#barkbrain

(Pardon any misrepresentations. I’m not wholly familiar with Darkwoods.)

Walton never thought he could be both simultaneously aware and blind like he was now. Regardless of severity, the horrors of his world did not twist and mangle his mind like the creature before him. It was too strange, too unnatural, for him to fully process with its bark covered limbs creaking and snapping while it shambled through the woods towards him.

Like a stag he stands still and frozen, his calves tensed and his arms poised for flight. Fight. All it takes is the startled fluttering of a dozen black wings from the underbrush to snap him out of his passive revere. 

Teeth bared, he pulls out his machete, a thick, wicked looking blade of black, from the tie across his thigh, and tosses his head in challenge. Electric blue veins not so dissimilar to the green-grey tendrils that lace beneath the creature’s skin, reckon across his pale cheeks.

He does not roar. He does not need to. Violent intent writes itself in the way he plows forward through the snow, arm raised and at the ready to bring his weapon across the fell creature’s torso. 

It’s not a hard strike with that makeshift knife, just enough to pierce the mud and whatever flesh might be underneath it.  Nothing fatal in the slightest, and deliberately so.  The good doctor had been proven to be tumultuous in his moods, being brave and confident in one moment -- sniveling and defeated the next.  There never had been any rhyme nor reason to any of it, and most of it is probably due to the nasty illness that courses through all of them.  After all of this time of harassing her, preying on her, she’s come to know him well; pain is a good catalyst for this.

Yet again, here she is scrambling through slick mud to get away from him.

She’s not well off either, and she knows this.  Hunger makes her stomach burn and joints shaky, fire courses through her head -- a fever that she can’t tell if it’s from both of their lasting conditions or something new invading her body.  The threat of the doctor made everything snap into focus, though, and like all the times before she feels more aware than ever.

A barn looms in front of her -- one that looks vaguely familiar, with a sectioned off area and a thick door that even he probably couldn’t even bust through, even in its decrepit state.  Maybe she can hide, maybe she can trap him...

All she knows is that right now, she doesn’t have the strength to run far.

She doesn’t know how long she’s been drifting in and out of her thoughts -- but they’re so warm, so inviting, and her limbs feel like they’re full of bricks and stones.  It’s nothing more than stress and exhaustion, thank the feathers.  Supply runs need to be made, but the woods are dark and dangerous and filled with feral creatures that aren’t exclusive to the canine family.  It feels like she’s been awake for years, but really, it’s only been four days.  Without even realizing it, the cold mud on her body soothes her aching muscles.  Soon, it’s the warmth that mud holds that makes it all even more inviting.

Peony could fall asleep right then and there, she realizes.  It’s that same realization that brings her to with a sharp gasp, and the comforting mud makes it difficult to breathe sends her into a brief panic.

Tiny hands, marked with pocks of feathers growing in through her skin, reach up to gently bat away the appendages that seem so keen on smearing that mud on her face; words hardly paid any attention to.  The gesture isn’t meant to hurt in the slightest -- her touch gentle and merely attempting to make the man stop and take a step back.