Og hvør ið enn klettum ræður ei á vindi vá || Open, Intro

The air held a crisp chill to it; what little vegetation there was this high up in the mountain was brittle and gave way with a soft crunch underneath the huntress' boots. The refreshing autumn air tasted of frost and cold, a dead give away that winter was about to be upon the world despite the lack of snowfall. Had she been the sedentary sort--living in a city somewhere, maybe a small town, focused on home life--she might have been concerned about the upcoming holidays and the ensuing family gatherings that would clog up the schedule; however, as she would readily admit, she wasn't one for sitting idle. It was a lifestyle she had learned early into her teenage years, and one that she would likely carry for the rest of her life; she stopped in town for supplies every now and again, perhaps catch up on the news if it interested her enough, but for the most part she was nomadic and living on her own. She preferred it, to be honest--in nature, there was comfort in even the most arduous of surroundings and situation--in the cities and the towns, there was nothing for her. As the wind picked up, she pulled her hood over her head to keep the chill away.

As opposed to the heavier armor she might have worn in combat or on dangerous jobs, the huntress was wearing woolen and fur garments supplemented by leather gauntlets, boots, and breastplate; a leather bracelet with a spiral pattern was worn on her left wrist. She took a breath and exhaled, watching the breath come out in a small cloud of condensation. She stopped as she came to where the mountain split. It was a curious sight, staring at what had once been the inside of a previously unified piece of tectonic earth; as many prior to her had before, she silently wondered what could have caused it to split as it currently stood. While many pictures would have the average person believe that the split was even throughout its length, it varied quite a bit--towards the ends, it was quite large, while the middle narrowed and widened at random intervals. Where the young woman stood, the split was about twenty meters. It would have been easy enough to jump across with a running start and climb back up--she had done similar before--but something inside was urging her to be cautious. The nagging feeling persuaded her to flick her left wrist; her bow, Valkyrja, materialized in her hand almost instantaneously. She put her right hand on the drawstring and took a breath, a crystalline arrow forming between her fingers as she drew it back and took aim at the rock wall in front of her. An instant later, she let the arrow loose and watched it anchor itself into the rock face; a magical line formed from where she stood to the arrow head.

Letting go of the weapon in her hand, it dematerialized as she leaned down to give the line a testing pluck--seeing that it was taut and firm as usual, she tentatively put her foot on it. Finding her balance, she put her other foot in front of her before starting to walk across the makeshift tightrope she had made. The wall in front of her was much higher than where she had been standing--a sizeable climb--so the decision to walk across and climb instead of jumping across was an effort to conserve energy instead of needlessly waste it. Although twenty meters was not a far walk, it was painfully slow balancing across the magical line; it was fragile to most any kind of sharp or jarring movement, causing her to move with care instead of dashing across it.

'Stabil, Karin...' she thought to herself. The huntress was not afraid of heights--she loved them--but the precarious nature of her endeavor left her with a small sense of doubt. The drop to the ground below was considerable; hundreds of meters, for sure. She was about halfway through the walk; the cry of an eagle caught her off guard. Her feet slipped; immediately, her hands grabbed a hold of the line and hung on.

"Lort!"

Her exclamation (meaning "shit" in her mother tongue) was quite loud, ruining any silence that might have previously been on going...it also just so happened that the chasm she was traversing housed one of many entrances the Black Sails "guild" utilized around the mountain down below...however, not knowing that, the young woman was fairly certain she would be stuck holding on to her own tightrope for a while...

She had let Maka go visit the place they had inhabited before Black Sails. Honestly? The young woman thought this guild was too dangerous for her little dear child fox, so Makoto was not seen from around Divide Island very much, she spent most of her time with a trusted friend in Rose Garden, in a safer place. Jiyu had meant to leave everyone she cared for anyways! After what happened in Eden, the way she had scared Leila and given Yuki reason to believe there was a threat residing inside of her? Kazehime was terrified of herself, the darkness she could remember feeling back than, sudden rush of every negative emotion she'd dropped so quickly in the past, as if those had only been stored by something devious. The girl was afraid of hurting someone she cared for and yet did not want to be alone, so she came here, it worked for her and maybe she would even be able to figure out what was wrong before it took over.

     However for the current time instead of doing research on something she knew very little of, Jiyu instead used her inu instincts to explore the forests on the island. Most people would think it weird, to see a girl crawling around the wood on all four's and such, but she was a dog at the end of the day, and given the chance she would sometimes act like one. "Lort!" the shout rang in her sensitive hearing, pulling a snarl from the girls mouth, causing her to rub her ears, trying to get rid of the pain. Once she had taken care of herself, Kazehime realized if the sound had hurt that much, it come from somewhere right above her, close. Considering the terrain? She became concerned about the shout, deciding to leap into the air, letting the wind lift her, trying to see if she could see whoever had screamed.

      "Holy Shit." she noticed why someone had screamed, and floated over to look at the girl hanging from the tight rope, wondering how it had even got there. Most people? Would grab the woman and help her, but the first to respond, well she was incapable of it due to her weak body. "Hold On One second. Feather." she tossed one of them after reaching into her bra top to retrieve it. Once thrown, the feather became big enough to support the other girl, strong enough as well since it functioned by magic instead if Jiyu's lack of bodily strength. "You can let go now, it will catch you. Trust Me." she used her own feather's for transport, and besides if they could hold someone as large and muscled as Marschal, they could hold this girl easily

Karin’s exclamation had not been a piercing scream of fear, but a shout of frustration at herself and that damned bird. That being said, she was increasingly worried as time ticked by: her entire body was sore from her climb thus far already, and she had to adjust her grip every few seconds to keep her hands from coming loose. The entire line shook in her trembling, tired hands as she tried to shimmy back to the ledge she had come from; her left hand slipped, and she immediately grasped back on to the magical tightrope...for at least another minute, she sat there wondering what it was she would do next; she had very few viable options...it was right about then that she noticed someone floating up to her...was it just her imagination? Nope, it was definitely someone flying up to see why there was a swearing Dane stuck in the middle of a chasm hanging onto a zipline made out of magical energy.... That being said, she could barely make out what the other girl was saying other than that she had made some kind of magical feather platform; she was tired as it was, and--although fluent--English was not her first language. As much as she would have liked to put a foot down and test the feather’s sturdiness, it was out of reach. She flexed her hands a bit out of apprehension, but ultimately dropped down and realized that the platform was, indeed, solid. With a sigh of relief, the only thing she could think of to say at the moment was, “Thank you...”

What something really had been meant as in terms of screams? Did not matter so much to the soul piece deepest inside of Jiyu, the one secretly wrestling her normal face for control, that part of her only wanted misery born into the world. Thus everything sounded like terror, because some part of her wanted it to be so. Odd colored eyes looked at the girl she was choosing to save, not noticing the predatory way her eyes focused in on the neck where it was easiest to kill someone first, before looking over the rest of the girl, eyes scanning everything she could see despite the slight blurriness of it all. "No issue, but mind telling me what you were doing hanging out so far above the ground, last I checked humans don't normally do that." she floated down, feet touching her feather, sitting upon it with her knee's near her chest, clawed hands placed on them, tail hanging off the edged. "Now lets get you back on the ground." she spoke once more, enchanting voice fading out as she simply stared from the close distance, wondering if she'd get an answer as they descended

The woman took a breath to relax a bit as the younger girl spoke. "I have a bit of an adventurous streak," she admitted, "Call me crazy, but I love the thrill of being outdoors; as you can see, though, it can get me into trouble sometimes." It was about then that she noticed some peculiar things about the girl sitting in front of her: claw-like finger nails, a dog's tail swishing idly behind her; such things made the Dane ill at ease, but she had little room to complain given the circumstances at hand. Deciding to try and find some way to distract herself from the gentle gnaw of discomfort, she decided to introduce herself. "My name is Karin, by the way," she said. She brought her knees in to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, idly rocking a bit as the feather slowly brought them to the ground below.

By this point in time, having descended to the coastal foot of the mountain and having some small talk between the two of them, Karin and the dog-girl (she still hadn’t gotten her name) had come across two women walking along the beach—both of whom were dressed in bikinis and likely out on a day of swimming. The pair they encountered stood half a foot shorter than the Dane—she was easily five foot and nine—and one of them had a large fluffy tail. While their attire clearly indicated the two women hadn’t been expecting company—the blonde’s initial attempts at hiding behind her dry bag confirmed it—that wasn’t the first thing on the huntress’ mind at the moment. No, it was the squeal of the one with the tail that caught her attention.

Before she could do anything to protest, she was being hugged and swung around as if she were a doll in the hands of an eager child; by some miracle of physics, she found her face in between the tailed woman’s cleavage. The initial question that the other woman had asked of her went unanswered as she was put down, her face erupting into a blush as she felt her own chest being groped and inspected by the fluffy tailed one….was she lesbian, or just the touchy-touchy sort?….both? Regardless, the blush that covered her face served as an indicator that the touching was unwelcome. Before she could make her discomfort with the situation known, the woman with the fluffy tail was sent flying a good twenty feet or so by the fist of the other; a sigh of relief came from the taller woman as she relaxed, having been tense throughout the entire ordeal.

“Ah...um...thank you,” she said, although the explanation that the one with the tail, Taliya as it were, was quite clearly a pervert brought little comfort. Pursing her lips a bit, she took the handshake offered by the woman in front of her, Anastasia, and said, “Karin.”

The taller woman watched as the shorter one laid out the picnic spread, setting her own knapsack on the ground; inside, there were a few apples and some other supplies she had packed for her trip, but not much else. Lowering her hood, her features became much clearer--an elegant, pale face with cutting amber eyes. Her silver hair was tied back and styled so that it wouldn't have troubled her during the hike--if it were left to fall, it would have easily gone past her hips.

"Well, I was actually taking a bit of a hike on the mountain," she said, "I...got myself in a bit of a sticky situation, and the dog-girl helped me get down." Taking a seat on the blanket, she let a small laugh escape as Ana went on about the weather and 'scallywags'. "I don't know about scallywags," she added, "but I'm certain I know a thing or two about adventure." Normally, she might have passed on the food--she had her own, after all--but the sight of it, and the subsequent growl from her stomach, made her reconsider. She took her hide gloves off and stuffed them in her pack, revealing dainty and snow-colored hands. "Thanks," she murmured, taking a look at the spread. While the sandwiches did look at least somewhat appetizing, the fact that they were all on white bread was a bit of a turn off; it was so bland, and it stuck to the roof of her mouth with each bite...still, it wasn't like she had any room to complain...in the end, her hunger won the momentary battle of feeling starved versus eating something that might not be to her taste, and she took a random sandwich from the ones laid out.

The silver-haired woman quirked an eyebrow as Ana mentioned the island being owned by pirates....then again, she was a Viking by blood, so it didn't appear to phase her that much as she took a bite out of the sandwich she had picked up. She tasted something nutty, mixed with something....fruity. Taking a look at it, she noticed that it was a PB&J; grabbing the canteen from her pack, she undid the cap and took a drink from it to wash the taste down, hardly paying notice to the other woman's mishap with the dressing on her sandwich. "Well, I suppose it would make the hike more interesting," she replied, "Although, I did like the peace and quiet."

Putting the cap back on the canteen, she drew her legs to sit cross-legged, humming to herself as she tried to think of a story to tell--there were many, but quite a few she wished to steer clear of. "Hmm..." she hummed adding with a dry laugh, "I've got so many that it's hard to pick, um..." She took the opportunity to take another bite of the sandwich; not her favorite, but it would have been rude not to eat what she had taken. "How about you, hm?" she said, "It seems you know quite a bit about this island and what's on it; surely you and your...friend...would have something interesting to tell about."