bakerstreet | (no subject)

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the enchanted forest meme

oo1. comment with your characters
oo2. make sure to put names, series, & preferences somewhere!
oo3. reply to others in character
oo4. use the rng and enter 1-11
oo5. play out what happens—anything goes!
oo6. profit?
oo7. ~~totally not based off fairy tales~~

themes
There might be triggers, depending on how the prompts are interpreted.

un → small quest it might be a rare herb or a cup of magic water, but someone’s life depends upon you going through these woods and getting it. will you find it right away? have to battle a witch for it? or maybe you don’t want to succeed at all.

deux → lost how did you manage to get lost in these woods? you had that map, right? how did you even get to this part of the country? whatever happened, you’re stuck until someone helps you out. if they want you out in the first place.

trois → chased these woods weren’t exactly the place you wanted to go, but you had no choice. innocent or guilty of a crime, or a victim of circumstance, these woods might buy you some time… wait. was that a wolf in the distance?

quatre → the old castle sometimes when you’re lost or wandering about, you see something really amazing or unusual. or something you were never meant to find. like that old abandoned castle people have been whispering about…

cinq → passing through the forest has a well-worn path that no one ever strays from, lest something magical happens to them. you’ve traveled it often enough, but just because you’re on the path doesn’t mean you’ll be left alone.

six → refuge it might be dark and cold, or entirely welcoming, but it’s the only place those nasty goons or insane villagers won’t follow you. but what exactly is keeping everyone else away from here? or did you want into some danger yourself?

sept → chance encounter it’s a fairy! no, wait, that was just an ogre. an ogre?! from sorcerers to talking deer, you can meet anything in an enchanted forest. so will you meet someone who wants to help you, or will they want to eat you instead?

huit → danger this forest doesn’t like newcomers, and the creatures don’t like humans. its ways are old and strange, and just because you’ve been able to enter it doesn’t mean you’ll be spared. no one likes trespassers, after all.

neuf → abandoned for whatever reason, you were abandoned here a long time ago. this is the only place you have ever known, and you’d rather not leave. not even for that prince who has come to take you back home, long lost princess.

dix → large quest the forest might be the end of your quest, or it might be a large part of it. you’ve been fighting hard for a long time to rescue the princess or defeat the wizard, and this forest isn’t going to scare or defeat you. will it?

onze → spell trapped in an ancient oak tree? put under a sleeping curse? or maybe you’re the one who is causing that mischief from that little cottage you’ve hidden in the old forest people are learning to become wary of these days.

douze → magical not all enchanted forests are scary! some of them are filled with sunlight, fairies, pretty little birds, and all those big-eyed creatures, all of them singing along with you, having a wonderfully good time.

Stolen with love from the original post at

memebells.

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This is interesting. I never thought I'd see this in a million years.

[It was the old castle everyone kept on talking about, the one that was sought out time and time again though never actually found. She never really believed that it existed in the first place, word of mouth from villagers and all, but here it was standing off in the distance smack down in the middle of the forest. It looked run down and covered in moss, but still sturdy enough to stand for years to come.

The woman's silver eyes diverted from it to the other lady she was with.]

What do you think?

{Tifa liked to ground herself, prided herself in fact, on being practical and sensible. So, standing there in the clearing that let them see further than they had up to this point, she was just as surprised as her companion at the existence of something she was pretty sure shouldn't be there.

It obviously was though, looking solid and real enough from this distance and with night falling fast, Tifa might be willing to look a gift horse very carefully in the mouth but it didn't mean she wasn't going to accept it anyway.}

I guess we go take look. {just saying it had her curiosity perking its head. Sensible or not, this certainly wasn't something you got to see every day. Galatea got a smile.} We need somewhere to stay tonight anyway, right?

[Well she had a point there. Although Galatea was really more accustomed to camping out in the woods, staying somewhere a little less abrasive would have been a nice change for once. Plus it wouldn't be too fair to her comrade to stay out in the cold.]

Hn, perhaps taking a look around first would be wiser. There might be something living in there.

[She emphasised 'something'. Finding monsters around was still very possible, especially in a forest such as this.]

{Tifa catches the 'something' and she agrees. Magic castles that appear and disappear at whim aren't exactly the kind of thing you expect a warm welcome and no problems from. Like Galatea though, she isn't going to protest not sleeping out in the wilds tonight if they don't have to and if there are monsters - or whatever else a disappearing castle would have in it - she's willing to find out at least.}

Mm. We'll be careful.

{at least as careful as someone heading in the direction of a magic castle can be.}

[That was a cue for her to take a couple of steps towards their destination. She would hope careful was the only thing the other woman would be, some of Galatea's other comrades were...mostly the opposite and always got into some kind of trouble because of it. But Tifa was the type that didn't seem very brash at all, so that was good]

I'm sure we can take care of whatever is in there if anything, if worst came to worst.

[She gave a nod in her direction]

{Tifa had certainly done some brash things in her time and she had the scar to prove it. On the whole though, she was older now and would at least like to think, if not wiser, at least wiser about what she would throw herself into a fight. So she fell into step next to Galatea, keeping pace as the woods closed around them again, growing darker and deeper as they headed in the direction they had seen the castle. The comment from her companion earned a smile though.}

Mm.

{she had faith in her own abilities and she also had a very healthy respect for her friend's. If they did get into trouble she believed they could get back out again. It had her looking forward to seeing what was ahead.

What was ahead seemed interested in them as well because it wasn't long before the strange smell of rose began intruding on the deeper, older scents of the forest around them and soon the roses themselves had begun to appear, at first scattered and hidden but with growing regularity along their path until their vines were twined around ancient pines as thickly as grass.}

[ He hadn't meant to let her sleep for so long.

The fearsome blizzard has long since died, melted back to the earth, and the sun shines new with spring even in the depths of his hollow, but though she should have wasted away, without nourishment or waking, her sleep has been as healthy and static as he can manage. As easily as he can sicken, he can heal (though occasion for the latter is, admittedly, rare), and so long as he may still justify it all so precariously as repayment for those curious little favors collected in offering over the years, it's not enough trouble to avoid.

Her initial trespass has even become a bit of a blessing in disguise (a turn of phrase he doesn't know, but a conclusion that's obvious still), as the winter went on uneventful afterward. The wolves' attack on the villagers after her must have frightened the rest of them but good - and that really is well enough.

But now the wolves are gone, roaming freely of the wood, and it's high past time to unsettle their curious guest with the thaw. Crouched behind her on the hardpack dirt floor of the den, he reaches out with a hand to take her by the shoulder, eyes the same hard, green shine in the darkness as he gives her a shake. ]

Wake up.

[ It occurs to him only belatedly that he doesn't even know her name. ]

{she would have thanked him, or - learning - been silently grateful, for the fairy tale sleep if she had known. There have been no dreams, no sense of loss, nothing but hollow darkness to swallow and smother her and her mind has turned into it and embraced that sense of nothing with a desperate need. It's not running away if it's sleep and she can't brand herself a coward if all she's doing is what's natural for a body worn out. Her spirit was worn so much thinner.

Unlike any enchanted princess though, she has no reason to wake. No prince, no home waiting to spring back to life, no friends or family anxious for her. No future if she would let her mind go that far and she won't. If she doesn't wake, she doesn't have to face either her cold, unfriendly present, her lost past, or her utterly terrifying, hopeless future. She can be nothing and feel nothing and it's allowed because it's only sleep. Everyone sleeps. There's no shame in that.

So the magic her subconscious was so eager to embrace and drown in leaves but there's no part of her that follows it out. If anything she sinks deeper, utterly boneless, hiding away, willing to sleep for eternity because it's the only escape that she's allowed and if she never wakes, she loses nothing at all. He may as well shake a fallen drift of leaves. There's nothing in the waking world worth waking up for.}

Hm.

[ Well, that's a problem.

Her vital signs are the same as any animal's, and he can read them just as well for what they are - the shift means she's supposed to be opening her eyes, now, coming to. But she seems almost to be willfully refusing, an action so baffling and backwards that he can only imagine it must be another of those self-destructive human tendencies he'll never figure out. As if he'd ever want to.

Or- On second thought, maybe it's something more than that. He's admitted before that he doesn't know for certain the intricacies of human life, and putting it that way is still rather generous.

He lets go of her shoulder, pale, ocher-veined hand withdrawing - a second or two before an arm slides underneath her, callously intrusive, and then the other hooks behind her knees, and he lifts her bodily off the floor. Cold-blooded creatures and delicate-petaled flowers fair better in pure sunlight; if the rough (but not completely careless) treatment doesn't wake her, perhaps a few hours of warming over in the patches of brilliant, concentrated light that shine down through the solid canopy above the dark heart of the wood might do the trick. ]

{no. The handling causes instincts deep inside her to stir, warning tendrils that someone's touching her and no one should be touching her, that's a bad thing, always a bad thing and -

and even that doesn't seem as important as staying black and muffled. It fades in importance in fact when there's no pain or invasion following and, strange foreign almost-skin against her skin or not, it's still a surprisingly comforting position she finds herself settled into, the closest to an embrace of any kind she's had in a very long time. She'd claim she wasn't starved for even something that pathetic - but it doesn't stop the way her body tucks closer in conscienceless need, too deeply sunk in herself to lie.

She does feel the sun though, smattered and transient as he carries her and something inside knows that that's wrong somehow. There shouldn't be sunlight buried away forever under the frozen ground the way she is. The whispered hints of it across the small portions of her exposed skin lure her though, like a siren's song and, buried deep, a part of her rouses, curious but still not sure the darkness is worth giving up.}

[ It's a simple trick to shift them both to a smaller size, so that the close, roughly dug tunnel that leads out from their place beneath that great tree becomes cavernous, and the winding walk a span of more than just moments. But then the trail ends, open under the same great, gnarled tree root step, and there is another barely detectable change in the deep shadows that grow heavier, though far less oppressively so as in winter months, between shafts of blazing sunlight.

There's moss where he sets her down, not exactly gentle. (The alternative method he'd considered, for dragging her out as a wolf by the collar of her coat, would still surely have been far more objectionable, though.) He lets go of her, there, in the concentrated light, and then quiet, bare footsteps retreat, again.

He's more alive in the spring, just waking, but still essentially the same stiff-backed individual who'd unintentionally pulled her out of the fire, some months before. The only creatures to whom he's ever shown proper affection were those too young and weak to fend for themselves, and comfort is a luxury he can ill afford, all too often, so it's easier just not to attempt. Stealing away to a sunny patch of his own (the high ground of another of those massive, arching roots, large enough to be bridges over the ground mottled with their thinner siblings), he sets himself to face half away, indecisively. He can wait. ]

{Any roughness in his handling is just filed away in her mind as expected and it makes no more dent on her hiding in the darkness of her mind than the sound of his voice had before. Unless physical pain levels go over the hurt in her heart, she'll hide to avoid the more tearing of the two and her body lays exactly as he left it, loose jointed and all but forgotten by her at least.

Slow, her skins warms in the sun though, heat that's not furred and stolen soaking slow and heavy down over her, stealing away the chill at finger and nose tip, whispering down her throat and into her lungs, pooling in the folds of her winter clothes. It coats her hair, slowly sifting down through the dark strands, silently promising the beginning of a new day and a sunlit future.

The gentle warmth is hard to resist. It's a powerful counterbalance to the fear and the loneliness, the hopelessness, that's held her heart all winter long. She hasn't wanted to give up, she just hasn't had any reason not to and the growing warmth through her promises at least the possibility of things working out for the better in the long run. It's the shift in her breathing first and for a long time that's all. Under the heavy layers of clothing her body starts to grow a little uncomfortable but even that's a welcome change. Too hot is better than too cold. Slow, her eyes open, half hidden by fallen hair and lashes, shadowed by the way her face had been turned when she'd been set down. The color's muddy, lacking light, and for a long time they don't blink or focus. When they finally do, she sees... moss, like the tops of tiny elven trees, so close that the pattern of them is brilliant and beautiful. Slow, her fingers closest to her face move, brushing over that color. For a long time, that's enough for her. She remembers what happened - it's just easier to be pleased by how delicate and detailed moss is. The jacket finally gets too hot though and she sits up gingerly, expecting aching joints and protesting muscles. It should be the dead of winter, not sometime in the spring and her body should be withered from inactivity. The thought that it might be scares her - but there's no such thing. Only the feeling of renewed sensation in her as she carefully moves. The heavy jacket and scarf come off though she's careful to keep them close, ready to snatch them up and run at a moment's notice. She's afraid to search her surrounds too closely yet, sure she's abandoned and will find herself more than a little lost. It's easier to focus on the immediate and that's peeling her gloves off. She half expects everything, herself included, to fall to dust, remembering clearly stories about the fact that time passes different in the fey world than it does in the mortal one but everything stays solid and only looks as worn and weathered as it did when she put it on. If she went back to her home would it be rebuilt with people generations ahead of her living there now?

Except there's no going home and the reminder has the weak little sound coming out of her in her shaky exhale. She utterly alone and on her own now.}

[ At that first sign of stirring, he feels a tad vindicated. Just as with every flash of minor triumph in his inexpert care, it lifts the apparently constant pall on his sulky demeanor, and he watches her waking from his high perch with something more like curiosity than the casual indifference of winter.

Many things are different on him, now, though. The color has risen under his pale skin, traced with a pattern of delicate, yellow-green veins; his hair is overgrown, trails of flush, blooming yellow moss and lush feathers that put his dormant form to shame. Even his eyes are a little brighter, sky blue when they aren't flat and hard and green, and the sunlight catches the fluttering of insects gathering in a constant aura around him, shimmering brighter in the isolated dust motes.

If he knew what she was thinking, just then, he might have sympathized (perhaps, though evidence of it might be more difficult to pick out). Having nowhere and nothing to return to, being torn so suddenly out of life as a child, as only you've ever known it-

Well, perhaps that would've been a little bitterly sweet, too. At least it isn't only other kinds the humans treat in such hateful fashion.

Fortunately, however, no such thing crosses his mind - he can no more read her thoughts than her expression, in the moment, as she seems very gradually to return to their waking world. His patience is easy enough, having waited over her for whole months, already, and a few moments more make no difference. The sun is relaxing, and his temper is mild, and she's far from alone, with all the creatures in the trees and the grass and even the patch of moss where she sits, silent - but mostly under his diligent watch, as he doesn't realize until much too late that his gaze hasn't wavered since she started to move, again.

Unfolding his arms from where they've been tucked close over his chest, he shifts not so subtly up on his arching overlook. ]

Awake?

{already mentally bracing herself up about being alone the voice startles her even more than it would have normally and she starts hard enough to drop her gloves. Wide eyes, not that far off from bolting, come up and - oh -

Oh.

For her it's only been a day since she saw him last and the change is dramatic in that comparison. For a long moment, she can only stare because...

he's beautiful.

For that long moment, it takes the place of everything else because of course she's heard stories about the creatures that sidestep through the human world but of course nothing prepares you for actually seeing one and here and now, he's so alive compared to her first vision of him that it's literally a bit stunning. Memory of the personality that goes with that form however returns quickly enough and her shoulders are already hunching defensively inward, chin tucking. She still owes him - something or other too and if she was smart she wouldn't forget that either. If she's fair though, which she tries to be, she knows that he not only saved her life however long ago it was but that he's keep her safe through however many winters may have come and gone since then. If she's painfully fair...

it's actually nice to see him because even if he's abrasive at least she's not all alone for a little while longer. It has her shoulders relaxing a little, though not completely by any means, still waiting for the indication that she's useless and an unwelcome nuisance. Manners are ingrained though and they have her pushing her hair away from her face to try and be presentable and:}

Yes. Tha- {it's a fight to not say it. Again. Even knowing he hates the sound of it. In the end, she manages to par it down to:} It's very nice. I - slept longer than I thought I would.

[ Whether or not he picks up on that fragment of misplaced gratitude, he doesn't let on, lifting an arm to wave a hand at the air dismissively and disturbing the flight pattern of a confused moth, in the process. She's been asleep; even he isn't unfair enough in his judgement to think she should have learned any better, unconscious.

He isn't even certain he heard her dreaming, in all of that time, but she's been less of a hassle, because of it.

In the same offhanded way he seems to deliver all of his blunt assessments, he adds, ] You were sick, for a while.

[ Though with cold or poison, he doesn't hope to clarify. In truth, he isn't certain whether it was her own fatigued body that failed her, or his naturally poisonous attributes. Toxicity is assured of his long-time familiars, and most species of his forest, yet, but she is still something new and different from the rest. It's an impossibly careful dance, mixing disinterest over his fleeting attempts at genuine concern, to keep any underlying kindness masked.

It's a matter of survival, now, though - whatever he decides to do with her. And for him much more so than she might think. Letting her go has become an increasingly difficult prospect to imagine going smoothly, since she first fell asleep under his watch. He knows no remedy to erase memories (or at least none that mightn't also destroy her mind), and if she's remembered in the outside world, the other humans might inevitably become curious as to just how she lived so safely for so long in the indefinably dangerous woods.

It's a matter of reputation, and he doesn't intend to let that go lightly.

Standing up and stepping unhurriedly down from his overseer's position, he crosses into the shadows of the trees, once more, the glow around him fading and rendering him solid and much less ethereal in presence. ]

Are you hungry?

{she isn't sure how she should take his statement about being sick. She knows that she wasn't before she ran but for all she knows 'sick' could mean frostbite or the like to him considering he seems fairly unused to humans. She's just not sure if he's blaming her for it or not.

If it were anyone else that thought wouldn't even occur to her but he had been confusing the last time they'd talked, leaving her with the impression it was her fault he'd burdened himself with her in the first place and maybe being sick runs along those lines too? He doesn't pursue it though and so she simply nods, trying to quietly go over herself inside to see if she still feels sick. All she feels though is sun-warmed and rested, if a little sick to her stomach but she knows herself well enough to know that's only nerves and no one's fault but her own.

The fact is, she's not sure what she's supposed to do now. She either owes him - something, which he can collect or have her work off in debt, or else she's free to go - somewhere. If she's free to go somewhere, she has no idea where that will be. All directions but one seem equal. She's never traveled outside her village before and the names of places beyond it and the other edges of the wild woods are just as much fairy tale to her in some ways as he is. Real but not permanent or predictable. Surely somewhere needs a healer or at least a pair of willing hands and the ability to work. Anywhere she goes will view her as a stranger and suspicious though and if it's not far enough away, news of who she is will eventually find its way from her former life into any she builds within gossip's distance of it.

It's still worrying away inside her mind, chasing its tail, when he steps down and she tenses again, not at all sure if she should bolt or not. Deer on the edge of the treeline probably look a great deal the way she does, hands tightening on the fabric of her discarded jacket. It still comes down to where would she run? These are his woods. If he's decided to be fickle and have some fun with hurting her now that he's active and not as gray as he was when she last saw him, where in woods that he rules would she find safety from it?

It doesn't mean she won't still run. She was obviously unwelcome the last time they talked and her soul's a little too raw still in that area to want to take much more of it.

It helps when he steps into the shadows simply because he seems... approachable, except that's not the right word. She certainly isn't entertaining thoughts of approaching him. The question surprises a mild frown out of her though, brows coming down a little over her eyes. Is he being... thoughtful? It's only common courtesy but even that small kindness is powerful after being driven away by people who were supposed to - supposed to nothing she supposes but it just makes his gesture feel that much more important to her. The frown fades leaving her simply looking a little confused and not sure if she can trust his attention.}

Yes? Please.

[ She isn't as insistent as before, somehow, and he wonders if maybe she's still ill in some other way, beneath that placid surface. Poorly as he's learned to convey his own emotions (or not so, as is obviously and far more often the case), he sees more than he'd like to, or would likely ever admit, in others. Even others of generally abhorrent, alien species.

He doesn't pretend to know how to proceed after that errant supposition, however, and so the stalemate keeps. It's more comfortable, on his end, at least. He's spent a couple hundred years without moving forward or back for any damned thing; one unfortunate, lost woman is unlikely to change that. ...But even as the certainty strikes him, that he likes things just the way they are - so does the sinking suspicion that there has already been some fundamental, monumental shift in the way of his world, and it's not one so easily come back from.

Another meek response sends him shaking out of his deeper silence before he can quite put his finger on just what that irredeemable damage might have been, though, and he shrugs a shoulder in another of his ambiguous invitations. ]

Come on.

[ Diet is one of the very few matters on which he does possess a certain, if small, window of experience upon, where the villagers who live on the fringes of his territory are concerned. They're often enough in the woods after one thing or another, after all. She'll have to settle for little variety, this early into the warming season, but he doesn't suppose that she's really in any position to be picky.

(To his credit, he at least has enough sense not to offer up fresh meat, right away, to remedy that situation. It probably wouldn't go over well.)

With carefully cultivated indifference, he turns and starts out of the dark hollow, toward the lively, green (and perhaps more familiar) forest beyond, where the songs of birds begin to filter through the trees along with the fuller sunlight of some clear sky, early afternoon.

And he only glances back over his shoulder a time or two, to see if she's following. ]

{there's a part of her, small and stubborn and self-protective, that momentarily thinks about staying put. In the end, it's manners that drive her to her feet, because he's still her host and she's still his guest even if his house is larger than any she's ever known. It's also common sense that drives her after him, albeit with hesitance. He knows this world and she doesn't. She knows she won't get far without him despite knowing the edges of these woods well enough. This deep though she's reliant on him and that frightens her, not because she's frightened of him as he is but rather because she doesn't think he cares for her and one careless, thoughtless moment on his part will be her problem to deal with after. She's used to having no one but herself care about her, but she's usually in a better situation where it doesn't matter quite so importantly. It hurts... not being cared about but it's hurt for a long time, oh so much longer than her current guide and guardian, and hurting doesn't mean you get to give up or quit. It's that last that has her scooting up to follow close enough behind him to reach out and touch though if she stretched. She doesn't like being alone. She's learned to take what she can get and right now he's all she has. Even she knows how pathetic that makes her but she's a beggar by this point and not allowed to be choosy.

The jacket's a bit of a bother to have to carry, with her scarf and gloves tucked in its pockets and the heavy overskirt is annoying in the way a small child finds heavy clothes on a beautiful spring day annoying but she's not about to complain or leave anything behind. Literally all she has left to call her own is in her arms and, put that way, it's a miserably small collection.

She wouldn't mind a wash though. Her clothes, and she's sure her hair, smell distinctly of dog, or wolf in this case. She's not ungrateful enough to mention it though. She knows they saved her life when they didn't have to and the burst of warmth she feels for them because of that when it felt like the rest of the world had turned away from her is still strong. She's not in any hurry to see them again though considering that feeling may not be mutual anymore and she's not silly enough to imagine it would be.

Walking behind her guide, she steals glances at him between watching the waking world around them. Both seem, to her, to be almost entirely different creatures from what she remembers from that sharply cold and stark winter she came here. There will be fresh herbs and mushroom poking out in the quiet places now... there's an ember of anger that the carefully collected ones that had taken her years to build a store of are probably so much ash and forgotten smoke now but it fades. That's a different life from the one she has now and mourning it won't bring it back. She's not even sure what she is anymore if she's not the village's healer and dead Maddy's herbal apprentice. If she doesn't have a place, she doesn't have much of a sense of who she is. She doesn't draw her sense of self from herself, relying on her role in other people's lives for that. Not belonging anywhere - it leaves her feeling out of place and time, ghostly. So, hugging her jacket to her chest for unconscious comfort, it's easier to concentrate on see if she can spot those vines on his back through the fabric holes of his shirt - and someone really ought to make him a new one because like a man he'll probably wear that one until it's just threads, and in taking in the world around her both hoping for a familiar part of forest she would recognize and trying to find herself in this one in case he disappears and she ends up lost and on her own sooner than she's anticipated. Though to be fair, he's stayed with her much longer than she would have expected and he hasn't, not once so far, given one of those mental sighs of his that she can hear without even needing ears. When compared - he's actually being rather pleasant and she's not sure what to make of that.

It doesn't take her all that long though to ask:}

Where are we going?

[ Well, that's a rather crude assumption - but she's more or less right on the mark, no matter. He's dressed in the same shabby, threadbare peasant's clothing as the last (and first) time they spoke, if the set's a few months more bedraggled, by now. Maintaining any semblance of either fashion sense or human hygiene are not exactly among his higher concerns, though, and wearing one outfit until it literally unravels around him is simply the least bothersome method of remaining clothed.

(On that note, of course, she might be interested to know that he does only dress at all for custom's sake, not exactly learned of modesty, either - and so mayhap she should simply be grateful he isn't apt to go out of his way to add indecent exposure to his list of crimes.)

Without the green wood axe hanging among them, the vines spilled from his back have mostly retreated, for the moment, easy to catch a glimpse of through ragged holes as fabric sways with his walking, but not exactly on display. A few that have sprouted curious, green buds do stick in the coarse cloth, though they are all at present closed up tight, night-blooming flowers.

At her question, he casts an impatient glance back over a shoulder, a sharp gesture that might as well be meant to dispel any mistaken delicacy of his person. So much for that amiable shift in personality. ]

To eat.

[ Wasn't she listening, before?

He doesn't say so aloud, but he's rather of a mind she's a bit slow, on waking. That's probably his fault, though - after leaving her sleep for so long, not knowing exactly what the comatose state might do to a human mind. It's a definite concern, but he doesn't wear it well. ]

Sunlight's not enough for you, right?

{the look she gives him before she can stop herself isn't friendly. Long winter's nap or no, she's scared, she's alone, she's unsure about her future and yes, she's starting to actually realize she's hungry. As nerves go, hers are thin and given their first interaction, her immediate reactive instincts with him aren't to assume he means well. Then she sighs though and her arms shift to hold her jacket tighter against her chest. She's being unfair and she feels guilty for it.}

Yes. I suppose that's as good an answer as any.

{somewhere specific would have been reassuring, especially if she'd recognized it. The place where the foxglove grows or near the odd circle of oaks or back to my tree or even someplace you've never heard of but this is my incomprehensible name for it that sounds like I'm hacking up a lung. Those are touchmarks for her though, simply a solid something so that she can pretend she's a little less lost and separate in the world, and for all she knows the entire forest is just one big single piece to him, and asking where they were going in it was like asking where on a chair someone was supposed to sit.

It was kinder reasoning than assuming he thinks she's an idiot - which he might simply be doing but it's easier to keep trying to be polite and open if she doesn't think that way.}

Hm?

{So busy mentally defending him from herself, it takes her a long moment for his question to sink in and the look she lifts to him is dubious. He doesn't look as if he's mocking her though - and saints knew, she suspects he won't bother hide it if he is any more than he hides it when he's tired of her. She's just assumed that leshy are familiar with humans. At least they are in the stories but maybe the stories are only about leshy that humans have had contact with so of course those would be familiar. The ones that aren't wouldn't be around humans enough to make it into stories. So, she supposes it's safe to say this one at least probably hasn't recently kidnapped any women or tickled any wood cutters to death.

Though, to be fair, she supposed you didn't really need to know what someone ate if you were only interested in tickling them to death.

And who tickles someone to death anyway?}

Oh. No. I'm sorry. Sunlight's really not enough. I'm closer to animal than plant.

[ For the most part, her secondary assumption is the more correct. He doesn't have much need to designate between any one space of the expansive forest he presides over, when it is all but a physical extension of him. He is by the edges of rivers and lakes and over the strange, familiar formations of boulders and beneath the hollows of canopy where her favored herbs grow as much as he is strolling through the widening paths between trees, before her, now. He has sewn himself to this place, by the very fabric of his elusive being, and it is impossible to remember a time before that oneness became merely a backdrop to his greater sense of self.

The sounds of the narrow brook running down out of hilly ground to travel alongside them and leaves rustling as the birds congregate overhead must serve as landmark enough, unfortunately.

Her answer and her glare slide off his back easily; an animal that is cornered, starved, and alone will bite any hand that strays close enough, whether it means well or ill. He's had the scars to remember that lesson by since he was no taller than the saplings he weaves incautiously between may be by the end of spring. It's still a trouble to tell the important things she says from those that mean less, but he thinks he's catching on. Beginning to, at any rate.

Familiarity with humans is a far cry from even the beginning of understanding them as a species, however. His dealings with them are all few and far between, and even those are only the kind of correspondence held in left offerings and his vague partiality toward their livestock, in exchange for the generosity. And the token show of respect it represents.

Slowing to a stop at the edge of the first real clearing since the dark confines of the otherworldly hollow that housed the wolves' den, he looks back to her, again, scratching the back of his head with an uncertain hand and sending up a tiny, fluttering cloud of grass bugs. She seems to be waiting for something. ]

Don't hold back on my account.

[ It's not quite permission to go, but it's certainly leave to forage.

He's seen a fair few humans wandering or lost who've not known the difference between poison and sustenance, but he doesn't believe her to be one of those. Even though he's led her in the opposite direction of that past winter night entirely, the plant life here doesn't differ so greatly from that on her village's edge. She shouldn't have any trouble finding her own meal. ]

{the walk helps. It's fresh air and sunshine and green growing things and it lets the feeling of spring soak deeper into her lungs and through her skin. It's not easy but the cold choke hold of winter and the terror and loss of it ease a little in that renewed life. It's hard to resist the hope and promise of spring and it has always been Tifa's favorite season, a time of change and new promises. The fact that she doesn't get any more comments from the form in front of her or the annoyed looks help too and she can follow him and pretend at least that things can only get better from here on out.

The long winter though, magicked asleep or not, had taken its toll on her all the same though and she founds herself tiring faster than she usually would, starting to feel a little shaky with the growing gnaw in her stomach. She's too stubborn to say anything, not about to give him yet another excuse to give one of those silent sighs and look at her as if he's wondering why God bothered put her into existence but she's grateful when he finally comes to a stop even if she has no idea why he has. The clearing and the chance at unfettered sky is welcome but she has no idea why here is any different from anywhere else when she peeks past his form to look.

His gesture is strangely familiar, even if the quick halo of small bugs isn't, and for half a second, she almost thinks he's unsure and just as trapped and confused by all of this in his own way as she is. It's a nice thought at least even if it's probably entirely off. His words have her eyes lifting back up to watch his though, not quite sure what he means. Considering he's only said less than a handful of sentences to her since she woke up though it doesn't take long to put it together.

It's... a bit like rifling through his cupboards though, isn't it...?

Though, if she's going on that assumption, she's done it before. Dubious, she looks past him again, holding her jacket a little tighter against herself. It could be a trick. She only knows the very edges of etiquette when it comes to dealing with fey and what will preserve your soul and what won't. Except of course she's already stepped far past that safety when she promised him anything last winter... With a fortifying inhale, she steps past him and when she steps into the clearing nothing jumps out of the trees at her and the earth doesn't open up under her feet to swallow her whole. She realizes she really isn't worth any of that considering how far trapped she already is but her natural instincts are still there. Still, the area presents itself as nothing more than a clearing like any other in the woods and when her eyes take in the first familiar type of herb, something in her pale, tight face relaxes for the first time. Her first steps are cautious but the further she goes the more settled she feels. This is familiar. This is something she can do, that she's actually good at and comfortable with. So it's not long before the jacket and heavy overskirt are neatly folded to the side and she's rolling up her sleeves and twisting her hair into a loose knot to keep it out of the way.

The stream gets her first exploration, grateful to wash her hands and her face. She's starving but some things are even more important to someone like her and being the littlest bit cleaner does wonders for her mentality. The water helps a little with the hunger once she's had a careful drink and there's mint to chew against it as well near the bank, careful not to pick the flowering bits that will grow more later. A forest clearing in spring isn't exactly a table sized meal but she knows what she's doing and it's as fulfilling to her soul to be at it again as it is to her stomach as she slowly works her way along, carefully taking a little bit from each spot so that she doesn't damage the plant or its chance to flower and seed later.

do not pick my rosemary, do not pick my rue
For I need it for myself and I have none for you

She's aware of him still, there on the edge of her vision, but he seems more like one of the trees than a threat. She still doesn't stray far. Not yet. She made a promise and even if the smart thing to do would be to run, she's too practical to think she'd get far and more importantly a promise has to mean something or what's the point anyway? She thinks she saw his roots burrowing into dirt last winter but she also thinks she was pretty delirious at the time and even if they did, he still has a mouth - and teeth it's finally occurred to her to worry about the sharpness of. So he must eat that way too? Carefully picking through a patch of sorrel near the river bank, she turns her head to look over her shoulder at him for a long, dubious moment. She's not sure of the reception but it doesn't feel right not to ask.}

There's enough for two. If - you wanted some.

[ While she minds her business, he does his own. She's come and gone in the past often enough that he trusts in her prudence with his pantry. She was never the type to unearth entire plants or turn the soil over needlessly in her wake, before, and there's no reason for him to think that's changed, yet.

Though he must suppose something significant has, if she isn't yet practically twitching with the chance to bolt from him. (Though he doesn't know yet, for certain, whether he'd even bother to put a halt to an escape, anyway, so perhaps that's really for the best.) He never did put much thought toward what it must've been that those men had been hunting her for. Not food, he supposes, as he stalks to the center of the miniature meadow they've stopped in. Cannibalism is mostly only judicious when it's of the young, and even that he only acknowledges as a fact of harsh, natural life.

A few passing birds scatter around his feet by the edge of the widening in the brook, bathing and drinking in the shallow pool, and one settles into the messy crown of yellow feathers and moss atop his head. The idea that she'd been weak and the hunters had meant to cull her from their herd does cross his mind, but he dismisses it immediately. There's something hard in her that remains unbroken, still, and he thinks if this is their concept of weakness that it was only right to set the wolves upon them.

With his toes in the water and the nondescript brown bird taking turns preening itself and the crest it's perched itself upon, he may as well be a fixture, tree or statue, until she finally speaks up, again, and calls back his attention.

The tiny flock of birds take off (including his passenger) as he turns his head, apparently taken off-guard by the offering. Memories of the loaves of bread he'd shared with skittish prey come back curious, and after another lengthy pause, he nods slightly. ]

...All right.

[ It's not some rare delicacy, just roughage from his own wood, but he doesn't abhor modest tribute nearly as much so as he seemed to her less meager promises. Stepping clear of the water, at his end of the stream, he crosses over to her spot on the bank unhurriedly. And holds out a hand as he arrives.

Table manners aren't a specialty of his, either. ]

{if he were to ask, she could tell him why they'd been chasing her for two reasons, one of which she could acknowledge and the second which left her raw instead and she'd rather ignore. Whatever the reason though, she'd certainly been driven from her 'herd' with no hope of return and she knew both that it left her vulnerable without the protection of a group and that it left her alone, which seemed almost worse. She wasn't entirely alone though, not yet at least, and her offer had been as much because of that as manners.

It still surprises her when he accepts.

It's a good surprise though and the small smile, tired and not sure of its place yet, touches her lips as she shifts a little on the bank of the stream so that she can face him where she's resting on her heels as he approaches. It's only leaves and shoots she has to offer him, things that are his already, but it's still been a while since she's shared a meal with anyone and she's missed that too.

The outstretched hand has the smile changing and growing a little bit. Again, for a moment, he reminds her of a little boy. It's not a bad thing. It's another of those moments when, if he's not human, he's still relatable and it's what has her patting the bank near her.}

You can sit down. We might as well make a meal of it if there's no rush.

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Tifa Lockheart || Final Fantasy VII

quartre - /slides at :>

huzzah! good to see you again :D

Same! I was browsing around the memes and had to reply 8D

I'm glad!

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too badass to roll, i choose all the numbers

gasp such a rebel!

the ladies love my inability to conform

you're a rebel without a clause - nyuk nyuck

that was terrible even by my standards.

oh - I can sink prettttty low if need calls for it

did you mean for that to read as pervily as i'm choosing to interpret it

next to you, who wouldn't, baby?

i have no idea what you mean :|

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Tifa Lockheart || Final Fantasy VII

quartre - /slides at :>

huzzah! good to see you again :D

Same! I was browsing around the memes and had to reply 8D

I'm glad!

no subject

no subject

too badass to roll, i choose all the numbers

*gasp* such a rebel!

the ladies love my inability to conform

you're a rebel without a clause - nyuk nyuck

that was terrible even by my standards.

oh - I can sink prettttty low if need calls for it

did you mean for that to read as pervily as i'm choosing to interpret it

next to you, who wouldn't, baby?

i have no idea what you mean :|

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gasp such a rebel!