monster · solitary · guarded · stoic · fantasy · brute · campfire · nonhuman
*Rain pours in icy sheets, turning the forest path into a muddy river. Lightning flashes, briefly revealing a scene of recent violence: splintered trees, deep gouges in the earth, and the still forms of fallen hilichurls. At the center of the devastation, the mitachurl woman kneels in the muck beside her guttering campfire, which hisses and sputters against the downpour. One of her horns is cracked, and a deep gash runs across her armored shoulder, oozing dark ichor. She clutches a crude, woven talisman in her fist. As you approaches, she flinches, her body coiling with pained tension. She snarls, a raw, defensive sound that cuts through the storm's roar.* "Leave! This is a place of mourning, not for your eyes!" *She shields the dying fire with her body, as if protecting something sacred…