Even by the bright light of mid afternoon the forest behind Evergreen apartments had an eerie, primal air. It may have just been the occurrences of the night before, but the trees seemed to loom above the two of them, casting nothing but darkness. Kataryna shuddered, drawing closer to Titus. Forests may have been her natural home, but most forests did not contain schizophrenic psychopaths and manipulative sadists. The trees whispered to each other as a light breeze stirred their leaves.
It did not take them long to find the scene of the fight - the clawed up ground where Dario had wrestled Aranaya to the ground, the blood-stained leaf mush where Arron had fallen. Titus crouched low, muzzle close to the ground, as though trying to scent something. Kataryna could not understand why - it was not as though they didn't know what had happened here, after all. He sneezed, nostrils wrinkling in disgust and stalked off awkwardly on all fours and into the trees. There was no other choice but to follow him, scampering through the undergrowth as though he were a non-sapient. It was rough going for the winged Lemur, her wings constantly snagged on the tree branches and at points she was forced to crawl through gaps she could once have walked through. Oh, how she hated those thrice-cursed wings.
"You could have chosen an easier path," she muttered.
"Correction," Titus hissed back, and she wondered how he had even heard her, "Dario could have chosen an easier path."
So distracted was she by trying to free her once-again snagged wings, she did not realise Titus had stopped until she walked straight into him. "What's happened?" She hissed.
"It just occurs to me," Titus replied, looking a little embarrassed, "that Dario wouldn't normally travel along the ground, would he?"
It took a moment or three for the implications to set in. "Are you saying we've been set up?"
Titus frowned, "quite possibly." He scented the air. "He could be sitting in a tree somewhere, waiting for us. The air currents are all contrary here - I can't smell a thing accurately."
Narrowing her eyes, Kataryna visually explored the clearing - there were so many shadows, so many places where a man could lurk, but she did not think he we here, the clearing felt devoid of any sentient life besides she and Titus. How she knew this, she was not sure - the rich and heady scent of flowers and leaf-mould would drown out most other aromas, and the breeze constantly stirred the trees, meaning auditory clues were not to be taken lightly. She just knew they were alone.
Perhaps her rebirth had given her more then useless wings.
Titus stepped forward and yowled, tumbling into the leaf litter. Just as swiftly, he was yanked upwards from one foot, so that he hung suspended by one ankle, from a tree branch. A thin, but strong, cord entwined about his foot.
"Howlly frith." He yowled loud enough to alert any predators or psychopaths of their presence. "Get me down."
Alas, Kataryna was helpless to do little but stare at him in, ears alert for the sound of any approach, but there was nothing but silence. "Um, how?"
"Are you telling me you didn't bring a knife? We're heading into a forest where Elysia-only-knows-what might lurk here and you didn't bring a knife?"
"Did you?"
"Indeed, I did." He reached up and fumbled about with his belt for a time, until something tumbled from it, a flicker of light against steel as it tumbled to the ground. Kataryna palmed it hastily.
It was harder scrambling up the tree then it had once been - her wings proved an inconvenient weight upon her back and she almost fell backwards. The second time she overcorrected, and almost fell face first out of the tree, barely catching herself. Her ears flicked back and forth, open to any new sounds, and she tensed at a crackle that could have been a footfall. A moment later it resolved itself into a non-sentient - a small and rather scruffy deer with tiny stubs of horns. It pattered into the clearing, poising for a moment, as wary of the two Furrae as they had been of it.
"Are you going to get me down?" Titus growled, and the little deer bolted at the noise. There was a scuffling and a kicking and the poor wee thing suddenly vanished from view in a shower of branches and leaves. "Get me down," the Feline snarled.
Kataryna had been moderately close to dropping to the ground and rushing to investigate the mystery of the vanishing deer, but she quickly snapped back to reality and scrambled up the branch to cut the cord.
With a yowl and a hiss, Titus plummeted to the ground. Kataryna did not wait to help him up, but sprang down from the branch herself (landing with rather more grace) and rushed over to where the deer had been.
The non-sentient stared up at her from the bottom of a hole nearly ten feet deep. Kataryna was familiar with pit traps before, in her early days working for MONS (Ministry of Non-Sentients). Traps like this were sometimes used by outlanders for hunting and were illegal because of their danger to Furrae who might accidentally stumble into them. With a shudder the Lemur girl remembered a previous occasions when she had aided in rescuing a wild boar from such a trap. Heavy rain had forced the "hunter" (and she used this term very loosely) who had set the trap to stay in his den and the pig was little more then skin, bones and rage by the time they had fished it out. The fall often shattered bones, leaving the trapped animal to die slowly from pain and hunger.
"I'm just fine, thanks for asking," Titus muttered behind her, interrupting her thoughts. "Nothing broken, just a few nasty bruises." Kataryna ignored him lying beside the hole. The captive deer stared at her with white, wild eyes, too tharn to move.
"Who would set such a thing?" She asked.
"Tis nice to see you're more concerned about a non-sentient then me," Titus crouched down beside her.
"You can look after yourself," Kat pointed out, "she can't."
"Oh thanks." He growled, "animal lover." There was no real malice in his tone. "Looks like our friends laid a special trap for us."
"Quit babbling," Kat snapped, "and take off your shirt." Her concern for the deer and the fear that they might not be alone, were making her extremely edgy. She instantly felt bad for snapping. Poor Titus had been having quite a trying expedition, after all. His next comment made her anger fulfilled, however.
"Tis not as though they have feelings," he muttered. She didn't think he meant her to hear the words. But she did and they were words she had heard too often in the past. For all that the animals were their ancestors, their kin, many Furrae held them in little regard and the Carnivores were the worst.
"You just say that so you have an excuse for killing them," she replied, focusing all her attention on the deer. It lay motionless, the quivering of its flanks the only betrayal that it still lived.
"Maybe I do," Titus sounded a little hurt. "But a deer this size is beyond even me. And why don't you take off your own shirt?" He winked.
"Because if I did that," she replied, "I'd be half naked."
"And?" Titus shrugged. "Your point is?"
"Just give me the damned shirt."
Titus sighed in an exaggerated fashion and slowly, with the utmost reluctance, drew off his long-sleeved, dark shirt. "'Twas my favourite shirt too," he muttered.
"Of course," Kataryna replied, both amused and annoyed, "because you would chose to engage in subterfuge spying wearing your favourite shirt. Now, all we need is some rope…"
"Conveniently enough," Titus replied, "it appears our unseen assailers have seen fit to provide us with that, at least." He stripped off his shirt and flung it to Kataryna. She caught it easily and barely glanced at his scrawny, cream-furred chest before lowering herself into the hole. The deer drew away from her as she landed, but it seemed more as though it were giving her space, rather then fleeing in terror. She cooed gently to it - at least the fall appeared not to have harmed it. It blinked at her as she reached for it.
"Hurry up," the feline above snapped down at her. The tension in his voice was plain. Who knew when the Nocturne might choose to check their traps?
"Patience," she snarled in retort, "it is a shy and wary creature and you're frightening it." She dropped to her knees in the dirt, both hands out to the wild creature, the shirt trailing from one of them. At least she was not as worried of being gored by this one - its horns were little more then tiny stubs. Inch by inch, she edged closer to it, cooing softly as though it were a baby.
After a moment she held her hand up before its muzzle, allowing it to sniff her. It blew gently at her, unafraid. If only all non-sentients could be so innocent and naïve. No, that was a foolish thought - were they that trusting, they would be extinguished forever. Fear was a survival trait. Above her she could sense Titus's agitation, could almost see his whiskers twitching and his ears flickering as he remained alert to any approach.
"Kat," he hissed sharply.
"Shh," she replied, intent on her task, "almost got it."
"Kat!" More urgency now.
"What?" She snapped. "I'm busy." The deer flinched at her harsh tone.
"Someone's coming," he hissed, just as another voice joined his.