THIS IS HALLOWEEN

She ignored him. Clearly, he hadn't been in the pack lands for long. This smelled exactly like Abaven. In fact, it almost smelled like her den. Just like it. Warm, crushed moss that was still threaded with some of her mother and father's fur. A half smile graced Fable's face as she trailed the lumbering creature deeper into the woods. Lumbering? That was strange. Fable blinked and the shape before them seemed to ripple and then disappear. "Hey! Stop hiding!" She shouted, her voice cracking in frustration. Had they side-stepped behind a curtain of willow branches? Suddenly it appeared again, except closer now. It was beyond the closest curtain of wraith-like branches. They billowed in the breeze almost rhythmically, as if there was some music that only they could hear. But trees didn't have ears. Fable gulped and stopped short. "Oki? It smells like... my den. It might be my mother. Or my father. They," her voice broke, small and pathetic, "they left to travel back to my father's homeland last season. Maybe they're back!" Fable looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes shining as if lit from within. "Please. Let's look just a little bit longer." Without waiting for a response, she nosed her way past the curtain of branches.

Her mouth dropped open in a silent scream, her pupils dilating to black saucers. A creature shambled before them. At first glance it looked to be a massive elk with a huge crown of antlers. Ribbons of bloody velvet hung in tatters from its antlers. The creature's head was bowed as if the weight of them was impossible to bear. Fable made a strangled noise deep in her throat. She'd heard that noise before, the one that came from within her - it had been the last gurgle that badger she'd driven over the edge of the Moontouched Cliffs had made before it let go and fell to its death.

Slowly the elk turned to regard her. Where the face of a noble buck should lie was a bloody, wretched stump and sewn crudely on top of its neck was her father's head. His eyes glowed queerly in the night-that-was-not-night. Although she knew this to be impossible, that everything about this was wrong (her body was drawn taut, quivering with energy, begging her to flee), Fable took one step closer. It was almost painful to move toward the creature. Every instinct rebelled against it. "Daddy?" she said softly, her voice breaking. His eyes began to flicker and crawl about his face. She blinked again and his eyes took flight, soaring out of his head in slow, lazy spirals. They were fireflies. A cold sweat broke out along her hackles and she knew without a doubt that she was going to be sick. "Oki," she mewled, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes, "what do you see?" The elk that was not an elk, the beast that was not her father, seemed to break its connection with Fable and solely regard the young shinobi warrior behind her.

wc: 519
total:1633