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 Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2023 3:20 am
 Samhain night, and the wind was howling in the tops of the trees. If they’d been out in the open, the rain would have been driving horizontally. The trees sheltered Jon, Addie, and Ullita from the worst of the weather, but not from the bitter cold the storm chased in. It was as if, after a long, hot summer, winter was eager to make its mark. For some reason, that felt more sinister to Jon than if it had only been a dark night; a dark and stormy night, on the other hand, felt somehow more dangerous. With the stars and the moon hidden from view, only the glow of Jon’s fungus lamp provided any light at all, and even that was dim and feeble.
“Bad omen for Samhain,” he muttered under his breath.
Ullita opened one eye and stared at him. “You and your omens,” she sighed. “Can’t you just…accept that the world is a wonderful place and that sometimes things just happen by random chance?”
“Not in this forest,” Jon grumbled. “You’ll understand someday.”
“I hope not,” Addie said, from somewhere on Jon’s back. “You really don’t want to understand this forest. Trust me.”
Addie was right, of course, but there was no way Jon was going to admit that. He tried to shut out the sounds of the storm overhead and the snickering of his new friend. He needed to sleep. It was best not to be awake on a night like this, and not just because it was unpleasant to experience with any consciousness. Jon had grown up in this forest, and he knew its dangers. He believed in the supernatural; there were too many experiences he’d had here that were beyond explanation by ordinary means. No matter what Ullita thought, there were things in this forest that must be appeased and obeyed. On a night like this especially.
He’d been hoping to be able to find or even make some kind of shelter in the woods before now. Maybe some kind of den out of sticks and branches. Or maybe find some small cave, somewhere he and his friends could shelter from storms like this. But as it was, there was no place to bed down tonight that wasn’t cold, windy, and wet. Rain pattered on the leaves, and chilled his body to the bone, but he tried to shut it out, as well as the idea of the spooks that could, even now, be clustered around them, waiting to be seen by the light of…well, there was no moon tonight, but the light of something.
The last thought Jon had before he fell asleep was that this was precisely why he carried the fungus lantern, because its light was the only light that the Things could be seen by that wouldn’t put a Soquili in danger…
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Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2023 3:22 am
The rain must have let up, because his hair and skin was dry. But the sound of voices had Jon on his hooves immediately. He could hear many voices, all chattering at once, laughing and talking and even, some of them, raised in song. But that was impossible, these woods were empty except for him, Addie, and Ullita; even most talking animals avoided these woods, and these were not the voices of animals, but the deep-bodied, resonant voices of Soquili, who were deep of ribs and voice. His eyes were open and his body on its feet before he could even think those things coherently. He had to protect himself, and find out what was going on. What he saw was…
Impossible.
The woods were full of Soquili, or at least, creatures that looked like Soquili. There was something…not quite right. Going on. They looked very much like Soquili, yes, and they sounded like it, and so far as he could tell, they more or less smelled like Soquili too. But there was something…not quite right. Something he couldn’t put a hoof on. There were lights here, too, more of the familiar fungus lights he was used to. Everyone was carrying one, giving the glade the look of twilight studded with stars, so great was the light put out by them. The Soquili (?) were chatting, singing, laughing. There was merriment in the air, even if the air itself was chilly. It was clear that the company alone was enough to keep everyone warm.
Where was he? The trees looked familiar, like the trees in his home, and the smell of them was familiar. The fungus lights, too, looked familiar. They were found throughout his home forest, casting a dim light in shades of orange, gold, and teal, like little pumpkins. Here he could see them in colors he’d never seen before, though—pink, red, green, and even white, as well as the usual autumnal colors. It was…eerie. As were the “Soquili” themselves. They were all of them, to a one, jet black, with not a single marking on them. Only their eyes were any color at all, glowing like their lanterns. They were grounded Soquili, too—no horns or antlers, nor wings nor claws, but there was something about them, something that made them more special even in spite of this. Each of them was in the peak of health, muscular, with glossy hair and manes, their voices beautiful. Maybe that was what was so eerie about them—the uniform regularity of that was only skin-deep, or maybe the way each of them seemed to be better than Jon in every way that mattered.
While he was contemplating their strangeness, one of them trotted up to him, a mare with a twinkle in her pink eyes. (He’d never realized before how fond he’d grown of the color pink in the last few months) “Hello there!” she said, her voice clear and sweet. “I say, I don’t recognize you—is this your first time?”
“My…first time?” he asked. His mouth was dry right now, and he didn’t know why. She was pretty, but not that pretty. No, she wasn’t what was making his mouth dry right now. So what was it?
And where were his friends?
She nodded. “Oh yes. I haven’t seen you around here before.”
He chuckled, in spite of himself. “Well, I suppose I do look very different from everyone else here.”
The mare tilted her head. “Not…really?” she said. “You look like one of us.”
Jon frowned. That wasn’t right, it couldn’t be. He wasn’t a grounded Soquili (not that there was anything wrong with grounded Soquili!). He was Cerynei, the place where Soquili of the plains met deer of the woods. It was more of an aesthetic difference than anything else, really—he could leap further than the average regular Soquili, but he wasn’t a Flutter who could change size or an Ulun’suti who could control the elements. But still, there was some difference, and no one who could see could mix them up. For a second, he wondered if maybe she was blind—but no, she’d said he looked unfamiliar, and that he looked like one of them…
A paradox. By the stars, he hated those. He looked down at his hooves, the easiest thing to see, and to his shock, where he was used to seeing a cloven hoof, he instead saw a pair of plain, smooth hooves like most Soquili breeds. His head felt lighter, too, as if he had no antlers. And the white markings on his feet were gone as well. He was, in fact, like every other Soquili in the clearing, a jet-black grounded, with nothing remarkable about him other than his lack of mane and fetlocks. And his eyes, though they probably didn’t make him much different in this crowd. He could see plenty of Soquili with orange eyes just from where he was standing.
He looked back up at the pink-eyed mare. “Yep! Just like you!” He smiled, though his heart wasn’t in it. He was still so confused. He was here—but where was Ullita? And where was Addie? He hadn’t been without Addie in…he didn’t know how long! She’d always been there for him, through thick and thin! To not have her here was unnerving. He kept half-expecting for her to jump onto his back, or fall onto it from a branch above. The usual ferret shenanigans! But there was no sign of her, and when he tried to scent the wind for her, he could smell no sign of his ferret companion. That must mean she wasn’t here—her smell was…distinct at the best of times.
In fact, there was no one here but other Soquili. Not a single other animal could be seen anywhere. Okay, so a Soquili-only affair. But then, where was Ullita? Why could he smell her here either? He shook his head. “Sorry, can you say that again?”
“I said, what is your name, stranger?” the pink-eyed mare said again. “Unless you’d prefer I keep calling you ‘stranger’ all the time.”
“My name is…” Jon hesitated. Something wasn’t right here. And all the old stories and warnings he’d been given as a foal all came back to him. “You can call me Shadow,” he said at last.
The pink-eyed mare arched an eyebrow and clucked her tongue. “‘Shadow’? Not exactly original. But fair enough, I suppose. I can hardly expect you to tell me your real name. My name is—”
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Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2023 3:23 am
Some of the images and events from that night would remain crystal-clear in Jon’s head for ages to come. But others would fade from memory almost upon waking, like a snowflake melting on the tongue. For some reason, the pink-eyed mare’s name was one of them. So he ended up calling her Rose Eyes in his mind. It was easier than remembering her name, though he had to admit it wasn’t much different than “the pink-eyed mare.”
Almost immediately after she told him her name, a horn blew out. Jon had only heard a horn once before in his life, from a wanderer who had carried a horn made from the horn of an Ulun’suti. The sound was memorable, and it sent a shiver of ice down his back. Rose-Eyes turned to look at him eagerly, her eyes bright with excitement. “The Hunt is on!” she said. “Come on, Shadow!” Then, without a word of explanation, she, and every other Soquili in the herd, took off. The mass of bodies around Jon pushed him forward so that he had no choice but to join them, taking off through the woods with the lights of other fungus lanterns (his own was nowhere to be seen, of course) all around them. They were fleet of foot, like elder Cerynei, and yet, Jon had no difficulty in keeping up. They practically flew through the woods. No fallen branch nor rising root slowed them down; and though he could hear clearly now, the howl of the wind in the treetops, and the freezing chill of the rain that had finally returned, none of it seemed to affect him; he was as immune to the real world as were the ghostly Soquili all around him.
Ghosts. They had to be. That was why they were so fast. So dark. So chilling. Why they all felt so wrong, even while he couldn’t name anything wrong about them. And this ‘hunt’? It’s the Wild Hunt. It must be! It’s a stormy night, and the veil between worlds is thin because of Samhain. His mind raced, trying to figure out what it could possibly mean, that he was here, surrounded by the dead, racing through his forest.
Why was he here, with them? Why were they in his forest?
And most importantly, who were they hunting?
He caught up with Rose-Eyes, though it took him a second to realize it was her—so many of the hunters looked the same from behind. He had to concentrate on smells to differentiate her from the rest of the spectres. “What are we doing here?” he asked her. He didn’t know why, but he knew, in his heart, that time was short.
“We’re hunting!” Rose-Eyes laughed. “What else do you do on a Hunt?”
“Well, obviously,” he said, crooking a grin that belied the trepidation inside. “What I mean is, what are we hunting?”
“You mean you don’t know?” She tilted her head at him. “You joined the Hunt, but you don’t know what we’re hunting?”
“I didn’t…” He stopped. He didn’t want to admit that he was not here of his own will. Who knew what the ghosts around him would do to him if they realized he wasn’t dead like they were. “What I mean is, it sort of…happened to me, y’know? And no one’s explained to me what we’re hunting.”
Rose-Eyes grinned. “The usual, of course.”
He was going to get nowhere with her, was he. “Of course! Good! Just, making sure that this wasn’t an odd hunt.”
Her ears flicked back in disgust. “Oh no,” she said. “I would never join an odd hunt.”
“Well, of course not,” Jon said. “You’re a mare of taste.”
She seemed to like the compliment. At least, she smiled at him and ran on.
So, he was out in the middle of night, running alongside the (possibly) undead, hunting something, but he didn’t know what, and the only person he’d befriended here wouldn’t tell him who—or what—it was. But he had a terrible idea that he knew what it was. Or rather, who it was. And the very idea of who it was chilled him to the bone.
Just ahead, he could hear the horn blaring out once again, followed by other horns, and the shouts of joy and savage delight of the Hunters. Jon put on a burst of speed, shoving his way past protesting undead to the front of the pack. There, a group of Soquili bigger, stronger, and faster than the rest, led the herd. Here at last he saw beings who were not Soquili, but to his dread, they weren’t the kind of animals he was used to. They were beings of shadow, some of them shaped like birds of prey, and others like lean and vicious wolves. The birds carried the twisted, gnarled horns, and would lift them to the mouths of the Hunters to blow on as they ran. The wolves ran out ahead even of the Hunters, their noses to the ground, howling and baying to each other. It seemed as if the horn-blowers could understand the words of the wolves, though Jon couldn’t understand them, and did not want to. There was something hideous and sinister in the voices of those things. All of them ignored him, but that didn’t matter. He wasn’t here to talk to them, only to see what it was they were hunting. For that, he would have to get ahead of them.
He pushed himself, harder than he had ever pushed himself before, leaping out ahead of the leaders of the Hunt, and in amongst the wolves. The wolf-like creatures yipped and growled, some of them even stumbling as they ran, but they all got out of his way and let him pass. His lungs burned with the exertion it took to get ahead of the Hunt, leaving the lights and the voices of the Hunters behind. He thought he could hear Rose-Eyes calling out to him, but he ignored it. He had to see for himself, he had to know what it was they were hunting…
And sure enough, on the branches of the trees, he could see long pink strands of hair caught on the thorns and twigs. The wolves had been sniffing them. This was what they were hunting.
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Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2023 3:24 am
Jon.
It was a voice like he’d never heard before. He turned around and found himself face-to-face with one of the Hunters.
Or at least, that’s what he thought later. He knew that there was something about the Hunter that made him different. Something about him that proclaimed for all to see that he was the leader of this Wild Hunt, the true leader. But try as he might, later, he could remember nothing. All he could remember was the Master’s legs. There had been eight of them.
But it was the voice that captivated him, and the glowing eye (he had only one eye, the Master of the Hunt). He spoke to him, but not in a voice that the ears could hear. Only the mind could hear this voice. Jon, you know these woods. And you serve them well. You know the shadow that lies upon them. Do not let the darkness claim the flower. Nor let the shadow corrupt the light. Or the Hunt will come for you both. The Master raised his head as if to scent the wind, and already the sounds of the Hunt became distant to them. Shadow fell upon them both, without the lights of the fungus lanterns to illuminate them. A deadly chill settled upon Jon, making him shiver and shake as if midwinter was already there. The frost comes. It will wither all. Root, flower, and fungus. All will freeze. All will die. That is the quarry of the hunt.
Jon’s breath frosted in front of him, a great cloud of ice. “What must I do?” he whispered.
The Master of the Hunt turned to him. Prepare, he said. Or be doomed.
The voice grew silent, but the sounds of the Hunt began to increase, as if the black spectres were getting closer and closer, and this time, they were calling his name. His real name.
“Jon!”
“Jon!”
“Jon, you lazy son of a coyote, get up!”
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Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2023 3:25 am
Jon awoke on a cold morning with frost covering the ground and every surface. His breath frosted in front of him, a small cloud of ice. Ullita was shivering in front of him, stamping her hoove impatiently. “Jon, wake up, what’s wrong?”
“Yeah, what’s wrong, Jon? You’ve got to wake up, it’s too cold to be asleep!” Addie jumped onto his head, climbing up and down his antlers. “What’s got into you, you never sleep this late the morning after Samhain night?”
Jon didn’t answer. He was too busy looking up at Ullita, admiring the way the cold morning air made her hair seem so bright and so pink. Her eyes were the same color as the eyes of that…that pink-eyed…Rose-Eyes. What did that mean?
And what did the Master of the Hunt mean with this warning? Prophecy? Was it a prophecy?
“I had a dream,” he said at last. “Or, maybe it was a premonition. It’s going to be a cold winter.” He stood up and shook himself off. “A very cold winter. We need to make a shelter to stay in before it starts to snow.”
Ullita shivered and Jon rushed to her side, pressing his body up against hers. “Are you alright?” he asked. “Last night wasn’t too cold?”
“I mean, it was night outdoors in autumn,” she said, sounding unsure of herself. “It’s supposed to be cold. Jon, what’s got into you?”
He tried, in his mind, to make sense of it all, to put words to his thoughts and feelings and memories. But Ullita wasn’t a fanciful person—she didn’t believe in curses, in prophecies, in mad gods and vindictive spirits. She wouldn’t understand. She wouldn’t believe. “I…had a dream. One where you were in danger.” (The familiar strands of pink hair on the trees, the way the wolf-things sniffed at them and led the hunt on her trail) “So I guess I’m just a little worried about you right now.”
“Oh.” Ullita didn’t say anything, then, slowly, hesitantly, she leaned against him. “I’m okay,” she said. “Cold, but okay.”
“We’ll fix that,” Jon said. “We’ll get a shelter built, somewhere we can be dry and warm in winter. We’ll have to ask for help from other creatures, but I think we can get something together.”
“Mm.” Ullita looked at him, as if trying to put words together. Then, at long last, she said, “Jon? Could you…do me a favor? This winter?”
Jon nodded without hesitation. “Of course. What is it?”
“Could you tell me…about the past? About what happened to these forests? About these ‘curses’ you talk about? About your past? We’ve been living together for months now,” she said quickly, “and I…I’d like to get to know you better.”
His heart started beating faster and he smiled at her, wondering if it was just his imagination and wild hope that made it look as if her heart was speeding up too. “Yes. It’s time I explained it all. I know I haven’t really…explained anything. But you’re right. It’s time you knew.”
Before anything bad happens to you, forest flower.
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