fengal_woods

If you were in Penbarrow, and you were alive, in a biome, and not in a field or a cave or loch, you were probably in a forest.

And indeed, you were in Fengal Woods. Your eyes were slitted, bowstring drawn, the splayed branches rustling against your skin as you inched forward, a step, a pause, a step, a pause, a pause. You tilted the bow up, the buck didn’t see you, you let go, ftang, you missed. Probably should’ve nocked and withdrawn later.

Buck seemed deaf, though, so you loaded another arrow, wore the groove into your unwisely ungloved finger, blinked, breathed, released. Hit.

Again, you breathed, needlessly silent. The arrow had pierced its lower neck. It collapsed, dramatically, flopping, confused, terrified. It squawked, gurgling.

You sighed. You quickly drew and released another arrow, hitting its stomach, but still it floundered. You’d brought a knife, but you weren’t particularly good at this, nor did you want to get kicked in the face. But it kept squawking, undignified, as blood slowly trickled from its two wounds, and so you drew your knife, rounded the buck, raised your hands, looked in its eye…

Round, black, sad. Large.

Well, if it had a soul, it would find some peace in an afterlife. If it didn’t, sympathy was pointless.

You brought your knife down, not nearly enough force, only barely breaking skin. Its eyes somehow grew and shrunk at once as it tried spinning to get a kick in, but the neckarrow stuck in the ground and stopped it, and your knife slipped from your soft hands and slid under its body, so you blinked, pulled your last arrow and just drilled down. The wooden shaft snapped as the tip hit the skin, and your hands began slipping along it, and the snapped bit hit your left hand, your still-unwisely-ungloved-left-hand, and it bled. But, but, it pierced, it pierced deep, you were sploshed with red, and it was still.

You reached into your pouch, pulling out a partially-used bandage, and wrapping your arrowed hand. It instantly became saturated. You then used your unarrowed hand to grab the knife, wet, but not yet sticky.

You sighed.