Haunting

They'd spent some time in the sort of edge of the north while Ignatius struggled to formulate a plan, and struggled more so to let his insistent gelada friend make him take it a little easy while he healed. That seemed to take an eternity, perhaps due to his age and the trials his body had already endured over the time he'd been away... Years. Even thinking the word stung, but he couldn't deny that seasons had come and gone many times and he was no longer the young wolf that had started his life over here once before.

Could he do it again? Manage to salvage whatever was left of his tattered mind and body and make something better of it all over again? Doubt was the overwhelming response he has to that proposition as he mulled it over while walking in solitude. It was growing dark already, the sun slipping away all too soon like so many pleasant things in his life. The moroseness he was practically swimming in was tangible as he strode along through lengthening shadows, breath visible in thick clouds. As he entered the tree line he noted briefly the stars beginning to dot the sky above already, glittering hopefully in stark contrast to the living breathing rain-cloud he seemed to be. Why was it that even though he'd finally ended his torment and rid the world of at least one psychotic monster he still could feel nothing but the sting of the losses accrued, wolves who didn't deserve to have their days cut short so much quicker than the cut of days from summer to winter.

Dwelling on the loss, the change, the injustice that saturated all he could see of his life so far had him very much stuck in his own head. When he'd come to Boreas before he'd been bitter, angry, resentful. And now he so wanted to be all those things but perhaps the lack of anyone left to fight over it had him just... feeling melancholy. Walking by the soft glow of his own pelt, he eventually took a seat atop a small hill, staring out at the web of branches that almost gave this place the feeling of being a kind of maze, with so many places to go and no sense of what the right way was. As the sun sunk lower and the shadows swallowed up the forest floor he found himself looking on with interest as a handful of softly glowing fireflies seemed to wake up and begin lazily tracing paths through the branches, slow in the cold night air. Soft yellow glows gently lighting the naked branches of the old trees whenever one of the bugs flew close.

Ig took pause to contemplate that thought. Wasn't it... a little off to have a bunch of fireflies in the woods of the north... when it was cold out? The colors all looked, well, mostly normal. He thought. Some were orange to nearly red, others were more yellow or gold. All were beautiful, but he remained unsettled as the sense that they weren't meant to be here pressed on his mind suffocatingly. His own luminescence flickered softly, lighting him up like the pillar of flame he was colored to resemble. A chilling wind added to the effect as it ruffled his fur for a moment and was gone just as quickly as it arrived, while the chill remained. Suddenly the urge to return to where he'd left a sleeping Cen and a worried Arusi was overwhelming. He just didn't wanna be here where this creepy feeling was making his skin crawl.

Hopping to his paws with more energy than he could usually muster for such a movement with the lingering soreness of old injuries still remaining in his bones. Not a lick of the normal sharp protest that erupted from his body here and there made itself known as adrenaline started feeding it's way into his system. Were the trees closer together than they'd been before? All of a sudden they felt heavy and oppressive around him. No thought given to if he was overreacting, Ig set off at a quick trot back the way he'd come. The lights seemed to be darting closer, zipping in front of him, brushing against his fur ever so slightly from time to time and setting his fur on end. The occasional dark hollow in a tree suddenly looked like an endless pit as he passed it by, sinister and cave-like as though they could swallow him up. His breathing was quick and some part of his mind knew he was panicking but he couldn't get out of that place of paranoia enough to react sensibly to it. There was only flight, run, get out now. A deep red light that was certainly not a firefly darted in front of his face and reflexively he slid to a stop, still feeling like he was being squeezed by the tangle of trees around him. He wondered if this was worse than if he'd gone into the caves. In the moment it felt like it.

Breathing irregularly, the large wolf set off again, faster, faster, hoping to get out into the open so he could feel like he could breathe again. The nagging but quiet sense that just maybe he was just losing it led him to take a glance back over his shoulder - and regret it. The darkness was swallowing the ground behind him as the light disappeared and night arrived, the perfect background for a swarm of lights to be clearly seen, all glowing an ominous red and moving towards him. That was all he needed to see to know that he needed to start sprinting, now without feeling totally crazy which was absolutely no comfort at all. His lungs protested at the sudden activity but he leaned into the burn as he rocketed out of the darkened forest at last. What might have been a minute tops of fleeing felt more like a year long journey when he finally made it to open ground and looked back again to find nothing out of place. The space between the massive trees was indeed empty of strange 'fireflies'. Somehow, that made it feel empty. Ignatius shuddered and moved a few more paces away before flopping to the ground to try and catch his breath. What the hell was that?