Jörmungandr (worldserpent) wrote in forgotten_gods, @ 2010-07-22 22:31:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | jormungandr |
Who: Jörmungandr (worldserpent) & one (1) unfortunate NPC [ narrative ]
When: Juuuust as the sun sets on July 22th (if that's all right, Nik! If not I'll foredate it for Monday or something ^^)
Where: A Mine Shaft, Pennsylvania
What: Breaking things. The surface, necks, etc.
The texture of the earth changed gradually. Rocks interspersed with just enough dirt for the snake to wriggle through gave way to rocky dirt that her clever fingers and hands could shove a way past gave way to plain old dirt that she tunneled through in some indeterminate half-way stage, head as much part of her digging as her hands, feet and tail. Jörmungandr's eyes were closed. To find the way up she just had to keep going in a straight line. There was nothing to see anyway. There was never anything to see. With her eyes closed she saw black, with her eyes open she saw black. It was almost like being underwater again, but quieter. Colder. Less give.
Something wriggled in the dirt near her fingers. She popped it into her mouth, crushed it gently until it popped and stopped writhing and continued on her way, tongue teasing the little thing apart experimentally. Everything out of water crunched more. She had relearned what lack-of-water was days ago, relearned dry and parched, relearned how blood in open air lingered and changed. One of her nails had splintered and been torn away. Pain was nothing new, but the annoyance of slickness where before everything had been constantly slippery was almost completely new.
She was close, now. She could feelhear vibrations, sounds. Lips stained with dirt and blood and Mimir knew what else curled. Eyes shut, the woman-snake moved upward, onward. Jor had no idea what was waiting for her. She barely wondered. The next thing, always the next thing. Forward motion was her part of the deal. Everything else was the universe's prerogative.
What she hadn't counted on was the light. Or more accurately, what she hadn't counted on was bursting out of the ground only to have the setting sun stab at eyes that hadn't seen anything other than the most dilute light in longer than the mines had been there, since before the mine's owner had even been a thought fragment. Her hissing shriek was all animal, hands flying up to block the source of the pain away. Her pupils were shrunk down to dots, her body transitioning slowly from a snake-human hybrid to something approximating a regular woman when a man - he must have been working late, must have heard her shriek - came upon her curled and feral half-human form and, understandably, froze in mingled indecision and horror.
He came closer, poked at her. Jörmungandr did not appreciate that, and she didn't need her eyes to express her displeasure. He friend didn't smell like fish, but he did smell a little like the thing that was all-over fuzz which she had caught fifty feet or so below the earth. The fur had stuck to her mouth, dried her tongue and made eating difficult. How lovely that this creature with its salty warmth didn't have such a coat. The bones had been small, and had cracked in her mouth, drawn blood from her poor tender gums. Some of these bones were large enough to crack for marrow.
So far aboveground was satisfactory.