soul not for sale // joining

[rainier]

She needed this. Maybe more than she was willing to admit, and at this point, in her state, Amparo was willing to admit to a lot of things. That that last stunt had been dangerous, and the consequence of imprisonment had sucked, sure, but her method of freeing herself and then the following fiasco could have...gone over...less horribly. That's just how it is! She repeated to herself for the millionth time, pausing to eyeball her destination with a hesitant flick of her piercing-burdened ears. You win some, you lose everything. It's fine. It's fine! I can bounce back. If this place didn't chew her up and hack out the bones, at least, but now that she was thinking about it, would that be too horrible? Fuckin' hellfire's coming up behind me at this point, if I'm jumping into something just as bad or even worse, that's an issue for tomorrow-me. When one is scrawny and being pursued by Angry Jackasses, one needs shelter. Preferably shelter with a dangerous reputation. She hadn't been able to wring much about this place out of the people she had passed between busting herself out of ass-backwards pseudo-jail and waltzing right into the rainforest, but most everyone who could say anything had had spoken the name Rosebloods like the word itself left something sour or decaying in their mouths.

That was what Amparo needed right now. Big, scary meatshields. If this was out of some kind of frying pan and into a fire, then so be it. She had hauled her tail this far through a stretch of empty desert that had her realizing that the canteen she had brought was absolutely not enough and now, as she found the earth slanting downward and sand giving way to lush foliage, she was stuck between wondering if this was legit and if she really should've done that walk to herself in the first place. All throughout, the answer had seemed to be no, but it's too late to turn back so keep marching, bitch but now that she seemed to have made it, Amparo figured that maybe a hot stretch of sands was exactly what she needed between herself and her pursuers on top of foul, dangerous company.

Once you hit rock bottom you can only climb up, she told herself, blearily shouldering past plant life almost too thick to pass by in pursuit of the sound of running water. Wailing an introduction out into the forest would have to wait until her mouth was no longer too dry to form words in the first place. Amparo almost cried out in relief when met with the sight of a small creek hugged tightly by a mossy bank that she crawled down onto before shoving her entire face into the water. This is what climbing back up feels like.