Yseulte came upon the body in the dark.
She stumbled over something hard and slick. The stench of decay and death swarmed her senses like a colony of a thousand wasps, stinging her eyes and clogging her throat. The thick marsh grasped at her legs with tendrils of slime and old decay, ready to pull her down to an early grave beside its latest victim. Panic set in like wildfire, racing through her veins as she fought the urge to flee the way she had come. Instead, she took a slow, shaky breath, gathered her hooves beneath her carefully, and scrambled away, fighting for a solid purchase on the boggy ground.
Once clear of the treacherous pool, she stood there trembling, not out of fear, perhaps, but exhaustion. Her crippled hind leg was on fire, quivering from the strenuous effort of freeing herself from the pit and sending lances of white-hot pain flashing through her tendons. She stared at the corpse numbly, hardly comprehending its figure, half-swallowed by the treacherous black liquid and bloated with death. How had she not scented it before? The foul odor of decay and death clouded her senses, pooling in her nostrils like curdled milk and invading her lungs like a toxic gas. Despite the sweet, sickening stench of decay, the corpse had only just begun to decay. Peering closer, she realized that the half of the body that was emerged in the black pool was preserved in icy clarity by the water's sickly embrace.
Disgusted, she glanced away from the sight and took in her surroundings hopefully, but was quickly disappointed. She could hardly see more than a couple yards ahead of her in any direction and even what little she could see was incredibly discouraging. In a wild array above her like a nest of vipers, thick ropes of tangled vines strangled old, gnarled trees bent and fallen like veteran soldiers, squeezing the life from the decaying trees like a mighty black python.
Something glimmered wet and oily in the various shades of blackness, sluicing at her hooves with a thick sucking sound. Water. A sudden thirst burned within her, scorching the back of her throat raw until she couldn't handle the burning sensation any longer. As if by some invisible force that completely robbed her of her wits, she found herself edging towards the lapping water, then lowering her muzzle...just one sip...and then she mentally smacked herself and backed away quickly from the motionless pool, ill at ease.
Where on earth was she?
This obsolete blackness disoriented her to no ends. In normal circumstances, she was perfectly capable of navigating at night (even in this gods forsaken swamp) with the stars burning white and hot above her as her guide, but in this eternal darkness, she might very well be a gray old lady before she found her way out of this black labyrinth of cold corpses. And where had Itzal wandered off, this time? Abandoned her, most likely. For all the good the tiger cub had done her as of late, she might as well invest in a new companion (one with a solid sense of direction at that). In fact, a nice, fat pigeon sounded quite appealing compared to her arrogant little tiger and his infuriating mannerisms. Oh, when she got a hold of him, she'd rip him a new one—
A twig snapped, the water splashed.
She froze, whipping her head around towards the corpse, ready to gore the first zombie that was surely emerging from those rotten depths. There was a flash of violet, and then something hit her head on, barreling into her chest with all of the force of a miniature locomotive. The impact took her breath away and she stumbled to regain her stance.
"You," she hissed, then wheeled on her hind hooves, fully intent on stomping him into a grave. He eluded her easily, rasping snarls of laughter as he shimmied up a tree to perch precariously on a limb, where he smirked insolently down at her. If she didn't know any better, he'd led her into this maze of darkness on purpose. Oh, how he simply infuriated her! His tail swayed tauntingly above her. Snapping at it with her teeth, she clamped down and yanked him from the tree. He yowled and screeched bloody murder loud enough to wake the whole damn lake of zombies. "Oh, shut it already," she snapped. And he did. But not without giving her a murderous look with those venomous violet eyes.
He slunk away from her to nurse his wounded pride, padding towards the corpse sullenly. By the time Yseulte realized his intentions, it was too late to stop him. He tore into the dead equine ravenously, rendering flesh from bone with iron jaws and steel claws. Blood beaded claws like ruby rings and shone bright against his pale throat. At the scent of fresh horse flesh, her stomach clenched and roiled within her like an angry sea. She couldn't bring herself to stop him, not in his pitiful, skinny state. They were both thinner than they ought to be, and with this eternal winter showing no signs of relenting and the sun seemingly gone forever, she didn't know how long they would last. They must survive. Whatever it took.
She turned away, afraid that if she looked too long she would recognize the horse that the corpse had once been. |
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