Red Fern Forest If you go down to the woods today

@Sahalie <3 you have to cover your pawprints in the snow!

It was too much to process right now. Mud brown eyes were wide with worry as splayed paws churned up snow, leaving @Kjors and whatever that slumbering beast was far behind as night continued to steadily swallow up the sun. The last wolf he had expected to see wandering the northern woods was Sahalie, of course he had followed her when she said she was going home. He missed his Spie, he missed Serach and Anna and his Da, and he missed his mud puddles. Maybe the white would be gone from the Oak tree when they got there?


Tatty fur did little to disguise the wiriness of his frame, the jutting of his hip bones and shoulders all pointing to malnutrition and the trials of his time away. Perhaps if he hadn't wandered from where Kjors had left him he wouldn't be in such a sorry state, but he was young and craved adventure. It had simply been too much to ask the young Tainn to possess even a lick of common sense. 

It had been his stupid call to stop for the night, it had been him that had forgotten to use his nose. He should have known it was too good to be true! As he nudge the dark girl at his side to urge her on he couldn't help but think it was that damn moose all over again.

She had hesitated for only a moment, but felt her brother's dirty nose prod her somewhere behind her armpit encouragingly, mindlessly. But this would not do. "It's gunna find us, Drift!" she cried desperately, her head twisting back to look at the frantic tracks they had carved into the snow. "STOP!" She wasn't going to move another muscle. "Running isn't good enough, look, just look," their prints stood out so obviously against the freshly fallen snow. There were no other wolf prints to distract it. Not even a deer trail to throw it off. She couldn't tell if she was panting hard because of the exertion or her quickly rising panic.

She had too many reasons to panic. Finding Drift had been like a gift, there were so many things she wanted to say to him, needed to say to him. but then suddenly fate no longer wished to do the children any kindness. They had had time only to embrace and exchange a few words.

"Uh...uh... We gotta... we gotta cover them!" She squatted lower to the ground so that her tail could more easily brush the snow. Awkwardly, she waddled, beating the snow as if there were a broom attached to her butt. "Come on, help me, dammit!" She didn't like to swear, especially at her brother. But this was not the time for him to sit idle.

"If we keep heading south we'll get home... but I think we need to throw it off."

He didn't think of their paw prints in the snow as being a clear path for, well whatever that thing was to find them, luckily Sahalie had. He listened to her words, eyes growing wider as realisation struck but no matter how serious the situation he couldn't help but smirk, a laugh strangles in his throat as she crouched down and started wriggling like an overfed stoat, her tail beating the snow behind her. Quickly he glanced about at the barren foliage, evergreen branches stripped bare wherever the plant eaters could reach. A promising red tinged stick poked out from under fresh powder and he bounded over to tug on it, pausing the scratch frantically and expose browning scaled leaves, before giving another determined tug. Finally the branch came free.


It didn't taste the best, but he endured the sharp flavour with a wrinkling of his muzzle, walking backwards to drag it across where he had walked. "Eed'f'why." he said to his sister, a tilt of his directing her to stand by his thigh and steer him around obstacles. Much like a train, if she kept her thigh to his he should be able to walk backwards without looking. It would be much slower going with such a heavy branch to haul, but it had to be more effective than a wee-wee walk.

She glanced up just for a moment, quick enough to see Drift grinning at her as if he had found something about the whole situation tremendously funny. A snarl curled on her muzzle, though no sound came out. No, Sahalie didn't want to waddle around as if there were some turd was hanging from her butt and she was hoping to shake it off. But as far as she could see, this was the only option. But then her brother was looking all about in the trees. Frustration continued to boil in her stomach, mixing with the panic: the thing that was after them didn't fly, she wanted to scream, they needed to get moving. Sahalie had asked for help, but as always Drift had his mind on something else.

And, as always she misunderstood him. The skeletal boy bounded away and soon returned with a dead bough covered in dead little needles. And as he whisked it over the ground behind her it was a quantum leap ahead of her sorry tail wagging. She had no idea what he mumbled to her through the branch, but follow the gesture so that she could lead him forward. As long as they kept going now, they would be fine. They might have slowed their pace tremendously, but at least their pace seemed slightly faster than that of the thing.

feel free to like skip forward to them like... being somewhere???

There was a strain in his neck, probably a splinter in his lip and his legs were wobbling by the time Drift finally dropped the branch. "I think... We lost it." he managed to heave out between panting breaths, brown eyes scanning the forest from where they had come, ears trained forward before turning back to face @Sahalie. So much had changed in the months they had been apart. She was taller, fuller, darker. Her plush coat was in stark contrast to his own brittle yellowing fur, the shivers that wracked his bony frame not entirely bought about by the adrenalin crash.

"Do'ya know where we are?" he questioned his sister, familiar trees beginning to close in around them. It was almost as if the forest was welcoming him home. Had he really been so close all along? He moved to stand along her side, taking comfort not only in her familiar scent but her warmth and fearlessness. Had anyone else been looking for him at all? Should he really go back after all this time? 

/tries to remember what had happened by january...

It felt like hours had passed, but the sheer exhaustion was worth the comfort: they had not seen the beast in just as long. Bobbing her head, she had to agree with her brother, who could finally speak plainly now that he had dropped the branch. This was her first opportunity to get a full look at him, though there was not much to even see. Drift was pitifully stunted by the fate that had gotten hold of him, and in this moment Sahalie learned the sinister, hard lines bones made on a wolf. Her brother was a perfect skeleton for display, his pale skin stretched taut and his fur translucent enough that she thought she saw a glimpse of an organ writhing painfully inside of the cage before she realized they were just ugly, purple marks—bruises. Her own heart throbbed at the state of him, the deplorable state of a boy who should have been as big as any of her huge friends. What on earth had happened?


The mists of Spectral Woods had yet to set in, but the trees grew closer together and the redness of the ferns were beginning to fade away. She breathed a sigh of relief. Familiarity was a stronger balm than the fear of the beast, and her concerns began to disappear. But Drift's question gave her pause: where they were? So many months had passed of her wandering aimlessly in search of him that now every tree from the Red Fern Forest to the Fens was a familiar face to her. Pinpointing her location was as automatic as breathing, something she hardly even stopped to consider now. That her brother was still lost, still confused so painfully close to their home distressed her. "Of-of course," she stuttered almost absently, reminded now of all the things that her brother didn't know. 

"Drift," she spoke suddenly, her voice hard and commanding, turning to look him full in the face. But her eyes softened at those pitiful, jutting cheek bones and sunken, yellow eyes. "Things.... things are really different since you've been gone." How to explain any of it? "Anna... anna died. A monster—a boar—it killed her. Dad came back but he... he hasn't taken up leadership again and I just don't get it. And..." She was not sure if this was the worst thing, but her brother had always thought the world of Spieden. "And Spieden, oh Drift... She's. I thought she was our mother. But we were so dumb. The woman dad went looking for, that was our mom. And no one told us... I had to find out from listening in on Serach...." Her body was shaking but she managed to with-hold the tears, trying to stay strong because that seemed like what her brother needed right now. "I dunno. I don't hate anyone...and I'm not mad...just. Disappointed a little still? Just didn't think things would be like this." She seemed so old, saying all these things, feeling these things. 

Ohgod what is empathy.

@Sahalie's commanding tone was unexpected, his ears fell back against his skull and involuntarily he flinched. Her softened stare was met with a twitching of his low hung tail. For so long his home had been so close and yet... And yet nobody had found him in all this time?

Brows pinched as his sister tried to fill him in. Anna, Anna... he should have been able to place a face to the name, the pale figure of a woman fleeing while @Serach tried to speak, vanishing as quickly as it had come. Rude. Perhaps it was no great loss after all, but he forced a concerned look onto his face for her sake. Dad was back but he wasn't leader? Had he bothered to look for his son at all? And @Spieden... his Spie. The only Mother Drift had known was the one taught to him by @Kjors. Had his sister been so foolish to mistake their Spie for the All Mother? It was true she seemed all knowing, infallible, but the Mother was so much more than that...

Disappointed. And how did she expect things to be? He felt like he should say something, find a way to show her he was still the same boy that went missing. 

But he wasn't. He was so much more now. 

Moving pale limbs closer to his sister he nudged his nose against her cheek reassuringly. "I'm sure the Mother has a plan for us. One day it'll all be clear, you'll see." He spoke, oblivious to her ignorance after the words she had just spoken. Unwittingly, he turned his nose away from the Bend, "It's this way right?"

one more from you and then I can wrap it up :D

Drift's yellowed nose roused her from her sullen thoughts. He was saying things now, speaking perfect English that, somehow, the girl did not understand. The mother? Why did these words carry such weight to them? Did he mean their mother? Clearly not Nayeli, maybe Spieden? Sahalie considered the possibility that this was Drift's subtle way of reassuring her that, no matter what the circumstances of their birth was, Spieden was their true mother. That would have been the appropriate thing to say, at least. And if he was going to make such a claim, he could have at least said it a little bit more transparently. On top of that, Sahalie was not all together sure that Spieden actually had any plans at all. Their dark caretaker was a very "go with the flow" lady. Certainly, Spieden would have at least mentioned this grand plan if she had one. Sahalie, who had actually been present these last few months, would surely know more about a "plan" than Drift would. For these reasons Sahalie was left with unshakable impression that it was not Spieden at all that Drift was speaking of, but someone else entirely. Something shifted inside of her.

It struck her then how odd it was that Drift's face wore all the trappings of concern, but his voice was as clear and untroubled as a cloud. It did not seem like he was actually bothered at all. She blinked several times but forced her limbs to keep moving, finding herself afraid to confront her brother about any of these things. Maybe later, when they had both rested. Yes, that must have been it: Drift was tired. He had no idea what he was saying. She decided she would speak no more of the bad things that had happened.

Somehow, at least, her brother was able to point in the correct direction. "Yes," she said at last, breathing a sigh of relief. "This way." As they moved onward she forced herself to stick close to him, to let him draw warmth from her body. She showed no signs of it, but she still felt dreadfully worried for him. Being still convinced at least partly that it was his sleeplessness and hunger that had driven him to say weird things, it was a little easier for her to get close. "Everyone will be so happy to know that you're safe! And when we're back I can go grab a thing or two from the cache for you. Gotta fatten you up!"

I'm so sorry he is such an ass. ;_; I just can't have nice things.

Had @Sahalie always been so chipper? He found it hard to answer her enthusiasm in kind with the gnaw of his stomach driving him to distraction and the cold bite of the icy wind running like claws down the length of his spine. As she moved closer he fought the urge to pull away, a twist in his guts and the cringe at her proximity covered with a forceful cough as he worked to convince himself that this was what was best. She was warm and he was cold, and he wouldn't be able to get lost with his sister glued so close to his side. It would just be until they got home.

A lackluster "Hah!" was offered when his sister declared that everyone would be happy to know that he was safe, if they were so damn concerned why weren't they here now? and a sidelong glance thrown at the side of Sahalie's dark face at the mention of a cache and fattening him up. Yeah, it seemed likely she knew exactly where the best caches were located, but he wasn't sure he trusted the food to make it back to him. No matter what she said, she clearly hadn't missed out on anything for his absence. Perhaps it was the grief that made her eat so much? "I'm sure I can find something to eat once we get back." he attempted to reassure her, keeping the sharper something you're clearly not lacking to himself.

This wasn't like him at all. But you're just not yourself when you're hangry... Right?

(This post was last modified: Apr 25, 2016, 05:49 AM by Drift.)

There are several fresh rabbit tracks in the mud. Hunt Opportunity