#iamaneagle

Many things were commonplace in the jungle, and many things were so much so that it had become, daresay, a morning routine. The mumbling despondent bunny-shaman walking through the woods was one such thing. She was puffing her cheeks and walking towards the deeper parts of the woods; oil and herb dripping from her tail as her fur was glistening in the sunlight.

“I don’t understand it. How, how can snakes not like the sacred seasoning?” Juniper furrows her brow and grinds her back molars together. “There’s no way the inscriptions were wrong... Were they?” She gains a far off look for a second; slowing her walk to shake her head. “No, no it’s the snakes who are wrong.”

Plodding past a suspiciously snakeless soursop tree (one Juniper had recorded as being a hypnotic snake den) the mumbling only got worse. “Must be the clothes. Yes how come I didn’t see it before? Perhaps a nude ritual is needed.... A late night one, higher chance of snake activity.” She shudders from head to tail at the thought of a late night coiling. “Oooh they wouldn’t find me till morning~.”

As the mumbling was progressing along with her walk; the forest around Juniper became thicker and darker. Dead leaves hung from mossy branches, birdsong grew silent, and long and thin strands of webbing began to filter the light from above.

Mid-thought, and mid-word, something from the trees above made a perfect landing on Juniper’s head. The bunny froze and cast her eyes up. Staring down at her with eight, lovely eyes, a black spider the size of her hand dripped a slow languishing venom.

Juniper’s eyes went wide; her pupils shrinking to the size of pinpricks. On paper, these were a species of spiders with oddly hypnotic venom that made for great self-discovery trances, but in person the only thought running through Juniper’s mind was: “SPIDER! GETITOFF!” Flailing her arms up and brushing the spider off in a not so gentle way, Juniper’s panic gave way to blind spots. Two more spiders, no bigger than blackberries, snuck upon and bit her legs. The first and larger spider swinging down almost gracefully by hitting a nearby web; exposing the white spiral on its abdomen.

Juniper’s breathing sped up and she stumbles back; legs going numb as she takes notice of the two spiders on her legs. “Why did it have to be spiders? Why why why was it spiders!?” As she backs away she inadvertently steps into a web that pins her by the back and by her hair.

The large spider leaps forward onto her stomach; biting non-painfully into the fur. Juniper quickly swats it away and groans as a wave of dizziness and warmth washes over her head. Trees and webbing swirling together. Hazy darkness surrounding the edges of her vision, and creeping inwards. With shaking hand she reaches down to her waist and grabs a vial; throwing it down at her feet before losing sight and thought of what was happening.

Sylvia looks up from the annoying deer girl she had in her coils; looking around quickly as birds fly away from the tree. Something had just... Sylvia could have sworn that was an explosion of some sort, but she didn’t see anything smoking from her perch. With a small scan of the area she slowly went back down to resume what she was doing.

Everything came back slowly to Juniper; her head splitting with pain. She brought her hand up slowly before taking note that she was thankfully unwrapped. Squinting to get a better look around, Juniper spots the broken glass of a vial at her feet. The reddish liquid long since dried on the ground, and three spiders lay barely twitching near it.

She shook her head to ignore the dazed and muffled feeling in her head, and began pulling as hard as she could against the webbing holding her. “Stupid spiders,” Juniper gave a hard little tug, “made me waste that...” She yelps as she comes free; wobbling on her foot before standing upright again and placing her hands on her hips. “Haha! Now to- Uh.” She blinks before looking around in fear at the sound of skittering. “Run. Yes, run.”