Send your child unto me

As if from every corner of the earth, spiders of all shapes and sizes conveyed on the forest floor. They coalesced into a writhing mass that slowly rose and expand like yeast-ridden flour. After what seemed like an eternity, it reached the size and shape of a wolf. With an unspoken word the mass parted, each spider scuttling back to their webs and trapdoors, leaving behind a black wolf, laying on her side.

She was breathing, though unconscious, still swimming in the darkness of her mind until suddenly by the same invisible force that commanded the spiders pulled her out. She gasped, sucking in air quickly. In that same instance her eyes, dark purple like wine lees, flew open. Pupils dilated, then shrunk as filtered sunlight met them. Her head lifted from the ground, revealing a necklace of solid silver metal rendered as a spider’s gossamer web.

Her aubergine-colored eyes darted back and forth, now examining her surroundings. The forest was bleeding, cuts from invisible claws seeping blood-red sap which trailed and congealed on the forest’s trees. No looks of recognition graced her face, though the visible perplexity faded into calm curiosity. At once the woman collected herself, becoming the figure of a mortal, attempting a presence more suited to spirits and deities. Meldresi Melonii stood to her feet and stared at the scarred woods around her.
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With the peaks rising behind him, and all well in order at home for enough of a time, he let his trot slip down into the foothills--ultimately, to explore spring's verdant opportunities there, attempting to broaden the reach of his familiarity more each time he did so. Of course, it had been easy to stay occupied with the greenery on the mountainside and getting acquainted with all the ins and outs within, but he knew he couldn't live forever through whatever the scouts told him about secondhand. Now that he was finally warming up to feeling somewhat settled in this new life he found himself in, it was an easier notion to cope with.

But these woods were curious. Already Jarilo had traveled through them for quite some time, first tracing close to the riverbend, then delving deeper into the heart of the forest once he gained his confidence on its fringes. The bloodied trees were eerie at first, but he got used to them quickly--soon searching out ones with particularly gruesome-looking wounds, wondering (and wincing, almost) what might cause this type of show. He theorized about the trees themselves, of course.. but there was more to see.

He was quiet as he threaded onward and almost-reverent in his footfalls, keeping to a light path that left little trace of him behind. It had been easy to get wrapped up in the scenery by now, there was a lot to feel and smell, too. He was content to take in all in, so much so that Jarilo didn't entirely key into the shadows-turned-wolf he had come upon until he was already there well within sight. She blended well, and scent seemed to fuse with the forest floor to him. He had traveled alone so far, and perhaps in this strange sense of reality, he had not anticipated someone else so soon.

First he blinked, gave half a start of his own that perked his head and ears up tall--intent, and sharper now. “Oh. Hi,” he imparted, offering a good-natured greeting to mask his sudden uncertainty before it could take real root.
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The forest around her took most of her attention. Her gaze lingered on the red sap seeping from every tree; aspens, cottonwoods, and alders alike bore the blood stains. If she was surprised by the wolf's approach, she showed little; the corner of her mouth had twitched briefly, quick enough to miss with a less careful eye. She turned to the dark-gray, nearly black wolf and she dipped her head briefly. “Greetings,” she spoke without hesitation, holding the stranger's eyes. “You are new here as well?”
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Quite easily, she returned his look in unfamiliar purple--seemingly unbothered by him so far, which silently urged him to investigate further. Jarilo steadied his own self more beneath a slow exhale, relieved that if anything, it was not aggression he was met with but instead something else to navigate. “New to these woods, exactly,” he replied. There was something distantly familiar about bleeding trees but he was not able to place it, and it was not.. like this forest, precisely.

Wondering just how new she was meaning by this, he kept to his neutral, seemingly-easy presentation.. but bright eyed. “I come down from the mountain,” though covered for the trees, he tried to gesture towards the way of his home, vaguely. His sense of direction was not polished perfectly yet and technically, he still considered himself new there, although a few moons had turned already. “Did you just find this place..?” he guessed, letting her judge the timeline specifically.
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The woman hummed in response to the man's words, her demeanor changing little, even as she cocked her head. “Mountains?” She looked in the direction that he had gestured towards. Her eyes squinted, as if she was searching for the peaks. She looks down at the necklace as it moves with her, her eyes widened as if she had only just seen the decoration.

Without a comment she returns her gaze to the stranger. “No, I've only just arrived.” There's a twinge of amusement laced in her words, a private joke that she does not voice to clarify. “I take it that not all the woods are this odd?”
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Mountains, indeed, so he nodded solidly to say so. His one real certainty in life, both this one and the last, he supposed. “Yeah, not far off. With the range of them,” Jarilo imparted. While here he only intimately knew one mountain, there were others that he saw from their own peak--perhaps multiple ranges even, with more beyond that--so he could only begin to fathom them, let alone speak on them at any real length.

What did interest him was how she phrased her reply, saying she had only just arrived. With something he hoped was a knowing look, he wondered if it was similar to the feeling he had found at the foot of that alpine cave. Whatever that was, it had marked the beginning of all this.. new. But what he didn't know yet was what he even meant to ask about that, or how to.

Still, content with the flow of it, he shook his head softly; no, not all the woods were this odd. “None quite like this one so far,” he said, impressed by the variety of trees all sharing the similar blood-like marks, at least up to this point. There seemed to almost be a distant memory of a faraway place that rang as somehow similar to the naturalist in him, however, he was certain he could not find that place if it had really existed. “But I can't say I've been here that long, either. About.. two moons, give a bit or so,” Jarilo said, honestly, and already needing to see more soon. “I'm still getting acquainted, too.” Especially anywhere off the mountainside, and this was only the start.
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Her eyes shifted once more in the direction of the mountains, locking in that direction as if she were committing something to memory before she returned and kept her gaze on the other wolf, scrutinizing his face with every word and silent movement. 

“And what have you learned in those two moons, if I may ask?” her words again have something like amusement tinging the outline of them, but whether it was at the wolf himself, herself, or the situation they were in was unclear in either her speech or face. Instead, she simply looked intrigued at the nature of the lands surrounding them. “Any other lands as intriguing as this one?”
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In two moons, he had no choice but to take it all in, process it, try to make some sense of why here--and less importantly now that it was said and done, what had happened. Faced with curious lands, he at least had enough to stay distracted with: an entire new mountain, a range spanning beyond, and a cove.. which was just the beginning still, he thought. “I've only just begun to scratch the surface,” he replied vaguely, knowing that any explanation of his would fall terribly short. He could not appeal to the senses like a new mountain with all its range's secrets would. Jarilo would not ruin the mystery of it for her so simply, and answered next. “But I think so in their own way, but this has a certain drama about it that I've not seen yet,” he gestured. Even in a varied forest, how all trees of all types were all dripping. So, what here in this land caused this? And even beyond that, what could this cause too? Could it truly be a benign presence, and look like that?

“I wonder how far it goes on to the east from here. If it's the case all the way through...” he mused, looking past her, into the shadows. “Have you seen?” he asked, focus slipping back to her for an instant, wondering what else she knew--or even wanted to find out.
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She snorted out a laugh that was almost unbecoming of her. “Dramatic is one word for it,” she regards a darkened, bloody stain on the bark of an oak, an oozing scar long since hardened over lingering above as the source.

She shakes her head. “I've not.” After a pause, she tips her head towards the direction he had just looked. “Would you like to travel with me a span?”
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Curiosity brimming made him awfully quick to agree. Close to home, he felt just emboldened enough to so easily go with this flow. Hesitation hadn't come with him down the elevations and it could serve him well to know these forests better. “I would,” he said lightly, tail sway to match. He wanted to see more of the strange bloodied woods, and in company that could appreciate the scenery as well--then he had no objections.

The spry Ostrega paused to let her pick the heading for their course, then joined her right after--senses alight.

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