Meet Me in the Swamp
The great swamps of the south were a remote and almost enchanted place to be. Rumored to be filled with monsters and witches, not many lived too far into the massive expanse of standing water and thick, wet foliage. The trees here were massive and untouched, hanging thick vines and branches that weighed themselves down. It seemed like there wasn't a square inch of bark that was covered in some form of lichen. The whole area was certainly beautiful if you liked the color green.
Between the trees and following a naturally formed path through the swamp was a loan airboat that skimmed the surface. It was about average as far as such vehicles went but the way it bobbed around the flora and avoided floating logs told quite a bit about the pilot. With a paw on the throttle and the other on the rudder, it was directed about the vast swamp in a way that showed familiarity.
Green crescent eyes scanned the bog for particular land markers that she could home in on and find her way. The day had warn on and become quite hot. The marshy land added to the humidity to make everything sticky and generally unpleasant. There wasn't much the pilot could do, things weren't going to get any better until nightfall, and she had somewhere to be before then.
She was a feline calico, one of the only orange and white colored cats she had ever known. Splotched brown in several places as well, she was quite the unique spectacle. She maintained a fit body adorned in a red tank top and dark brown cargo pants. The hair on top of her head was cut short in the back and sides which allows her bangs to often hang over one eye. She was in the habit of flicking her head to get her bangs far enough to the side so that she could see properly.
Her physique told of a life in the swamps, not particularly adverse to a hard day's work and more than capable of defending herself. She was of about average height, her legs and backside toned with a flat stomach leading to a pair of very perky breasts. She was no stranger to being hit on and seemed to be used to turning men away, thus making her exterior attitude stoic and hard. Her eyes told of a very determined mind and she was often forced to hold her chin up when life got tough. This time in particular was the toughest of them all.
Months earlier her brother had become ill, supposedly cursed or afflicted by something in the swamp. They had tried many different doctors and even some ancient medicine men from the area but none of them knew what he had gotten in him or how to even go about curing it. Amid the chaos that surrounded her family at the time, a large crow showed up at her window to deliver a message, one that had started her on this adventure.
Rumors about what lied within the remote wilderness of the bayou were often told to children so that they might not try to go swimming or venture too far from home. She knew better to believe most of the old tales but there was no doubt that mysterious things lurked deep enough if someone knew where to look.
The community that she had grown up in resided right on the edge of the great swamp land, so she had heard it all. A race of merfolk that lived within the six foot deep water, serpents that could swallow someone whole, and magic users that kept frogs and rats as familiars. There was one legend of a bog witch that resided a half-day's ride into the swamp that had caught her attention the most.
When she was much younger, said witch seemed to often come into town for a few things from the local market square. She remembered seeing her, and her mother would often point her out and say that under no circumstance should she approach this unique individual, lest she get turned into a toad and be brought along to live with the witch. It was always enough to frighten her but as she got older she wised up, and the unique woman that she would see every once in a while became just an outsider with a very different disposition from everyone else. She was very similar in a lot of ways, and as she had grown older she found that she sympathized with this being that she had never bothered to know.
Over time the witch's presence had grown more and more scarce until at some point she just stopped coming around. No one really knew why, no posse had driven her away and no injury had occurred. Not too many were upset with her indefinite departure though. Now faced with the dearest member of her family falling into some strange curse, she had no choice but to seek out the one that could help. She didn't know what she could exchange for a cure, but she brought along at least three hundred dollars in cash and a couple pieces of jewelry that once belonged to her late mother. She sincerely hoped it would be enough.
The watery pathway began to arch sideways as she went on, a very long turn that seemed to go on forever. She followed it close to the edge and as soon as it began to straighten out again a strange structure was revealed in the distance. Beyond the main water-way and into the thick brush of trees was what looked to be a very large house situated up on tall stilts to keep it out of the water.
It was big enough to be a mansion but it looked to have taken on a personification not too different than its surroundings. In a way it looked dilapidated, every bit of wood that made up its surface had moss and lichen covering it. Its body had even seemed to be built in a way that accommodated a couple tree trunks, an interesting design choice to say the least.
Read the full story here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/meet-me-in-swamp-8308813