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+--- Thread: AW the end of the road (/showthread.php?tid=11513)
the end of the road - Ghenaya - 5/7/2026
hunger.
hunger was everything.
there was nothing she wouldn't do for a mouthful — meat was the goal, but by now starling had filled her stomach with all the water she could find, or grass pulled up in chunks. flowers, most recently. roots of plants she didn't know the name of, starchy things that were hard to chew, but she swallowed anyway.
her energy waned; there were signs of living things worth chasing, but the girl could only look and watch, she did not have anything to spare.
the ichorwood might have provided something if she'd reached it earlier.
instead, this might be where her story ends.
RE: the end of the road - Journey - 5/7/2026
There was a girl in the blood forest. Dark and thin, far too thin that she knew the girl might not survive much longer. The long winter had been hard on her surely. It had on them all, especially the loners. The forgotten.
Journey takes a few paces closer, slow, but filled with purpose. She woofs out to her, wondering if she might still have the strength in herself to turn and look.
RE: the end of the road - Ghenaya - 5/7/2026
she looks - a zombie, hear head swinging as a slow pendulum. she does not see the wolf at first despite it being white against dark; her swing overshoots, and after a second to catch up to her periphery, she realizes it and looks properly at them.
is that a spirit? is that her ghost?
they've gotten closer; did she walk, or did they float? she feels like she's floating...
starling takes a step and then another, mouth opening as if to speak, but her tongue lolls out instead.
dry, cracked - she's thought about chewing it off a few times now. meat is meat.
RE: the end of the road - Journey - 5/8/2026
skill: hunter
Exhaustion has done a number on her senses. The journeyman woods again, low, to try and center the young girl's attention. When she is able to focus on Journey and as Journey draws nearer, she realized that perhaps she is already too late. Likely too weak to travel to the foothills of Northfall, for she did not think they girl had it in her to travel the hours it might take.
Stay. I am huntress. I will feed you.If the girl wandered off, she did not think it would be far. As quickly as Journey came, she left, swift on her feet to the closest great lake of this forest. This red forest was teeming with water, including the coast. Hunting rabbits, weasel and gopher had a higher chance of failure. Fishing she could so far more swiftly.
Still, it was an hour or two before she came back. She held two fish by the tails- a decent sized carp and a smaller bluegill and sat them to the forest floor, woofing again for the dark coated teen.
RE: the end of the road - Ghenaya - 5/13/2026
the spirit spoke, and then it was gone.
starling's head pounded; she had a perpetual pain there between her ears, down her neck, her eyes - all parts of her above the shoulders had become a persistent ache, preventing sleep.
she ducked towards the soil and picked at the grass, like a ruminant.
her steps began again; ambulatory because of the angle of the earth rather than any desire to really move, so yes, she was not in the same place when the ghost returned to her.
in those hours the girl did not get very far at all, and in fact collapsed, to tuck herself together as a pile of bones and flesh.
the fish laid before her, it took a moment before she saw it - smelled it - wanted it.
watery eyes that did not focus, lingering there upon the bluegill; then meekly, grabbling it and trying to eat.