The Deep Forest cotton candy

Open to all but maybe we could get some OTB lovin' up in this space?! Paging @Sahalie for super special friend times?!

 


It took a lot to constantly remind herself to turn around after a half day's walking. Sure, there was nothing which literally stopped her from carrying on, no force around her ankles which tied her down, there was just the weight of commitment. Of having made a promise. Of being a part of something bigger. Of being accountable to someone other than herself.

She paused, a paw in the air, staring into a dark tangle of branches and trees which seemed to suck the light out of life, and had yet another of those 'oh right, I can't just jump in there without a second thought anymore' moments. The paw came back down.

Peering through the greyish trees, Rue marvelled at how suddenly the forest seemed to change, though this whole area already had a lot of... how could she put it... character. From the pink trees where Darrah had found her, to the red hills she'd glimpsed to the east, and this curious little knot of ominous woodland, Rue was pretty certain she wouldn't get bored of it anytime soon. Which was good, because she'd never been bored before, and frankly was entirely terrified of succumbing to it in case it drove her to do something stupid.

Tilting her head to look through the branches from another angle, she decided it was probably a good thing that she should turn around anyway, because that place looked creepy and uninviting. There wasn't even an obvious way in, as the trees' fingers had curled around to form a somewhat loose but inpenetrable mesh, root and branch and twig alike all conspiring to keep the living out. Ooooh. Now that was a creepy thought.

Tail wagging behind her as her ears pricked, Rue cast her gaze up and along the weird unfriendly trees, spying the hanging cobwebs and messy birds nests. A few careful steps later, and she hopped up, hooking her forepaws into two of the wide holes formed by the knotted branches, and stuck her face into the largest one. She fancied that the air grew cooler, quieter, and then she grinned, and barked out with shameless laughter:

"This place gives me the WILLIES!"

Much to her delight, the words echoed through the tight dark forest until they faded, leaving only her helpless giggles behind.

Honestly, Sahalie was concerned for her new friend getting lost. She remembered well how she discovered Leotie lost in the rolling, frozen fog several months ago and how she had to lead her back to the den. Luckily the mists were not so strong, and her cousin was headed out of the opaque woods and into the deeper woods—the darker woods. Whether that would be better or worse for the girl was hard to say at this point, but the dark girl tried valiantly to catch up with her leggier kin after she had discovered her scent leading away from the borders. What was it with wolves and reckless exploration? The girl herself had not quite gotten over the bad taste that Drift's disappearance had left in her mouth. While, sure, venturing out into The Deep Forest was not "exploring" in the same way trekking up north for days and days was, it still struck the girl as careless when Ruenna could have taken a buddy or something. Because what wasn't better with a buddy?


At last she could hear her cousin's voice carrying loudly back through the trees, perhaps changed in pitch by all of the trees that the sound had to bounce to and from to finally reach her ears. Sahalie's belly flipped over, thinking that she had heard some sort of scream as her paws ripped through vines to find her packmate at last unharmed. 

And giggling.

Any other wolf might have been cross, but the dark Tainn found herself bubbling with laughter, too. "Rue" she breathed raggedly, "What's...so...funny."

Who knows how many increasingly-nonsensical phrases would have been bounced through the creep dark forest had she not been interrupted? Though, considering who had found her, the ridiculousness was hardly likely to stop. Not that Rue was the easily-discouraged sort, anyway. When she glanced back and saw just who had laughed her name, Rue yipped her delight, tail wagging with fresh vigour, barely noticing how Sahalie looked out of breath.

Grinning, Rue placed her muzzle back where she'd put it, though straining it to the right so that she could still try and look at her cousin out of the corner of her twinkling eye, and by means of reply, shouted: "I dunno, Halie, what do you think?!" The question rolled into the darkness and was immediately repeated dozens of times as it echoed about in the murky space, and as far as Rue knew her words might just carry on echoing forever. Did anyone even know how far those trees went on for? Maybe forever! Would someone at the other, distant end hear her query and wonder at its crypticness?

Jerking her head at Sahalie to encourage her cousin to come join in, Rue side-stepped, placing her paws on different branches, and grinned expectantly.

sorry it's so short :c

"Uhhh...." Sahalie blinked: if she had asked what was funny, how would she know? She introduced her guess with a small chortle, "The echoes are pretty weird," she offered, feeling that she could almost still here the last note of Rue's question bouncing in the air. And it was very different than the sort of echo the mountain rocks produced, the girl realized with a flick of her ears. The thickly settled trees seemed to have some warping quality about them that she had noticed en route. All of the trunks changed the sound so that it almost seemed like a different voice was talking back at you.

"HELLO?" she tested with an mock-serious tone. Was it her voice that came back to her, or someone elses? Suddenly it was hard to tell. Had she not had her cousin with her she might have really had the willies. But everything was funnier and brighter with Rue there. Why, if Rue had been the one to find Skeletal Hill instead of Sven the small Tainn might just have found a way to break into hysterics. 

Her face tipped back towards the tear-stained girl, "Weiiiiird," she breathed. "Is that what you're doin' out here? Tryin' to creep wolves out?" Her tone was jocular rather than accusatory. She could just imagine some poor passerby getting the dickens spooked out of them.

A young deer has been separated from the rest of its herd. Hunt Opportunity