Night bloomed around her as Pied, the newest member of Bon Dye, threaded quietly through the forest that would be her new home. Mag drifted overhead, just beyond the darkening treetops, the occasional flap of her wings silent as the grave. Pied peered up at her spectral companion intermittently, though mostly her oddly-colored gaze roved the woods around her. The shadows threw thick, like black, clotting blood, as she presumably moved toward its center, tracking the scent of her fellows.
The trees thinned and she emerged in a clearing. The moonlight penetrated the sparse canopy here, giving the underbrush a faint, silvery glow. Pied shuffled ahead and stopped to pluck out a few brambles that clung to the white fur on her chest. She then studied her surroundings, which included the magpie now perched in a sycamore directly to her left. Pied's head tilted as she wondered whether Mag always glowed like that or if it was just a trick of the moonlight.
An abrupt and unearthly cry made Pied turn her head, though she didn't startle at the noise. During their initial encounter just an hour ago, Jinx had mentioned the foxes that screamed at night. Although she hadn't yet told her new leader about her skill, she had assured Jinx that the sounds wouldn't bother her. Now, as another and more earsplitting shriek followed the first, Pied smiled vaguely and thought, These horny foxes ain't got nothin' on the wails of the dead.
Ignoring the cacophony rising up around her, Pied slipped through the darkness to the roots of the sycamore where Mag sat, beady eyes watching her. "What're you looking at?" Pied teased quietly. Unsurprisingly, the magpie made no answer. Pied sniffed at the tree's trunk, then began to paw at the soil in an effort to dig herself a shallow bed for the night. It was neither long nor hard work and when she finished, the yearling folded her piebald body into the groove in the earth.
She felt too excited to sleep, however. Remaining curled, she kept her head lifted and peered around the dark woodland, ears twisting at the ghastly noises ululating through the trees. Pied exhaled through her nose and pictured in her mind not darting foxes, not even lost spirits traipsing through the forest, but instead imagined animated skeletons darting through Blackfoot Forest, their tinny bones creaking in the damp night air.
He had found his calling, and within the embrace of Jinx's recently claimed packlands, Lecter thrived. The nights belonged to the pale madman; he prowled the ethereal wood alone, or perhaps alongside the glossy form of his harried daughter, or perhaps with Jinx herself. It had taken several days, but the shaman had brought up all that he had gathered from his hut along the creek, and made his home deep within the shadows of the trees.
Thus entombed, in the braw split bole of a forest giant, Lecter carved out his niches, lying to ferment and dry various herbs and countless unidentifiable gris-gris. He lived very much like a hare, albeit a large, bloodstained one, in the recesses of the shattered tree, and the air there was close, and dusty, so that Lecter after a short time came to smell of greenery and dried bone.
But this he did not mind; the madman was content with his lot. On such a night as this, the gathering dark found the spirit-man traipsing through the woodland in search of rotted acorns and owl-pellets, for a spell only half-devised in his mind. The dirge of the foxes he pushed to the back of his mind, though a prickle of superstition haunted him each time they shrieked out from the darkness.
His eyes lit upon a pale shape that swam before his vision; through the gloom, it was not apparent what it was at first. Lifting his muzzle, the shaman, stained with a dripping-fresh coat of deer's-blood, scented the air. It was a wolf, and she was young, yet overlaid lightly yet with the fragrance of Bon Dye. "Why do you lie in the dirt" Lecter demanded of her, drawing close to appraise her situation. "Are you so foolish that you have not found a den yet?"
I'm writing this while watching "Lords of Salem" with the window behind me open to the gloomy, rainy fall weather. It's the perfect vibe for this thread. (I also keep jumping when people walk by on the street.)
After a while, her eyes grew heavy and Pied dozed, her charcoal ears twitching faintly whenever a fox's cry rose into the air. Yet when heavier footfalls sounded nearby, accompanied by the stench of fresh blood, her eyes opened slowly. A white figure materialized from between the dark trees across the clearing, then approached. Even as he appraised her and spoke, Pied rose to her feet, shook some leaves off her piebald coat, then dipped her muzzle to the pale stranger. Overhead, Mag shuffled along the black tree limb and looked on in silence.
"I've only been here a few hours," she said explanatorily, sounding neither offended by his crass words, nor apologetic, just factual. Her eyes flicked upward to look at him briefly—the heterochromia giving the effect of a shadow blighting her otherwise glowing eyes—and then dropped respectfully. Despite his leering, blood-soaked figure, she did not fear him—not much could scare she who saw the dead—but she offered him the instinctual respect demanded by his superior longevity and rank. "I'm the newest Sigma and Agwe'en. My name is—" A fox screeched and she paused. "—Pied."
Mag suddenly took wing, gliding from her perch directly overhead and dropping sharply before banking and coming to rest on a tree stump across the clearing, not far from where the male had emerged moments ago. Pied blinked at the ghostly magpie, a slightly quizzical look on her face, before she controlled her expression and resumed her focus. She hadn't told anyone yet of her gift (or curse, depending on how you looked at it) and had long since learned to behave inconspicuously when observing the dead unseen by others, so as not to arouse curiosity or suspicion.
when you wrote your last post, it was also raining here! rain makes me sleepy, lol
She did not take offense to his biting words, nor to the fact that a wolf whom she did not know sought to bat her around on the sea of his tongue as if she were so much flotsam.
"Pied," he repeated, watching her with a decidedly scrutinizing air.
"And what made you chose your Loa?" the brazen madwolf inquired.
Pied was new to the lands, yet Jinx had already accepted her into their growing little fold. His vaunted Bokor was not one who he assumed would merely take any wolf from out of the shadows, to pad her ranks; no. Jinx had sensed something important about this one, and Lecter would find out what it was, for indeed, his own curiosity was piqued. "Your eyes. As a child, I was taught that two colors in one face also meant that two spirits dwelt within the body." He let his words hang between them, before silence slunk into its space and he waited for the yearling to respond.
Another wolf might have quavered beneath his leering gaze and wilted in response to the questions edged with animosity. He simply did not scare Pied. This was not becase she was some thick-skinned "bad ass" who claimed to fear nothing. Even with his frightening appearance and slightly hostile demeanor, he simply had nothing on some of the paranormal creatures that lurked around Pied, day and night. Many ghosts did not inspire fright—especially now that she was quite used to them—but there were a few that far surpassed this wolf's fearsomely macabre presentation.
"To be honest with you," she replied in an even tone, "I'm not overly familiar with the meanings of the Loa yet. I chose the one that seemed to suit me best, from what I do know about them." Her eyes flicked upward but only for a second or two. "I have a lot to learn," she admitted, sounding modest but not self-deprecating about the matter. As before, she spoke factually.
His comment made her blink. There was the literal explanation for her strange eyes; it was part of the same genetic code that gave Pied her piebald coat. At least, she'd always assumed as much. She found the male's interpretation very intriguing, though. Raised by a family who didn't put much stock into gods, spirits and their ilk, Pied definitely knew better on that front.
"Would I know it if there were two spirits in here?" she wondered aloud. A fox's piercing wail sounded from nearby and she waited for it to ebb away. "I think it's only me... unless I have another personality I'm not aware of," Pied stated in a tone that clearly implied that she was thinking out loud. Again, her heterochromatic gaze flicked to his face, her own expression one of bald, wondering curiosity.
Had Lecter had his way, every wolf who followed him would be Chosen of Sos, given over to black arts, sacrifice, death. He understood Jinx's desire for balance, however, and respected the beliefs with which she sought to imbue Bon Dye. The girl before him did not know enough of the Loa to have chosen already, in his opinion, but Lecter did not comment upon this, giving only a soft, dismissive chuff in response.
His attentions were set upon her bicolored eyes; the wolf with whom he had fought had also been gifted — or cursed — with the same mismatch of hue. "Perhaps," Lecter answered after a span of heartbeats. "Those who walk with two spirits in one body are often said to be vessels for the dead. They are able to cross between the worlds of the living and the deceased easily, and with no ill effects. Even for a shaman who has had long years of practice, this is a difficult feat."He appraised her intently. "And they are young; the older one becomes, the less their abilities develop. Why are you out here alone?" Lecter inquired coldly, for while he did not fear the shrieking of foxes and spirits in the wood, he would not have chosen to be alone where the dead potentially walked.
He took the question seriously, his answer causing Pied to hold her breath without realizing it. She did not think she crossed from one world to the other, yet rather witnessed the ghosts returning to a realm where they no longer belonged. Perhaps she was wrong; maybe her visions involved peering through an invisible curtain, into a dimension most others couldn't see. Whatever the case, Pied knew her gift was something strange and unique. Evidently, it could be something powerful.
He suddenly changed topics, inquiring as to why she was out here alone. His voice had been silky and informative a moment ago and now it was cold again. Pied blinked, then rolled her snowy, dappled shoulders. "I'm not alone," she replied, giving him an indicative look. Of course, there were the foxes and the ghosts—particularly Mag—to keep her company out here too. "You're actually the first person I've met other than Jinx, though I don't think I can count you properly until I get your name."
sorry D;
"Lecter," the madman begrudgingly gave, glacial eyes flickering with the barest hint of suspicion as he spoke. But she did not frighten him, though her oddities drew him like a moth to a proverbial flame. It was not in a carnal sense — Lecter had sights set on another for such things — but a mere inkling of the spiritual, and a mentor's desire for new, fresh pupils whom he could train in honor of the Dark One.
"I am certain Jinx showed you the woodland." An odd statement, made gratingly awkward by the remaining coldness of his pale eyes; even the settling of his hackles during their conversation had not leached away his characteristic attitude. "But I will show you more. Come." It was not a request, and Lecter beheld Pied for a last lingering moment before turning to stalk off into the darkness, fully expecting that she would follow.
Edit on 11/18: I'm going to narrate a conclusion for this. :)
Truthfully, Pied expected him to refuse to give her a name. He begrudgingly obliged her, however. "Nice to meet you, Lecter," Pied said both primly and sincerely. He looked at her now almost suspiciously but, just as she did not frighten him, nor did he frighten her, no matter how dark his expression. She kind of liked him, actually, though she couldn't put her finger on why that was. He wasn't particularly charming, after all.
Actually, Jinx hadn't given Pied a tour. The two had literally met on the borders, exchanged a few important bits of information with one another and then mutually decided that Bon Dye would be Pied's new home. From there, she had ventured into the woods, searching for pack mates, only to wind up here on her own. Then, of course, Lecter had appeared and, well, here they were.
Deciding it wasn't important to mention all of this, Pied simply nodded graciously and replied, "Of course, I'd love to see anything you'd like to show me." This included not only her new home but any other knowledge he might like to impart on her. Pied was certain he understood this; she could tell that he was almost dangerously intelligent.
As she fell into place beside and slightly behind Lecter's spattered form, Pied looked up and smiled, glad to see that Mag had taken wing, evidently prepared to follow and keep her eye on the pair of pale wolves. Pied felt strangely safeguarded by the bird and, though she felt fairly certain the magpie couldn't help her if harm befell her, she nonetheless managed to survive Lecter's tour unscathed. Perhaps Mag was a good luck charm after all.