Cricket Creek Bog a gentle breeze or lightning in a storm

@Weejay but AW

This was a place for Maiira. The coywolf was sure that most of her cousins (full-blooded wolves, for she did not think of herself as part-wolf) would hate a place like this. However, for Maiira, this was a place full of things to explore. The constant noise of the crickets became a lullaby, but not for sleep. It was as if the crickets were calling out to her to come and find them, to see what else was in this dank, dark bog. She could see herself calling this place her home, but in her heart of hearts, Maiira knew she had no true home. She was a wanderer, and wander she would, probably for the rest of her days.

Maiira stepped up to a pool of water and sniffed at it. She was surprised to find that its water was fresh and drinkable. Perhaps this bog was not as bad as others she had been through. There was mud aplenty, certainly, but drinkable water was a point in its favor. Not that Maiira minded mud. In fact, she loved mud. If it were summer, a good mud bath could cool her right down. It was Autumn, however, and Maiira could see herself telling ghost stories to an avid listener here among the chirping crickets. Curious to see if anyone was around, she let out a howl—a coyote’s yipping, broken howl, as opposed to a wolf’s. Her mother had been a coyote, and thus, this was the only howl she knew how to do properly.

thank you for starting <3

Little Weejay was a bit aways when the howl filtered up through the reeds, high and keening. She was too young to know what a coyote was, and while she recognized the howl seemed a bit off, it didn't seem so bad to her.. Maybe the wolf had a sore throat -- Weejay didn't think too much of it.

In fact, Weejay didn't think much at all, for most of her thoughts at the moment were wrapped around Aengus. She had in her jaws one of those crinkly flowers he had shown her, and she kept coming back and forth to their last meeting spot.. His scent had entirely faded, and after the fourth or fifth day spent waiting, Weejay had begun to grow sad.

She placed the flower down gingerly and returned the howl, hopeful for some company. Being as young as she was, she didn't really realize how things could go wrong.. all she wanted was to see Aengus again, and maybe if she was lucky, this stranger could point her in the right direction.

Maiira wasn’t sure if she had been expecting a return call or not, and one that seemed inviting at that. This one sounded like a full-blooded wolf, and wolves often mistook Maiira for nothing more than vermin. Not that she hadn’t met nice wolves, too… but not all were nice. This is why Maiira preferred not to be in packs. Small groups of unique individuals she could handle, but more than three or four wolves around at any one time set her fur itching. Of course, anyone who messed with Maiira often got more than they were bargaining for. The coywolf had a tendency to hold grudges…

Maiira shook her head to prevent herself from continuing to go off on a tangent in her head and trotted in the direction of the howl. She leapt lightly over pools of water and ducked around trees and under hanging moss that clung to branches. Yes, this place was certainly for her. She was sure if she ran into trouble that the bog would offer plenty of places to hide.

The first thing she noticed was not the wolf, but the flower on the ground at the wolf’s paws. “Beautiful,” she she said, and then lifted her head to meet the gaze of the young wolf. A pup, though one old enough to be outside of its pack territory on its own. “Greetings, cousin,” Maiira said with a flash of a smile, although her fangs did not gleam as brightly here where the sun was covered by trees and mist.  “What brings a young wolf like you to a spooky place like this?” She emphasized the word spooky and glanced around with just her eyes, as if expecting a monster to jump out at them from behind a tree, although the grin was still plastered to her face.

An agile wolf greeted her, one that Weejay noticed with some dismay was colored not-unlike her mother. Deceased mother, came an ugly voice in the back of her head, which Weejay then promptly pushed away. The stranger first remarked on the flower, drawing Weejay's gaze from her to the petals, and then back again. "Yeah! It's a kind of flower my friend showed me a while ago. I was looking for him to show him I found another..." Her tone had started off cheery, but took on a rather sad edge to it, for her friend had disappeared and she had yet to see him.

As the russet female addressed the ambience around them Weejay looked up, as if noticing it for the first time. Now that she really looked around her, it did look like a rather spooky place; moss and lichen grew in spades, and overall a sense of dull haplessness seemed to creep out from the dark waters and thick reeds. She frowned, liking the swamps' suddenly accumulated characteristics very little. "It is spooky. How come?"

Maiira noted the way the child looked around at the area with a new expression on her face. She hadn’t meant to frighten her, but some fright was important for children to experience early, she thought. Get it out of the way, so that later they could see the magic in things instead. Of course, there was no harm in being scared. The world could be quite scary. Spooky. That was just what happened when one saw magic everywhere. Some magic was good, some… not so much. “Oh, some places are simply… spooky!” Maiira explained. “Swamps especially. But do not be too frightened, child. There is magic here, and the spookiness you feel is just you pushing against the magic for the first time.” 

Maiira continued grinning, something she did about ninety-nine percent of the time, whether there was anyone around to grin at or not. “This one will get used to it in time. Acknowledge the magic and accept that it is there and the world will not seem quite as spooky as before. Plus…” the coywolf continued, musing. “… it is a spooky time of year. Autumn is when the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest, child. Perhaps the air is spookier here because ghosts are lingering nearby…” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, feeling and smelling and hearing the air around her, waiting for the call of spirits.

Weejay was reassured by the stranger's grin -- which might have unnerved a smarter or more wary wolf. Weejay was neither -- while she wasn't necessarily stupid, she hadn't had many bad interactions with strangers. Not enough to hate them yet, anyway.

Her eyes widened as Maiira mentioned magic, here of all places! She could not help the involuntary, almost greedy dart of her eyes as she looked around, as if she would see magic in the flesh for the first time. But all she saw were creepers and vines and moss, and her new friend. No magic.

She was about to ask, how Maiira could tell, when she mentioned ghosts. Something cold bolted through Weejay's heart, and left her limbs shaking and quivery. Ghosts... ghosts  -- like her mom?

"Is my mom here?" Weejay suddenly spoke up, her voice having taken on a quiet and sorrowful desperation. She wanted more than anything to talk, touch, or see Wildfire again.. and if this place was magic, it could do that for her, right? She'd been good -- she had always been a good girl -- so maybe these magic spirits wouldn't mind?

HELLO I SUCK.

Maiira’s eyes opened in surprise—shock, more like. Her talk of magic and ghosts had not been to open the floodgates for a small child to miss her mother. This was territory Maiira had almost no experience in. She shifted, feeling distinctly uncomfortable, and tried to bring her brain back down to the earth, trying to think of what someone more normal would say. “Hmm…” she began, looking around to try and give herself more time. “Maiira thinks that… that your mother is always near you, in a way.” She expelled a breath, squinting as she thought about it more. “Yes. Your mother’s spirit can always hear you, child. She cannot respond, not like she could in life, but you can speak to her always.”

She looked around, listening to the wind in the trees. “Close your eyes and listen, child.” The coywolf herself closed her own eyes, then. “Hear the wind in the trees. Hear the sounds of the insects in this swamp. Hear the water. Feel the earth.” Each word was spoken slowly, deliberately. “That is your mother. She is always there; she has simply become… a different form than before.” Maiira opened her eyes again, hoping that had been enough. Hoping she hadn’t just messed up this child’s life.

Weejay was young, but she was no fresh sprout. She caught the uncertainty in her companion, and it earned the agouti a darkening stare. What was the point of being connected to things, if you could not connect with her mother? It made Weejay feel, perhaps unkindly, that the stranger was either a fraud, or was lying to her -- and both of those thoughts made Weejay feel uncharacteristically small.

Yet she did as she was told, like any obedient child. She closed her eyes and tried to listen. All she heard was the groan of the trees as the wind passed through; the breathing of her new friend, and her own frustrated sighs. "I don't hear anything." She said at last, defeated. Her eyes opened with a glistening hardness that had not been there before; tears, fresh brimming. "I don't hear anything but you and me while she's dead! She isn't different, she's DEAD."

There it came, the tantrum that had been in her eyes a moment before; Weejay did not wait for an answer. She could bear here no longer, not when it felt like spirits but reminded her of her mother. Stifling a sob, Weejay turned and ran.