Spectral Woods about time - Printable Version

"Just go into a dark place, close your eyes, clench your fists tight, and think of the exact moment you want to go to, and you will find yourself there." (About Time, 2013)

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March 17th; Late afternoon; near mountain range; Patchy moderate snow; 23 ° F, -5 ° C.

If Quentin Connor had been human, he might have been an odd sight to see as he attempted to do just as the protagonist did in a movie he had recently seen. As it was, as a canine of moderate intelligence and decent composure, he sat with his back a little too straight, his digits pressed firmly into the frost, all while the snowstorm overhead sprinkled little white flakes over his red-tinged coat. It had been only an hour or so since the day had grown dark, overtaken by gray clouds and a chill in the air. His coat was still plush with the fur that had grown in for the winter and, at present, the freezing weather did little to bother him.

What did get under his skin, however, was when he finally cracked open his sunrise orange eyes. For just a fleeting second in the mock twilight, he saw it: the shape of a wolf walking east-bound before being blown away before he could even rake his eyes over its head and tail. A blink of an eye and it was all gone. His ears had perked up and one of his whiskered brows were raised as he was startled on his feet.

He mimicked the pose the ethereal wolf had taken, wondering if maybe he had actually tried to teleport or time travel to some other place and time... and this was ghost or a specter!

His eyes widened, despite not knowing what had happened in the years prior to the discovery and establishment of this side of the mountain range. The wind picked up once - which he immediately recognized as strange - then, all too soon, there was nothing but the silence that came with the falling snow. Quentin grimaced as he started to walk, pondering to himself as he went. Perhaps the snow spirit had meant to point him towards something he was supposed to find or to alert him to something that was on its way.

The lagoon had offered a place of temporary solace for the sea wolf. It was nothing like her home on the coast but, for now, it would suffice — until she and the rest of the Coola wolves figured out what they were going to do. If a handful of them had already woken up in this strange place the otter was hopeful that the rest of her packmates would also end up in this strange place. Perhaps they were being put through some strange, bizarre test — or it was all some really long awful dream. Maybe she had fallen and hit her head a little too hard on a fishing trip and was taking an extra long time to wake up.

Or she was dead. Also completely plausible.

All Niq’x knew as that she hated this place. She despised the abundance of trees and meadows and craved the rugged coastline. One day she would return home, with her family intact; she had to. Staying here permanently would drive her insane.

Reluctantly she had left the safety of the lagoon in pursuit of something different. As much as she cared for her family she was growing tired of being constantly surrounded by them. It was also about time she explored this forsaken land a little more in hopes of finding another member of their broken family.

This time she headed east, diving headfirst into unfamiliar territory. As an expert fisher the otter used rivers (and creeks, and streams, et cetera) to navigate where she was going — which meant that she was more than capable of figuring out how to get from one side of Relic Lore to the other despite being painfully unfamiliar with the terrain.

As snow dusted her back the otter gave a quick shake of her pelt, her breath coming out in small clouds in front of her face as she snaked through the trees at the edge of the mountain. A frown cut into her creamy maw as she studied the foreign surroundings, her tail flicking in annoyance. Well this was a stupid idea, she thought glumly to herself as she kicked at the snow, brows furrowed. It was a good thing she had mentioned to her brother that she was going on this little mission to locate other members of the Bella Coola clan. She had urged Blitz to remain by the lagoon, especially since their last encounter with pack wolves had not gone as planned. Her brother was not as methodical as she was and typically acted solely upon impulse — which was dangerous in foreign territory.

The scent of another had caught her attention, causing her thoughts to subdue as her steps slowed. The stranger did not smell of others — no, he smelt of the wild, but not the same wild that she hailed from. Hopeful, she changed her course in pursuit of the stranger, her mix-matched gazing seeking out the figure of the lone male.

It did not take long for fiery-eyed male to come into view. His dazed, almost confused, expression caused her steps to falter as she hesitated, unsure of whether she had made the right decision or not. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she called out innocently, alerting the male of her presence.

“You--" the singular word that started this sentence made Quentin practically jump out of his skin and turn about in the air (almost exactly like how those viral cat videos show cats being scared by a simple cucumber). "--look like you’ve seen a ghost." The "eyeglasses"-like markings about his face, which only emerged when Spring had arrived and the fur along his temple, brows and cheeks shed, only emphasized how wide his fiery eyes were. For what could have been much longer than truly intended, he stared at the woman, bewildered. He made a face at her, his worry more apparent than ever. Even his ginger tail was tucked in the space between his heels.

"You didn't see that, did you?" he asked, grinding his teeth together as he wrinkled his nose. He head leveled with his shoulders, his embarrassment ballooning in his chest as he hoped with all his might that she had possibly seen the ghostly wolf made of snowflakes. A part of him was more than certain that all that she had seen was him shooting off the ground from being startled. The humiliation was making his acquired family accent painfully obvious. The seemingly Scottish-esque lilt overtook the adopted easy-sounding Canadian, "Ha-ave you been standin' there long?"

Please say 'no.'

Goodness help him if he ever lived after such an encounter as this. The hot flashes that were basically surging from the base of his neck down his spine were almost too much for him to bear. With his luck, this girl was going to go back to her friends and family and tell them about the strange, skittish man she had found on one of her adventures... or something to that effect.

It was evident that something had spooked the bright eyed yearling before her. He trembled — startled by her question — as he stared at her with wide eyes. The sea princess shuffled her paws uncomfortably under his bewildered stare, heat rising to her cream cheeks as she focused her mix-matched gaze on the ground between them. Although she felt guilty for giving him a scare, she was also amused by the reaction — the otter was much like the creature she was named after and craved mischief wherever she went. She definitely was not against frightening strangers.

‘You didn’t see that, did you?’ Oh no, oh no. Please let him not be one of the crazy ones like that irrational female. Niq’x could not handle another bucket of crazy, she really couldn’t.

He appeared normal… aside from being scared, of course. And he had not mentioned anything about speaking to trees — so far so good. Another question dripped off his tongue before she could respond, and she shook her head softly. “Just got here, so I didn’t see nothin’,” she responded with a quick wave of her tail and a lop-sided grin. Whatever had given the boy a fright was now gone and that was all that mattered.

“What’re you doin’ out here?” She asked in a harmless, curious tone, her head cocked slightly to one side as she studied the strange markings around his eyes. The loner looked as though he could have been from the coast, with his sandy hues and darker markings, but there was no salt entwined with his scent. A ghost of a frown creased her lips at the realization. Her pack had possessed the bulk of the Bella Coola river, but there had been a few other packs that littered the coast; she had hoped this boy had been from one of them, but he smelt nothing like the ocean.

Nor did he smell of these lands. Her curiosity bubbled; was he new to Relic Lore as well?

“Just got here, so I didn’t see nothin’,” she said. Quentin had to swallow back a whimper. Her grin was playful but it was not enough to lift his spirits. The corners of his mouth quivered and she seemed sociable enough to carry on their conversation rather than mock him for his cub-like tendencies of being spooked. “What’re you doin’ out here?”

"I was," he started, actually unsure of what he had been doing in the first place. One moment, he had been thinking of home, the next, he was thinking in a string of ideas. From @Sahalie and her smile to the very trees she loved to frolic under, from his brothers and sisters to a particular dried weed he had found the other day that he could have sworn had once been a bit of Solomon's Seal. At one point, he had been imagining himself flying through the seemingly endless snow clouds, using the gusts of snowflakes and wind to climb higher into the treetops. Sometime after, he had pictured himself being back at home, walking with his youngest sister through the trees. "I was..."

Cue the everlasting uncomfortableness of hot flashes. Maybe if he had thought to lie, he could have saved himself the embarrassment. "Well, I came out here to look for some stuff; instead, I was just... thinking. I was thinking of my sis' and when I opened my eyes, I saw - I-I saw a wolf in the snow. Like, made of snowflakes..." With his answer relayed, he seized the chance to ask her the same question, "How 'bout you? What're yeh doin' out 'ere?"

While she was curious as to what had the boy so spooked, she did not want to press. For what it was worth, Niq’x did not think that he was crazy. It was rather spooky out here with all the snow and the tall, looming trees. The sea princess was surprised that she was not seeing things as well…

It took a moment for the boy to collect himself and spit out a string of words, but she did not mind. The otter waited patiently, her curiosity only increasing as her brows knitted, velvet ears pinned forward in anticipation. What came was a bunch of ramblings, causing an ear to tilt in confusion, as he began to explain what he had been doing before she interrupted him. Something about looking and something about seeing the shape of a wolf in the snow. Interesting. Her lips tightened over her teeth as she redirected the question to him, the onyx tip of her tail flicking absently behind her.

“Looking for family,” she answered with a soft roll of her shoulders as she dismissed his comment about the snow-wolf. Since the sea wolves had arrived in this strange place, they had limited themselves to the western side. What if members of their family had been placed further north or on the eastern side? Her frown deepened at the thought. Why had they been placed here, so far from the ocean? Niq’x hated every bit of this dry, barren place and she wanted nothing to do with it. All she wanted to do was go home, and it was proving more and more difficult the longer she stayed. “Haven’t been out this far yet,” she added, her features softening as she focused her attention on the lanky male.

She told him that she was looking for her family. Heartbreaking. Here Quentin was trying to further distance himself from his own family; not even a ghostly, snowflake-y Murphy-shaped spectre could tell him to reconsider. She also hadn't been this far before; where she had possibly started this trek, Quentin considered, was probably someplace as far as his own home was from this very point. "Neither 'ave I."

At this point, he considered being considerate, the chivalry once instilled in him by his father ballooning in his chest, but there was another nagging thought that accompanied this decision: he did not want to hinder her search. He, himself, was only looking for a direction to go. If he was to gather some frostbitten materials before the warmer Spring weather attempted to thaw out and wilt all the freshly grown stems and leaves.

"Do ye have a general direction to continue yer search?" he asked. Since meeting Sahalie, he had a vague sense of what the landscape was like on this side of Mt. Dire. "If anythin', I'd suggest followin' the creeks. Easy way to go so ye don't get lost, an' if ye do, ye either go one way or the other 'til it forks or ends up at a loch er somethin'."

Her heart dropped when the fiery-eyed wolf announced that he had not been out this way either. A frown unfolded across her lips and she was helpless to prevent it. The sea wolf wanted to round up as many family members as she could find and leave this wretched place behind. These lands were no place for wolves who were born from the sea. Niq’x needed out; preferably sooner than later.

When the male spoke once more she gave a quick shake of her head, her frown deepening as she studied the peculiar markings around his eyes. Before she was about to answer he offered some advice about following the creeks in order to maneuver her way around the Lore. She nodded slowly to show that she appreciated his help, a lop-sided grin replacing her previous scowl. “You don’t happen to know which way the ocean is, do you?” She asked suddenly, her ears falling to the side as her mismatched eyes danced about their surroundings. “I’m not used to so much land, it’s got my sense of direction all outta whack.” Stupid trees, she thought bitterly to herself as she fought away the scowl from returning.

Niq’x was determined to get back home. Hopefully soon, as she did not know how much longer she could handle. Her brother was more acquainted to the abundance of foilage, as he had been a hunter back home, so he would be able to adjust easily to their new surroundings. Niq’x, on the other paw, preferred the presence of water and being able to submerge herself whenever she pleased. Once she figured out which way led to the ocean she would round up the rest of her family and vacate these lands. She just hoped there was a home to return to…

He was starting to feel disheartened by it all when he took in her scowl. His tail had begun to fall limp at his heels 'til she asked, “You don’t happen to know which way the ocean is, do you?” Quentin gave a rather thoughtful glance at her, his lips pursing at the familiarity of the word. The ocean. The ocean... The... ocean? A few blinks of his eyes silently told her he was thinking. What was it his grandfather had also called it? A small sniff emitted from him. Puddle, pond, stream, lagoon, lake... Oh!

"Ah- ye mean th'sea loch?" he questioned back, his twangy accent suddenly all too present at the back of his throat on the pronunciation of that last word. "Great... body of water. Yes?" His head tilted to one side, hoping to somehow bring their conversation to a close sooner than later. "Cos I 'aven't seen anythin' like that for a while now. After I hit the red hills somewhere in the east, it was just days and nights and then some of rugged terrain."

At long last an apologetic smile seemed to emerge on his face. He wasn't as afraid or spooked as he had been before but worry had started to settle in. In a snow storm like this, he hoped Sahalie and her brother (most especially now that he had learnt that his apprentice's brother loved to wander off). "I wish I could be of more help," he admitted. "Per'aps you could help me though?" There was something akin to a bit of hope that made his tail lift again in wide wag, "Have you seen a cub around? Dark fur, bright gold eyes, answers to Sahalie?"