Spectral Woods Petrified Moon

For @Serach, sorry for the wait!
RE: Zera, a mysterious voice calls out to you, but you cannot find the speaker.

zera tainn Zera had never seen such a thing in her whole life. Her yellow eyes absorbed the thirsty red moon, entranced by its fullness and the ever-presence of looming fog from the rocky entrance of the den. There were no words or descriptions fit enough to describe the emptiness of this reality. She felt hollow inside, as though she'd purged a meal, and the quiet veil hanging in the trees made it too frightening to move. The pup, clearly bold enough to live on her own, couldn't even find the courage to wriggle back to her brother's safety inside the warm den. She could only stifle the quick yelp bubbling up in her throat. For once she wasn't curious at all. But something vague eclipsed her ears, tumbled into the fright of her mind, waking the pup to startled paws. She gripped the ground, crouching with every fiber on her dark frame bristled. She replayed the sound over and over, faster and faster until she made final sense of the voice. It cooed: "Zee raahhh". Again: "Zee raahhh" And one final, horrific time: "Zeeee raaaahhh," until she was chasing it, straight out into the midnight woods. Every vein in her body coursing with the horror of this beckoning. She was maddened by it, the streak of red moon pulsing in the dark fog like her blood, the ache of the sound in her small ears. The forest rocked with tension and pulsed with her speed. Her eyes flashed with the insanity of her searching. Zera could see everything, red and alive with the moon's glare, everything except the starving voice that crooned louder in her head than in the forest. She was heading deeper into the woods, mist concealing her for a moment before she broke into her favorite clearing. She stopped on dead leaves, overlooking the ravine. She didn't realize how scarey it looked at night. How the trees arched menacingly and the wind scattered the fog. Zera was revealed to the cut-open, starless sky, prepared almost like a midnight snack. And when her eyes found the moon, staring sultry-eyed overhead, she froze and unleashed the best screech she had from her scratchy little throat.

Winter was fast approaching, quicker than Serach wanted to acknowledge. He wasn't sure if they were ready, not with Nayeli and Ruiko still missing. Overhead, the moon lurked menacingly, its orange-red color a rare sight. With the days growing shorter and the nights growing longer, the young wolf couldn't help but feel on edge every time he looked up at the sky. When the fog began to thicken, swirling around his paws and legs, the yearling shivered. This was not a good omen for things to come, he thought, slipping beneath the shadow of a barren tree. The sooner the sun rose, even if only for a few hours, the better.

His paws had led him towards the pack den, the chill along his spine urging him home and towards the presence of others. His feet knew the way, even if his eyes were useless in the dense fog. His ears were equally uninhibited, so when he heard the crunch of dry leaves underfoot, he instantly grew still. Turning his head, he tried to smell out who, or what, it was moving in the fog, but he couldn't make it out. And on a night like that one, not knowing was too much of a risk for the yearling to want to take. So using his hears and nose to guide him, he set off blindly into the fog to follow the rustling of leaves.

The boy almost hit a tree, turning aside just in time to avoid a full on collision. Cursing the fog under his breath, he stopped to reevaluate where he was. But rather than the crinkling of leave, all Serach heard was silence. That was menacing enough in its own way to make the hair along his back stand up. Without thinking about it, he bared his teeth, in warning to whatever was lurking in the fog that he was not to be trifled with. But it was not an looming attacker that shattered the quiet, but a loud, shrill screech. "WASFOASHFD," the suddenness of it all was enough to send Serach stumbling backwards as he cried out himself. What the hell was going on? "Who's there?!" he demanded, calling out into the fog. He wasn't far from a clearing, he knew. Perhaps if he could just find his way there, the fog would clear up just enough for him to be able to get his bearings.

zera tainn As her voice screeched, the young Tainn twirled her body back into the thicket, tail tucked from the frigorific terror. Her legs sped like blurry torrents upon the leaves, racing with the fright of her mind. She couldn't think anything, her mind only screamed with her words, run. The shadows cast in inky blue feared the red light of the angry moon. She cloaked herself in the dark, ignoring every grasping vine and every shaking leaf while she fled. She ran for the comfort of the shade. Zera's legs had never consumed this much ground. She was almost back to the safety of the dense grove until yellow eyes cautioned at the figure of a ghost emerging from the depths of strawberry bark. The girl halted on her heels, heart hurtling through her chest as she released a whimper from her throat. The wolf was white as an apparition, alert, already sensing her presence. "Hey," she growled timidly, backing into the corner of a brush, fur bristling on the back of her neck and all along her shivering spine. "I will give you something you won't forget if you come any closer," she threatened, barking with all the ferocity of a half-grown pup. But as the words ceased in her throat, she found the familiarity in the frame of this "apparition" who, frankly, looked just as frightened as she. Zera loosened her skin, flattening the hairs on her inky spine, cooling the hot look in her eyes with sudden distraction. "Serach?" she questioned, rising to her paws again, shaking with fear that it might not be.

There is a deer that was killed by a lynx nearby. +10 Health

The crinkling of leaves began once more, only moments after Serach began to move in the direction of the clearing. But it wasn't him making the noise, of that he was sure. No, whatever it was out there in the fog, it was smart enough to track him only when he moved. Instinctively, he pulled his lips back and bared his fangs, even though he still couldn't see anything. But he would not go quietly if he was about to be attacked. The voice that called out to him though was not menacing, and turning his head to the side he saw the quivering black form in the darkness. Peering closer, he could make out the creature's yellow eyes and recognition dawned on him, just as it apparently dawned on her.

As his cousin said his name, Serach nodded his head in response. Approaching her, he felt his muscles begin to relax - he hadn't realized just how tense he had been, waiting in suspense of what was lurking out there in the woods. There was no crinkling of leaves now, and all was quiet save for the two of them. "What are you doing out here, Zera?" he asked her, stepping closer to her so he could nuzzle her cheek in greeting. She was almost of size with him now, though more slender and less lanky than he had ever been. "Is @Darrah here too?" he asked her, twisting his head from side to side to see if his other cousin was also lurking about in the darkness.

zera tainn The pup felt fear snaking its way back into her body again as her thoughts recounted the bloody moon and the gnarled branches closing over her head. She couldn't get the color out of her eyes, it just haunted the sky like an omen. She thought of her mother, shivered wildly there half-submerged in the brush as she came to her bearings. The pup was relieved to be in the presence of another, but she feared this night was much stronger than what Serach could capably defend her from. She half expected his white form to be the proud white mark of her mother's blaze. Zera wished she could feel her warm muzzle against her fur, and the purr of each heartbeat in her ears. But there was only the cool rush of October wind and a strict whistle of gaunt branches. She was as abandoned as the secrets in this forest, willed to recover them all in the call of that mysterious voice. Zera bit back a sob-filled choke in her throat, felt the wind sting her eyes as Serach bent in to greet her. His white face was warm and concerned with eyes dark, but something in them was bright. She returned his nuzzle graciously, felt embarrassed by how saturated her yellow gaze must have been. Her heart wanted to thank him, but none of this was over and he was patiently waiting the answer to his undying question. She winced, remembering the moon. She swallowed and remained still, waiting for the words to come. "A voice," she began weakly, eyes fumbling for the right words. "It called me out of the den, and I thought it was," she didn't want him to see how the tears were coming and shuffled her paws. Get to the point. "I followed it to the clearing." Zera didn't want to mention how the voice crooned to her like her mother. She didn't want to describe how it sounded because she knew the truth was in the bloody hands of that red moon, like an omen, like a martyr. She dare not look at him because she didn't want him to suspect her negative thoughts. If this was a coincidence, it was a hell of a good one. His second question was much easier to answer. Of course Darrah wasn't around. He never hears the foreboding voice in the middle of the night that resembles the cry of an injured Nayeli. She shook her head no, before glancing off into the distance of the woods wondering a thought of how he would have handled this. She felt braver than Darrah, but only from doing stupid things. In a way she could never be as good as him. He possessed far more nobility than she would allow herself, and in a way that made him stronger. He could grieve in a more practical way, without lingering too far on the edge of the border on a dangerous night with a dangerous intention. She felt waves of guilt climb over her skin, seep into her pores. I am not helping anyone...

Sorry about Serach <3 The boy isn't the best person to help deal with grief either. He's still trying to develop that personal skill.

As the seconds slipped by, Serach's heart began to slow too. The adrenaline rush that had propelled him through the woods in search of an intruder had sent his heart racing. Standing next to his cousin now, satisfied that whatever he had heard had only been her, he did not need to be so concerned. At least, that's what he had presumed. But despite the reassurance of her nuzzle, the words that slowly slipped out of her mouth were far more concerning. The hair along his spine stood up, and he slowly scanned the dark woods around them, searching for any sign of movement or that something was not right. But all he could see was stillness, and besides @Zera's breathing, he heard nothing. She's probably just having nightmares, he thought.

Darrah was not there, which meant one less thing for the yearling to worry about. That did not resolve the issue at hand though; although still naive in his own way, Serach was not so oblivious as to not notice Zera's visible distress. "It's okay," he told her, doing his best to muster up a soothing and reassuring voice. "You're safe here. There's nothing in that clearing, or any where else in our territory, that can hurt you. We can go to the clearing together, if you want? Just so you can be sure?" That was how his mother had helped him get through his nightmares when he was younger, by trying to show him that his dreams were only that and nothing to worry about. @Triell would be more suited to this than he was, and @Nayeli would be even better, but right now, neither one of them was an option.

d'aww, this might be good for him then <3

zera tainn The girl could do little to keep her eyes from roving Serach's questionable expression. A tear spilled out onto her dark fur, a bead twinkling dimly in the light between them. It was no use now, he'd already seen her grief and by the sudden break of concern across his features, the bristled hair along his spine, she knew she'd have to talk beyond what made her uncomfortable. She swallowed, finally pushing away that gelatinous lump in her throat, opening her mouth against Serach's voice. "We can go together if you want," The young pup shivered tenaciously at the thought of returning to the hollow clearing. She wouldn't step a paw back there if it meant finding an intruder. Oh no. Not with the blood moon arcing overhead to rubricate every gnarled feature of the surrounding trees, bloody even her own eyes. She couldn't help but harden her gaze, pierce yellow eyes through the stark white fur to the source of false reassurance. After that her eyes melted, tears streaming with sobs shaking their way out of her throat. This was no time to be brave. It was the time to cry, to break, shatter like a star when it falls to the earth. Between tears Zera looked to the sky, barely visible between the treetops to see the sky masked in omniscient clouds. There was no way out of this. She didn't even feel her mother's voice in her mind. "I don't want to go back there," she started hysterically, staring back at her paws, watching the tears fall onto them. She thought about what it wold be like to step out from the seclusion of her trees, no longer alone, no longer beckoned to the stage like something for slaughter. She glanced back at Serach, she knew he was a brave wolf. She knew he would keep her safe. But her mother was missing from her heart, from every day forward. She breathed, feeling the cool air bloat her lungs. "The voice it, it stopped when I-I saw," her voice wavered, but she shook her head against her sobs, trying to force the memory back to the forefront. "the moon with a bloody face." She waited for the tears to come again, for the sobs to shake their way through her narrow chest, but there was only silence. As though the forest were contemplating the image of a murdered moon, absorbing the impossibility of it. The girl felt the question surface like a bubble from a lake, so random to the clarity of the situation, but seeking a valid answer. So she asked it. "Serach why was the moon red?" Knowing he wouldn't be able to answer right away. And she felt the whole world at one time. She felt the blank sky and the red moon casting down a darkness like dried blood. She felt her mother's absence and the present moment. She felt guilty for leaving the den and causing a scene. But mostly she felt for Serach, and how he could never make her feel as safe as her mother did.