New Home [Aria]

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The basilisk takes a gasping breath as its lungs fill with air again. However, it stays motionless for a few moments, somewhat dazed from what just happened. Once assured that it is safe, it looks at the woods around it. This was not its home. The basilisk looks distressed again. The sudden change was too much for it, and it doesn’t take look before the feeling of panic sets it in. It slithers around, desperately searching for something familiar.

Grass sister, WHERE IS MY TUNNEL?!  At that point, it sticks its head and the ground and begins digging.  They made it disappear!  They stole the air and the ground...

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Aria always got that dropping feeling in the pit of her stomach whenever Rivers ported her, this time it was even worse because HE HAD dropped her into the port. She blinked as she looked around, realizing Rivers had sent them home. Well her home…Aria looked over at the snake as panic began to wash over it once more. Usually Aria didn’t do this; she found it rude to the individual. But in this case she had to make an acceptation. Aria quickly darted forward and placed her hands on the giant snake’s side. Calming her own emotions down and letting them wash over the snake. She flooded its mind with the idea of safe places.

’Calm down, don’t move your injured. Your back at my nest, its safe here…for the most part. No hunters, and no one to take your air away. The one that threw the knives at you brought you here to be safe and to let me tend to you. Do you see that building over there? Please come in and allow me to stich you up, and warm you up.”

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The snake calms down a bit as Aria fills its mind with calm thoughts.  It looks at the wound to assess the extent of damage. The knife wound was painful and annoying, but not a grievous injury for the snake. It would live whether it got stitched up or not. Stitch? What is this stitch?

It flicks its tongue in and out for a few moments, taking in the smell of the forest. It did, in fact, smell like the woman offering her help. It was her nest. However, it was also nest to very many other things. Deer, wolves, birds, novites. There was decent amount of the latter nearby.

No time for warmth. Hunger… Full moon. Food. Eight leggers in tunnels. So close... Won’t have to dig. Do you taste them?

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Aria thought of how to explain the possible sickness that could come from an open wound, and she was pretty sure some of Rivers daggers may have stuck. ’A stitch is when a cut is large, you sew it up with thread to make it close. It make it heal faster when the skin doesn’t have to grow as far over a wound.’ Aria seeing that the snake was a bit calmer took the time to look at the wounds. Some of the wounds were deep, but the daggers had fallen out at least. She wiped some of the blood off the intact scales to get a better idea of how large the woods were.
His flailing had caused some of the wounds to open up wider. ’Some of these need to be stitched up; with all your digging you’re going to get dirt in them…then you might get sick. Please w….wait what’ her face paled on his sentence about food. But taste? She noticed that he had been flicking her tongue….she tried and was hit with a weird sensation of both tasting and smelling….She was un able to decipher smells in this manner; at least not yet. It would take her a while with the snake to understand its form completely.

’I don’t know how to decipher smells like that yet; I sense other animals like yourself, I can talk to each and every one of them….Insects and arachnids….I cannot. They are one of the few things that can sneak up on me and I don’t like them in my nest….I will make this quick. Please tell me if the eight legged ones come closer.’ Arias mind held a twinge of panic, the snake would be able to tell she was suppressing it. But spiders….that was one thing that Aria had a deep set phobia over. Aria ran into her cabin and came back out in a matter of moments with a needle, thread, long strips of cloth, a bowl of water, and a wash cloth. Working fast but gently she cleaned the wound of debri. ’What is your name grass brother?’ she needed something else to talk about other than the possibility of eight leggers coming near…..if this was a testing ground for them…she finally knew why this place was abandoned.

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The snake winces as Aria touches near the wound and pulls back away from her. It was tender to the touch. What is sewing? What is thread? The grass sister was talking of all manner of bizarre things. Neither things appeared to have to do with eating or sleeping, which took up most of the snake’s time. Are you not hungry? It is that time… Then sleep. Another month before food again. It was ravenous, and it was getting harder to ignore the call of prey and hunting.

It waits as Aria runs inside and gets stuff the clean the wounds. However, it continuously grows more restless. Name? What is a name? Do I have one? For the most part, basilisks used scent and taste as identifiers. They were not the most sociable animals, considering they slept most of the time and ate all others. Names were unknown things to it. Can we eat now?

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”Sorry, this will hurt a bit but I will help in the long run; a needle is a sharp object, very small, very thin. A thread is thin object that can be used to tie things together, a stitch is when you use both these objects to tie things together, in your case skin….however I can see you’re not going to sit still enough for a stitch. I will clean and bandage your wound, and tend to it after you’ve hunted.”

Aria was quick as the pulled some broken scales out of the wound; and placed them to the side. She then wrapped a cloth around the wound so when the snake would move it would not pick up any dirt debri.

”That will do for now….As for me being hungry, I am always hungry. The winter is always a lean hunting season. I eat what I need to keep moving; and little more. You and I don’t share the same prey; I am like you but then again I am different as well. I will explain more when you have hunted grass brother; I can tell this is not the time for lengthy conversation.”

Aria smiled and pat the large snake when he asked about names.

”In two leggers terms it’s what our birth leggers call us, consider it a show of affection. Two leggers often give names to things…what was that.”

A branch broke nearby, Aria reached to her back and pulled a long sword from her back….she paled as a large hairy body lept out of the underbrush. She had it up in time for it to impale itself onto the long blade, but its weight was enough to throw her onto her back. She kicked the dying beast off her sword and rolled out from under it and onto her feet. There would be more of them soon.

”Start eating Gabby, it would be appreciated!”

Really she must have been a site, covered in bug guts, and basilisk blood. Apparently her next trip would be to the springs….some way to spend a night of a full….SHIT!

”CRAP I forgot about Garrett! I was supposed to have dinner with him tonight!”

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The snake stays still despite the restless feeling as Aria stitches up the wound. Sewing feels like biting… small crawling things itching at it… It would have preferred to leave the wound as it was. While it wasn’t quite painful, this was an unpleasant experience.

The idea of constant hunger is a strange thing for the basilisk. Most of the time, it did not eat nor did much at all. Hunger comes only once a month when the moon is full.

Affection… The basilisk repeats, clearly not understanding the meaning of that word. It was a creature that would eat its own kin if it could fit into its mouth after all. At the site of the lifeless spider body, it devours it quickly.

As Aria says to go get food, the basilisk slithers off aways before tunnelling underneath the ground. It takes a while for it get started, but once it gets most of its body in the ground, it starts digging faster before eventually disappearing from site.