Sluggodile
amorphous and from selazaar
||??? - The Forest That Watches||
The thick air choked Melchio to near-death after his first breath after teleportation. A deep racking cough blasted from him, knocking down to his knees, his pants sinking into the tar-black leaves underneath him. A few minutes more of this deep coughing passed before Melchio's body adjusted to the putrid, poisonous air. Without his father's divine blessing, he'd have died the second he took his first breath. That sent shivers down his back, just to think about what would've happened to him. He'd already died once, he didn't need it happening again...
With a sigh, he got to his feet, wiping the acidic black leaves off his pants, looking around him at the shifting forest. It was on the ground as it seemed from the air. It was a tumbled, confusing, deadly mess of murky black shadows and untamed forest. It was mysterious, deadly, and undiscovered.
"So... awesome!" He whispered gleefully, looking about at the malevolent shadows as if they were a candy store. "This is just what I hoped it would be! I mean, sure I bet there are, like, a thousand demons and shiz in here, but hey! Isn't that why I came here? Sweeet!" With a confident grin, he leapt into the underbrush, looking for anything of interest, before spotting his first taste of this forest's wildlife: a two-headed deer with antlers as expansive as any of the trees that hung from above. "Heyyy little buddy... how're ya-" The instant he took a step forward, the deer darted off, slipping through the trees and underbrush like water. Laughing, he drew his polearm from the light trickling down through the small cracks in the ebony roof of the forest's swamp trees. "C'mon let's play tag, deer-y! I'm it!" With a woot, he crashed through the underbrush, cutting away at the blackberry looking bushes, whose bushels of berries were as poisonous to the body as cyanide. He'd hack and slash, pounding ahead powerfully on his magic jade wings, which made him move just as fast, and in time, faster than the deer, making it easy for him to catch up on it. Soon enough, he was close enough that he could even smell it's putrid stench. He was sure its flesh was poisonous, but if he cooked it right, it'd make a mean venison steak.
Finally, just as he was about to shove his blade into its back and through its stomach, it outsmarted him, darting to the left in a single instant, leaving him to carry onward with all of his momentum, crashing into a tree.
"Feh!" He cried, as he made out with the trees bark, before crashing onto his back, the deer long gone. His face was askew with small cuts and splinters. With a sigh, he got to his feet, disappointed that he'd missed out on his potential meal. Still, he felt fine, so there was no point in moping over a missed meal. With a grin, he took a step forward, before he felt a deep stirring in his stomach, and collapsed to a knee. Of course. Even the very trees' barks were poisonous. A single splinter would kill a normal man. He was just lucky he was Seraphine, otherwise he'd be dead now. Still, he needed to get these things checked out. Unluckily for him, his little trick he used to get here would only work one way, and there was no way he'd be able to fly all that way without falling out of the sky. So, with the hopes that someone would live here, for whatever reason, he trudged on.
Thankfully, he didn't have to walk far. Soon enough, he happened upon a small cottage. It looked fairly new, and its lights were even off, meaning he wouldn't have to disturb whomever was inside. With a relieved sigh, he slid the door open quietly, before plopping himself down on a couch. He'd get on healing himself. For now, he needed rest...
