.006 These Woods Are Lovely, Dark and Deep

[findmyownreason]

Once upon a time, for all good stories start with once upon a time, there was a great forest.  It stretched on for days, for countries, for unclaimed fairy tale after unclaimed fairy tale in fact.  This was the Great Wood, the Olde Wood, the Place Where All Things Start.  This was the forest of all the old tales and it will ever be, until men are legends that dogs tell each other around the fires at night.  Everything lives in the depths of these woods and nothing at all.  Be careful what you whisper when you go into the dark for even the trees are listening and stories have a way of happening here whether you want them to or not.

Deep in the darkness, in one of the less traveled spots, there lives a wolf.  The Wolf, if you will.  For he is the Big Bad, the Howler at the Door, the Winter Wolf, the Devourer, the Nightmare That Creeps In Windows, the Child's Warning and, occasionally, the Huffer and Puffer, though he's taken to outsourcing the last one after one particularly embarrassing incident involving a hay allergy.  He's the wise talking beast or the prehistoric feral fear.  He is, in short, whatever your story needs him to be.

Don't expect him to be particularly pleased or even helpful about it though.  He's been doing this job for a while now and he's getting sick of getting yanked out of rolling in dead animals just so that he can trot his fuzzy butt over to make menacing, half-assed attempts at your basket of treats and God help you if he has to dress in old lady drag One More Time!


OOC: so.  Here's Cloud to provide all your Big Bad Wolf TM needs.  Or frankly, the forest isn't above dragging him in to take over any animal need.  There appears to be a shortage of fairy animals going around at the moment, something about better paying jobs in Hollywood.  Does your story need a talking bear?  Suddenly you've got a snarky wolf as your guide.  Your brothers got the mill and all you got was a cat?  Well, it's a wolf now and it's not happy about having to wear boots or do all your work for you, you dolt.  Need that straw spun into gold by morning?  Looks like you're duck out of luck.  Wolves can't spin, though he does a very impressive cats cradle if you give him enough yarn and tie the knots for him.  Point being, if your fairy tale has an animal of any sort in it, you've now got a very grumpy wolf who can't say 'not interested' the way he'd really rather.  And, of course, he's still here for all your big bad wolfish metaphorical needs as well.

Comments

[whitesuited]

The young blond finally gave up hunting for his missing horse and set to walking through the rest of the woods hoping silently he might be heading in the right direction to reach the goal of finding the Firebird that his father wanted. After quite a while of walking however, his legs and feet began to ache unbearably and finally he had to stop and sit down in the soft grass below him.

The impossibility of the task ahead of him began to sink in then and he began to despair of ever finding the Firebird. He had no mount and even if he hadn't lost his horse, he had no idea if he was going in the right direction to find it.


ooc: I'm using Ivan Tsarevitch and the Grey Wolf for my tale here, Rufus is going to be Ivan, how does Cloud feel about eating horseflesh and then playing replacement mount? Rufus is also around 15-16 years old in this tale as well.

lol - they will never, EVER speak of this again

[findmyownreason]

Cloud mentally sighed to himself as he watched the vaguely familiar kid from the shelter of the trees he was hunkered down in.

The horse had been delicious.

The compulsion that had come over him afterward however had not been.

He'd lived in these woods long enough by now to recognize a Story when it hit him and while this one didn't seem to involved brownies he couldn't eat (chocolate was bad for wolves) at least it didn't seem to involve cross dressing either (little did he know). Giving piggy back rides wasn't that bad and when you came down to it, it was really just a delivery job. Just a minor part in a larger Story.

And he didn't believe it for a second. Which is why he was still crouched down in the shadows, making softly grumbling noises deep in his throat. Grumply noises that could be heard from where the youth was doing a good job of fairy tale despairing.

[whitesuited]

Rufus did indeed hear the grumbling noises and after a moment, he looked back toward the wolf. "Hello, Wolf. You wouldn't be able to help me find something would you?"

He doubted it, but it didn't hurt to ask. It wasn't like he had any idea where he was going on his own.

[findmyownreason]

Definitely Story. No one else saw a giant wolf in the trees behind them and started a conversation with it. It was the trigger the story needed and Cloud gave up resisting the increasingly persistent pull. Standing up, he shook himself and marched over.

"..."

He could at least cut out the fancy talking.

[gardeningaia]

Hmmm.

Not every second mom could be like Elmyra, Aerith knew that. But this stepmom was really a piece of work! She'd done twice the chores and helped her sisters get ready for the festival, but still couldn't go? Unfair. Not just unfair, but really rude after her stepmom had promised twice that Aerith could go after chores! Just because a girl didn't have a fancy dress... Hey, she worked hard just to keep this one clean, what with everyone always throwing her food in the ashes.

...Okay, the fact that she had enough time to get into unhappy thoughts meant something was up. Aerith cracked one eye open, glancing up from her praying pose at the branches of the hazel tree she'd planted on her real mom's grave for her memory. (Someone had suggested, when she planted it, that she water it with her tears, but she had a very sensible watering can for that, thank you. Ifalna wouldn't want to see her cry THAT much.)

Hmmmmmmm. No little white bird in the branches. Maybe he hadn't heard her? So Aerith shut her eyes again and asked again:

"Shiver and quiver, my little tree, silver and gold throw down over me."

Sure, it sounded like a pretty tall order, but this was a pretty clever bird. (She still wasn't sure how he'd gotten that string of tulip bulbs for her secret garden, but considering how the Dutch were going crazy over them she figured she'd better Not Ask.) He was such a helpful fellow too! She figured he'd at least tell her if this was the straw to break the fairy godmother's back. Except...their house was next to that old wood. The old, great, pretty-but-kind-of-scary woods. Wasn't there a big old wolf in there? Ohhhh, she hoped he hadn't run into any trouble out there...

Giving up praying, she rose to her feet and called out for her mysterious little helper, loud, clear, and a little worried: "Mister Bird?"

[ Cinderella, from here. ...Yes. ]

[findmyownreason]

Cloud coughed and little white feathers knocked loose from around his muzzle, fluttering down in the air. Hey. He was a wolf! What did people expect him to eat?

The hen house in the neighbors yard was easy to break into when everyone was off smelling like a gallon of dead flowers and pre-jitter booze wherever people like that went when they squeezed their hugely disproportionate cloth bodies into tiny, squeaky carriages and rattled off into the night. So Cloud had, somehow, managed to get himself up that tree near the wall and slink along it to avoid the rancid smelling dog in the yard and gotten himself into the chicken coop.

It had been a delicious night.

Now however he was trying to balance his way back along the narrow wall with a full stomach which was throwing off his balance. The chicken he was carefully bringing back in his mouth in the hopes of getting a steady meal of eggs was still alive and kicking too which wasn't making the task any easier. So there was kind of a resigned sigh inside his skull when a wing hit him in the eye and he lost his balance. Into the yard with the dog or into the yard with the tree?

Cloud managed enough to fall, squawking chicken and explosion of white feathers, into the yard with the tree.

[gardeningaia]

[ since we're on this note with fairy tales, who's afraid of the big bad wolf? ]

From that tiny white feather that first fluttered down, Aerith had had a bad feeling. For both her little helper bird, and how weird that night was going to get.

Mostly because she'd looked up and seen the struggling chicken, and then the wolf that was holding onto it, balancing on the wall. The house's wall! Why did they even bother having walls if wolves could just walk along it however they wanted?! Either something had gone very wrong with basic barriers, or this was a pretty smart wolf. She had an inkling it was the latter...

...At least, until he started falling into her yard. At that point her only thought was to hope the squawking chicken would distract the wolf long enough for her to grab the broom she was already running for, just on the other side of the yard. Though he probably wouldn't appreciate the bop on the nose she was planning to give with it.

[findmyownreason]

(snicker. I mean, bad Aerith. Bad!)

It was feathers and a couple bruises to his ribs on flexible branches and then the hard thump of the ground meeting his back.

That was what he got for not being born a cat.

The chicken broke loose from his lax jaws with a burst of surprising chicken intelligence, taking off on scrabbly claws in a swirl of loose feathers and Cloud groaned and rolled over onto his side, unaware of his impending nose bop and rubbed at his face with one large paw, grumbling sounds low under his breath that were probably the wolfish equivalent of wolfish curse words he might have picked up from a different chain smoking wolf not so long ago. Then, still lying forlornly on his side, he sneezed. And sneezed again. And then again.

Chicken feathers apparently weren't that great to have stuck around your muzzle and so close to your nose.

[cidhighwind]

Cid's not too sure on what he's supposed to be doing here. He's at the edge of a forest, the haunting sounds of the flute and bassoon reaching him from a fair distance away. Some old geezer claimed to be his grandfather, and shooed him out of the house.

Calling him Peter, of all things. The hell kind of name is Peter? Whatever this place is, he plans on not going back to that damn cabin.

The old man threatened to lock the gate in front of the house, which meant jack shit to Cid since he's able to jump over fences more sturdy. So he's sulking by the woods, keeping an eye peeled for this wolf that's supposedly causing so much trouble. Not that he could blame the animal for eating that stupid duck.

Tired of patrolling the edge of the forest, Cid decides to just barrel on in to the darkness, wary of the towering trees and limited visability but damned if he didn't need to be doing something.

OOC: Cid is Peter from Peter and the Wolf except he cares less about catching the wolf and more about idk. Getting a cigarette. And yes, the music from the story itself is playing in the background all the time. Why not? :D

[findmyownreason]

What the hell was it with these horns? Cloud couldn't seem to go anywhere without them kicking in and every now and then he thought he heard an... oboe? What the hell was an oboe and why would he know what it sounded like?

He was pretty sure he could blame this all on that stupid duck. He wasn't sure how but he was pretty sure that was the point.

Damn Stories.

Not to mention that cheerful godawful racket kept getting deeper into his woods. At first he hadn't actually minded the tune, finding it a little cheerful but now it was just stuck in his head and it seemed to be the same ten notes or so repeating themselves over and over again inside his head.

It was enough to drive a Big Bad Wolf mad.

Which was why Cloud was stalking off through the trees to find the source of the noise and eat it.

[cidhighwind]

Cid would prefer horns over the sound of these violins that seem to be following him. It wasn't as noticeable back at the cabin, but in the woods it just wouldn't stop.

He's half convinced some assholes are flying through the treetops, playing violins just to piss him off.

Once he hears the sound of horns, he pauses. There is absolutely no way to stay hidden with this racket going on, and he stomps his way in the direction the sound is coming from. When he happens upon the wolf, he's prepared to face something, so he isn't too surprised to stumble upon the (supposed) menace.

"Lookin' for something, fuzzy?" He asks this with his hands in his pockets, not looking for a fight but ready if the wolf attacks. He'd actually prefer the wolf attack whoever's playing that damn music, if he can find them.

Hell, Cid will help.

[findmyownreason]

It's a children's tale apparently given the music that doesn't go dark and menacing when they stumble on each other but stays cheerfully and peppy instead. Which makes it kind of strange to see such a grumpy looking, chain smoking, old guy when Cloud finally finds the source of the noise. Usually children's tales have... children in them?

So... maybe the guy in front of him is the harsh grandfather/step-father type that throws the children out of the house and into a world of adventure instead. Which doesn't make sense if he's the one out here in the woods. Since the guy isn't going for a blunderbuss or anything awkward like that Cloud feels safe in plopping his furry butt down to sit in front of the man.

The oboe gives a honk.

And since it's a children's tale of course all animals can talk.

"What the happy is going on?"

Children's tales apparently also censor cursing.

[tasercopter]

[[OOC: Of course I'm using Little Red Reno Hoodlum as my fairy tale. There is no other choice!]]

Once upon a time, in the village of Shinra, there lived a young girl with scarlet hair so bright that people called her Little Red, though since her name was Reno, she was liable to hit them for calling her that. Reno was the fastest and the strongest and the most fearless of all the young people in the village, and because of that, in spite of her age, she was often asked by the villagers to perform difficult tasks: namely, those that involved venturing out into the dark wood where they feared to go. For the wood was vast and thick and full of wild beasts.

Little Red Reno wasn't afraid of any beasts. She had a stout staff, and she was willing to use it.

Her bravery came to be of great use to the village, for a time came when it was stricken by a terrible plague, and many of the villagers were laid low. What a pain, thought Reno, who was unaffected by the illness, yet now found herself with many ailing villagers to look after. She may have been brave, but she wasn't big on chores.

Even the president mayor of Shinra was laid low with the illness, and one day, he called Reno into his office. "Little Red, I've heard of your bravery," he said.

"The name's Reno, boss," she replied.

He narrowed his eyes in annoyance, but continued. "There is a rumor that, deep within the woods, there grows a plant that can be used to cure this illness."

"A rumor?" she asked. "Exactly where did this rumor come from, and how reliable's the source?"

"Never mind that!" He frowned. "I need you to go into the woods to get this plant, and that's that. Those are your orders."

"Orders, huh?" Well, she couldn't argue with that. He was the mayor, after all. "Fine, fine. I'm goin."

And so she ventured into the woods, figuring that it was better than changing bedpans and giving sponge baths and all the other things you have to do for sick people. With her, she had only her staff, a basket with which to carry the healing plants she sought, and also a pack full of food, because she had a fast metabolism and was often hungry.

She'd never gone so deep into the forest before, but even though it was dark and deep, she soon found that it was sort of boring. There was nothing happening, not much to take up her attention but some birdsong and a lot of trees. As time passed, eventually she started to wish she would encounter some kind of wild beast, if only to break the tedium. She was sure she could handle it.

not gonna lie - I almsot snorted soda out my nose laughing

[findmyownreason]

SUDDENLY! the scene changed, going swirling and slightly nauseatingly blurry. There was the sudden introduction of awesome fight music! Nah, who are we kidding. When the scene cleared the exciting music was still going and there was a decided huffy looking Nibel Wolf sitting there looking - well, huffy. And very definitely Not Interested.

damned questing adventurers.

Haha, EXCELLENT, mission accomplished!

[tasercopter]

Ugh, first the weird swirling, then this crap music, and adding insult to injury, some pathetic wolf appeared? Reno shook her head, twirling her rod in one hand and waiting the necessary few seconds until her superior boss presence kicked in and the music changed into something better. Of course, her theme song had precedence in this situation.

"Is this some kind of joke?" She sighed. "Okay, wolf, listen up: I don't like you, but I'm lookin for some herbs, so I'll let you live if you tell me where to find 'em."

Little Red was the very soul of tact.

Re: Haha, EXCELLENT, mission accomplished!

[findmyownreason]

It wasn't fair that Turks little Red Reno's got better theme music. It was almost as if the writers enjoyed mocking Cloud or something. Either way, he let out a huff as the new music kicked in and very firmly resisted the urge to get up on his feet and bounce in place. Little Red's threat got a sideways eye roll. And a yawn for good measure.

Not interested.

have a bit of -blue- riding hood, but mostly playing on the trapped forest from her canon :|

[waterfell]

It's not a new dream, hurrying through the trees that seem to snatch at her and the endless forest with no way out. This time, she's dressed with a blue hooded cloak, and even carrying a basket of medicinal herbs for good measure: milkweed, mostly, asclepias. Alright, so normally the dream doesn't seem to be quite this... antiquated.

She has to keep her head or there's no way she'll find the exit. There has to be an exit, though it's hard to keep believing that when this is the third time she's passed that rock formation, and the fourth she's seen that patch of flowers. She knows her sense of direction is better than this. Something is weird about this place.

In her bid for escape, heedless of the tiny scratches and scrapes, Ami stops short the second she thinks she hears something, and the wolf is suddenly in her path. Her eyes widen. The forest she dreams of always suppresses her magic, and she needs some other way to confront the animal, who she doesn't recognize at first.

(ooc: and if he'd like to help her escape, that could be epic; though full out Big Bad is good too since her forest also had youma chasing her. it could also pay her back for the pied kadaj dream XD poor cloud.)

he can help her escape ;) but first a little Big Bad

[findmyownreason]

The woods have a way of watching out for their own - and of knowing when someone in them doesn't belong. Dark and old and hungry, these are The Woods and they move on their own when no one is looking, interconnect on a myriad of levels from the worms that burrow in the soil to the giant trees whose leaves blot out the sun. The air itself it tainted by that connection, motes of sparking green that flare to life and vanish just as quickly in the shadows and hollows. Some great consciousness inhabits everything here, from the insects that crawl on the bark to the very soil itself and it is the mindless conscious of Life. Interested in only the continuation of the Forest and unconcerned with the smaller motions that are necessary to keep that single great collective alive.

And now the Forest has been invaded by something That Doesn't Belong.

The trees don't sleep and they have their own very permanent ways of dealing with intruders. In the end though, it comes down to the Forest's Guardian to deal with the more persistent viruses that would try to sneak in and bring harm with them. It's nothing at all for Cloud to simply appear in her path, larger than any wolf should be, eyes like glowing green witch fire in a feral face coated in sleek fur and hollow shadows. His lips are already drawn back to reveal the bone white of sharp teeth created to snap and break others and on his paws the digits are too long and stretched, ending in wicked claws. She doesn't belong here, the Wood doesn't want her here and what the Wood asks of him, Cloud does. There's no sound at all when he lunges.

excellent >D

[waterfell]

She catches the movement out of the corner of her eye just in time. Another beast?! One after another, they've seemed to come at her, never-ending and each one more menacing than the last. The Wolf is just the pinnacle of that trend, and the girl in the blue cloak all but throws herself to the side of the path out of the way of his lunge.

He's enormous, with the sharp teeth that make her nervous despite herself, and everywhere she turns she can imagine him in front of her.

The basket falls to the ground, and the herbs tumble from it onto the forest floor. She pivots sharply to face the wolf, the cloak falling into place as it follows her motion. She is unarmed; if she's going to keep herself from being hurt, she'll need to use her mind.

[pinnaculum]

[[OOC: based on the legend of Wolf & Boy.]]

All the wolves had been hunted down, because wolves were said to be vicious, dangerous creatures, heartless and cruel. So why shouldn't they be hunted to extinction? As far as anyone knew, there was only one wolf remaining. He made his home in the mountains south of the city of Midgar. They knew he lived still because of the rumor of children and livestock he was said to kill. (Though it could be that those deaths were truly the doing of other beasts or monsters but were blamed on the wolf.) And they knew, too, because of the sound of his howling, a high and piercing sound like no other. It frightened all who heard it, and they imagined the slavering jaws and burning red eyes that the wolf must surely have.

Sephiroth, sitting in his room within Science Research Division at night, listened to that sound. He was a strange child, like no other in Midgar or perhaps anywhere in the world. He had no mother and no father and no friends, and no one could understand his thoughts or even pretended to. He rarely spoke to others except out of courtesy. He kept to himself, and few things impacted him. Because he was so odd, some people were afraid of him, too. Some of the researchers didn't like to be alone with him for too long. They found his eyes eerie and his silence unnerving.

But the cry of the wolf did, so sharp and startling. Sephiroth always paused in whatever he was doing when he heard it, paused and listened until the cries ceased. He was someone who rarely felt emotion, but he felt something in his chest when he heard that voice. He wondered why the wolf was calling out, and who he was calling to.

That was why, one day, after years of being quiet and obedient, Sephiroth decided to leave the lab. He crept outside, then passed quietly through the streets of Midgar, and out into the wasteland surrounding the city. He kept going until the wasteland faded into greenery and the mountains rose before him. He didn't hesitate at all, entering the wilderness without fear, looking for the wolf.

[findmyownreason]

The years had been longer than the wolf that lived in the mountains had kept track of. First he had lost his friends. Then he had lost his family. And, in time, the last of the other wolves had died as well.

He did not keep track of time but he was aware that even the faces of the mountains he hunted on had changed since then. And far below and far away, a city had grown up.

Cloud ignored the city and he ignored the people that came from it. No one was every brave or determined enough to climb into his mountains anyway. Sometimes at night though, driven and unable to fight it anymore, the wolf would climb to the highest peak in his mountains, where a rust old sword no one remembered rested in the rocky ground, and he would howl his eerie howl, his nose never pointed at the moon but always on the lights of that distant and barren city so far below.

[pinnaculum]

The road into the mountains and up toward the highest peaks was long and said to be dangerous, but Sephiroth brought no hat, no coat, nor walking stick with him. He thought little of such things. His only thought was to find the wolf up in the mountain.

No, not his only thought, for he knew that he was not supposed to leave the lab, and so others might come after him, to find him and bring him back. But he was swift and sure, and the further he traveled into the wilds, the more he was sure that he was safe, that they would not find him. Perhaps they had not even thought to look in the wilds, for he had not told anyone where he was going, or of his thoughts about the wolf.

He should be safe, that is, if the wolf was not a danger to him. He was not journeying all the way up into these mountains with the intent of hurting the wolf, but he could not be sure what the wolf's intentions would be toward him.

At night, he slept on the ground, under the stars. He felt the cool wind brush against him. He was resistant to the cold, and he needed little sleep. He had excellent night vision, like a cat (or like a wolf), so he traveled through much of the night, too. He had never been out so far into the world, never by himself, and he had never see nature before: the animals, the plants, the clouds in the sky: all of it was interesting and worth observing. But at last, even Sephiroth began to tire, and he grew hungry and thirsty, for he had traveled very far, with little thought for himself.

[plotdeviceturk]

Tseng hates this just as much as Cloud, really. Mind you, finding a motorcycle in Fairy Tale Land was just as much of a ridiculous thing as inheriting a wolf from some nutter with a mill and more than one mule who thought he was his youngest son.

At least it was better than a cat anyway, and a wolf in boots would have been downright stupid looking.

"Alright. The next step involves you tricking an orgre in to turning in to something for you to eat and then we get a castle." He sighed, "A mouse is suggested, but whatever you want to maim is fine by me."

[OOC: Worst. Puss in Boots. Verson. Ever.]

this. is a thing of beauty. Or horror. Perfect for a fairy tale.

[findmyownreason]

Cloud on Cycle was pretty pleased with the motorcycle actually. Though he was still trying to figure out the details of working it without thumbs or heels. Tseng was right though, a wolf in boots would have looked much stupider than the slightly drunken driving of a wolf on a motorcycle.

Obviously.

At the moment though, Cloud on Cycle was giving it a break and sitting near Tseng's feet with one of those boredly patient looks on his face that said his mind wasn't entirely paying attention. He was paying enough attention however to have his ears flicking backward and his muzzle wrinkling in disgust.

"Mice wiggle on the way down." The power of speech came and went but apparently this particular Story needed him talking. Which indicated they might have to rely on Cloud being a smooth talker. Which meant they were doomed.

"Maybe I can convince him to turn into a pot pie. Then you can help eat him."

Oh, totally.

[plotdeviceturk]

"Or we could just shoot him and put his head on a pike over the door. Nobody'd bother us ever again." Tseng suggested, "I'm not that interested in marrying a princess, to be honest."

They tended to whine a lot and need rescuing on a weekly basis, or came with inconvenient curses. They were also usually pretty useless overall.