Nora and Julian

Two friends and a forest full of meat loving plants.

An explosion erupts behind Nora. She throws herself forward and ducks, feeling the heat rush over her head and a harsh gust of wind follow immediately after. She picks her head up, locating Julian with her eyes, locked in combat with a Swallow.

She jumps to her feet and secures her grip on her sword, sprinting to join Julian. He clashes with the winged creature, pushing up against its claws that threaten to break his sword at any moment. Scowling, Julian yells, using his sword to change the angle of momentum and send the Swallow crashing face first into the ground.

Smoothly arching his motion, Julian flips his handling on the sword to sink the long blade into the Swallow's skull. It wretches a scream at the pain, shaking and attempting to roll over, hoping to crush Julian or break the sword. Julian grits his teeth and anchors a foot on the Swallows head, almost slipping off of its slick feathers, before throwing his body weight into the sword and sending it the rest of the way through. It falls in until half the blade is sunk inside, making a truly detestable sound as it does so.

As if its puppet master dropped the strings, the Swallow collapses, leaving a broken doll.

Julian tugs at his sword, buried in its skull, to no avail. Nora approaches, panting, when she notices the predicament. Without a word, she grabs the handle and yanks, a blue light covering the blade for a moment before it disappears.

She hands it back to Julian, who expresses his thanks.

"No problem." She turns away, searching the forest for a new target. The exploding plant scared the life out of her, in all honestly. It sounded like a screech, then her instinct threw her in the forests underbrush before she could react. She couldn't even catch a glance at what exploded, so she'll have to keep an ear out for that awful noise until she knows what it looks like.

Plants in this forest have become like tyrants, and no creature survives without wings and a brain. Swallow's are a prime example of the type of animal it takes to survive in here. It has wings, jaws that could bite a small tree in half, and enough feathery armor to make new arrows for an entire fleet of archers.

Speaking of...

Julian crouches down, pulling his knees to his chest and staring at the Swallow's dead body. He grabs a nearby stick and pokes it.

"Nora." He asks.

"Yeah?"

"Can we sell this?"

Nora absentmindedly responds, still looking out into the forest. "Sure, if you carry it all the way back."

Julian gasps and looks at her with sparkling eyes. "Really?"

She laughs. "But good luck defending it from everything else that wants to eat it."

The light dies in his eyes. Julian grumbles, "That means we can't."

"Only if you're not strong enough," Nora replies vaguely. A white flash from inside the forest catches her attention, notably shiny and bright.

"Ugh, only someone like you can say that," He rocks on his feet, feeling childish. "You know, if you were a true friend, you'd help m-"

His shirt is yanked harshly from behind when a bright light flashes in front of his eyes. Immediately after the light, a deer with huge, sharp teeth bites the air where his head had been. Falling on the floor, Julian scrambles backwards and gropes his side for his sword.

Following the deer, however, a blue arc cleanly pierces through the top of its head, right through the skull and out of the bottom. The deer falls limp, twitching and flailing for only a moment more when Nora pulls out the sword and aims again, stabbing its brain one more time.

Continuing the conversation from before, she smiles mockingly. "Who said I wouldn't help?"

However, Julian stays there, staring at where the deer almost killed him. It moved so quickly he didn't have time to see it. He couldn't even react to the sound of it approaching. He realizes why Nora has been looking around 'aimlessly.'

Even if he had been safe for a few seconds to chat with Nora, it was broken so easily that he would've died without having time to fight back.

Nora, noticing Julian's unease, tries to lighten the mood.

"Don't worry, that monster is one of the most difficult things to deal with as a beginner. But it's valuable because of its self-illuminating bulb." Julian looks up at the word 'valuable,'

She continues, "It's called a Sin Deer. It has a horn that extends from the top of its skull in front of its mouth, and the bulb is used to lure in unsuspecting prey. Especially humans. First comers fall for the trick because they assume the deer is weak, and are attracted to it because of the light. Whether that's for protection or to steal it. Either way, once they approach, it's over. It isn't super strong but it's fast and it has sharp teeth."

"In this case," she kicks the corpse, "It must've thought it could take a bite out of you and run away before I could kill it." Nora pulls her sword out of its skull and arrogantly smirks at the body. "It was wrong."

She turns back to Julian, hands on her hips. "Anyway, the bulb should be a good replacement to the Swallow. They price closely together most of the time. The Swallow is hard to fight, but the bulb is a luxury item."

Julian stands to get a better look at the bulb on the Sin Deer. The bulb is attached directly to the bone, swelling at the tip and creating the "bulb." It's white and glows surprisingly bright, and isn't grotesque to look at.

"Hmm." He coughs into a fist, trying not to smile. "Well, I suppose the bulb will do then."

Author's Note

It ends kind of abruptly but this was a practice for writing action scenes. Is it done well?