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+--- Thread: Luneshale Pass oh, this time. (/showthread.php?tid=62335)
oh, this time. - Qiao - August 12, 2024
along the wide arm of a lazy river, a blue heron fanned its wings. this creature was the river’s answer to the divine serpent — coiled neck, stilt-thin limbs, and rapier mouth.
it waded carefully along the shadow dappled bank, each limb pulled slowly from the water. lithe leg brought to sharp breast before each digit spread out, placed seamlessly back into the turgid shallows without so much as a ripple.
its head rotated on a lengthy plain, the bitter yellow of its eye focusing on what lingered beneath the murky surface. its pupil retracted, slits among a sea of sickly yellow — and for a moment, the knife’s edge of its beak hovered —
with a jab it struck below the water, its blade-like bill thrown in an atlatl’s expert arc. incandescent sheets of water interrupted the murkwater surface, a scree of glittering drops sent splattering.
it raised its beak, its thin silhouette haloed by a blinding byzantine blue sky. speared at its tip was the gleaming, muscular body of a struggling fish. the gills protracted, the eyes bulged as it made sense of the singular blade thrust right through its midsection.
down its belly ran a thin current of red.
the heron’s head tilted back. in seconds, the gasping trout was engulfed in its gullet, to a dark river of death it would never escape.
the heron continued stalking, head bobbing as it strode like an old earthstrider through reeds and the open faces of unsullied fresh pink water lily flowers.
several hours later, the heron’s throat was seized between qiao’s teeth.