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Thread Title: 「 I will always love you 」 

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As you begin to eat a hare you just captured, you freeze after the first real bite. It tasted… sweet? Very sweet, as if it had been marinated in honey. Maybe there was something wrong with it? Tentatively, you push it aside as you begin to trail another animal to replace it. Every fresh marking seemed to be intertwined with notes of sweetness or laced with a heavy undertone of floral scents. You’d better keep searching, I’m sure you’ll hunt down a meal that’s normal, or maybe even an explanation.

Thread Participants

OOC partner: Karleesi
Character 1: Mekh
Alignment: True Neutral
Desired skills: N/A
No triggers listed

OOC partner: Carey
Character 2: Bezalel
Alignment:  chaotic neutral
Desired skills: Warrior, ranger, hunter
No triggers listed

Skill: Hunter

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There was definitely something wrong with it.

Mekh continued to chew thoughtfully, however, rolling the taste around in his mouth as he wavered between swallowing it or spitting out the chunk of flesh entirely. He'd eaten enough half-rotten corpses in his time scavenging before Seti, and so he wasn't too terribly concerned with the idea of chancing it - after all, he'd always had an iron stomach.

He swallowed with a loud ulp.

How interesting! He hoped it wouldn't come back up in a few hours, but Mekh trusted his gut.

Maybe he should find something else to eat just in case.

Setting off at an easy trot, the coywolf began his hunt, nose to the ground as he swiftly caught the trail of a hare - a hare, laced with... he pursued the smell, faster and faster, brow furrowing in concentration. Flowers? Honey? What? Had every animal in the region fallen into a sticky beehive?

Was he ill? Was he losing his sense of smell, of taste?

Horrors above! He could not imagine a world without the complexity of flavor - growing somewhat distressed, Mekh quickened his pace until he was now at a near-gallop, following the trail with fear in his eyes.

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One of their favorite meals. A hare, plump for the winter and as white as the snow. It had been a laborious catch and even now as they lay, ready to enjoy it, they marveled at the plush fur. Lupine meat in general was a go-to for Bezalel, when they could not find redder meats that they were capable of bringing down. There was certainly a tone of disappointment, then, when they began to eat and the meat was tainted with the sticky-sweet flavor of something else. Honeyed sweetness flooded across their tongue. Their face scrunched, their toungue flicked out the small chunk of flesh, and they stared at the tiny body a little forlornly. Lun would not approve of the waste of meat. Another nibble revealed that it was, indeed, saccharine in nature.

That was peculiar.

Even more peculiar was the shape of a canid racing across the snow. Bezalel's gaze shifted up to watch the coywolf. They might have let the lanky man run by, but instead offered a soft woofing noise to get his attention. Assuming he heard them, anyway. Their rose-gold eyes boring into him, into the tawny of his coat and the scent of the desert that was carried in the distant undertones of his scent.

They were laying in the shadow of a douglas fir. Would he even see them there? Would he pause?

Mekh

Skill: Hunter

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A soft woof nearly sent Mekh flying out of his skin. So focused on the hunt, he hadn't taken note of his surroundings - a foolish error, he chided himself, should he ever hope to become worthy of rank beneath Seti's rule.

He halted, the sweet-scent still irritating his nose as he fought the urge to keep going.

What if - what if there wasn't a cure?

Ah, hello, Mekh greeted somewhat distractedly. I was - am - following a most peculiar trail. It could be a medical condition. Er, not the trail - it just - I seem to be under some new affliction.

If he had possessed hands, they would be fidgeting. Mekh licked his lips anxiously, eyes darting back toward the game trail he had so diligently been tracking.

I don't know if it's contagious.

He swallowed noisily.

Everything tastes of honey and smells of florals. I must be ill.

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