Even if they didn't kill each other, surely in the resulting scramble the survivor would be easier to pick off! The harpies are predators in their own rights when they chose to be, and a crippled victim is an easy victim, usually. The times when it's not is probably why they haven't gone for a brazen frontal assault yet. Even if nobody else dies at all, there's food around now!
It doesn't mean the dirty birds wouldn't happily watch the unfolding show. They already know how it's going to go, with one prey with food and supplies and precious water, and the other distinctly not.
For a while there's something.. like peace and quiet. It won't last, it can't last, but Sephiroth takes advantage while he can, wings fanned out to dump as much heat as possible, finding deeper recesses to settle in as noon drags into afternoon and begins casting long dark shadows again across the ground, carefully dug out prizes wrapped in his hole-pocked shirt by his side. The jacket alone would do for a while, he knew better than to discard either with the cold of night pending. Occasionally the black bundle shifts and wriggles. He ignores it save to make sure nothing creeps out of any of those holes, watching instead the settling harpies content to wait him and Vincent out. Perhaps the purple-furred predator had gotten bored and moved on, or decided to feast on an easier, more available kill of the many creatures left fordead. The harpies are not agreeable to this peace and quiet, cursing and kicking down rocks and insults, settling only a few meters out of reach to taunt.
Up until the teen proves he's far more lively than they're ready to deal with, the low muttered oath the only warning even they get before the bloody figure pounces with unearthly speed to drag one screaming to the ground, crushing bones in the impact but not killing her.
She's left alive to thrash broken in the sun and dust, and the others withdraw further; he was going to have to find better cover.
It's a waste of valuable time, the unpleasant stickiness of blood drying to uncomfortable crusts, but at least that didn't leave a steady trail. Longer rests between moving on, stillness allowing a little bit of the dizziness to clear. A little. SOLDIERs all healed fast, but what the bullets and fall hadn't done, dehydration and heat stroke were trying to. The roar that echoes across the desert marks the return of the behemoth, and the harpies giggle and bounce on their chosen perches, eager for blood not their own to be spilled.
Sephiroth has spent too long in one small area. To sensitive noses, he's easy to pick out, sweat and worse on the hot dry wind. He's also aware of it, freezing in place for a long moment, calculating as best he can through sluggish thoughts before unbinding the damaged wing and snatching up the tied-off shirt off the ground, which writhes in his grip. The small, oddly-shaped behemoth's prey doesn't smell distant, it smells close. Very close. Fresh and new and panting in the heat, heartbeat loud in his own ears. Close enough that for a moment, a precious breath or two, it seems as if Vincent's finally run down his quarry. Once white wings, now stained with dust and drying blood, spread in a wide arc, the gleams of sun through the long shadows and rocks flashing across the countless slitted, malevolent eyes that dot the primaries in lurid green and an almost tangible violent intent. A five foot gangly teen becomes a fifteen foot unknown monster in one wide stretch. Big, startling, intended to be frightening to unthinking beasts that tended to react poorly to being confronted unexpectedly by something MUCH larger than themselves.
It hurts, intensely, searingly, when he abandons the ground and the safety of sheltering rocks and blurs skyward straight over the head of the misshapen behemoth, the buffet of the first powerful downbeat barely stirring the sand and dust in his wake. His wing still isn't working as it should, but it doesn't need to for long, any delicate mending his body had made to the terrible injuries visited upon it shattering in the process of only a handful of rapid beats.
As fast as he'd been found, he's gone again, harpies scattering with shrill screams of surprise.
There's no choice now. He's going to have to find somewhere more defensible than the open, before the adrenaline crashed and so did he, the burst of effort coming with its own bitter price. He's running out of time. Any further fighting, and...
His scent, once so sharp and alien/human, fades on the evening wind, enveloped by the stench of cooked monster. Discernible still to keen enough senses. Back the way they'd come.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2024-05-02 12:13 am (UTC)It doesn't mean the dirty birds wouldn't happily watch the unfolding show. They already know how it's going to go, with one prey with food and supplies and precious water, and the other distinctly not.
For a while there's something.. like peace and quiet. It won't last, it can't last, but Sephiroth takes advantage while he can, wings fanned out to dump as much heat as possible, finding deeper recesses to settle in as noon drags into afternoon and begins casting long dark shadows again across the ground, carefully dug out prizes wrapped in his hole-pocked shirt by his side. The jacket alone would do for a while, he knew better than to discard either with the cold of night pending. Occasionally the black bundle shifts and wriggles. He ignores it save to make sure nothing creeps out of any of those holes, watching instead the settling harpies content to wait him and Vincent out. Perhaps the purple-furred predator had gotten bored and moved on, or decided to feast on an easier, more available kill of the many creatures left fordead. The harpies are not agreeable to this peace and quiet, cursing and kicking down rocks and insults, settling only a few meters out of reach to taunt.
Up until the teen proves he's far more lively than they're ready to deal with, the low muttered oath the only warning even they get before the bloody figure pounces with unearthly speed to drag one screaming to the ground, crushing bones in the impact but not killing her.
She's left alive to thrash broken in the sun and dust, and the others withdraw further; he was going to have to find better cover.
It's a waste of valuable time, the unpleasant stickiness of blood drying to uncomfortable crusts, but at least that didn't leave a steady trail. Longer rests between moving on, stillness allowing a little bit of the dizziness to clear. A little. SOLDIERs all healed fast, but what the bullets and fall hadn't done, dehydration and heat stroke were trying to. The roar that echoes across the desert marks the return of the behemoth, and the harpies giggle and bounce on their chosen perches, eager for blood not their own to be spilled.
Sephiroth has spent too long in one small area. To sensitive noses, he's easy to pick out, sweat and worse on the hot dry wind. He's also aware of it, freezing in place for a long moment, calculating as best he can through sluggish thoughts before unbinding the damaged wing and snatching up the tied-off shirt off the ground, which writhes in his grip. The small, oddly-shaped behemoth's prey doesn't smell distant, it smells close. Very close. Fresh and new and panting in the heat, heartbeat loud in his own ears. Close enough that for a moment, a precious breath or two, it seems as if Vincent's finally run down his quarry. Once white wings, now stained with dust and drying blood, spread in a wide arc, the gleams of sun through the long shadows and rocks flashing across the countless slitted, malevolent eyes that dot the primaries in lurid green and an almost tangible violent intent. A five foot gangly teen becomes a fifteen foot unknown monster in one wide stretch. Big, startling, intended to be frightening to unthinking beasts that tended to react poorly to being confronted unexpectedly by something MUCH larger than themselves.
It hurts, intensely, searingly, when he abandons the ground and the safety of sheltering rocks and blurs skyward straight over the head of the misshapen behemoth, the buffet of the first powerful downbeat barely stirring the sand and dust in his wake. His wing still isn't working as it should, but it doesn't need to for long, any delicate mending his body had made to the terrible injuries visited upon it shattering in the process of only a handful of rapid beats.
As fast as he'd been found, he's gone again, harpies scattering with shrill screams of surprise.
There's no choice now. He's going to have to find somewhere more defensible than the open, before the adrenaline crashed and so did he, the burst of effort coming with its own bitter price. He's running out of time. Any further fighting, and...
His scent, once so sharp and alien/human, fades on the evening wind, enveloped by the stench of cooked monster. Discernible still to keen enough senses. Back the way they'd come.