ORIGIN - red menace

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His friend would help him find something, which was very kind and happily accepted by the lizard. She went quiet a moment and appeared to stare off in to space - one of the few behaviors that Saul could recognize and identify with, and he was patient as he waited for what came next.

The most startling thing was watching Acheron split in to two; one which stayed with him, the other which went along a fork in the path. He tried to watch them both and went briefly wall-eyed.

"Follow me! This me," one of the Acherons called out, and Saul did a double-take, then followed. She offered to give him a ride which the lizard was more than happy to accept. "Ride? Oh, up!"

Gripping at Acheron's foreleg, Saul hoisted his chest and then climbed up to her shoulder and with a few awkward pinches of skin, found a place between the blades. The bulk of his low-slung belly sank across the dog's upper spine while his bow-legged front legs perched on her neck.

@Acheron

She paused, glancing down with patient friendliness, as Saul clambered up. He'd settled directly onto her oversized stone--the big, smooth slab of streaked brown sardonyx positioned between her shoulder blades. "Is that comfortable?" she asked, curious; because of the stone's location, she'd never been able to touch it before. She didn't know what it even felt like; didn't know it was glossy and polished.

Acheron focused for a moment, trying to concentrate on keeping the double searching as she herself began to push through the underbrush. She chatted, as she did so, not realizing that she really needed her focus for this magic, which she hadn't practiced all that much.

"I bet the rain is really nice, here. Like, big storms in these trees! It smells good, too," she went on; it was earthy and smelled alive. "And the birds sound--well, their songs are so pretty."

She was distracted, then, by something she saw through her double--what she thought was a cluster of fruits. At once she turned, forging a new path off through the underbrush, pushing her way through while keeping her head high enough to shield Saul from slapping branches. The magic faded, but she was pretty sure she knew what she was looking for.

As it turned out, however, she hadn't seen fruit at all. A few yellowed eggs, abandoned by some bird and left to rot, lay (some broken) on the dirt in a clearing just ahead but Acheron, charging blithely forward, didn't stop in time. She tripped, skidding down a sudden slope with a surprised yelp, barely keeping her feet--only to crash face-first into the rotten eggs.

The horrific stench rose up about her, and at once she began to gag and cough, scrambling away. Hopefully, Saul had kept his hold, but he suddenly wasn't the first thing on her mind anymore.

@Saul

"Yess!" The lizard answered emphatically, wriggling back-and-forth with his chest against the stone, as if the jiggle of his belly is somehow a positive sign. The shoulder-area was warm due to the furs growing there, and from his elevated station he could see much further.

The dog-friend began to speak of things called rain and storms and trees, and he liked the sound of trees, at least for the sharp click of the word. He didn't know what a bird was, or a song. He did not say much while his hybrid friend marched through the wild-kept growths.

Branches slipped over his head. Sometimes the shadows of the branches gave him the instinctive desire to withdraw and so Saul would duck or weave a few seconds after they'd passed by; an energy pulsed through @Acheron when they channeled their magic and Saul gripped at her shoulders a little tighter.

"Aaaighh!"

It helped to keep him from falling and hurting himself, given that she was suddenly losing her own stability, and crashed to the dirt with a skid and a yelp - and when the proverbial dust cleared (probably some real dust too actually), she had egg on her face.

The lizard climbed up her neck and sat like a thorny crown atop Acheron's head, staring at them intently a moment, then reached forward and mlem'd the air, licking at some of the rotten goo that smeared across the girl's snout. It smelled wonderful to the lizard and tasted even better, so in no time at all Acheron's face would be nicely cleaned up (if being slobbered on by a dimwitted reptile could be considered any cleaner, that is).

She went from cringing to... more cringing, wincing and sneezing as Saul lapped up the rotted yolks. "Gross!" she squealed, though whether at the rotten eggs or Saul's choice to eat them wasn't clear.

But she held still, after a moment, standing a little sullen and grimacing. At least he isn't afraid anymore, she thought wryly. Then she waited, patient, until the goop was mostly gone--from her coat into the reptile's little belly.

"So... is this what you eat?" she asked then, twisting her head just a bit to peer back at him. Or was this another case of trying to eat rocks and so on-? Acheron wasn't sure, and she also wasn't sure now if she should be looking for fruit anymore, either. She glanced back, nodding doubtfully to the rest of the nest--the few discolored eggs she hadn't smashed straight through. "There's... more of them?" she offered, with an expression of distaste.

It seemed like the sort of thing a poisoner would say, but Acheron didn't know for sure whether maybe there were Gembound that ate rotten eggs.

@Saul

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