Erzulie stared wide-eyed at the mound of feathers that lay lifeless before her, cringing with guilt. The metallic scent of blood began to seep into the air as the crimson liquid trickled from the small holes in the animal's neck. Erzulie didn't understand what went wrong; she'd played with Robert like that a hundred times and he never went to sleep and leaked red water. She sniffed, the smell making her muzzle wrinkle even as she realized it was vaguely appetizing. The odor quickly strengthened as the fluid soaked into the hay and she realized that soon it would be noticeable well outside of the stable.
The little creamy ears that were laid back in worry perked up quickly as it dawned on her that she had probably just done something she wasn't supposed to. Her head jerked side to side, looking around the stable to see if she'd been discovered. Good, no one was there. She turned back to the poultry and poked at it with her muzzle, whimpering and hoping it would wake up. Instead, it just rolled, it's head flopping at the end of its limp neck.
“Wake up little guy,” she whispered softly, licking at the wound on its neck. Another whine escaped the girl when the animal didn't move despite how much she cleaned the wounds. “Somebody's gunna find you an' then I'mma be in trouble. Please? Pleeeease?” She pleaded vehemently, nudging it again.
It was no use, the hen wouldn't wake back up. It was asleep forever. Her shoulders slumped in defeat and her haunches sat upon the ground as she dropped her head and started to cry. Too young to understand the meaning of what she had done, she didn't mourn the death of the animal but knew enough to feel remorse for what had happened. She wished she could undo it – even if it was just to get herself out of trouble. Her chest heaved in its first sob, and a tear rolled down her muzzle and dropped to the ground.
“Please?” She asked again huskily, tearful eyes opening and looking at the smeary image of the bird. She peered around helplessly, pleadingly, as though she was searching for something in particular. “Help me,” she asked the atmosphere. “I didn't mean to do it. Make it get better.” She appealed as though there was someone else there with her, but the stable was still empty of all except for the farm animals. “I'll draw you another picture. Please,” but no answer came.
She dipped her head again, another tear rolling down her nose and falling into the dust near the chicken. She moved a paw, drawing a line in the sand, and then crossing it with another. She added a dot here, a dot there, sniffled...
...and the bird twitched.
Erzulie froze, eyes bugging. Did she just imagine it or had the dead animal really moved? Quickly she continued the drawing, though now her eyes were trained on the chicken, and a moment later a wing flapped and fell still, even as its head still lay there at an impossible angle.
The puppy began to laugh, her tearful eyes now drawn with a smile. He was helping – he was helping her! She was drawing the shapes furiously now, knowing that any minute he would bring the animal back to life and everything would be okay. And he did! Just as the drawing was complete the body lurched and the bird began flapping, twisting and writhing as though it were trying to fly and run all at the same time. Erzulie laughed with delight... it was back! It was okay! Even it if was a little... a little... freakish...
Although she'd resurrected the bird there was something terribly wrong with it now. It jerked and twitched with no purpose to its actions – even the other hens with their nervous movements didn't twitch like that. Erzulie's mirthful gaze mutated into a look of horror as the bird kept flopping, and then it was on its feet and running straight for her.
“AAAAHHHHHHH!!!” She screamed at full pitch as she turned and ran, tucking tail and bolting toward the stable door. She just made a freaking zombie chicken, and it was going to get her!
WC:365. - Daddy just had to join in on this hilarious thread. But it's still open to anyone! Nuki I hope you don't mind the slight pp? I'll change it if you do.
He had been at his craft when he heard the scream. Bangle was surrounded on his front porch by several sticks, of all different shapes and sizes. That afternoon he sat there, on the wooden floor, inspecting sticks for just the right ones. The craftsman observed his wild daughter and quiet son grow at an alarming rate, and soon they'd be able to turn and explore the world unlike they could before. For just an occasion, the coywolf was preparing to make them simple hunting weapons, to use when they could stand on two legs.
His small carving knife was between the male's lips, as he inspected a choice stick that was sturdy. Both objects fell in an instant and his ears perked up high, when he heard a scream, but his large ears dropped like weights when Bangle heard his daughter's familiar voice. Scrambling, all of Bangle's baubles erupted in noise as he leaped off of the porch of his shack, leaving all of his things behind, and dashed towards the stables. "'Zul?!" The orange-eyed male called out, the scream so urgent that the coywolf only feared the worst. Memories of Nathaniel swam in his head as he kicked up dust, rounding the corner to the entrance of the stables when a flash of white charged at him. Caught unaware, the coywolf caught Erzulie's heavy incoming form with his own, and they both crashed onto the hard packed earth.
Bangle grit his teeth as they fell, and had wrapped his hands around his daughters body in the process. His fear overcame the pain he felt when he fell, and his eyes stared up at Erzulie when the dust around them settled. "'Zulie, what's th' matter? What's wrong?" His tone was hard, and questions demanding, quickly propping himself up on his arms. Salmon tongue hung from his mouth as he panted, eyes darting from the pup on his lap towards the dark stable entrance. In no time at all, he watched as a half-dead chicken emerged into the light, leaving blood in its wake. Bangle kicked backwards slightly, a protective hand suddenly wrapping around the pure colored body of the female. "What... what is that?"
OOC It's all good, if you don't mind my mini one too. =)
“Ahh! Ahh!” Scream after scream sliced the air as she high-tailed it out of the barn door, little puffs of dust kicked up in her wake. The only noise behind her was the ambient sound of rustling feathers as the zombie chicken flapped its wings unevenly, but no clucking noise cam from the creature. She glanced back over her shoulder with wide eyes, seeing if the horrific thing was still following her, and screamed again when she collided with something.
“Ah! Ah! No! Get away!” She yelled amid a series of very canine yelps, her body wriggling like mad and limbs flailing. She tried to push herself up and jerk away from whatever had captured her now, and accidentally landed a paw square on her father’s nose before looking down and realizing it was her daddy. Her eyes were fearful and she panted desperately. Her struggling changed but the girl still didn’t hold still. She was no longer fighting Bangle, but she still wanted to slip out of his arms.
“Run, Daddy, we gotta get outta here!” She whimpered and whined before finally holding still and looking over her shoulder again. “It’s a demon chikkun! I putta demon in it and now it’s after meeee he he heeee.” The last word was drawn out into a hiccupping sob as she saw the abomination draw closer. Now its wings were fanned out, sometimes one would flap, sometimes the other. As it rounded the corner it ran into the side of the barn and bounced off, spasmed for a moment, and then managed to get back onto its wildly kicking feet. It made a wobbly path their way, the beady eyes stared blankly from the head that dangled lifelessly from the broken neck.
She turned away and buried her face in her father’s chest, pawing at him for protection. It was almost here and they would soon get a brual… uh… what was it going to do, peck at them when it couldn’t even move its neck? She raised her head and looked at it again, then realized that those sharp talons were still moving and that it could still claw at them. Oh no! Had she just sealed her daddy’s fate?!
With a bark she wriggled out of her father’s arms and grabbed hold of the green band he wore around his waist every day, pulling with a strength that belied her size. Her paws slipped in the dirt but she would do everything she could to get her astonished father up and out of harm’s way.
“Daddy!” she commanded. “Move your ass!” Yeah, she probably hadn’t learned that one from her mother.
He struggled to keep a hold of the pup as she wriggled and scrambled to get away from his grasp, as if a stranger had been holding her. "'Ey! Now wait a-- oof!" Bangle had begun to speak, until he was pawed in the nose. He turned his face away, beads and bones clacking in his hair, as the coywolf wriggled his nose to rid of the small pain his daughter had just delivered. Shaking his head, he barely heard Erzulie's words about some chicken turning hellish.
Sure enough, though, his eyes landed upon the object that frightened the white pup. She was not lying, as the craftsman observed the animal ricocheting off the barn doors and flailing to stand again. Its neck was in an awful position, but it was clear that someone had made a messy job of killing it. Still, it ran towards them as if its head were cut off, as headless chickens often did, but Bangle made no move to get up. The male didn't even notice when his daughter left his grasp, but a bubbling began in his chest, and worked its way up.
With the hilarity of the situation, and the assumption that this was Erzulie's doing, the combination of her pulling at his cloth folds seemed to bring all of it to the surface. Bangle threw his head up and began to cackle in the way he did, his chest heaving with laughter until he had to gasp in between to breathe. Still, he heard a word from Zulie that he didn't think she knew, but the coywolf could not help but remain in his state. The male clutched his sides and fell back as his daughter kept tugging at him to move, rocking until he felt a bump near his thigh.
In a swift movement that he has done several times, Bangle lifted the struggling chicken by its feet, and dangling it upside down. Its head flopped helplessly as it beat its useless wings in an effort to flee. The multicolored male kept chuckling, sitting upwards as he held his arm that held the animal out towards the young female. "Is.. heh.. is this what yer own about, Zulie?" Bangle laughed through his teeth, still trying to piece the whole situation together. "I'd thought.. yeh were.. bein' attacked by somethin'... well, bigger." The craftsman joked, picking on the girl despite their ties.
As his laughter subsided, a bit more abruptly now, a hint of shock fell into the man's bright autumn eyes, looking from the dangling chicken to the white pup. "Were.. were y' tryin' to hunt?" Bangle had realized then that his children were growing up quicker than he expected, and as he looked at Erzulie's growing body, still clumsy, would begin to itch to track, hunt, and kill. Sitting up straight now, he awaited an answer, and then the word she had uttered when she commanded him to move also made his large ears straighten. "'N where did yeh hear that word?" The shock disappearing, he lifted a brow as he looked into his daughter's face inquisitively. He knew he wouldn't have to repeat the word, but a sickening feeling in his stomach had told him that the Guffawri male was to blame.
.: OOC Maybe small PP, especially on the language. Will happily say she heard it from someone else. Let me know if anything is not ok. <3 This is so much fun. :: WC 600+ :.
“I don’t see what’s so funny about this,” she complained as she spat out the folds of cloth. Her father wouldn’t move, wouldn’t do anything! No matter how hard she tried to get it through his thick dumb daddy skull he wasn’t listening to her! “We’re gonna die!” But it was no use, all he would do was sit there and laugh that trilling laugh of his. She snorted petulantly, screwing up her face as she stared down her snout at her unresponsive father. Maybe it was already too late for him. Yes, it is, Erzulie decided. She sighed and rolled her eyes as she casually muttered, “Great, now Daddy’s possessed.”
That was when the flapping corpse caught her attention again and she bristled, cringing. The gory monster was upon her daddy! She opened her mouth to scream but only a choking gurgle came out as she watched her father’s hand sweep forward in one fluid motion and take the thing around its ankles. It struggled and flapped but ultimately did nothing to harm her father. “Hey! You can’t do that!” She announced as she stomped under the chicken, her eyes peering up at the wriggling thing. Her fear of the creature hadn’t abated one bit, and her eyes turned to her father as she spoke a very adult statement. “Size isn’t everything. There’s power in things beyond what you can see!”
She had to get it away from him, for his own good. Even though she didn’t want to touch the gruesome spectacle she needed to rescue her daddy. With a bark the creamy pup launched herself into the air. Her teeth clamped down on the floppy neck but when she landed on the ground she didn’t have the chicken, just the lumpy head.
”Blegh! Ughlglglhhaaaah!” She spit the head out and convulsed with the heebie-jeebies. “Eww! Daddy, move!” Blood was dripping from the torn neck onto her back. She took a few steps away, the ridge of fur down her spine twitching and shuddering with the grossness of it all. When she turned back to her father she watched as the thing’s jerky movements slowly ceased now that the last of the blood drained from the muscles. There, it was done. She turned her eyes to her father and nodded once. See? Demon properly exorcised.
Now there were other matters to attend to. Her ears went back as Bangle asked about what she’d been up to and she remembered how she felt when she first killed the thing. She thought he said hunt like it was a bad thing. Her sunburst eyes grew misty and she shook her head. “No Daddy! I wasn’t trying to hunt it. I’m sorry. I just was playing and it happened. I was chasing it around and I caught it and I just had this urge to shake it and then it stopped playing back.” She paused to sniffle, then continued. “I dunno why it stopped but I didn’t think it was good. So I tried to wake it up-“ hiccup “-an’ I axed my friend for help an’ I dunno who did it but someone made that happen and that’s not what I meant-“ her tone and expression suddenly flipped from near-tears to annoyance “an’ if I get my paws on him he’s gonna be sorry for playing such a rotten trick an’ puttin’ that demon in the chikkun!”
She harrumphed and flopped her rump on the ground, bottom jaw jutting out in the perfect pout. What a mean mean trick Legba played on her. Her temper properly stoked, she rolled her eyes when Bangle asked her about ‘the word.’ “Whaddaya mean? You say it all the damn time. ‘He’s a lazy ass.’ ‘I’m gonna kick his ass.’ ‘Mommy’s got a nice a--’ WHAT Daddy?!” She cut herself off mid-word and snapped at him when she saw the look on his face. “What’d I do?”
In between fits of laughter, his chest rising and falling beneath his leather straps. When Erzulie began to complain and move closer to the chicken, in play he lifted it higher above her head, out of normal reach. The male faltered, however, when she bore into his autumn eyes with her own haunting ones, speaking a phrase that seemed beyond comprehension - even for the pup. It was in that moment that the white female seized advantage and leaped up towards the bleeding menace, and her paws hit the ground hard and came away with the animal's floppy head.
Bangle did nothing but watch the small spectacle, as blood began to soak into the dark parts of her neck, and trickled slowly down like rain to show evidence in her cream colored fur. When the chicken ceased to struggle under the crafty man's fingers, he let it flop into the dust next to him, its blood soaking into the earth. The flicker of astonishment turned into a narrowed look in his daughter's direction, bat-like ears attentive as he listened to Erzulie's story, her voice cracking and emotions betraying her with each word.
He leaned forward, still listening, the expression on his face growing darker and more accusing as his long face bore into hers. When her tongue let slip words about a friend and attempting to put all the blame on him, her body flopped down, helpless like the chicken that lay still beside him. A pull at the corner of his muzzle nearly betrayed him, his countenance keeping firm as he studied his daughters face. Words tumbled out of her like water, and Bangle found he was to blame for the new word his daughter just learned. The craftsman's eyes grew wide, the rest of his face frozen as Erzulie stared back at him
with an air of innocence and naivety that only a puppy could have.
"Erzulie, do y'know what yeh've done?" He inquired with the strongest of voices that the male could muster. Autumn eyes flashed with a hint of humor, orbs narrowing to display his false sense of anger instead of what the male was truly feeling. For dramatic intent, the male leaned forward and grasped the white pup by her shoulders. His lips pulled back, showing her the hint of ivory teeth beneath. "I don' think yeh realize..." Scooping the pup up, his voice drifted from stern to his light sense of humor, mingled with pride. "..How proud I am of ya, yeh rascal!" His hand ruffled the nape of his daughter's ebony neck, pulling her into an awkward hug as his smile could no longer be contained, laughing into the clouds heartily. "Hah-ah! Didn' think I'd see th' day!" The male pulled back from the embrace and looked down into the pup's eyes, brimming with pride.
Strange though it was, he witnessed Erzulie make her first kill, and in time she'd find bigger game, and cut its life quicker. Then he'd be able to teach her how to skin them, and make use of near every part of the animal. The coywolf's laughter subsided, but his cheshire cat grin remained, excited about future prospects. "Jus' wait until yer mother hears about this, eh?!" He nodded, knowing Skye would be proud when Erzulie announced her first kill, though whether she would speak of the chicken or the demon within that she vanquished, Bangle didn't know. The male snapped out of his reverie then, and leaned forward to whisper into his daughter's cream colored ear. "But let's not tell 'er about th' word yeh learned from yer dad, eh Zulie? It'll be our lil' secret." Drawing back, the male could not find it in him to punish his daughter, not when his face beamed proudly down at her.
Nuki I hope you don't mind the slight pp? I'll change it if you do.
<3 This is so much fun. :: WC 600+ :.
