Transferred (and expanded) from Gaia Online. Original Post
[imgright]https://matope.pixel-blueberry.com/imag ... ow_tia.gif[/imgright]It was a clear day, and Murkcrow had errands to run, on the demands of his mother, Shadelight. She had asked him to gather an entire shopping list of random items the last time he had seen her: apples, pears, some good twisty vines (which he was currently putting to use), a nice shiny rock, some green potatoes (what she intended to do with those he dared not ask). After an entire day of searching for the last items on the list, he had managed to gather them all, and the items were securely affixed to his back in a sling made from the twisty vines. Now he was returning to the family clearing to deliver them.
Murkcrow slowly picked his way through an unusually treacherous area of the swamp, carefully stepping around rocks and roots hidden under murky water. Though the path was dangerous, it lay between Murkcrow's home and his mother's, part of the reason he had opted to settle where he had. He knew the route by heart, but his mother, and more importantly his sister Midnight Sun, weren't likely to venture down it without good reason. Admittedly, it did make visiting his mother a good deal more difficult, but moving straight through the deep swamp was faster than going around it.
The buck jumped carefully up onto the first of several trees that had been knocked over in a massive flood some time before he was born. His mother had recounted the tale to him once, when he was young, and the thought of all that rushing water made him cringe. The trees were easy enough to walk on, for a kin with good balance, but they weren't the most stable, and Murkcrow had to jump lightly from one to the next to avoid dislodging them. The sling bounced against his back as he jumped from log to log. As he paused on one log to catch his breath, he looked around. A spot of vivid color caught his eye. Purple...? He squinted. There were a lot of flowers around this time of year, but there seemed to be way too much of that one color for just flowers. Thinking about it for a moment, Murkcrow decided to climb down and investigate.
Much to his surprise and amusement, what he found as he walked closer was a doe most bucks would describe as striking (although he had no inclination in that direction) with long, purple hair that had somehow become tangled in the roots of a fallen tree, on an unusually jagged rock, under a dead stump...She was trapped so completely that the hair had somehow ended up wrapped around even her legs. She looked like she couldn't move. Murkcrow barked with laughter. She glared shark teeth at him.
"You look like you could use some help," Murkcrow said when he was standing over her.
"Don't need any help," the doe muttered, still glaring at him as she struggled to stand up. Murkcrow ignored her and started freeing those violet tresses from their snags.
"You're going to have to stop struggling if I'm going to get you free," Murkcrow said as he unwound a lock of hair from the uprooted tree. "Or you'll just get stuck again. That's probably how you ended up like this in the first place."
"Leave me alone," she said, a bit louder this time. "Or I'll kill you when I get free."
Murkcrow shrugged. "Suit yourself, then," he said as he started to walk away. He didn't get very far. Somehow the doe managed to grab his tail in her teeth. She did not hold back. He noted with some dismay that her teeth were sharp and pointed like a crocodile's. His tail was going to need some medical attention.
"Alright, alright...ouch," Murkcrow said. "Just hold still and then we won't ever have to see each other again."
The doe settled down, glaring at Murkcrow whenever he got a bit too rough with her hair or pulled it by mistake. Murkcrow tried to make conversation while he worked.
"This part of the swamp is really dangerous, you know. You're lucky I came through. You might have been stuck there until you starved to death."
All he received in return was a hungry stare. The doe had apparently noticed the sling on his back.
Murkcrow raised an eyebrow. "Or perhaps you're already starving?" He reached back and pulled an apple from the sling. His mother would be short one apple, but she'd probably forgive him. Carefully avoiding the snapping teeth, Murkcrow placed the apple in front of the doe. She sniffed it cautiously, then ate it in three enthusiastic bites.
"...meat's better," she mumbled.
"That's all you're getting from me," Murkcrow said with a snort. What an ungrateful louse!
As he worked, Murkcrow tried telling the doe about his family, but he inevitably lapsed into silence again when she did not reply. She's not much of a conversationalist, he thought.
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Finally the doe was free. Her hair hung around her dirty and tangled, but not stuck to anything else - for the moment. Murkcrow sighed with relief and sat down to rest for a moment before continuing on his way.
"Could you at least tell me your name? My name is Murkcrow."
"Thecrocodileseeksherprey," she said, a little too quietly and a little too quickly.
"I didn't quite catch that..."
"Just call me Stalker," she said, surprisingly loudly, before turning and strolling off as casually as if she hadn't been trapped by her own hair for hours.
"Not even a thank you," Murkcrow muttered, but he was surprised to see her glance back at him once before she disappeared into the forest. He looked up at the fallen logs. While it was easy enough to get down from there, it was not as easy to climb back up. He would have to slog it the rest of the way through knee-high water filled with hidden hazards, and hope no hungry crocodiles found him on the way.