Monument [closed, ooc welcome]

[Naunet]

With nothing else to do, the unearthed man followed after the Duskwight. The slower pace suited him just fine; he didn't think he felt like dealing with other people quite yet anyway. Hopefully by the time they reached... "Gridania? A city, right?" The name was vaguely familiar, but he had no thoughts or images to associate it with. This annoyed him, and he resolved that the first thing he would do would be to establish a sense of direction. Rubbing at the mud smeared in dry patches down one arm, the man found himself casting his gaze about him in search of something, but when he realized he didn't know what, he ceased. A moment later, he snatched a broad leaf from a bush as they inched by and began to scrub at his arm with it.

 

"Not sure if I should thank or be angry at that girl," he mused as he scraped at the mud.

[Twinflame]

As the unearthed man finished speaking, he would find himself face-to-face with the Duskwight. The ancient body was in his path, bent low, placing those silver eyes right where they could look into the holes in the man's mask. "I just told you," the weary voice said, "Do not touch the trees!" The unearthed man's leaf was in the Duskwight's fingers, having been so smoothly and quickly ripped from that muddy hand that the motion almost had not even happened.

 

Standing away again, the Duskwight tore the leaf to bits. He spoke with a lecturing tone, "Do not overlook that the forest is conspiring to kill you. It cannot see you as long as you wear the mask, but if you put your skin to wood and leaf, it just might feel you." He began to slip backwards through the trees, old steps plodding but smooth. "I'd rather not have to save your life again."

[Naunet]

The unearthed man brought both hands up in front of him in a surrendering gesture, pausing his steps to declare, "Alright, yeesh. How am I supposed to know what this crazy forest can or can't do?" He regained his pace then, ragged tail swishing in broad arcs behind him. For a few long moments, he just watched the Duskwight's back, the old man's form bending and swaying in an invisible wind as he moved. The unearthed man turned his face upward, peering through the holes of the mask towards the canopy, and managed to make out glimpses of blue through the trees.

 

The sky. Inexplicably, it bolstered him to be able to see it. He could almost remember how open spaces smelled...

 

This thought confused him, so he shook his ears and brought his gaze back to the Duskwight. "I don't really understand how a forest can want to kill people anyway. I haven't done anything to it, except... well, not be dead." There was a pause, and then a bit quieter he added, "Thanks, though."

[Twinflame]

With a dubious groan, the Duskwight muttered, "The Shroud is authoritarian. Those who do not follow its wishes, forfeit their lives. Your life is against it wishes, so tell me where there leaves you."

 

Gridania was half-days' walk from where they had begun, and it was past noon when they were within sight of the roads that would lead to it. The Duskwight took the unearthed man to the road, but stopped there, his keen ears able to pick out the movements and voices of distant Woodwailers in the direction of the city. He said, "The people who dwell in Gridania do the bidding of the Shroud, but as long as they do not realize that the forest desires your death, they should be agreeable. Do not hint to anyone that you might be a victim of the Woodwrath. Ask for no aid that you do not need direly." Still standing off the wood, amonth the boughs, the Duskwight finished by saying, "I will not enter Gridania. I am not welcome there."

[Naunet]

The unearthed man chuckled where he now stood in the road, then seemed to consider the Duskwight's words. "Wait... You're serious?" He certainly looked it, the man thought as he squinted towards the Duskwight in the brush. "Hm."

 

Casting a look about the road, which seemed to wind out from one identical patch of forest and bend off into another, the miqo'te quirked his mouth behind the mask and ran one dirty hand through his hair. "So. Just stay on the road, huh." He wasn't sure how he felt about being deposited on some strange road in a strange forest to make for a (supposed) city that was surely just as strange as everything else. Then again, it wasn't as though he were completely helpless; perhaps it was just that time to move on, just as he had needed to move on from the chaotic questions in his mind and the strange emptiness that refused to answer them.

 

"If I come back out here, could I find you again?" He swiveled his head towards where the Duskwight had stood.

[Twinflame]

Belatedly, the Duskwight thought it would be good to disappear while the unearthed man was looking away, but by the time he had that thought, the masked man was already looking back towards him. So instead, he just smiled and nodded, "I'm easy to track down. Just walk into the Shroud and lose your way, hopelessly. That's the best way to find me."

[Naunet]

Letting out a laugh that tossed his head back and shook the muscles of his shoulders down to his tail, the unearthed man grinned behind the mask. "I don't think that will be much of a problem."

 

Lifting a hand, her turned back to the road, eyed its rock path for another second, and then just started walking. If he found answers along the way, then so be it, and if he saw the Duskwight again, it would be a happy circumstance, but with his skin still muddied by grave-earth and his face obscured by a strange, wooden mask, the unearthed man decided it would be best to let those things come on their own.