Stalking a Live Oak (open)

Stalking a Live Oak (open)

Postby Korressa » Thu Oct 08, 2015 5:42 pm

One night, as the weather begins to blow foul and game becomes more scarce, a hunter in tattered garb drags himself through the tavern door. He is worn and mud-spattered, his face grim and hard. The cold, dry air has not yet reached the inner bowels of the forest where he has roamed, and the trials of the day wear in heavy splatters on his clothing. With little regard for his equipment, he drops bow and quiver on the floor, and throws himself bodily into a chair. The man is the very picture of defeat.

"Rough day, luv?" one of the barmaids sidles up, a tray hitched against her hip and littered with empty mugs. "Y'look roigh' facked, y'do."

With a roll of his eyes and a grand sigh, the man gestures back out the door through whence he had strolled.

"Th'bloody damned trees're more haunted than a witch's taint," he mutters. "There I be, mindin' me oon, fahllin' a buck I'd tagged fer th'kill. En ootta nowhere, ootta the bloody trees 'emselves, comes this 'ellish thing all o' twigs en leaves. Jus' streaked pass me like a fackin' breeze."

"Yer a loiar!" the wench gasps. She bounces the tray for emphasis, setting the mugs to rattling together hollowly. "Noo sooch thing in th'fores'."

"Swear it on me mam's grave, I do," he says solemnly.

"Aye, yer mam 'oo lives 'cross from moine then, ey?" she laughs, and the mugs clank their merry approval.

"T'chah, aye. 'm tha' serious!" he growls, clearly not in the mood to laugh at his own vows.

"Weeeh-yel then, ge'oon wi'it. Wha'appened?"

"Roigh'. Well. I fin'ly caugh' oop to tha' buck, y'see? Fine beast, grea' rack—" and here he has to pause, to quell the barmaid's giggling "—four'een points, 'e had! A foine prize! Bu'when I coome across him at lass, fin'ly felled, th'bloody thing o' twigs en bark is roigh' a'top o' it, shovin' entrails inta is gapin' maw."

For emphasis, the hunter raises his hands to his jaw, and forms his fingers into mock fangs that gnash and clamp in front of his lips.

"Now I know yer fibbin'," the younger woman scoffs. "We ain'ad noothin' loike that in Myrken. Leasaways, no' since I was a wee bairn."

"I told ye I'd swear on me mam's grave, en I'd swear on me own to boot. 'twere one o' them whasies—tree bitches—a dried—stuffin' is gullet with me buck's guts," he says, and makes a sign against evil with his right hand over his heart. "Had tits like oak roots and mossy growin' all o'er it loike. Hissed a'me loike some grea' big cat'er some shit."

"Dry-ad," the barmaid corrects him with a sniff. "Me own mam tole me 'bout those things. Said there ain' been noone in nigh on a decade."

"Well yer mam weren't oot there w'me today t'see it," he grumbles in reply. "Gore 'nuff to turn even me guts, with the way it tore inna that buck. I ran 'fore it could catch clear sight 'o me. 'case it decided I'd be a tastier morsel than tha'there deer."

"Sure, sure. Well, I'll go get ye a bit of our venison, and a mug 'o brown." With a laugh and a sashay of her hips, the barmaid departs to bring the defeated hunter his dinner. For the rest of the night, as he grumbles and growls, the man relates the tale of what he saw to all and sundry.

"There's somethin' oot there in the woods," he tells anyone who would listen. "Mark me words, y'don wanna be oot in those trees aloon."
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Re: Stalking a Live Oak (open)

Postby Dulcie » Sat Oct 10, 2015 7:16 am

"Humans and trees. Not good to the other." The woman said as she looked up from where she had been sitting. Under normal circumstances she might have been hard to miss, but given the Hunter's frazzled state one could certainly excuse it. As it was she drew attention to herself with her words. Not only was her speech not quite right but her throat was raspy as if she hadn't spoken in some time, and her accent made it more than apparent that she wasn't from Myrken Wood at all.

The woman looked up from where she was sitting on the floor in front of the hearth, her legs crossed in front of her, her hands still resting on the bit of stone she had been shaping into an arrow head. Her deep brown eyes fell on the hunter and she cocked her head to the side slightly, her hair woven into hundreds of tiny braids swaying with the motion against her chocolate colored skin.

From head to toe everything about her looked wild. Her clothing a simple tunic and trousers hand sewn from leather, a simple bow and quiver resting beside her. But it wasn't really her appearances that were disturbing, it was the sense that people got about her sometimes, the feeling of being watched, hunted. Her stare was a predator's stare and she did nothing to mute it.

"You see things not to see. Do not go to the trees. The forest kin do not like it."
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Re: Stalking a Live Oak (open)

Postby highawaywoman » Tue Oct 13, 2015 2:50 pm

"Tellin' a man nae 'o 'unt is much loike tellin' a doog nae 'o piss in agains' a tree. It's gonna 'appen."

The words came from a lone figure drinking at the bar and doing her utmost best to ignore the conversation of the locals. Not much interested the highwaywoman that evening. Her mind was too plagued with thoughts of lost horses, of a man at the docks, and of knots that still need tying up. However, the hunter's tale drew her interest.

"Wot ye seen then. 'Twas nae a dream within that oth'r place? Ye felt i', seen i'?" Finally, the horsewoman turned from her bottle to pay heed to the drinking hunter.

"Many say 'em woods are evil in of itself. I meself los' a 'orse within 'em confoines. And wot the lady says 'ere, can also be add'd. She bein' oone tha' coommunes within 'em."

A tap of the the bottle signaled to the barkeep that she was near done this evening.

"Stay safe, me friend. Dinnae go aboou' there aloone. Never nae wot ye uncov'r."
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