[PRP] Adventure Pals. [Air x Merry Berry]

[lolternative]

[imgleft]http://www.matope-swamp.com/images/beej ... uncert.png[/imgleft] Air had been trying - and failing - to uncover mysteries on her own for some time now. Her luck had seemed to run out (or perhaps she had been cursed, though she'd had no luck trying to break it, no matter what methods she used) and so she decided to head back to the tribe lands to see if anyone had any leads or perhaps wanted to team up and adventure together.

This time of the year was her favourite, because things seemed to get more mysterious, more weird and - most importantly - more fun! There was something exciting about the possibility of being scared to death that made the acha doe feel alive. She spied Merry quickly enough and nodded her head in greeting. "What's up, Merry? Any leads? I've had rotten luck."

[Mima]

[imgright]https://f2.toyhou.se/file/f2-toyhou-se/ ... vdWkXR.png[/imgright]There was something to be said about the autumn when it came to spookiness, really. The sun setting early ushered in more darkness than the summer or spring, but unlike the winter, there was no snow anywhere to see the tracks of what might have been following you. Just the ever-present rustle of leaves and rushing of water below your hooves that made it feel like you were never quite completely alone...

The downside was that the cold was already palpable, so the doe had donned her wolf pelt in preparation. Could never be too careful. You were always at risk of hypothermia somewhere as wet as the swamp.

She addressed the other Acha with a tilt of her head and a bit of a frown. "Same here. Aside from Pounce disappearing for a while and coming back, things have been pretty 'nothing' lately. And you know how owlcats are," Merry finished. That was to say, not terribly loyal in the first place. They had probably just been off hunting mice or something... "I wonder if the days are still too l-"

Her thought was cut off by the feeling of the ground seeming to heave and give out underneath her. Like standing on a particularly unstable dune in the desert, her footing was all of a sudden unstable. At first she wondered if perhaps it was just a particularly intense shiver running down her spine, but she soon realized by the cacophonous noise of leaves shaking on all of the trees that this was not just her. Almost like she was speaking ill of weirdness behind its back, only for it to have been listening all the while.

[lolternative]

Air had opened her mouth to respond when she was pushed forward. She was ready to yell at whoever had shoved her when she stumbled in a different direction. Her eyes widened in surprise and she watched Merry helplessly as the ground shifted beneath her, rocking her like the waves she'd seen during her one trip to the beach. The ground yelled at them and thrashed, dust and dirt spraying into the air - the trees shook and branches that weren't sturdy enough to withstand the force came free, crashing to the ground.

Even when it stopped, Air still felt her body rolling and shaking and her legs wobbled beneath her. She was too scared to take a step - worried that if she did she'd fall and not be able to get up again for some time. She wondered if she'd ever stop feeling the earth shaking in her bones. A chill ran down her spine.

Her voice was shaking as she turned her attention to the other doe and asked "Are you hurt?" She took one slow, ginger step toward her, unsure of her footing on the ground - how could something solid be able to move like that? Would it give way if she stepped wrongly?

"What was that? The earth moved!"

[Mima]

The shaking abated almost as suddenly as it had began, and Merry had her land-legs again. She shook her head fiercely to right herself, taking a few tentative steps forwards and back as if the ground was about to give out under her again. "I'm alright," she replied with some hesitancy. Though the doe's followup confirmation that it was not just one of her usual daydreams feeling a bit too true to life and the earth really had shaken did help calm her a bit.

"Perhaps it was a giant cave worm digging through the loam below the swamp," she offered thoughtfully, considering the usual size of the things. Hm. Perhaps one large enough to carve out the tunnels that Zikwa inhabited, powerful enough to rip through pure stone and large enough to make the caverns big enough for hundreds of kin... Though she supposed if it were something like that, she should have felt it before, shouldn't she? "It seemed too large to be the impact of a tree falling, even if it were the biggest tree in the swamp..."

...Now that she stopped to think, she noticed there was a strange smell in the air, as well... And not a pleasant one.

@lolternative