The ground and trees here have taken on a dark hue and a permanent cloud-shadow looms over this area. A tall, thick forest grows and in its deepest reaches, no light can penetrate the thick foliage. Strange, dangerous creatures lurk in the darkness.
She missed home. Well, she missed her sister, and she missed Zane's home with him and his mother. Back then, when life seemed so complicated, it was so simple and she missed it greatly. Back then, she could tinker with her toys, gadgets, and other doohickies at her leisure. She missed her workshop and all of her knickknacks and trinkets. She missed the pranks she had created, waiting for the perfect opportunity to use them. She never thought she'd be a wolf to miss home. She figured herself an adventurer, or even an explorer! Yet, the yearning for a consistent place to lay her head at night ached within her. "Zaneeeeeeee" Elcid groaned as she lagged behind him. He wouldn't leave her. That much she knew. However, his determined, set pace drove her faster than Elcid was willing to travel at, only because she was tired of traveling. She knew, in fact, that if Elcid showed even a hint of being sick or actually needing a break, he would be the one to make sure she sat down and rested even before she would.
"Where are we even going?" They had been driven out of their previous homelands by the steady, constant rain that came to plague the lands. It was the craziest thing! She thought for sure that it was one of those massive storms, hurricanes if she remember correctly, moving across the lands. She'd read about them before when she took an interest in the weather and learning the various ways to interpret what was coming. It turned out that it was indeed not a hurricane. The rains did not grow more powerful over time. It was a nonstop drizzle day after day, week after week, which turned into month after month. It was when even the plant life started to die off from the constant rain that Zane had insisted that they move on. Elcid had agreed eagerly at the time. Now she wondered if the rain had ever stopped, and if they had made the right choice together.
From the southwest, the pair had eventually wandered into a dark forest thick with gloomy clouds and a stench of smoke permanent in the air. It was eerie as they traversed through the thick undergrowth. There were little sounds to hear as they walked on. It was hard to remain silent with the constant brushing against shrubbery. Twigs snapped even under the most careful of paws. Elcid's fur stood on end as they traversed onwards. She was alert, even as she groaned and lagged behind Zane. "I don't think this is a good place to be. I don't like how quiet it is. I feel like I can hear my own heart beating in my ears, and I'm not even winded." All the while as she talked, she kept her voice low which was unusual for her, usually the one to talk loud and proud. "I don't hear any bugs, or any birds, or nothing at all." Well, she heard Zane, of course.
It was then that Elcid spotted what looked to be a clearing up ahead. Suddenly, she had a destination. Her gait picked up speed as she moved towards the clearing. She hoped for sunlight, and for flowers, and for grass to be there. Where there was grass and sun, there was prey. However, as she neared the clearing, she realized it was everything she hadn't hoped for. It was a clearing alright, a large clearing at that. It was a clearing of burned underbrush still smoldering and smoking, flecks of ash floating through the air on gentle breaths of wind. There was no sunlight, for even here a dark heavy gray mingled with the smoke to obstruct any chance of rays touching the soil beneath. Elcid frowned. "Yep, don't like it here."
The rains that had fallen over their previous home had started as a slow drizzle that had gradually built over time. Not in how much fell so much as how much that gathered on the ground. It had soaked into the earth and made muddy puddles here and there. Building muddled trails and tracks as days and weeks had passed with no sign of the rain stopping. It had gotten to the point that the plants had started to rot, their leaves dying as they drowned in the steady rain. The ground had turned soft, so thick with water it couldn't hold any more. Zane's magic had let him hear the whispers of the plants as they choked and suffocated, unable to withstand the sheer amount of moisture that the ground had held.
It had only been when he had heard a willow tree die that he had decided it was time to move. The tree had been large and used to living near waters. It had been used to sodden ground and had survived soft streams and raging rivers but it had died from the overabundant rain. If a tree like that had died then the plants that prey needed wouldn't stand a chance.
The plants he needed for Elcid's medicine wouldn't stand a chance. That had been the deciding factor for him and it hadn't taken much to convince Elcid to leave as well. She had seemed as sick of the rain as he had been.
“A place that is far enough from the drowning lands to feel comfortable.” He responded back his voice a bit hard if not determined. He didn't know what had caused the rain, and he had no idea how far it would reach from its source. Zane didn't want to be anywhere close in case the likely magical rain had decided to spread.
The longer they walked the darker it became. Trees slowly going from lush greens to dark and brittle in appearance. The sounds that he often associated with life, insects and birds, slowly faded into an uneasy silence as they walked through the dark wood. To his ears the place was quiet but to his magic the place whispered and hissed. Plants talking far more than any sort of vegetation normal did unless he requested, or forced, it to. “It might by quiet but it's not really that silent.” Zane said finally as he looked back over his shoulder at her, one brow raised. The silence was broken by soft whispers as the branches high in the air rubbed against each other, the smokey substance in the air breaking up the sound even more.
Zane huffed with amusement and rolled his eyes as Elcid took off for a clearing that had come into view. The clearing or rather a burnt and rather crispy looking opening between the trees was large and Zane padded past Elcid as she complained once more that she didn't like it here. “I didn't even smell the smoke.” He mussed as he came to a stop between the smoldering plants. With how dark it was here he hadn't exactly been expecting grass and flowers, but he also hadn't been expecting a newly burnt area either. The warmth of the ash below his paws told him exactly how recent the fire must have been.
His ears swept back against his skull the longer he looked around, an uneasy feeling digging into his chest. A frown crossed his face as the plants whispered soft wordless sounds to him. “I don't think that this was a random fire.” He finally said his voice low.
“A place that is far enough from the drowning lands to feel comfortable.” An expected answer, and one that was equally unsatisfying. She huffed at his response, feeling homesick. How long were they going to have to keep moving for? After Zane stepped into the clearing, Elcid felt it was safe enough for her to follow along behind him. As he nosed at the ashes and burnt foliage, she instead turned her gaze to the trunks of the smoldered trees. The burnt trees looked incredible! The ashes beneath her paws were warm and in some spots she stepped quickly when she found an exceptionally warm patch. The warmth, however, did not stop her from moving tree to tree, staring closely at the way the bark looked. Her mind imagined all of the art she could make out of such colored timber. Then there was, of course, the charcoal its self. It made a wonderful medium for sketching out her ideas. Elcid didn't want to live here, but she definitely wanted to return here to gather materials some day.
"I don't think so either." she mused as she stood up on hind legs, her front two paws rested against a burnt trunk. She experimented with the strength of the tree and pushed against it. The burnt exterior slipped away in falling ashes, but the tree held steady against her shoves. With a "Hmm" she fell back onto all fours and returned to Zane's side. "What if it was a dragon?"" she started as she focused again on the vastness of the burned clearing. "Or a phoenix bird! Or maybe it was started by a fire ant!" She shifted her eyes from the clearing area around them to the ground, suddenly searching suspiciously of ant piles. "You remember the story of Pyra, right? The fire ant who held an extraordinary gift, the only known one of it's species to wield actual fire, and was said to bring sweeping flames across the lands to those who disrespected nature. What if this was Pyra's doing! Oh, then that means some group in the area disrespected her and the forest! I will respect you, forest. I'll turn your burned woods into something beautiful one day." Perhaps when she returned to claim some of the burned wood, there would be foliage growing here once more, some greenery in the vast density of the dark forest. The fire would eventually have to go out, which would make the smoke go away, which would let the sun through, right?
Now that he was standing among the mostly burnt plants he could smell the smoke. Feel it sting his nose and hear the faint crackle of embers still trying to consume whatever object it was attached to. His gaze drifted upward and he could see bits of ash and ember floating in the air yet. A sight that worried him slightly. If there was still bright embers in the air then how fast had the fire itself out? How could a normal fire burn so quick and fast without any smell leaving the area or going outside what was slowly looking like a perfect circle?
His gaze snapped downwards as he heard the tree bark breaking under Elcid's paws. Couldn't even be in a place for more than a few minutes and she was already destroying it. “Careful Gremlin I can hear embers burning yet.” He told her utterly resigned to the fact that she was probably going to try to tip a burnt tree trunk over, or something else equally destructive. In fact he wouldn't be surprised if her antics reignited the sparks and encouraged them into flames once more.
Zane let out a sharp bark of laughter at her words about it being some mythical creature or a fire ant by the name of Pyra. “I think Mom made that up so you would stop destroying her garden. She was getting tired of finding plants missing and blast marks from your failed creations.” He said shaking his head before he started to move forward once more. Intent on crossing the crispy area that they had found themselves in. “Besides if Pyra is actually around and is an actual fire controlling ant then you're probably going to end up stepping on her. Which means we are both going to be burned to a crisp.” He added dryly though his lips were pulled up into a small smile. It would be just Elcid's luck to find a magical ant and then step on it.
“I'm honestly more worried about what the smoke and flames might have drawn here.” Zane admitted as he walked. Despite his need to travel as far away from the drowning lands as possible he knew that they would need to rest. He just didn't think that resting among still hot embers was the best idea. The plants around them whispered and hissed, as if they were agreeing with him. Yet, he knew that unless Elcid had suddenly gained the magic to talk with plants she wouldn't be able to hear the soft mutters of the dark trees.
Elcid's ear rotated as Zane used her nickname and she gave him a toothy grin in response. "You think she would go through all the trouble of making up a magical ant just to keep me out of her gardens?" She paused momentarily in speaking as she continued to step towards him to then fall in line as he kept them moving forward. "Hmm, you know, that would actually make sense." Elcid was a horrible herbalist and often joked about everything she touched dying when she tried to learn about gardening. Her lack of growing skills, however, never deterred her from using the plants. Her uses were usually far different from their intended uses most of the time.
She didn't have much time to consider the story as a made-up one as Zane pointed out that there was a chance that if the story was real, that Elcid was likely to end up stepping on her. "What?!" She twisted her face - still smiling - into an offended one, "No, I don't think so. If anyone was to step on her, we both know that it would be you." She turned a cheeky grin towards him, the momentary pitstop and teasing between her and Zane helping her forget about how tired (of walking) she was. "Hey, when we find somewhere to call home, can we come back here? I'm wondering if I can enchant the wood to maintain it's heat from the burn, or better yet, make noise that copies the sound of heated wood. I think I could, which could be hilarious." Sure, the object could be useful in all sorts of ways, but she couldn't help cackling at the idea of sneaking it into someone's den and enchanting them to pop just as someone drifted off to sleep. "I could call them pop rocks!"
Zane met Elcid's gaze with a brow raised, not saying a single thing. Did she really just ask that? If he hadn't seen the damage himself, he wouldn't have believed that one wolf could have caused it all. Large burnt marks in the ground, bits of plants scattered all over, and pieces of whatever thing she had been testing all over as well. Which if he found the destruction soon enough there was always little bits of greenery floating in the air like some strange green confetti. Somehow she always managed to create destruction and chaos wherever she went. It had gotten to the point that the plants in his Mom's garden had been terrified of her. It took a lot to make plants that wouldn't last a year scared. Their attention span was simply too short, but Elcid had somehow managed in all her Gremlin glory.
“I'm not the one trying to knock over the scenery and sticking their nose in everything.” He told her with a low bark of amusement. A larger smile spread slowly across his face, as they continued their banter. “Besides I don't have a history of being clumsy.” He did, especially when he had been a bit younger and hadn't grown into his legs yet but that was beside the point. Zane let out a mock exasperated sigh. “Of course you want to make the wood explode.” He shrugged his dark shoulders. “Why wouldn't you? You make everything else go boom.”
The sound of Elcid's laughter was a sound that he was glad to hear, and it eased the tightness that had gathered in his gut since they had left the drowned lands. Worry and unease had gnawed at him and though he had tried to keep his stress to himself he was sure that Elcid was more than aware of it. So, to hear her laugh was a relief and even if he had no idea where they were or what their destination was, he figured that they would be alright.
“We can come back.” He told her after a moment of thought. “And if you somehow manage to make the wood pop like that, I want some.” A sharp grin filled with his own mischief crossed his face as he glanced over his shoulder at her. One simple couldn't help but pick up a few traits from the Gremlin when they hung out as much as they did.
