[shadow=black,left]THE QUIET ONE[/shadow]

If Quiet needs to bring something down to prove her worth to the Pitt, she might as well choose something big.

She spends four days tracking a promising scent. The jungle is no place for her certain prey, but when the ground finally gives way to sand, she knows she's on the right track. Armed with nothing but a small pouch of sharpened pebbles, scavenged arrowheads, a rudimentary spear, and a large wooden stake that she has stored elsewhere, Quiet is sure she's prepared to fight anything.

At the dawn of the fifth day, she finds her prey lounging around on a sand dune, busily feeding on a carcass that she can no loner make heads or tails of. Quiet doesn't waste any time, scattering the sharpened rocks across the ground and lifting them with a sharp gust of wind. They levitate for only a second before flying off, and soon enough they hit home, piercing into the manticore's wide flank.

The beast raises its head and snarls, creases forming on the bridge of its nose in warning, but the source of the attack has seemingly disappeared. It assesses the sand in front of it—the smell lingers, it knows, but Quiet is neither in front of it not behind it, neither to its left nor its right.

When it begins to look up, Quiet lands on its back and drives the spear into the back of its neck with her teeth, pushing and pushing even as the manticore begins to buck wildly, its wings flapping and sending sand billowing around them. It turns its head to snap at her, but its jaws close in on nothing but dust and ashes. She's disappeared, and she's brought the spear with her.

It whirls around, wildly trying to ascertain where its attacker might be, but just when it swings its head to the left, the spear manifests right in its path, impaling itself into the creatures cheek. A waiting Quiet stands on the other end, oddly serene as she fades back into nothingness and brings the weapon with her, leaving nothing but a gaping wound on the side of the manticore's head.

It roars, slowly beginning its ascent, clearly trying to make its escape, but as it rises higher and higher, several arrowheads pelt at its head and chest, leaving painful welts and causing the fiend to turn its head away—right into the waiting spearhead for a second time.

Quiet wonders how such a strong beast could have such a small mind.

She leaves the spear buried into its flesh and reappeares directly in front of it, carried by the wind to keep herself at eye-level. The now half-blind manticore curls its lip, baring wicked teeth, and it opens its jaws to attack her—but a shadow starts forming above it, and Quiet watches wordlessly as it looks up to find the wooden stake she had conjured, certainly larger than herself, plummeting down from the heavens.

It brings the manticore down with it, caught right between its jaws and buried straight into its body. By the time the sand settles, the creature looks like it might look perfectly at home at the Pitt's borders. Quiet offers herself no congratulations, no celebrations—she simply conjures up a knife and gets to work, slicing away at the fresh carcass to reach her prize.

By the time Quiet returns to the territory, six days have passed since she departed, but she doesn't doubt that her effort will go unrewarded. She reappears at the part of the jungle where Silent had first found her, one paw pressed firmly against a manticore skull. The tail has since been disassembled and stored into a makeshift bag made of cloth, cut in symmetrical pieces. What's more, she's even brought back a few pieces of its meat, sorted into different sizes and placed within an old basket.

Quiet makes no indication that she has returned—someone will find her, and she will be there.