05-15-2017, 12:19 AM
His knife bit into the animal carcass with a savage hiss of expelled fumes, the ripe tearing sound almost like when one presses their thumbs against the peel of an orange, squeezing until its pulpy insides bloom outward.
Using one green-skinned hand to steady himself against the beast’s still warm and furred hipbone, Orlando set about the skinning rhythm with tightly wound push-and-retreat motions, as if he were sowing seeds in the ground or working with a needle and thread rather than flesh and steel. It was a silent job. Red bled from the cut as he worked, steadily widening and steaming white vapor as it dripped onto the ice, the cold reacting swiftly with the warm lifeblood.
He kept his eyes squinted against the needle-like frost. The tiny barbs of cold irritated his nose, eyes, ears, lips, and tongue— to speak the truth, he could not tell which hurt the most for much of the time he spent glancing up, scarf heaving around the tusks protruding out from his mouth. It would not be unexpected for the loping shadow of a wolf or some other scavenger to materialize against the curtain twisted and flushed outward by the whiteout-blizzard, jowls slavering at the scent of turpentine death.
The snow was stricken with a pancake-like flatness, old wooden pallets settled on the thicker sheets of ice around his sled settled a short distance away, a string of tin cans rattling somewhere as it was batted about by the wind. Below his boots the lake water shifted and writhed as if through a glass window pane, wavy and scarred with scratches like scattered straw— probably from traveling dog teams or boots with iron spikes inserted into them to make scaling even the steepest, most treacherous cliff face possible, he imagined. Bubbles of the deepest blue and bottle green sifted underneath, expelled by the odd fish and sleek-furred seals seeking air holes. He looked up at the sky, watching a black raven plunge with its beak aimed perpendicular to the shrieking tundra before rearing aloft again, feathers whisking it up and up until it was nothing more than a speck against the emptiness of the sky, disappearing when a jealous gust of foggy powder hid it from his sight.
Cupping his hands in a scooping motion, the guts were skillfully removed and dumped into a nearby gash in the ice, cataracts of gore and bulging innards carried away by the pull of the lake bottom. With a huff and the loud, creaky protesting of his joints, he stood and shifted his position, tilting the caribou’s head so that its horns scraped against the ice and its glassy eyes became flecked with the myriad reflections of clouds and swirling flakes. The flat edge of the knife pressed against his fingers as he began to pinpoint sections of meat with the sharpened curve, mapping out the areas he intended to cut before resuming his work once more.
When at last the hide and meat were separated and the disjointed remains slung across his shoulders in his pack, the head (antlers still attached and weighing down on his shoulders with as much undue grace as they sported in life) swaying slightly as he collected himself, he washed his hands in the freezing water and then quickly tucked them into his woolen gloves, knowing that a fire would soon be literally within his grasp. Hunched forward like a beggar wracked with fever, he plodded with great difficulty through the piles upon piles of clumped snow, the jagged soles of his shoes scraping against the ice.
He turned to look over his shoulder, ever distrustful of leaving his back exposed. The withered badger pelt slung over his shoulder rasped over his leather clothing, only small notches of iron nestled against his knees and joints. He gruffed like an immense wild boar disturbed from its rummaging over a forest floor, slapped at the thick leather bracers on his arms, and then continued to walk.
An impression of a body remained pressed into the slush, a starburst of fizzy red ranging around it. He only looked back once, but it was just long enough to catch sight of a stout little figure scuttling across the ice— clearly a dwarf, if his eyes were to be believed.
Orlando’s scowl deepened into an even fiercer expression. His bow was still strung; he hadn’t had the time to unstring it after taking down the hoofbeast. The golden yew longbow’s limbs shivered when an arrow was nocked and drawn backward within the span of a second, the muscles of his arms straining against the force needed to pull it back to full draw. He held it in between his pinched thumb and forefinger for only a second, one eye squinted and the grey eagle-flight fletching fluttering like a piece of lint where the arrow rested beside his chin.
The dwarf scuttled over the ice in a haphazard shuffle in the next second, nearly tripping. Orlando noted this brief stillness, took a short breath in through his nose, and then—
Just before the arrow could be loosed, a dark shape materialized out of nowhere and knocked the stuffing out of the apparently fleeing dwarf. Muffled shouts could be heard, the pitch fluctuating and apparently rife with hurt feelings.
The troll hunter lowered his bow, allowing the bowstring to snap against the bracers on his arms before returning the arrow to its quiver.
Another time, then.
Using one green-skinned hand to steady himself against the beast’s still warm and furred hipbone, Orlando set about the skinning rhythm with tightly wound push-and-retreat motions, as if he were sowing seeds in the ground or working with a needle and thread rather than flesh and steel. It was a silent job. Red bled from the cut as he worked, steadily widening and steaming white vapor as it dripped onto the ice, the cold reacting swiftly with the warm lifeblood.
He kept his eyes squinted against the needle-like frost. The tiny barbs of cold irritated his nose, eyes, ears, lips, and tongue— to speak the truth, he could not tell which hurt the most for much of the time he spent glancing up, scarf heaving around the tusks protruding out from his mouth. It would not be unexpected for the loping shadow of a wolf or some other scavenger to materialize against the curtain twisted and flushed outward by the whiteout-blizzard, jowls slavering at the scent of turpentine death.
The snow was stricken with a pancake-like flatness, old wooden pallets settled on the thicker sheets of ice around his sled settled a short distance away, a string of tin cans rattling somewhere as it was batted about by the wind. Below his boots the lake water shifted and writhed as if through a glass window pane, wavy and scarred with scratches like scattered straw— probably from traveling dog teams or boots with iron spikes inserted into them to make scaling even the steepest, most treacherous cliff face possible, he imagined. Bubbles of the deepest blue and bottle green sifted underneath, expelled by the odd fish and sleek-furred seals seeking air holes. He looked up at the sky, watching a black raven plunge with its beak aimed perpendicular to the shrieking tundra before rearing aloft again, feathers whisking it up and up until it was nothing more than a speck against the emptiness of the sky, disappearing when a jealous gust of foggy powder hid it from his sight.
Cupping his hands in a scooping motion, the guts were skillfully removed and dumped into a nearby gash in the ice, cataracts of gore and bulging innards carried away by the pull of the lake bottom. With a huff and the loud, creaky protesting of his joints, he stood and shifted his position, tilting the caribou’s head so that its horns scraped against the ice and its glassy eyes became flecked with the myriad reflections of clouds and swirling flakes. The flat edge of the knife pressed against his fingers as he began to pinpoint sections of meat with the sharpened curve, mapping out the areas he intended to cut before resuming his work once more.
When at last the hide and meat were separated and the disjointed remains slung across his shoulders in his pack, the head (antlers still attached and weighing down on his shoulders with as much undue grace as they sported in life) swaying slightly as he collected himself, he washed his hands in the freezing water and then quickly tucked them into his woolen gloves, knowing that a fire would soon be literally within his grasp. Hunched forward like a beggar wracked with fever, he plodded with great difficulty through the piles upon piles of clumped snow, the jagged soles of his shoes scraping against the ice.
He turned to look over his shoulder, ever distrustful of leaving his back exposed. The withered badger pelt slung over his shoulder rasped over his leather clothing, only small notches of iron nestled against his knees and joints. He gruffed like an immense wild boar disturbed from its rummaging over a forest floor, slapped at the thick leather bracers on his arms, and then continued to walk.
An impression of a body remained pressed into the slush, a starburst of fizzy red ranging around it. He only looked back once, but it was just long enough to catch sight of a stout little figure scuttling across the ice— clearly a dwarf, if his eyes were to be believed.
Orlando’s scowl deepened into an even fiercer expression. His bow was still strung; he hadn’t had the time to unstring it after taking down the hoofbeast. The golden yew longbow’s limbs shivered when an arrow was nocked and drawn backward within the span of a second, the muscles of his arms straining against the force needed to pull it back to full draw. He held it in between his pinched thumb and forefinger for only a second, one eye squinted and the grey eagle-flight fletching fluttering like a piece of lint where the arrow rested beside his chin.
The dwarf scuttled over the ice in a haphazard shuffle in the next second, nearly tripping. Orlando noted this brief stillness, took a short breath in through his nose, and then—
Just before the arrow could be loosed, a dark shape materialized out of nowhere and knocked the stuffing out of the apparently fleeing dwarf. Muffled shouts could be heard, the pitch fluctuating and apparently rife with hurt feelings.
The troll hunter lowered his bow, allowing the bowstring to snap against the bracers on his arms before returning the arrow to its quiver.
Another time, then.
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Gamzee Makara Wrote:S’aight. After all, dogs have a tendency to motherfuckin’ bite.