Ethan Chase (huntsforher) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-09-04 00:42:00 |
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Red had managed, through a great deal of anger and pressure and threats, to get her worthless Las Vegas carrier back to the hotel and through her door. The first step found her back in her Grandmother’s cottage again, and the return set her on edge. She hadn’t been in her Grandmother’s cottage for years, refusing to return after she’d escaped the Wolf, but now the hotel had put her there twice. Each time, she was confronted with the almost empty, rotting dishes on the table, and while the first time she was able to ignore them, the second time brought a clenching of her stomach and bile in the back of her throat. She only just made it past the door before losing her stomach on the ground.
It took long passing moment and a cool, tree-scented breeze from the forest for her to gather herself again, and she wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand. Still feeling pale and drawn, she pulled her hood up over her head, turned her steps away from the small home and headed further into the trees. She’d wandered and walked through nearly every inch of the woods in the last years, but this time at one point, several hours after leaving her Grandmother’s, they suddenly seemed unfamiliar. She stopped and turned, searching for any recognizable landmark, but none presented themselves, even though she was certain she hadn’t ventured far enough to be in new territory. With narrowed eyes, axe in hand, and figuring this was a new “gift” of the strange hotel, she continued forward.
The angle of the sun had changed by the time the wind carried a far-off bark to her ears, followed by an answering howl. A smile crossed her face and fingers tightened around the handle of the axe as she turned her feet toward the sound, moving quickly but as quietly as possible through the forest.
The trees whispered a dying sound, they whistled sadly in the wind. It was summer, but their branches seemed closer to those of the fall. Faded leaves clung to spindle limbs, twigs broke on the faintest of breezes. Moss turned brown as it scaled the endless hierarchy of treebark, not green. There was still green in the grass, there was still life here. It accounted for the chirps and crows of birds, the howl of a certain wolf.
Such a wolf came rushing into the open span of trees. Into the spread where the woman and her axe laid claim. It did not close in on her, but rather brought its hackles high in a vicious show. The animal was a faded gray, his eyes glowed red, and his teeth were bared in a ferocious snarl. He was no youngling, this was a grown animal and he did not seem to take kindly to intruders. This animal was a protector, and that whom he protected was not far behind. Although unseen, he was there. He was always there when he was not through his door. With eyes better than any hawk, he crouched several meters back to observe. After all, this girl may be one of the witch's warriors, it was always best to play safe. Still, no reason to instigate. There was a whistle on the wind, sharp as a blade and brief as a pin drop. It made the wolf hesitated in its snarl, and the animal eyed the woman with its blood eyes, waiting for something.
Red readied herself in a crouch at the appearance of the wolf, but didn’t back away at its show of aggression. The teeth didn’t frighten her, she’d seen larger and closer, those memories forever a part of her. She simply stood her ground and kept her fingers tight around the use-worn wood of the axe’s handle. The blade itself was clean, well cared for, but the wood near the metal was stained dark. Her hood was still up, hiding her hair but showing pale skin and light eyes. “Shh,” she whispered, voice carrying on the wind but meant only for the wolf, any eavesdroppers unknown to her as she focused on the animal. With a subtle shift of her weight, one foot traveled to the side, moving slowly and remaining low to the ground for the moment. As she stepped, last year’s autumn leaves cushioned her footfall but not her words. “Who are you, then? You’re not the one I’m looking for...” Still quiet, her tone held the fading soprano of a girl that hadn’t quite made the full jump to woman, even if her eyes showed an old soul from the shadows of the hood. The whistle made her freeze in place, eyes narrowing at the animal in front of her. The woods had been her home for years, and never had she heard a birdcall such as that. She didn’t move from the crouch, and her narrowed eyes flickered over the wolf to the trees beyond, briefly searching for the source of the sound, but never taking her attention fully from the animal.
“What was that, Grey?” Her question was still low, the level of a person who knew they were talking to a wild animal, even though she addressed him as she would a person. “These aren’t my woods, but you look like you belong. Do you know what bird makes such a sound?” She took two more slow steps to the side, never nearing the wolf, but beginning to circle, hoping a new perspective would reveal the sound’s source. Her eyes continued to move between the animal and the trees, waiting for something from one or the other.
The axe, which gleamed visible in the haunting slants of light that cascaded through dwindling branches, was not a threat. Not from a distance such as this, and certainly not for his wolf. The creature was smart enough to hold his ground, but even it would retreat from a frontal attack by some witch's blade. The beast's only intention was that of protection, of assistance in the hunt that he roamed with his brother. Although the string of his bow had been drawn tight with assessment, no arrow escaped the huntsman's quill as in his crouch, he realized that the hooded figure was too small, too delicate in frame to be that of any predatory man. Releasing the bow's string slowly, the man stood from his hiding spot in distant bushes. He wore leather and coarse fabrics of evergreen that blended into a convenient camouflage, something that the girl in the hood could learn from. There was an animal pelt drawn across his shoulders, the muddy red fur of what must have been an atypically large fox. "I have been accused of being many things, but never a bird." Another soft whistle, this one not nearly as sharp or commanding, brought the wolf's head up. The animal sniffed the air before retreating to the huntsman's side, both of their eyes on the out of place woman with her axe. She seemed to be hunting as well, although he found it improbable that she knew what she was doing. One did not hunt with an axe, and yet her footsteps were too deft and strategic to suggest she was merely gathering wood for some fire. "It is dangerous to travel these woods alone, girl."
The rustle that came from the movement of the man standing was soft enough to nearly escape her notice, but with her ears already stretched for another birdcall, she caught some of the sound. His voice drew sharp eyes directly to where he stood, and even though the wolf moved away, she refused to straighten out of her crouch, adjusting her grip on the smooth wooden axe handle. Men that roamed with wolves were never to be trusted, especially as they might turn into wolves themselves. She did not shy away under the dual regard. “One might ask what things you have been accused of,” she replied. His face wasn’t familiar, what little bit she could make out from where she finally stood, but she would never trust a man that stood so close to a wolf. Like it was his brother.
Her eyes narrowed at his “warning”, and she automatically took two steps toward him in an offensive move, drawing herself up to make herself taller. “The woods are my home. Nothing in them frightens me.”
"One might ask," he agreed with a bit of a smile. It was a smile that said asking would be a fruitless endeavor, or it might just bring about answers that she was did not really want to hear. His was certainly a story that the Huntsman was never keen on telling. He did not recognize this young woman either, although that did not mean very much. The many woods were vast, although those who willingly traveled through them alone were a rarity. Particularly that of a young woman on her own with one lone axe. Hardly more than a girl, he assessed from where he stood on a mossy boulder. Her axe was no threat to him, and whether she knew it or not, his bow was no threat to her. Not yet. Not unless she proved herself to be of some new dark magic, which certainly thrived in forests like these.
When she advanced with a broadening of skinny shoulders, the wolf emitted a hellhound's growl. The animal's fur was on end when it padded forward one step to intercept her before she got any closer to the hunter. "There is plenty to be frightened of in these woods, girl. If you are unafraid, you are foolish.. or you have wandered far from home." The wolf bared its teeth with no sound, but even its silence prickled with warning. The huntsman eyed the pale wolf's show of aggression before addressing the cloaked woman with caution, "Stand down, girl."
Red narrowed her eyes again at the man’s round-about refusal to answer her question. The hair on the back of her neck stood nearly as much as the wolf’s fur. The wolf’s growl was something she could deal with, though, and she squared her shoulders, turning so she could glare at it. Her teeth flashed when she spoke, almost as much an animal as the wolf itself. “Put your teeth away, pup.” She shifted her glare to the man, not moving forward but her body still read aggression. “Only when you reign your mutt, wolf-friend.”
"He is no mutt," and the words suddenly brushed on dangerous air. The air of insults and transgression. Hopping down from the boulder, the hunter's boots landed in solid soil before he approached the side of his companion, the wolf. That bow never left his hand, as the axe had yet to leave hers. Woman or not, this one did not act like some soft, wilting thing, and she gained no trust from him. The wolf lifted his head, red eyes witnessing the hunter who stood beside him. With a tick of the man's head and a reach into his pocket for some jerkied rabbit flank, the wolf retreated a step. The man tossed the meat several feet behind him, and the wolf hesitantly trotted back for it, curling up in moss and grass to gnaw on the grisled flesh. The two humans were somewhat alone at last, and the man hooked the bow onto his arm before addressing her. "What is your name, girl?"
Even on relatively even ground, Red was noticeably petite - shorter than the man by a fair amount. She held herself tall and dangerous though, a sort of appearance that was more than half mask, one that was covered in sharp things but that might crack as soon as it was pushed on too hard. She shifted her attention from the wolf to the man, though not enough that she wasn’t still aware of what the creature was doing. Even with the man’s bow stowed on his arm, she still kept her own weapon in hand. She had not survived the past years by trusting anything.
“What is yours?” she countered, bristling when he called her ‘girl’, hating the vulnerability laced through the word. Her hood finally began to slip back as she tilted her head just enough to look him in the face. She tugged it forward again with a scowl, but not before a shock of burnished copper hair was revealed, along with a full view of a young face (fine features, light eyes, pale but dirty skin) and a flash of the scarlet lining of the hood. She may not have had the camouflage of the huntsman, but in that moment it was obvious that she’d at least hidden her most vibrant feature.
"I do not have one," he offered with no hint of humor. Curiosity brought a lift of his bristly chin when she once again fastened the stray slip of that hood over her hair. The girl's face was marked with dirt, streaks on pale skin that spoke of long and weary travel, or perhaps no home at all. That alone made his boots stop short of approaching her any closer. Not her axe or her warrior's stance, but the young eyes and dusty peasant cheeks. From somewhere behind him, the wolf chewed noisily, breaking the rabbit's femur bone on its teeth with a series of cracks that were not loud but somehow seemed to still echo in the endless quiet of the wood. "My parents were killed before I could know it.." This time there was a softening of his voice, and the truth was a peace offering.
She frowned at him, his solemn statement causing her to shake her head. “No. Everyone has a name. Everyone must be called something.” Even herself. She’d had a different name once, one her parents had given to her upon her birth, but since she’d first put on the scarlet cloak, everyone had simply called her “Red”. After the... incident at her Grandmother’s house, she’d never looked back at her old name, refused to answer to it ever again because that girl, the one with the innocent name, was dead and gone. The sounds of the wolf’s eating were loud in the trees around them, but it was the softening of the man’s voice that put her most ill at ease. She hadn’t heard a soft word like that in too long, more used to the sounds of the woods - animal grunts and growls - and the harsh words of pathetic men that begged for mercy. It caused her to take a wary step back, frowning at him and with knuckles gone white from tension on the handle of her weapon.
"That is true," he wagered gingerly, unable to not notice the clench of delicate fingers around a killing handle. Although he'd advanced a step closer to her, his boots went still in the dirt at the show of such an aggressive defense. The huntsman wondered if this was the girl he'd set out to find. He wondered if she was Snow. She certainly seemed prepared to charge into a cursed castle. The silence between them deepened into tangible tension, the only sounds came from the living forest around them. And from the distant wolf, chewing loudly through gristle and bone. He did not tell her the name that his adopted family had given him after they'd taken him in from the wolves. It, like her own, felt like a name attached to another person. One long gone. "They call me Huntsman." There was a tilt of his head, trying to read her. "I am a hunter by trade..." His attention dropped to her weapon again. "Is there someone after you, girl?" Since she refused to give her name, she could simply be girl.
Red let her hand finally relax a minute amount on the handle of the axe, standing straight but still somewhat at attention, ready to move if either man or wolf should attack. His name, as simple as it might be, was given freely, and with a scowl she felt obligated to give her own in return. “People call me Red,” she replied, hoping that the kindness of the exchange wouldn’t result in an immediate turn-around of cruelty or violence. “Don’t call me girl.” She shifted her weight quickly, one foot and then the other, in time with the bone-crunch of the wolf’s eating, before stilling again. Her gaze flashed to the surrounding trees at the question, and when she turned her gaze back to the Huntsman, her expression had changed. Not quite a smile, but a baring of teeth again. “No. No one hunts me.”
He smiled a little at the unexpected offering of a name in return. "As you wish, Red." Unless she was lying, she was not the woman that he was looking for. He was not naturally suspicious even if he was cautious by nature, and her name was familiar to him on some recent level. "I believe we have spoken.." Then, to clarify, he added, " In the book." He left it at that, in case she was not the same Red that had voiced such concern over her companion through the door. Eyeing the snarling glimpse of her teeth, his smile rekindled ever so briefly. "I imagine they would be unwise to do so."
“The book.” Red’s spat words were full of disgust at the thought of it. The book tied her to the man across the door, and she would much rather be dead than tied to him. Her eyes darkened with her thoughts, and even in the shadow of her hair and hood, it was easy to see the wrinkled frown between her brows. His smile did nothing to calm or reassure her, instead prodding at the hot throb of irritation in her chest. She slipped the axe back into the strange contraption she’d rigged to carry it, leather straps across her back, and stepped forward. Her progress brought her to within feet of the Huntsman, but just far enough that he would still have to move forward to strike at her. She was a fair amount shorter than him, and had to look up to deliver her scowl, her hood slipping back again with the angle of her head. It stayed up enough to cover her hair, but her face was clear in the light, eyes narrowed. “Very unwise,” she forced out.
The book seemed to be a sore subject, although it was a subject that he momentarily dropped in favor of a mirthful grin. Although it might not have been visibly, he was finally able to relax when she settled that bloodthirsty axe back into its leather sling. That relaxation was shortlived, however, when the girl started toward him. He stiffened, that left hand twitching in resistance against the urge to reach for his bow. She didn't exactly strike him as trustworthy, too volatile with all that scowling hate in her eyes when she tipped back her head. "Relax, girl. You are not the one I seek."
Red froze when she noticed the tension in the Huntsman’s posture, the twitch of his fingers. She slipped one foot back, feet askew and knees loose enough to move quickly if she needed. Her own hand strayed toward her belt, toward the knife that she kept there. In a second she’d gone from cautious to anticipating an attack and counterattack. “Who are you seeking?” she growled out at him, eyes narrowing. “And for what?” If he couldn’t come up with an acceptable answer, she would do what she could to keep him from leaving. Wolf or no wolf.
The two were in an uncomfortable stand-off. He could see it in the way she stood at the ready for attack, a hand slipping toward some unseen weapon hidden behind a fold of her cloak. In the end, maybe the wisest thing was for him to back down. Coincidentally, its not as if the humble hunter really felt like he had anything to prove to the strange warrior woman out for blood. Her growl brought a half-formed wink of apology as he crept back a step. His palms up and out in innocence. "Neither of those things are your concern, girl." Although he had her name (or more likely, her nickname), he'd grown fond of girl. He could sense her distaste for it. Moving around her at a wide circumference to ensure she didn't come charging to slit his throat with the sharp end of her axe, he moved to continue in the direction he'd originally been heading.
“I am making them my concern,” Red replied, following the Huntsman’s movements with her eyes and then, as he began to arc around her position, turned her body to track him. His continued use of “girl” made her eyes narrow, and a soft noise that was almost a growl start in the back of her throat. She wanted to turn completely, to step after him, but doing so would leave her back nearly unprotected, and she didn’t feel that it was the day to die with a wolf’s teeth in her spine. Instead, she started to move by stepping to the side, keeping one eye on the Huntsman and the wolf in her peripheral vision. “I will not let you leave if you mean to do harm to another.”
"You can calm yourself, little one. Harm is not my intention. Nor is it my intention to see what you can do with that axe of yours." Although he trusted that he could put an arrow in her eye before she ever got close enough to use it. It was not a lie, violence now or later was not the goal. Not to mention that the idea of striking down a woman was less than appealing. Even if she did take after him with that axe, his bow was not likely to be the answer.
Red watched him stand there for a silently passing moment, fingers itching for a weapon, but she kept them tucked away without a true attack against her. She drew herself up again, though, as tall as she could, and continued to glare, trying to make it a weapon itself. “I don’t believe you. All men mean to do harm, in their own way.” She tensed, as if to take another step forward, but at the last moment she stood her ground. “And you shall find out, when I hear whatever it is you plan to do.” She kept her chin tipped up stubbornly, and a single wave of copper hair fought its way out to curl along the side of her face, bright against pale skin and dark hood.
"Keep your ear to the wind and you may hear something of me yet." Although debating whether it was wise to turn his attention from her, he inevitably did so. His eyes searched the horizon, knowing that he had to continue toward the West if he wanted to reach the woods that Rose had specified before dawn. His boots crunched across the leaves as he strode twice more in that direction, giving the cloaked, feral child another cursory glance that was as much sincerity as it was distrust. "Although the truth remains, and I do not plan to harm anyone." He saw no reason to argue with her over the matter, as she was quite right in one respect. Men were built to destroy. "I will know if you follow me," and his tone said that would be quite unpleasant.
“I will not need the wind to tell me such things. If you do not yourself, plenty of others will.” Red nearly took the opportunity of the Huntsman’s turned, seemingly unguarded back to attack him, end him there in the woods. The sound of his beast moving through the leaves itself made her gather back her thoughts, however. She watched the two of them move toward the west, wondering what the strange, unfamiliar woods held in that direction. “I shall not today. But I will be there another day.” It was a promise built on warning and threat, and it was the last she said before slipping into the trees in a different direction.
The huntsman made no argument for himself, but rather turned to watch her when she moved between the thick trees in a seemingly different direction. He waited for a moment, the wolf coming up to flank him where he stood listening to the sound of her footsteps as they grew dim and ultimately faded into the natural sounds of the forest. She seemed to have gone, and with revived intentions, he turned to the West again. He needed to find the woman, Snow, before dusk.