Delarn, when she woke up, felt sick and dizzy. It wasn't that she was sent far, but she was sent far enough out of the city of Yanille to be confused about her surroundings. Even when she had gone out with Talem, they hadn't gone to this part of the jungle-like wilderness to the south of it. When the spell had failed, it had changed her back to her base form, and that meant that when she woke up, she was a wolf. She felt scared that perhaps she was only a wolf now, so she wasted no time changing back into her human form. She didn't know that she was being watched.
A few moments after she changed back to her human form and sat up, a man sprang upon her. She considered it a miracle that her red scimitar was with her now when so often she had forgotten it in her room when she had been living in the wizards' guild. She reached for it, but it was too cumbersome, and she couldn't pull it free from its sheath before the man could grab her wrist and force it behind her back, taking her head and slamming it against the ground.
"That's what I thought you were. You're a shapeshifter, and there aren't many of those around these parts. You thought you could hide from me in there, but you were sorely mistaken," the man cackled triumphantly.
"I don't even know who you are," she croaked out, her throat dry, and she coughed a few times.
"You don't have to know who I am. I know who and what you are," he answered. "You thought you could get away from me the last time by running me into the ogres, but you were wrong."
"That was you?" She replied, still struggling to catch her breath, facedown and squirming in an attempt to get out from under him or at least into a more comfortable position so she could clear her throat and get more air into her lungs. He made it particularly hard with how he planted his knee into her back. "I didn't know about the ogres. What was that you used on me?"
"You think I'm going to tell you? I'm going to kill you. To be fair, it's hardly a hunt, watching you until you woke up, but you did plenty enough hiding to make bagging you like this worth it. You even changed in front of me. You think you're getting away from me after that?" He hissed, but it was strangely affectionate, and she didn't know how to feel about it.
Delarn wheezed a bit and replied shakily, "If you're going to kill me, then you may as well tell me."
"A hunter like me doesn't need to parlay with prey," he said, starting to feel along her side. Delarn began to panic and struggle, and he laughed wildly, seeming to find that all the better for him until his knuckled raked across the right ribs and she changed beneath him. She cried out sharply, a shrieking yelp, as it was particularly unpleasant to be forced to shift with him crushing her like this and holding her arm—now a leg—back like he was, though he had released it in favor of gripping her head in both his hands.
"Atta girl. That's what I wanted. None of that talking business." Delarn struggled weakly just a moment longer before he smashed her head into a rock that had laid beside her face a moment before.
Delarn took a few wheezing breaths when she woke up. Blood dripped from her jaws, and she felt like she had at least one cracked rib. The blood dripped in red strings from her maw to the ground. She was still in wolf form, hanging from a hook that was impaled through her legs. She struggled not to make a sound, fearful for where he might be. He wasn't here, but he was definitely close, she thought.
She couldn't be sure, but she was so afraid of it that it might as well be so. She also didn't know how long she would be alive. She was surprised she had woken up at all and hadn't merely died like this. At this point, she wondered if it was some god that was watching over her, or if she was made of something stronger than she thought she was. She knew even she wouldn't live for long if she stayed like this. She could feel the blood rushing to her head, and she was sure she would pass out again or else pass away.
She twitched a few times, swaying back and forth from where she hung until she realized that even if she did manage to get herself free, she would have to be human to properly do it. She changed to her human form and immediately struggled not to scream out in intense agony. The hooks through her feet sent pain like lightning striking through her, and the possible broken bones moved in such a way that made everything go white hot. It took a moment before she realized that she may have blacked out, and she didn't know how long that had been. She tried not to curse herself and the pain that still plagued her as she feared even more so that she would be discovered like this and he would know that she wasn't dead.
At the very least, he may not know that she would definitely be a wolf if she had passed away. Even if he didn't know about that, he would see that she had been alive long enough to change back into her human form and might come to check to see if she was actually dead if he returned. She tried to swallow the bile that sunk to her throat when she considered the bloody mess that her legs would be in, but there was nothing she could do to stop it, and along with the blood it fell out of her mouth slickly to the floor.
There was little left in her, and she could barely muster any energy, but Lyalltines had an innate ability to push themselves past the stamina of a human or wolf when in this sort of danger, though there was a certain level of panic past this that would surely kill her. She took a few deep breaths, staring at the far wall and trying to ignore how deathly ill she felt, hanging there like this with so much blood loss.
She reached calmly for her sword, which thanks to the leather sheath had shifted with her, much like her clothes tended to do. She took it out gradually, making sure her numb, bloated hands would hold the blade properly, and it wouldn't merely fall to the floor. Once she was sure she had a good grip on it, the blade swishing slowly back and forth like an extension of her arm, she reached up and slashed at the chain holding her feet. It took a few tries. The blade hit the metal noisily and made her sway violently.
She immediately felt sharply nauseous, and the sword threatened to slip from her hand, but she managed to keep her grip. A sort of sharp, pained laugh escaped her lips as she considered that this was much like a party game and she was the prize. With that absurd image in her head, she managed to swing again forcefully, playfully as if attempting to impress the sadistic woman she was. Like a masochist, she laughed sharply again when she felt the blade nick her own leg though it hardly bled at all. She took one last desperate swing, and it hit hard against something. It didn't feel like it cleaved through bone, so she didn't think it mattered all that much.
The blade was knocked out of her hand, but a moment after she fell heavily. She just barely managed not to land on her head, and luckily the blade didn't gouge into her either though it could have easily landed on her or her landed on it. Instead, it fell beside her, and she stared at it and grinned dumbly as she laid in her own vomit and blood. The floor was cold. She thought that lying there in her own fluids would have felt warmer, but she guessed not. There was a part of her that wanted to take her victory as it was and lay there and die.
She couldn't remember where she was or who she was supposed to be or why it mattered that she lived. She remembered vaguely that there was a woman in Ardougne that might be missing her, and she thought maybe she could return to Varrock to return to building rapport amongst her fellow Zamorakians, but both of those things felt like too much work. One felt like empty pleasure, and the other felt like bloated ambition. She didn't care for either. She just thought it would be better to die here. She felt sharp heartache as well, and she didn't understand why. She couldn't picture an afterlife if she died here, and she didn't know how to feel about that.
She thought that all her gods would likely turn her back on her if she died like this, and that made her heart start to beat with defiance. She wanted to turn her back on them first, so they didn't get the chance, and she knew if she reached the sea, she could do it. She took the sword and slid it slowly back into its sheath and then tried to stand, but her legs were mangled. She stared at them for a long moment and laughed hard and heavy. If the bastard who had done this to her was close enough to hear she hoped he would hear her. He had earned this, hadn't he? If she was his prize, then he could come and finish what he started, right?
She changed to her wolf form and dragged herself from the room. Her fur was sickly, coated in piss, bile, and blood, and her eyes and nose stung. She could barely make out anything in the way of smell from her own diseased pelt. She pulled herself on her front paws until she found a door. She changed to her human form and screamed out loudly this time, gripping the door handle to hold her up and keep her from fainting before tearing it open. Whatever greedy god or bloodline that kept her alive would pay dearly for what they had done to her, letting her live like this for so long.
She came into a nice living area, and she immediately caught all sorts of different smells despite her own rank scent, but one was particularly clear to her. She dragged herself up to one of his shelves and could see a few darts that were freshly made, and she scrapped a few of them on the floor. The pain of being upright was excruciating for even that amount of time, but she surprised herself by managing it at all.
She pulled one of the darts towards her and held it up to her eye to study the edge. A grin spread across her face as she then scored it across her arm, not stabbing herself with it, but making sure a bit of the venom got into her bloodstream when it was slid across her arm. She felt a cool numbness go through her, and she thought she might have killed herself, but at least it didn't hurt anymore. She was surprised with how anxious the thought that she might be dying here made her, and it was enough to push her to try to drag herself along and keep moving rather than to wait to die. She was almost grateful for a clear sign of her need to live through the self-destructive act.
She dragged herself to the door and outside. She laid down under a tree that grew in front of his house, her back pressed back against it. She felt warmth starting to return to her, though at the expense of the tree that slowly began to wither. She knew she was taking too much life from it, but the feeling was addictive. She whimpered and squirmed at the sensation of her flesh knitting together and her blood pumping again. And once more things were starting to look strange to her as not only was blood being carried easier through her veins but the venom.
His home was surprisingly close to the water so she could make out the sea. It looked much like a sheet of smooth glass, and she was sure, as she used the last of the tree's life to sew her feet back together, that she could simply walk over it back to the lands she knew.