Sunspire Mountains what's that thing they say about a rose by any other name?

mature for mildly described animal torture lol?

"bitch queen of bullshit mountain. motherfucker,"

take your pick: newborn giraffe, or tarted up sorority girl trying to walk home on 12-inch stilettos while blind drunk.

both are pretty accurate descriptions of the manner esme staggered down the mudslicked mountainside. the surefooting she had during the ascent was now gone, the earth just a paludal swath and her mind was plodding through its own mire of crossness. 

she'd sat atop that mountain for a week and what had it gotten her besides stuck, wet, and angry? nearabouts homicidal if you tallied in the sheer boredom she endured. esme picked her way down until evening, and she wasn't trying to snap an ankle navigating through the slippery night. she found a cave mouth on a ridge and carefully hefted herself onto the granite portico, shaking the day's mizzle from her coat before marking the shelter as ocupado.  

when she breached the threshold, a bat screeched and flew over her head, but her reflexes were still sharp and she caught it in the glove of her maw. she settled down as it flapped and shrieked, pinning a paw on its back with a respiring all in a hard day's work sigh and took a wing betwixt her teeth, slowly pulling until the span of its wing was outstretched to its fullest extent.

and then she pulled some more until the shrieks became ghastly shrills of pain as its wing membrane started to separate from its upper arm. 

"she loves me," esme murmured as she plucked the first wing from her quarry. she let the bat flop around flightlessly on the stone, then pinned it again and took its other wing in the same manner as before. "she loves me not." 

the animal had died of shock before its second digit even came away from its body, and esme stared pitilessly at the thing as its blood seeped out through the cave's entrance. "hm. more's the pity," she said with a careless gesture of her foot, brooming the carcass out of her quarters into the pool of its own gore. no interest in feeding on her play.

she stared indolently at the trees sharing schoolyard secrets with the breeze, whispering amidst the autumn-turning leaves.