Mycophobia

Following their night of terror in the swamps, Kumiho had refused to return back to the haunted place after dusk—which, admittedly, never seemed to go away anymore. The days never grew lighter than twilight, and the sun refused to show its face more than beyond the horizon. The nights lasted longer, had grown significantly colder, and the sky... by the gods, the sky! The stars that had looked like lasers now formed arcing bands of light in all directions. The moon grew larger and closer to the earth as if threatening to smash into it at a moment's notice. It felt like the end of days, and perhaps it truly was. Iho had never given any deep thought to how the end of the world would look, but now that he was living this nightmare, he figured this was a pretty terrifying way for it to go.

Though they hadn't gotten an audience with Kitsune's mother yet to see about bringing him into the pack, Iho had been spending his time quite literally on the border of Ashen territory, usually lingering around the Rio Grande. It was a damn sight better than the swamps right now! At least, that's what he told himself while he sat staring at the pods of weird glowing mushrooms that had sprung up all along the banks of the river. It wasn't a few isolated patched either—there had to be hundreds of the blue glowing fungi! A glance up at the sky could not confirm what time of day it was, only that it was, in fact, daylight. The twilight sky shrouded the land in deep shadows, but it was a far cry from the oppressive blackness that night had become. It also meant that perhaps the specters of the night wouldn't start showing up at all hours of the day. Iho approached a pod of the glowing mushrooms slowly, keeping his distance in case they were one of the kinds that liked to spew spores all over the place. If there was one thing he definitely didn't want going in his lungs, it was creepy supernatural glowing fungi spores!

"Speech"