Fantasy Crossing worlds

[MrMopp]

Wilder28 , it’s here!

It was a hot, late spring afternoon on the foothills of Brackenwood valley. Cottonwood fluff drifted through the gold and green dappled forest and the last of the blossoms were leaving the deciduous trees that mingled with the pines.

Trina Lycus walked through the woods, clad in her short sleeved tunic with her brown hair tied back, her rebound bow in hand and a quiver on her back. She was on the trail of a buck, a big fella from the hoof prints, who‘d decided last night that wandering into a shifters yard and trampling her tomato garden was a GREAT idea (well ok, they were her moms tomatoes, but the verdict stood!: Penalty for stupid was dinner. Whack the gavel. Case dismissed). Admittedly, tracking the asshole would have been easier in a form with a bigger nose, but it was already muggy enough without fur, thanks, and besides that, she was a hunter by trade and hides with fang marks in em made for lousy (and suspicious) merchandise, and then besides THAT... well, she just wasn’t in the mood. A shifters preference for form swings, y’know, and today definitely felt like a two-legg’n day to her.

Her boots squishing through mud from the prior nights rain, Trina picked her way through the sallal bushes and ferns, examining the nibbles in the leaves and keeping an eye out for any tell-tale movement. She knew she was getting close from some fresh skat she’d found earlier and was about to put her ear to the ground to listen for hooves when she saw a flick of something white, and when her head shot up, So did her eyebrows. In a clearing some 20 yards off, a whole heard of deer was grazing, oblivious to her presence. This was unexpectedly awesome hunting! It kinda sucked that her brothers weren’t around to help anymore, they’d have brought in quite the load here. But then the prize wandered into her line of sight and her jaw dropped. It was the buck she’d been tracking, she was sure. And he was a beautiful, big-ass, snow white albino, almost the size of an elk, looking like a cloud floating amongst the doe’s.

Trina twisted her lip uncomfortably. Now that she saw the guy, she was suddenly feeling reeeeeally conflicted about shooting him. Albino stags were rare enough, as is, and finding one that big who’d survived long enough to lead his own harem kind of inspired a- I dunno, - a hunters reverence in Trina. Sorta felt like she was meeting a great king of the woods instead of a 500 lbs bundle of meat and pigment deficiency. BUT ultimately, she knew his pelt was going sell for quite a lot of money and gods knew how expensive grandpa Roz’s medicine was, so needs must. Sorry, your highness.

Slinking low through the bushes and behind the cover of rocks and logs, the huntress presses forward, quietly zigzagging toward her quarry from one hiding spot to the next. She settled on a spot behind a cluster of birch saplings, just on the edge of the clearing. She knocked an arrow, drew it back, took aim at the stags flank....

 

[Wilder28]

And was promptly be interrupted by what was probably one of the most spontaneous things that could've happened.

Just a moment before she released, a blue streak of light shot down from the sky above, like an oddly-colored shooting star in the light of day. Except, unlike a shooting star, it was entirely too close to the ground - so much so that it actually wound up touching down nearby. And if Trina didn't notice it before, she certainly would've now, for its landing site was close by, literally within walking distance. It wasn't enough to cause any harm to her, but the apparent impact of whatever it was send a shockwave throughout the area, one that was strong enough to offset her footing, ruin her shot, and scare off the herd, ultimately screwing her whole operation.

 

[MrMopp]

BOOM!

In her daze and bewilderment, Trina- who was wholly unfamiliar with the sensation of a shockwave- thought some big asshole had jumped next to her given her a hard shove. She felt the force hit her in her torso as she was knocked her off her knees and thrown to the moist earth.

“OOF! What-!” Her quarry mostly forgotten- and I assure you, those deer were OUTTA THERE- Trina quickly rolled to her feet, snatching up an arrow that had been dislodged from her quiver and stringing it in a fluid motion as she whipped around to face her unseen assailant, fully prepared to either give them a piece of her mind or a terminal belly button piercing. “ARIGHT!” She bellowed aggressively. “WHO-!”

 

[Wilder28]

Naturally, no one was there to be pierced. In fact, no one seemed to be there period - the entire forest around her now seemed to be clear of animals, at least anything big. Whatever it was that hit clearly scared them off. However, if she looked up, she could see a clear line of smoke rising up into the sky from nearby, close enough to reach within minutes.

 

[MrMopp]

... Oh. Well, she sure felt silly.

Trina stared at smoke that rose from just over the small hill as her mind unjumbled enough to rationally piece together what just happened to her: First of all, earth to Trina, nobody came up and pushed her. That was just “cranky-wolf” looking for someone to pummel. No, it really felt more like she‘d been blown over, like, by a freak gust of wind. Trina also recalled that BOOM and the flash of blue in the corner of her vision just before it happened, and both had come from that direction of the smoke. What was that going on over there? Was that magic? Promptly, an image popped into her head of a nutty wizard with a full star-and-planet ensemble and a checker-toothed grin appearing there out of nowhere in a burst of flame and flinging wind around himself just to be an asshole. She had to scoff. She didn’t know why her brain suddenly had a beef with wizards, but that was definitely the sort character she wanted to punch in the teeth.

Trina glanced back at the deer and paniced a little to see a stream of brown and white bounding away through evergreens. But she stopped herself short of undoing her belt and giving chase on paw. Tracking down the herd was totally a thing she could do later. An ANNOYING thing, but still a thing. But THAT thing? That thing over there with with smoke and the “wind”? Well, the fact was that something new and weird just happened in her woods, and adding in that it just knocked her off her feet, she didn’t like it. Top priority right now was to get over there, find out what it was, and see if it needed little education as to who’s turf it was on. Hard knocks.

Keeping her arrow knocked, Trina waded steadily through the bushes towards her new quarry. She dropped to a slow creep as she got closer, and getting to the top of the incline, she crouched low and peeked eeeeeeever so slowly at over the top of a rotting cedar log....

 

[Wilder28]

What Trina would find on the other side was a crater. Apparently, whatever it was that had fallen had coincidentally (or not?) landed smack dab in the middle of a small clearing, which the crater was just large enough to fill. Around its perimeter was a ring of displaced soil that made it hard to see what lie within. Once she got past that, however, it would become quite clear what the culprit of this event was - or rather, who it was.

In the center of the crater, which was otherwise bare with dirt, lie a person. An unconscious person, by the looks of it, which means that this probably wasn't intentional on his part. And yes, it was clearly a he; the stranger in question looked to be a young adult male, possibly around her age. He seemed unharmed, surprisingly, and his outfit - which consisted solely of dark, fur-trimmed clothing fitting of someone from the north - was similarly untouched. Notably, his attire obscured much of his body underneath, but from what could be seen, he was fairly tall and had a rather pale complexion, and his deep brown hair was shaggy and long enough to reach his shoulders. Apparently, he hadn't thought to get a haircut in a while.