It's early morning, though not the //crack// of dawn. Morning people will probably have been up for a little while, but the light still has that quality of near dawn, a little bit fuzzier than it will be when the sun has been up for a while. It seems to be promising to be a beautiful day, though, and the Ahupua'a 'O Kahana State Park is certainly one of the more beautiful places to be on the island. And on Oahu, that's saying something.
Iara is certainly not a morning Lark so to speak, preferring late night walks whenever possible. However, after another long night hunt that left her quite satisfied the next day, the young woman had slept soundly by her campsite for the rest of the night, waking up to the gentle call of songbirds and the first beautiful rays of sunlight.
Everything is as it should be, until it isn't. That's always the way of things, though, isn't it? One moment, she's waking up to birds chirping and branches rustling. The next minute she hears it, clear as day, to the southeast. "Help!" a male voice shouts, and then it's joined by another, female this time. "Help us!" It's coming from a place where the forest thickens, and there aren't really any tourist trails there. Then she hears the sound of a child crying.
Iara narrows her eyes, ears pricked as her keen senses take in everything. Naturally she knows these woods like the back of her hand and she does not hesitate when she hears a cry for help, springing to her feet, moving swiftly and agilely through the thickets towards the source of the cries. "Hang in there, help us on the way!" she calls out, peering around.
She's able to get through better than most people, but pretty soon she comes to a place where the forest is just...impassable. It's really like a hedge in a fairy story. The vines are growing together so thickly and intertwined that there isn't much that could get through besides a beetle. And -- of course -- that seems to be where the voices are coming from. She doesn't remember there being anything like this anywhere close to here. "Hello?!" the male voice calls again, and he sounds excited. Hopeful. "Can you help us?! We got lose and now we're stuck!" That's about the understatement of the century.
Iara slows down as the bramble gets too thick, the thorns too sharp to pass. She frowns softly, peering through the bushes. "Where are you? Can you move?" she tests the thickness and size of the opening, pondering if she could break through more easily in bat form which is smaller but pretty big for a bat..But that might scare them further.
There's a little pause, a rustling in the trees as someone -- well, more than one someone -- attempts to move. "Not much," the voice admits, and the child's wailing gets louder, though the other voice makes some 'shh'ing noises. "It's like this stuff just grew right up out of the ground in front of us. And then we turned around and it was there, too. How the hell did that happen?!" The voice sounds frantic. Probably understandably. "Do you have a machete or anything? Something?"
Iara sighs, having no luck in breaking through. "No. No machete...But I might have something wise that could work..Hold on, I'll be right there!" She clenches her fists, looking around to make sure no be is watching, then loosens the tie on her sarong dress - Iara usually dresses lightly. Then in a soft shimmer of light, her body blurs and shrinks down to the form of a golden furred, black-winged Soectral Bat. She's certainly larger than a beetle even in this firm but with powerful claws and teeth backed by a supernatural vampiric strength, she might just be able to slice through the vines. With a screech she spreads her wings and springs to the air, slashing away at the vines with her powerful claws and teeth.
The thorns tear into her wings, and it hurts. It's almost like the thorns are living things, grabbing at her to try and keep her out. She does make some headway, though, and soon enough she sees the source of the voices through a little break in the vines that she's created -- a man and a woman, and a child who looks about four and is clearly their daughter. They also all have scratches on them, the parents like they've tried to break their way out but haven't been successful. "Are you there?" the woman asks, her voice wavering a little bit like she's trying to keep it together for the kid, but having trouble.
However, she doesn't have long to think about it. She can suddenly feel the opening that she's made closing again, as though the vines have felt her presence and are fighting back against the breach.
Iara screeches, grimacing as she feels the vines cutting into her tough leather wings. In spite of it all, she still feels the thorns scratching her, cutting her and it soon becomes clear that these are no ordinary vines. Certainly they seem to have a mind of their own..Are they enchanted?
But the batty doesn't have time to ponder things much as the bushes grow up right where she cleared them. Well..There was a way in, there must be a way out too..Right?
She flutters towards the family, approaching slowly as to not startle them. "Follow!" she screeches and nods tears the rapidly closing brush, and starts to claw and bite at it again, ignoring the searing pain that follows. With any luck they will realize she is a friendly bat and is trying to help.
"Aaah!" shrieks the mother. Well, what does one expect when one is being spoken to by a bat? It's not exactly an every day occurrence. And after having a pleasant morning hike interrupted by Briar Rose's worst nightmare, is it any wonder that brains are fried? Who knows how they're going to rationalize //this// one. However, at least they do see that there's a hope of getting out, and so the parents take a deep breath, and enclose the kid as much as they can between them, starting to push their way out, too.
For a moment or two, it seems like the vines are trying to close again, but when they're all in the middle of it, they suddenly stop. Even recede a little bit. It's still difficult, but they're no longer fighting against further encroaching thorn-ridden whips. So that's nice.
The flutterbat does not bother to try to explain herself, nor does she slow down in any way. Instead she keeps on trudging ahead, not breaking a beat even as the vines slow down for a moment. She continues to break through the vines and leads them out back to the safety of (hopefully) normal woodland. Oh yay, there's her scarf! She scoops it up in her mouth and with a quick glance behind to make sure the family is safe, she flutters up to a nearby treetop, perching there upside down for a moment or two, just to make sure they are safe and the threat has passed for good.
The family finally breaks through the hedge, and while the parents have more scratches on them, the kid seems mostly okay, if still sobbing. Well, it's been an ordeal, hasn't it. "Thank yo-..." The father started to speak, but then suddenly he can't see their savior anymore. He looks around quickly, but he's disoriented, and he doesn't see her. "Hello?" he exclaims, but then his wife says urgently, "Come on, Matt! Let's just go back to the hotel!" And it seems that this is acceptable to him, so they begin to make the trek back. Or hopefully back, not to be lost again. They'll probably be fine, right?
As they go, the vines start to recede in earnest this time, though the family doesn't notice. But that's not the weird part. For a couple of seconds, the hedge looks as though it has a face, before that visage disappears again. Maybe it was just a trick of the light?
Flutterbat continues to hang around in a nearby tree, watching the family from the safety of hidden brush. Only when they are safely clear of the vines does she flutter down again, hovering between the family and the vines. The face is noted and she narrows her eyes, peering intently at the brush. A trick of light or...? "Hellooo?" she squeaks in her very chimp mink like voice.
She doesn't get any answer. The vines look normal, like any other vine. Any other moving, fast-growing and -shrinking vine that wants to kill you, anyway. So really there probably aren't that many of those around. The face is gone, though. However, she does see something off a little way to the side. If she looks closer, she will find a pair of...boxer shorts? Wow. You're welcome, Iara.
Flutterbat blink-blinks and swoops down towards the boxer shorts, sniffing at them, trying to get a scent out of them. Is it a human scent..Shifter, perhaps?
She does get a scent on there, unsurprisingly. Hopefully she didn't sniff //too// much. It doesn't smell like any sort of animal shifter, though. It's a little cleaner than she would expect, too, so there's that. But there's not much else to go on besides that.
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