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Terrarian
So after a long time playing through Terraria with my partner, I've started writing out the headcanon he and I developed. The two of us still remember the absurdly bad luck we had starting out: we jumped feet-first into the game without reading any guides, and got a blood moon on the first night.
First post on the forums, please let me know if I'm missing anything critical. Thanks for reading
Though she was no stranger to altered forms, she hadn't ever had to adapt to a change quite so dramatic as this, nor familiarize herself with it on such short notice. Bipedal locomotion on its own was a mountain to be climbed, metaphorically and literally; it had taken her a significant fraction of the daylight's hours to find her balance, and several more beyond that before she could comfortably move about. The setting sun had taken with it the world she'd grown up with: the Green's outlands, once so familiar through slit pupils, now lay entirely foreign to eyes that pierced the dark no longer. These were fractions of the challenges this body posed; even they, perhaps, would be surmountable, but for the fact that with the rising of the moon, what little light she had left grew a sickly bloodred color - and every instinct left inside of her told her to run.
Through trees and fields she ran, panting raggedly as the motions of her legs came to her through necessity, spurred by the all-too-familiar adrenaline of the prey she'd spent seasons both embodying and hunting herself. Each new shape that loomed assaulted what was left of her senses: a part of her knew that if she'd kept the form she'd known in the Green, the scents alone would've rendered her unconscious. Carrion and bloodscent wove a blasphemous dance with the stink of metal and magic, painting their sources large and grotesque in lieu of the clarity her low-light vision no longer had. Back and again she wove, dodging as best she could, crossing her own path as awareness of her surroundings narrowed her escapes down to none. Surrounded, she backed up against a tree, panting heavily, while at last her attackers made themselves clear.
Into her perception lurched something out of a nightmare - a warped and unnatural form, not so much hunched as encumbered, enveloped by a great bleeding mass of flesh where once its body had been. Sickly gurgling rattled from what was once most likely its mouth, scattering droplets of blood and spittle as the monster shambled close. Goosebumps rose along her arms and back as her unfamiliar throat approximated a growl and her eyes grew wide with fear. If it had any effect, she didn't notice: the blood monster's first blow landed with a lance of pain far sharper than any she'd felt in the Green. With the ferocity of a trapped beast, she retaliated in the only way she knew how: she bared her fangs and bit into the soggy, weeping mass of tissue around the abomination's neck.
Again she found herself bitterly grateful for her dulled senses - the taste of rot and poison exploded into her mouth, gagging her fiercely as the monster's wet screams fought their way out of its mouth. Even against the urge to throw up, she bit down harder, and then jerked her head sharply to the side, tearing free enough of the creature's flesh that its arm fell immobile, decaying tendons now snapped and unusable. She staggered back, lightheaded from the fetid blood in her throat and the throbbing pain in her ribs; defiant though her instincts told her to be, she couldn't help but let out a despairing howl when she saw the creature advance unabated towards her, followed closely by figures more fierce than it, still hidden in the night. With its other arm intact, the blood monster lashed out for her throat - so powerful was her burst of feral adrenaline that she didn't notice at first when its hand fell off halfway through its arc to her neck.
Like lightning came the next strike, and the next; from just beyond her field of vision flashed a fang of metal, and from the abomination before her fell swaths of rotten offal, till at last it collapsed into a pile of viscera and bubbling, whispered moans. She turned in shock - and there before her stood the first human she'd seen with eyes of their own. The night obscured all but the shape of his hair and the cut of his arm as he made prey of her predator, but his form was just as she'd first seen by firelight on that fateful night so long ago, and it awoke within her emotions she did not yet understand. As abruptly as he'd arrived, he whirled when his work was done, facing her with wild blue eyes glimmering in the bloodred light.
"Are you blind?!" he shouted, "RUN!"
A firm hand took her wrist and half-pulled, half-dragged her into the forest, where the powerful touch of her rescuer's metal cut a path through the blood that flew, strode, and crawled into their path. Abruptly amindst an hour's (or only a moment's?) travel, he yanked her roughly to the side, dragging her into an alcove even she hadn't noticed, nestled within the roots of an ancient tree. One final blow from the rescuer's metal brought to life a small rumble and a landslide of dirt and stone - when at last the ground settled, their world was impenetrably dark to widened eyes and silent save for ragged breath. The silence stretched in their tiny sanctuary - until at last, her unexpected savior broke it, his voice little more than a harsh whisper.
"By all the pillars of the sky, you've got to be the most clueless person I've ever met. How are you even still alive? Did you..." He paused, sniffed gently near her head, and stumbled back, covering his nose. "...did you BITE a blood zombie?"
Too abruptly did the unnatural odors in her mouth rush back to the forefront of her mind; she dropped to her fours without warning, heaving and gagging, unable to speak past her nausea.
"Whoa, hey," he backpedaled, "I... look, if it worked it worked, right? I'm sorry, I shouldn't have... look, this will help, do you want a drink?"
The scent of water tickled at her nose, and she whipped around with the feral ferocity of the beasts whose forms she'd once known. She snatched the waterskin from his hands and bit straight through it, squeezing it against his surprised protests and trembling with relief as the water welled up around her teeth and washed the worst of the blood away. She didn't trust herself to drink just yet, but handed the waterskin back to her rescuer when she was done - he noticed the holes in it fairly quickly and sighed, half in exasperation and half in resignation.
"Well, at least we know your teeth are strong. I'm Nas," he offered, "and I take back what I said; you're not the most clueless person I've ever met, but you're certainly the weirdest by far. Who ARE you?"
She did not at first have an answer; the beasts she'd been had never borne names. In a moment of clarity, however, she answered without really thinking, in a voice she'd till now never heard before.
"Greene."
Through trees and fields she ran, panting raggedly as the motions of her legs came to her through necessity, spurred by the all-too-familiar adrenaline of the prey she'd spent seasons both embodying and hunting herself. Each new shape that loomed assaulted what was left of her senses: a part of her knew that if she'd kept the form she'd known in the Green, the scents alone would've rendered her unconscious. Carrion and bloodscent wove a blasphemous dance with the stink of metal and magic, painting their sources large and grotesque in lieu of the clarity her low-light vision no longer had. Back and again she wove, dodging as best she could, crossing her own path as awareness of her surroundings narrowed her escapes down to none. Surrounded, she backed up against a tree, panting heavily, while at last her attackers made themselves clear.
Into her perception lurched something out of a nightmare - a warped and unnatural form, not so much hunched as encumbered, enveloped by a great bleeding mass of flesh where once its body had been. Sickly gurgling rattled from what was once most likely its mouth, scattering droplets of blood and spittle as the monster shambled close. Goosebumps rose along her arms and back as her unfamiliar throat approximated a growl and her eyes grew wide with fear. If it had any effect, she didn't notice: the blood monster's first blow landed with a lance of pain far sharper than any she'd felt in the Green. With the ferocity of a trapped beast, she retaliated in the only way she knew how: she bared her fangs and bit into the soggy, weeping mass of tissue around the abomination's neck.
Again she found herself bitterly grateful for her dulled senses - the taste of rot and poison exploded into her mouth, gagging her fiercely as the monster's wet screams fought their way out of its mouth. Even against the urge to throw up, she bit down harder, and then jerked her head sharply to the side, tearing free enough of the creature's flesh that its arm fell immobile, decaying tendons now snapped and unusable. She staggered back, lightheaded from the fetid blood in her throat and the throbbing pain in her ribs; defiant though her instincts told her to be, she couldn't help but let out a despairing howl when she saw the creature advance unabated towards her, followed closely by figures more fierce than it, still hidden in the night. With its other arm intact, the blood monster lashed out for her throat - so powerful was her burst of feral adrenaline that she didn't notice at first when its hand fell off halfway through its arc to her neck.
Like lightning came the next strike, and the next; from just beyond her field of vision flashed a fang of metal, and from the abomination before her fell swaths of rotten offal, till at last it collapsed into a pile of viscera and bubbling, whispered moans. She turned in shock - and there before her stood the first human she'd seen with eyes of their own. The night obscured all but the shape of his hair and the cut of his arm as he made prey of her predator, but his form was just as she'd first seen by firelight on that fateful night so long ago, and it awoke within her emotions she did not yet understand. As abruptly as he'd arrived, he whirled when his work was done, facing her with wild blue eyes glimmering in the bloodred light.
"Are you blind?!" he shouted, "RUN!"
A firm hand took her wrist and half-pulled, half-dragged her into the forest, where the powerful touch of her rescuer's metal cut a path through the blood that flew, strode, and crawled into their path. Abruptly amindst an hour's (or only a moment's?) travel, he yanked her roughly to the side, dragging her into an alcove even she hadn't noticed, nestled within the roots of an ancient tree. One final blow from the rescuer's metal brought to life a small rumble and a landslide of dirt and stone - when at last the ground settled, their world was impenetrably dark to widened eyes and silent save for ragged breath. The silence stretched in their tiny sanctuary - until at last, her unexpected savior broke it, his voice little more than a harsh whisper.
"By all the pillars of the sky, you've got to be the most clueless person I've ever met. How are you even still alive? Did you..." He paused, sniffed gently near her head, and stumbled back, covering his nose. "...did you BITE a blood zombie?"
Too abruptly did the unnatural odors in her mouth rush back to the forefront of her mind; she dropped to her fours without warning, heaving and gagging, unable to speak past her nausea.
"Whoa, hey," he backpedaled, "I... look, if it worked it worked, right? I'm sorry, I shouldn't have... look, this will help, do you want a drink?"
The scent of water tickled at her nose, and she whipped around with the feral ferocity of the beasts whose forms she'd once known. She snatched the waterskin from his hands and bit straight through it, squeezing it against his surprised protests and trembling with relief as the water welled up around her teeth and washed the worst of the blood away. She didn't trust herself to drink just yet, but handed the waterskin back to her rescuer when she was done - he noticed the holes in it fairly quickly and sighed, half in exasperation and half in resignation.
"Well, at least we know your teeth are strong. I'm Nas," he offered, "and I take back what I said; you're not the most clueless person I've ever met, but you're certainly the weirdest by far. Who ARE you?"
She did not at first have an answer; the beasts she'd been had never borne names. In a moment of clarity, however, she answered without really thinking, in a voice she'd till now never heard before.
"Greene."
First post on the forums, please let me know if I'm missing anything critical. Thanks for reading