[ AW ] An Unusual Scent

The more time Rhychdir spent with the man, the more she realized certain things to be absolute truth with him. First and foremost, he was a complete madman, but two, he did not, upon first approach, seem to have any ill-intent toward her. Although Rhychdir still kept her wits about her and did not let her guard down around the peculiar blind man. She didn’t trust many and hadn’t for some time.

The merle woman had been burned one too many times to easily be trusting towards others, although the man before her, Mercury, did prompt some curiosity within the older woman. She wanted to know what he was going to show her, and, truly, if all else failed, she could bite her pride and run from anything that was truly a danger to her.

“Not yet. I will ask it when I need to. Or when I want to,” he said with a shrug and a sigh. Rhychdir’s eyes narrowed slightly, but after a moment she gave a small shrug.

“Okay, whatever,” she grumbled before her ears pricked slightly as she looked around in curiosity. The swamp, as it was, reminded her greatly of one of her many homes. The one that she had been in before she’d left the Syndicate in the middle of the night to stow away to some new land, away from the bullshit that it all had become in a madman’s eyes.

“I will cash in on my questions when the need arises. For one, you need not concern yourself with it.” Mercury said, drawing Rhychdir’s attention back. She frowned slightly, shaking her head despite the man’s lack of ability to see it.

“You’re a fucking weird one,” she said bluntly, slowly taking a few steps deeper, testing each place she put her paws with experienced ease. She wondered if this swamp too had the giant wolf-eating lizards, or if it just held the snakes and sucking pits, both of which she knew to also be deadly to an unsuspecting wolf.

“Take all the time you desire,” the man said.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a fuckin’ swamp,” she said gruffly, as per her usual way of speaking. “I used to live in one, a long time ago.” But it wasn’t really that long ago. Almost a year, now, but not that long in the grand scheme of things.

MERCURY

The black jester settles in a tree, limbs hanging idly from a branch as if he has perched, a cat waiting for its prey to scuttle on by.

"Yes, I'm sure. I had a brief stint in one as well--found it a bit too sticky for my like."His shoulders arch and fall in a loose shrug, though his grin does not falter in the least, despite the roughness of her tone. No, it only seems to widen, pulling back so far that it almost seems grotesquely split past his eyes, an ear-to-ear sort of grin that perhaps speaks more to his nature than it does to his mood. "Ah, but look closer. There is something different about this swamp. You're an observant girl-- not your first fucking time in a swamp, eh? So tell me--what's wrong with the picture? Not like I can see it." he sweeps a paw playfully about, gesturing towards the entirety of the area. That said, there is something odd about this swamp. Most swamps were full of life, albeit boggy life. The droning buzz of flies, the quiet, distant splashes of fish and the ceaseless cries of birds in the trees. But this area is devoid of it all. The green goop atop the thickened water seems to be the only life it has. Not even flies dare to land upon the moss--is it moss? and from the distance, a low gurgle. A bubble of gas rises from the depths and pops, thick and viscous, and releases a noxious and acrid scent--sulfur. This is no swamp, but a bog-- and it is likely they walk across the bodies of countless dead who have drowned in the peat, succumbed to the gases and did not heed the warnings of the air. It seemed still itself, afraid to move, and causing a necrotic stagnation that somehow feels claustrophobic despite the lack of any tall trees. Perhaps the occasional bone will wash up, pulled to the top by the gases-- dyed black from it's journey. Perhaps a bird will land on it--and then it, too, would be dragged in.

That is what he said, after all; he would take her to a place of death. "Can you tell me what it is that makes this bog so dangerous?" That, of course, is not his question, but rather an attempt at light and pleasant conversation.

table by rae - image from Pixabay

Rhychdir watched the man as he settled upon a tree limb, feline in his posture. She tilted her head slightly, studying him for a moment before shaking her head slowly — the man was truthfully and rightfully justifiably insane, she concluded.

”Yes, I’m sure. I had a brief stint in one as well — found it a bit too sticky for my like,” he stated, shoulders moving in a shrug. His Cheshire Grin widened more upon his marred face. It gave the fire-and-ice woman a sense of unease, something she didn’t often have. Her tail swayed slowly at her backside, as her gaze drifted out to the scenery around her, listening to the man as he spoke once more.

”Ah, but look closer. There is something different about this swamp. You’re an observant girl — not your first fucking time in a swamp, eh? So tell me — what’s wrong with the picture? Not like I can see it,” the madman said, a paw sweeping the air in a flourish. She squinted her fire-and-ice eyes, looking around slowly.

”Can you tell me what it is that makes this bog so dangerous?” Rhy hummed quietly at his words.

”It is quiet — the silence of death lurking. The silence after the world witnesses the death of something. The swamp I once lived in had that silence after the death-lizards pulled their prey beneath the water, a stunned kind of fuckin’ silence. But this is… different, still. It’s devoid of life at all. This place is empty. It’s a graveyard to those who didn’t know any fuckin’ better,” Rhychdir said, looking up at the man, suspicious of his motives more so than she had already been. What was his game?