Haunted Wood no one likes a beggar slightly overdressed

The further northwest he went, the wetter it got. It wasn’t just the season—he’d been through a few to know that spring always came with its showers, but this was something different. Not the occasional weather of the plains, coming in explosive emotional bouts before settling down into nothing for days and days on end. If the weather down on the plains was unpredictable, up here it was depressive—it hung around for days, deep and cold and wet, settling down to one’s very bones. Sometimes he felt as though his blood was cooling down, thickening and churning into sludge. Could be worse. Could be better, though. Still, there was something about setting off in this particular direction that amused him, so he continued onward.
 
It’d stopped draining earlier this morning, though as it marched steadily on towards noon now the accumulation was still thick on the trees and undergrowth. What was left of it, anyway. He feels as though this place had seen livelier days, as now the branches twisting towards the sky had little to adorn them but the dripping condensation. A forest with one foot in its grave, bones supported by the roots of previous flourish. There was something poetic about it, in a way. There was always something oddly poetic about the inevitability of rot, the vast entropy in the universe.
 
But enough about that.
 
The place was too dead to offer anything by way of food, so he walks along at an easy pace, heading ever northwest. Occasionally a low sound can be heard, warm and rustic—it’s Cash’s, humming an aimless tune, deep in his chest, somewhat mournful in a minor key.
 
You found ways to keep yourself sane while alone for weeks on end. Song was a way he’d found, though it was a more personal one than story or game. Eventually the notes settle into a steady rhythm, then a pattern, then the words weaving between in his head: none but bones now, ‘rest fallen ‘way to the earth, n’thing but bones now— and he can’t figure out the last line, but he wants to somehow rhyme in “dearth…”
 
Now, when Cash gets into these types of moods, he gets a little too wrapped up in his own head—a little more easy to approach unnoticed as he wanders up with the stream on his left side, seeing in the distance a lake flanked by the forest he’d been meandering through.

Rain. She had felt it- seen it many times on the coast. She had seen thunderstorms, lightning touching the waves and a loud rumbling sound following it. She had seen the dew on the grass of her berry forest, the water dripping down from the leaves above her head. She remembered the taste of berries, cold and wet because of an earlier storm. Her stained face had been dripping wet and she remembered the shivers running down her spine. She remembered seeing the water droplets fly around as she shook her drenched, white fur. She remembered bathing in the sun after a summer storm, raising her head to the sky and closing her eyes so the sun wouldn't make her go blind.

This rain was different. This rain didn't go hand in hand with the scenery of the coast. It didn't come with the familiar scent of the sea nor berries. It was just wet, annoying. This wasteland was annoying. She had come here to see wonders, not dead insects. She had come here to meet the one, to find a new home. She had come here because her heart had led her here, and here she'd stay- even if it was a wasteland. Going back was not an option, not anymore.

The rain had stopped though and only left a white waterwitch, drenched, wandering a wasteland that was now more muddy than anything. She barely noticed she had entered the woods, but nothing surprised her anymore. Everything looked the same without the green of grass and plants, of herbs and leaves. She sighed, letting her berry juice stained face hang, watching her muddy paws as they made contact with the earth and dead bodies of locusts. It could all be worse, she kept saying to herself in her head.

Another moment passed, though it felt like hours, and now there was a sound in the distance. It wasn't prey, and she couldn't say if it was a wolf or not, most scents washed away by the rain. Her pace quickened, eager to find out what was making this noises that sounded an awful lot like a song.

It wasn’t until he’d stepped on one that he noticed the insects. The husks of the dead locusts were scattered throughout the desolated landscape, enough to give plenty of context to what the hell happened here. Great. The dry thought pierced through the string of song he had in mind, setting his jaw in a frustrated line. He’d wandered all this way into some kind of plague? Swarms of bugs like this brought nothing but bad. They were as brutal as wildfire to places like this, and that would only make it more difficult to live. And Cash, he doesn’t really like going hungry, despite how much he tended to end up that way.
 
For a moment his steps lapse, slow, cautious. He could turn around, leave. He’d gone through areas that weren’t desolated back the way he came that it’d most likely be fine. But… something about the northwest, he wondered how far he could go before he hit the edge of the world. With all the green eaten away from the forest and the bugs’ corpses littering the ground, it certainly felt like he was getting close to it.
 
This concern had distracted him from his distractions, drawing him back to the present enough to notice the sounds of footsteps plodding towards him through the soggy ground. Interesting; he hasn’t run into someone in a while. Ready to deal with the situation, be it peaceable or not, he stops and turns to face the oncoming approacher.
 
Cash is usually able to perfectly compose himself, but he can’t help but raise an eyebrow at this wolf. At first the red-stained muzzle and face was alarming, especially once he noticed the one dark eye, but her composure and the fact that he didn’t smell blood meant he shouldn’t be worried. Instead, he’s merely interested.
 
“My.” Cash’s voice is deep, dry, with a slight twang customary to a place very far away. A light smile settles on his lips; one of his bottom canine teeth is chipped noticeably. “Either I’m mistaken and you’ve been dreadfully hurt, or this is some new fashion statement I’m just not aware of.”

Why she had traveled to the Teekon was unknown, even to her. She merely followed her heart. She had done this from a very young age, she remembered, often just wandering off into the unknown. Mother had told her she had even tried to walk on the waves as a pup. Luckily she didn't drown or anything, but it did cause some trouble in the pack. Some were saying she had tried to call the sea witch, as most of them believed she existed, while others were saying she was downright nuts. Those were some dark times for the stained ghost as only months later her mother got killed for birthing a waterwitch, a siren, and her father left.

Ondine looked around the wasteland, the muddy lands she now called home, and couldn't help but wonder what it had first looked like. It must have been a beautiful land once, seeing as how it basically had everything. It had a coast that was -surprisingly- not that badly smashed. It had many streams and bodies of water, high mountains and long stretches of land where perhaps once herds of elk roamed. And this was only the things she had seen. Just imagine how much more there was behind those mountains. The hope that, over a few months, all the green would grow back to reveal a paradise was the thing that kept her here.

The waterwitch froze when a dusty tall stranger came into sight. Was he the one humming, singing? She looked around but couldn't find any more souls that were roaming this part of the wasteland. Her ears had laid themselves flat against her skull. She didn't know if this was because meeting a shady stranger in an eerie wasteland was the cause of this, or the fact that he turned to face her. He was quite thin, but that wasn't a surprise. Finding prey here wasn't really possible or just very hard.

A deep voice made her tail twitch. It was a somewhat warm voice and the mere sound of someone else made shivers run down her spine. His pear/lemon like eyes studied her features, she could tell, felt his orbs lingering on her berry juice stained face. Mouth slightly open in aw, she watched him. As he talked, she noticed his chipped canine tooth, his tattered ear, but couldn't find any recent wounds. She chuckled lightly at his words. I am not hurt, no. She said, shaking her head, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. I must say though that you have a very... Fashionable appearance as well. She joked. Bi-colored eyes noticed his lighter brown pelt with various other colors accompanying it, much like the barren wasteland itself. How very interesting. 

He’d never really had a rhyme or reason for the directions he’d wandered off in. Starting off from Oklahoma, it had been north, into the plains, largely because it started to feel a little too hot and muggy when he wandered in the opposite direction. Then it’d been wandering towards the hazy outline of distant, towering mountains… then going through those mountains and catching sight of what he would eventually learn was the distant sea as he headed through them. Then it was a quest to see that. He figured that’s what life for him would be—a series of hooks and leads acting as make-shift stepping stones across this great checkered land. It suited him just fine. Sometimes having an aim was a little too restricting.
 
The rest of it was just acting as a tourist. One of the big reasons he was deciding to linger in the Teekon Wilds as long as he already had was that of interest verging on morbid fascination: with a place as ravished as this by plague and pestilence, he’s curious to see what happens. It’d be another fine leaf of a tale in the book of his life, one that he could wheel out to impress before he disappeared into the night as he tended to do. It truly was widespread, also; no matter how far he ventured, it seemed barely any green had been left on any of the trees or on the ground underfoot. It did not bode well.
 
He cants his head slightly at her reply. It’s strange; he can’t seem to think of any reason why someone would want to go around looking wounded all the time. Wasn’t safe. Any hunter would know that the wounded were the ones picked off first—though maybe she invited that kind of thing. Cash wasn’t one to underestimate anyone, since it was usually something directed towards him. No one would think that a skinny, smooth-talking loner would be much of a fighter, but he had to be in order to have gotten this far.
 
She seems peaceable though. All the better. He’s gotten a little tired of petty physical disputes.
 
“Fashionable?” He seemed amused by it. He’d never really gotten that before—to most pack folk, loners looked dirty and unkempt, though there just weren’t enough hours in the day to groom all of what the road tossed at you back off. “Don’t know about that, but I’ll thank you for it.”
 
A pause in which he studies her with a scrutinizing eye; suddenly it’s a puzzle to be solved. “Not blood, though. Doesn’t smell like it.” He takes a moment to sniff the air, looking down as if in thought. He looks up a second later, eyes bright like he’d found what he was looking for. “Aw, but it’ll be too bad if you make yourself up like that with sap or berries. It’ll be tough to keep that up now…”

The siren wasn't really big on planning ahead. She was an "in the moment" creature and only planned big events- like joining a pack when the green started growing back. She just traveled through Teekon, paws barely tired due to the fact she walked quite slow. There was no use in rushing, not with the land destroyed. She wondered what this stranger was up to though, where he was going. Maybe he didn't know himself.

The fact that this land was now destroyed wasn't the reason Ondine lingered here. She knew the lack of prey would drive at least some crazy, but she didn't look forward to that happening. Violence only brought death and destruction, though that quite fit the landscape now. Death had stained this part of the world, and it wasn't a pretty sight. Or maybe she just wasn't the right one to enjoy these circumstances. Maybe rougher, more violent, wolves had been waiting for this to happen. A crazy enough wolf would go as far as cannibalism if that was what the situation called for, only to safe it's own ass. Sure, wolves worked better in groups, but the survival instinct couldn't be escaped.

Her wounded face was indeed dangerous, especially with the many hungry wolves and other predators, but that exactly what she wanted. One who tried to attack her now would probably think she was half blind, and so wouldn't be on it's toes or watch it's back. Plus, the siren was quite big and strong, so the fact she was perfectly fine would even come as a surprise as soon as they started battling. At least, that was her logic. 

A smirk now tugged at the right corner of her lip. She had meant her words earlier, so she was pleased with his amused reaction. To her, he only looked a little dusty, but that was to be expected with there only being mud, sand and water. She dipped her head as a "no thanks needed" sign. Their conversation was paused by him studying her again, but Ondine didn't return it. There was little else to see for her.

The smirk disappeared from her muzzle, though the glint in her aqua eye stayed. She shook her head. It wasn't blood, though that worked perfectly as well. She shrugged at his words. At times like this, wolves will go cannibalistic. Same goes for me. I can always use real blood. She spoke carelessly. She raised an eyebrow at him, returning to the question she wanted to ask from the beginning. Where are you headed? 

So sorry for the delay... I can't really promise to be very fast because my brief summer break ended, lol.

 

Men who hit the road with a plan in mind were fools, in Cash’s humble opinion. The life of a loner didn’t lead at all to stringency or single-mindedness; one had to be agile and able to roll with the punches that were given. He blew the same way the wind did, dealing with issues as they sprung up. Food was one, water another, bunkering down in shelter through terrible weather and harsh cold was yet a third. If a person remained sold on just one solution, it made them that much more likely to fail and die in the process. He would never succumb to something so foolish. Cash was always willing to do what he needed to survive, sometimes while simultaneously (and somewhat hypocritically) engaging his youthful daredevil desires. His intentions to stay in Teekon, at least long enough to see what happened, were reflective of that.
 
It was an odd game that loners played, especially in times like these when resources were scarce. Tensions rose, and it was easy to pin blame and incite violence against those who didn’t have a pack to fall back to. Some defended themselves by intimidation: to be big and strong enough to deter those who might wish them harm, or implement some tactic to give some type of mental intimidation (such as this stranger’s bloodied face).
 
Cash didn’t employ such tactics. He’d never been one to pile on muscle; tall he may be, but the harsh leanness of his body was as much as he could manage bulk-wise. So he employed another tactic. He smiled broadly, joked amiably, tried to remind anyone he met of the best in people they knew. One typically wouldn’t attack another that they found endearing in some way. Cash didn’t necessarily have that issue—which was what made him dangerous when the chips were down.
 
Now this one. She seemed amused by him initially, but he watched a lot of that mirth evaporate from her features like pooled rainwater in the midday sun. He very carefully maintained his lopsided grin, easy attitude, but a part of him was watching, waiting. It was a game of chess strangers played when sizing one another up, and he always tried to be one move ahead.
 
One brow raises. It was common knowledge that such lengths would be gone to in a famine like this, but it was usually the thing that went unsaid. The boldness to place it on the table was oddly interesting. “Now that’s some dedication,” he replied with a rumble of a dry laugh. Would he kill in defense, for food? Sure. That’s just how the world worked. But in order to maintain his façade, as she did? He finds himself questioning the validity of it. But it’s not his place to judge, lowly loner as he is. “I’ll be sure to give you a wide berth, then, when you run dry of your supplies.” He smiles easily.
 
Headed? He seems to ponder it, though in truth he already knows the answer. “Can’t really say. I was headed west, to see the sea – so to say,” he seems proud of his small bit of wordplay. “It seems as though I was a bit unlucky with my choice of direction, though.”
 
He lifts his muzzle in her direction. “And yourself, miss?” She doesn’t bear a pack-scent, or at least not one he can discern. He’s wondering why other loners are as mad as he was to stick around in a time like this.