A fortress in the rain

What could the Gargoyle give to her new visitors? By the looks of It It didn't seem like they had been able to eat properly in a while.
If they were gonna stay at the tower she had to make sure they could eat plenty of tasteful dishes.

Whole feasts full of nutrients and species. Her tail wagged slowly alongside the path she was making. But first she had to find the food.

“What should I bring them? They look pretty hungry. But if I left a whole boar on the doorstep they will probably think that there's a big predator nearby and would decide to move away shortly. And that 's so soon. Besides that would be too much meat for two people and at the moment we don't have the things used to safe food in a right way”

Sniffing the air between the rain she can catch the soaking smell of the pelt of a deer trying to find silence and refuge from the night . She smiles and licks her teeth, that could do.
She drops to her haunches and with her wings still secured around herself like a cape she walks on all fours in the direction of the scent.

Her body moving like one of a lioness against the tall grass of the forest, going surprisingly quietly taking into account her large figure encased in armor on top of that. The golden parts of her limbs having gone rusty with the years, glancing partially at her claws, she almost wants to let out a sad sigh looking at the gold gone dark of her fingers.

She tracks the scent and feels the magic of the forest under her talons. Oh how she loves this part of the wild, she really wishes her stone body wasn't made of petrice at times she absorbs and takes and she's so glad that she had learned how to take out and give it back and better. She doesn't remember how it really happened, Gargoyles are protectors, especially against mages, that's why they are made of the same material that can caged them.
But she had always had the necessity of protecting, especially them. She has been in this place forever…but she doesn't remember anything. She doesn't even remember the last owners of her emplacement. What was her name even? Did the owners give her one in the first place?

She shakes her head and goes back to the task at claw. She can see now that she's closer, the essence of a doe eating some grass happy that the storm is going down and just the clouds are now in the sky, no more rain dripping down.

She plays with the dirty in between her fingers putting up her rear ready to pounce on her prey. When the head goes up, it is too late to run. The stone creature collides into It with her wings displayed, the deer is under her and with her talons on its back pinning It down.
She does a little prayer, thanks the creature for its service on the food chain and breaks its neck with her hand swiftly for them not to suffer.

She stands and lifts her capture by the neck looking proudly at It. It's a nice specimen, It would probably do great for 2 days without going badly inside of her fortress. Nodding she puts It on her shoulders making her wings a cape again. When she's walking by the wet path a thought comes to mind.

“Will they get scared if I leave this at the doorstep?”

She grabs the back limbs of the deer and tears them off some of the blood of the sockets staining her front armor plate. She rearranges the body of the animal and she lightly begins doing a little path with the hooves of the creature in the dirt cleaning of her own talon prints as she goes. When she is at a fairly distance from her place she lays the doe at the foot of a tree without its back legs.

“Okay yeah. Yeah that could do, this is not morbid at all you dimwit”

She growls and scratches at her head and blonde mane. Looking at the display one more time she nods and leaves It at that.
She climbs up the trunks of a tree, right to the top, extends her wings and glides above the forest going back home.
When she lands at the base of the tower she remembers the blood staining her chest plate. That could be a creepy sight, looking up at the sky she can sense the sun wanting to come out soon. The gargoyle shifts in her place and starts climbing up to her perch, when she sits on it she licks her palm and starts rubbing off the stain. Lowering her head a little she sticks up her parted tongue and starts washing It off like a cat. When she is done she can sense the sun creeping out to start the day. So she stays sat and unfolds her wings waiting to be encased in rock. These moments of the night are really the worst…

And all her body starts to ache and paralyzed until she is completely gone under the rock.

_____________________________________

Jinx tended to not sleep a lot. Too many things to crawl around in her dream world, too many voices, and thoughts that wanted to drag her down to a crisp. But to her outer surprise it hadn't been a nightmare gone too real for her liking. No, It has been a ferocious roar, one that has pulled her out of the darkness clutches. Isha was still snoring like an engine on her chest, and she didn't want to wake her up if It turn out It was just in her head…

So she stayed quiet. She had heard noises up on the roof, then along the walls and then footsteps going away, really heavy ones. And then silence again, other than the fire, almost nothing by now and Isha.

She stayed there, just looking at the ceiling, alerted. Little whispers getting louder with each hour that passed, remnants of ghosts that liked to tear her down with the forms of her past brothers. Now she knows better, she knows that they would have never treated her as rudely as the spirits do, not even Mylo.

But it still sting, so much. Alongside all the people she had met in her life. Panging her head like a hammer on a Game of hit the mole.
In times like this she remembers what Vi said in the mining tunnel. Not wanting Ish to know.
Jinx didn't want Isha to know, Vi was right. She thought so highly of Jinx, she didn't think of her as broken or someone else. She was Jinx, her guardian who had killed some ruffians who were going against her.

Jinx was okay being Jinx for once. And she didn't want to ruin It. But deep down she knew that Isha knew about her problems, but she hadn't gone away. Why? She doesn't know that part and she doubts she would ever do it.

The kid moved on her chest a little and Jinx was pulled out of her tangled head and started petting her hair with care, careful to not take a little of it in between the hitches of her metal finger.

Minutes passed and Isha went back to her calm state of sleep. Signing Jinx tried to go back to sleep with the sounds of calm, probably just her head.

[.....]

The rays of sunlight shone down on Isha's eyelids and she rolled out of her personal monkey pillow. Looking at Jinx now made Isha laugh a little. She had her arm resting on her forehead and she was snoring really big but not sounds were coming. It was just the gesture of her mouth.

Isha started playing with that long lock of hers. Like she used to do when she had braids. Isha loved her hare's hair. It was soft and pretty and really well treated. In Zaun It was complicated maintaining some sort of long hair, It was not wise to do so. It could get trapped in a gap and be pulled by some thug. But Jinx wore It proudly like a signature, watching her move and her braids moving like two tails behind her was like an ipnotic dance. And Isha wanted to have that power over herself so much, her movements. And now that her braids are gone. That lock was now the one dancing and the buzz would actually stand on ends at times like cornered hare.

Isha’s idol was amazing, always will be.
Her fingers move the hair to the bottom nose and Jinx sniffs a little before stretching soundly and looking at her.

“Hello, kiddo, did you sleep well?”

She nods smiling with her tooth gap out.

“I sure hope so, you have a whole pillow while I had to snooze out on this wrinkled carpet. Believe me the Wegooses are not as fluffy as you would think”

She makes a grim and then smirks sitting Up. Isha ends up sitting on her lap looking at her guardian confused. Then she holds her under the armpits and pats her belly making her ticklish.

Isha laughs and kicks out but Jinx doesnt stop her assault there.

“This pillow sure is full of giggle feathers, lets see if it's any good for resting “

Jinx lays the kid behind her head and she lays on Isha's belly, who is full of cackling, wigglin around trying to break free.

“This pillow sure is active, aish lets try moving the other way”

She rolls and Isha's giggles are still not dying down. Jinx snickers along till she hears Isha's tummy growling.

“Guess that's our queue to get up, bun and hare need their treats”

Jinx stands up and offers her hand to Isha to help her up. Once she has been planted on the floor she puts her hood up and waits for Jinx's orders looking up the “stairs”.

“Once we have found some food we will look around the place more in depth”

Isha turns and gestures to her.

[What we eating?]

“Fruit probably, or some fish if we find a river, cause I don't think we can do lots without a weapon. Well I could pick up a brick from here or something “

Isha does an auch face and gives her a thumbs up to indicate to her that that would definitely do.

“Then let's go to see how this woods treat us”

Isha nods and runs to the door taking Jinx's cloak off of It and offers It to her. And Jinx comes behind to put It on her shoulders instead doing some knots for It not to be so long on the kid, putting the hood over the cape.

“All yours pipsqueak, you now i run out Hot”

[I know, you just have cloaks to be dramatic]

“Excuse yourself right now you stinky maw. I'm not dramatic at all, the world can't catch up to my incredible way of narrating things, that's the whole truth.”

Isha rolls her eyes but walks ahead out of the door while Jinx starts yapping and making grand gestures.

“If you are gonna live my loyal partner you have to do everything big, leave a mark for all to see, the presentation is all in the presentation. If you make a mighty gadget but don’t sell it like the most fun thing you have ever seen in your whole life, no one is going to believe it …Isha? Isha are you listening to me?”

The child is scavenging the rest of the place looking for some good bricks for the both of them, when Jinx approaches her with a frown Isha just nods giggling, she picks up one of the most heavy ones with both hands and let it fall between her legs before scrunching down and pulling out of her pouch stripped to her waist some crayons that are almost done with their purpose by now. She looks at the brick pulling out her tongue between her lips and starts drawing in the pure white a manic grin with long ears and eyes that go in completely different directions.

She steps out admiring her work nodding along and putting her hands to her hips, then spins around to face Jinx with a smug grin and gestures wildly with her hands doing a loud whistle along with it to add to it.

[I present to you my dear partner the most dangerous critter of this forest, even] her hands come to stop thinking about what animals she knows about [ a dragon! yeah super fire breather dragon would come to the ground to the most silly of hares Stomper!]

Jinx puts up a thinking face looking between Isha and Stomper the brick and then gives her a major applause.

“Okey kiddo you were indeed listening, and you have passed with top notch stars, I would tell you that, Stomper seems perfect for our arsenal”

Isha smiles fully when Jinx picks up the thing and throws it up and down, leveling how to use it properly.

“Perfect now we need to find something for you my dear student”

Jinx, Stomper in hand, looks around for something for Isha to use, nothing too heavy, but that she could at least do some damage if they were in danger and they needed to run. Isha does the same going close to the bushes at the edge of the clearing, Jinx goes the other way, and in between some bushes she finds a heavy looking branch, probably broken in the storm. Jinx grins and picks it up and approaches Isha at the other end.

“Here it shall be Isha, your new branch sword, the first of its tree and the only one of bush village, It shall be um useful to your mission mighty Isha. Name it all good friends need a name”

The girl nods proudly and takes the branch carrying it like a baton at her side with both hands. And pulls out one crayon, thinkin a little she ends up doing a sleepy face with one surprise eye and an open mouth and two little twig arms going up.

She puts it up to her shoulder and tells Jinx.

[Doozy]

“Perfect”

They both enter the forest with weapons at hand, Jinx looks around for any smell that could lead them to something and to the dirt, surely some footprints could appear. And exactly that, some hooves could be seen in their path, Jinx led the way, Isha trailing up behind, careful not to smudge out the prints they left behind.

Soon enough they found a....fallen deer? The body was laying motionless with its back legs nowhere to be seen. Probably a predator didn't want to drag the whole body along with him because of the storm and they have just pulled out the legs, well perfect for them. Stomper and Doozy wouldn’t have to start working today.

Jinx looked at the body and thought that they could leave some parts for the poor rascals, she pulled Isha's hood down earning a huff from her.

“Go search for some twigs kiddo, the most dry ones you can find, and not so far okey? if your on danger whistle”

Isha pats her shoulder and disappears behind some bushes, her hood still visible in between the trees.

Jinx smiles and starts working, chomping off the front legs hitting above the shoulders with Stomper and pulling down with her strength . Skinning a deer with the things they have right now could be awfully slow and nearly impossible, they would have to be okay with just the legs like their predecessors have been. Being done with it, she scoffs looking at her clothes stained with blood. Finding a river or something would be nice too, and they could probably fish too, this place didn't look like it could have radioactive fishlife. When jinx sprint up to her feet, deer legs at one hand and bloody Stomper at the other, Isha came back with a lot of twigs balancing out of her grasp, Doozy being at the bottom for them not to throw by accident.

“Good job little bun, any sightings?”

Isha lifts her cargo a little and shakes her head in a no. Jinx is about to offer some help carrying the couple of twigs, but Isha jumps and starts running to where they came from some actually tobeling down.

“Isha you stinkymaw careful with the mud!”

Jinx laughs a little trolling behind her, this is calming, this is being awfully fine. When they reenter their new camp Isha is battling with opening the door and juggling the twigs. Jinx just rolls her eyes at the sight.

“You dummy you could put the twigs down for a mo-”

And then the feeling of being watched is there again, her eyes snap up to the guard on their tower. They have a stare down, one that could go on forever. Jinx doesn't blink, she closes her eyes, but doesn't blink, ever. Too much could happen in those awful seconds, she could disappear in those seconds for example, just with a boost of her shimmery blood. The statue does not vanish, just stares back. And then Jinx looks more into it…really into it.

“It wasn't sitting last time…was it?”

Isha has already been able to push open the door falling inside in a tumble of twigs and with a grunt she goes up to Jinx brushing up her already pretty maltrached outfit. And looks up at the guard of their new tower.

“Isha…was it sitting?”

The kid just hugs her leg.

“So it wasn't”

The gold and white now looked too oddly familiar to jinx, too much like a wolfman's awful evolution, like a casket, like a puppet that could move without any strings. Isha pulls on her pants taking Jinx out of her thoughts. And she moves her head inside.

“Yeah, yeah lets get these things cooking and then, and then we start walking away. Sounds good?”

Isha nods a little.

“What's up kiddo?”

[It felt like your fireworks, I dont think is bad]

“And I trust you, but not that thing, if it smells like my fireworks then it can easily blown up and takes us with it”

She scoffs, dissipating the cackles of the ghosts, and moves to the fireplace letting the legs on the last nights remnants of wood and looks behind to see Isha picking up the twigs from the floor with a sad look on her face.

“Ey dont worry little bunny we will find a new place to stay in no time”

Isha nods and comes to her side giving her cheek a quick nuzzle.

[.....]

Once they had eaten it was already noon, they gathered up their cloaks and new weapons and hand in hand they started walking away.

Isha could feel the fireworks snuffing out, like they were really really sad.

Jinx felt the Gargoyles eyes with a feeling she didn't want to know, she was not gonna turn back.