Blackfoot Forest and the colors drift from you into me, and the wonder of the moment rescued me
ᴀ ᴠᴀʟʟᴜᴍ ᴏғ ғᴀɪʀʏ ᴛᴀʟᴇs
sᴍᴀsʜᴇᴅ ɪɴᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀʟɪᴛʏ
248 Posts
Ooc — idc
Away
#1
All Welcome 
tag for ref! absolutely no need to match length

phaedra took the day on feeling adventurous and set her intentions on mushrooming in the pinefirth, hiking up the skirts of trees in the hunt for matsutakes as a treat to surprise @Wylla. she showed a lot of solidarity for her mother, after all, being confined to the doktor's infirmary with nothing much to do, and the girl thought it would be a worthwhile hunt if her returns brought the woman joy or, better yet, restored the woman to her original condition entirely.

by midday her search had yet to yield the results she wanted; and being cognizant of darkness' blight on the successes of hunts for diurnal things -- certain flowers, for example -- phaedra could see her window of opportunity closing with the shut of day.

bitterly disappointed, but bulwarked against her refusal to give in to the universes' unfavorable coinflip, the girl elected to take her search someplace unfaded by nose fatigue, insofar as she could.

obliging her intuition, phaedra's new trajectory saw to her departure from the jade fern grove and conveyed her to a crescential forest that, not in recent memory, did she ever recall coming across.

there was a fine drizzle and with all the humidity her fur had seen better days, but at least the driving rain had relented. having sullenly endured the shower without shelter, phaedra was feeling sorry for herself; and she was nonetheless clean for a change. she shook out her legs one by one, casting water off herself.

the boscage was still damply glistening, and the air close to the forest floor clung to moisture -- embroidering scents everywhere with vivid detail. in a race against the sun, the little wolf redoubled her efforts to find something to regale her mother with, starting with a rotted-out log clad in moss.

after a while searching, the girl jettisoned her present cargo -- 'ptoo' -- escorting the morels away with an agitated scuff of her paw. she'd misidentified it as hen-of-the-wood, which wasn't what the nitpick in her wanted and thus, made it every inch unsatisfactory. 

nearly fed up with the fruitlessness of it all, phaedra laved her tongue against the bark of a tree, not finding the taste of mushroom much to her liking at all.
7 Posts
Ooc — Talamasca
Offline
#2
I cannot hope to match your lovely writing but I hope this is ok!

With the easing of the rain came a stillness that was vastly favored over the incessant, spit-like drops that found their way between the trees, often to peg the girl on the crown of her head or drag down the hang of her nose with a sense of purposeful invasion.

Tension focused down the ridge of her back each time she felt the sticky draw of watery fingering there, with the final shiver prompting her to unfurl messily from the mossbed. A strong choice for a rest stop at midday until the weather had turned, now more of a catch-all for detritus, which might as well have included Lutra.

A momentary need to cleanse herself of the day's moist hold prompts her to shake, ears clipping the sides of her head as they catch momentum, the buzz of activity channeling a spin-cycle down her lower back to her bum. Before she has a chance to work the kinks out of her tail next, she hears the oddest catching sound some distance aft.

Luftra's hesitation bows her hips towards the sphagnum a moment, where she is caught by indecision; wanting to sink down and hide, wanting also to run, and vaguely to investigate, but before her mind can be made up a heady panic snares her to the spot. 

The curling shadows look as if they reach for her while the sun continues its descent, and Lutra cannot help herself as her twiggy limbs root toe-first in to the soil against her will—a whine whistles between her teeth.
ᴀ ᴠᴀʟʟᴜᴍ ᴏғ ғᴀɪʀʏ ᴛᴀʟᴇs
sᴍᴀsʜᴇᴅ ɪɴᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀʟɪᴛʏ
248 Posts
Ooc — idc
Away
#3
more than ok! your writing is perfectly lovely! no need to match length, i ramble

tongue midway into another pass over the bark, a noise captivated the audience of her ears. like the pule of a cub -- but all the cubs she knew (of) were tucked safely into their dens, far away from this place. 

perturbed, the girl curled herself 'round the tree to look, anticipating the austere face of her father when she peeked around. 

but there was nothing -- nothing that she could make sense of through the scrim of daylight left, anyway.  

she didn't realize how dark it had gotten until the possibility of not being alone visited inimical things upon her mind. phaedra was, in a moment, profoundly aware of this solitude. her pulse took fright, thrumming in her ears as her eyes careered across the glade.

the combination of wild imagination and shadow-play made grotesqueries of otherwise innocent things. easily, a squirrel climbing a tree became a golem; passing deer turned into dybbuks looking for maidenly souls to ransom. what made it worse still was the part where she didn't know what manner of fresh hell was about to gobble her up.

go for launch: the qualification stage of grief. she weighed her odds, going by stratum. hastily, she decided she could probably take on a limbo demon. punching down, you know? easier. like, she could deal with a sower of discord. that was her territory. she was in good company there. 

but if this was some bullshit from hell's penetralia, that honest-to-dante belly of the beast "hi, welcome to hell! compulsory vexilla regis prodeunt inferni. mr reagan will give you the tour shortly" type bs? it really didn't bear thinking about. 

ugh. she'd even made herself smell like a mushroom broth. 


her eyes squinted at a shadow shifting a few yards away. "hello? er, who's out there?" she called out, mastering the tremor in her voice despite feeling a terrible lack of courage.


it seemed to get darker by the moment. phaedra felt herself wince, the regret of underscoring her position cutting through her like a cold wind.