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Description

Fawnlings 100 Theme Challenge

Theme: Home

Featuring Otter
Autumn, Y762NA
Oakfern, near The Cauldron

Poisons that killed were easy.

Bodies were surprisingly and frighteningly fragile things. It only took the tiniest of malfunctions, and the whole system would riot and fail. A poison need only cause the smallest of catalysts; a ruptured stomach, weakened lungs, a bleeding on the brain, and the victim would die. Fawnlings in their first year of learning could mix a poison that could kill.

But Otter didn’t need a fatal poison. No. She needed something much harder to created. She needed a poison that would deliver a victim to death’s door without actually knocking. And harder still, she needed a method to bring them back to the world of the living safely and unharmed.

For weeks now, she’d been experimenting in the bowels of the Cauldron. Mixing herbs and venoms and liquid bases. Testing methods and measurements and delivery. It seemed that no matter what she tried, her unlucky rodent test subjects always arrived at the same place: dead. Her poison was doing more than immobilizing their muscles and minds; it was paralyzing their lungs, their hearts, their livers, their kidneys.

Always, she’d toss her failings into the churning depths of the Cauldron and try again, trying not to let her frustrations get in the way of her work. After yet another day of getting nowhere, Otter decided to call it a night. She was weary to the bone, and her eyes refused to stay focused. Disappointment weighed heavily on her as she trudged out of the Cauldron, her hoof falls heavy and dragging. Her mind simmered and gnawed at her problem, but couldn’t produce any answers or ideas.

She hugged close to the slick earthen wall of the tunnel until it opened up and revealed a narrow passageway. The crack in the wall was barely wide enough to pull her hips through, and was a tight squeeze for half a dozen more meters. Otter was used to the cloying closeness of stone and earth around her. There were very few Oakfern who were claustrophobic. The narrow path opened up onto the banks of a deep black basin of water. The basin spanned the small round cavern and lapped at the sheer walls on either side of the cylindrical cave. The only places to stand were the thin bank Otter occupied and a small round den on the other side of the glassy black water.

Otter slipped into the water silently and felt the embrace of the liquid like a lover. She let it wash away her failings and her problems as she paddled effortlessly across its surface. As she emerged onto the other side, she felt rejuvenated. All around her were the trappings of a comfortable den; fragrant herbs hung from the overhanging ceiling, small rounded depression in a rocky shelf-like protrusion contained crushed fungi for her body paint and a tiny helping of food. Her bed made from fluffy moss welcomed her as she flopped into it, and she sighed with content.

She was home.

Description

Fawnlings 100 Theme Challenge

Theme: Home

Featuring Otter
Autumn, Y762NA
Oakfern, near The Cauldron

Poisons that killed were easy.

Bodies were surprisingly and frighteningly fragile things. It only took the tiniest of malfunctions, and the whole system would riot and fail. A poison need only cause the smallest of catalysts; a ruptured stomach, weakened lungs, a bleeding on the brain, and the victim would die. Fawnlings in their first year of learning could mix a poison that could kill.

But Otter didn’t need a fatal poison. No. She needed something much harder to created. She needed a poison that would deliver a victim to death’s door without actually knocking. And harder still, she needed a method to bring them back to the world of the living safely and unharmed.

For weeks now, she’d been experimenting in the bowels of the Cauldron. Mixing herbs and venoms and liquid bases. Testing methods and measurements and delivery. It seemed that no matter what she tried, her unlucky rodent test subjects always arrived at the same place: dead. Her poison was doing more than immobilizing their muscles and minds; it was paralyzing their lungs, their hearts, their livers, their kidneys.

Always, she’d toss her failings into the churning depths of the Cauldron and try again, trying not to let her frustrations get in the way of her work. After yet another day of getting nowhere, Otter decided to call it a night. She was weary to the bone, and her eyes refused to stay focused. Disappointment weighed heavily on her as she trudged out of the Cauldron, her hoof falls heavy and dragging. Her mind simmered and gnawed at her problem, but couldn’t produce any answers or ideas.

She hugged close to the slick earthen wall of the tunnel until it opened up and revealed a narrow passageway. The crack in the wall was barely wide enough to pull her hips through, and was a tight squeeze for half a dozen more meters. Otter was used to the cloying closeness of stone and earth around her. There were very few Oakfern who were claustrophobic. The narrow path opened up onto the banks of a deep black basin of water. The basin spanned the small round cavern and lapped at the sheer walls on either side of the cylindrical cave. The only places to stand were the thin bank Otter occupied and a small round den on the other side of the glassy black water.

Otter slipped into the water silently and felt the embrace of the liquid like a lover. She let it wash away her failings and her problems as she paddled effortlessly across its surface. As she emerged onto the other side, she felt rejuvenated. All around her were the trappings of a comfortable den; fragrant herbs hung from the overhanging ceiling, small rounded depression in a rocky shelf-like protrusion contained crushed fungi for her body paint and a tiny helping of food. Her bed made from fluffy moss welcomed her as she flopped into it, and she sighed with content.

She was home.