Before she neared the thicket she had a pretty vivid image of what lay beyond it. The mass of crows could only be there for one reason - and that stench indicated only one thing. Rot. The puzzle fit together rather nicely, no? Still, she pressed beyond the thicket, her face screwed into a pale, determined and vaguely sickened expression. Marlen couldn't see the carcass beneath the crows who still bawled and jostled for food, despite her presence. Determinedly she clapped her hands together once, the impact causing a spark of blue and a shimmer of gold. The crows flew up in a writhing mass of black feathers and noise. She grimaced at the grating sound and the carcass. She wasn't sure what hurt worse.
A gold skin of magic settled about her and the carcass, gold sigils interconnected all along the curve, shimmering and swimming in their magic and spell. Marlen bent to the task at hand - she had never been fond of the dirtier part of the Craft - the part the dealt with animal remains - but necessity dictated she couldn't keep walking on foot everywhere. It was always best to make use of whatever was at hand. At that moment, it was a half-eaten deer carcass. That smelled horribly.
Dear gods. She wanted to be burned. Never buried.
Marlen grasped the spells in her mind's eye, letting it form a web of connected sigils, their shape and relationship firm. She propelled it outwards, letting it settle through the carcass and etch itself neatly into the ground in blue. She knelt and tossed a handful of dirt onto the carcass. Marlen broke a branch from the bush and laid it across its face, tossing a handful of leaves across its torso. She stripped off a layer of bark and dropped it on the poor creature. She slid out a special knife, marked with sigils, and slide the blade her palm, wincing at the pain. Marlen let her blood drip onto the hastily gathered ingredients before binding up her hand.
There really wasn't any guarantee that this would even work. She had never tried it before. It wasn't an existing spell - just something she made up on the fly and that, well, in theory should work.
Theory was always different in practice.
Fingers snapped together, conjuring up a single blue sigil that faded into the gathered stuff before her. The sigils came to bright, vivid life as they connected and swam, wrapping and working into the carcass and the things she had applied to it. The poor, newly born creature took shape, taking things from the ground, the plants and from the magic of her body and the life of it. Not long after stood a graceful and pitiful thing.
It looked the cross of a deer and horse. It stood tall and slender, close to rails and the thinness of illness. It's color was completely black, with a variety of symbols along it's entire body in the color of bark. She was, well, impressed by the stature of the creature. It had the graceful neck of both animals, the slender head and face of a deer and the mane and tail of a horse. She hoped the thing could carry her.
But something was definitely off about the thing she had created. At first, she couldn't put her fingers on. Then, tentatively, she reached up and brushed it's forelock away.
She gasped. No eyes. WELL, that was... a problem. They were just empty black sockets. Well, nothing always gets right on the first time. She nibbled her thumb nail before she became aware that the... thing could see just fine without eyeballs. Well. That is magic for you.
Marlen didn't waste much time, abandoning the magical dome it fell apart and disappeared. She hauled herself onto her new pet, keeping down some panic and excitement. It was... very strong. Again, magic. You could never always know the finer points of anything with it. Although now she realized the things she could have added to the spell to have gotten a better structure. Hell, she hadn't specified anything about it's personality. In fact, this was an entire fluke. A stroke of luck. Well, not that wouldn't run with it. But still. If she tried to do it again she was quite sure the pitiful thing wouldn't turn out the same.
The Craft was just so damned fickle sometimes.
Her new mount seemed intrigued with everything and quite lively for something partially made of a deer carcass. And it didn't smell like rot and death either! Just like earth and plants. Of course, the creature itself was bone-thin and looked like the grim reaper's pony-thing. It had it's own appeal in a.... creepy, Necromantian kind of way.
She was just trying to decide on a name for it when it's delicate ears pricked forward. Actually, what was it's gender? What had that deer been? It didn't have a rack, but she wasn't sure about the seasons and since antlers fall off - what the hell was that sound? She urged her mount forward and it picked it's way to the tree's on the opposite side where Faolan was. She stared.
The corner of her wide mouth crooked up. Now. Was he insane or...?
Before she could think about her she found that her big mouth was opening, without her conscious approval. "Put yerself in the fish's position. Would ya take back a hook to a raving man?" She grinned. And mentally scolded herself. There you go, talking to some - she took a better look at him - a kid, really, who may or may not be a little crazy.
She urge her mount to pick along the steep side of the bank, secretly surprised and thrilled to find that it was a sturdy, sure-footed thing. It stood there, his expressionless face flicked toward's Faolan, staring at him with it's black pits. It was a cute thing, if she did say so herself. It twitched its tail. It quivered beneath it, a soft sound vibrating in its depths. She gave it a startled look. It made sound! Well, today just got better and better.
Unless, of course, Faolan was the end of her good luck and he turned into a psycho killer. Her eyes flicked up to him sharply. "Jest what were you tryin' to do?" Stupid accent. She really had to try to fix THAT.
