The gang was back together - for the moment - and Virgil couldn't be more pleased. She huffed at Ivory's gratitude, steaming ahead through sheer willpower. "If we keep at it, we'll be outta the woods soon enough!" the bison hollered towards Wynter, shaking herself free of what little snow she could. They just needed to get to shelter, and the horse said they were all close enough to it.
Virgil powered ahead, trying to spur up every last ounce of her energy and thrust ahead. Who knew how her passenger was faring right now? They needed shelter, desperately. Ivory lowed from behind, and she bellowed in response, "this way! Come on!" But, perhaps foolishly, she didn't turn back.
As it turned out, the lump in his mouth was a scrap of something dead.
Vinea spat it out, shaking his head once or twice and rubbing at each individual mandible with near-frozen fingers. His ears pinned flat against his head, bioluminescence flaring bright like a worried beacon. That light of his shone even brighter as snow and ice churned underfoot, a telltale sign of - "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA -" as the ice worm burst out of the ground and nearly sheared his tail clean off.
Leaping catlike to the top of the putrid slush, the hybrid was certain he didn't like the idea of being off on his own so much (and where was that key, now? He just wanted to hold it!) Hightailing it with gliders out and freezing painfully extended, Vinea was damn desperate to get back to the rest of the group, making a bee-line for the blue (key-)glow he was so sure was real.
vinea is attempting to rejoin the main group! uh oh
Hargrave felt as if eyes were boring into the back of her head, a presence just waiting to snatch up the wreath upon it with spindly, nightmarish fingers - and wholly crush it. It waited only for her to screw her eyes shut one last time, to heave her last breath.
Another entity stole in, dancing up with glowing-white eyes and a voice that sang rescue. Hargrave looked blearily up towards the creature, tail wagging once like a limp flag in the blistering wind, and croaked, "... savior." That was certainly what this being was, right? A guide through all this - something holy and good come to save her at her last moment. Shida was, in essence, a sudden religious awakening for the gray hare, and she regaled in it.
How else was her feeble, frostbitten brain going to find hope?
She forged on, even with her paws and extremities being reduced to nothing, peeling away with each step and leaving patches of blood in her wake. It sounded like shelter was near from the murmurings, but she could only dearly hope to make it that far without collapse.
hargrave's staying in place and trying her best
+2 for having a spiritual awakening though, babey!
"Yeah, snow worm! You should've seen the coward, it must've been shaking as it went under." She took Imp's horror at her wrassle with the worm as a good thing. Imp was shocked at her battle prowess. As all rivals should be. She held her head up, feeling proud of her success over the worm. Imp had the gall to then, shush Kalama. She opened her mouth to protest Imp, she feared no worm. But she froze with her beak midword. She could feel it too.
The rumbling beneath the pair made her shudder. She wasn't scared but...she could go a minute without fighting one. She would go along with Imp's idea, for now. And then there was a rumbling even further away. She couldn't hear Warriors command from her position, nor know that he was the cause, but she felt the rumble from further ahead. It rung through the earth, and she could only assume it was another worm. They were everywhere. With nowhere to run, Kalama resigned herself to hunker down and wait it out. Kalama's self control managed to hold out, and she neither screamed another challenge at the worms beneath, nor tried to flee, floundering.
think "speak"
repost bc switching to another character accidentally and attempting to post then switching back ate roll
bad mouth mustelid