Quote from Kaqurei on February 19, 2019, 10:40 pm

Levi was only half-awake. He often found it good to sleep when his circumstances were too much to handle. His mind, ever calculating, could easily become overwhelmed by too much stimulation. The boisterous noise of the passing storm and the violence it wrecked on the mountain had sent his nerves into fight or flight, even after he and Chime had found a mountain alcove to seclude themselves away in from its wrath. And, that being said, there was then no place to run, and nothing he could fight. Sleep dampened the overwhelming urge to do one or both, somewhat. So, he slept. He slept surprisingly well.

But his golden eyes were half-open, always, glinting an awareness only part of him possessed. It laid undisturbed beneath the surface, ensuring that his mind would stay appraised of his surroundings whether he was consciously aware of them or not. He would have the data required to keep himself and his smaller companion safe.

True, she was not of his pack. But in the months that he had spent in this land, he had come to bond with a select few of his captors... if Chime could even be counted that. She was Calagrathorm, and the Calagrathorm Alpha had taken him, but she had ever treated him as a friend. Chime and Theo. He rather liked them, ever since the day he first officially made their acquaintance while languishing in The Pit. Yes, he would defend her, just as he would one of his own.

Quote from Mae on April 2, 2019, 7:06 pm

While Levi slept, with his eyes cracked open, and the wind blowing outside, a strange change was coming on the forest. Trees' leaves were being shaken from the branches. Wind and rain were remodeling the mountain slopes. The thick, dark bushy foliage that covered most of the mountain's southern face seemed to hold on to their roots like desperate people in the storm. But while they all ducked their heads and cowered, other figures in strange white dresses arose. They came out of nowhere, dancing like maidens above the leafy heads of their frightened neighbors; frolicking like ghosts between the trees.

A thousand and one blue-painted faces were to meet any onlooker in the storm, for every white stalk was patterned the same. Though the tempest was tough and terrible, the hauntingly beautiful forms seemed the least of all disturbed; in fact, they appeared to relish the violence. Some of the boughs of the trees nearly touched their own roots in back-bending anguish, while other great giants were brought down in catastrophic defeat! But the White Maiden's Flower never lost a single petal to the wind.

Quote from Kaqurei on April 17, 2019, 1:52 pm

At first Levi thought the apparitions some dream cast over reality, as sometimes happened in his sleep. Yet, his mind told him this was not so, and some alarm flickered into his awareness, enough to rouse him from his sleep and look upon them more closely. What were...? They looked like little bodies, and then little faces--yet surely that was impossible.

He nudged Chime gently. "D'ye see what ae am seein'?"

Quote from Indy on May 2, 2019, 9:49 pm

... And so down the fairy paths poor Theo tumbled, with no more than the miserable lick of the wind to keep him company.

Maybe it had been foolish to leave the cabin behind. And worse, to leave both Toby and Bianca so suddenly and without a single word !  He thought of fleeing only to Toby's impromptu shelter, yet somehow he didn't think friend-deserters deserved shelters. In any case, without the warmth of the others, moving forward was the only way he could keep warm.

And this, perhaps was where the tumbling came in.  He hadn't been watching his steps.  And he'd completely forgotten the patch of phantom weed that grew wild by Katie's house.  Before he'd known it, he found himself in the thick of it, with hardly a clue of where he'd come from, let alone where he was going.  In the thick slippery mud and the slope of the slight incline, he felt the earth give...

... and down, down Theo tumbled down the Flower Maiden's paths.

Quote from Mae on May 15, 2019, 12:35 pm

Misery was finding oneself cold and wet, face down in the mud, and all alone. For a moment, the howling of the wind through the distant trees overhead felt inconsequential. The grippy, grimy mug, with its small and constant streams prevailed. The low stalks of leaves and bare roots felt like a miniature forest beneath the canopy of the undergrowth.

Yet, through the tangled weave, a passage could be seen, and was that a figure standing in the rain just ahead? Whether it was, or was not, by the time one could see over the undergrowth, and the wind began to be a boisterous nuisance once more, the girl was gone.

Quote from Kaqurei on May 16, 2019, 11:51 am

"Aye?" Levi exclaimed, raising his head in full alert with eyes wide. "Tha's Theo! Stay here a wee moment, I'll go and fetch him."

Carefully he slipped out of their shelter and winded his way down the treacherous, glittering slope to the dark shape promised him in the thick of the forest. He wasn't entirely sure how he'd known it was Theo, for he certainly couldn't smell him. Was it how he carried himself, how the shape shifted and moved?  That must have been it.

He meandered shyly against the stalks of the eerie plants, his coat flinching from their luminescent flowers as they bobbed in the wind as though they might burn to the touch.

"Theo!" he barked.

Quote from Indy on May 22, 2019, 5:34 pm

A miserable, wet muddy creature looked up at Levi with such pitiful green eyes, one would think it a miserable puppy rather than a werewolf.  Alone in the forest with nothing more than the strange, fae flowers, Levi's face was a welcome relief.

"Levi!" he cried out, trying to extract himself from the mud as carefully as possible without bending the flower stalks.

Almost forgotten was the small metallic glint on his right ear -- though, pitifully, he thought Toby might not care to speak to him ever again anyways.  Slouching his head, he managed to trot up a few paces to Levi.

"W-where's Chime?" the words passed over his chattering teeth.

Quote from Aim on May 22, 2019, 11:29 pm

Though worry had made sleep fleeting, once Chime fell into its embrace.. well, she slept like a rock.

At Levi’s touch, she stirred only slightly, mumbling incoherently as her eyes slipped closed again. Though at Theo’s name, she jumped up, still half asleep. Following Levi’s footprints, she too found her way down the slope, abit clumsier, and through mostly luck she found herself looking at the both of them.

Still groggy, Levi’s other words haven’t yet caught up to her. Blinking, she stood a moment before her tail wagged and her shoulders relaxed.

“Theo!” She said it with excitement, and then reality hit, she remembered just what sort of night it was. Shivering as the wind blew through her, she clasped herself closely, and worry returned.

“Oh Theo! You’re freezing! Levi, let’s get him b-back to the place, the s-safety hole p-place.” She stuttered out, not really thinking about how words ought to work.

Quote from Kaqurei on July 15, 2019, 5:07 pm

Levi felt like a great weight had been lifted off his ears for some reason, and for the first time all night they stood erect. He wasn't sure how Theo'd been separated from the others in the storm, but of any of them to come wandering this way, he was glad it was him.

"Aye, this way," he said, motioning with his head back the way he and Chime had come. He glanced at the odd flowers again. Funny, how they could be so otherworldly, so out there and obvious, yet whenever he directed his attention elesewhere, they were gone from his mind, like the phantom whispers of a dream before it faded entirely into obscurity.

Yet, then he directed his attention towards getting his friends back to safety, and what questions he'd ask them when they were warm and dry again, and, again, the flowers slipped from his mind... even as he weaved through them to get back to the cave.

******