Who: Cyrus & Ceres What: Scouting! Where: The Outlands When: Backdated: second week of September Rating: Tame Status: Complete
In Cyrus’ opinion, he’d have preferred just about any of his other traveling companions as a scouting partner. Not that he minded the taciturn knight, necessarily, but he had a notion she wasn’t thrilled about being stuck with him either, useful skill set or not, and besides, if someone threatened violence over a mess on the floor, could she really be relied upon in a fight?
That was probably an uncharitable thought, and he felt a bit bad about having it, but he couldn’t help wondering.
Still, for now, everything was quiet enough. The woods weren’t still, which would have been a bad sign all around, but there was nothing of note, either. There had been reports locally of villages being ravaged -- a couple mentions of a winged beast, which was worrisome -- and more frequently sheep and cattle being carried off in the night. If there were fearsome creatures here, though, they were quiet and well-concealed.
He stopped at a split in the faint path they’d been following and looked over the matted leaves and twigs on the ground. “North to water,” he said at last. “Maybe a decent campsite for the night, we’d have to see.” He found the less he said to this woman generally, the better. Not only would he not stutter, he’d also hopefully avoid annoying her. “East, we’ll be heading into the hills. There could be caves and things where… whatever it is is hiding.”
He gave her an inquiring look, clearly waiting for her to choose the direction.
Ceres wasn’t thrilled to be heading off with someone - who her first impression dictated - wasn’t much better than a bumbling puppy of a man. Really, could she even call him a man in the true meaning of the word then? Though, this whole thing was a mess, and not one she cared for at all. It left a bad taste in her mouth from the very beginning at this point.
Her eyes narrowed as he mentioned north first, and then carried on about the other direction.
“East.” Came the short reply. “Scout for safety and potential targets.” With an easy turn, her swift stride started taking her in the direction without a second thought.
“East it is.” They’d be short on daylight in a few hours, and he wasn’t sure just how far she wanted to hike but… well, whatever she said would go for now. He didn’t mind, and if they weren’t back until nightfall, he was sure the others would follow the same path to water, anyway, so they’d all find each other soon enough.
They moved in silence before he ventured, “Haven’t seen any sign of anything big wandering the woods.” She’d have noticed, too -- no broken branches, no signs of anything heading down to drink, at least not from this side. A bit of a puzzle. Something was out here, the villagers had been very clear.
He considered it for a short while as the terrain got steadily rockier. “Something with wings?”
Sure, the conversation had been over for a quarter hour, but he’d been mulling it over, and she didn’t seem the sort for chitchat.
“Possible.” Was all she gave in response, eyes scanning over the terrain ahead of them. “Or higher than we can see.” A nod towards the upper parts of the tree tops was given. While they could see things on the ground - hoof, claw, or foot prints, scraped bark, broken branches, strange scrapes against rocks, or burrowings into the ground - if something got up a good twenty feet or more - into the thicker foliage - they’d all be just as clueless as anyone else. A part of her wanted to climb up into the trees just to check that theory, but at the same time, if anything suddenly decided to bust out of some sort of hiding spot…. No, better not to check that idea out unless they had a larger group with them.
“Maybe. We might’ve done better to head down to water, then. All the local wildlife should make it down to the river, eventually. Everything needs water. We could find something.” He shrugged, looking up as she did into the treetops, trying to see what she saw. The foliage was still thick, though the green was fading to yellow and orange in patches. The cold would be coming soon.
And… His eyes narrowed. “Up there,” he said, pointing at one of the trees, an aspen with decidedly more black near its crown than there ought to have been. “Is that singed?”
“Mm?” Her eyes narrowed further, trying to trace along to where he had pointed and her forward movement through the forest stopped. It took a moment, but finally she was able to find the spot he was attempting to point out and…
“I think so.” Without another thought Ceres moved towards the tree that seemed to house the evidence they might just need to close this, trying to examine how sturdy the tree was for a moment. With a glance back to puppy man she nodded to the tree. “Look strong enough to you?” And with her stance, she wasn’t hiding the fact that she was quite clearly ready to climb it.
He considered the branches with -- for once, in this instance -- a knowing eye. “Not for my weight,” he said. “Without your sword, I think you could get up there, probably. If you fall,” a sheepish shrug, “I can catch you. Well, I can try.” Better not make her promises in case he couldn’t keep them. “I can probably catch you,” he amended.
The question hadn’t been for him to climb it at all, and Ceres had thought she’d made that perfectly clear but apparently he hadn’t gotten it through his thick skull. Though, his assessment of having to leave her gunblade behind earned a displeased glare. Not aimed at him in particular but the situation in general for now.
“Tch.” Shifting she moved to undo the belt from around her waist which held the gunblade. “Worry about yourself.” Setting the gunblade so that it leaned against the tree Ceres shifted, hopping up to grab the lowest, and most sturdy branch. With that in hand she pulled herself up onto it before beginning to shift, and move to find the next best branch so that she could continue her upward climb.
“I’m not worried,” he called after her, before he realized she probably hadn’t meant it seriously. Well… if she fell, he’d still try to catch her, whether or not she wanted it. He’d be softer to land on than the ground, anyway.
As she climbed, he looked up at the nearby trees. No other immediate sign of singe marks, but that actually made it even stranger. If there had been a fire… but clearly there hadn’t been, and they weren’t at an altitude for elementals yet, nor a likely landscape for that matter. “What do you think?”
Either he didn’t get it, or he was confident of his own abilities if a ground attack suddenly happened. Either way, Ceres wasn’t about to get into a fight over the technicalities of the situation since climbing this tree, and finding out what was going on up top was far more important right now. With some careful planning, and assured footwork, the climb was easy enough and it wasn’t long until she was high enough up to reach the singed part. Frowning, her gaze was cast along the other trees in the area, trying to notice any other sections that may have been… Well… It would seem burned from above as she didn’t recall any damage like this below, or anywhere else in between from her climb up, and in fact, there were. Her eyes narrowed attempting to follow along any path they may lay out for tracking whatever it was that was out here.
However, that would only take a couple minutes before she reached over, broke off the singed section just below where it began to keep it intact, and slowly - carefully - set to climbing back down. Just as going up had taken a bit, coming down would take just as long between having to check her footing, and now having one hand partly occupied with the evidence of whatever it was - so far - they’d found. At the bottom branch she hung for a few seconds, glancing down to assure nothing was in her way before dropping down.
Straightening up she offered up the singed bit of tree to the man next to her, and retrieved her gunblade. “Looks like we’re dealing with something that flies, and has fire.” Shifting the belt was strapped back around her waist, and her hands worked to firmly lock it in place.
“There’s a pattern. Rough, but it looks like it continues east.” With belt now in place, one hand came to rest on the gunblade hilt. “We’d better tell the others.”
"It's too high up for elementals," was his contribution as he inspected the bit of charred bark. "Actually, I think I've seen something like this before, up north." He remembered it well -- it had been a big enough mess to clear up, and he'd had to send for help. "Dragonlings like to test their fire like that. If there's a nest nearby, their mother could be taking the cattle to feed them, and considering how protective they can get..." He winced.
"Isn't there another village on the map just over the rise?" he asked. "After we get back to the others, we could consider stopping in before we head up to find the nest." He paused, realizing he was being rather opinionated, and said, "Or maybe not. We'll see what they think. But they could need help, considering."
“The others need to know.” And as far as what they did after telling the others, she didn’t care right now as they needed this step done first. With that, Ceres checked her belongings, making sure everything was aligned right, and the started off back towards the group at a jog. If they were dealing with dragons, even baby ones, this could become big trouble really fast.