I Am A Carnivorous Plant

AN: Sorry this one's a lil late! Family including me got sick and I've been busy all day.

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Unsurprising, I’m sure, but I peppered Til with questions while we traveled. And guess what! He actually replied to most of ‘em!

 

From what he’s told me, the elven village is about two weeks from here give or take, so that means I get plenty of time to appeal to him before we reach there! Oh, and at some point he also asked me about why I could talk? Seems (at least from what he’s learned) that my kind doesn’t often develop ways to communicate. Something about how humans usually get immediately killed, so there’s not a good way for them to learn the language past maybe a jumble of desperate words and a yell. Why would you want to talk to your food, right? But apparently, my kind of corpse plant, the kind who grew from a humanoid that can speak I mean, usually has the ability to understand speech, although again, still quite rare that they grow an organ to communicate back.

 

And hey, he even told me that my kind of corpse plant is usually the smarter kind!

I knew I was smart!

 

Til even told me that he’d heard tales before of one of me that was also able to talk, and used its ability to lure in prey by sounding like a young child. Apparently there were even ghost stories written about it in the local area it haunted- I mean hunted in, so it was pretty prolific! Buuut, all good things have to come to an end I guess. See, it might have been smart, but I don’t think it was as smart or strong as me, because the villagers actually ended up burning down the section of the forest it was in after they got tired of it eating them, and apparently it didn’t know the cardinal rule of ‘fire bad’ like I do, and burnt to a crisp instead of running away.

 

Yup, I knew it, fire’s definitely a big weakness!

Wonder what I can do about that…

Or maybe I’m just not meant to.

 

Oh right, and since he brought up fire, I asked Til why he could use fire magic in the first place. I mean, he said his people were blessed by the forest or created by it like me or something, right? And I highly doubt the forest would want its creations meddling with fire; That just wouldn’t make sense considering it could completely ruin it. And do you know what his answer was?

 

Apparently elves aren’t supposed to be able to use fire magic!

Wood elves, as he called them, are only supposed to be able to use water and earth magic.

Til is just ‘special’ he says.

 

Honestly, I was impressed that he was able to do what he says all the other elves can’t, but that didn’t stop me from mocking him about it. I used my tentacles to mime cheeky little air quotes and made a silly voice while I said it back and everything! So yeah, you can guess that I didn’t win any points there, I’m sure. Reeeally not doing such a good job on the whole ‘convince him to like me’ plan. Good thing I still have a bunch of time to do it!

 

~~~

 

We’d been wandering for three days now. I know Til told me that it was going to take two weeks to get there, but that didn’t stop me from feeling like he was making a huge detour. Not like I’d be upset if that were the case, since I wanted more time with him before we got there anyways, but it did make me wonder if maybe Til was bad with directions. I didn’t ask, though, since I didn’t want to risk him going ‘Oh, you’re right plant, let’s just bee-line it there then’, or however his old-timey words would have said it.

 

But hey, after going through the woods for the past few days, we actually made it to a swamp!

A swamp!

I’m finally back like I said I would be!

 

This isn’t the same swamp I went to before, mind you. We’re probably crazy far from there, if my guess is correct. No, this one was a bit more um… lit up? It was definitely brighter than the other one, although not at all because of the sun. It’s odd that my vision will let me see it, but apparently all these swampy trees around here have bits of bioluminescent moss on them, which is making the place all cheery and bright. …Which also means, and you probably guessed it, that there’s basically zero sunlight in this place. Bummer. Good thing I’m not really focusing on growing right now. Oh, but even if I’m not trying to grow, I’ve actually noticed something happening to me! You see, there are these tiny little bumps that have been trying to grow near the flowers on the top of my head lately while I’ve been out of the sun, and they’re kind of starting to get a little itchy-

 

“Stand back L’Lan’e’frea, there’s something in the water!”

 

Til drew his sword and I could see the glow of him readying the magic in his free hand. Whatever was wriggling its way through the water right now probably wasn’t more of the (apparently poisonous? Who knew) basketball sized frogs we’d been encountering so far. And judging from the slipstream it was leaving behind itself, it looked like it was going to be pretty big. I raised my tentacles warily and planted my roots in the ground just in case, preparing myself to take it on.

 

Ya know, it would have been so easy to ward off whatever big bad things tried to wander our way if I didn’t have to worry about possibly poisoning Til.

My poor toxic mist hadn’t gotten to be used in so long now…

 

As we watched the murky water, a big green leathery beast the length of a person’s truck lunged its way out onto the strip of land we were on, and started making its way towards us. And do you know what? I was immediately happy about it! And why was I happy about it? Because I would finally get to fulfill the promise I’d made to myself all those months ago! Sure, it wasn’t exactly the same kind of beast as those alligators/crocodiles that I said I would massacre; If anything it was more like a skink, or a monitor lizard maybe. But a swamp’s a swamp, and a lizard’s a lizard.

 

And now, I was much much stronger than last time!

 

=Hey Til, let me handle this, okay?=

 

Til lowered his arms a little, but he didn’t fully let his guard down. If anything, he looked unsure.

 

“What? But this Cruias is quite large… Are you sure you-”

 

Before he even finished doubting me, I had already uprooted myself and launched forward. He was worrying too much about just one little skink; Maybe they were as long as a truck, but they certainly weren’t sized like one. Sure, they were a little thick, but not any thicker than like a nile crocodile or anything. Or no, maybe they were a little bit bigger… Still, nothing I couldn’t handle!

 

I smacked into my surprised prey, immediately wrapping around it like an octopus and taking hold of its front legs and head as I maneuvered myself up on top of it. It was less slippery than I'd expected coming from such a smooth lizard, so I managed to get some pretty good traction on the thing. Even my roots got involved, going around its torso and lacing themselves into the ground. And with all that extra leverage, and with a little help from my now slightly bigger inner tendrils, it wasn’t too terribly hard for me to rip the thing’s head off, really.

 

Well, it was a little hard... But not too much, I promise.

If I can uproot a tree, you best believe I can crank off a head!

 

I held the odd looking head in my tentacles and raised it up to victoriously show off to Til, but he just looked a little grossed out more than anything. How sad… But then a moment later his face lit up with alarm, and he frantically shouted.

 

“There’s more! Behind you!”

 

Oh?

Oh, looks like he’s right…

Well, that’s okay.

As much as I’d like to grapple with them, I’m only one plant, and it looks like there’s about 6 of ‘em coming my way…

 

This looks like a job for magic, don’t you think?

 

I had to climb myself off of the lizard I’d been standing on, but re-planting myself didn’t take very long at all. My roots raced themselves through the dirt, strong and fast, and when the lizards finally managed to get in range, I sprung my trap. Dozens upon dozens of strong thorny vines sprouted up, capturing the oncoming prey and tying it down. They were thick and strong enough that not even a single one of them was in danger of getting uprooted, and although the lizards had thick nigh-unpierceable hides, the thorns were helping to catch against their occasional ridges and bumps, which was adding extra traction.

 

Yup, they were perfectly tied!

I’m so proud of how strong my vines have become!

And now that I don’t have to worry about them moving~

It’s time for a new little trick!

 

A short distance away from each of the lizards I prepared a special little vine. Sure, I could have just used my super awesome explosive drilling vine or whatever the hell I’d called it before, but it always pays to have more tricks up your sleeve, and a single piercing attack isn’t always going to be the best. And ever since I got to use those swords and knives to cut that behemoth’s meat I’ve been thinking, you know? Sooo since I can manipulate my vines to some extent-

 

My long thin vines pulled themselves taut in the opposite directions of the lizards, and then when they'd been filled with enough tension I let them fly, slicing their way through the lizard’s necks. They didn’t go quite as deep in as I’d liked since they didn’t completely cut the lizard’s necks off, but they certainly did enough damage to break through their spines, which was about all that I could ask of them, really. Seems my slicey vines were a success! Now if only I could do the same with my tentacles… Imagine what kind of blender I could turn myself into then!

 

As I wiggled my tentacles around and tried to convince them to pull themselves a bit thinner, Til trotted over to me, looking all amazed and surprised. Yeah, now that I think about it, besides me manhandling him he hadn’t really gotten to see me do any super big fights yet, had he? I mean, he should have known I was strong already since he found out that I killed that treant, but maybe the fact that I looked absolutely FUBAR-ed when he first saw me made it not really sink in for him.

Yeah. I’m strong. You should totally be amazed!