bakerstreet | (no subject)

(no subject)

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

{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.

[ He couldn't claim to have somewhere else to be even if he knew it as an option, so he pulls his hand back and takes her lead, instead. Reluctantly, and careful to position himself safely out of arm's reach (or close enough that reaching him might require a significant lean), he sits down on the shore of the chattering stream, knees pulled up halfway to his chest.

It probably isn't helping to deter her from imagining him as a child.

A sullen one, who digs his pale, yellow-veined bare feet into the watery silt that dips down under the brook's edge, again, before appearing to settle entirely. The fluttering brown birds that visited upon him, before, also return to ground as he does, bouncing cautiously upstream on his far side, in deference to the stranger's presence. His wariness might as well be a current between them. ]

Thank you.

[ A pause, and then he starts again to clarify, lest she mistake his intent as he looks away solemnly over the clear, sparkling flow of water: ] For not uprooting them.

{she has to wonder, briefly, if he draws nourishment from the water and muck as well, but it's passing, not the focus of her concentration. He does look young the way he sits and for the first time she wonders how old he is. Older than her and perhaps older even her grandmother's grandmother maybe but she doesn't know if that's old for his kind or not. For all she knows, he could still be young by his own standards and in a way, if she thinks of him that way, it's easier to deal with the obvious barriers between them when it comes to interaction. She's busy setting out what she managed to forage when he speaks and the voluntary move on his part surprises her enough that she doesn't answer right away from automatic habit - which turns out just as well because his clarification makes it obvious she was busy misunderstanding what the thank you was for.}

Mm. {she makes the noise because it buys her time but also because - it was nice to hear, especially from him. He's not all harsh looks and sharp angles apparently and she feels almost guilty for thinking so badly of him during the winter. Almost. Her entire spread is laid out between them in offering before she finally answers.} The woman that took me in taught me that. She taught me what I know about plants, this forest, you. She was very strict about being respectful.

She started coming less when you showed up.

[ It isn't accusatory - merely a statement of fact, maybe even a clumsy attempt to admit he understands. Up until the disastrous string of events (most of which he still supposes he isn't really privy to, except at the end) this past winter, the only capacity in which he had known the unutterably strange woman sitting on the bank with him, now, was as her elder's disciple. They'd visited together, often enough; he couldn't help eavesdropping (even if he'd tried).

Reaching toward the makeshift meal she's lain out, he selects a very modestly sized mushroom after a moment of consideration and stuffs it unceremoniously into his mouth. His teeth are sharp and white - but no more so than an ordinary human's, and he chews in a thoughtful but artless fashion. ]

It was the same when she was young.

{somehow that little indication that he had paid attention to a woman that had been precious to her, that he remembers her still, goes a long way toward making Tifa like the strange man in front of her. Maddy had been her home for a long time and even though the village had remembered the old woman after she had passed as well, she can't help but feel as if the creature in front of her might, possibly, remember the healer closer to the way she does. As someone that had been familiar instead of someone that had provided a service.

Or maybe she's just reading too much into his words because she wants to find that with him.

She helps herself to some dandelions before answering, taking her time because there doesn't seem to be a need to rush talking with him. It's a relief too that she doesn't see fangs when he opens his mouth the way she's been half expecting to. There aren't any stories about leshi eating humans that she knows but that doesn't mean it hasn't been a thought that's crossed her mind all the same. Seeing him eating a mushroom instead isn't just reassuring, it's almost touching. She's always wondered what happened to the gifts of food she left behind after herb hunting in his woods. It makes her want to ask him what his favorites were -

as if she'd ever have the chance to make them for him again... It still feels nice to think that someone might have enjoyed her gifts.

Thoughtful herself as she chews, she watches the sunlight on the water for a minute before reaching down to take off her own boots and socks, slipping her feet in the water in mimic of his after a moment longer, though her toes stay out of the silt, pale and small in the chill water. It feels good though and she turns her head to peer at him though a fall of loose dark hair.}

Did she ever see you? I mean, and know it was you?

[ The birds that have come close enough, in their little hopping jaunt along the riverbank, finally begin to settle on him once more just as he shrugs a shoulder and disrupts all but the one who flaps its way up into the tangled nest of undergrowth that serves as his hair.

He does pay attention - or did, as it were - to those smart enough to know the proper way to curry favor of his kind. From minding their lost livestock (his last three sets of clothes had come from a struggling young farmer on the far outskirts of her village's territory), to replenishing and maintaining the places where the rarest herbs grow (and the food he distributed to the creatures that would have it, as often as he made the appropriately mannerly gesture of actually consuming it, himself) - he keeps to his private nature, but isn't neglectful of even the lowest request.

A brief, terse silence comes with his recollection, before, cautiously, he admits, ]

I don't know.

[ The lifespans of humans aren't the shortest, but it's still easy enough to miss them in the interim. (A hint, perhaps, at his almost grudging fascination with the one within his presence, now.) The woman she knew had either been too young or too senile to think for certain that she might've recognized him, in the spare few times he had run across her so directly. ]

Don't make it a point to introduce myself.

No. I suppose not.

{but she smiles when she says it, not surprised. Maddy had never mentioned seeing him directly, only murmurs of caution and warding when the subject of the creatures of the Wood came up in her lessons. Tifa supposed, in fact, that she should be flattered, not only for having seen him completely but for his continued presence. She's still not sure what to make of it, or him, though and she's fairly sure flattered probably isn't the proper response to any attention from Wood spirits and fey. It seems much safer to mix caution with a little more caution and find a way to get loose of both Wood and its inhabitants as soon as possible.

- but for the fact she still has nowhere to go and nothing to make her way there with even if she did know a place. There's also the fact that she thinks, maybe, she might actually come to like him, with his bird hair and his awkward moments of movement. Winter's not entirely gone from her yet and there's a part of her waiting still for him to draw back and away, as locked down as the frozen earth. He's not human, not even close, probably so much further from it than she even realizes, and she shouldn't think of him as such. It's still impossible for her not to realize and appreciate the fact he's taken small, tentative steps toward her since she woke in sunshine and it matters to her. It matters to her more than she can say or even explain. Heart still raw, even that quiet hidden kindness feels gentle, maybe all the more so for being so quiet and hidden.

She hopes he's really doing it and that it's not entirely her wistful thinking. She doesn't imagine for a moment that she'll be staying any length of time with him, possibly not even beyond this meal, but it would still be nice to find someone at least close to a friend and she thinks he would make a good one. It's not as simple between them as simply having gotten off on the wrong foot, she knows it, but there's no reason not to make that better. It's what has her pushing the berries she'd managed to find closer to him before lifting her eyes to look at him and his bird hat - which also has the edges of her lips quirking upward.}

I think we're past the point when giving you my name could be any harm. So - {she offers her hand} I'm Tifa. {to her there's a gap on the end of that name and her shoulder shifts} Of nowhere anymore, I guess. I'm just Tifa now.

What would I do with a name?

[ He bristles again, at that, and his drab brown cowbird passengers scatter, but the prickly reaction seems more born out of his natural skepticism than any token offense. More human superstition, perhaps, as if he were more like the the huldrefolk or finwives and held the remotest interest in regards to human dealings - the kind that didn't overlap into his territory, that is.

In spite of his less than polite dismissal, though, he isn't utterly ungracious in the face of such an obvious offering of good will. Mimicking her gesture, at length, he holds out his own hand in similarly static fashion, after a brief study seems to satisfy his suspicion that this is some manner of formal greeting.

His own name holds no similar pall over his quiet existence, though there are plenty of voices in which he could wish never to hear it again, so he offers it without a whit of the same cautious mind. ]

Cloud.

[ If he harbors any empathetic notions for that glimpse of her deeper present plight, they remain hidden - but not entirely. There's a noticeable shift as he drops his hand (weird greeting), reaches for an under ripe berry, that might be uncertainty or discomfort.

But like all of the little concessions he's made, he does his best to cover it up, in the same moment. Chewing not thoughtfully, but almost sulkily, as he speaks. ]

They're probably convinced you're dead, by now.

[ Even if she doesn't look weak, isn't, by all appearances, to have survived the winter over- Which brought up all sorts of other questions. ] Why'd they chase you off, anyway?

{there's the momentary indignant flare inside her at his defensive response. How is she supposed to know what's safe and what's not when it comes to something she's obviously never had direct dealings with before? It fades almost as soon as it comes though because, how is she supposed to know? For all she knows she could have just insulted him terribly without meaning to. She's always thought she was fairly good at conversation and making others feel comfortable but she can't seem to say more than a few sentences to him without ruffling his feathers - quite literally in this case as his birds take flight. She's not sure whose fault that is and she's still trying to decide if she should be annoyed or not when he offers his hand.

She's not the only one that obviously isn't aware of the others social mores. The awkward gesture has the smallest of smiles touching the corners of her lips and her exhale is at herself as she looks back up at him.

Maybe they're both figuring this out together. That's not so bad.}

Cloud. {she repeats his name, watching his face as she commits both to memory. It's not that she's likely to forget so much as an ingrained habit to make sure she remembers. It's also the first time she's let herself truly concentrate on what she sees when she looks at his face. It's an easy face to get lost watching, so close and yet so eternally far from human and, watching, she thinks she catches the hint of more subtle emotions than just annoyance and irritation. His next sentence though has her chin ducking, eyes falling, and she pulls her feet out of the water, wrapping her arms around her legs to pull them close to her chest. It hadn't been the whole village that had come after her. She knew there were people that would miss her, worry about her. They just... hadn't bothered try to stop what had happened...

At least his words indicated they're still alive so perhaps she's only slept a single winter. His question has her chin ducking more as she tucks into herself, though, for whatever reason, it doesn't occur to her to avoid his question.}

I'm different. If I have the power to heal, than I must have the power to hurt too. If something bad happens and no one can explain it, people still want a reason. {not everyone, of course. Not most in fact. Just enough to plant the seeds that would wait for something terrible to happen to spring to life. The thing that had set the group that had come for her off though - that's harder and her fingers move restless over the fabric of her skirt caught between them.} And I hurt a man. An important man's son. {she'd had to enforce her 'no' with a water bucket to the side of the head and, briefly, it occurs to her to wonder if he survived that. Briefly. Frowning, she looks at the water meandering past in front of her and rests her cheek on her knees.}

And now I don't know where to go or how to start over.

[ Her explanation makes more sense than he expects, and for one very long moment, he doesn't say anything, instead looking out over the water with those hard, green-shine eyes in silence. There are a great wealth of things that do not translate, but wrongful accusations he's heard and suffered on his own terms a long time. The fire was started because of that same brand of empty blame. Even the reason he was driven to his relative solitude, now, lies in similar tracks.

But he isn't overly sentimental in such matters (or does his best to pretend he isn't, one way or another), and eventually breaks his own quiet contemplation. ]

Go wherever you want.

[ He doesn't turn to look at her as speaks, the strange quality of his reply that of an ordinary man caught not entirely in the moment. It's advice as good as he's capable of giving, though, and well enough meant.

Leave, take off, do as you like - she still considers him dangerous, to some degree, and just the thought lightens the weight of her presence by increments. She won't go telling her people of him like he's done some good deed, if that bewildered seed stays planted. He won't have to worry about hunters invading after him, instead, come next winter; they'll stay afraid of the dangerously fragile creatures of the darker wood, keep to their own for fear of monsters only their own minds have made invulnerable.

He'd rather be something like that (even when he wouldn't).

Shrugging a shoulder beneath his colorless, unraveling tunic, he pauses to lean back on his hands, digging his fingers into the muddy bank without taking notice. ]

Once you've pulled up roots, what other choice do you have?

{no. She wouldn't tell anyone about him and the strange things she's seen in the deep woods and that has less to do with fear and more because there are some things that simply aren't shared. She understands human nature enough to know that no matter what she said about what she's seen and who she's met this winter, someone would feel compelled to go see for themselves and the first rule she ever learned about the forest was that you left as little mark of your passage behind in it as possible. Leading strangers to poke about in it, with a great deal less care than she tried to have, she suspected, was certainly not leaving no trace of herself behind.

She also suspected that if he found her a tiresome companion, he'd find everyone else the same way and she had no desire to send him annoyances. He didn't seem the kind that wanted company as lonely as that seemed to her. When she left, he'd have even less of it because she had been the only one in a long time to venture into his trees and leave her thank gifts in exchange for anything to start with. Whatever life she made for herself, if she wanted to stay secret, it wouldn't be in herbs and it wouldn't be within the shadow of his woods.

For a moment, that hurts. In some strange way, this forest has been her home as much as her cottage and as comfortingly familiar until this winter. When she leaves it behind, she'll be leaving a large part of herself as well, sacrificed to clear the way for a new life and a new identity.}

Easier sounding than done. {she tipped her chin on her knees and looked out over the water as well, telling herself to ignore the new bolt of homesickness that realizing she was leaving wood as well as home made her feel. An exhale. What's done is done and there's no use crying now.} But you're right. If you'll tell me where I'll find the road. I'll find a new life. I'll make one.

{awake, she couldn't hide from the responsibility anymore. If she was alive, then she had to move forward. He was right. What other choice was there. Brows down, she frowned, forcing herself to think about it. Talking out loud helped her organize her thoughts even if he hadn't asked and probably wouldn't care.}

I'll go east. There are towns that way. Maybe go as far as the city. I'm not afraid of hard work. I can cook and brew. Maybe I can find a tavern in the city. No one asks questions in a tavern.

{it seemed as sensible as any other solution and it was about as far from her previous life as she could imagine. Leave the past in the past. Leave it buried under the ashes of her old life. Forget about it and become someone new. There was just - }

But I made you a promise. {her old life wasn't over until she could close the ledger. Turning her head, she watched him.} I can't go until I find out how I'm supposed to keep it.

I can't help you.

[ This he says quite matter-of-factly, even if he ducks his head again as he does. The truth is rarely, if ever, taken well by her kind, but there is little else for the matter. The truth is - his territory ends well before the eastern edge of the forest, and no manmade roads cut so close to the heart. He'd have better luck trying to lead her over the mountains, up past the treeline where they'd both be left in a weakened state, equally unfit to fend off whatever dwelt beyond the woods' reach.

Besides - he hasn't got any reason left to rationalize going and sticking his neck out for her. If nothing else, her words certainly cement that much in his mind, and when he stands up abruptly to abandon late afternoon lunch with an interloper, his demeanor is as cool as the clear spring water. ]

And I don't want anything from you, either. I already told you that.

[ If she took his irritation as at nothing more than the grating nature of needing to repeat himself so often, so much the better. The reality of it was more rooted in a feeling he wouldn't so much as acknowledge, himself, buried closer to his total confusion with her apparent desperation to be indebted to him. Ordinarily, it was favors, favors, favors, and he was lucky when the proper payment was left, in turn.

(And if not, that the recompense he took came willingly enough. Fouling livestock wasn't a favorite pastime of his, but more often than not it was entirely too troublesome to simply relocate the stubborn, domesticated beasts.)

Without looking back but for one arch sliver of a glance over his shoulder, he folds his arms over his chest and adds, ]

You couldn't afford it, anyway.

{his blunt answer when it comes to a road has her blinking at him for a moment but she's not truly surprised. The woods are deeper than the ocean it feels sometimes and even flirting around the edges of it the way she had, she can imagine there are vast untouched parts of it. Either there aren't any roads nearby or else it's something manmade and abhorrent to his kind or some rule they have to abide by that she doesn't know. The point remains that she's sure that, if he thought it would get rid of her faster, he'd set her on the path himself if he could and that he simply means that he honestly can't, not that he won't.

He's really not such a terrible person and, for just a moment, it had seemed they were actually comfortable together. It had been - kind. It had been kind to her heart to not feel rejected and chased off. She tries to hang on to that now because it's all she has. It's nice to imagine his abrupt withdraw has more to do with not knowing how to say goodbye than an overeagerness to do it - even if she is fairly sure that's wistful thinking on her part... though - what else does she have at this point? A little last wistful thinking before harsh reality sets entirely in can't hurt really. Damage is already done.

Careful, not wanting to jar herself out of the delicate balance inside she's found, she draws her feet back and sets about carefully drying them before starting to slip back on her socks and boots. It will be a very long walk ahead if there isn't even any road. As much as she would have silently clung to the company, even her wistful thinking doesn't expect him to walk any of it with her. At least not openly. Something tells her he'll escort her invisibly a ways if only to keep trouble from bothering his home more.

He's very insistent about wanting nothing from her. She should be relieved and yet - stubbornly - it bothers her. It bothers her that he would do her the great kindness, intentional or not, of saving her life and she do nothing, even small, in return, it bothers her because she's been trained from the moment she set foot in the wood to always give something in return and it bothers her because, for some reason she won't think too hard about, she wants him to remember her now that she's never going to come back again. Silent, she laces up her boots, brows low over her eyes. Why does she want to prolong her brief passage through his life? Is it because he seems so lonely without even knowing it - or is it just selfish on her part because he's, as strange as he is, all she has left of a life she's loved?

Boots finished, she stands up, gathering up the leftover food for later and folding it into the makeshift bundle of her winter overskirt. Her tone is conversational as she works.}

If you think I can't afford it, then there must be something to afford in the first place. You really won't know unless you ask.

[ He'd help if he could, even if he doesn't know why. Humans are impatient and ungrateful and even when they pay proper homage to the creatures of the wood, they half the time do it in a facetious way - as if it's all make-believe and they know better, even as he holds true to their pacts and collects their offerings. They call it happenstance, luck, just a pointless ritual that helps them to sleep a little better at night. Even the true believers doubt, with age, and they pass that doubt on as they pass. And though they still vastly outnumber the so-called practical, who consider him nothing but a fairy tale (as if the tales fairies tell are so mundane), they alone aren't enough to curb that laughing spite.

But she isn't like that. So he'd help her. If he could.

Can't is more correct, as she assumes, no matter how hard he tries to make it seem otherwise.

That bare suggestion of a look back disappears back behind the curtain of sunny moss and finely spun vine framing his face as he resumes his survey of the far edge of the glen - looking anywhere but at her, in less avoidant language. ]

You want to die here?

[ Stiff, curt - he's been by his own definition frustratingly patient with her, but it's getting to a point. Or maybe it's he that should; there's only so long it feels worth it to spare her the slap in the face that comes with the bald, unpleasant truth. ]

You've got nothing else left to give. So I say you can't afford it.

[Her eyes flare up, larger, at the question, crimson in the dappled light and even in that sunshine, she feels the shiver. Of winter day gone by and wolves and blood on the snow and screams. There are deep things in the wood, old things, and he's one of them. Older times when villages didn't leave trinkets out for the walking things of legend but much more precious and hard sacrificed blood instead. It's a sharp reminder of older, darker times that may not be so far away to someone like the creature that's in front of her now. His reminder is that winter chill under the door that whispers of hungry things out in the wilds.

Except.

Except if he wanted her blood or bones or body, he would have had them already. She'd made her bargain in desperation but she'd made it honestly. If he'd wanted her that way, he would have had her already, green man of the wood, and he wouldn't have waited so long at it either. So after the first bolt of fear, she recognizes his words for what they are, a push away, rocks thrown to drive off the stray that hangs too close and her eyes fall and she goes back to her work, folding up the skirt and tying it close for easy travel. She doesn't know how many days it will take her to be out of the woods but the sooner she starts, the sooner she ends and clinging to her last traces of familiar and home - she hopes the walk is long enough to let her make peace with leaving it all behind though she doubts she ever will. She's not a city girl and she doesn't look forward to making herself over into one. He's right though. She needs to stop lingering.

He's wrong though if he thinks gifts are all material, if her having no possessions left means she can't be grateful. Taking her life would be the cheapest way of restitution. It's in the living that labor can be done and debts accrued. Straightening, she hoists her makeshift bundle over her shoulder and looks up to gauge sun and direction. A journey is only a step at a time and if she only thinks of it in that small way, she can manage what's ahead. But before she does, she turns to her last remnant of home and her eyes search for the hidden springtime sky behind the pale moss and feathers over his lean face.]

Call me. If you ever have need of me, call me and if I hear you, I will come.

[Perhaps it's arrogant but her willingness is all she has left to give him. Why the wood, or its guardian, would ever need her, she can't imagine - but stranger things have been needed before and even the mouse had its use from time to time.

She's thanked him before and he's taken it ill, so she doesn't make the offer again. Instead she nods, more for herself than him, firming her determination in her mind to move instead of trying to stay longer, and she turns and takes that first step away and into the unknown.

Each step that follows comes a little more naturally.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only