Fantasy Mira

[MrMopp]

(Here it is, Fangs9090 ! Is this enough to work with?)

It was nighttime out in the dessert. The moon shown bright across the billows of the vast sandy ocean, and all was still save the swaying of dessert grasses in the cool wind and the occasional splash of a mouse jumping across the dunes.

Two giants surveyed the scene. A pair of mesas that stood against the stars, sort of marking the edge of the sand-sea where cliffs and stone began. There was a town in there somewhere, most of it nestled in the the narrow canyon between the two massive rocks where it would be sheltered from sandstorms and the sun by day. But a few lights- watch posts and such- twinkled along the mouth, acting as a beacon for any late night wayfarers out on the dunes.

 

[Fangs9090]

(Yep. That'll do just fine.)

And there just so happened to be one such wayfarer. A short, hooded figure with a fluffy tail paused atop a dune as she spotted the distant lights. Her large ears twitched from where they poked out of the holes in her hood before she set off towards the lights, picking up the pace now that there was a goal in sight. Besides, it was easier to run when the sun wasn't constantly beating down on you.

 

[MrMopp]

As the Fennec girl ran- the beacons were a ways away yet, though not insainly far- there was a commotion somewhere over the next dune or so to her left. Sombody shouting frantically and the sound of something heavy and wooden- like a wagon- falling over with a crash.

Followed shortly by a loud BANG BANG and panicked screaming.

 

[Fangs9090]

The girl's ears flicked and she turned her head, altering her course towards the sound of the commotion. As she neared the top of the dune, so for down low to peek over cautiously and see what was going on.

 

[MrMopp]

What Mira saw by the moonlight was a desperate scene indeed, but it wasn’t a bandit attack. A small caravan of bigger canines- dogs apparently (too small to be hyenas and too noisy to be jackals)- were down there frantically scrambling about, throwing ropes into a large steep pit in the sand to try and snag a Beetle drawn carriage that had toppled over into it- bug, buggy and all- and was sliding further in, upside down. One well aimed lasso had already found purchase on the wagons hitch, and the majority of the team was hauling on it.

Apparently, someone was still in the carnage.

“Winnie What are you doing!”

“Get out of there you idiot!

“Climb up the rope, Winnie!”

“I CANT! IM STUCK!”

BANG BANG!

“PUT THAT DOWN! YOUR GOING TO HIT HIM!

And yeah, they were shooting at something. Because awaiting the hapless carriage at the bottom of the pit was huge, monstrous invertebrate straight from Hell (or Hollywood. Take your pick). The bugs main body was burrowed under the sand, but what was had out for display was enough to claim the tittle; a mass of writhing spidery appendages, each at least three times longer than any of the dogs were tall, with cruel inward facing spikes like mantis claws.

If Mira knows a thing or two about antlions, she might guess that this steep pit was of the creatures own design, made to deliver anything stupid enough to step along the edges into its awaiting jaws. And the monstrous bugs attention was fixed on that carriage and the beetle hitched to it, waiving it’s horible arms(?) about in giddy anticipation for the feast.

 

[Fangs9090]

Mira examined the scene for a moment before understanding the situation. She had a few questions, but she figured that could wait until the immediate threat had passed. She dashed towards the scene to provide assistance. She knew she wouldn't be much help trying to pull the carriage out, so she ran past the ones trying and nimbly leapt to the carriage, landing lightly on top before she began looking for the one trapped inside.

 

[MrMopp]

Future flight attendants, take notes, because Mira just found a prime example of where not to locate an emergency exit.

See, the poor ol’ Winnie, a dachshund apparently, had been so wigged out when the carriage tipped over that and Instead of climbing up out through the topside door like a rational creature, he tried to burrow his way through the window on the bottom. To be fair, this approach might have worked, since the carriage wheels stuck out a little and gave enough lift to crawl out under with minimal digging. Except that as he squeezed through the window, the satchel he was wearing (straped tightly across his chest) got caught on a coat hook, leaving the guy stuck with his top half under the carriage and backend still inside, kicking in vain to get loose.

“Oh cod oh cod oh cod oh cod!” He was whimpering. “I’m gonna die I’m gonna die I’m die!”

 

[Fangs9090]

Mira paused as she looked down through the carriage and tilted her head. "How did...?" She shook her head, figuring she didn't have time to question him at the moment. Instead she pulled open the carriage door and climbed down into it. Her small stature allowed her a decent amount of space to move around as she looked to see how she'd get him out. She figured the satchel strap was the best place to start and crouched next to it, giving a tug to see if she could pull it off the hook.

 

[MrMopp]

When Winnie felt the strap budging and realized something alive was up there, he screamed “OH COD ITS GOT ME!” and kicked blindly at it for all he was worth. But nonetheless, the strap came unhooked like a charm, and as soon Mira let go, the little guy made a record squirm through the window and could shortly be heard yammering franticly up the side of the pit.

But Mira had a new problem now. The monster realized that it’s prey wasn’t sliding in any father towards it, thanks in part to the pulling team up top. So to fix that it began to dig the pit steeper, rapidly digging out the sand between it and it’s quary and flinging over the top of carrage in an attempt to start a landslide. Right now, shovel fulls of sand were raining down through the open door above Mira.

 

[Fangs9090]

Mira fell back against the carriage seats as Winnie kept away from her, practically swimming through the sand from her view. She let out a sigh of relief to see him get out before sand started raining down. She shielded her face and glanced up. She thought for a brief moment before looking down towards the hole Winnie left, however much was left over at this point. She was small though, so she jumped down to dig her own way out as well.

 

[MrMopp]

Suddenly, there was a cry of alarm. The ground beneath the pulling teams feet had come loose- as had that entire section of the pit wall- and now they, the carriage, and a two dump-trucks worth of sand in between were rushing to the center.

(And Mira was under the carrage at the time. YIKES)

( I don’t think Mira could be in more danger, and I think the Antlion is the LEAST of it. This is a landslide situation. One made of fine sand, sure, but depending a few factors (like the position of the carriage, how far Mira made it past the window and the wheels, the depth “dug” to get out, etc, etc), the possible outcomes range from her getting out without a scratch, to going for a ride, to getting sand in her mouth, to getting buried alive, to getting crushed under the wagon, or even to getting decapitated.)

(If she acts quick, she can (narrowly) get out alive and uninjured, but she’d only have one shot and practically no time to plan).

 

[Fangs9090]

Mira was most the way out by the time the collapsed began. Her small size meant she didn't need much of a hole. She looked over at the sounds of alarm before giving a kick to jump out the rest of the way. She knew she couldn't physically carry anyone up with her, much less stop anything from sliding in, so only one idea came to mind: drown the antlion. While to most such an idea in the middle of a desert was absolutely outrageous, Mira had her own ways. Getting as much footing as she could in the sliding sand, she grabbed one of her canteens from her satchel and popped it open before splashing a little water into the air. She held out her free hand, causing the water to stop midair and rapidly multiply its volume. The droplets turned into large orbs, growing in size before Mira thrust her hand towards the antlion, blasting it with a torrent of water. If nothing else, the water might at least compact the sand to make it more stable.

 

[MrMopp]

it’s a pretty weird day for a desert antlion when it finds itself getting wet and it didn’t like it one bit. Having eyesight being about as good as a mole with sunglasses and a brain the size of a pea, the monster had to assume it was raining and processed to push its abdomen up out of the sand so it wouldn’t drown. Turns out it’s clawed appendages we’re attached to the end of the bulbous thing, so the effect looked like a demonic, fat trunks tree with writhing branches was wriggling it’s way up from out of hell.

The antlion was thus distracted in its struggle to surface, and the water had clumped up the sand around it, keeping the carriage from sliding any further in. However, neither of these factors
Were stoping

 

[MrMopp]

(Crap! To soon!)

 

[Fangs9090]

(What’s too soon?)

 

[MrMopp]

it’s a pretty weird day for a desert antlion when it finds itself getting wet and it didn’t like it one bit. Having eyesight being about as good as a mole with sunglasses and a brain the size of a pea, the monster had to assume it was raining and processed to push its abdomen up out of the sand so it wouldn’t drown. Turns out it’s clawed appendages we’re attached to the end of the bulbous thing, so the effect looked like a demonic, fat trunks tree with writhing branches was wriggling it’s way up from out of hell.

The antlion was thus distracted in its struggle to surface, and the water had clumped up the sand around it, keeping the carriage from sliding any further in. However, neither of these factors did anything for the rest of the sand coming down behind Mira or hapless dogs sliding in with it. As the sandslide settled near the edge of the wet inner circle of the pit, the dogs, flat on their backs and bellies and parts of them buried, stared at the nightmare the just got a front row seat for in a state of petrified horror.

A big, spidery greyhound broke himself from the spell. “Ok nobody move, nobody move...” He said quickly, least the monster sense him if he spoke to long. One of them, a springer spaniel higher up the pit, snapped out his trance and immediately tried to scurry up the slope, but his frantic climbing only loosened the sand beneath him and sent him gibbering further towards the jaw of death. Luckily, the greyhounds was between him and that, so as the sand rolled over his left side with the idiot in tow, he swiftly got his arm up, wrapped it around the hysterical smaller dog and pinned him to his chest. “I said nobody move!” he snarled, with fangs bared right into the wide eyed spaniels ear. And at that point the spaniel decided he was more scared of the greyhounds pearly whites than the antlion and obediently went stiff as a board. A board that probably pissed itself.


The antlion hadn’t noticed the commotion, but it had stopped squirming now. It was waiting. Waiting to something to disturbs the sand again.

The greyhound looked down at the carriage and the beetle yoked to it that we’re still down there. You could see the insect flailing uselessly on its side as it’s yoke kept it from righting itself, and it was oh so close to the antlion. He looked at the the rest of his pack, looking at him, wondering what to do. Didn’t take him long to decide. “You. Fox.” He said to Mira. He had a different accent than the rest of the dogs, more native. “Do that... that thing.” He pointed up the slope, “Wet the side so we can climb!” He’d been at the front of the pulling team earlier and had been the only one close enough to the pit to see Mira’s watery power in action. (Frankly, the others didn’t even know she was there until now and their heads jerked at the word “Fox”. In the moonlight, she had looked like any other dog in the pack.)

 

[Fangs9090]

Mira looked at who she assumed to be the leader of the pack, judging by his tone and commanding demeanor. She gave her canteen a shake to get a sense for how much water she had left before nodding. She splashed some water into the air before waving her hand towards the slope. The water quickly multiplied again and splashed up the slope, forming a path of wet sand for the group to climb up. Mira places her canteen back on her belt as she looked to the ant lion again. It was sure to notice them climbing out, of it didn’t already notice her making the path. Expecting it to make a move, she drew her twin daggers from behind her waist, holding them both in reverse grip.

 

[MrMopp]

Well that was enough for them! The greyhound hissed “Move! Move!” And the rest of the dogs bee lined up the soggy sand, resolving to flee-the-hell-away first and ask questions later.

The andlion noticed. It quickly reared it’s massive abdomin back, dug its claw-things into the other side of the pit and catapulted a barrage of sand at the dogs, trying to knock them back down.

(will this do?)

 

[Fangs9090]

(Yeah, that’s fine.)

Mira crouched before jumping onto the wagon before using it to launch herself at the ant lion. She aimed for the head as she came down, stabbing both daggers down at it.

 

[MrMopp]

There was a sickening squelch as Mira’s blades pierced the head of the monster, just barely concealed under the sand in front of it. Sickly Yellow blood spewed from the wound and the whole body thrashed violently, legs uprooting themselves from the sand and it’s horrible abdomens with its wicked limbs flailing like a palm tree in a storm before collapsing with a THUD.

The dogs climbing the side of the pit seemed to realize that they weren’t getting pelted with gallons of sand anymore and dared to open their eyes to behold the scene; The beast laying stone still, the strange fox standing(?) over it. There was a moment of stunned silence before one of them shouted down to Mira what everyone was thinking. “Z’IT DEAD...?!”

 

[Fangs9090]

Mira held onto her daggers as the creature thrashed, using them to stay anchored to it so she wouldn’t get thrown off. Once it was still, she pulled her daggers up and looked down at it, catching her breath from the effort of holding on. She looked at one of the others shouting at her before she spun her daggers to get most of the mess off them and sheathed them once more. “As dead as I can make it.”

 

[MrMopp]

The dog hesitated. “... an’.... Would tha’ be dead?” He called back uncertainly.

Another dog picked up a clump of wet sand and chucked it experimentally at the corpse. “...Seems like”. He concluded when it failed to so much as twitch.

“Well glory be...”

(ending it here. Gotta run. Can’t seem to save my work for some reason.)

 

[Fangs9090]

Mira stepped off the creature and started walking over to them. “How did you all end up in an ant lion pit anyway?”

 

[MrMopp]

“Holy shit, guys...!” one young cowdog breathed. “She’s a giiiirrlll...!” This observation was rewarded with a swat upside the head by one of his older companions. “ Hush yer trap, Johnny!”

From the top, the greyhound looked from the antlion to the sideways carriage and it’s helpless beetle attached, and once he’d decided for himself that it always safe, he grabbed a shovel from the back of a covered wagon and skied past his pack mates on the dry part of the sandy slope. “A fool happened”. he bitterly told her as he strafed his way towards the fallen, half buried vehicle. “Idiot foreigner wanted to pass RIGHT at the edge so he could get ”the best view” of the beast, but heavens forbid he put one pampered toe out of his BOX to do it!” He threw his arms out. “HIM AND HIS BOX!” He raged at the heavens. “WHAT IS IT WITH CATS!?”

The Greyhound stabbed his shovel in disgust into the dirt and began to dig out the trapped carriage. “GRAB A SHOVEL YOU FOOL! “ he shouted to the dogs, who‘d been silently watching the outburst like they’d all known it was coming. “EXCAVATE!” While they scrambled to retrieve their digging implements, he hissed to Mira, “I wish he had fallen with it!”

 

[Fangs9090]

“Cats?” Mira raised an eyebrow and glanced around. “I didn’t notice any cats among you.” Though it had been rather hectic up until this point, so it was very likely she could’ve just overlooked them. Or they just ran off at the first chance. From how the greyhound spoke of them, it seemed very likely.