@
ApVerr @
EpsilonWingS @
Beatoriche @
KameTurtle @
WickedHeart @
LunaChi @
Dinoclaire101 @
Erinyx @
Hwa @
Gabbiani @
Trebolcita @
QuixoticDragon @
ArcherFox
(let me bend the rules a tiny bit)
To find
Hail,
Nighttooth retraces her steps and heads back to the river she stayed by. She comes across
Zip while he is fishing, who greets her.
Nighttooth is surprised by his friendliness, and so asks him if he knows which way
Hail went.
Zip is suspicious of her, because when
Hail stayed with him, she never mentioned having any friends. He tries to prod her on a bit longer to see if
Nighttooth means harm, before he notices the huge Pearlcatcher's Pearl that she has been toting around, and instantly recognizes that she was definitely involved with that Pearlcatcher's death.
Zip knows that his friend must be in danger, so he tackles
Nighttooth and tangles her in his fishing net. She falls down and writhes on the ground for a second before cutting herself free with her hunting knife, she clambers to her feet and tries to grab
Zip as he jumps up a tree and uses his body weight to snap it's trunk in half. The treetop collapses on
Nighttooth and pins her to the ground,
Zip pleads with
Nighttooth to let
Hail live, at least for one more day. He even threatens to kill her, though his words were empty.
Nighttooth tells him that it doesn't matter whether she dies today, tomorrow, or a week from now. At least one of them are going to die for the games to end, so why delay it?
Zip is scared and confused, so he just leaves her there.
Nighttooth curses him, and struggles out from under the tree. She takes out
Fir's pearl and apologies to his spirit for the delay, stroking the pearl and holding it close to her heart. She then continues along the river, into the hills.
Meanwhile,
Lavi and
Mauve have made some poisoned darts and try to go hunting with them. The poison is only fatal when injected, so eating any poisoned prey would be safe. While trying to get a clear shot at a deer,
Mauve gets pelted with mysterious stones. He looks up and spots
Eternity in the trees, so he tries shooting a dart at her. He misses and
Eternity flees through the canopy.
Mauve chases her, and they eventually end up in the hills where the trees thin. He loses sight of
Eternity and runs into
Tamakha, who defensively threatens him with a makeshift spear.
Mauve shoots a dart into her neck, leaving her for dead, before continuing to find his attacker. on the other side of the hill,
Hail casually brags to
Favi and
Ueris about killing
Renelle and taking out five dragons single-handedly at the Cornucopia.
Favi is disturbed and the conversation quickly turns into a confrontation.
Ueris is hit with the sick realisation that
Nighttooth wasn't just being respectful, she was burying her own friends, and now she must be out for
Hail's head. Just now,
Nighttooth has made it into the mountains and finds
Eternity wandering along a short ridge. She slowly pulls out her bow to shoot her again, but
Eternity notices and runs away.
Nighttooth frustratedly chases her.
Favi and
Hail's argument breaks out into a fight to the death, and
Ueris hides in some bushes.
Eternity unfortunately runs straight into their fight, with
Nighttooth not far behind. As soon as
Hail entered her vision,
Nightooth froze and entered murder mode.
Hail was on
Favi's face while
Eternity grabbed her legs. Suddenly,
Nighttooth swoops in and rips
Hail off
Favi and slams her into a wall, allowing
Favi to wrestle with
Eternity.
Nighttooth and
Favi quickly agree to work together for this moment, so she whips around and drags
Eternity off him to give him the upper hand.
Favi crawls out of
Eternity's reach, so she starts throwing rocks at him.
Favi throws some rocks back at her, and for poetic effect, he picks up a boulder and smashed
Eternity's skull in.
Nighttooth finally gets a good grasp on
Hail and she rips her in half, before dropping her on the ground.
Favi mercifully crushes
Hail's skull, as he can't stand the screams.
Nighttooth shoots him a furious glare, annoyed that
Hail was robbed of her full punishment. But her glare dissolves as she and
Favi meet a mutual, wordless understanding of each other, so she let's him off. Just this once. They bid each other farewell and
Favi sombrely walks away, disturbed by the battle.
Nighttooth has time to think about what just happened, and realises that she feels no pride. No satisfaction. Just emptiness. She spent the last two days trying to hunt
Hail down for taking everything from her, and she has succeed, and that hasn't solved anything.
Nighttooth still has nothing to return to, and now she has completed her only goal. She looks into
Fir's pearl and asks; What now?
Elsewhere,
Naria somehow practices her archery despite not having a bow or any arrows,
Sashimi has gone hunting, and
Ishandu has found a cave. A much better place for him and his new friends,
Tamakha, Hail, Favi and
Ueris, to stay. He excitedly turns back to tell them, unaware of what has just happened.