Haunted Wood see no [more] evil

Open to anyone! Forward dated a few days after Swift, Bazi and Allure arrived in the Haunted Wood.

Mature Content Warning

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: Bit of graphic detail!

He knew what had to be done, and he could not, would not ask his mother to do it. It was enough that she had to tend to the first; this one was to be his burden. The eye festered; it rotted in its socket, wreathed in crusted blood and infectious pus. The foul odor of decay was starting to shroud his head. It would poison his blood if left alone any longer. With his paranormal knowledge, he had known shortly after he had received the wound that this day would come.

His family still slept as he stole away, far enough that their ears would not hear him in his most terrible moment, that his cries may not draw the bears to them. If they came to him — so be it. When he was as far as he deemed necessary, he found some brush, and one tentative step after another he nosed his way into it, until his muzzle brushed across an appropriate branch. With his teeth he clipped it free of leaves and off shoots, until not but a hard point pressed against his cheek.

He steeled himself, and with a deep breath, thrust his head forward, driving the branch through his eye as he gritted his teeth. In the next instant, he jerked his head sideways, hooking the eye out of its socket. But his work was not done. Like his other eye, it hung against his cheek. He trembled as pain and nausea from his task started to seep in. With the last of his hardened nerve, he dropped his head down and pinned the eye beneath a paw, and then quickly threw back his head, severing the cord that tied the eye to him.

He screamed then, and staggered as the same flashes and piercing pain that accompanied the loss of his first eye accosted him again. Dizzied and disoriented, he laid down, grinding his teeth as he tried to keep quiet. He had no nerve left; fear readily took over him, and he lay shaking and sobbing, though he tried to muffle himself with his paws over his face and the grisly wounds that were dug across it.

Swift, who had his father's eyes, now had none. The last clear thing he had ever seen were the evil claws and teeth of the bear who had done this to him.

Hope you don't mind a fox joining

As a scream pierced the night, Hiraku woke in fear. He jumped as he panicked, running around to safe his dying brother. "Scratch!" he shouted before coming to his senses. With a bitter growl, he felt stupid and smacked his head against a tree. If only he was, he didn't know, a day faster, he still may be alive.

But the scream attracted his attention, and he started to wander towards it. As he got closer, he heard the muffled sobbing of someone. As he walked around a tree, he immediately recoiled. There was a white wolf, one that he believed plagued him for so long. However, reality settled in as he could smell this wolf. A bit relieved started around the prone figure, scared he may attack, until he noticed a severed eye. It was festering, and oddly reminded him of discovering his brother. With it's condition, it was likely in his head for weeks before he pulled it out. He felt a bit weak at the legs before turning towards the wolf.

Whether or not the wolf noticed, he could barely make out several slash marks across the face. The wolf was blind as far as he could guess, and he had just finished the job. He turned down, as he didn't want to see the empty socket(s) that may present to him. Still, he had to say something. "Um...hi?" He quickly readied himself to jump away. Blind or not, a wolf still had the instinct to turn him into mincemeat.

The last thing Peregrine expected to hear on this dark patrol was the scream of a child piercing the night. Immediately, the Alpha male stiffened and stared off in the direction of Haunted Wood. Perhaps it was just a fox; their cries were often unearthly. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd just heard the cry of a helpless wolf cub. He slowly began to pad in that direction, crossing over the caldera's borders for the first time since losing half his eyesight.

It was tough to navigate this not-so-familiar ground in the dark, yet he moved slowly enough that he didn't stumble. Eventually, he came across the unmistakable scent of a fox. Relieved, Peregrine stopped and turned, ready to head home. But then he caught a whiff of blood, complete with a sickly note. He grimaced. Was the fox diseased?

Then he heard a voice. "Uh... hi?" Whoever it was, he was speaking to someone else, by the sound of it. Peregrine tilted his head, motionless where he stood, listening for an answer.

not at all! thanks for joining you two!

He had known no terror like the all-consuming fear that struck him when that bear stood up before him, but that could not compare to the horror that gripped him now. He was completely, irrevocably deprived of one of his major senses, and it would take him a great deal of time to learn to navigate his world without it. His heart thumped wildly in his chest as his anxious mind raced, all at once scared for now and scared for the future. He had been guided on what had to be done with the eye, but now the voice in his head was silent, and he did not know what to do. He wanted his mother.

He found his tongue could not call to her; but it sprang to life when he heard a voice. "Mom?" he barked, hopeful, but then... a familiar scent swept past his nose. "LEAVE ME ALONE!" he screeched as he frantically shoved himself to his feet and stumbled backwards until he brought up against a tree trunk. His last encounter with a fox had been with his head stuck down its burrow. He hollered again, his voice quavering with emotion as he pleaded for his life. "I don't want to be ea... ea... I don't want... Mom, HELP! Please! Please, Mom!"

To see the wolf break down like that tugged at Hiraku's heart. He wasn't used to one being this vulnerable, either friendly or manipulative. Keeping his distance, the fox tried to think up something to say. "Calm down!" he half-shouted, his exhaustion making him a bit crabby. He bit his lip, wishing it came out a bit nicer. "Listen, stay calm. I'm not here to kill you...or hurt you...but your shouting will." he sighed, wondering why he was being so generous. After all, his brother was ripped apart by one not too long ago. Maybe it was the others he met down here, and that this one was younger.

His thoughts were shortly interrupted with a scent of a new character. He twitched, smelling wolf. He felt a chill, wondering what he should do. Maybe it was the wolf's mother...no, it didn't smell right to be that. He slowly moved, making sure if this wolf attacked, he'll be able to leap away. If it wanted to kill the other wolf, so be it; foxes like him couldn't defend for themselves if they needed to. After all, he was vermin, and things like honor or pity never went above self-preservation.

A childish voice replied with an uncertain, "Mom?" Then the shrieking and cries for help came. Peregrine recognized the voice from the earlier screams. As a father, her couldn't help but move suddenly forward, exploding onto the scene to find a fox facing a young wolf... whose eyes had been torn clean out of their sockets. The swarthy wolf felt his stomach plummet.

His head whipped toward the fox. "Get away!" he snapped, lunging toward it with a snarl. He didn't think it had done this to the boy, though all the same, the lesser creature had no business here. He was scaring the child. His bite missed but, then, it hadn't been intended as a hit so much as a warning. "Get the fuck out of here," he said ominously. He wouldn't ask again.

Moving to block the youngster's view of the fox—and realizing with a sick twist in his gut that the little wolf couldn't see shit—Peregrine said, "I'm not going to hurt you and I won't let the fox hurt you either. I'm Peregrine. What happened? What's your name? What's your mom's name?" he asked in a calm voice. He might not have reacted too well to a wolf, even a young one, traipsing around a territory so close to home... but all he felt was sympathy—no, empathy—for the blind boy.

His mother could not hear him; he had made sure she could not when he had left her side to sever his infected eye, but there was no place for that logic in his frantic state. He pressed himself tight to the tree, as if he could merge into its trunk and be sheltered by it. The fox shouted at him, and with another incoherent scream he threw his head forward, snapping his teeth in a futile attempt to defend himself. The rest of the fox's words fell on unlistening ears, as he was convinced that he was going to die. Truly, since the bear attack, there seldom had been a moment that he did not believe death was imminent.

His mother could not hear him; but someone else had. He heard the crash of the brush around him as another wolf (he registered this much) charged in, snarling at the fox to leave him. He turned his eyeless, torn face into the tree trunk, flattening his ears and willing it all to be over, for him to be back at his mother's side, to be safe.

The wolf spoke to him, and at first he did not respond. He could not even tell if the fox had gone as he turned his face toward his guardian. He was still gripped with fear, and his muzzle crinkled in distrust at the wolf. But something urged him to trust, and, stuttering as he trembled, he replied first with his name, "S-s-s-swift." He lapsed into silence for another moment as his ears twisted erratically, trying desperately to hear everything at once, and he breathed noisily through his nose as he attempted to do the same with scent. "There's bears!" He bark-squeaked, remembering they were out there somewhere. "I need Mom! Bazi!"

This'll be the last for me

The fox stumbled away, a bit shaken up. He was lucky that the second wolf only gave him a warning, and decided to take his advice. He turned away and sprinted into the woods, feeling a bit better that a second (friendly?) wolf came to help the blind one. What an idiot he was, to think he could help a wolf. He shook away the thought, and continued away.

Thanks for playing! *waves* :D

Bears. Swift. Bazi. He registered each bit of information like bullet points. Wait a sec—Bazi? Why did he know that name? It took Peregrine a moment but suddenly he was flashing back to Fox's spar with the white she-wolf. Probably a lot of things had happened to Bazi since conquering Silver Creek's Alpha. Apparently, a litter of pups was one of them.

"Bears did that to you? When?" he queried, ears folding backward. He looked around, as if wary of a grizzly popping out of the surrounding darkness. But he did not see, hear or smell any sign of bears. "There are no bears here right now," he went on to assure the terrified youngster. He thought he'd had it bad with his dead eye but he'd just swallowed a healthy dose of perspective.

"How far away is your mom, do you know?" he wanted to know next. He had heard the child's cries all the way from the caldera, so what did that mean for Bazi's whereabouts? "I can take you to her... or call her. One way or another, we'll get you back to her."

Thanks for participating and scaring Swift some more, Hiraku! haha

He continued to pivot his ears around quickly, and he drew his breaths through his nose so rapidly that he started to feel faint. Despite their intention, none of these behaviors did anything to help him perceive his new world, and were it not for the wolf there with him, he likely would have thrown himself into a headlong flee, until he tripped or ran into something. But the wolf's voice gave him something else to think about, and his offer to take him to his mother or call for her relaxed him, some.

He took a deep breath, his twisting ears and fast inhales calming. He was not certain about trusting this wolf, but he was compelled to, perhaps out of desperation, out of sheer fear of being alone in this vulnerable state. "I don't know," he sobbed. How long had it been since that bear's claws tore through his face? "A few days..." It was a guess. He was not sure. "I left her," he continued. "I didn't want her to hear me..." he sniffed. "She's in these woods, just not here. She over..." Swift turned in a circle, "over..." and smacked his nose in a tree and winced.  

"I don't know!" he wailed. His plan to steal away from her so she could not hear him screaming had backfired. In fact, his plan had went no further than finding a branch to dig his eye out with.

Hear you...? Peregrine thought, uncertain what he meant and unaware that the child had literally torn out his own eye moments before. He had heard the screaming but he had attributed it to the fox's presence, not some macabre self-surgery. He didn't say anything aloud, mostly because Swift was panting and sobbing. He was only seconds from a meltdown and not the run-of-the-mill temper tantrum variety.

"Swift," the swarthy wolf said gently but firmly, "take deep breaths and try to calm down. You're safe as long as I'm here, okay? I know you can't see me but I'm pretty big." He paused. "Huge, actually. I'm almost as big as a bear," he fibbed. Furthermore, "I know your mother too. I won't leave you until you're back in her custody."

He gave the boy a few minutes to process all that and give a response before repeating his earlier offer: "I can either call for her or try to take you to her. It probably makes the most sense to howl and see if she hears, then try to sniff her out if that doesn't work. I think I remember her scent." He remembered Elwood recently giving his fussy son options to distract him and give him a sense of control and just hoped the same tactic would work on Swift.

"Try to calm down," he was told, but the boy shook his head. He felt as though he could not calm down. But what the wolf said next caught his attention and his ears lifted, falling still for the first time in a while. He was as big as a bear? Swift took comfort in this, even more so than the relief he felt that his guardian knew his mother. In his mind, a wolf that was as big as a bear was surely capable of protecting him against them. "Okay," he said, swallowing as he did as he was bid. He took deep breaths and slowly regained some of his composure.

The wolf gave him a choice along with his own suggestion, and Swift was quiet and still as he considered his options. In the end, it was his nervousness about trying to go anywhere that lead him to choose howling. "You can call her," he said softly, as he desperately hoped she would hear, and come to them.

As soon as Swift gave him the green light, Peregrine shut his eyes, threw his head back and poured his voice into the dark air. "@Bazi, I am with your son and he's looking for you!" he howled, keeping the message simple and to the point. He then dropped his muzzle, looking with concern at the youngster as he tried to decide what to do while they waited.

"I wish I knew more about herbs, I might be able to find something to help with the pain," he mused, thinking of Raven back home. He wouldn't rouse his daughter from her bed and drag her out here to aid a stranger, though he gave it a few seconds of serious thought. "Are you in a lot of pain...?" he wondered, staring at the raw, bleeding, empty eye sockets.

Just wanted to pop this in before Karm comes XD Weirdo Swift is weird.

The wolf howled for his mother, and he listened for a response, wondering if the howl had reached her. He was not sure how far he had wandered off, and certainly had lost his sense of direction, though in time perhaps he would re-learn it. There was much he would have to re-learn. Dark thoughts had begun to accumulate in his mind, when the wolf spoke again and caused them to dissipate as thoughts about plants moved in.

"I know herbs," he murmured. "I told Mom to collect black sage for pain. She has some where she is," he informed. His mother had been quite busy collecting the plants he required, along with cobweb. She had gathered more than he likely would need, but then there was no telling how long they were stranded here. "It does hurt..." His ears splayed to the side, his muzzle wrinkling. In his moments of terror and shock, pain took a back seat. It was only now, as he calmed down, did it start to return. Still, "it was going to hurt more. But I fixed it."

The Mom in question came crashing through the forest like a tiny blizzard. There was a lot of movement going on, but panic and frenzy made actual progress through the woods very slow - she fell flat on her face at least a dozen times, and nearly sacrificed a leg to a coiled root. Despite the exertion, she barely drew breath. He has gone away to die. Why else would he leave the safety of their 'den', and the protection of his family?

She burst into the space that Swift shared with Peregrine, and came to crouch protectively over her still living son - chest heaving and eyes wild, struggling to focus on the dark figure that was with him. Her brain began to process the backlog of inputs, and only now did the howl register. "Who-" she wheezed, barely able to stay on her feet.  A quick look down at her child confirmed that he was still breathing - no harm done except for the dark, bloody socket that predated Peregrine's appearance.

Next to another dark, bloody socket.

Bazi stared, blinked, swallowed, and choked out a sob. She turned her own big, glassy eyes on Peregrine (a wolf she had met, but could not recall in the stress of the moment), and whispered: "His.. his eye."

He frowned thoughtfully at the youngster's ominous remark. How had he fixed it? Did he want to know? Before Peregrine could come to a decision on that, the sound of swiftly approaching footfalls announced Bazi's arrival. He took a step back to stay out of her way as she exploded onto the scene, crouching over her son and looking at him in horror.

"He said bears did it," Peregrine offered a bit helplessly, still unaware that Swift had had two eyes just a few hours ago and that he'd extracted one himself (hence the screaming). "He's in pain. He mentioned some black sage," he added, aware that he was more or less rambling.

Swift was safe now, in his mother's hands, and Peregrine saw no reason to linger here. Although he had nothing against her in particular, he also had no interest in catching up with Bazi. He was glad her son was back under her watch and truthfully hoped he would recover. But he was no longer needed here.

"Take care, you two," he said quietly before turning and loping slowly back toward the caldera. Suddenly, the nearly nonexistent vision in his left eye didn't seem like as big of a hindrance anymore.

It did not take long for his mother to arrive. "Mom!" he hollered, when she thundered in and crouched over him. He lifted his head to lick frantically at her - whatever his tongue could find though he hoped for her face. He buried himself against her as much as he could, drawing an immense amount of comfort and relief from her presence. She whispered about his eye, and he spoke up after his guardian. "It was going to kill me," he said matter-of-factly. He did not want her to think the bear-wolf had done it. "I took it out. He scared off a fox. He's good."

He was so focused on his mother that he barely heard the wolf bid them farewell, and certainly did not hear him as he left. That he did not have a chance to thank him would cross his mind later, but for now he was lost to his mother, clinging to her for foundation, for support, for safety.

When Bazi looked up again, Peregrine was gone - she didn't have a chance to ask him for help. The idea that a stranger would compromise their own safety for a woman and her injured boy was absurd, anyway - Bazi would never do it, and she did not expect it from anyone else.

Incredibly, new-found blindness seemed to have invigorated Swift. He spoke freely to her, using his very sure, very adult voice to soothe his shell-shocked mother. Bazi slithered off him, crouching close enough for Swift to feel her breath on his cheek. Whilst he spoke, she inspected his eyes - the fleshy hole still smelled bad, but it was definitely an improvement. Fresh blood and sticky, sap-like fluid dribbled onto her son's cheek, and she licked it away. He was completely blind. The repercussions hit Bazi like a stone. "I know him," she managed to squeeze out, plucking the memory of Peregrine from the jumble of her past. "From somewhere." The tears were streaming now, travelling down her dirty cheeks in continuous rivers. He could not see her face, so it didn't really matter, but Bazi nevertheless turned and offered the tip of her tail to her son. "Hold on to mommy's tail. It's right in front of you."

concluding!

She offered him her tail. "Okay," he said softly, fear lacing his voice. The calm confidence with which he had spoken about his eye was gone. He reached forward for her tail, gently probing with his nose as his teeth softly clicked on the air at first, until he felt soft fur brush the side of his muzzle as he turned to grasp it. He trembled, and no doubt she could feel it in her tail.

Slowly, she lead them back to Allure, sometimes dragging him as he froze in fright, scared that he might run into something or fall into some hole from which he could not escape. Many irrational fears seized him now as he made his first walk as a wolf with no eyes. He would collapse into sleep when they arrived back to their makeshift den, exhausted more from the turmoil of his mind than from the exhaustion of his task and travel.