sooo does anyone want ankle rope burn (open)

[fish]

If Onca's mind hadn't been so occupied with suppressing the urge to yell from the sensation of his leg currently hosting a foreign skewer in it, he might've noticed the slight glimmer of a white creature up above the shady leaves. But no, he was entirely focused on hiding the excruciating pain while having a stare-down with his captors.

"You really don't know your shit around here, do you?" one of the men jeered. The leader, perhaps? He didn't wear anything to indicate any higher status above the others, but then again, what kind of poacher would brazenly flaunt his criminal status for everyone to see. The others seemed to give him the leader treatment, though, looking at him for direction and letting him speak freely. "I'm not really sure in what world any part of you would cost more than the work my boys here put into digging this whole setup." He leaned in, propping up his elbow onto his knee as he peered into the pit.

This world, Onca thought dryly. "It's messy," he retorted back. He didn't see himself winning this fight anyway, so he figured he might as well go out dissing them before whatever they did to him. "Would ruin the carcass."

The man up at the top smiled smugly, looking back at his men as if to prove a point. "See what I mean," he sighed at them, turning his head back down to Onca. "Hunters like you remind me of beggars. So desperate to squeeze every drop of worth from a filthy damn animal or you can't even feed yourself." He chortled. "I bet you even sell the shit from its innards to boil as tea. Waste not want not, no?" Not even two minutes in and Onca was already thinking of ways to beat the guy's theatrics out of him.

"Get to the point. What do you want," Onca barked out. He knew he was a sturdy individual, but even he wouldn't be able to save his leg from sepsis if this splintering wooden spike stayed for too long. "So useless you need another man on your team?"

"Mm, I do recall an open position." The leader crossed his arms thoughtfully. "We don't exactly have anyone willing to risk themselves to start the flush in Ravensway. That is, if you're still even able to run."

Onca's eyes narrowed. He suddenly made sense of their proximity, as they were currently skirting near Ravensway. They were aiming for fae-touched fauna. Anyone sane knew not to fuck with the faerie folk, so these men had likely set up a trap further out to try and snag a straggler further from its borders in the hopes of getting away fast enough. Their sloppiness suddenly made sense; an animal's powdered bone and teeth alone on the black market would be enough to pay for the entire team's legs being skewered by shit wooden stakes if the animal had ties to the fae. But of course, nobody wanted to risk earning the wrath of any local in Ravensway by actually chasing magical creatures out of there. Shit, Onca wasn't even sure if their plan would work. It wasn't like any fae coming after them would suddenly stop at the edge of Ravensway. He wasn't about to turn his own hunting grounds into a magical wreck.

"Not being your fall guy," he gritted out. "Try again."

[DragonSong]

Asta dropped silently to the ground behind the lead poacher, creeping forward on quiet paws until she was close enough that their stench filled her mouth. They seemed to have taken certain precautions against hunting fae creatures--the whole group reeked of rowan berries.

Fangs bared, the shapeshifter snarled. It was a low, rumbling sound that grew quickly in volume, ripping through the air like a tangible force.

Three of the poachers yelped, and nearly the whole group whirled to find the source of the noise. "What the--?!"

Weapons drawn, sinking back into defensive positions, it only took a breath for the poachers to come to the obvious conclusion: a snowy white forest cat, in an area not native of such creatures? Maybe they didn't need to start in Ravensway after all.

The leader grinned and hefted a crossbow. "Nice kitty," he muttered as he lined up a shot.

Asta snarled again, though the sound turned to a more human growl as she reared up onto her hind legs and took her birth form. Pale eyes cold with rage, she took a single step forward with fists clenched by her sides. "Leave. My. Forest."

[fish]

???

Onca stiffened and readied himself as the men above him reacted all of a sudden. His less than ideal vantage point from below didn't allow him much context on what had suddenly distracted them, but hell if he hadn't heard a wild animal's growl. As soon as their eyes were off him, he broke his own vigilance to survey around the pit and scope out the most secure side of the hole. One of his legs might have been rendered unusable, but he assessed realistically that he wouldn't be incapable of dragging himself out as a tripod had he not been facing a group of enemies. Judging from the growl though, the animal wasn't large enough to be a bear and sounded more felid, and he knew it probably wouldn't afford him enough time to actually safely make it out. The men would turn their attention back to him before he could manage anything. He swallowed.

His focus was suddenly interrupted by yet another one of those growls that... now took the form of a human voice. Onca's hood immediately darted to face in the direction that the men were looking, the source of the voice. He could very easily place and remember that tone, livid and hostile that it was. That one imbecile white girl who owed him. So it wasn't just any ordinary animal after all. And they'd definitely seen her cat form too, from the sound of it. Not the best person to have stumbled upon the scene, given they weren't on the best terms, but hey. If these poachers were anything like Onca, they'd know to immediately set their sights on her. And anybody with a common enemy was still better than nothing to Onca. He stilled for the time being to wait and observe.

The leader's face fell in faux disappointment as Asta revealed herself, but he still kept the crossbow trained steadily on her. Damn, magical animals always had to come with a catch. "Miss, do you mind? I'd fancy another look at that marvelous coat." His head cocked to indicate to his men to flank around and behind her to try and close her in. "I'd hate to waste a shot on a fair lady. But if you'd like to stay this way for now, I'm sure we could arrange that."

Noticing that some of the lingering underlings behind him hadn't moved yet, he turned his head momentarily to make a much more exaggerated tilt of the head while whispering a frustrated "Go" at them to move their asses already and surround Asta. An idiotic slip of judgment had Onca witnessed it. He'd never have taken his eye off his target even for a second.

[DragonSong]

Her coat. Her only interest to these men was her pelt—or maybe worse, if the looks one or two of them gave her were anything to go by. She didn't plan to give them the chance to consider much if she'd be more valuable in animal or human form.

The moment the leader's eyes moved from her, she exploded forward in a bust of movement. She was quick, that was an asset in and of itself—but it was the sudden shift from human to wolf that was truly befuddling to the eye. Enough of a distraction that she managed to bowl the leader over with her first leap, then twist and snap at the ankle tendons of his closest lackey.

She heard him scream in a way that meant she'd met her mark, but then the group had rallied, and the leader was struggling her her weight. She knew he must have a knife, but rather than give him a chance to use it she rolled quickly off and leaped into the air, taking the shape of a heart-faced barn owl as she did.

She screeched, a barn owls terrible scream, and banked back to scratch her talons over the eyes of another of the hunters before swooping wide again to dart over the pit, trying to see what hapless animal they had trapped.

...Oh, you have got to be kidding me.

[fish]

Oop. As if on cue, there were the cries and screams of pain. Onca let go of the breath he was holding because the screaming was not Asta, meaning she'd managed to get a few hits in. He didn't trust many acquaintances enough to fully believe that she'd win the fight, but if she took down enough of them... no. It didn't seem likely to him. Even he hadn't found her wildcat form the most formidable presence he'd ever met, and so he couldn't weigh her to win against multiple adult opponents. He was certain that the first screams had been from being taken by surprise, and concluded she wouldn't be able to eliminate enough of them for him to whittle down the rest; with a leg out of commission, he could probably only even graze two targets at once from a distance. Asta was not going to be his deus ex machina today; he'd never get that lucky.

Or so he thought. The piercing screech took his attention away from the scuffle and he did the mental equivalent of putting all of his careful mental math right down the shredder. She has multiple animals. Now that was a game changer. He peered up at the sky trying to catch whatever raptor she might've taken form as, and the white owl was unmistakable. Onca figured he wouldn't need to say anything in greeting, but only had one message to get across. He pointed at his injured leg. He wasn't mobile, and needed to make clear that he would be of little assistance to Asta (as much as he wanted to beat some of those guys senseless too just because they annoyed the shit out of him). Dead weight should get dropped, he thought, even if that weight was himself.

[DragonSong]

Her annoying neighbor, thoroughly skewered by these poachers' trap. Oh, the irony.

Gods this better be worth those two fucking extra deer to him, Asta thought with no small amount of righteous irritation as she swooped back over the pit again; she took wolf form again in mid-air, dropping down onto one of the hunter's she'd already wounded and sending him careening into his neighbor. She bit down on the uninjured man's hip, pretty effectively changing that particular statues, then twisted and rolled back into her wildcat shape.

"Get her, get her, get her!" The leader was shrieking nearly nonsensically. Three of his six men were thoroughly down for the count, and Asta bit down hard enough on the wrist of a fourth that her fang went clean through.

Four down. Three to go.

Skidding to a halt at the edge of the pit, she took her human shape and reached up to wipe blood from her mouth, stark crimson against the general paleness of her.

"Last chance," she snarled at the poachers. "Leave."

[fish]

It was apparent that in the frantic rush and panic, the leader had forgotten to even shoot a single arrow from his crossbow, not that he'd have been able to land a clear shot with the speed that his men were being thrown about like dolls anyway. With Asta's final warning, he was given the brief respite to aim it back at her, but his hands shook. He didn't have the clarity of mind to check down on his crossbow, not when the last time he took his eyes off Asta even for a split second did in more than half his men.

Without warning, he fired the arrow, failing to notice that Asta's previous advance had crumpled an arm on the crossbow and consequently distributed the tension of the string unevenly. The bolt whizzed completely askew, not even close to where Asta stood, and nearly grazed one of the other men, who only managed to dodge it by jumping back and distancing himself from the others. Onca could see him jumping into view at the top of the pit, and it was a bit too easy of a shot to simply grab a stray rock and aim it at the guy's ankle to throw him off balance. He stumbled back before gravity did the rest of the work, and he joined Onca into the trapping pit. Judging from the screams and the visceral noise of the spikes meeting his body, Onca assumed the man didn't do as good of a job of dodging them.

Whatever, that was about as much as he could do. He just closed his eyes and leaned back with his head up, facing the sky. The initial adrenaline was wearing off and he was really starting to feel the pain like a bitch now, so he let Asta do the rest of the work. She seemed to have it handled anyway.

The other lackeys were already backing up, ready to abandon the job and flee. But the leader? He knew not to simply just show his back to a predator. He threw aside his now useless crossbow, wiping his hands on his pants and taking out daggers before forming a ready stance against Asta. Then he lunged. But not at Asta. His dagger met the foot of one of his own men, who howled and doubled over. With the decoy's foot pinned to the ground, the leader finally turned and ran, leaving the other two behind.

Cowards like him would rather live, but he wasn't about to let Asta bite his tail while he went running. He considered her no better than an animal at this point, so tripping someone in order to save his own skin seemed appropriate enough to him for an unintelligent wild beast.

[DragonSong]

Asta didn't even bother trying to dodge the bolt; she'd tensed instinctively when the poacher raised his crossbow, but had noticed the weapon's broken arm quickly enough. She barely spared the poacher who was almost hit a glance before he went toppling backward into the pit.

Fitting.

She didn't say anything as they started to scatter, just kept her glare on the leader with her teeth bared; she didn't trust him not to pull something.

Which, of course, he did, though even she couldn't have seen that particular move coming. She actually started slightly when the poacher nearest her double over, howling in pain as the leader skewered his foot and then...just ran. Ah. A decoy.

"Idiot," she hissed, stepping forward until she was in arm's reach of the decoy, who had recovered just enough to stare up at her in terror. "I don't kill in cold blood," she told him quietly, before bringing her hand down hard on the back of his neck. His eyes rolled back and he slumped, unconscious. She sighed quietly and bent to pull the dagger from his foot, flicking it onto the ground near his head. She doubted he would be much of a threat when he woke--he'd be lucky if he made it back out of the woods in one piece.

Which left one last piece of unfinished business. Carefully, Asta picked her way back over to the edge of the pit and peered down.

"Still alive down there?" she asked with a quirked eyebrow, wincing slightly at the sight of the impaled poacher before looking to the hunter she had met before. "Seems like you could use a hand up."

[fish]

Onca opened his eyes and lifted his head from having it leaned back against the dirt wall of the pit. He'd heard all the nonsense happening, but surely didn't miss those footsteps getting away. He stared straight at Asta.

"You sure you can afford to look down here yet." Unlike her, he wasn't the type to spare people in case they retaliated no matter how unlikely it seemed, so it didn't sit securely with him that she'd let someone escape.

He didn't see anyone sneaking to jump her from behind at least, so after a second Onca assumed that she'd dealt with it cleanly enough for now. He sighed, pushing himself up onto his working foot and leaning an arm against the dirt wall to balance himself as he stood. He grunted, swallowing down a groan of pain while hopping to the spot he'd singled out prior that he judged to be the sturdiest place to climb up. "Over here."

Sighing, Onca unraveled a length of rope from his bags to tie securely around his torso. He gave it a test tug to confirm it'd help partially support his weight before knotting the loose end around the handle of one of his knives. He tossed it up so that it landed blade down into the dirt in front of Asta, giving her the opportunity to pick it up, and started hoisting himself up side of the pit to begin scaling it. It wasn't like he'd have been able to use a boost up from below considering he could hardly stand, so he reckoned getting pulled up was the next best choice.

"Whatever's your heaviest," he wheezed. Just as he'd expected, it was almost doable with his upper body strength, but excruciating and pathetic from how he was barely keeping himself stable with the one leg he could use. Dirt did not provide a good grip. The larger the animal that Asta could manage in mass, the more she could pit against Onca's weight to speed up his climb.

[DragonSong]

"They're all gone, or unconscious," Asta replied to his initial question. She rolled her eyes slightly when he directed her around the side of a pit--not that she was really expecting a "thank you" from this particular individual.

She picked up the knife when he threw it, starting tow work through his plan as she started reeling up some of the slack from the rope. Her heaviest...

Hm.

Well, it was a new shape for her--she'd only learned in in the last few months, after spending some time in human settlements--but it was definitely the best option she could think of. Looping her end of the rope around her chest, then her waist, she dropped the knife and took a step back before bending to plant one hand on the length of the rope still tied to the blade. A hand that quickly enough became a hoof as she shifted into the form of a large draft horse.

She tossed her head, feeling strange in the new shape. She'd only tried it once before, and it was a strange way to distribute her weight. How did horses even keep themselves upright? It felt like she was standing on her fingertips.

Still, it was an animal literally built for heavy lifting. Another quick toss of her head and she cautiously leaned back into her haunches, bracing herself easily against the hunter's weight as he hauled himself up out of the pit.

[fish]

Whatever Asta had chosen, Onca felt his load lighten immediately. He strained to continue hauling himself up, albeit with much less struggle thanks to Asta's support. He presumed from the extremely steady bulk he could feel helping him up, Asta might have opted for large livestock, or at least something hoofed and heavy.  Bovine, maybe? He'd seen plenty of exemplary plow cattle in the past.

He should have possibly seen it coming, but the day had already been harrowing enough, and the pain dulled his typical decisiveness. Onca slung his arm over the edge when he finally reached the top and dragged his shoulders up onto the ledge before spotting the immaculately white and majestic horse before him.

"Fffuck," he spat in alarm. He'd just gotten himself to the top but reflexively let go out of shock, partially dropping back down. The better part of him made sure his hand still shot up and gripped the ledge so that he didn't lose ALL of his progress, so he hung there barely having avoided yet another tumble down.

He wasn't about to explain his ridiculous reaction. Since the day he was born, every horse near Onca's vicinity had a raging vendetta against him and he learned very early on to steer clear of them at all costs. There was no rhyme or reason to it, they just flat out hated him enough to want to violently erase his existence off this world, so he couldn't even provide a proper explanation anyway.

Onca dangled for a second before sighing exasperatedly. He wasn't afraid of horses, but avoided them on principle just to reduce the risk of getting injured or having to pay for someone's horse he slaughtered in self defense. Getting jumpscared by one so close was still jarring, and it took a second to recollect his composure; this wasn't just a normal horse, and he (probably) faced no danger in front of her even in that form. It might've been the first time he'd even seen a horse this close that wasn't frantically trying to bite his head off.

Okay, take two. With a last heave of exertion, Onca managed to get his arms back up onto the ground. Once his shoulders were safely up it was much simpler to drag the rest of his body back up as well, and he rolled over onto his back on the ground panting and trying to ignore the screaming pains of his butchered leg.

[DragonSong]

Asta snorted in surprise as he fell back into the pit, but she kept herself steady so he could clamber back out again.

Once he was safely on solid ground, she let the horse melt away into her human shape and wriggled her way out of the loops of rope. She picked her way over to him and then knelt, close enough that she could better see his leg, but not so close that he could grab her—she still didn't really trust him.

"You're not going to be able to get far on that," she noted quietly. "I...I know a safe place. It's not too far; I can help you get there," she offered, if not a little reluctantly.

[fish]

Asta was right, he seriously didn't see himself getting much further than a couple hundred meters, maybe a bit more if he was alright with wriggling himself a tad further like a worm.

He swallowed, sitting himself up and leaning down to prop his hands up onto his thighs. It was taking most of his focus to not dry-heave from the pain, but the rest of his mind was busy figuring out how he'd start off. They were considerably far from any larger settlements where there would be better medical treatment to reconstruct whatever got twisted up in his calf, so having a closer spot where he could at least quickly patch up what he could to make the rest of the trip safer made sense. Although, that meant relying more on Asta.

Onca's hand balled into a fist as he braced himself against the pain and straightened up to look at Asta, breathing heavily. He eyed her carefully, since he knew she already had a sour opinion of him. He didn't want to take her offer lightly, let alone take it at all. Onca knew she'd already helped more than she had to, and his cynicism didn't hold anyone above remorselessly indebting him for a past grudge they may have held against him. But right now, it was either risking looking like a fool to Asta by having to accept her help, or very surely looking even more like a fool by turning her down and crawling through the dirt.

"City afterwards. Can't heal on its own." He shakily lifted himself onto his working foot, visibly unstable in his attempt to balance himself as he took his hands off the ground to stand upright.

[DragonSong]

"...Right."

Moving cautiously, very much a wary animal, Asta leaned forward until she was leaning over his injured leg. She winced, grimacing at the sight. "There's...still bits of the spike embedded," she noted quietly, glancing up at his face. Or, well, hood. "You can't even limp with it like this. I'm...gonna pull them out and at least bind the wound, okay?"

She waited for his permission to actually move to touch him( she was under no illusions that, even so injured, he might lash out at her if he didn't like her plan.

[fish]

Onca exhaled thinly from his nose to hold down any pained noises that might've leaked out from him. "Leave the main piece. It'll bleed out if it's removed." He nodded at the unconscious poacher still on the ground nearby. "Kill him first or worry about it when we're farther away." Onca was the type who preferred to lick his wounds once he was sure he wasn't vulnerable, and he didn't fancy a run-in with anyone that Asta had let escape either. Had he felt safer, he would've looted the men laying about, but wanted out of there as soon as possible.

He fumbled through one of the pouches at his waist, producing a roll of bandaging, and limply tossed it with an underhand swing to Asta so she could use it later. "Don't just stand there." What was he gonna do, weaponize his nausea and fall on top of her to crush her with his weight?

[DragonSong]

Asta huffed and gave him a quick, dry look. "If I leave the main piece, you won't be able to put any weight on it—I'll have to carry you. And, forgive me for the assumption, but you didn't seem to care much for my horse shape."

Even as she spoke she began picking the bigger splinters from the wound, hissing quietly and pressing a quickly ripped strip of bandaging to the small holes they left behind.

Without bothering to look at him or the unconscious poacher, she answered him simply, "No. He's no threat right now. If the first wants his life, it can have him, but I do not kill in cold blood."

[fish]

Onca didn't withdraw his leg from Asta's reach, but he used the opportunity to support part of his weight by leaning onto her shoulders with his hands. "I said when we're farther away then," he insisted flatly. He swatted lightly at her shoulder now that he was much more stable, since he'd have rather dealt with this after they'd left the area.

"I don't do regular horses. Yours is fine," he grumbled. A tiny part of Onca still worried that along the way, whatever ungodly instinct that drove horses to try and eviscerate him would rise up within Asta, but that was just a worry he'd have to shove down and risk anyway. "Don't expect me to know how to get on or stay on."

[DragonSong]

"No, of course." Asta shot his leg a pointed look. "Even if you knew how, I doubt you could."

She stood and stepped back, giving herself enough ro to take equine form again. Once she'd shifted, she gave her whole body a quick shake to settle herself before plodding forward to lay down beside the hunter, waiting for him to flip awkwardly across her back before she rose again.

With a snort and a little toss of her head, she started off into the trees. It was certainly less...dainty than when she did the same as a deer. The horse shape really wasn't made for navigating the tight spaces, they were field animals. But she made do, working her best to keep her gait as steady as she could so there was a little jarring to her passenger as possible.

Eventually, they made it to the little clearing by the bend in the steam where she had constructed the beginnings of her cottage. It was currently a simple, one-room structure with a thinly thatched roof, a rough window cut into the side of the square room that faced the stream, with another facing the wider forest, next to an unfinished doorway.

Asta clipped over to the door before she laid down again, allowing the hunter to slide off her back and into the cottage.

[fish]

Onca bit his lip as he precariously tossed himself over Asta's back and secured himself while holding onto her neck. He manually threw his injured leg over to the other side and gripped her mane when she stood back up. The built-in instinct that HORSE=DANGER was making his heart beat fast, even more rapidly than when he'd been stuck in that stupid trapping pit like a sitting duck. It took everything in him to steel himself when he was already injured and vulnerable while so goddamn close to a horse. As she stood up, he lurched forward from the sudden movement and clutched tightly at her hair. Every aspect of this was nerve-wracking.

The ride was... bumpy, to put it nicely. Asta wasn't the only one who felt less natural without being able to rely on a cervid. Onca was only used to the gait of his moose, goddamn if he wished it was anywhere nearby (it was not, and was happily going about its day munching pondweed far off down in Adela), and as careful as Asta was, even just the way her hooves hit the ground was harsher than the more delicate footsteps he was used to. He wryly thought to himself that at least his thighs were intact enough to allow some form of grip.

As the structure came into view, Onca realized he should've seriously asked where they were headed to before departure. He wasn't going to ask what in the world this half-built hut was. No matter. Shelter was shelter, and he was going to take Asta's word that it was safe. He slumped against the wall of the mini-cottage as soon as Asta let him down, sliding down onto the ground with his back to the wall with a strained exhale. Plop went his ass to the floor as he swallowed another groan and pulled up his knee to get a proper look at the injury.

He grimaced, pressing down around the area and holding the wood still. "Here," he indicated with his head to Asta for her to start bandaging. "Secure it." The chunk of wood getting jostled around while in his leg throughout the ride here had been agonizing, and it was about time to immobilize it and keep it in place before he was able to head to a more populated area with healers to get it removed.

[DragonSong]

Asta waited until he was fully off her back before taking her human shape, then waited a moment longer while the hunter seemed to situate himself and held the bit of stake still.

"Wait." She stood and moved carefully around him to a small chest at the foot of the palette that currently served as her bed, rummaging around for a moment before she came up with a small jar of salve that smelled strong and minty. "For infection," she explained as she knelt back beside him and began dabbing the salve around the open wound. Eyes on her work, she added in a dryer tone, "And I'm giving you a pass because I'm sure you're in a lot of pain, but if you can't bring yourself to thank me for the rescue, you could at least be nicer about how you ask me to help you." She didn't point out that she could have simply left him there; it didn't seem like something that needed to be said.

Picking up the bandaging, she began wrapping his leg, tightly and carefully, trying to secure the wood as much as possible without further aggravating the injury. "Is there someplace you normally go for this sort of thing?" she asked as she worked. "I know the village about two hours northeast--I'm sure they've got a proper healer, but I haven't spent much time there, really."