The Wildwood Trembling

Two random events! The moon has turned blood red and the forest is covered in a dense fog, and Cessair is being watched. For cataloging purposes, this thread takes place around the beginning of October in Cessair's timeline.

Ignoring the debilitating pain in her stomach, Cessair mentally replayed her conversation with the kind Whisper Caverns teacher Namid from a few days ago. Everything the friendly woman had said was satisfactory, and how badly Cessair wanted to join Whisper Caverns! So why didn't she? Why did she walk away? Why was she still walking away, even at that very moment? Cessair halted her thoughts and instructed her paws to stop. They did not. On and on she walked, without a destination, without a purpose, without a will. Some frail voice was wailing in the depths of Cessair's mind, demanding -- begging -- she turn back. Begging she turn back before her consciousness perished. Oh, how it wailed! Turn back! You are dying! Go back for your brother's sake! Your mother's! Yours. Life, death. Will, conscious, conscience, food, pack, breath, rest, life. Death. Cessair flattened her ears and pressed on.

A sigh. Fainter and fainter had the wailing waned, and now it stopped altogether. What wonderful ecstacy of peace Cessair felt at that moment! Her mind was clear and gone was the pain of her stomach, of her bleeding paw pads, of her aching muscles; all was quiet and all was numb. At last her legs ceased their motion. Cessair lifted her eyes and licked the dry leather of her nose as she began the effort of processing her surroundings. She was in a forest. It was night, but the trees and bushes were dimly lit from an eerie russet light. There was motion all around. Fog. Spectres?

Cessair's cracked lips rose into a grin and she broke out in a laugh -- the foolish laugh of the damned. This was the night, the very night, three years ago, that her wandering began. It began with death. Her mother died in the jaws of a fiend, a demon with thick black fur and fire in his eyes. She lost her brother Dolan shortly afterward, and herself with him. Since then, Cessair had herself been a spectre, ever seeking the fate she had thought would be hers. How wrong she had been! Cessair's stomach growled, disturbing the hush of the forest, and the pain of her starvation clawed again at the edges of her sanity. She curled up next to a boulder and in gruesome euphoria awaited the nightmares that were bound to come. The fog slid like blood through her matted fur.

Vespian paused, taking a moment to observe his surroundings. The thick fog would obscure his vision, making the effort of figuring out where exactly he was much more difficult. Judging by the tall shadows and plants scattered beneath his paws however, it was confirmed that he had stumbled amidst a forest. 'Where do you think you're going...?' Ah... The grey male's ears would pin flat against his skull as the oh-so familiar voice inside of his head would begin its occasional taunting. It served as a mere realization of how the world probably saw him, or how his life would never drag on long enough for him to see the light at the far end of the tunnel. "Shut up.." he mumbled, lowering his head. Tch. These awful moments wouldn't be happening if he would've just stopped and rested a while. But here he was, completely unprepared for what mental battle was to come.

Vespian faced the undeniable truth that running away would not be enough to erase his past. He was simply wasting his time chasing after something nonexistent. So what was the point in all of this? The brute failed to see it but was still too determined to let himself fall. 'You were built to be distrusted, to be loathed, to never fit in.' It was endless. The list would go on and drive him insane. He would sit there a moment longer, mentally screaming out of sheer frustration before continuing onwards. His legs were sore but it did not compare to the numbness he felt. 'You were built to slaughter. To devour the lives of the innocent. To make your voice heard.' A snarl would escape his lips, emerald eyes narrowing as he kept moving. 'Now what does that make you...?' Nope. Time to move on. Time to ignore the demons within. Just shut up. "Doesn't make me anything," Vespian would say, as if actually communing with someone other than himself. He would feign ignorance by lying to himself, but knowing damn well who it made him. And apparently, feigning ignorance proved to be futile.

'It makes you a monster, driven by madness.'

And that was it. The male's pace quickened as he desperately pushed all thoughts away. The layout of the forest made navigating a bit tough but Vesp couldn't care less if he were to stumble and fall. Keep moving or trip. Tripping would result in giving up, which would result in resting, something he desperately needed. Vespian stopped abruptly after hearing laughter. His body would stay in place, paralyzed with fear. Had a wolf seen him struggle, how helpless or foolish he must've been? Was that why they were laughing? Silence followed after the laughter. Whoever it was probably left. Maybe they hadn't seen him yet and that he was freaking out over absolutely nothing. The virile's masculine body would tremble nonetheless as he approached the location from which the voice emitted, poking his head from above the thick bushes - which made more noise than he intended - only to find a cream-stained femme curled up beside a large rock. How pleasant... It was then when Vesp realized how hungry he was, and the events from earlier did not help ease any sudden temptations.

No. It was wrong... Crap. The virile exhaled silently through partially opened jaws, his emerald gaze fixed upon the other wolf with curiosity. Perhaps he'll wait a bit. Nah, perhaps he'll have a little fun and watch her for a while. How long will it take her to notice? This little game of his would surely keep his mind away from bloodlust, thus making him as harmless as he could be. If only he was like that to begin with.

(This post was last modified: Nov 14, 2014, 04:24 AM by Vespian.)

"Wake up. Get up, run, hide! Hide and don't come out; I will find you when it is safe!" Cessair rose and followed the instructions, her mind not yet awake enough to process them. The voice was urgent and desperate, so she ran until she stumbled, then dove into a bush. As she crouched low to hide herself, she could hear rising from the direction from which she had just come two indistinct voices in intense conversation. One voice was familiar, melodic and sweet as a warbler song, but shivering with fear. The other was deep and dark and menacing and filled Cessair with fear too. Growing ever louder, the two voices danced back and forth. Cessair was certainly awake now, the whole of her being trained on the conflict unfolding just a moment away. "Please, no!" The warbler voice. "Please, NO!" The voice rose higher and its source kept moving. There was a thud followed immediately by a scream. Instinct took over and Cessair jumped from the bush and ran away as the scream faded to a whisper, then a faint gurgling. The last she heard was the menacing voice laughing. Laughing and laughing.

. . .

WHAM! Cessair suddenly awoke, now crumpled against the boulder with an intense, throbbing pain in her shoulder. Disoriented, she gingerly shifted to a more comfortable position as she waited for the pain to subside and surveyed her surroundings. Boulder. Fog. Forest. Eerie light. After a few moments, Cessair recognized her location and recalled that she had curled up here to sleep. So she had been dreaming. Or had she? She looked again and realized that this was the place in her dream from which she was fleeing, the place where her mother was strangled in the jaws of the demon rogue. With dread did she turn her head to see the bush where she would have been hiding.

Cessair immediately regretted it. The dim light and fog made it impossible to see any more than the bush's silhouette, but still an icy fear shot up her spine. She was being watched -- at least, it felt like she was. Was the watcher her six-month-old self, hiding in the bush as she witnessed the death of her mother, or was it the rogue wolf, waiting for the right moment to pounce on his next meal? Still staring into the silhouette of the bush, Cessair tucked her ears against her head, her tail between her legs, and cowered. Either way, she was going to die. Unless it was her imagination. Of course. Her mother died three years ago; why would the scene of her death occur a second time? Slightly comforted, Cessair turned back toward the boulder to try to sleep again.

Still, the bush taunted her, and Cessair felt the urge to look back at it. Surely it wouldn't hurt to just check, especially if there really was no one there. Ears and tail still lowered, Cessair turned back around and whimpered into the fog. “H-Hello?”