Six weeks after departing the treehouse
The Forest stretched for kilometers, and after weeks of moving north, she still hadn't broken the treeline, but had encountered at least a dozen Titans; half of which she had thankfully been able to avoid by way of the treetops.
It was late, late at night, for that was when she had found that the Titans were at their most docile. She could even walk on the ground if she liked, but she didn't, not often. It felt safer in the trees, up high where she could anticipate anything ahead of her, and avoid it.
One of the unfortunate side effects of becoming nocturnal, is the fact that the forest doesn't speak to her much anymore. She's awake when the spirit of the woods is asleep, with no one but the owls and occasional fox to keep her company.
'Huh. Who would have thought. It's lonely being the only person in the world.' Morrigan thought with a chuckle as she took one of her rare breaks on the ground, her tall stature slouched, good posture never quite her forte, though she could almost feel her mother pinching her back skin in warning.
It was nearing dawn, and she knew the Titans would be active soon, but she was also almost in desperate need of food. So in the weak, pre-dawn light, she strung together the bow she had put together the week prior, and began her hunt.
After The Great Migration, with the mass moving of the Titans away from the densely forested area, the animal population had boomed, with there not seeming to be any one large predator save for humans, so she was hoping to catch maybe a rabbit or two today.
The forest was active, lively even today, and she was able to hunt until the early afternoon, securing three rabbits and a pine marten, though her celebrations were cut short by the sight of pointed antlers peeking through the branches of a young tree.
Morrigan's mouth began to water. She hadn't had venison in months, and her bow was strung without even a thought.
She followed the buck through the trees for a kilometer or so, before pulling her bowstring taut, her breath deep as she steadied her aim, a heartbeat passing as time seemed so slow to a snail's pace. The sun broke through the tree foliage, and shone off of the animals' deep brown gaze, and it seemed to stare right through her. She let her breath out as she released the string, the arrow flying through the air and landing between the animal's ribs. It let out a piercing, screaming wail as it panicked, getting so turned around in its terror it started sprinting in her direction. She hadn't pierced deep enough. She needed to end its misery.
It finally collapsed about ten meters from her, and she approached it, her face neutral but thoughts sad. It was thrashing, but as soon as it processed her approach it began to struggle to the point of injuring itself further, impaling itself on a jagged broken branch that protruded from a fallen tree, its movements halted by the action though it continued to wail.
It was a moment that didn't quite feel real, a moment that Morrigan was glad that no one else would be a witness to, as she strode up behind the suffering beast with her knife in hand; hands that were steady as the left gripped an antler, and the right went around, a swift backwards motion of her shoulder pulling her arm back and slitting the beasts' throat.
The animal's terrified heart rate paired with the slicing of the jugular vein resulted in a cascading spray of blood, soaking her as she hunched over.
The animal's trembling stopped soon thereafter, with a last shuddering wheeze, she felt the life leave its body, head resting in her lap.
The wood was silent, the animals' death cries sending any other animal to its burrow to hide until the carnage was over. It was so silent, she could hear her own heartbeat. Feel the water rushing of a stream nearby. The silence was welcome, for once, and it caused her to sit there in the quiet of the wood, enjoying the rare calm of her mind.
For some reason, in her blood-soaked state, she thought upon one of the best days of her life, in her opinion.
It was three months since the Great Migration… The birds had been singing for over a week and her mother was in a wonderful mood, bouncing around the two-room treehouse on the balls of her feet and humming under her breath, while Morrigan lay on the ground reading one of three books they had, ones that her mother had taken with her on that scouting mission long ago.
While distracted, her mother had brought out a present, wrapped in wide leaves and tied with grass.
"Morrigan, come here." She had said, smile wide and releasing a giddy squirm.
The teen looked over with a raised brow, smirk upon her lips. "My birthday was a while back, you know…" She jokes, and her mother flicks her on the nose.
"Shut up and open the present, brat." She demands, and she needn't ask twice.
The wrapping was torn apart, and the girl's eyes went wide as she gingerly handled the wooden object she held.
"It's a lyre," her mother explained, and the girl nodded slowly, her nails gently dragging across the strings, and she looked up to her mother in shock at the delicate sounds it made.
Her mother's grin was wide as she sat next to her daughter, hands covering hands as she showed her how to handle the body and pluck the strings.
"I spent many months working on this while you slept, the strings are deergut and should last a long time should you be careful with it." She explained, and Morrigan nodded solemnly, holding the instrument with reverence. It was the only real gift she had ever been given….
Her mother taught her to play a few simple songs well into the night, the birds and insects joining them in a soft symphony….
And Morrigan sat there, reminiscing on that day, of the day she was given the only real thing she had left of her mother, which sat at the bottom of her bag, wrapped in hide.
She sat there for what ended up being too long, sitting completely still as she felt the steam rising from the blood staining her skin and clothes..
The animals that went into their burrows and hidey holes upon hearing the death cries of the buck did not return, and by the time Morrigan was properly back from the slight trance she had fallen into, it was too late to prevent the events already in motion.
There, down the trees, maybe thirty, thirty-five meters was a titan, approaching fast but barely close enough to feel the vibrations of its' lumbering gallop.
It was fifteen meters by her guess, and ugly, it's knees knobby and gait lurching. Absolutely haunting, and for the first time, Morrigan felt herself struck by pure, unadulterated fear. It caused her heart to skip, and sixteen years of her life flashing across her eyes.
Learning how to climb the trees. Faster than even squirrels she watched and played with as a child; mastering how to jump from branch to branch, further, further, until she had surpassed her mother by far.
Her mother making her drawing tools out of charcoal and cut wood, and teaching her how to draw the plants, flowers, and animals around them. She even drew the Titans on occasion, though her mother disapproved. Their walls were covered ceiling to floor with her childhood doodles behind the hides that covered them.
The gentle sound of the lyre, and her mothers' singing as the sun set, those last few weeks before she went missing.
Morrigan truly couldn't believe that this was where she would die, blood-soaked and hungry, but she accepted it. She was reckless, not taking the deer out upon its first cries. She knew that she deserved to die here.
Until she didn't.
The Titan had stopped, blinking around the tiny clearing, its eyes focusing on her for maybe half a second, before skipping over her entirely. It seemed almost...confused, as though it were expecting a human and was only given a bloody deer carcass. It seems the Titans are aware that the only thing that would hunt prey as big as a buck would be human.
It was silent for what felt like hours, but was truly only minutes, before the titan simply… turned around. It ran off at the same speed it came in, and her heart slid back, down into her chest from her throat.
'Headed due north.' Morrigan assumed.
But she thought she knew what had caused the Titan's ignoring of her, though.
She stared down at her blood-soaked hands, and despite her absolute disgusting state, she laughed.
She'd beat the system.
The blood dampened whatever it was that drew the titan to eating her.
They couldn't smell her human blood beneath the smell of the death.'
