Spectral Woods Ghosts in the Graveyard

For @Larkspur
Set sometime in the evenin'

Alright, he didn't know lots about trees. He understood the basics of them - like that they were tall, they grew out of the ground, and he had a budding talent at climbing them when bored. Coincidentally, he also had the natural talent of falling out of said trees when distracted, but that was beyond the point. His point was that he wasn't an expert at trees, and by extension - forests. So it was a growing concern for him when he realized the trees around him were becoming familiar.

His first thought had been a startled thank whatever is what up there, because that meant there was still hope for him and that maybe one day he wouldn't be perpetually lost. But his second thought was more pressing. He'd been wandering the woods and its blue mist for at least a quarter of the day, but he couldn't be sure on the account that sunlight never touched the cold forest floor in these parts. If he was making any progress on getting out, everything would look different and it would be changing.

Instead the same, unending shade of blue fog danced around his stocky legs and shielded everything a few feet away in its glow. And the trees were giving him anxiety. The trees, with their thin trunks and spider-like branches, pressed at the corners of his mind. He'd come across the one with its weird, twisted limbs how many times now? (In actuality he had stopped counting at two a very long time ago, but at each pass his yellow eyes were drawn to it because once he noticed something he couldn't just stop noticing it.) The trees were throwing him for a loop and he was sure he was lost.

It was too quiet, his paws ached, he was scared, and he was going to die alone in the forest with no one to love him. He whined, the sound high-pitched and demanding in the back of his throat. Because the ground was going to eat him and a tree was probably going to grow out of his rib cage or something. And he didn't want that. Maybe if he hooted that girl - the one with dark fur and pretty eyes - would come and rescue him. But even he felt too hopeless to try, and he was scared of what might respond in the woods. He came to a stumbling halt and threw himself on the ground, shoulder smashing into the ground with a dull thump while the rest of his body followed. His fate was decided, by himself.

(This post was last modified: Oct 22, 2016, 03:29 PM by Cottongrass.)

Sorry again for the wait! ;o;!

Larkspur had never paid mind to the trees. In fact, it was pretty safe to say that he'd never thought about them much, or cared what they did, or why they were there. They were around, typically you avoided running into them, his own sort-of den was a tree. Trees were different according to where you were, but he'd never wondered why. It was silly to pay mind to something as simple and pointless as a tree. Unlike Cottongrass, Lark sort of knew the forest well enough. Not well, but enough to know which way to get back to Oak Tree Bend.. which, in truth, he was sort of dreading.


Parsnip's appearance should have made him happy. He should have been glad that the girl had shown up, as it was one more friend he had. In truth, to Larkspur it was someone to keep up with. Still, he had to keep the girl close. For himself, of course, and not necessarily for the girl's own well being.

He was getting tired and craving the familiarity of his twisted, crooked home. Still with a good ways to go, Lark trudged on. He had forgotten about Laurel, the fire that had pushed him on dwindling down to coals. The man yawned, shaking his pelt out as he lifted his head to sniff at the air.

Thump.

It was quiet, but it was there. Someone was around, and someone was close. He sniffed again, unable to get a clear reading. Lark's ears perked forward, now a little more awake as he quietly cautioned forward. It didn't take long for him to see the wolf. A bundle of white on the misty ground. His face scrunched, his fur bristled as a growl rumbled in his throat. Lark's heart loudly pounded in his ears as he stood there, glaring at the white wolf.

@Larkspur

The ground beneath was cold and damp, oozing its way to his skin in a slow crawl. It felt gross, all unpleasant and tickling, but what did he care. Because while he hadn't moped long, he got stuff done. Like accepting his fate of probably dying in the forest. The ground would swallow him up like the fog already had, and the trees would rejoice at the feast his corpse would offer. It was a soothing thought if he didn't think of it in detail.

But maybe he should've been scared.

As it was then he heard it, the throaty sound of an angered growl. It was a sound that cut through the forest's ringing silence and whatever line of rational thought he held. Because oh god, what did he do wrong? Maybe his acceptance of death triggered something — something bad. He could see it now, an abomination born from the darkness of the forest.  Nothing but a towering mass of quivering flesh and rotting bark with gnashing teeth that devoured the lost. And he couldn't move fast enough. Why couldn't he just move fast enough?

Panic, fear, adrenaline filled his veins as he rolled to his feet. He staggered, overbalancing at his every turn because gravity always did hold a grudge against him. Until finally he found his footing, his body tense and stance low. He cowered backwards, ears pinned and expression a pained grimace. His yellow eyes darted blindly, because it would be too late. It would be too late but at least he would get a chance at seeing whatever killed him before it happened. But instead his gaze settled on the wolf, and he came to a dead stop. With ruffled fur and wild eyes, he didn't know what to do.

Submit? Puff up like the awkward, panicked baby owl he was? In his indecision he did nothing but stare at the stranger, his posture torn between last stand and accept defeat 'cause resistance was futile. He never was good at conflict.

There had been a time in his life when Larkspur had been completely fearless. He did things with a clear head, decisions had come easy and without much effort. It would have been easy to blame his age on how different he was now. He no longer was really in control of himself, not in the way he once was. Larkspur's life was guided by fear. It was easy to hide that behind snapping jaws and a sharp tongue, but fear had consumed him to a point that in instances like this, he was without a clear head. His mind felt both empty and filled with noise, he felt numb and filled with pain.


Had he not been suddenly swallowed by his fear, Larkspur would have realized that the pitiful boy was not his brother. He would have remembered that Laurel had been dead for a long time, and dead from his own doing. Instead, Larkspur just saw his brother. His brother that he had put so highly above his own self that he resented him for it. Laurel had not deserved to breathe, and he especially didn't deserve to haunt him.

They both stood there, Larkspur's fear twisting and turning into a wild rage. He could stand there no more, not with the ghost of his own brother before him. He would not cower, he would act.

The snarling man ducked his head, tucked in his ears and jumped forward to close the distance between the two. His jaws were wide open and snapping wildly at the boy's face.

There is a family of deer nearby. Hunt Opportunity

@Larkspur

No, no, no came the reverent chant inside of his head. Like the broken, desperate plea of a boy who only now understood the gravity of his prior choices—and it would all be too late. He was slow, he was clumsy, he was too scared to do anything but stare while the wolf before him was not. They attacked first, and pain blossomed across his muzzle. It was something he hadn't felt in months, it was something he never wanted to feel again. But it happened anyway.

He flinched away with a start, staggering backwards on uncooperative limbs. His ears rolled back and he bared his teeth, tail tucked firm between his hind legs as he blindly waddled. The last sight he saw before he closed his eyes were two twin flashes of their reddened gaze and the blur of jagged teeth. And he just wanted them to stop. Why wouldn't they stop? Tears prickled in the corners of his closed eyes as he reared back onto his hind legs. The sensation of teeth digging deep and tearing followed him every step back.

He staggered onto his hind limbs, balanced precariously if even for a moment. His neck twisted and his head swung as he tried to free his muzzle from their grasp, but it only made everything worse. Blindly he brought his big paws down at their face and neck, hoping to bat away their biting maw so he could just get away.

There was little satisfaction found in easy prey. It was hard to feel any sort of accomplishment in a rabbit that would not run, or a deer that would not buck, or a wolf that would not defend themselves. He lived more for the chase than for the kill, same as he seemed to enjoy the tearing of his own flesh more than the tearing of others'. Needless to say, the stumbling, pathetic way Cotton reacted had been the opposite of what he would have expected from his brother.

Normally, this would have brought Larkspur to his senses. He would have seen the awful mistake he'd made and stopped. Alas, it only seemed to push the older man on. Lark snarled and snapped at the white boy as hard as he could, but only caught a hair or two on the boy's head.

But then he felt warm flesh in his jaw, and the boy immediately tried to break free from Lark's grasp. He held on to the wriggling Cotton, which was becoming more difficult with each passing moment. Growling in frustration, The man struggled and wriggled along with the boy.

Cotton's large paw slammed down on his neck, finally causing him to let go. Shortly after, another paw slammed down on his maw. He shook the paw off, again snapping and not catching anything between his teeth. He then pushed himself forward, attempting to slam himself into the boy.

It worked. His paw landed on something warm and solid, the hold on his muzzle breaking but still he blindly batted. The blow connected, glancing off of the other wolf's muzzle. And this was it. This was the moment where he would turn tail and run. He could feel the spray of spittle as their jaws and teeth scraped the air, could hear and feel the throaty sounds that seemed to rip apart their throat in an ugly roar, and it all bled together in the back of his mind. Because it would be alright. He just had to—he just had to—

He just had to get all of his paws back down on the solid ground. And gravity did so much of the work for him, pulling his heft down and he clumsily buckled with his big paws landing in the dirt. It was then another weight slammed into him, his teeth clacking uselessly inside of his jaws and his mind spinning as the other wolf collided directly into his chest. He staggered backwards, thrown off by the abrupt movement. But he wouldn't fall, he wouldn't let himself be pushed to the ground so easily by the man.

They weren't his father. He wouldn't whine and slither on his back for them, he wouldn't rain submissive licks and kisses upon their chin while they continued to tear into him no matter how much he pleaded. His head snapped down to protect as much of his throat as he could manage, his ears also pinned firm against his skull. Below in the dirt his nails scrabbled and he launched himself forward, pushing back against the stranger's weight.

He didn't know what he did wrong. He didn't know how to fix this without getting himself hurt more or by hurting them back. And he just wanted it to—

"Stop." He whined, the lone word jagged and catching in his throat while he still pushed forward. Hoping to headbutt them, to knock them over, anything to just get them away from him.

The word seemed to confuse the man as he tried to wrap his mind around it. Stop? the word echoed in his head, and for that second, he had. Larkspur stopped just long enough for the large, yellow eyed boy to slam into him, causing him to lose the ground under his feet. His head smacked the ground, causing everything to spin for a moment. Regardless, he stumbled up, and then back away from Cottongrass. Struggling to gain his footing, he finally did as he was told and stared at the boy.


This time, he didn't push forward. Instead, Larkspur slowly came to the realization that not only was this boy not his brother, but also that he'd somehow allowed himself to believe that Laurel wasn't dead. He took a step back, feeling uncertain as to what his next move was. Continuing this fight, which was over absolutely nothing, and with a boy who was clearly unwilling to really defend himself, seemed fruitless.

Larkspur took a bold step forward, his face scrunched up as his lips curled back to reveal his yellowy fangs. A snarl rippled from the white man's throat, teeth tightly clenched together as he uttered his next, and only word that he'd say to the boy.

"Leave."

@Larkspur

His body crashed into that of stranger's, and he stumbled when their body seemed to give so readily against his stocky form. He could barely catch himself, coming so close to falling forward but lurching back at the last second. Instantly he was on the ready, body tense and tucked as he awaited their next attack. Except their next attack never came, and only deafening silence rang in his ears. Slowly his eyes flickered open.

And this was his chance, his moment to escape and run as far as his legs could take him—

Except he only staggered, one careful stop after another as he backed away from the man. His breathing came quick and ragged, each sharp inhale burning his lungs and throat. He wasn't going to turn his back on the man. He couldn't. His short limbs were locked in place and he could only stare for what felt like an eternity at the stranger, wide-eyed and scared. And he wondered if he was stuck in some horrible loop. That the forest was all a trap and he was doomed to forever repeat the fight until the end of days.

"Leave."

He flinched backwards at the lone word, the stranger's voice loud and booming in the tension. It was something he didn't need to be told twice. And with jerky movements on shaking limbs, he turned tail and stumbled away from the man. While his steps were slow and halting as he struggled to remember how to walk, he didn't dare stop. Not until he was crashing and falling through the thick underbrush and mist in earnest panic. He wouldn't stop running until daybreak, when he reached the mountains where the blue mist faded and the thickness of the forest lessened. Never to return if he could help it.