"C'mback!"

Growing legs launched themselves over the creature's rounded back, Dacian blocking its path and laughing mirthfully in its face. It struck out again, trying to nip his toes but he danced with them, avoiding that sharp beak, until-

He wasn't fast enough, and it latched onto the upper part of his forelimb. Amusement turned to pain in the blink of an eye, and the boy screamed.

"MA!!"

I hope you don't mind me hopping in here!

from charming to alarming in seconds

Now that the Valle pups were old enough to have been moved from the birthing den to a few different meeting areas, Khalon was enjoying and exploiting this new freedom. Adults often left them for a few hours at a time which meant he was often able to sneak off without being caught. Not that he ever got far before getting tired and heading back, but it felt thrilling. In reality it was more than likely the adults knew about his short little jaunts and were letting him push the boundaries. To him he felt like some kind of genius mastermind.

The tawny child had been on one of these explorations when he heard a shriek of…fear? From a voice he didn’t recognize. The cousins had yet to be formally introduced but had seen each other from afar so when the child rounded the corner to see his dark cousin screaming he tilted his head curiously. The turtle had long since let go and retreated at all the noise going on, so Khalon was left to ask, ”what?” Why was this other boy yelling like that? He sat down, not aware the turtle was coming back for revenge, coming dangerously close to his tail.

She didn't come. Dacian expected her to materialize like she always seemed to, but nothing immediately answered his cries. Sobs continued and fat tears rolled down his cheeks, but the world around was still, quiet. The animal wasn't letting go, and the pain shifted and changed, burning throughout his limb. Dacian cried harder, until- something moved, crackling brush.

The turtle dropped, and another child appeared. Not his brother or sister, but still clearly a peer.

'What?' he asked, and Dace looked around him, searching for the culprit. How could it get away so fast?

"I... I..." the tears were swelling again, his sadness even stronger. Like it had all been in his head. His hindquarters dropped to the ground, and he sniveled miserably. All he had for Khalon was a wail.

from charming to alarming in seconds

Instead of giving the tawny boy an answer the other kid just started whimpering and wailing which was less than ideal. Khalon gave him a look that he hoped came across as what is your problem and wrinkled his nose. He didn’t like cry babies. There didn’t even really seem to be a reason to cry about and the child was about to leave when he heard a strange rustling behind him.

Khalon looked just in time to gasp and scramble out of the way of the snapping turtle that had snuck up behind him. It seemed huge to the cub who yelped and came to move beside Dacian. That seem to appease the creature a little, who clicked it’s mouth closed with a snap and regarded the children warily. Kahlon blinked back at it in surprise, ”You know it?” It was kind of cool looking now that he had put some space between them, all scaly and shiny and hard looking like it was made of rock or something.

Dace couldn't help but yell out as the beast made its reappearance, thoroughly terrified of being within reach of that wretched beak again.

'You know it? the other pup asked, still not seeming to notice or care that it had practically maimed him. In fact, he almost looked intrigued by the thing, some kind of look in his eye that was the final straw. Dacian felt a white hot surge of anger within him, and he reacted to it by lifting both forepaws and shoving them into Khalon with all of his puppy might. The fresh cut on his limb seared.

"No!!"

Not really an answer, nor demand, but more so a summary of how he felt about all of this.

(This post was last modified: Oct 25, 2023, 03:37 AM by Dacian.)

Khalon wants to push Dacian down, I'm happy to play this out or roll, whatever you want!

from charming to alarming in seconds

The child had been so enthusiastically involved in looking the turtle over intently that he did not see the shove coming. Paws connected with his side and knocked him off balance, tumbling into the dirt with an oof as the wind was knocked out of him. In fact, he was so surprised that when he fell on the slight slope he rolled once or twice before coming to a stop. Directly in front of the now even angrier turtle.

The snapper reared back and lunged forward, its beak just barely skimming past Khalon’s ear as the Valle boy had enough smarts to duck. Scrambling on his belly out of the way of danger, his whole body trembled. First with fear at the near miss, then adrenaline, and then following closely behind that was anger like he had never felt before. It boiled deep in his belly and threatened to erupt and rip him open.

A long, low, growl built in his chest before he got to his paws with a scream of rage, sprinting towards Dacian. He wanted to knock him down, wanted to rub his face in the dirt. And if that didn’t make him grovel, he would feed him to the turtle.

For a moment, it was satisfying. Then Khalon was far too close to the monster and Dacian was terrified that he might have just done something horrible. The other pup was able to get back out of the way without any harm that the Quinlan-Valle could see, but then he was coming for him. Dace swallowed, considered being smart and turning tail, and then thought... forget it.

Letting out his own primal yell from deep down inside, he met his cousins' charge head-on. Why did they always get their way? Always getting the last smile, the last laugh, the sympathy and benefit of the doubt. Dace was the one who was bleeding here, who had needed help and Khalon had been being a callous jerk about it. Maybe if he had bruises and scrapes of his own, he'd understand what it was like!

Dace would bite and kick and shove, pulling out every dirty puppy trick he could think of to win.

(This post was last modified: Jan 24, 2024, 04:44 AM by Dacian.)

from charming to alarming in seconds

The child was surprised to see his cousin not cowering in fear, but charging him back, effectively creating a game of puppy chicken. Not willing to be intimidated, Khalon let out another yell and ran faster towards Dacian, surely now he would back off. But, he didn’t. The turtle saw the two children focus their attention of each other and promptly lost interested, turning and lumbering off towards the nearest water source.

When they collided, Khalon reared onto his back legs in an attempt to shove Dacian down with his front paws. Unfortunately, this left him open to attack and he felt sharp teeth sink down into his right leg. Screaming in response, he ripped his leg away and felt the teeth slip down his fur, leaving behind quite the scrape.

Learning from his mistake, he launched forward not with his legs, rather he started trying to bite Dacian anywhere he could reach. His teeth flashed and clicked together as he attempted to alligator gnash on his cousin.

Viorel had been angrily mulling over the past spring events a top one of his favourite broken empress trees. It was a good place to think, raised up out of the moisture below, and got a lot of sunshine from him to bathe in. He had been intending on napping, but instead found his mind racing, filled with thoughts of Archer and Kateri, and also that Reade had gone on some…spiritual journey or some shit and not come back. He wanted to demand from Sharlee to know where he had gone, but he refrained. He knew he was prone to losing his temper these days and didn’t want to make a bad situation worse.

Which meant he was already in a bad mood when the children started roaring and carrying on. Rolling his eyes and huffing, the leader leapt down from his log to go investigate. By the time he arrived the children were in a full on tussle. Biting each other and growling, and to his horror what appeared to be a patch of fur sitting in the grass. Head and tail head high he demanded gruffly, ”ENOUGH!” He used one of his paws to grab whichever cub he could and separate them, ”Both of you, go back to your mothers and hope I don’t tell them about this.” He would anyways, it wasn’t his place to discipline them as a parent, but as a leader he couldn’t have pack members beating the snot out of each other.

It was his opposite shoulder that would now flare with pain as Khalon's teeth punctured it. Dacian wouldn't have lasted much longer if Viorel hadn't arrived, certainly not used to having to suck up this kind of damage. This wasn't play gotten out of hand, this was Dace's first true fight, and it had him feeling like an absolute baby.

Anger assaulted their ears and Dacian found the opportunity to kick the other pup away with his hind legs, scrambling toward the leader as though there was still a chance at being deemed innocent. Then the rest of his words came. Both of you, mothers. The shadowy pup practically collapsed into a full tantrum, completely at his limit.

"I'M HURT!!" he screamed so loudly, it felt as though his throat had ripped from the effort. He had been trying to get his mom to help in the first place, and now he was going to be punished?! For standing up for himself, for being the victim of bullying?!

"I HATE YOU!!" that was for Khalon, the snot-nosed turtle-loving jackass. Why didn't he go marry a stinkin' turtle and leave them forever for the swamp?!

(This post was last modified: Jan 24, 2024, 04:52 AM by Dacian.)