"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
Somewhere, a secluded cabin's windows glow with the warmth of a crackling fire. The scent of candied pecans and confectionary delights wafts through the autumn air. A cast iron cauldron is bubbling with steaming water. Jack releases a long, slow sigh as he eases into the bath with a soft cotton towel wrapped around his vibrant orange pumpkin head. He'd never planned to be retired at the young age of 340; but he certainly isn't going to complain. His investments in cryptocurrency had made life a dream after the nightmare of being laid off from work - his mother bragged about him instead of his stupid doctor brother, ladies actually replied to his Tinder messages, and he finally had time to paint the miniatures he'd collected.
Just as the tension begins to release from his shoulders, his house phone gives a shrill ring that cuts through the peace. A cucumber he’d had over his triangle eye pops out of place and his strange brows furrow. Didn’t he get rid of that awful wall phone? But the awful thing rings again and he snatches a soft pink towel off the rack and wraps it around his thin torso.
“Hello?!” he demands.
“Jack, I know we let you go due to covid, but we’re crumbling without you. We need you back!”
“Oh, let me relish at this moment-”
“We’ll double your salary! We’ll give you full benefits and 401K! Please!”
A silence blooms between them. He’d hated working under Gary’s deadlines and budget, but maybe things could be different. After all, full benefits meant PTO and dental insurance. He hums softly before agreeing and slamming the phone back on the wall. There’s precious little time to waste, he thinks. It’s already the second day of Fall.
He trades his fluffy pastel towels for a shredded black cloak and a worn pointed hat. Next, he grabs a few ingredients from a dust-covered medicine cabinet: a vampire fang, ghosts’ tears, and a hanged man’s tongue. Jack tosses these into his bathwater, which begins to hiss and glow a sickening shade of green. His carved mouth curls into a grin as Beqanna begins to fill with a familiar sort of fog.
“Rise and shine, sweet loves of mine,
the witching hour is again upon us.
Grab a friend, enter the woods,
I’ll make it worth your while, promise.
Pick your costume, choose with care.
Let’s give them all quite the scare.”
His words echo across Beqanna and various costumes hang from the trees: plastic vampire teeth, a ghost’s sheet, a glowing skeleton suit. (Or, for the ladies, sexy vampire teeth, a sexy ghost sheet, and a sexy glowing skeleton suit. They’re somehow skimpier but their implications don’t seem different.) Which will you choose?
It’s Fall, y’all, and that means it’s time for a Halloween quest! The rules are simple.
1. Anyone can enter as many characters as they like. Only three will win traits after five rounds.
2. If you fail to reply to later rounds or are eliminated, you will receive a curse.
3. No more than 1,000 words per reply.
4. Your first post must contain your character waking up in the dead of night, selecting a costume, and preparing to enter the forest.
5. Your first reply is due October 1 at 11:59 pm CST.
it’s a lonely road, I know,
and nothing ever stands between a bullet and your soul --
Sleeping in Tephra was proving to be difficult ever since the arrival of their new cursed king, and it was because of this that Rare found herself curled up in a grove of Sylvan trees just beyond the border. His nightmares did not touch her here, either because they could not breach the borders of a different kingdom, or she was simply too far out of reach. Whatever the reason, she was grateful for it. Grateful for a night of dreamless sleep, and trying to not feel guilty over the fact that she inflicts those very same nightmares on everyone around her, too.
I don’t do it on purpose, she had reassured herself as she picked her way through the eternally autumn wood, I’m not like him at all.
When she wakes with a start in the middle of the night she is not sure at first what caused it. But her heart is beating quickly in her chest, and when she focuses beyond the pounding of it in her ears she hears a voice, an eerie kind of song that seems to come from every direction. Slowly she stands, not even bothering to shake the dried leaves from her pale mane, instead leaving them nestled alongside the flowers that were woven there.
She was not usually the type to follow her fear, but tonight she does, and leads her on a fog-drenched trail to the edge of the forest. From the trees there dangles all kinds of strange things she has never seen before, or at least, not in this fashion.
She is stepping forward to further inspect what looks like a glowing skeleton—and she is reminded of her uncle and cousins that had once lived in Tephra, though they had grown tired of the nightmares and disappeared now—when something from a branch above snags in her hair. With a gasp and a shake of her head she tries to loosen whatever it was—two gray mouse ears, the insides an unrealistic shade of pink, fastened to her as a headband.
It had been hard at first, to be here without Bolder with them. The missing piece of their trinity had been an ache in his chest. But with time, it had dulled until he could almost forget about it. Almost.
Nights are the hardest. Sleep eludes him most evenings. Sometimes, when Bravely curls against him, he can pretend Bolder is there too. Enough to find slumber. Most nights though, there is a hollow where he had once stayed. Tonight is one of those nights.
With a soft sigh, Saffron lifts one white-tipped wing, brushing the feathers idly over a gently glowing mushroom. It washes out the glow of his own golden markings, casting him in an eerie pale light. His green eyes glint in the strange glow, made luminous against his russet skin. He sighs again, eyes dropping to the ground as he pulls his wing back to his side.
He is so tired that he almost feels as though he could drift off. And perhaps he does, for a moment.
It is in those moments of near-sleep that he hears the mysterious chant weave across the land, echoing strangely in the heavy mist. The fog should have been a warning, but here in Taiga, the fog often lingers, curling around the towering sentinel redwoods. The rhyme should make him nervous, but instead he is drawn to it, plagued by an incessant curiosity.
He is normally the sensible one, though he has certainly shared in his siblings many antics. But he is so tired of being the predictable brother. The one who barters peace between them when the bickering grows too heated. For once, he wants nothing so much as to be the spontaneous one.
So he drifts through the fog, following the pull of that enchantmentment. It isn’t until the flutter of a cloth draws his eye that he stops, baffled. He peers around, realizing belatedly he has no clue where he is, nor which direction would take him home. But that is not the strangest thing. No, that dubious title belongs to the bits of fabric, trinkets, and baubles scattered through the trees.
He should be wary, but instead he is drawn by an immense curiosity. Pick your costume, choose with care, the strange voice had crooned, and Saffron can only assume these are the costumes he must choose from. Trailing slowly through the trees, the young stallion does as he has been bid. He picks a costume with care.
When he comes to a swath of blue and red cloth with a strange S on it (he’s not sure how he knows it’s an S, only that he does), he halts. S for Saffron? He stares at it for a long moment before shrugging. Poking his head through the opening in the center, he tugs at it with his teeth until the odd symbol falls over his chest and the red cape crumples between his wings.
Costume in place, Saffron turns to peer between the trunks of the ominous forest. This one is nothing like his home. There, the trees feel safe, comfortable. Here, they are dark, the branches that twist jaggedly overhead looking eerily like fingers waiting to snatch at him. And for the first time since he had been woken from his light doze, he is nervous.
It is an illusive thing—a shadowy thing. She chases it and does not often find it between her teeth. But tonight, she has. Perhaps it is merely exhaustion masquerading as sleep, the black dregs of her fatigue pulling her under, but whatever the reason, she finds herself firmly tucked into the folds of it. Her breathing is low and deep, even, and the dreams do not find her. Do not haunt her with memories.
With things that may come to be.
But sleep is not the only thing to come to Despoina this night. She wakes with a start, the words ringing in her ears, and it takes her several moments to settle herself enough to know where she is—to recognize that she is home and her children are near and Torryn somewhere close. (She does not dwell on whether he has gone out hunting on his own tonight. She does not think about what she would bring home for him either—the fuzzy borders of her moral code disappearing and dissolving with the slightest provocation.)
When her heart has settled, she unfolds her legs and heaves herself to her feet. She angles her head toward the source of the noise and although no one has ever accused her of being a curious creature, an adventurous one, she feels a pull low and deep in her belly. Unable to stop herself, she takes a few steps forward and then another, making her way through the night and toward the cluster of trees.
She sees the fabric hanging in the breeze and halts, heart racing.
Feeling uneasy, she shifts into her hound form and lifts her head to sniff. She comes across something that looks…familiar. Her head angles to the side and she frowns at the caricature, this dumbed down version of something she has known so intimately. Whining low under her breath, she grabs at it with her teeth and begins to wrestle with it, squirming and fighting against the contraption until she feels it settle.
She rolls to her feet and feels it drape into place.
There are ears that hang off the side of her head, pushing her own down, and a tail that pokes out next to her own, wagging lamely. If she were to step back, she would see the costume of a dog hanging loosely off her own hellhound form and laugh until her stomach ached. The comical, soft features of the puppy jarring against the hellish angles of her own face, but thankfully, she cannot see such things.
So she just steps forward awkwardly, her movement stilted, as she steps toward the trees.
I guess the sound of your voice in the aching will just have to do
Nothing that wakes you up in the middle of the night could possibly be good. Certainly nothing that’s accompanied by a creepy-ass fog. The calendar may say that it’s somewhere in spring or summer but when Anuya opens her eyes, she gets some distinct fall vibes.
The smart thing would be to close her eyes and go right back to sleep, wouldn’t it?
So obviously she goes to check things out instead.
The soft glow from the star-like markings on Anuya’s coat do not provide her with much light as she approaches the trees of the forest. There is something hanging by the branches, but it could be anything. A weird branch, for example, and definitely not the carcass of the first victim of whatever it was that was luring her here to eat her up and hang what was left upon another tree.
Something is itching at the back of her mind, telling her to go into the forest. And she might as well, she's come this far. No point in going to check out the source of the Creepy Vibes only to turn around and say 'you know what, nevermind' right before you're about to find out, right? Or that's what Anuya tells herself when she starts to enter the trees. She tries to find a path away from the not-a-carcass without actually wandering further away (too much work). And when the trees don't move to get out of her way she tries bending some branches with her telekinesis so she can squeeze on by.
Unfortunately, finesse isn't her strong suit and she accidentally ends up knocking whatever-it-is off the tree and then with a shout she releases her hold on another branch that smacks her right in the rump. She startles forward a few steps, stopping when she realizes something is on her.
It's a red coat that covers very, very little of her skin and a brimmed hat that will not be shaken off thanks to two ear holes hers are poking through.
Cyan had never been a great sleeper. Falling asleep wasn’t the problem, the night had always brought a familiar type of comfort with it – that kind of comfort you get only when you can count on something to happen over and over. Rather it was the bit about staying asleep that had become troubling. A light sleeper, apparently, and every creak in the wood or slightest rustle of leaves would have him jarring upright and alert. Never could he say how far the moon had travelled in the sky after he’d drifted off, all he knew was that it was never enough, and he’d not be able to try again until the next dusk seeped in.
Cursed, he thought. What else could it be?
So it’s no surprise to him when the faintest tickling at his heels rouses him, and his oddly red eyes narrow to make out the blanket of fog rolling in. For a moment he watches it creep silently, steadily across the ground, confident in its duty to touch every nook and cranny of the meadow before the dawn awoke.
The longer he stands there, the stronger the odd urge grows to move. Not away though, but towards the source. Weird, he thought, how he meant for the realization to be a question and not a statement. But now, before he could talk himself out of it, he turned and made his way towards the awaiting forest.
He stopped at wood’s edge where he could catch a glimpse of the moon just above the tallest pine. Along the boughs, things danced and moved with each breeze, and since he was apparently all out of good ideas for the night, opted for a bad one, and yanked the closest one down and over his head. Cyan huffed as the thing settled atop him, a bit unnerved at how seemingly perfect it ended up fitting.
It was red and brown, and aside from that he couldn’t tell much. A brow raised in question to reflect his current thought of “What the hell am I wearing?” when the wind whispered an eager answer of Khakis. And a second later it added, even more enthused, Sexy Jake from State Farm.
These are the last words echoing through her head as she awakes with shakes rattling her bones. A costume. The woods. She thinks of parties. She thinks of Solterra and the garden she had painted on a man named Dune and the constellation he had painted on her in return. A constellation, a garden, much the same in the eyes of the right person.
She starts to walk towards the woods, wondering how she may find herself a costume, or make herself a costume. Is there time? She thinks before blue eyes dart to a red cloak hanging from a tree. Red cloak. How fitting for a little girl lost in the woods, with words of warning not to stray from the trail.
Little girl, little girl.
Don’t you hear the wolves howling?
The cloak sits over her shoulders and falls along her body, it is shiny, even in the dark. The hood slides up and over her head, covering her face in shadows. Shadows, shadows, shadows, was it always her fate to be shrouded by them? First by her father, then her mother’s grief, then the ones she calls to herself to heal and to aid. Her life is so darkened by them it is a miracle she does not go blind when she steps into the light. The hood settles against her head, covering her blonde hair, only the blue of her eyes can light the darkness she now sits in as she makes her way to the tree line.
Elliana thinks she should go, tells herself she should go, wasn't worth the racing heart and chilled spine, but Elliana’s favorite stories that Isra had told were not her stories of dragons or conquerers—but the ghost stories she told round the fire, embers flickering towards the shadow gold of her skin.
She is filled with the scent of lavender and saltwater but she reeks with fear, and it turns the lavender to wet grass and the saltwater to sewage. She wants to be brave, really she does, but she is such a young girl, such a fragile girl, and she tells herself she will sprint away the moment she senses trouble.
She tells herself.
She tells herself.
And just keeps telling herself.
Even as those branches start reaching for her, even as the spider webs are ready to ensnare her, and those specks in her visions begin to look like the eyes of wolves…watching her.
The night comes just as it always does for Llorona - quicker than she wants it to, dreaded and dreadful, lonely and dark and fearsome. The voices amplify as if the weather has enraged them, and Four mentions something about excitement. She cocks her head, but then continues on and finally finds a new place to rest. Yet another cave, because she just can’t feel safe without them.
A lock of her bronze forelock falls before her eyes and her skin tingles with the zap of its movement once again. She flutters, but finally makes it into the dreamworld. Not that it’s much better - nightmares are always around the corner - but at least her body gets some rest even though her mind never does.
Not for long, not tonight. Strange music fills her dreams and when she opens her eyes she is quite sure that she’s still asleep. Two and Eight seem to be cackling in her head, and her grimace turns into a small smile when she sees the fog. It is a different sort of nightmare, this one - one without zaps and tingles and lightning that strikes exactly when she starts to feel safe. She follows the fog and the sounds - she has no friends to grab, she thinks, but she picks through the costumes with care. A yellow dress seems to stick to her and the spotted girl frowns, then spies the red wig - with braids that stick to the side, just like her mane would whenever she gets… excited. It seems fitting, and she takes the weird, unmatching stockings on her forelegs for granted. Eight seems to love it. Diddle diddle dee, another voice seems to hum, but Llorona has long since learned to not heed the one she numbered Eleven, as it is the weirdest one of them all.
She screams loudly when she enters the forest. A monkey has landed on her back.
Though his mother was in some of her best days when he was born, Sawbone grew to be a rather moody, troubled teenager. He has taken to wandering for days, too lazy to make the trek back through the channel to his patchwork family on Ischia.
Not that he feels as if he belongs there, anyway. Not that he feels as if he belongs anywhere.
Saw is fast asleep on a soft mossy bed close to the River, lulled into a deep slumber by the lovely background rush of the water. He rests well for one that boasts of well-entrenched brooding, ribs rising and falling with the steady, peaceful rhythm of a dreamless rest.
It is within the next moon-bright hours that the young stallion awakes, burning orange eyes flashing open with too much awareness for a creature having just been pried from slumber. Saw can sense the supernatural beat in the air, the quiet dance now tickling his feet. He rises slowly, quickly spotting several bits of fabric and decoration dangling from the surrounding tree branches.
A glittering pink streak catches his eye and though wary, Saw approaches what appears to be strands of hair flowing in the wind. When he reaches out to sniff it, he doesn’t notice the impossibly small, studded, and black shorts. Or the fish nets. Or the pink and black checkered fingerless gloves. Or the massive lip ring adorned with a gummy, spiky pink and black ball.
Once a strand of the black and pink hair touches his nose, every piece of the costume snaps onto his body. Sawbone jumps backward, but finds his body constricted by the tight clothing, now completed with a bodice-cut t-shirt featuring cartoonish neon monsters.
“What the fuck?” Saw whispers around the lip ring now jutting from his bottom lip, then peers into the shadows of the woods around him, somehow knowing that’s where this uncomfortable get-up will be bringing him.
i’m under lock and key, but you can probably tell
A powder keg in a prison cell
How strange that sleep does not feel quite like sleep in this strange land. He awakes sometime in the night, roused by a voice that does not belong to him.
It seems to live in his head, but the words skate across his consciousness without him thinking them and he lifts his head from the cold meadow floor, searching the darkness for the source.
But he is alone, just as alone as he has been for as long as he can remember. (Strange because sleep did not feel like sleep and company did not feel like company and everything seemed to exist in a kind of haze.) He draws in a breath, grimacing as the bitter cold slides down his throat and pools in his lungs.
He hauls himself to his feet and follows. Follows the invisible path the voice draws out for him, as if he is being pulled along by a string, a hook in his belly. And perhaps he will find the answers he has sought since he first landed on the shores of Beqanna wherever the voice is pulling him.
The fire on his horns glows something spectacular in the dark, illuminating the darkness just in front of him. But he does not have to travel far before he encounters the trees from which things are hung. Things because he does not know what else to call them.
Things because he is a horse and this land is stranger than any place he has ever been. Perhaps this is why he does not question the things he finds in the trees. For all he knows, these things are perfectly ordinary to the inhabitants of Beqanna.
He understands inherently that he is to wear one of these things. He glances at each thing in turn before he selects a sheet painted with a pattern that resembles water. There is a neck hole that he puts his head through and the sheet drags along at his feet. He is a monster, though he does not know it. A great green monster that lurks in water so many thousands of miles away, perhaps an entire universe away.
With his costume selected, he turns to the edge of the forest. The voice does not explicitly tell him what to do, but it beckons still. He draws in a long breath and prepares himself to plunge into the darkness.
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