Felltree Marsh the hanged man

Chanterelle waded into the marsh up to the middle of her legs and then stood, staring around at the expanse of water all around her, breathing deeply, unaffected by the smell of stagnation and muck. Birds chirped and called invisibly; her ears swiveled to catch each sound.

She had left her home months ago, and despite the excitement of this new path her life had taken, sometimes she was still gripped with fear and indecision. Should she go back, tuck her tail between her legs, and return to Murkmire? Her family had been supportive when she had excitedly babbled about going away, bringing to magic of the swamp with her. But now...

She took another deep breath and closed her eyes, picturing herself as a tree, with roots spread far beneath the muddy water, deep into the earth. Of course, the trees here had all fallen down... Perhaps it was a sign?

She worked with @Ancelin whenever he wished, though much of Masque’s time was still spent reclusively creeping around the rise. Today in particular, she stalked @Relic as he marched around the borders. She maintained a rather large distance due to the lack of coverage, monitoring her brother’s every movement as he patrolled.

When he caught her despite her best efforts, Masquerade ducked her head almost sheepishly, tail wagging. Relic must not have been in the mood for games, however, as he quickly put her in her place. She relented immediately, submitting to her litter mate, and stayed on the ground until he left to finish his rounds.

Heeding his warning not to follow him this time, Masque sat up straight and took a moment to assess her surroundings. She was at the far southwestern corner of the rise overlooking the neighboring marsh. She knew better than to venture any further and intended to slink back into the heart of the territory when she caught sight of a pale figure in the distance. Her ochre eyes squinted.

Chanterelle wasn't one to give up hope so easily. After a few calming deep breaths, and grounding herself as a tree in water, she opened her eyes and smiled. There. All better. She was no stranger to these small bouts of sadness and indecision. She had them often, and sometimes it would take days to through them to the other side, but she always did. She just needed to stay confident in herself.

Happily, tail wagging, she began to wade through the marsh, going slowly, feeling the muddy bottom with her paws to be sure she wasn't about to fall into deeper water, or step on anything sharp. Her head was on a constant swivel, looking about for new plants or animals to study. So far, however, the marsh seemed deserted.

And, of course, she had no idea that she was being spied on from very far away.

From this distance, she couldn’t discern much detail about the figure, aside from its color. Masquerade drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, though the wind wasn’t blowing in her favor. All she could smell here was the potent urine markings left by her own comrades and the stale stench of the swamp wafting over this corner of the rise.

The pale shape moved and her body tensed as Masque’s eyes followed it. When the angle changed slightly, she thought she could make out the telltale snout of a fellow wolf, as well as the long bottlebrush of a tail. She sipped in another breath, glancing over her shoulder and wondering if she ought to call Relic back to interrogate this interloper.

But the wolf—if it was a wolf—wasn’t actually intruding, nor anywhere near it. Masque pressed her lips together and found herself picking carefully toward the marsh. The ground quickly changed underfoot, going from firm and rocky to much softer, with a certain give that made her pause and look down wonderingly. She thought of the moose she and Redd had stalked not so long ago, the way the cow’s hooves had sounded softer than her calf’s despite her greater weight.

Intrigued by this medium which lent itself to moving nearly noiselessly, Masque kept inching forward until she was in the marsh proper. Her eyes flicked up to locate the figure again, realizing with a start that they must have been moving toward one another this entire time. Even from all the way back here, she could now see dark eyes set in a dusty, decidedly wolfish face.

Chanterelle continued to wade in the muck with loud whooshing splashing sounds as she dragged her legs through the water and mud. The smell of the marsh filled her nose, and her head continued to swivel about, looking for anything of interest. Her head made another sweep--a flash of red and a set of eyes--and--

She brought her head whipping back to the eyes, and standing there in the distance, but not too distant, was a wolf. A red-masked young wolf with golden-yellow eyes. Chanterelle did not speak or move, frozen in place. Unable to think, she simply stared, her muscles tight, and waited.

Gradually, the sound of the other’s footfalls reached her ears, although “footsteps” did not seem like the right word, Masque noted. She tilted her head, pricking her ears toward the sound of distant suction. It was unlike anything she’d ever heard, though it brought to mind the sound of her siblings slurping at the proverbial dinner table. She kept listening, eventually coming up with a slightly more astute comaprison: it made her think of the squelching her feet made in mud after a rainstorm.

The stranger took notice of her and Masquerade sat up a little straighter, albeit with her head ducked a bit below her shoulder blades, which drew back. Her head weaved a little bit as they locked eyes across the distance, each trying to get a read on the other. Despite her solitary tendencies, Masque found she was quite curious about this wolf from beyond the borders. Not counting Requiem, she had never met anyone outside of Redtail Rise.

Glancing over her shoulder, Masquerade bit at the inside of her cheek. She then faced forward again and moved cautiously toward the other wolf, near enough now to catch a whiff of her scent. It told the Bearn a few things, though not enough to satisfy her curiosity completely. Her gilded eyes cast behind the unfamiliar woman, wondering if she was alone, like Masquerade herself.

She had recently come to terms with the merits of speech, especially in situations with lots of complex social nuances, such as this one. But Masque was still a young woman of few words, so rather than vocalize a greeting, she dipped her ruddy head, waved her tail and mouthed a silent “hello.”

The young girl seemed just as nervous about this meeting as Chanterelle was, which put her at ease. She relaxed her body, loosening her muscles, and tried for a smile. When the girl mouthed her silent hello, she briefly wondered if there was something wrong with her hearing--mud in her ears? it had happened before--and cocked her ears forward. "Hello there," she said, her voice lightly accented with something lilting. Murkmire had been home to a host of canids, all who had their own accents from their own homelands, so Chanterelle's own accent was a strange hodgepodge of things. "Come to explore the marsh? Don't let me stop you."

Her ears drew backward when the woman broke the silence, her accent immediately bringing to mind the girl’s own mother. Avicus spoke the way she did due to an impediment, Masque had only recently learned. She wondered if there was something wrong with this stranger’s tongue, though from the glimpses into her mouth when it moved, nothing appeared amiss.

Masquerade took a moment to process the words spoken before shaking her head and replying, No. She paused before elaborating, I came over here to see you.

Careful not to gaze too directly into the woman’s face, Masque raised her eyes. They skirted over features that might have been white, had they not been streaked with filth. She was slight in build, with a sharp face. Her fur wasn’t just dingy, it was disheveled too, sticking up in little tufts here and there. Something about the way she held herself brought a small smile to the child’s lips.

Redirecting her gaze back to her own forepaws, Masque wondered, Do you live here? She held out her right foreleg, gesturing at the swampy backdrop.

"You came here to see me?" Chanterelle asked. "Why, I'm flattered!" She ducked her head, looking away and down, a smile on her face. When she glanced back up at the young girl, she saw that the girl was studying her. Now that she considered the two of them friends--she was quick to make friends once she knew a person was no harm--she puffed out her chest. "Well? How do I look, then? Not very pretty, I expect, all covered in mud. Ah well." And she laughed, a high, tinkling sound, as of bells.

'Do you live here?' the girl asked, gesturing at the marsh around them.

"I wish," Chanterelle said, wistfully, gazing around at the beautiful space. "I love wet, muddy places, don't you? They're just... perfect." She turned her gaze back to the girl. "Where do you live?"

The inflection in the woman’s face made Masquerade swallow, though before she could fret that she’d offended her the way she’d evidently pestered her brother, the woman dropped the word “flattered.” That, paired with her perfectly amiable tone, quickly eased the tension in the youth’s neck and shoulders.

She asked a question, though before Masque could think of how to answer, she answered it herself. That was a rhetorical question, she mused, having recently learned the concept from one of the rise’s Heafod. By the time the Bearn drew this conclusion, her new acquaintance had already moved on again. She seemed to have quite a lot to say.

Masquerade didn’t mind. She managed to get in a shrug to answer the second to last question, then tipped her head toward the hillock behind her. She glanced that way, curious if Relic or perhaps another of the guardians might have spotted her. Was there a word for what she was doing: the opposite of trespassing?

Facing the grimy she-wolf again, she said quietly, I live there, and gestured with a foreleg. It’s called Redtail Rise. My mother is the leader. I’m Masque. She paused. If you don’t live here, where do you live?

Chanterelle looked above the girl's head to see the place she was gesturing to. "It looks grand," she said, her voice gone soft in something like awe. She'd never lived anywhere that overlooked anything. "How far can you see up there? The whole world?" She blinked and seemed to hear the rest of the girl's words. "Your mother is the leader? Weeellll..." She smiled and winked and left it at that, as if she and Masque were sharing a secret.

'If you don’t live here, where do you live?'

"I come from a swamp far, far away," she said, dropping her voice low, "a dark and spooky places full of witches and ghosts and fairies and all sorts of things. My name is Chanterelle--like the mushroom!"

She wasn’t quite sure how to answer about the views. Masquerade had never actually been to the top of the rise, though she had climbed far enough to appreciate some rather lovely vistas. How could she know if she was seeing the whole world or only just a small sliver of it?

The woman swept the thought clear out of her head with her next remarks. She hadn’t a clue what to make of the wink, though Masque forgot all about that, too, when Chanterelle formally introduced herself and painted quite the picture about her distant homeland.

She didn’t believe in such things, though Masquerade thought it might be rude to say that, so instead she said, Oh. What are you doing here?

Sorry for the wait!

The girl wanted to know what she was doing here.

Chanterelle gave a sigh, thinking of home. "Well... I had never been away from home before, you see. And... the world is just... so exciting, isn't it? I had to see what was out there. And... I had to bring my family's magic out into the world, help people if I could." She leaned forward, as if sharing a secret with Masque. "Living in a swamp isn't easy, so our pack has excellent healers who know all about interesting and deadly diseases. Why not share knowledge?"

No worries!

Was the world exciting? Masquerade swayed slightly to her left to look at what she could see beyond Chanterelle. She supposed it looked a bit intriguing, though she had never given it much thought. She felt no desire to leave the rise or the wolves living there, at least not for more than a short while at a time to follow other pursuits (like tracking).

That thought made her want to return into the fold, though she didn’t want to disrespect Chanterelle. She might not be part of Masque’s pack, yet she was a grownup, which made her the pup’s superior. At least, that’s what the youth supposed and she didn’t question it further.

There might be some wolves here that would like to learn about that, she murmured after taking a moment to ponder what the woman had said about healing. Would you like me to go get them?

She knew she could call, though Masquerade would rather fetch them in person, sending them in her stead. The moment Chanterelle agreed, she dipped her red snout and hastened to find someone better suited to this conversation.