.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

[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.

[findmyownreason]

It took time but soon whispers of an invasion into his mountains began to reach the wolf. It was a new scent in the wind. The sudden flight of birds. The movement of deer who had learned the dangers of humans. The wolf knew the dangers of humans too but it had been long and long again since they had been able to threaten him. So at first he ignored the things he saw, not interested in why or who. In time though the intrusion became persistent, growing closer and closer to the lands he called his own. No one had come this far up the mountains for many generations and Cloud was finally forced to notice and pay attention.

With wolf stealth and long practice, Cloud slipped down through the gray rocks and the green wood. Off to find who had come all this way and seemed intent on coming even further if it was not stopped.