the trees have eyes - Kalon Tryout

[kiwi sauce]

◘━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━◘
▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

┌───────────────────┐

│
│
│
│
│
│
│
“The trees have inquisitive eyes, haven't they?
-that is, seem as if they had. And the river says,-'Why
do ye trouble me with your looks?' And you seem to see
numbers of to-morrows just all in a line, the first of
them the biggest and clearest, the others getting
smaller and smaller as they stand further away; but
they all seem very fierce and cruel and as if they said,
'I'm coming! Beware of me! Beware of me!”
― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles

│
│
│
│
│
│
│
└───────────────────┘
┌───────────────────┐

│
│
│
│
│
│
│
pls dnp
name. edelweiss
back for kalon

│
│
│
│
│
│
│
└───────────────────┘

[kiwi sauce]

◘━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━◘
Littering the floor in oh so many pieces was the broken remnants of a wooden skid. The ropes of the pulley that had kept it aloft boasted frayed edges, the tattered strands savaged by a voracious mouth until it had finally come undone, upending a valuable prize formerly out of reach. Edelweiss could feel bile wash over his tongue, adding to the grimace he wore as he took in the disappointing scene before him. Wood shrapnel was everywhere and the snow beneath the pine was thoroughly disturbed by the massive paws of the likely culprit – a crafty sow who’d been an especially large thorn in their the colony’s sides.

With a sound of resignation he bent down, intent on salvaging what he could. The bear had ripped through three of the four bags containing assorted nuts and seeds foraged from the surrounding shrubs before making quick work of the six deer hides and set of flanks that had come from one of the felled grazers. This alone wouldn’t have been an especially harsh blow for the settlement, had it been the only one. This marked the fifth instance. The clan heads would not be happy when he relayed the news…



“What in Talos’ name- Edelweiss! Was it that damn bear again?” Suppressing a wince, the kalon cast a brief look over his shoulder, brown eyes locking with a set that matched his own if not for the smoldering rage. “..Yes, but Kalee-” “It’s that same damn one too I’d bet!” Kaleel was his sister, younger by two summers but one could hardly distinguish this from the way the brother and sister duo reacted to one another. Edelweiss’s passivity was largely overshadowed by his siblings confrontational demeanor, warranting many who weren’t familiar with the pair to reverse their roles upon their first meeting. Not that he minded so much as he wished Kaleel wouldn’t let it play into her suffocating ego. “We don’t know if it’s the same one as before, Leel. Calm down, please.”

The look he received was absolutely poisonous.

“Calm down?” Her brows pinched and nose wrinkled in disdain, reminding him strongly of their late father. “That monster is going to eat us out of house and home! The snow’s are almost upon us and the herds have left.” she hissed, storming up the kneeling form to determine for herself the extent of their loss. Edelweiss despondently turned away from her, returning to gathering up the two intact sacks. He knew better than to argue with her when she was like this. Her wrath was better used to direct elsewhere than fixate on one of their own. Assuming, of course, they gave her a target.

“Listen, Leel,” he tried again, voice soft and placating, two things his sister didn’t seem to want. “We can’t do anything about it now. We just have to do what we can. C’mon, lets go.” Tentatively he reached out for her elbow and physically flinched as she briskly evaded his touch, growing under her breath at his sorry attempt at comfort.

“Spineless wretch.”

He blinked, lips pursed as the words reached his ears. This was how many of their conversations went when she was in such a dour mood. There’d be no reasoning with her, at least no time soon. Usually how such fights went involved her hurling one of her scathing insults and disappearing from his sight for the next several hours until she returned to their cabin, an apology on her lips and resolving the whole affair with a hug and quiet ‘i love you’s. How awful was it that he had simply come to accept the treatment and wait at home for the inevitable outcome?

Sighing gently into the frosty afternoon air, Edelweiss gathered the last of their stock and trudged through the ankle-deep snow back the way he’d come.
◘━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━◘

[kiwi sauce]

◘━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━◘
Upon reaching home he was immediately aware of the tense atmosphere – that or the slowly growing mob of residents all clamoring outside the village hall tipped him off. ‘Leave it to Kaleel to insight a riot...’ As much as she professed to wanting only the best for their settlement, creating such a disaster was nothing short of idiotic. They didn’t have the resources to quell the rage she’d created in boldly boasting the sow’s actions, there wasn’t time for such a large demonstration of upset.

The bitter chill didn’t seem to deter the mob (their village was barely scraping fifty people, so perhaps mob was incorrect seeing as barely half that seemed to be in attendance). At the head of the group he could plainly make out his sister, raven hair pinned up like his own, growing her dissent amid the crowd behind her. In front of her was Aeryth, a gray-faced kalon who’d with a bum leg and a scowl to match Kaleel’s. Beside him was Uther and Ywsik, the two clan heads and last two members of the council responsible for making decisions great and small. Neither of them looked especially pleased by this debacle either.

The words became clearer as the distance between shrank. “Slay that monster!” “We cannot suffer having this thing running around!” “Winter’s nearly here!” “I will not watch my family starve because you’re superstitions hold us back!” “You might be willing to do nothing but not I!” The last riotous chant coming from Kaleel herself, looking more and more like an avenging god, preparing to wage war on its own pantheon to see their own justice be met.



“BE STILL! ALL OF YOU!” Ysik snarled, her blonde face lighting up with exasperation that only a mother was ever capable of. “You’re acting like a bunch of toddlers whinging about someone nicking your snacks!” Her remark was instantly met with further shouting until Aeryth raised the gnarled end of his cane and slammed its blunt tip into the floor beneath his feet repeatedly to reign in the volume to a tolerable level.

“Everyone, please, be still. We are civil kalons, far removed from such barbaric displays.” The man’s gentle wheeze didn’t fully restore the peace but nobody present was willing to outright disrespect the village head, not alone anyway.

“Aeryth, this bear is a menace that has plagued our homes since the first days of autumn.” Somebody within the crowd began, quiet but firm in their irritation. “It has evaded traps, shredded pulleys and pallets, stolen precious food and hide that we cannot afford to lose this close to the coming storms. You have forbidden our hunters from seeking it out during the evening hours and for what? Fear of superstition!” Crows of agreement rippled through the crowd, far more controlled than whence it started but no less irate by the events that had come to pass.

“We cannot bank our survival on ghosts and ghouls in the night!

“It needs to be slain!”

“We cannot afford another setback!”

Edelweiss swallowed thickly; on the one hand he fully agreed with the general consensus. Something needed to be done about this bear. Long past were the early days of the winter season and the skies had quickly grown dark with telling storm clouds bearing on them from the high north range. Their supplies suffered with every raid performed and the toll would be great if it continued. On the other hand…

“Fine then, who among you would go into the wood and tempt the Dullahan?”

Silence had never been so deafening.
◘━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━◘

[kiwi sauce]

.

◘━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━◘
For as long as anyone could remember the forest where they resided had been something of endless mysteries. The pines and oaks stretched unendingly towards the sky, brushing the clouds at impossible heights. It offered a boundless source of lumber from which they made their homes, ever mindful of their impact on the land in which they lived and so carefully did they monitor what they stripped from the earth and what they did to compensate for it. Beneath their shaggy limbs were many species of shrubs, flowering buds, fruits and roots that they could collect to supplement their dietary needs.

Lakes and rivers wove intricate patterns through the forest, providing in fish and water in equal measures, stones to be ground down to be used as tools or fashioned into fine cement for structures. Animals flocked to the fresh water, making game an easy commodity in earlier months.

All this and more was provided by the generous woodlands that surrounded their homes. But with is abundance of wonders did it also hold a myriad of secrets, strife and danger. Bears were frequent visitors to the lowlands; much like the kalons they feasted on nature’s bounty for their hibernation cycles, eagerly prowling the banks of the bigger rivers and small waterfalls for the salmon that rushed through each year. Wolves, while not nearly as commonplace, were also tenants to be wary of. Foxes and badgers made their homes in nooks and crannies yearly. Herbs easily mistaken for closely related cousins were poisonous to those who consumed them.

But these things paled in comparison to the stories surrounding the forest.

Tales of ancestral spirits frolicking beneath the trees – sometime benevolently guiding the lost, others driving the unwary to their early death to share in their misery. Sounds seemingly coming from no single place within the timberland yet echoing everywhere, breathing into the ears of passerby’s daring enough to venture too far from the paths laid out for them. And, the most terrifying of all, being the beat of a galloping horse reverberating through the misty shroud, bearing a most horrifying rider.



The Dullahan, a creature being some manner of malevolent sprite or poltergeist wielding a whip made of bone. None were certain of his origins or why he paraded through the forest in hours of twilight, but all knew to fear the horseman and his sordid purpose. For, much like the grim reaper, he was a progenitor of death, bringing the demise of anyone whom should be fated to perish in the night.

Those who lived in the colony knew the stories and the precautions to take: Do not be caught beneath the moonbeams during winter, for the headless rider will find you… and he will kill all trespassers.

How long the lore had lasted was anybody’s guess but none fancied to see whether or not the creature existed or if he was a mere figment meant to curb the overconfident from catching their death of cold.

The villagers all around had gone still, none willing to be the first to proclaim in confidence that they would enter the wood at the prospected hour. Already the skies were turning black and the notion of tempting fate kept the once frothing inhabitants at bay.

All but one.

“I’ll bloody do it.”

A collective murmur rose from the group but the speaker shunted forward, her pale fur and dark hair so heart-wrenchingly vivid against the gray and brown. “I will hunt the beast and bring it a clean death if the rest of you are too afraid of a pauper’s story.” If Aeryth was surprised by Kaleel’s boldness he didn’t voice it, even if his peers looked at her disapprovingly.

“Are you sure you would want to take on the horseman, child? Need I remind you that we own no such mounts to carry you to safety?” the leader spoke, ever patient and guiding in his tone but resigned in more ways than one to the brashness that was the girl’s nature.

Kaleel looked down her nose at the old kal, a feat in and of itself as she was a full two head’s shorter. “I’m not a pup afraid of the tales of the dark and I’ll prove no such demon rides in the woods.”

With beckoning calls at her back the young huntress bolted for her family cabin, ignoring the shouts that chased her there and sparing only the briefest glance at her brother as she sped past him.
◘━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━◘

[kiwi sauce]

◘━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━◘
“You can’t stop me.” The finality stung more than any insult she’d uttered to date but he couldn’t let her do this.

“Kaleel be reasonable! Even if you’d want to track the thing it’s hours away by now! Long gone from the area with its spoils. You’d never catch up!” Edelweiss insisted, desperation adding a frantic tinge to his otherwise gentle voice.

It’d been nearly an hour and a half since the impromptu meeting at the town hall and Kaleel was preparing to make good on her word. Her hands were sunk deep in the familiar leather gloves he’d given her for her previous birthday, worn but resilient from both it’s makers care and it’s owner’s. Her belt was weighed with the smaller gear she felt necessary for her expedition. A large, ugly knife with a vicious edge and serrated teeth – a horrid thing, incapable of skinning but far better in stabbing holes in a man. Or bear as it would later find itself. Her thick jacket made her torso look inflated and the dark fur lining the cuffs and hood would help fend off the bitter chill but not the sweeping snow that had begun to fall.

“I’m doing this, Edel. I do not believe in fairytales and I’ll be the damned if that prattling elder keeps me indoors because of some supposed ghoul on a horse.” The derision in her words was nothing unusual, the girl often had difficulty seeing eye-to-eye with the leaders of their tiny settlement but generally didn’t present such an offensive against them. Her rebellion would not be looked on with kind eyes.

“Leel… I can’t lose you to the forest. Dullahan or not, you could freeze, you could fall through ice, hit your head, be overwhelmed by wolves or the very bear you’re trying to kill.” Edelweiss gingerly set his palm over the fingers hurriedly lacing up her boots, earning her attention long enough for their eyes to meet again. “Please, don’t make me bury my sister...” the plea hurt to speak aloud; why would she risk her life for her pride? Why would she even consider this rashness?

The siblings were quiet for a long moment with nothing but the crackle of the fire to pierce it. The hand slipped away. Edelweiss felt his despair gain ground.

Several minutes later…. He was alone.


Four hours later, the cabin was empty. Edelweiss’s scarf and coat were missing from their hooks, his boots gone and gun no longer on the premise. He’d gone to hunt, but his prey was a different kind of animal.
◘━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━◘

[kiwi sauce]

◘━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━◘
The snow bit at his face, punishing him for foolishly leaving the security of home, no matter how noble his intentions. The trees were long and foreboding ahead of him, angrily clawing at their neighbors with scratching branches and slapping limbs, fighting for what little space there was between them as the wind churned the snow.

Beneath his feet the ground crunched with the quality of partially frozen snow that hindered any prospective progress anyone wanted to make. His heart stammered in his chest as his grip on his shotgun tightened. He’d never been in the forest when it was dark, adhering to the advice of those older who said to stay where it was safest. He’d have been so happy to stay nestled in his blankets by the fire, sipping the stew he’d planned for that evening, had it not been for Kaleel.

A part of him was angry about her choice to leave on this mad chase. To endanger her own life for this false glory. Another part was proud that she would stand by her convictions, no matter how stupid they seemed to be.

Large plumes of mist hovered before his nose as he paused, wincing against the not-quite-blizzard and wishing, not for the first time, that their parents were still alive. Father at least had some control over his youngest but Edelweiss took more after their aunt, not especially shy but less forthright in demeanor to be sure, exercising patience that would make a holy man envious.

Before him were the tracks that he hoped were his siblings. He couldn’t actively discern how old they were, his lamp hardly provided that much light and he wasn’t exactly a trapper of great skill. He was more or less fumbling through the snow in the vain hope that the disturbed snow meant Kaleel had been by recently.

How long he walked he couldn’t say. The terrain had since begun to blend together and his eyes stung from being repeatedly assaulted by the frozen pellets raining from the thick clouds overhead, the wind howled, laughing in his ears, amused by his plight.

And then… in the distance, a strange block of color.

The trees and wood were dark greens and browns against the frosty whites and blues of the snow but amidst it all was red. blood red.

Hastening to it the splotch, he noted, wasn’t especially large, palm-sized if nothing else. Was she bleeding? How? Had she been attacked? Examining the spot of his find there was nothing but the shoe-prints and a bit of upset snow, nothing that suggested a second party, let alone a horse or rider. Maybe she’d just nicked herself? A poor assurance yes but it was all he had.

He ventured further, the cold steel of his rifle feeling heavier in his sweating palms as he headed in the direction he supposed was Kaleel’s.

For all his attentiveness he almost missed it. Almost didn’t see the shapes nearly blending into the surrounding shadows. Almost didn’t turn to squint or flick his ears in their direction to determine whether his mind was playing tricks on him. But he did. And he wished, in the recesses of his mind, that he hadn’t.

Someone was running in his direction, no … sprinting, full tilt at him. Arms pumping up and down in a vain attempt to spur themselves on, to flee their pursuer. But let it be known that there is no way to outrun a pursuer with four legs to your two.

It was Kaleel running in his direction, hair flying lose, her brains gone and looking like the wind had combed through it, but it was the sheer panic of her expression that struck his heart with dread.

“EDEL RUN!”

He swallowed, frozen in place, confusion warring with good sense to heed her warning. To run. To flee whatever had her so frightened because it would surely scare him just as well. Rising behind her was the dark shape of a steed she couldn’t hope to escape; it would overtake her in but a handful of strides.

A bay mare galloped in her wake, snorting and huffing angrily against the blustering winds that teased her dark mane. Eyes of crimson glowered from her dark face as she harried the kalon in front of her, her powerful muscles easily allowing her to plow through the stiff snow.

His throat constricted as he mechanically raised his rifle. The butt fit nicely against the hollow of his shoulder and the cool steel glinted in the light as he aimed past her. “MOVE!” The words had scarcely left his mouth before he pulled the trigger, igniting a crack of thunder to shatter through the storm, a bullet racing to meet the charging beast and the rider seated just behind her head.

He’d never know if the bullet struck, it certainly didn’t act like an animal with a hole through its breast. Kaleel had tucked into a roll, escaping the immediate path and rolling gracelessly to the right. The mare reared as the reins of her bit were tugged, whinnying sharply, furiously as their prey evaded them. Her rider’s body grew more prominent and Edelweiss felt his blood run cold.

The rider had no head.

Where the person’s skull should be there was nothing, as if a gullitone had cleanly severed it but the lack of it hadn’t stopped the body whatsoever. Smoke, or its equivalent, rose in haunting wisps, twirling loosely from it’s hacked off neck in thick strings. He was doing his best to turn his mount in the direction of their victim but Edelweiss fired a second round, this one seeming to truly catch their attention.

The next moments blurred together. Fear and panic, a toxic cocktail like no other invaded his senses but it was the shove to his shoulder that drew him out of his own shivering. Kaleel was back, looking worse for wear but alive enough to knock him towards the trail. “Through the trees!”

Right, such a large horse would have trouble manuevering between the trees no matter how skilled it’s rider.

Without a word he dashed off, Kaleel already off into the darkness. The sound of hooves crashing in the snow followed them.

The landscape was hazy in his blind run but he didn’t dare look around to reassure himself of the trail, didn’t know how far away his pursuer was as he bolted from the clearing. Anywhere was better than right here.

But again, four legs are better than two and the mare was bearing down on him at a pace he couldn’t hope to match. Running would only work for so long… and he didn’t want to die.

He toyed with the idea of turning around and shooting it in the face, buying his sister a bit more time but shook his head. It hadn’t been phased by the first two rounds so he doubted a third would make much more difference.

With a grim feeling slowly creeping into his heart he took the only chance he could think of. He veered off the path and tossed himself down another lane. However his blind direction was met with folly – a hill that one in a rush couldn’t distinguish from the rest of the landscape of matching tones. He stumbled, slipping on the snow and went crashing through bushes and shrubs with enough noise to disturb any animal that might be sleeping nearby who wasn’t already awake from the gunshots.

His jaw knocked off something sharp and his incisor bit harshly into his lip to contain his cry of pain when he came to an abrupt halt against the base of a tree.

The world was spinning, the sky matched the ground and he couldn’t tell which was which for several breaths. Where was Kaleel? She escaped right? So long as she was safe he couldn’t really care what else happened. Slumping against the trunk he didn’t bother attempting to rise, a weakness swiftly claiming his mobility.

And soon the hoofbeats came.

The Dullahan came barreling down the hill, skidding unnaturally cross the snow and he barely contained his whimper. He’d switched targets.

And he was going to die.

You insignificant ant...

Edelweiss looked up, disturbed by the voice from the headless body.

You come to my domain and deprive me of what’s mine..! And have the nerve to look upon me!

He couldn’t see beyond the mare as she feared up on her hindquarters, snow kicked up in her motion. He fully expected her to stomp him flat.

He didn’t see the whip. Only the pain that followed in the wake of its strike.
◘━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━◘

[kiwi sauce]

◘━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━◘
Pain.

It had become his new reality. The vulnerability it caused was another fear to add to his growing list of problems. But he’d absolved himself of one problem.

Kaleel was safe.

It was the only heartening thing that occurred to him before darkness crept in place, a blissful veil of darkness to hide his tender self from the Dullahan who would claim his soul in exchange for his timely interference.

He no longer felt the bite of cold threading through his fur, numbing his fingers and icing over his nostrils. The wind had subsided into a wonderful silence, plagued only occasionally by the faint echo of hooves that would make him turn wildly in this black void. But there was nothing here. No snow. No forest. No sister. No Dullahan.

Death.

Or so he wished.

Warmth was the first thing of note when his consciousness returned. The musky odor of deer hide filled his lungs and he knew instantly that he was in one of the lodges, be it his or someone else’s. It mattered little to the location; he was alive.

Ugh.. he was alive. It explained why everything hurt now.

A sound to his left drew his attention but turning toward it did nothing to explain what the noise was. When no one took notice of his wakeful state he softly cleared his throat, “H...hello?” His throat felt awful and his mouth tasted like he’d been three days without a proper brushing and he grimaced as he reached up towards his face.

Ah, bandages. That explained why everything was dark. He’d been… hit with something? He must’ve been.

“Edel!” His ears pricked at the cry of his name, the only forewarning he was given before the full weight of another body deposited itself against his chest, winding him with a shoulder to the stomach. “K..Kaleel… e-ease up.” Relief was immediate as were sheepish mumbles from his sibling who’d unlatched herself from his front.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry for not listening to you – to everyone.”

Edelweiss sighed under his breath, nodding as he recalled the events of… how long ago had he been out? He didn’t think to ask as he busied himself with undoing the bandage, uncoiling the length of gauze into his lap. He’d just finished doing so and blinked, grateful for the freeing sensation now that he was rid of the material.

“I’m so sorry...”

Why did she keep saying that? “It’s fine, Leel. I’m alive, you’re alive.” And that was a feat. They’d seen the Dullahan and lived.

Blinking wasn't restoring his vision and his frown must have tipped his sibling off because her sniffling intensified. "It took your sight." She cried, bordering on hysterical and muffled as she wept into her palms. "Because you s-saved me.. because you saw him.. he took you sight."

◘━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━◘

And so I tell you this in confidence, child
tarry not in the forest under full moons glow
for the Dullahan rides
to meet him is to court death
and you shan't run forever...