From the sodden shores a black capped beast comes slinking. The waves hiss at his back, glad to be rid of him. He is Tunnel and he comes from the bottom of something, the end of something, the abandoned and empty and all but dessicated place beyond the furthest place you can think of. A spring rain has fallen and all the world is as wet as he is. The dark fragrant earth gives way beneath his hooves as he mounts the steep hills beyond the grey beach. The trees beyond are dark, and there is a smell of death borne on a cold evening wind. Something rotting in the forest, a clouded eye, as yet unplucked by the crows, is staring sightless.
He does not see the corpse, does not search for it, does not avoid it. Into the shadows he delves, sliding into the evergreens and leaving the coast once more deserted.
Here beneath the trees the wind is broken, and the chill does not seep into his corded muscles. Trees wave their hands over him, a shaman’s blessing, a madman’s curse. In the dark he looks back, can still see the black water beyond the trees. He goes no further tonight but waits here in the inky shadows, concealed by darkness and the fragrance of death.
_____
In the feeble light before dawn, the forest is a muted blue, misty and cold from the autumn rain. Moss grows on old bones, cracked and scattered among the ferns. The creature steps over them slowly, considers a jawbone, his breath rising in a fog. When he lifts his head and looks at the trees around him his brow draws in recognition, a muscle fluttering in his jaw. It has been a long time. The dull roar of high tide is distant, and he angles his bulky head toward the sound, but his thoughts are not betrayed by the hard lines of his face. There is no scent of death to conceal him this morning. He does not linger.
The mountain waits to the north, the river marking the way. He’s spent a great deal of time in this river of late though he doesn’t credit it with “washing” him of anything. No, if anything he has been too long a monster, and the forest has grown bored of him. He gives it this kind of credit, believing it a dark-hearted organism without realizing it.
Tunnel is strong but the journey is hard, a trial to whet the appetite for further trials but he does not turn aside. It does not rain anymore when he reaches the place where one might dare speak to god-kin, a faerie, because the heavy clouds are below him. “I would like to know what has changed, why I am different.” Awake, wary of his actions and… impulses. In the cold silence, he raises his head, waiting to learn what remains of the Monster.
Tunnel is attempting to quest for Feral State Manipulation.
