One overnight at the plateau and she had come to some sort of resolution. A tempting idea that had baited her unspoken for a length about her subconscious. What if, it enticed. What if, what if, what if—and to what end she had not considered until sunrise had greeted her. When daylight had splattered itself across her face beneath the canopy of thin trees, she awoke considering it again.
What if she simply went and wandered, what if she simply just went to see where the path went and see if anyone particularly noticed she was astray. If any had picked up so keenly and swiftly on her unhappiness to question where she had gone. Phoebe was not the sort to stray but when things seemed particularly overwhelming in one locale, avoiding it altogether seemed a reasonable course to plot.
And so she had departed the plateau, wordlessly trekking off in some random direction.
By the time midday had crossed, the slough had revealed itself to her.
Revealing, however, was not the word that she would associate with such a place. Suffocating and dense, she was unaware of her predicament until the place had literally swallowed her whole. Dark, dank, almost decrepit by the way it overwhelmed her; the place had a stink to it and nary a good thing to it. She regretted this in a slow display, muddied and frustrated as she pressed ahead. It was not so unmanageable yet that she had lost her sense of direction, and she had managed this much without so much of a peep to trail her.
How far would get before anyone particularly cared? And that was presuming anyone noticed.
She pulled her foot free of mud with a distinctive squelch, and then again and again, ever onward.
Perhaps next time, when Wraen decided to adventure in unknown lands, she would pay more attention to her surroundings and less on her very unhappy state of mind. The swampy area right next to the Grouse Thicket had seemed innocent enough in the beginning and she had wandered in it without having any second thoughts about the place. Until the mud had become deeper and stickier and the trees had closed around her, making progress forwards more difficult by a minute.
And finally it happened so that she slipped, fell and, when she tried to raise to her feet, she realized that it was impossible to pull her fore-paw out. It had got lodged between mud, rocks, fallen tree debris and what-not. "Well, this sucks," she told herself, half-sitting/half-lying down in the mud. It took a while, until she heard that someone was approaching and with hope in her voice she called out to, whoever it was: "Hey! Can you help me, please!"
Careful steps help to manage her through, though the mud was truly a hindrance to all it could grasp. It was an exhausting affair, rife with bits just as dismaying as they were aggravating. She wavered between wishing she had never set foot in the place to thinking she was beginning to gain a mastery towards wandering its expanse, only to go back to the former when the latter seemed to spite her.
It was a slow, gradual thing, but Phoebe began to find more solid terrain by trial and error. The plant matter helped in this regard but only so much; she still sank, but perhaps not to quite the ordeal as her original attempts. Better to end up just above an ankle than to the knee and the like and her steps became more sure-footed as she learned.
Yet it would seem that she was not the only one to fall prey to the not so alluring pull of the territory—a voice called out to her, a figure unseen. It lent her pause and she listened, near startled by the fact that someone was in fact out there when she had gone things alone for a while. She had been about to open her mouth and call back to them when she thought she had found the she-wolf.
"Oh no," she said to herself in a whisper.
There was no hesitation in the steps that would begin to carry her over though her struggle came reborn. She sank in the mud only to pull herself free and sink another half and it was there that she felt aggravation bud and aim directionless. It flashed across her muddied features in a blink, aimed right for the stranger and her foolish predicament, not once minding at the fact that Phoebe herself had been stuck in similiar not more than twenty minutes prior. This thought alone was enough to temper her resolve; she had no right to be angry.
"Can't you free yourself?" she said in her struggle, only then finding some solid purchase between them to hoist herself to. "This place is a nightmare." Once again, she wished she had never come, but there was little time for that and she shook her head to dismiss the prior question, mud flicking off her muzzle.
"Are you hurt?" Perhaps an even more pointless question, yet the situation required her to ask. She couldn't see how the she-wolf was ensnared there beyond limbs deep in muck, and thought there another reason altogether. Not that she readily saw anything that could have aided her here, but it didn't mean the swamp was void of herbs and other manner of cures.
The stranger - a stunning and beautiful young she-wolf - had heard her and did not walk away. Wraen smiled at her and shuffled some mud back and forth with her tail (meant to be the happy and polite gesture of wagging, but with the conditions being, what they were...). Only then did she realize two things: First, the other wolf experienced the same difficulties "staying afloat" here. Second - she did not have the slightest idea in what way the other could help her.
But it was comforting to know that she was not alone at least. "Well, I think I will have to try. It would be nice if you stayed here, while I do that. I would feel much better dying - that is, if I do drown in this muddy mess - knowing that someone can take the message back to my pack," she explained her. "Firebirds - if you have heard about them."
The wolf did not directly answer if she were injured, but at least she seemed to still have her strength. Phoebe held onto this promising thread only to let it go when Firebirds dropped out of her mouth. She had heard of them, of course, how could she not? The pack that had split away from the plateau. The first of several unhappy kin, she had surmised not entirely on her own, and certainly not the last.
Her features fell for a moment before she remembered the company she was in, and the distance in her gaze was abandoned with a sure nod. "I think I know where that is. It sounds familiar," and it was only half a lie. She knew where they were, but getting there from here was not entirely on her agenda. Not when she yearned to fly away herself, if only to see what would come of it.
It was a selfish act and she knew this—but she ignored it.
"I don't think you'll die here, though," she picked up again, "I mean I got stuck like that a ways back and I got out. You just have to... work your feet slowly. Try to make some purchase to pull yourself out with. Look for, um—"and here her gaze darted about for ground similiar to what she stood on"—where there's a lot of plants. Grasses, herbs, whichever. If you can get to those, you should be able to keep yourself out of the worst of the muck. Mostly."
Suddenly aware of how verbose she was, she offered: "But how can I help you? Can I pull?"
Wraen was not facing the girl at an angle to read all the emotions that the mention of "Firebirds" conjured up and if there were any give-aways in the girl's tone on, how she felt about the sister pack, it was entirely lost to her.
Hear ears were tuned in for the practical information such as "working your feet slowly" and "try to grab something and pull yourself out". She even considered the girl's helping jaws in puling her out, but this idea was dismissed. It would be painful and there was a real risk of losing a limb.
The second idea was a waste-paper basket material as well - there was nothing really she could get a hold on. Which left perpetuum mobile as the only option. "Alright. Just remember that I would like to have only happy songs at my funeral," she told the girl over her shoulder in a somewhat cheerful manner.
The knowledge that someone was around gave her a chance to look at the situation from a funny side. This was silly, wasn't it? After some shuffling and shifting and an array of motions that did not have definitions in the synonyms thesaurus, Wraen managed to free her paw from the figurative bear-trap. *plop* She pulled it out of the mud and wiggled her toes.
"I did it! One out, three more to go," she announced to her audience. Encouraged by her success, she proceeded. Let's not get in too many details, but it is safe to say that within another 10 - 15 minutes, Wraen wholly caked in mud, save for the eyes, was perching on a lonely island of solidness in the ocean of the mud. Incidentally not too far from her companion.
"So, do you know, how to get out of here? 'cause I - sure as hell - have lost track," she asked.
Right, only happy songs at her funeral.
The morbid humor was not entirely lost on her, but the grim reality of what was going on did settle in her briefly. It was a flickering thought, the consideration and questioning internal of what exactly she was doing herself. What if this had been her, unable to get out? Would the swamp have eventually sucked her in and suffocated her? It sent an icy chill along her damp, muddied spine to think of such a thing.
But Phoebe dismissed the idea—she was far smarter than that. The swamp may have been nothing more than a decaying bog but she had her experience with mudholes before. The plateau had been littered with them along the lake after all. As her companion began to slowly free herself, she focused on that instead, her tail beginning to wave encouragingly from where she lingered on the sidelines.
And naturally, Phoebe thought even she sounded winded from the ordeal. Not surprising, she'd been buried quite well. But now the yearling hoped that she was able to manage on her own and found that she was hoping their conversation would end soon. There was much to do and see, and being in the company of someone from her relative's pack did not settle well with her still.
"I suppose if you head... that way," she suggested in the way she came, "you should be able to get out in time. Stick close to the trees if you can, they should help I'd think."
Wraen was not that perceptive and did not catch the "I want to get away from here" vibe from the girl. She was still glad about having escaped the muddy coffin of doom and was not that eager yet to remain on her own again. She, of course, listened to, what she was told, craned her neck to see, what path was meant and was not impressed, because it looked just as tricky as the one that had led Wraen here in the first place.
"You are probably in hurry and have better businesses to do than to rescue vagabonds from near-drowning experience, but - perhaps - I could accompany you - until we reach solid ground?" she asked hopefully.
"You could," she said, only to follow up, "but I'm not headed that way. I was only passing through here." To get away, to steal away, whatever felt appropriate. The freedom, however temporarily it may end, had emboldened her in the swamp. Perhaps it was the misfortune that had befallen the company she presently kept that had aided it as well, though she didn't know.
Of course, she only thought this would serve its purpose. The lingering chance that the she-wolf would insist to come along was there, or that she would pry. Aware of this and in spite of the forwardness she had found on her patch of solid ground threatened to liquefy beneath her. "I don't think you'd want to cross this place twice," she added on, wondering if that would stay the hand of the other.
"Aha," now that the hint was more obvious, Wraen picked it up. The girl was heading elsewhere and did not wish company. Fair enough. Though the prospects did not seem very great, she would find her way out of here on her own. She just had to keep herself along the tree roots. That was all.
"Before you leave - may I know your name at least?" she asked.
"The clumsy mud zombie - aka me - is known as Wraen."
You can fade out in your next post, if you wish.
Wraen—what an interesting name. Perhaps if she had been in a better headspace, she may have said so. But Phoebe was far from any sort of even keel, no matter how well she stifled her own consideration of such. If she had been all right in any sense, she wouldn't have found herself miles and miles from home, gone without so much as a notice, and only assuming she would eventually give up the notion and return.
"It's Phoebe," she offered with a thin, kind smile. "Safe travels, Wraen."
On the off chance that the other knew her in some way, be it by word of mouth or some familial connection, Phoebe was not about to stay. With a dip of her head as a gesture of farewell, she set off swiftly on the path she had chosen. It was a careful about of walking, but she felt a certain confidence that she could master the bog so long as she paid attention.