Whenever something strange came to the woods, the spirits would whisper. Robin would hear it. A low, long beckoning sound. Investigate. Stare into the abyss, and learn why it cries in alarm.
The shifter followed the path, one she had walked many times before. But never had it felt like this… Like someone was tugging at her throat, digging and clawing at repressed emotions. Her stomach flares in tingles of panic, breath rising and falling rapidly the closer she approaches.
The world seems frozen. Not even the birds sing. Something sits at the base of the largest tree in the forest, like an offering, like a Buddha basking in the sunlight, finding peace. Reality flickers and cracks, before soothing itself.
Robin swallows, approaching slowly. “Who are you?” Her voice is soft, as if raising it an octave higher would destroy the dream-like illusion the Worm has created within this once-holy place.
ONCE-HOLY, the Being sitting at the base of the tree shifts slightly to the side, weak and unbalanced. Dizzied. A bit lost and drifting; Robin’s voice does not pull it from its stupor immediately. Hands raised to the tree’s bark jerk and twitch, digging into the bark, pushing and pulling at the fibers as if they were soft skin. The wood buried inside weeps sap, honey dripping down over ruined hands -
Something dark and serpentine shifts under the skin of its neck - a twig snaps and it whips its head back to see just who had disturbed its worship. PEACE DOES NOT MATCH ITS FACE, yet it does not seem upset in the slightest, kindly and old in its demeanor. You could place it as middle aged and feminine, if you so desired. It squints in the sunlight, looking Robin over in silence before deciding her not to be a threat and returning to its ‘work’.
It speaks, voice unfitting of the body it drifts from, cracked and off-tone. Fingers scoop the sap up, spreading it in sweeping arcs from the center of the tear.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO JOIN ME?