.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.

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[findmyownreason]

She's come this way before several times but she hasn't come this way with Cloud. The magic loop of the Forest doesn't hold him because he knows what the real Forest feels like deep in his bones thanks to the way it's used him for so long and so he doesn't rely on sight or feeling, on outward appearances to know his way to its edge. The landscape around them jumbles, stretches and seems to tear, like ghosts caught in sharp wind, smearing and remaking itself with a sudden snap as they're past. Eyes that glow blue don't even seem to notice it, bent on the border of his worlds influence.

It comes up faster than would seem natural. One moment there's the thickest of trees and no end in sight and the next there's a sudden nothing. Nothing but grass and a small dirt path leading up and over star painted hills and, perhaps, something that glows in the distance at the end of that path like a welcome light home. Cloud's paws hit that invisible border and it snaps him to a stop as hard as if it had been a brick wall. He's lived too long in the Woods. It own his body now. But it has no such hold over the girl on his back and even as he crashes to an ungainly stop, he twists his body so that the force of it will throw her clear of the tree line and out into the safety of the meadow beyond.

[waterfell]

It happens too quickly for her to hold on, and just as the wolf had planned, the girl falls away. She scrambles to her feet before she realizes exactly what he'd done, and as the realization hits, she turns sharply back towards the forest.

There's no way to enter. He may have saved her, but he stayed there himself. She draws her cloak closer around her The forest stretches behind her, and the meadow lies ahead.

A few years ago, she might have run up to the treeline and tried to get back in to bring him out. She doesn't respect his gesture any less, but this time she honors it by not throwing it away. After a quiet moment, she turns to go.

good place to end?

[findmyownreason]

He picks himself up from the forest floor, body aching but already healing from the impact. He's a creature of the Wood and as long as he remains in it, he will never die, never not heal. But he will never leave or see beyond its dark border either. It's a price he considers worth it and, watching the girl, the one he knew he had to protect, had to keep safe, he doesn't regret it now either.

Come no more to the Wild Woods, Blue Cloak. Find your healing elsewhere. He sits, tucking his tail around his paws neatly, glowing eyes unblinking as they follow her. But know that the Wolf will be watching in case you do. He's a part of the Wood and he can wait forever.