Blackfeather Woods don't trust people you meet

AW

the toad astara had beleaguered for near two weeks had finally croaked -- pun intended. astara had fallen asleep with its form trapped in her salivating mouth, and awoken with its soft hide stiff as oaken bough.

she prodded the contorted form dubiously, her little claws poking at the white, round underside. when she flipped its stretching form over its eyes stared back up at her, sightless and unblinking.

she was not used to catching the gaze of the dead, and for a moment quailed under its wide stare. then, remembering it was her toy and not some spectral horror come to visit her, started batting its tormented body around not unlike a cat.

at first i thought you meant astara was a toad

Mou had been brought to a place within the forest and tended to by Relmyna, who at this point remained fixed in the boy's mind as Almost Maegi, and aside from that he had no idea what to do with himself. He was still too weak to do much. It was like being back upon the island of Undersea; Mou was placed with others in need of care and was checked on infrequently, and so he rested for long periods.

He woke from a deep slumber — the sleep of the nearly dead — and as the strange dream in his mind fragmented and was forgotten, he fixed his singular eye on a distant object moving in the dark of the wood. It wasn't too far from him, but without the ability to discern depth of field, it seemed like the figure was much further away from him. He watched as the child played their game, but did little else.

WE THOT U WOS A TOAD

for a while the morbid game amused the girl, who batted the rigid corpse hither without much respect for the dead's invulnerability. the toad, battered by paw and grime alike, bounced grimly along the dirt in enduring silence.

it was not much of a game when she was the only puppeteer - at length she grew bored of such pursuits, and yanked the toad up by its stiff hind limbs. as she plucked the creature from the ground she caught sight of a waif languishing in the shade -- his attention appeared upon her.

unabashed to be openly watched, the girl strode towards him with confidence that slowly eeked from each purposeful step as she caught sight of one hollowed, disfigured eye. her ears fell flat and the toad fell from her mouth, for she was reminded of the otherworldly, uncomfortable sight of ocracoke.

a growl sounded from her tiny throat, quiet and unthreatening -- yet a sound that expressed her discomfort nonetheless.

The child was not afraid of him, not at first. It was surprising when they came striding over with their toy in tow, and while Mou was curious about the object he could not turn his attention away from the girl. Her reaction upon drawing near was not missed, and he felt his ugliness keenly; it was no doubt exacerbated by the sunken cheeks and sharp contours of his bony face at this point. To ease her worries he tilted his head so that the black pit of a socket was hidden in the deep shadow.

She, of course, reminded him of Coelacanthe's children. They had been too small to be this inquisitive or active, but he still thought of them fondly. He saw a measure of gracelessness in this youth that would soon be shed. His attention traced to the bloated frog, and his brow furrowed slightly with concern upon realizing it was dead.

that fathomless hole where an eye ought to be gave astara keen dread. she stared at it fearfully, her little lips lifted and sharp milk-white teeth tensely revealed.

a measure of self-defense more than outright aggression, for the girl knew not the nature behind missing such an object of import; to her, it suggested something malign and defunct -- she lacked the life experience to know that these things were often inflicted by malign and defunct creatures, and not a mark-in-of-itself of the victim's demeanor.

gracefully, as if understanding her trepidation, the man canted his disfigured muzzle away. it was enough of a gesture that astara's rumblings were silenced, and she looked upon him warily as if cornered.

after a few seconds of internal battle the girl took a step forward, the toy forgotten. she extended her muzzle towards him, hair on end as she sampled the wild scents that still clung tight to his body.

He wasn't afraid of a child, but he wasn't sure how to proceed when she began to advanced towards him. The frog was tossed aside, and it rolled to a halt and settled against the soil like some kind of bloated seed.

As she took to investigating him, Mou didn't move. He watched the frog's shape in his periphery though, seeing the shine of one dead eye and feeling a strange sensation creeping down his spine. He wanted to investigate the girl in return but he waited until she was satisfied, not wanting to scare her with his ruined face.

His ears fell back though, and his tail wiggled awkwardly a few times before he was too tired to really do anything. Then, unable to contain himself, Mou's mouth slid open to reveal his teeth and lolling tongue, dry and cracked though it was, as he yawned widely — right in her face.

it was unlike astara to forget her prized toad, but her attention was affixed elsewhere. she studied mou wide-eyed, her little nose rapidly flaring in and out as she exhaled, inhaled, and exhaled again; the glistening edge of her nostrils fluttering and her cheeks puffing.

eventually she made up her mind, and her posture relented. she was about to scoop up the toad again when mou's great head shifted, and a yawn split his features. she could not help but spring back like a startled cat, her fur on edge and pinecone tail straight up in suspicion. he had too many teeth, too close to her -- with a growl she lowered down, expecting some sort of hit from him.

His mouth spread wide open and his teeth flashed in the light, but then his jaws snapped closed. He was surprised when he noticed she had drawn back from him. Where once her face had been so near, now she was cowering and absent, and as Mou studied her he realized he'd scared her. His chest was aflutter with guilt over this, and he called to her with an inviting little tone—I'm sorry, come back, please. As Mou did this with his pathetic wheeze of a voice, the boy lowered his head and tried to look as diminutive as possible, spreading out on his chest like a puddle.

astara opened one eye carefully, squinting under what she expected would be mou's shadow. instead, she saw him lean away, folding his posture in such a way that he was ultimately unalarming.

astara's ears flipped back in confusion, but she did not waste time deciphering the ghost's motives - with a lunge she scooped the toad up and frolicked several feet away, well out of the range of teeth or claws. paddling in a circle she turned about to face the male, sitting primly on on her thin haunches with the toad held stiffly in her jaws.

Plastered to the ground as he was, Mou's face logically became somewhat dusty from the soil. His belly had already taken on a clay-shade. He looked worse because of his gaunt face and long limbs, and the missing eye of course wouldn't help matters. The boy was like a risen husk — a zombie, or a humunculus, without purpose.

The fact she avoided him made his chest hurt. That or, his position was straining his chest muscles; it wasn't exactly comfortable. He shuffled to sit up, and disturbed the dirt in the process. A cloud rose up and caught in his nose, and before he knew it a violent sneeze erupted from his long face.

astara's suspicions were already roused, even as the male kept his posture low and disarming. when he shifted up, she stiffened -- and then jolted in a spook as he sneezed. the noise was loud and unexpected and the report of it shot through the woods loud as the crack of a tree; astara's fur was on end and she was already running.

after a few strides she put together what the noise had been, and steeled her hammering heart. she turned around to see the distance she had put between them; mou was but a distant ghost in the murkwood.

she would get over it, eventually -- but for now she shouldered the toad high in her jaws and slipped into the undergrowth.