[Outside of Falkreath] Man or beast, we track either!

An hour passed since Asren and Amelin had their impromptu running match, and as they found where the nord had made camp with Arla they got to searching around for clues.

Asren had cleaned up when she saw the need to go to town in order to ask around, as usual for her whenever she camped out in the wilderness. All that remained was a still-smoking firepit and that was it. As she sat next to where she found Arla's discarded clothing, Asren growled a bit. "Any luck?" She asks Amelin at last.

"Nothing yet" Amelin was searching for any sign of tracks that could lead them on a path to their quarry's location, carefully examining any soil that contained evidence of a footprint. Arla's disappearance certainly puzzled her, there was no sign of blood, yet the tattered clothes suggested she must have been fleeing from something.

Amelin moved her search from the tent to the edge of the campsite.

"Asren! Think I've found some tracks here."

Asren hurriedly ran over, kneeling down to inspect the tracks themselves for a moment.
"Interesting...what do you think? Man or beast?"
She asked the bosmer, noting how they resembled a human's until a certain point down the trail...the implications, again, were not pleasant. She had remembered hearing snarling sounds the previous night, and among other things, and Asren didn't like this one bit...

"Man I believe. The tracks look smooth, and no claw marks on the soil." They had a trail to follow, but this was raising more questions.

"Did you hear anything before she disappeared? Wolves, bears?"

"I know not, all I heard was a beast and that was what awoke me..."
Asren said simply, digging around at the tracks idly with a dagger a bit to uncover any hints as to what happened.

"I take it you weren't able to get a glimpse of the beast before it ran off." This did confirm her suspicion that Arla had been running from something. A young Imperial with no experience living in the wilderness, running from beasts. It certainly did not bode well for her chances, though she kept that herself.

Asren had already figured such, and her thoughts were clear from body language alone.
"Aye, must've run off when it had the chance."

"Well, this is the best we got for now. Let's check where this trail leads." said Amelin as she started following the trail's path closely.

And hope for the best.

"Aye." Asren followed along as well, her bow and an arrow in hand. The nord wasn't as good with a bow as Amelin probably was, but she knew enough about archery to do some damage when needed.

The pair followed the footprints, it was not far from the campsite, not even a mile out, before they found the trail's end underneath a tree.

There was nothing there. Not even a sign of a struggle.

"Well" said Amelin. "Better than finding a corpse at least, let's see what we can find here."

Cynically, Asren nodded. She glanced towards a new trail, this one resembled a wolf's footprints than anything that wrapped around the base of the tree, and Asren looked at Amelin with a shrug and a non-verbal bidding of 'May as well.'

Wolf tracks, figures

It was certainly some type of beast's tracks, if the ruined tree was an indication, still, the lack of blood was only serving to raise her curiosity.

Amelin readied an arrow on her bow, as she followed this new trail.

Asren swapped out her bow for a sword, and crept quietly along while occasionally looking down at the trail. This was indeed very peculiar...

The two followed the trail closely, all the while, Amelin continued to think what manner of creature they were hunting.

It should be a wolf, but those marks on their trees were quite...You wouldn't think it possible too...No, get it together Amelin, their just stories.

And that was when the trail ended and they arrived...to a scene of dread.

A lone hut in a clearing, probably a farmer's household. The door was torn apart, blood spattered everywhere as the body of a male Nord laid across the base of the entrance, mangled and disfigured beyond recognition.

"By Oblivion..."

"Stendarr's mercy..."

Asren breathed in horror, and with her blade at the ready she began to search through the house (whatever was left of it, of course) in the hopes of finding some sign of whatever did this.

Amelin examined the body as best she could, she had seen death before, but nothing like this.

There were definitely bite marks on the man's throat, wolves usually went for the neck when attacking their prey. But wolves usually avoided attacking anyone outside their territory except on rare occasions, and even then, not like this.

"Find anything?"

Asren shrugged. "Nothing much, any idea what caused this? I'm leaning more towards a bear..." she asked as she looked over a few books that were miraculously unharmed.

"Either that or a wolf, judging by the marks on the neck. But even they don't kill as messily as this". Amelin said as she muttered a short prayer for the fallen, it only seemed right to her. "Arkay guide you."

She went into the house herself, the scene unnerved her even more to say the least. The table was overturned, objects laid scattered everywhere, and the blood...

There was another body, a woman's. The farmer's wife most likely, like her husband, her corpse was mangled beyond any recognition, the stench only made things worse.

"Doesn't appear to be any sign of your friend here"

With a nod, Asren covered her nose for a bit after sheathing her sword.
"Aye...a cannibal perhaps? We might have a some sick murderer on our hands here; strong too, considering what happened to these two."

"Do you know of any cannibals that have claws? Maybe a Khajit..."

Amelin promptly left the house, wanting to be as far from it as possible.

"Let's see if we can find another trail."

"It'd have to be a large khajiit in that case, but I suppose you're right there."
Asren said as she followed along, while occasionally watching the ground for tracks once again.

"Found some."

Amelin located another series of tracks matching the beast prints they found earlier leading out the backdoor of the cottage and out into the woods.

Readying her bow, she made her way ahead.

Asren followed along silently and cautiously while keeping an eye on the bosmer's back in the event of an attack on them both. Chances were that if someone had the strength and bloodlust to butcher a married couple like this, they'd be more than willing to do so to the two as well.

As they followed the tracks, Amelin noticed a peculiarity. The tracks now started to resemble a more human shape, similar to Arla's. This did nothing to quell Amelin's concerns, if anything, it compounded them.

If we find her alive, that child better have some damned answers for this.

The trail now led to the entrance of a small cave. Were it not for the tracks, it would have been easy to miss amidst the dense foilage.

Amelin prepared her bow as she turned to Asren "Ready?"

They say Nords are fearless, that they welcomed death in the hopes they return to Sovengarde among their ancestors should they die well enough to please the divines.

This wasn't technically true, they simply ignored fear most of the time. Asren drew her sword and shield before motioning to Amelin to follow along without a word as she entered the mouth of the cave.
"Keep your wits about you, there's no telling what's in here..."