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The deer was just over a hundred feet away and for the third time that day, Sasha was looking at it from behind a bow. She was a terrible shot and the fact that her eating well hinged on her archery skills wasn't really helping things. Still, she steadied her breathing and drew the bowstring back, taking aim once more. There had been a few nice pluses that had come with the change, her eyesight being one of them and strength being another.
Things further away were so much clearer than they had used to be. Even at this distance she could see the individual hairs on the animal moving in the wind. It was actually quite the blessing and made foraging for berries and fruit so much easier. It also gave her a reason to use her own eyes rather than let the snakes atop her head do all the work. And of course being stronger made archery so much easier now. She had struggled with a bow string before, now it just came back smoothly when she pulled.
Those two factors alone should have made her great with the bow and arrow but it didn't change the fact that she just plain sucked. But she took the shot anyways, and the arrow went high this time. It actually soared overtop of the deer's body- a victory in her books because it meant she had one dimension aimed properly that time.
It still wasn't a victory for her stomach though.
Sasha sighed as the deer scampered away for the third time that day. Plants for supper again she supposed. She had been fine eating greens the first couple days in the forest but a craving for meat had overtaken her, and she found herself hunting to pass the time. It was a good skill to hone after all, she wasn't going back to civilization anytime soon.
The missed arrow was a ways past where the deer had been so she went to collect it and tried to figure out which way it had went in the meantime. There was still quite a bit of daylight yet. Tasting the air she picked it's scent again, and starting following the trail it had left through the underbrush. Picking her way through the bush without making noise was actually surprisingly easy considering her size. All she had to do was keep her upper body low to the ground move the branches aside when she slithered. It made for a typical sliding sound of course but it wasn't the crunching that echoed through the forest when a bear tried to push through the brush.
The trail the deer had left wasn't very pronounced but she was able to keep on track by following the scent. For something she thought to be revolting when she first discovered it, her new tongue was proving incredibly useful. She flicked it out again, going to the right slightly to keep on its path. With the mountain looming only a day ahead of her she wasn't sure if she wanted to leave the forest at its base. It had started to grow on her and was feeling familiar. But that could just be her nature which was to resist change. She knew that on the other side of the mountain range was a huge river and even thicker forest. Sasha did want to live in the jungle for a while. The mountain range did cast a large rain shadow.
Her hunt led her to a clearing- a large one at that; probably a thirty minute walk- or slither- across. She could see the deer in the distance too, it's head poking out of the tall grass on the lookout for whatever was pursuing it. This was perfect. Sasha unstrung her bow quickly and slid it back into its slot on the quiver and went nearly flat to the ground before sliding out of the forest and into the grass. There was a strong wind which masked her movement through the grass and made it all but impossible to tell she was even there at all. Using her of her longest hair snakes to keep and eye on the deer, Sasha slowly but surely made her way towards it; only moving when the wind gusted to she the rustling she was making from being suspicious.
And it worked. She was within ten feet of the deer and it had no clue, still eating the leaves off a lone tree in the middle of a grassy field. Once she was that close Sasha reigned the rest of her long body in close to her in a fashion that would let her strike. She had wanted to try this for a while but could never quite get close enough, her prey always noticed her. But not this time.
Carefully and quietly setting her pack on the ground, Sasha took one last look at the deer and struck.
A thousand pounds of human and snake alike slammed into the deer and Sasha wrapped her arms around its torso, quick to start wrapper her serpent around it too. But it wasn't going down without a fight; it squirmed and crowed trying to wriggle free of her grip and even bit her on the arm once. It wasn't bad but was enough to make her yelp and temporarily lose her grip. That was all it took too for the deer to get out from her human half, but the giant thousand pound snake already wrapped around it once had something to say about it escaping.
Since Sasha was already wrapped around it once it was easy to pull more of her body around the beast, wrapping around it thrice more before it was completely enveloped in her coils. Holding it there squirming for a moment she looked at the bite mark in her arm. Judging by how hard it had bit her a chunk should have been missing from her arm- but instead it was just some bite marks which were barely bleeding. Was her skin stronger now to? It was already healing; the bleeding stopped and completely scabbed over. Incredible, there was something to be said about magic.
Turning her attention back to the deer, she briefly thought about getting her knife from her pack and slitting its throat. It would be the most humane way to die for sure, but there was a morbid curiosity inside her that had mixed with some latent anger. No, this animal had been caught by a serpent, it would die the same way.
Sasha squeezed, tightening her coils around the deer. It cried out once before not being able to take in another breath in her crushing grip. She could feel it breath out again, unable to expand its chest. She held it there briefly, suspended in the air in front of her being crushed to death in her coils. Sasha tightened again with no effort, she was still only using a fraction of her strength- a testament to show powerful her body really was. This time there was a series of cracks and she felt its ribs breaking under the pressure. Sighing, Sasha decided to put it out of its misery and crushed hard one more time. It wasn't the suffocation that killed the deer however, but instead the fact that its heart couldn't pump blood with all the pressure on its body. She felt its pulse stop almost immediately and it went limp in her coils.
There was some part inside her that found that whole ordeal incredibly satisfying. Sasha looked at the dead deer without remorse. Damn things had eaten community gardens and robed them of food many times over. She had absolutely no problem with it dying like that.
Filleting the animal wasn't that hard. Her father had been a butcher by trade so Sasha had found herself cutting up many an animal. A deer was something she'd cut up many times but never actually eaten. Her dad had said it was poor meat and had always gotten better cuts for the two of them. With a well practiced hand she cut it up and laid the strips of meat on the ground. Having just slept wherever in the past couple days, she didn't have a particular dwelling of sorts yet so there was no where to bring the food. May as well set up camp here.
Drawing the katana, Sasha swept the blade though the tall grass, cutting a large circle in the clearing. She spent the next couple hours gathering miscellaneous supplies for her temporary setup, ending with rocks for a fireplace and the sticks to burn. Getting it started was a bit of a chore however. She used the flint and steel to no effect for more than five minutes before getting some smoke.
From there Sasha kept putting progressively larger sticks onto it, trying to build up a bed of coals. The strange thing was the fire was burning just fine but wasn't throwing nearly enough heat. It took nearly five minutes of her building the fire up to nearly three feet tall when she realized something was strange. She had been so close to the fire for such a long but had hardly felt anything aside from warmth even when she was stacking dead wood on it. It should be borderline burning her.
When Sasha put her hand inside the fire and picked out a red hot ember, it felt pleasantly warm in her hand. 'Well that's convenient.' She thought to herself. Apparently the she wasn't just immune to hellfire, but all flame, cursed or not. It made cooking the meat easy too- all she had to do was hold it in the flame with her hand. It didn't change the fact that it felt really, really strange, but it worked.
When it was finally cooked enough to eat- and Sasha was wondering if she even needed to cook it anymore- she took a bite and it occurred to her why her father had never brought home deer meet.
It was awful.
She should have realized it when cutting the animal up but the meet was of terrible quality, greasy and tough to chew. But Sasha was hungry for protein and had sharp incisors which cut through the meat with no effort.
Finished the first in under a minute, the rest of the strips were looking awfully good, irregardless of the poor quality of the meat. Sasha wasn't ready to wait another ten minutes with her hand in the fire though. Screw it, if fire couldn't hurt her she doubted a little raw meat would be an issue either. She spent the next couple hours just eating, her body body a seemingly endless pit for food to enter. She cooked some of it, ate some raw and had finished nearly most of the cuts of meat on the deer by the time she was done.
The moon was far overhead now and casting a decent amount of light in the clearing. Splashing a little bit of water on her face and hands to wash off the blood, she found herself coiled around the fire pit, soaking in the heat and eventually falling asleep.
***
Sasha woke up just before the sun was directly overhead. The fire from last night had long since went out, but the suns rays were warming her up quite well. That had been another thing she'd noticed; while cool temperatures weren't really a bother heat seemed to invigorate her. Under the hot afternoon sun she was suddenly completely awake.
Sliding away from her position around the little fire pit Sasha grabbed her pack and started to look for a pond or something to wash off in. She still felt a little sticky from all that blood yesterday. Tasting the air again and looking for traces of water she was disappointed when it didn't yield anything- looked like she'd be wandering for a while. Glancing at the deer carcass one last time she thought about trying to scavenge a bit more meat from it.
Eventually deciding against it, primarily due to the amount of flies on the carcass, she left the remains for some hungry scavenger. She wondered if after eating so much last night that meant she was good for a couple days or if that was something she needed to do regularly. And the giant bite the deer had taken from her arm yesterday was completely healed now too, there was no trace of the injury anymore. In her mind, that fact alone was probably the best thing to come out of all this.
Picking her way though the forest once more she brought her snakes back up into their active state. Now they constantly writhed and twisted around her head continuously looking about rather than hanging mostly limp by her shoulders. It was sort of like having an afro versus a girl with her hair let down. It was kind of strange when she thought about it; they almost had two neutral states. With them down hanging loosely they were essentially limp, their only movement slow like a ball of worms. Up high and on alert like they were right now they writhed and twisted quickly, giving her a constant (albeit slightly blurred) information feed of her surroundings. Their senses; or rather her own senses within the snakes weren't as sharp as her new eyes and tongue. It was better for her sanity to think of them as an involuntary muscle even if at times they seemed to have a mind of their own.
Continuing her hunt for water, she eventually found a little stream flowing from a pool uphill. Nothing big but enough to fill her waterskins and to wash off to some degree. Relatively clean and restocked on water, her hair snakes caught a glimpse of a squirrel watching her from far above.
She glanced up at it, the glorified tree rat and felt a strange sensation overcome her as she spoke to it: "Psst, come here little guy." And much to her surprise, it did. When the squirrel bounded down the tree trunk to stand in front of her the gears started to turn in her mind. She had felt that feeling before, both times when she had made requests to Faie and both times her caretaker had fulfilled them instantly.
She looked at the squirrel again and cocked her head. Could it be? Had the change given her some latent magically powers aside from the basic stuff like the healing? It wasn't unheard of. Half demons were known to be able to summon fire and have bits of telekinesis and part shadowcats could drain the light from an area at night or blink between dark zones... Had the hydra given her hypnosis? When she thought about it she could feel the power buried in her and activating it was like moving a new limb.
She gave the squirrel a full blast of hypnosis and could feel the power coming from her eyes. "Climb onto my head." She ordered it.
Without hesitation it scampered up her body, over her scales up her front and into her head, sitting amongst a mass of writhing snakes that should have terrified it. Fascinated, Sasha let the power sink back down inside her and inadvertently released her control over the squirrel. Suddenly surrounded by a writhing mass of serpents, the rodent freaked out, scrambling and trying to run.
Frowning, Sasha coiled one of her larger snakes around it and held it in front of her eyes. While it tried to bite and claw the serpent coiled around it she gave it another burst of wordless hypnosis rendering it calm again, awaiting instruction.
Curious as she set the squirrel down, Sasha turned inward briefly to see it there was any more latent magic inside her. It seemed to her that if if memory served correctly, all the cursed had two types of magic they could use. It took a moment of introspection then suddenly there it was, like a second arm waiting to be moved it awoke inside her and started to pour out of her eyes just like the hypnosis did. It was stronger- much stronger and in an instant the squirrel sitting obediently in front of her turned to stone.
Sasha blinked for a couple times entirely to confused about what just happened. Eventually a sense of dread and awe overtook her as she realized exactly what that had meant. Simply by looking at something in the eye she could petrify it, she could turn it to stone. Carefully picking up the little squirrels statue she released the power and let it sink back down inside her; hoping that the effect would reverse. But it didn't, it seemed this was permanent.
The statue looked like it had been carved by a master, on its back and tail was there just as it had been when alive. If she didn't know better it would have been fascinating. Still, it had been an interesting development to her day.
Seeing a wasp nearby, she turned to it behind her and gave it a blast of the magic as well. It kept flying away, a little more erratically but otherwise unaffected it seemed. Sasha frowned. Like the hypnosis she needed eye contact to perform the magic it seemed. She tried a couple more times and eventually got a bee, it falling to the ground like a pebble. She still felt bad for the squirrel but didn't have any sympathy for the insect.
Sasha spent the remainder of the day picking her way up through the mountain range. It's wasn't particularly difficult as she had imagined, it was just a lot of uphill traveling. During the time she saw some wildlife at a distance peacefully eating from the trees and grass, and opted to leave them be. Once she was over the first set of mountains and into the river valley she'd start hunting again. For now there was a few slabs of deer meet left over hanging from the side of her pack in case she got hungry. But as the sun set and the half moon rose the hunger never came. Apparently her hypotheses had been correct- a single large meal could hold her for quite a while.
It was full on nighttime when she decided to stop her trek. Fatigue was starting to wear on her body and good progress had been made today. Looking down from her vantage point on the mountain the was quite high up. Trees didn't grow so big anymore and the wind gusted harder. Some low clouds blew past her a couple hundred feet down, threatening to rain on the forest below. It seemed she was moving out of a forest region and into a grassland up at this height, leaving little cover to hide in if she needed to. Sasha doubted it though, it was quiet and open. Anything trying to sneak up on her would been seen from a mile away.
The peak wasn't actually in her travel path at all. Rather she was aiming for a low point where two of the mountains joined together. She could see a small stream coming off the melting glacier running down that crease, having worn a small but deep scar in the mountain side. Tomorrow Sasha could cross that and have the chance to refill her waterskins again. Maybe if she drank for fifteen minutes straight she wouldn't need to for a while again either- just like her eating pattern. It would be something she'd need to try.
But all that was tomorrow's task. Now she was tired and started to coil herself up in the tall grass, setting her pack and human body in the middle. Sasha then wound herself up in her lower portion, forming a teepee shape with a small breathing hole at the top. That way anything trying to sneak up on her would only see the giant serpent and it's nearly impenetrable hide.
It was probably a good thing she did that too. When the sun started to press down on her in the morning there was a strange scent in the air- one completely unfamiliar to her. But she had little experience still, for all she knew it could be a mountain goat passing through the area. She grabbed her pack and kept moving without giving it another thought.
After a few more hours of trekking uphill Sasha finally reached the top- finally she could see down the other side. Having never seen this side of the mountain range before, the view was breathtaking. At the top it was still all the same but as the land dropped below the cloud line there was lush jungle with trees five or six times larger than on the side she'd grown up on. A thick stream from a glacier slowly melting on one of the higher mountains fed into the river that flowed down the centre of the mountain range, almost complete obscured in the jungle canopy. It struck her as bizarre that she'd been living in a rain shadow all her life and hadn't really realized it.
A couple things stuck out to Sasha in her initial observation as well. There was a couple areas that had been deforested pretty heavily near the river in the centre, fields growing there instead. There was probably houses hidden in the trees by the fields where the farmers lived. Scouring the scene for villages she saw two, both at the edge of her vision to the far left and far right. They looked a bit more that a days walk apart, but that was normal- looking behind her she could see the village where she grew up just on the edge of the horizon, along with a few more scattered along the waterways.
All places she now had to avoid. But there was one more thing she'd noticed too. A dead zone in the middle of the jungle down below. A brown spot in the middle of the green. Rot maybe? That didn't make any sense and to wasn't a fire otherwise it would have been burnt. She took a mental note to check that place out in the future. Her plan for now though was to get to the forest line and find a cave to take shelter in. Going up the mountain range there had been plenty, she imagined it would be the same on the way down too.
She spent the majority of the day working her way down the mountainside exploring caves and taking note of landmarks. It was after about the eighth one that Sasha found something she liked. A tight entrance- a circle hardly two feet in diameter which somehow turned into a much larger living space on the inside. It didn't go to deep, no more than thirty feet and a little bit wider but it would be a perfect spot to get out of the wind and rain when need be.
There was a lot of half rotted deadfall outside the cave to, it looked like the area had been hit by a fire a while back. Most of it wasn't burnable but made for a nice clearing. So naturally the rest of her day would spent settling into the area and getting her basics setup. Rocks for a fire pit, cutting tree branches for a drying rack for any meat she got and then to start collecting larger sticks for the beginning of a fence. Nothing fancy, but she didn't want the brunt of the high mountain winds hitting her all the time. It could be a project to keep her busy for a couple days.
All throughout the day she kept catching the scent she'd picked up early that morning. It was always when the wind shifted a little bit and whenever she tried to look for it, there was a bit of rustling and it was gone. Judging by the fact that she had been picking it up all day it was probably some prey animal, but it bothered her she couldn't identify this elusive beast. It was a stark reminder that for all the power she had, Sasha was still very new to living in the wild and at the end of the day she was probably being stumped by a wild bird.
With the fire pit made- a small circle of rocks around a dug up piece of land- and the drying rack finished she had turned to starting on the fence. One of the many tools she had brought was a small axe, which she used to cut down trees about five inches thick and brought them back to the campsite. After a bit of planing, her idea began to take shape. She sharpened the base of the tree to a point, stood it upright and then coiled herself around the tree, squeezing it and using her weight to sink it deep into the ground. A thousand pounds of snake did that quite well in the soft soil too, much better than she had expected.
With three trees cut and stuck back into the ground where she wanted them, her next task was to string some vines between them to make sure it would actually work before planting all her fence posts. It was tedious and took a lot more trips of vine gathering than expected- but eventually yielded the result she was looking for. It would serve as a temporary wind barrier while shrubs grew. Now she just had to extend it all the way around her campsite. That could take a couple days though, it was slow work she was doing. The moon, now high overhead testified to that fact.
Just as she slithered back into her cave, she caught another whiff of that strange scent. She kept her body slithering in but turned around to look back outside at the same time while she pulled the rest of herself in. And just for a fraction of a second, the briefest of moments, she saw something: A pair of bright yellow eyes at the edge of the tree line, watching her. Instantly she gave it a full burst of hypnosis and shouted "Show yourself!"
But whatever it was, it didn't care and the eyes were gone again- retreated into the shadows.
Annoyed, she let the hypnotic power sink back down inside her, releasing any possible control she could have had. 'Definitely a predator.' A small voice in her mind said.
Suddenly no longer sleepy, Sasha coiled herself right beside the entrance and settled into a audible and rhythmic breathing. Making her hair snakes still and remaining motionless, she let whatever was following her she was falling asleep. Maybe it would have the nerve to poke its head in and she could get it with a burst of hypnosis. She sat there for nearly half an hour without incident, only when she was starting to get drowsy once more a faint sound grabbed her attention.
Feet on grass, and not much weight. Whatever it was wasn't much larger than a dog. She could hear it breathing now, just outside the cave and its heart thumping rapidly. Fear? Excitement? Nothing in its right mind would attack a giant snake. Instead of flicking her tongue out she breathed in through her mouth, getting a similar effect. It was definitely what she'd picked up this morning. What the hell was this thing doing watching her sleep? Curiosity perhaps?
When it backed off Sasha realized she had been holding her breath, something easily heard right around the corner. Damnit. It knew she knew.
Frustrated with herself, she coiled into that defensive sleeping position once more and let her drowsiness overcome her for the night.

Description

The deer was just over a hundred feet away and for the third time that day, Sasha was looking at it from behind a bow. She was a terrible shot and the fact that her eating well hinged on her archery skills wasn't really helping things. Still, she steadied her breathing and drew the bowstring back, taking aim once more. There had been a few nice pluses that had come with the change, her eyesight being one of them and strength being another.
Things further away were so much clearer than they had used to be. Even at this distance she could see the individual hairs on the animal moving in the wind. It was actually quite the blessing and made foraging for berries and fruit so much easier. It also gave her a reason to use her own eyes rather than let the snakes atop her head do all the work. And of course being stronger made archery so much easier now. She had struggled with a bow string before, now it just came back smoothly when she pulled.
Those two factors alone should have made her great with the bow and arrow but it didn't change the fact that she just plain sucked. But she took the shot anyways, and the arrow went high this time. It actually soared overtop of the deer's body- a victory in her books because it meant she had one dimension aimed properly that time.
It still wasn't a victory for her stomach though.
Sasha sighed as the deer scampered away for the third time that day. Plants for supper again she supposed. She had been fine eating greens the first couple days in the forest but a craving for meat had overtaken her, and she found herself hunting to pass the time. It was a good skill to hone after all, she wasn't going back to civilization anytime soon.
The missed arrow was a ways past where the deer had been so she went to collect it and tried to figure out which way it had went in the meantime. There was still quite a bit of daylight yet. Tasting the air she picked it's scent again, and starting following the trail it had left through the underbrush. Picking her way through the bush without making noise was actually surprisingly easy considering her size. All she had to do was keep her upper body low to the ground move the branches aside when she slithered. It made for a typical sliding sound of course but it wasn't the crunching that echoed through the forest when a bear tried to push through the brush.
The trail the deer had left wasn't very pronounced but she was able to keep on track by following the scent. For something she thought to be revolting when she first discovered it, her new tongue was proving incredibly useful. She flicked it out again, going to the right slightly to keep on its path. With the mountain looming only a day ahead of her she wasn't sure if she wanted to leave the forest at its base. It had started to grow on her and was feeling familiar. But that could just be her nature which was to resist change. She knew that on the other side of the mountain range was a huge river and even thicker forest. Sasha did want to live in the jungle for a while. The mountain range did cast a large rain shadow.
Her hunt led her to a clearing- a large one at that; probably a thirty minute walk- or slither- across. She could see the deer in the distance too, it's head poking out of the tall grass on the lookout for whatever was pursuing it. This was perfect. Sasha unstrung her bow quickly and slid it back into its slot on the quiver and went nearly flat to the ground before sliding out of the forest and into the grass. There was a strong wind which masked her movement through the grass and made it all but impossible to tell she was even there at all. Using her of her longest hair snakes to keep and eye on the deer, Sasha slowly but surely made her way towards it; only moving when the wind gusted to she the rustling she was making from being suspicious.
And it worked. She was within ten feet of the deer and it had no clue, still eating the leaves off a lone tree in the middle of a grassy field. Once she was that close Sasha reigned the rest of her long body in close to her in a fashion that would let her strike. She had wanted to try this for a while but could never quite get close enough, her prey always noticed her. But not this time.
Carefully and quietly setting her pack on the ground, Sasha took one last look at the deer and struck.
A thousand pounds of human and snake alike slammed into the deer and Sasha wrapped her arms around its torso, quick to start wrapper her serpent around it too. But it wasn't going down without a fight; it squirmed and crowed trying to wriggle free of her grip and even bit her on the arm once. It wasn't bad but was enough to make her yelp and temporarily lose her grip. That was all it took too for the deer to get out from her human half, but the giant thousand pound snake already wrapped around it once had something to say about it escaping.
Since Sasha was already wrapped around it once it was easy to pull more of her body around the beast, wrapping around it thrice more before it was completely enveloped in her coils. Holding it there squirming for a moment she looked at the bite mark in her arm. Judging by how hard it had bit her a chunk should have been missing from her arm- but instead it was just some bite marks which were barely bleeding. Was her skin stronger now to? It was already healing; the bleeding stopped and completely scabbed over. Incredible, there was something to be said about magic.
Turning her attention back to the deer, she briefly thought about getting her knife from her pack and slitting its throat. It would be the most humane way to die for sure, but there was a morbid curiosity inside her that had mixed with some latent anger. No, this animal had been caught by a serpent, it would die the same way.
Sasha squeezed, tightening her coils around the deer. It cried out once before not being able to take in another breath in her crushing grip. She could feel it breath out again, unable to expand its chest. She held it there briefly, suspended in the air in front of her being crushed to death in her coils. Sasha tightened again with no effort, she was still only using a fraction of her strength- a testament to show powerful her body really was. This time there was a series of cracks and she felt its ribs breaking under the pressure. Sighing, Sasha decided to put it out of its misery and crushed hard one more time. It wasn't the suffocation that killed the deer however, but instead the fact that its heart couldn't pump blood with all the pressure on its body. She felt its pulse stop almost immediately and it went limp in her coils.
There was some part inside her that found that whole ordeal incredibly satisfying. Sasha looked at the dead deer without remorse. Damn things had eaten community gardens and robed them of food many times over. She had absolutely no problem with it dying like that.
Filleting the animal wasn't that hard. Her father had been a butcher by trade so Sasha had found herself cutting up many an animal. A deer was something she'd cut up many times but never actually eaten. Her dad had said it was poor meat and had always gotten better cuts for the two of them. With a well practiced hand she cut it up and laid the strips of meat on the ground. Having just slept wherever in the past couple days, she didn't have a particular dwelling of sorts yet so there was no where to bring the food. May as well set up camp here.
Drawing the katana, Sasha swept the blade though the tall grass, cutting a large circle in the clearing. She spent the next couple hours gathering miscellaneous supplies for her temporary setup, ending with rocks for a fireplace and the sticks to burn. Getting it started was a bit of a chore however. She used the flint and steel to no effect for more than five minutes before getting some smoke.
From there Sasha kept putting progressively larger sticks onto it, trying to build up a bed of coals. The strange thing was the fire was burning just fine but wasn't throwing nearly enough heat. It took nearly five minutes of her building the fire up to nearly three feet tall when she realized something was strange. She had been so close to the fire for such a long but had hardly felt anything aside from warmth even when she was stacking dead wood on it. It should be borderline burning her.
When Sasha put her hand inside the fire and picked out a red hot ember, it felt pleasantly warm in her hand. 'Well that's convenient.' She thought to herself. Apparently the she wasn't just immune to hellfire, but all flame, cursed or not. It made cooking the meat easy too- all she had to do was hold it in the flame with her hand. It didn't change the fact that it felt really, really strange, but it worked.
When it was finally cooked enough to eat- and Sasha was wondering if she even needed to cook it anymore- she took a bite and it occurred to her why her father had never brought home deer meet.
It was awful.
She should have realized it when cutting the animal up but the meet was of terrible quality, greasy and tough to chew. But Sasha was hungry for protein and had sharp incisors which cut through the meat with no effort.
Finished the first in under a minute, the rest of the strips were looking awfully good, irregardless of the poor quality of the meat. Sasha wasn't ready to wait another ten minutes with her hand in the fire though. Screw it, if fire couldn't hurt her she doubted a little raw meat would be an issue either. She spent the next couple hours just eating, her body body a seemingly endless pit for food to enter. She cooked some of it, ate some raw and had finished nearly most of the cuts of meat on the deer by the time she was done.
The moon was far overhead now and casting a decent amount of light in the clearing. Splashing a little bit of water on her face and hands to wash off the blood, she found herself coiled around the fire pit, soaking in the heat and eventually falling asleep.
***
Sasha woke up just before the sun was directly overhead. The fire from last night had long since went out, but the suns rays were warming her up quite well. That had been another thing she'd noticed; while cool temperatures weren't really a bother heat seemed to invigorate her. Under the hot afternoon sun she was suddenly completely awake.
Sliding away from her position around the little fire pit Sasha grabbed her pack and started to look for a pond or something to wash off in. She still felt a little sticky from all that blood yesterday. Tasting the air again and looking for traces of water she was disappointed when it didn't yield anything- looked like she'd be wandering for a while. Glancing at the deer carcass one last time she thought about trying to scavenge a bit more meat from it.
Eventually deciding against it, primarily due to the amount of flies on the carcass, she left the remains for some hungry scavenger. She wondered if after eating so much last night that meant she was good for a couple days or if that was something she needed to do regularly. And the giant bite the deer had taken from her arm yesterday was completely healed now too, there was no trace of the injury anymore. In her mind, that fact alone was probably the best thing to come out of all this.
Picking her way though the forest once more she brought her snakes back up into their active state. Now they constantly writhed and twisted around her head continuously looking about rather than hanging mostly limp by her shoulders. It was sort of like having an afro versus a girl with her hair let down. It was kind of strange when she thought about it; they almost had two neutral states. With them down hanging loosely they were essentially limp, their only movement slow like a ball of worms. Up high and on alert like they were right now they writhed and twisted quickly, giving her a constant (albeit slightly blurred) information feed of her surroundings. Their senses; or rather her own senses within the snakes weren't as sharp as her new eyes and tongue. It was better for her sanity to think of them as an involuntary muscle even if at times they seemed to have a mind of their own.
Continuing her hunt for water, she eventually found a little stream flowing from a pool uphill. Nothing big but enough to fill her waterskins and to wash off to some degree. Relatively clean and restocked on water, her hair snakes caught a glimpse of a squirrel watching her from far above.
She glanced up at it, the glorified tree rat and felt a strange sensation overcome her as she spoke to it: "Psst, come here little guy." And much to her surprise, it did. When the squirrel bounded down the tree trunk to stand in front of her the gears started to turn in her mind. She had felt that feeling before, both times when she had made requests to Faie and both times her caretaker had fulfilled them instantly.
She looked at the squirrel again and cocked her head. Could it be? Had the change given her some latent magically powers aside from the basic stuff like the healing? It wasn't unheard of. Half demons were known to be able to summon fire and have bits of telekinesis and part shadowcats could drain the light from an area at night or blink between dark zones... Had the hydra given her hypnosis? When she thought about it she could feel the power buried in her and activating it was like moving a new limb.
She gave the squirrel a full blast of hypnosis and could feel the power coming from her eyes. "Climb onto my head." She ordered it.
Without hesitation it scampered up her body, over her scales up her front and into her head, sitting amongst a mass of writhing snakes that should have terrified it. Fascinated, Sasha let the power sink back down inside her and inadvertently released her control over the squirrel. Suddenly surrounded by a writhing mass of serpents, the rodent freaked out, scrambling and trying to run.
Frowning, Sasha coiled one of her larger snakes around it and held it in front of her eyes. While it tried to bite and claw the serpent coiled around it she gave it another burst of wordless hypnosis rendering it calm again, awaiting instruction.
Curious as she set the squirrel down, Sasha turned inward briefly to see it there was any more latent magic inside her. It seemed to her that if if memory served correctly, all the cursed had two types of magic they could use. It took a moment of introspection then suddenly there it was, like a second arm waiting to be moved it awoke inside her and started to pour out of her eyes just like the hypnosis did. It was stronger- much stronger and in an instant the squirrel sitting obediently in front of her turned to stone.
Sasha blinked for a couple times entirely to confused about what just happened. Eventually a sense of dread and awe overtook her as she realized exactly what that had meant. Simply by looking at something in the eye she could petrify it, she could turn it to stone. Carefully picking up the little squirrels statue she released the power and let it sink back down inside her; hoping that the effect would reverse. But it didn't, it seemed this was permanent.
The statue looked like it had been carved by a master, on its back and tail was there just as it had been when alive. If she didn't know better it would have been fascinating. Still, it had been an interesting development to her day.
Seeing a wasp nearby, she turned to it behind her and gave it a blast of the magic as well. It kept flying away, a little more erratically but otherwise unaffected it seemed. Sasha frowned. Like the hypnosis she needed eye contact to perform the magic it seemed. She tried a couple more times and eventually got a bee, it falling to the ground like a pebble. She still felt bad for the squirrel but didn't have any sympathy for the insect.
Sasha spent the remainder of the day picking her way up through the mountain range. It's wasn't particularly difficult as she had imagined, it was just a lot of uphill traveling. During the time she saw some wildlife at a distance peacefully eating from the trees and grass, and opted to leave them be. Once she was over the first set of mountains and into the river valley she'd start hunting again. For now there was a few slabs of deer meet left over hanging from the side of her pack in case she got hungry. But as the sun set and the half moon rose the hunger never came. Apparently her hypotheses had been correct- a single large meal could hold her for quite a while.
It was full on nighttime when she decided to stop her trek. Fatigue was starting to wear on her body and good progress had been made today. Looking down from her vantage point on the mountain the was quite high up. Trees didn't grow so big anymore and the wind gusted harder. Some low clouds blew past her a couple hundred feet down, threatening to rain on the forest below. It seemed she was moving out of a forest region and into a grassland up at this height, leaving little cover to hide in if she needed to. Sasha doubted it though, it was quiet and open. Anything trying to sneak up on her would been seen from a mile away.
The peak wasn't actually in her travel path at all. Rather she was aiming for a low point where two of the mountains joined together. She could see a small stream coming off the melting glacier running down that crease, having worn a small but deep scar in the mountain side. Tomorrow Sasha could cross that and have the chance to refill her waterskins again. Maybe if she drank for fifteen minutes straight she wouldn't need to for a while again either- just like her eating pattern. It would be something she'd need to try.
But all that was tomorrow's task. Now she was tired and started to coil herself up in the tall grass, setting her pack and human body in the middle. Sasha then wound herself up in her lower portion, forming a teepee shape with a small breathing hole at the top. That way anything trying to sneak up on her would only see the giant serpent and it's nearly impenetrable hide.
It was probably a good thing she did that too. When the sun started to press down on her in the morning there was a strange scent in the air- one completely unfamiliar to her. But she had little experience still, for all she knew it could be a mountain goat passing through the area. She grabbed her pack and kept moving without giving it another thought.
After a few more hours of trekking uphill Sasha finally reached the top- finally she could see down the other side. Having never seen this side of the mountain range before, the view was breathtaking. At the top it was still all the same but as the land dropped below the cloud line there was lush jungle with trees five or six times larger than on the side she'd grown up on. A thick stream from a glacier slowly melting on one of the higher mountains fed into the river that flowed down the centre of the mountain range, almost complete obscured in the jungle canopy. It struck her as bizarre that she'd been living in a rain shadow all her life and hadn't really realized it.
A couple things stuck out to Sasha in her initial observation as well. There was a couple areas that had been deforested pretty heavily near the river in the centre, fields growing there instead. There was probably houses hidden in the trees by the fields where the farmers lived. Scouring the scene for villages she saw two, both at the edge of her vision to the far left and far right. They looked a bit more that a days walk apart, but that was normal- looking behind her she could see the village where she grew up just on the edge of the horizon, along with a few more scattered along the waterways.
All places she now had to avoid. But there was one more thing she'd noticed too. A dead zone in the middle of the jungle down below. A brown spot in the middle of the green. Rot maybe? That didn't make any sense and to wasn't a fire otherwise it would have been burnt. She took a mental note to check that place out in the future. Her plan for now though was to get to the forest line and find a cave to take shelter in. Going up the mountain range there had been plenty, she imagined it would be the same on the way down too.
She spent the majority of the day working her way down the mountainside exploring caves and taking note of landmarks. It was after about the eighth one that Sasha found something she liked. A tight entrance- a circle hardly two feet in diameter which somehow turned into a much larger living space on the inside. It didn't go to deep, no more than thirty feet and a little bit wider but it would be a perfect spot to get out of the wind and rain when need be.
There was a lot of half rotted deadfall outside the cave to, it looked like the area had been hit by a fire a while back. Most of it wasn't burnable but made for a nice clearing. So naturally the rest of her day would spent settling into the area and getting her basics setup. Rocks for a fire pit, cutting tree branches for a drying rack for any meat she got and then to start collecting larger sticks for the beginning of a fence. Nothing fancy, but she didn't want the brunt of the high mountain winds hitting her all the time. It could be a project to keep her busy for a couple days.
All throughout the day she kept catching the scent she'd picked up early that morning. It was always when the wind shifted a little bit and whenever she tried to look for it, there was a bit of rustling and it was gone. Judging by the fact that she had been picking it up all day it was probably some prey animal, but it bothered her she couldn't identify this elusive beast. It was a stark reminder that for all the power she had, Sasha was still very new to living in the wild and at the end of the day she was probably being stumped by a wild bird.
With the fire pit made- a small circle of rocks around a dug up piece of land- and the drying rack finished she had turned to starting on the fence. One of the many tools she had brought was a small axe, which she used to cut down trees about five inches thick and brought them back to the campsite. After a bit of planing, her idea began to take shape. She sharpened the base of the tree to a point, stood it upright and then coiled herself around the tree, squeezing it and using her weight to sink it deep into the ground. A thousand pounds of snake did that quite well in the soft soil too, much better than she had expected.
With three trees cut and stuck back into the ground where she wanted them, her next task was to string some vines between them to make sure it would actually work before planting all her fence posts. It was tedious and took a lot more trips of vine gathering than expected- but eventually yielded the result she was looking for. It would serve as a temporary wind barrier while shrubs grew. Now she just had to extend it all the way around her campsite. That could take a couple days though, it was slow work she was doing. The moon, now high overhead testified to that fact.
Just as she slithered back into her cave, she caught another whiff of that strange scent. She kept her body slithering in but turned around to look back outside at the same time while she pulled the rest of herself in. And just for a fraction of a second, the briefest of moments, she saw something: A pair of bright yellow eyes at the edge of the tree line, watching her. Instantly she gave it a full burst of hypnosis and shouted "Show yourself!"
But whatever it was, it didn't care and the eyes were gone again- retreated into the shadows.
Annoyed, she let the hypnotic power sink back down inside her, releasing any possible control she could have had. 'Definitely a predator.' A small voice in her mind said.
Suddenly no longer sleepy, Sasha coiled herself right beside the entrance and settled into a audible and rhythmic breathing. Making her hair snakes still and remaining motionless, she let whatever was following her she was falling asleep. Maybe it would have the nerve to poke its head in and she could get it with a burst of hypnosis. She sat there for nearly half an hour without incident, only when she was starting to get drowsy once more a faint sound grabbed her attention.
Feet on grass, and not much weight. Whatever it was wasn't much larger than a dog. She could hear it breathing now, just outside the cave and its heart thumping rapidly. Fear? Excitement? Nothing in its right mind would attack a giant snake. Instead of flicking her tongue out she breathed in through her mouth, getting a similar effect. It was definitely what she'd picked up this morning. What the hell was this thing doing watching her sleep? Curiosity perhaps?
When it backed off Sasha realized she had been holding her breath, something easily heard right around the corner. Damnit. It knew she knew.
Frustrated with herself, she coiled into that defensive sleeping position once more and let her drowsiness overcome her for the night.