Grunting, a woman pulls herself up, almost leaping to catch the next jut of rock.

Gripping onto the flat edged piece of rock, she keeps herself steady while she finds footholds.

Continuing the climb for a few more times, she finally reaches a ledge in the mountain, which she uses to rest her tired hands.

Closing her eyes, she stands on the ledge hugging the wall with her body letting her arms rest.

However the moaning wind does not let her rest as it whips her blonde locks of hair into her face and threatens to trip and tumble her down the mountain.

Shivering at the thought, she opens her eyes and continues to climb.

Before too long, she’s faced with the dilemma all climbers face; a lack of places to hold and grip onto.

Peering around, she can spot a possible hold about three metres above her.

Gritting her teeth, she lets one hand go, squats and does small bounces to prepare.

Her free hand clutches the simple wooden longbow that is slung over her shoulder and she moves it to her shoulder.

Holding the bottom of the bow with her thighs, she strings the bow with her free hand and then fully takes it off.

Taking a deep breath she counts from three.

Leaping into the air, she has but a moment suspended in it free as a cloud.

Then she begins to fall.

However her bow catches the jutted piece of rock between the wood and the string, the wood quickly slipping towards her.

Pushing down with the bow-hand, she raises herself to grab onto the hold just as the wood slips off and the string extends somewhat.

If she had been but a second earlier, the string would have snapped due to the force put on it and she would have fallen to her death.

Ignoring the close call to death she just had, she focuses on moving both her hands onto the small jut while her feet dangle precariously.

Placing one hand on top of the other she has the bottom one grip the bowstring with her fingernails and then slowly slides that hand out of the jut.

Dropping an inch, she sways dangerously as her hand is loose holding the bowstring with a death grip.

Slinging the bow back on her shoulder, restricting her breath somewhat due to the tautness of the string, she pulls herself up and grabs another hold.

Ignoring the sensation of having her muscles burn and rip to smithereens, she continues climbing.

At the next ledge which is fortunately close, she rests once more; to let the feeling come back into her arms.

Shivering from the chilly wind, she climbs once more and finally makes it to the top.

Flinging an arm over the edge, she gets the other over and pulls herself up.

She slowly drags her tired body onto a large plateau keeping herself sliding on the dirty stone.

However, a large tiger with short, chubby legs, which was prowling around, noticed her before she could fully get on.

Its large yellowy eyes turn a sharp red and it bares it teeth at the woman.

Panicking, she scrambles onto the plateau and stands up, all while being watched by the tiger as it watches its prey hungrily.

The minute she is stood up though, the tiger pounces towards her much slower than a tiger should and she dives to the ground eating dirt as she poorly executes a roll.

Unslinging her bow, she rolls with it in another dodge of the tiger’s claws as it charges to her and ends up slicing away at the wall.

Rolling to a knee position she opens the cap of her quiver with a click and swiftly takes out an arrow.

Knocking the arrow on, she looks at the tiger which had turned around and is now looking at her, pacing left and right.

*Gulp*

Calm down. Remember what they taught you. Step one, knock, done. Step two, position, done. Step three dra-

Her thoughts are interrupted by the tiger pouncing towards her and she freaks out quickly drawing and letting the arrow loose, grazing one of its paws.

However that was enough to make it falter slightly, allowing her to dive from a knee, roll and sprint quickly for distance.

It follows after her however, growling hungrily.

Step one, knock.

Grabbing an arrow from her quiver, she tries to knock the arrow on but her hands and the string is shaking too violently for her to put it on.

Almost running into a mountainside, she notices it last minute and jumps up, planting both feet on the wall and pushes off, diving in the air.

Quickly knocking the arrow in the air for the erratic movement of the string lessened, she lands behind the tiger and begins running away again.

Step two, position.

Straightening her back, she raises her drawing elbow while her holding arm has elbow pointing out.

Jumping on the other mountainside , she dives over the tiger, but this time gets a light gash from its claws as it catches her in the back.

Ignoring the searing pain, she lands and runs away with the tiger slowly turning.

Step three, draw.

Running away, she draws the string to the side of her lips, lowering her elbow to make the shoulders align and feels the strength of the bow push into her arm and ride up to the back of her shoulders.

Step four, aim.

Swinging around, she looks at the tiger running after her with its chubby legs and points her arrow a bit off to the right of its front right paw.

Step five, shoot.

The tiger pounces as she lets loose the arrow and it soars into the open maw of the tiger causing it to loosen up like a rag doll in mid air.

However that doesn’t stop it and its corpse barrels into her knocking her to the ground, wrenching the bow from her grasp and off the cliff.

The tiger corpse keeps rolling and follows the bow.

Panting quickly and heavily from the adrenaline rush, she slowly calms down her pounding heartbeat enough to hear the quiet surroundings once more.

With a grim face, she crawls to the edge and peeks over.

“Damn it, that’s at least two to three hundred feet” Her light Irish accent permeates the air.

With a loud sigh, she takes a long break before beginning the necessary descent.

…

“All I had to do was kill this tiger, skin it and bring back its pelt. But oh no, it just had to take my bow with it” She spouts angrily accompanying it with a kick to the tiger corpse’s head.

Looking at the smashed pieces of her bow lit up by the setting sun, she gives the corpse another angry kick in the stomach this time.

“Oof”

She jumps back in shock at the sound, before tentatively walking towards the corpse’s stomach and kicks it once more.

“Ow” the voice is muffled and quiet, but it is a voice indeed.

In terror she kicks the stomach once more before regaining her senses and takes out her skinning knife.

Jabbing it lightly in the stomach, she slices through unzipping it, causing a large pile of innards and blood to spill out, along with a gooey human shaped figure.

It stands up and stretches with a yawn, like one would do after waking up from a nap. She just looks in horror the thing which is wrapped in the intestines of a tiger.

“MONSTER!” She takes out her novice bow from months past and swiftly knocks an arrow on.

It raises a gooey arm but that does not stop the arrow from impaling it.

A flurry of arrows follow the first and within a dozen minutes of her shooting the thing while it stands still, she finally shot the last of her one hundred and twenty arrows.

“Are you done?” A gentle voice comes from the thing which now resembles a porcupine due to the number of arrows embedded in it.

Sinking to her knees in terror, she loses consciousness from sheer fear at the creature as it moves towards her.

However that is not the end for her.

She wakes up before the setting of the sun and next to a small but warm fire.

She quickly notices a naked man tending the fire.

Jumping up, she readies to attack him.

“Please don’t attack me again” The same gentle, almost soothing voice reaches her ears causing her to movement to stop

Suddenly, nothing makes sense. She would understand the man killing the creature and keeping her, but not the man being the creature she shot full of arrows.

Even if she was using a novice bow, the damage output would be enough to kill any naked man, even if he is the highest level foreigner.

“If you’re wondering as to why I’m alive, well that’s because I had a lot of guts around me, and your bow is nowhere near strong enough to pierce those and me” The lie is blatant yet is also believable. So much so that she believes it, if only to give some sense to the situation.

“Sorry, about that” She whispers in awkwardness

He just nods and keeps tending to the fire.

With that situation somewhat cleared up, her eyes and mind move onto other things. Her cheeks flush red as her eyes roam.

“Thanks for getting me out of there” he says in a gentle voice as stands up giving a yawn

“Yeah, no problem” She slowly devours his well toned body with her eyes.

“Erm, can you not stare” both his hands go down to cover up.

Chuckling she moves her eyes away.

“So…” She is lost on what to ask first since as she thinks about it, there are many questions she wants to ask him. All of which confuse her as to how they can be answered.

“So…” He gestures with a hand to continue

“How are you alive?” She asks the strange man as even if the guts protected him by the arrows like he said, he had fallen off the cliff too if he had been in the tiger.

“Tiger mitigated the fall damage” He shrugs noncommittally

She doesn’t exactly trust that as like before, but the alternative is something she can’t really comprehend how it is possible and he does so she decides it’s a half truth.

“How did you stay alive in the tiger?” Actually gazing at the rest of his body this time, she notices the many acid burn marks that still litter the man’s body, as well as whole chunks of flesh missing that had been covered up by the wound intestines.

“Well you se-”

“BLAaaargh” Noticing the horrific body in front of her, she retches up her last meal violently

“Are you alright there er…who are you?” He steps close as if to help

Placing a hand up in a stop gesture, she finishes retching and then stands up, looking away from the man.

“I’m Tandra, and I am alright. Thank you” She wipes off a smidgen of puke on her lower lip.

“A pleasure. Now could you tell me where the nearest town is?”

“There’s a town just west of here, Ronthar. I can take you there if you want to” She says with a friendly smile

You owe me for saving your life so I’m going to make you pay me back somehow

“Sure, guess that makes us even now” He returns the smile

“Even?” Her eyebrow twitches in confusion “I’m your savior”

“Yeah, about that…” He scratches his head awkwardly

“What” Her tone turns demanding as she wants to know why this man is trying to swindle her out of her savior bonus.

He points up.

“Well last time I checked, saving someone wasn’t throwing them off the cliff and then kicking them repeatedly when they were down”

Oh…damn it he has a point but still I need to get another bow somehow

“Well how about me taking you out of that stomach. That saved you, or would you have been fine lying in there?” her voice gets a bit frantic as thoughts of her being unable to get a new bow seep into her mind

“…I…” He closes his mouth in thought before opening it after a second or two “I guess you did save me then, somewhat. So I’ll owe you a little something”

She celebrates silently on the inside; however she has a strange feeling about that odd hesitation the man had at the start of that sentence. Ridiculous thoughts entered her mind, but she didn’t cast them aside instantly.

Keeping the thoughts at the back of her mind, she decides to ponder about it later.

“If you can get me a bow, since it was broken to save you, then we’re even”

“Only if you promise you will use it till you’ve found a better one” he grins deviously

Alarm bells ring in response to that man’s grin. But she doesn’t really understand why it would be a difficult promise to keep, or dangerous for that matter. There seems to be no loss for her.

“I swear that I’ll use the bow you give me”

“Cool, now let’s get some sleep” The man plops onto the ground and closes his eyes.

It is not like she trusts the man; however she is exhausted from the hunt of today. So she drifts off to sleep within minutes.

If she had faked her sleep like the man did, she would have been traumatized by what he does.

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Author's Corner:

HEEEEY GUEEEEES WHAT? NEW CHARACTERRRR!!

Hope you enjoyed the chapter, because this is the beginning of a new ride!

Please feel free to comment, pleeease comment!! ( i mean useful things rather than, thanks for the chapter, are great but i guess if you've got nothing better to say :P)

-TRUE NORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD