Marrow
flowers growing in my lungs

Something echoes back to her, in the quiet—not the twitching, squelching of ribs and flesh, which seems to cease as she draws closer, but instead… a voice.

Her voice.

Marrow's breath catches in her throat in something akin to wonder; mimicry. Although the repeat of her voice is imperfect, flawed and staggering, simply the fact that it managed to repeat it back to her at all has her drawing closer, closer, closer, heedless of the shining black now dribbling from her hooves nor the idea that whatever tore the lesser apart might still be—

—well.

Might still be hungry.

She never was one to be afraid, really.

Her eyes widen and her ears flick back as the rat bursts from the carcass, so coated in black that it may as well have taken over it. Instinctively, she backpedals—leaping back with prey reflexes in an attempt to dodge the rodent's gnashing teeth before it draws blood.

The wretched little beast soared past her. Its limbs scrabbled for a hold in the bones before it tumbled; one set of claws stomped harshly through the rotting face of a skull, twisting painfully. It hardly paused to nurse the sprained ankle. Another poor attempt at imitating Marrow chattered through its jaws, sounding choked: wha-aaaaa-aaaat are you areyou areyouareyou—

It seemed, though, that the deer hadn't moved far enough away. The echoing grey hobbled through the bones, snarling and spitting. One leg—the one it'd sprained—was favored only slightly. It tried and failed to leap at her a few times, Oil dripping from its maw. Every part of its body was shivering; hard enough one could swear they heard its bones rattling beneath that loose skin.

Swiftly navigating the bones was not easy with a twisted ankle; marching forward with ill intent was all it could stand to do.

@Marrow

Marrow
decay is an extant form of life

A successful dodge. The rat misses, its momentum carrying it the rest of the way forwards, careening through the air before it smacks into a wayward skull. It leaves a gruesome slime trail of oil-slick viscera as it slides down the face of the old bone and continues to crawl towards her; even with a clearly injured leg, it walks with feral persistence, uncaring of anything besides the thought of attacking. Of hurting her; of drawing blood and gnawing through flesh. There is no concern for its own well-being in its beady eyes; its teeth gnash against each other and squelch in the oil dripping from its mouth and Marrow takes a few slow steps back and watches it crawl through the bones with faint amusement in her eyes.

It is curious, though, the way it doesn't seem to care about anything but her. Most creatures had some sort of sense of self-preservation, yes? The same instinct that drives a deer to flee from the hound should also drive predators to run when injured, and, yet, this one keeps coming. Furthermore, the iridescent decay that continues to drip from its body seems… unnatural.

It would be a waste to kill this creature, she decides—and, frankly, she has to give it an accolade for its persistence.

She leans down until she's almost eye-level with the rat and coaxes her magic forwards. Coaxes the stray seeds that she knows are below the rat or hidden between bone to grow, grow—to trap it, or at the very least to impede its advance.
❀

Perhaps placing one's face on the same level as a maddened Lesser's teeth and claws was not a wise idea—no magical attempts took, and the echoing gray lunged at the chance to attack. There might not be much damage if its teeth met the stone of Marrow's face, but scrabbling claws vying for a grip could certainly do some.

@Marrow

Marrow
decay is an extant form of life

In her defense, Marrow was distracted.

It's not much of an excuse, considering how putting one's face level with a rabid Lesser defies almost all common sense, but—she was distracted. Occupied with both casting her own magic and studying the curious creature, the decay that seemed to drip from it long after it had separated from the corpse is nestled into.

Her eyes widen and she flinches instinctively as the Lesser scrabbles for her stone—its claws scrabble for a grip, any grip at all, and although a part of her is still thinking about catching the creature, stopping it in its tracks, a much bigger part of it finally listens to common sense.

Without another thought—well, the thought is there, but it's less rational and more primal prey 'get rabid thing away from eyes' instinct—squeezes her eyes shut and gives a flick of her head, trying to throw the rat off of her stone and hopefully getting it away from quite vulnerable eyes.
❀

The oily residue rubbing off of the echoing gray would play a part in its doom; it was slippery and made every grip a precarious one. When Marrow tossed her head, the rodent went flying out of view. A warbling shriek accompanied its arc away from her, going quiet with a crack!ing suddenness. Bones went scattering from the impact.

It did not return for her nor make another sound.

@Marrow