Dark Hostess By The Highest Moonlight

The hunt was always better on an empty stomach, and so dinner had been left in the kitchen that night, though perhaps the anticipation of this supposed 'experiment' might as well have stolen Quin's apatite. The trip to Hostess had been, as it always had been, uneventful. Past the slummier parts of town with their loud and vibrant bustle into the late hours of the night, the drunkards by the three horseshoe tavern on the way to the Imperial Stables, and beyond to the Three Sisters Waterfalls, roaring the molten snow water from Mount Agatha down to the Imperial River that ran through the capital. No armor or tools were needed, or so he thought, and so Quin went with as minimal as hunting gear as possible. After all, this was supposed to be a showcase experiment. Surely he was not going to need to do the hunting, because his skill was already established.

Just as the shopkeep had told him, the road forked by Hostess Estate across the bridge, the wood creaking and smelling of moldy old driftwood, it likely not having been repaired in a few years. With each hoofprint on the timber, dust floated down into the river, carried beyond to far lands, and eventually beyond into the oceans, Quin pondered to himself. The village of Hostess itself was such a stark contrast from the slummier parts of the capital, being a small hamlet out in the countryside, Hostess had maintained much of its picturesque appearance, and remained largely the same for the last centuries. Beyond the exit to the dark patch of forest called the Hostess Wald, Quin made quick conversation with a guard who told him that the Hostess Wald is normally quite empty. The wild game from the Imperial Hunting Grounds would not venture so far, and any predators had long gone extinct. He informed him that he might run into a squirrel or two, and that one ginger herbalist carrying a bag had preceded him, though the guard told him that this herbalist had showed no interest for conversation. Quin reasoned that the herbalist was indeed the shopkeep, and so bid his farewell to the guard who remained posted, half asleep, at the exit gate of Hostess.

Walking into the Hostess Wald, it was unsettling how quiet it was. Sure enough, an occasional fox could be heard squeaking, perhaps a bird startled from nearby twigs rustling. His ears flicked back and forth trying to pick up anything unusual, but there was nothing except for twigs and leaves rustling in the wind. The deeper he went, the landscape started going downhill into a slight depression, sort of like a valley, but with very minute height differences. Here, a low hanging fog had settled, one that stung and irritated Quin's nose, causing him to flare his nostrils several times as if trying to get rid of an itch without using his fingers. It reminisced of Sulfur, perhaps even of gunpowder but the smell did not come from anywhere in particular. Breathing it in too deeply caused a modicum of haziness in his vision and other senses, something that caused him a moment of pause, but not enough to make him turn back. He settled on watering a piece of cloth and tying it over his muzzle, preventing at least part of the fog from being inhaled.

The silence suddenly made way for the death cries of a deer, the noise echoing in the valley and it being unmistakably close to Quin, causing him to turn around. He raced off through the trees, weaving between them like the shuttle of a loom, leaving behind a trail of hoofprints in the snow while brushing away branches and drops of snow that would drop down from the vibrations of his hooves on the ground. In a clearing, he eventually found a deer mangled on a rotten tree branch, fallen over. Its neck had seemingly been ripped open, yet at the same time seared and burned, parts of its fur were still smoldering, giving off cinders that danced like little fruitflies in the dog, giving off a glow. The deer tried to move its legs, scraping its hooves against the mud, but it could not move, as its spine had entirely been snapped.

Quin inspected it further as he came closer, hunching down next to it and trying to comfort the animal in its dying moments, while inspecting the gored wounds. He had witnessed Url horn charge animals before, but this was something else entirely, a needlessly messy and ravaged work, like whoever or whatever did this, enjoyed what they were doing, and they were simply aimlessly killing for the sake of the display. The deer eventually passed, and he closed its eyes, before standing back up again, attempting to smell the area to find whoever or whatever did this, but he could not smell a thing because of the damned fog and its sulfuric smell. Then, suddenly, he a gust of wind caused something in his vision to blur out, a few dozen feet away from him. It was as if a spot on his eye had suddenly gone hazy, yet it was clearly not on his eye, as he kept blinking and blinking, and it would not go away until the wind did. Then, a blast of steam or hot air seemed to arise from that general area. He stepped closer, and only as he moved, did he really see it.

The outline of an Url, sitting hunched over on a rock, yet nearly the same size as him standing, three sets of horns adorned like a crown, and blackened skin that made it almost impossible to be seen so deep at night. As the Url noticed that Quin had detected him, its fur seemed to shift standing up. It was only then that Quin realized that the Url's fur on its torso and head and limbs had been reflecting the area around the Url onto the fur, like a form of camouflage. As it stepped closer, the fur seemed to grow hotter and hotter with steam rising from it, the fur itself becoming a vibrant crimson red like that of fire-heated steel, and two bright Void-Silven eyes peered straight at him. The beast was certainly two feet taller than Quin, and it was then that he realized.

He had detected nothing, smelled nothing, seen nothing. He was led around in a dark forest, lured to a location, and eventually he sprung the trap. It was not an experiment or showcase of the Url in the hunt. /He/ was the hunt, and for once in a really long time, not since the days that he was still an Ailor, did Quin feel what it felt like to be hunted. His realization had little time to fester, as the other Url quickly blew steam from its nose and charged horns first at him, Quin bracing to hold back the charge. Sure enough, the caught the horns before they could pierce into his torso and do all manner of damage, but as he was pushed back by the mass of black and red Url in front of him, his hands touched the horns from where to brace, singing and burning the insides of his palms. He was forced to let go, jumping to the side, and letting the other Url continue its charge, smashing into a tree.

He turned around, wiping his hands in the snow to give temporary relief from the burning, perhaps even permitting himself a chuckle as he watched the other Url clearly behave like an amateur Url, incapable of controlling the momentum of its hooves and forward motion, not knowing how to angle its horns, and being more clumsy than graceful and powerful. Still, if Quin were to be impaled by those horns, there was likely no coming back, he reasoned, as the burning of the horns would immediately solidify any internal damage by boiling and searing it all before ripping it apart, just like the Url had done to the deer. The other Url eventually turned around, and Quin decided that he'd had enough, and that a timely retreat would have been preferably to dying like this in a nowhere to a nobody.

Quin entered a gallop into the woods around them, with the other Url following, more slowly albeit faster and stronger. Instead of Quin losing time weaving his way around trees, the other Url simply smashed them to pieces or to the sides, uprooting whole networks of roots and ripping up the earth that was sprayed in all directions as its hooves kicked into it. Its anger seemed to increase as the red fur turned more orange and quickly yellow, the steam hissing even faster as the thundering gallop behind him picked up speed on a more open stretch. Quin had to rethink his approach quickly, given that he could not outrun the other Url on a straight leg, turning instead to the nearby river that fed into the Three Sisters Waterfalls. His gallop downhill eventually turned into a tumble, leaping head first into the water, and resurfacing closer to the other side. As he climbed back onto the river bed, the other Url meanwhile got launched into the water, having clearly lost its footing on the way down the hill, and as soon as it hit the water, a loud thunderous explosion followed, like a pan of water instantly vaporizing while touching a white-hot piece of steel, steam gushing everywhere and the shockwave knocking Quin onto the riverbed, albeit off his feet.

He quickly climbed back to his feet and continued galloping towards the Hostess village. He quickly changed direction however, when he realized that the beast would just massacre the village on its way to chase him, and so to avoid endanger the people there, Quin turned straight for the Three Sister Waterfall, with the other Url on his heels. Even through the snow, Quin could see when he turned back, that the Url was leaving a trail of cinders and fire behind, its horns leaking what looked like molten fiery liquid, immediately melting and boiling any snow it made contact with, and settling ablaze pieces of wood that its hooves crushed underfoot. He was paying so much attention to the other Url, that he did not notice the end of the path, falling down into the river, and being dragged along by the currents, his size as Url not making him suitable for swimming, especially since he did not have feet shaped like paddles. The other Url ceased its chase, standing on the ledge looking at him as he was dragged off, producing a loud yowl that sounded like an orchestra of bison announcing their stampede. Quin could just make out the silhouette of it disappear back into the fog from which it came as he went underwater, but he had more important things to consider.

Being knocked back and forth, he was dragged along by the strong current, eventually falling down the first of the three waterfalls, dropping several dozen feet until the water caught him, his body being tossed back and forth against a set of rocks underwater while he desperately tried to resurface. Struggling against the water rushing against him, he gasped for air numerous times, flailing his arms far and wide in an attempt to grab hold of something, anything. As luck would have it, his right arm managed to snatch a part of a small fishing pier, attached to the small island in the middle of the river before the second and arguably more dangerous waterfall that was twice as tall as the first and last. With a mighty pull, he managed to drag himself onto the waterside, laying on his back, and breathing in heavily to try and catch up to all that had just happened. Feeling drained from exhaustion and the battery of the rocks with several bruises and cuts, he stared up at the sky, until two reddish orange eyes looked down at him. He instinctively tried to punch, but his arms were so weak they barely managed to even lift off the ground, halted by the other Url.

The other Url then shifted its head in the moonlight, revealing the blonde and gray tufts of hair, Magnus the Url, who had found him. A pang of relief set in with Quin, feeling immediately somewhat safer, yet still not quite out of the woods, literally. Magnus picked him up and slung him over his back, dragging Quin back to the city to be tended to by a doctor. On his way back to the city, Magnus explained that he had not trusted the shopkeep, and shadowed Quin from several hundred yards away out of smelling range. He had not witnessed what occured in the forest of Hostess Wald, but did see the outline of the other much larger Url that stood by the edge of the waterfall where Quin fell in. He explained that he followed the waterfalls, and then found Quin on the island, deciding that whatever that thing was, that it was unnatural, and that his first priority should be to put Quin into safety.

And so they eventually returned to the city, just as the moon was about to dip below the horizon, and the sun would rise on the other side. It was up to them to decide, where next from here.

@TheBearistotle @SupremeCripple

 

I posted it in the wrong section. It should be only known by Quin, but I'm sure he will tell.