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Post by yooom on May 23, 2018 1:01:47 GMT -6
As Wes took off on his way up into the tree branches, Bheka made her own move into a good vantage point. She nestled between a pair of tall, thick trees that provided enough shade for her body, helpfully camouflaged by her deer pelt cloak. Even if the boars spotted her back, she would be written off as a harmless deer. Of course, if the wind turned, and they smelled a human, they would probably be able to figure out who they were looking at, but a wind that would go exactly through the trees at just that right angle seemed unlikely enough that she was willing to take the risk.
Content in her hiding space, Bheka cast her eyes upwards, looking for Wes, and, after a moment’s searching, she spotted him. He was eyeing one of the smaller boars, still more than a challenging meal for her, and certainly a satisfying one for him, if he was able to get it. She watched as his head dipped off of the branch, as he moved down into the grasses. An odd choice...what was he up to?
Bheka’s confusion only intensified a moment later when he moved straight towards the boar’s head, not even bothering to keep himself as low to the ground as possible. The boar even noticed him! What on earth was he playing at? Bheka was starting to wonder whether her guide was some kind of fool, and was figuring out what she would be able to do, from this range, to save him from being trampled and gored by the angry boar, when he appeared to start up a conversation with it. She frowned. What on earth was he saying to it? Her eyes narrowed, a little paranoia stirring in her again. Was he selling out her hiding space? Perhaps he had come to fear her, and had brought her out here so that he and the boars could together stand a better chance against her. Wes, however, seemed to have something even stranger in mind.
“He’s...he’s dancing?!” Bheka said, too stunned to keep herself quiet. Sure enough, Wes was bobbing about something ridiculous, only barely facing the boar he was supposed to be catching. Was he mad?! His eyes seemed to flash strangely as he moved, something in the way the sunlight was reflected off of him, no doubt. At this distance, she couldn’t make out the exact, vibrant colors of the bright, hypnotic show he was making for her. Seeming to spot her nestled amongst the trees he pointed to her, pulling his tail over towards her. Completely confused, Bheka pointed to herself, gesturing to him “me?!” She felt a slight blush gather around her face. Did...did he want her to dance? As odd a position as it was for Wes to start this strange move, she had to admit that he moved with more grace than she ever had. Was that his plan? To humiliate her with his superior dance moves?
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Post by Tiamat on May 24, 2018 22:37:44 GMT -6
Wes waited for an eternity of seconds, ever so carefully not staring in Bheka's direction. The jungle woman did not emerge. He hopefully beckoned with his tail again. Below him, the hypnotized sow stepped obediently forward until she was directly under his nose, her head craning up at an awkward angle to watch him. Wes slumped. "It ssseems she'ss not coming after all," he sighed, relaxing his gaze and letting his chin brush against the sow's snout. It tickled more than it provided a satisfying scratch, so after a few moments he pushed himself forward and set about coiling around the pig. Her fur was thick, coarse and bristly and not all that pleasant against his scales. It rather set his teeth on edge.
Still, a meal was a meal, even if rabbits were better. Oh, it had been years since he was small enough to fit properly around a nice soft rabbit. He'd heard humans were like rabbits, all soft and warm... but big enough to be the size of a wolf, with much less pointy teeth. "I'd like a rabbit the size of a wolf," he confided to the oblivious sow. He wasn't pouting.
It would have been safer to heft the pig up into the trees first, and finish her there. He was much less likely to be interrupted in the treetops. Wes hadn't forgotten about Bheka, however, and he didn't want to retreat and have her thinking he was much too distracted to remember her or entertain her further. He didn't want her wandering off without him.
Suddenly his eyes widened. Bheka was still there. Bheka was watching him. He looked down in horror at the pig he was strangling, his coils winding tighter and tighter around her chest and neck. If he ever wanted to wrap around Bheka, he couldn't let her see him do that. Wes strained skyward, abruptly frantic to haul the pig up and out of sight. He had to hide her!
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Post by yooom on May 25, 2018 1:58:24 GMT -6
From her place behind the trees, Bheka watched in confusion as Wes beckoned to her again. It would completely ruin any chance of hunting if she just stepped out onto the plains and started dancing, both for him that day and her in the future, for the boars would know that she was aware of their precious truffle grounds, and would be more on their guard from that day on.
She wasn’t entirely sure how, but the boar that was beside Wes remained oddly still as he danced a few inches from its tusks. It didn’t react, even as Wes began to wrap itself around it, starting to constrict his prey. Bheka gaped. What on earth had he done to it? Were the boar here just that accepting of being made meals? Had she been hunting boar wrong this whole time? Bheka frowned, trying to understand what on earth she was looking at. The boar did seem a bit stiff, but, beyond that, it’s appearance seemed natural, from her distance, she could not make out the hypnotic spirals in its eyes.
Wes seemed to give her another glance, before shifting his approach. The movement of his coils changed, now moving to pull the boar upwards, into the tree. Bheka sniffed disapprovingly. As skillfully as Wes had been able to navigate them, the trees were not the residence of the jungle’s greatest predators. No, the trees was where the jungle’s other great cat, the panther, went to eat, to hide from her kind, the tigers. It was where monkeys and birds jeered down at her, safe in their distance above her. In other words, it was the home of cowards. If Wes was trying to impress her with his strength by lifting a fully grown boar into the trees, he had failed. She paused again in her train of thought. Wes knew she wasn’t much of a climber, was this move to keep the meal away from her? Bheka was honorable, to be sure, and would not have dreamed of stealing his kill, but, she supposed, it did make her trust him a little more, to know that he feared her.
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Post by Tiamat on Sept 16, 2018 22:00:29 GMT -6
Bheka still hadn't moved. Wes frowned and glanced her way as he tightened his grip on both pig and branches. She was still there, right? She hadn't -- hadn't left? He licked the air, testing for her scent, and nearly bit his own tongue off when his jaw tensed with the strain of the pig's weight. It wasn't that she was overly heavy, exactly, but that Wes had changed his mind halfway through coiling her, and now he lacked the proper leverage to get her up into the tree. "Come... on! Up you... get," he hissed. His grip shifted. For one long, heart-stopping beat Wes thought he was going to slide off the branch and hit the ground in a messy tangle of coils and dazed, angry boar who had no compunctions against tearing and trampling her way free of him... and then he was secure. The pig quickly followed him up, and Wes twisted around the branches to tuck her safely away where she should be out of sight of the ground. There.
Feeling immensely pleased with himself, he dropped his head down again and looked to his human companion. "Bheka! You can come out now," he called. Although his plan to hypnotize her alongside the boar hadn't worked out, she hadn't fled yet, which meant... well, he didn't know exactly what that meant. Had she not seen what he was doing? Was she just not scared? It was good that she wasn't scared, of course, since he didn't want her running away or trying to kill him, but... Oh, he just wanted to know what it felt like to hypnotize a human! Why did they have to make it so difficult by being so scarce, and stubborn, and scary?
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Post by yooom on Oct 3, 2018 15:43:27 GMT -6
Bheka remained motionless for another moment, watching with baited breath as the snake struggled to pull the boar up into the treetops. For a moment the human wondered whether he was in fact trying to simply drop the creature from a great height. It certainly would do the trick, she supposed, though it was a bit of an inelegant way to go about it, and it would certainly end any future chances of hunting these grounds. But, it seemed, that was not Wes’s plan either, and, a moment later, the pig seemed to disappear into the treetops. Bheka marvelled at his tactic. However clumsy his technique had been, Wes could now eat the creature completely out of view of his future meals, only a dozen or so feet away from them. It was rather ingenious, even if there was no way for her to hunt in quite the same way, she tended to make something a mess of things.
Which reminded her, how had Wes been able to so easily wrap his deadly coils around a fully grown boar without the slightest bit of resistance? Making a mental note to ask him, Bheka skirted away, going the long way around to where Wes was still waiting for him. She gave his head a tap with two fingers, and gave him a warm smile. “Most impressive, I must say.” Bheka said, her tone smooth. “I am curious though, how were you able to get your grip on that boar without it fighting you?”
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Post by Tiamat on Feb 5, 2019 22:40:06 GMT -6
She wasn't coming out. Why wasn't she coming out? Wes peered, worried, at the section of brush where he knew Bheka was watching. Had she just not cared to pay close attention to him? Was that why his hypnosis hadn't worked? He'd caught the pig on his first try! Surely that meant his gaze had been powerful enough to work on her. Wes drew in on himself, coils tightening further around the comforting warm roundness of his prey. The unstruggling boar was proof that he could get it right. So where...?
Something rapped against the top of his head. Wes shrieked and flailed, and only the solid weight of the hypnotized boar kept him from hurtling himself right out of the tree. Heart racing in his chest, he blinked several times before registering that it was only Bheka standing before him. "Oh. Um, uh... hi. You, uh, you scared me there a bit, sorry. I thought you were still, you know, over -- over there." As his heart rate calmed, he straightened back out from his reflexive cringe against the bark of the tree. Wes coughed and hoped he didn't look as embarrassed as he felt. Then Bheka's words fully registered.
"You--! You're curious?" Delight lifted his expression and his mood instantly. "Didn't you get a good look? I tried to set it up right, but maybe the angle was off? Or you were too far back? But -- oh, that explains it!" Abruptly he snapped his mouth shut, his yellow eyes refocusing on Bheka. Wes fought down a grin, but couldn't help wiggling the slightest bit back and forth in anticipation. "It's... it's an ancient and noble skill of the snake, one far better ssseeen than ssspoken," he explained, beginning to draw out his hisses. "I could sssshow you, if you like? Just -- Just a tassste? A little exsssample."
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Post by yooom on Feb 6, 2019 19:16:52 GMT -6
Bheka pulled her hand back sharply as the python let out a screech, its head moving suddenly away from her. “My apologies, I didn’t realize you hadn’t noticed me,” she hissed, keeping her voice down because of how close they still were to the boar field. She looked over her shoulder, but it seemed that they were, for the moment, alone, save Wes’ captive boar, hovering a dozen or so feet above her. Bheka took a hasty step out from under it, taking a curious look at it. It was still, not struggling against the serpent’s coils, and yet, Bheka could hear its breathing. It was certainly alive, and yet, it was perfectly still, seemingly fine with being held several feet off the ground by the python.
Wes’s enthusiasm surprised Bheka, and instantly set the woman instantly on her guard. She took another quick step backwards, partially because she was no longer certain that Wes wasn’t quite as harmless as she’d first thought, partially because his body had starting to wiggle, setting the boar above them both swaying like a pendulum.
“An ancient and noble skill?” Bheka repeated, intrigued, despite herself. The serpents were indeed an ancient and noble lineage in the jungle, almost as proud a species as her own tigers, growing impossibly large, and keeping their kind’s secrets close. If she was able to unveil one of an ancient skill of the serpents, surely that would be worth the risk…
“Show me?” A horrible idea came to Bheka. “It’s not that, um,” she raised a hand, shaking her wrist in a vague imitation of the sways and bobs she’d seen Wes’ head make when he’d first laid eyes on the boar. “That dancing...thing.”
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Post by Tiamat on Feb 12, 2019 0:10:17 GMT -6
He nodded eagerly at her question, though he tried not to overdo it after seeing her step away. This was it! He had her hooked -- or at least curious, and soon he'd have her staring up at him in slack-jawed awe, with those dark eyes alight with color... oh yes. "Yes, yes! A very old, very proud ssskill, that only the bessst and most capable of usss sssnakess can masster. It'ss well worth a look, don't you think? Yesss... please sssay yess, won't you?"
Wes blinked at her, taken aback. "Dancing... thing? I... well, I mean, I sssuppose from a certain point of view there's a little bit of dancing involved, ssort of. It's supposed to help the technique, you know, so I've heard, and it's a pretty good indicator of how attentive your preeeee... pre-- um. Your -- your preeee -- sent! Present! Yes! Your present audience, is. That's, uh, that was the word I was looking for. Um." He gave Bheka a cautious look, half afraid that she was just going to turn and walk away then and there. Briefly he imagined trying to stop her, and he shuddered. Even without wicked, curved claws or sharp, piercing fangs, Bheka was a force to be reckoned with and the jungle knew it. No one messed with a tiger lightly, even if that tiger was a two-legged, furless human. Wes might succeed... maybe... but the pain and injuries couldn't be worth it. Besides, he was a snake. Brute force might be an option, but a falling tree could crush a hapless victim to the ground. Who else but a snake could simply talk their prey into walking into their coils?
If there was one thing Wes was good at, it was talking.
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Post by yooom on Mar 2, 2019 15:14:40 GMT -6
Bheka raised an eyebrow, watching as Wes continued stumbling through his explanation of whatever it was he was talking about. Babbling as he was, it didn’t seem exactly likely, or even possible, that this serpent possessed an old, proud skill, that any of his serpentine brethren would have trusted him with their kind’s secrets.
She gazed at him, as he shuddered, seemingly lost in thought. In their admittedly brief interactions, Wes hadn’t shown the slightest bit of hostility to her, nor did he seem like the kind of person who would have set up some kind of elaborate trap to try to eat her. If it was a meal he was looking for, well, he already had the mute boar in his coils, there was no need to for some elaborate charade. Moreover, though he was of a formidable size, Bheka did suspect that she had the skill and power to at least escape him if he did suddenly strike. Even so, she doubted that even Wes was foolish enough to attack her. In all likelihood, he wanted to show her another trick that, like these truffle grounds, might come in handy in the future.
“All right,” she finally said, leaning slightly against the trunk of Wes’s tree, her expression curious. “A little example, then."
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Post by Tiamat on Mar 16, 2019 8:58:33 GMT -6
"Yes? Yes! Oh, yes. You said yes." Wes beamed at her, surprised and delighted, though at least he remembered to keep his teeth covered. "Okay, so -- yes, just -- right there, that's good, against the tree, okay. Just, uh, relax and watch really closely, okay?" He swallowed. His mouth was dry and it felt like his heart was trying to break right out of his skin; the heavy beat pulsed against the tree and left him keenly aware of each scaly length pressed against bark or the already-captured boar. He should really probably do something about her, even though she lay perfectly quiescent in his coils, but he couldn't with Bheka here and watching and waiting and ready and yes! How could he think about a pig when he had the tiger's daughter in front of him, waiting to be hypnotized?
Not that she knew that's what was happening.
"Okay, yes. Here we go." Wes went still at last, inched forward until his head was barely a foot away from Bheka, and widened his large, yellow eyes as far as he could as he stared at her intently.
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Post by yooom on Mar 20, 2019 18:34:40 GMT -6
Bheka gave the serpent another quizzical look as he seemed to be genuinely surprised that she was actually willing to hear him out. At his instruction she took a step backwards, and leaned against the hard bark of the tree Wes still had his boar dangling in. Looking up, Bheka carefully moved herself so that she wasn’t directly underneath it. Her back against the tree, her head level with the snake’s, she watched him, curious for whatever this arcane trick truly was. She couldn’t quite read his expression, he seemed to be suffering some kind of stage fright.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” she asked, blinking as the clumsy serpent drew himself even closer to her face. She flinched, trying to lean her head back a little further, the snakes wide yellow eyes staring intently at her, a mixture of anticipation and trepidation in them.
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Post by Tiamat on Mar 27, 2019 16:26:41 GMT -6
Wes pulled back a few inches in surprise. "What? Yes, of course I'm ready! This is just, um, part of the process. Yes. All part of the process, so if you could please just relax, and watch quietly, it'd be much appreciated. Okay? Right then." Taking a deep breath, he eased forward again. Wes angled his head to display his eyes, once again widening them to show as much as possible. "Just breathe, that's it," he murmured, "Nice and quiet and calm...and I'll just..." Holding his eyes so wide was rather straining them, but he had to catch Bheka as quickly as possible. If she resisted, he doubted he'd get a second chance. Then: a push, a pulse, and ripples of color, green and blue and yellow, flowed through his eyes.
"There!" He exclaimed, louder than he'd meant to. Above him the boar twitched in his coils, which he ignored. Bheka was the priority here. "You see them, don't you?"
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Post by yooom on Apr 11, 2019 10:32:46 GMT -6
Bheka was a little annoyed as Wes chastised her for talking, but she was able to hold her tongue, only raising an eyebrow in annoyance at him. Although she was starting to tire of waiting for him to pull himself together for whatever his secret was, she was curious enough to keep her standing there, to wait at least a little longer. He drew closer. and she leaned her head back a little further, so that it was pressed against the tree.
Wes’s yellow eyes were wide, and only an inch or two away from Bheka’s own deep brown eyes. She looked at them expectantly and then, quite suddenly, they weren’t the same static, nervous yellow, but a bright, vibrant shade of green. Bheka stared at it, caught off guard. It was a color that she had seen quite a lot of in a life in the jungle, but something about this particular shade seemed special, unearthly. She had less than a second or so to contemplate why, before it was replaced with another color, a deep blue the likes of which she had never seen, before it was replaced with another color, a yellow, only a slightly different shade from the usual color of the snake’s eyes, but one that transfixed Bheka just as much as the green and the blue had.
As Bheka stared into Wes’s wide eyes, she could feel the colors’ effect on her. She felt oddly focused, and yet, detached. It was like the feeling she had when she was perched just a few feet away from an oblivious deer, that moment right before pouncing, when the whole world seemed to fade away, until it was just her, and her target. It was easier now, to let her environment fade away, with the colors so close to her face.
Wes’s loud voice jolted Bheka, and she flinched, blinking a couple of times, though she continued to look at his eyes. “Yes, I...I see them…” she paused, oblivious to the boar’s precarious twitching somewhere in the branches above them. “What…” she paused again. Words seemed to come harder to her. Surely it would be easier to simply not speak, to let the bright colors wash over her, but her curiosity was enough to let her ask a question. “What are they?”
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Post by Tiamat on Aug 8, 2019 16:06:49 GMT -6
It was working. It was working! Wes nodded his head, bobbing to further enthrall and disorient his -- Bheka. "They're special, aren't they, Bheka? A special treat, just for you. Yummy, delicious... colorful. And all yours. Yes, all yours. Just take them aaaall in, just like that." He wriggled in place a little, his excitement almost too much to bear. He was doing it! And he wasn't just hypnotizing any old human, no -- he was mesmerizing Bheka herself, human tigress of the jungle.
He peered up at her, trying to gauge from her expression how well she was responding to him. He didn't dare take his time, to tease and lilt and sway until she was coming to him. Not only did he lack the patience for it, but the longer he delayed the greater the risk that Bheka would snap out of it... and then snap him for his daring. So he poured on the power, eyes whirling rapidly and pressing in close as he spoke. The boar in his coils shifted again and Wes absently tightened his grip to keep it still.
"All yours, Bheka. They're all yours. Yours to drink in, every last one, so warm, so marvelous. Don't you think? Or will you jusst... drink?" He giggled, delighted with the wordplay.
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Post by yooom on Aug 11, 2019 9:40:18 GMT -6
The colors continued to pour out of Wes’s eyes, blues and greens and yellows, and other colors, that flashed by too fast for Bheka to even register, much less name. She could feel a sort of pressure building, just behind eyes, inside her head. It wasn’t painful, no, more like a warm, albeit somewhat forceful massage on her brain. It was rather pleasant, and Bheka found her lips curling into a slight smile. The sounds of the jungle, the call of birds, the ceaseless buzz of insects, everything seemed to fade away around her, except for the spirals themselves. Even Wes’s own voice seemed to fade away slightly, and only occasional words seemed to reach Bheka’s ears.
The spirals lurched upwards slightly as Wes nodded, and Bheka’s own neck followed it, up and down. As the world past Wes’s eyes became something of a blur, it became even easier for her to let her awareness of her surroundings go, and just focus on the yummy, delicious colors. She frowned slightly at the thought. It didn’t sound like something she would think, they were enticing, to be sure, but...yummy?
The hypnotic display wiggled slightly, as Wes revelled in his success, and the slight scowl on Bheka’s face deepened. Almost instinctively one of her hands lashed out, grabbing the snake by the neck, and gripping it firmly. She let out a surprised sort of murmur. After a lifetime of rough rocks and sticks, the serpent’s soft scales were smoother than anything she’d ever felt. Her grip loosened on him slightly, rubbing her scarred palms against them, as she held the bobbing snake still, staring steadily into his bright eyes, drinking every last shade in, as they continued to relax her mind. The smile widened, as she mumbled out a single word.
“Mmmarvelous,” she murmured, her fingers slowly starting to tighten.
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