In the Wild Wood [WOOFABOOMUS' Home thread]

((OOC: Found it! I seem to keep getting lost))

The Woofaboomus recovers himself, and begins to re-tell the tale, knowing his words would echo through the wood, and those drawn to it would hear his words, and come and re-join the firelit circle. Coffee brews, meat sizzles, and a fine woodland repast is there for as many visitors as show.

Distraught, the man threw himself into the search, knowing it to be suicidal, but with his daughter and his wife gone, he had nothing to live for. He was content to be enfolded into the wilderness and lose himself, as he knew his tidy little cabin would one day be enfolded by the Wood.

As I say, I was barely self-aware at the time. I was aware as an ancient tree is aware, a boulder on which sacrifices are made is aware, a storm called down by angry voices is aware, a pool of blood feeding a strange new flower is aware. Yet even then I felt this man's pain as no other. It was not the pain of a lost child, of a fallen oak, of a hawk-taken rabbit pup. His pain felt like a forest fire, something to awaken the wilderness to move toward its own defense. The other beings within the wood also felt his pain, some repulsed by it, some drawn to it, and the dark things that sloughed toward the distraught and widowed father sought to answer his call and grant his wish.

Deep within me, I felt that this was a thing that should not come to pass.

Drawing energy from the man's cries, I brought myself into presence, coalescing my personhood from a million points throughout the Wood, appearing at his side in a form similar to the one you see before you. Bigger, rougher, more blood-thirsty, but a beast-man in Indian garb as you see.

It is a testament to the man's distress that the terror that form induces was lost on him, and he ran to me, I imagine wishing to be ripped to shreds, ending his pain and rejoining him to his family. Instead I grabbed him and lifted him into the low branches of a mighty oak that is ... was ... sacred to me, and faced the Dark Ones that had come to answer his call.

In the language of the unlanguaged, I told them that they should not have this man's pain, knowing that my command would be unheeded, as the mindless forces of destruction are beyond reason when they are called by their prey. In this they are like sharks, and other Things of the Deep.

The man, dazed, disoriented, watched as the Dark Things approached from the verges of the clearing I stood in, and leapt at him, their claws scraping curls of bark from the branch he stood on, and I, Alpha Male of the whole forest, knocked them, one at a time, as they flew at him, to the ground with a mighty sweep of my clawed hands.

Enraged, their blind eyes turned to me, the barrier between them and fresh blood. Not recognizing their GOD, they came at me, a flood of Dark Beasts, jaws snapping, claws tearing, heavy bodies battering me.

But I was not vulnerable to physical attacks then, when the entire Wood was my body, and they were each killed, spines snapped and heads crushed, as I defended myself and my charge with the brute force that was the only language enraged Beasts of this type could hear. And I knew as I did so that I was killing off one of the defenses of the Wood, for as much as these blind Beasts sought to harm me, they were part of what kept the Wilderness intact, protecting it from the encroachment of civilization. To protect this one man, I had removed the claws of the Wood.

I knew what I was doing, but to this day I don't know why.

It is the first step of the journey that caused me to be as I am now, wandering the worlds in search of a new Wood.

When all was calm again, I turned to the man and looked into his mind. I saw the picture of his lost little girl, and his deceased wife.

"Your child yet lives," I told him. "And your wife is not far off either. I can reunite you, but your daughter will die, and be lost. I can help you in either direction, what do you choose?"

And I felt his pain increase, as often happens before a wound can heal, and he sobbed aloud. "God help me," he said, "god help me, I choose my wife."

In the Wild Wood things die every day. There is no mourning, no judging of right and wrong, no railing against an imagined Fate. It is merely the way things are. That day, the man fell asleep in the crux of the tree and did not awaken, and the next thing he knew he and his wife, who had been hovering close, tormented at their separation, were reunited. In the land of the dead there is no right and wrong, either, and his guilt left him. Where they went from there I do not know, except that their end was a better one than the Dark Things offered.

The child was too young to defend herself, and also died that day, with more pain than her father had, but with no guilt. As young and unformed as her spirit was, it dissipated into the Wild, and she is yet a part of me.

A very, very small part.

Since that time I have gained enough of humanity within me to mourn her passing, and that of the Wild itself. Though in the larger Wilderness of the multiverse, its passing is as insignificant as that child's.

And the Woofaboomus sipped again from his cup.

"That is the story I have to tell this night. Make yourselves at home in my campsite, perhaps tell some tales of your own -- my Wood is big enough for them all. I will be close at hand, and may join the revelry from time to time."

With that the Woofaboomus faded from sight, and it seemed as if he had never been there at all. But the supplies were replenished and fresh, and the fire well-stoked, and no one travelling through will fail to find exactly what they need, close at hand.