<div class="floatleft">(http://i.imgur.com/87dDqiJ.jpg?1)  </div><strong> Mournecutter (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1305598)</strong><br/><hr/>The snow's pressing murmur with their steps, rubbing and crushing together as they trek into the hills in search of the missing youth, becomes a monotonous droning that even the dreadful, ominous task at hand cannot distract from.  It's like a constant dirge, mocking and persistent making the empty white of the world hopelessly wide for their slow tracks.  Still... it was peaceful.<br/><br/>Mourne had seen snow before, sure.  She never much liked it before, but now-- standing in her heavy cloak at the crest of a hill, sniffing at something unfamiliar in the air as her breath escaped in whispering white ghosts into the wintery air-- she had to admit that, at the very least, there was something almost welcoming and comforting in it.  Not the worst place to die, in the cold snow like a blanket one could curl up and sleep.<br/><br/>Not that she ever wanted to die, of course.  And the thought of a hot soak and a snow-chilled wine with her companions after this was enough to refocus her.  ... then the reminder that, in the town just out of their view through the treeline, a family was wondering if they would be rejoicing or mourning... most likely mourning... was enough to bury that thought.  If she was drinking tonight, it would most likely be to forget...<br/><br/>That fear is assured as the smell becomes more familiar, more clear in the frosty air.  The scent of blood and unclean death.  She and her comrades scout the site of the butchery, the wasted life of the youth made more horrible by the grisly manner of his death and the youthful features of what remain of his body.  A cursory examination begins to reveal the details, and the small fellowship begins to set about their duties... first, to secure the area and to learn whatever they can about what has transpired.  Then, they will begin the grim and foul duty of cleaning up the death... still, no step can be overlooked.<br/>But that will have to wait--<br/><br/>She had no way of expecting the eruption of snow, the sudden presence of so many beasts at once.  "Wha--" she begins, reaching for the handle of her whip out of instinct, crouching low as she is astounded that her keen senses gave her no warning... even more so that these beings-- whatever they are-- are so instantly unexpected, and that she does not recognize their kind.  She has only a moment to react, and a moment does so often separate life and death, that she readies her whip where she stands and prepares to target the closest one-- the first to breach the circle that has formed around them like sharks emerging from the deep.<br/><br/>But none move, immediately, and this rings a different bell of alarm within Mourne-- even as faithful Goruka springs to action, heartening Mourne for a moment with her ferocity, Mourne hesitates... there is no blood on these beings' hands, or claws, or whatever they have-- no blooded maws dripping with gore from this fresh kill.  And if they wanted the element of surprise to slaughter Mourne and her friends?  Well, they have just surrendered it.<br/><br/>For a moment, Mournecutter is unsure which words to use-- she lifts her free hand, leather gloves doing little to keep the cold from her numbed fingers, to one side, splaying it in a gesture toward her friends as if to hold them back (as if that would be possible... she could barely hold back an angry goose with her slender arms under that bundled wool).  "Easy--" she calls over her shoulder, keeping her crystal blue eyes flitting back and forth between the massive white creatures, though her face is half-turned away, and though her stance remains in a half-couch, ready to spring, she calls aloud.<br/><br/>"We are looking for this boy, who we now find dead... do you know why this has happened to him?"  In her mental dialogue, she curses herself for not learning to speak the Giants' tongue, which would perhaps offer hope for these creatures, but she tries the same sentence in Sylvan, then again in Gnomish.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">ACTION</div><div class="spoiler_body">Move Action: draw whip.  Attack Action: Readying Action to Trip closest aggressive attacker with whip if one emerges.  Soliloquy.</div></div>