Dinosaur is NOT the other white meat

[Anonymous]

Noora shivered. She'd never felt cold like this before. Large men's gloves and fur-lined bindings kept her hands and feet warm, but her tail kept coming unwrapped and she was wearing a cloak made for someone almost two feet shorter. Footsteps stretched away behind her for miles, large round holes in the snow. She'd not seen anyone since leaving Connlaoth, and no wonder; who would want to live here?

Admittedly, it was nice to not be stared at. Folk everywhere were mistrustful of her people, hearing tales of the walking dead. Oh, they were true, but they weren't right. There was no harm in it, not that she could convince anyone else of that. As for the Connlaothians, they seemed to revile all magic as unholy, and of course necromancy was on the top of the list. All she could do was deny ever using it, but that didn't stop the looks. They feared her, or pitied her (she was never sure which), and although they weren't unkind, she knew she wasn't welcome.

She pulled her cloak around her more tightly and stomped onward. She had no idea how much further she would have to go, and she wasn't looking forward to the return trip. A cave near the coast in the north-east was all she had to go on, and even that was someone else's fuzzy memory from over a decade ago. While travelling through Connlaoth, she'd heard of a group of soldiers pursuing a fugitive through the frozen tundra to a cave, and being turned back by the skull of a giant beast. It was staring out at them, huge and blackened with tusks twice the length of a man, they'd said when she insisted. They'd fled, she heard, not wanting to deal with more of them, and certainly not wanting to meet whatever it was that could kill such a creature. To her, it sounded like exactly the sort of thing she was hunting.

A powerful beast from many ages ago that died and turned to stone, she'd take it back to her sister somehow. They were partners of a sort, and she had a job to do. Nothing could stop her, not the hushed whispers of distrustful townspeople and certainly not freezing ice. She wasn't quite sure how she'd get the thing back to civilisation if she ever found it, and even less idea what she'd do for food when her rations ran out, but they were problems to be solved later. Plan too much, she always said, and nothing gets done.

[Anonymous]

(*ooc:  sorry for the late reply.   Trying to get over the dreaded writers block.  Sorry if the quality is not up to snuff)

Fever pressed on.  It had been two days since she had left the simple comfort of her underground camp.   She had such hidden campsites scattered around Sionad.  Some dug down into the ice, some inside long winding caves and one (when she was really needing proper rest) was a long-forgotten mining town.  She couldnt stay long at any of these places, because the prey eventually learns to stay away.  Plus, as any hunter know, stay still too long and you could become the hunted.  

She watched her footing close, but kept a wary eye on the horizon.  Soon she would begin to see what she was looking for.  She reached down into a small pouch hanging from a belt draped over her shoulder, and pulled out a sample of some unusual weeds.  Rubbing them between her palms they began to shed heat and warm up her numb fingers.  With her finger now warmed, she tossed the weeds in the air to judge any change in the winds.  As she watches the weeds drift in the wind, her eye catches a glimpse of reflection in the distance.  At last she is there: The Boneyard Cavern.  At least she's spotted the lure to one of her traps.  That places her just a couple miles from rest and a warm place to sleep.  

And so she sets out to rehook and cover all her old traps, making sure they are still intact.  She baits them and heads north.   Ahead in the distance, what appeared to be just more unmeasurable distance slowly begins to become clear.  A slanted embankment, more like a hill than a mountain, but it was expansive: stretching on as far as the eye could see.   And just a little off Fevers course, A single blemish on this large white hill: a large black shadow where the earth opens up to reveal her past.   As if in mockery of some giants mouth, A single tooth-shaped rock stands amid the caves entrance.  

Boneyard Cavern:  Here Raven would call home for the next month.    She entered the cave.

[Anonymous]

((No problem. My post frequency's gone waaaaay down since uni started back up anyway XD))

The cold was making Noora's nose feel weird, and she automatically remedied it the way she usually did - by sticking a finger up it. It wasn't ladylike, and it was kind of unsanitary, especially since she was wearing gloves, but it was just one of those unflattering personal tics. Everyone had one, and nobody thought they did... At least, that was how she justified it when anyone else noticed. Of course everyone would disagree! That had kind of been her point.

Striding along as she was, daydreaming perhaps a little more than she should, a glimpse of something shiny just off her course caught her eye. Slowly retrieving her finger and wiping it thoughtfully on her cloak, she tilted her head to try to work out what the thing was. All the way out here too, how interesting! No! She shook her head and kept walking. She couldn't get off track! If her destination was close, she didn't want to miss it playing with some trinket, and if it was far, that meant she still had a long way to go.

Either way, no distractions allowed!

She kept on walking, wondering as she went about the mysterious shiny thing. What was it? What was it for? At least her idle speculations and wild ridiculous guesses kept her entertained. There wasn't a lot out here to do, or even to look at, to alleviate the intense boredom that came with travelling alone, so anything to break the monotony was welcome.

Thankfully, finally, something that looked like a cave appeared in the distance, an unmissable patch of shade in the brilliant white landscape. She couldn't tell from here if it was the exact one she was seeking, but even if it wasn't, caves often held something of interest within their depths. She was a little too large and unwieldy to be any good at caving, but she always enjoyed poking around in them regardless. And... What was that? Another shiny thing? Well, since she was in sight of what might possibly be her goal, it couldn't do any harm to check this one out. After all, she deserved a break. She'd worked so hard.

She tiptoed towards it as gracefully as she could muster, a grin spreading across her face like a sunrise. She'd just find out what this thing was, and then go and dig herself out a big old skull, and then today would have made everything worth it. It was so perfect. What could go wrong?