(Red Right Hand) A Shadow Is Cast

[Krakenbox]

The trek through the mountains slow going as the Lost take measures to cover their tracks, Abraham doing his best to break up their cluster as the blessings of Spring paint the trail in splashes of life like flicks of an emerald brush on the dull canvas. Supplies are burned through on the first day and a half, energy bars and water going to sustain hunts and foraging. Animals are almost nonexistent, the quiet as oppressive as the heavy mist. Titania eventually has to abandon her boots at risk of falling or rolling her ankle. She avoids the risk of cuts with tricks of the trade, though restoration of the soles of her feet eliminated any developing callouses that would have protected her from discomfort. Wind and rain cycles throughout the day, bearing down on their stamina that is alleviated with proper shelter preparation.

Everyone contributes in their own way, Sonnie's playful nature evaporated when lapsing into the rhythm of survival, the Beast being the primary provider in all manners of wild bounty. There is a small bout of food poisoning that is quickly resolved with the Totally Legitimate Doctor. Abraham and Circe find the Hedge's amalgamation of animals incredibly wily and skittish, their lack of subtle approach only catching the sick and thin. One particular squirrel was memorable when the peeling of the hide revealed thick orange worms, that had threaded their way through the sinew like an aggressive slime mold. Stealth is out the window, the lack of noise magnifying their missteps and cracking twigs in the bush, with Sonnie eventually giving up and going alone with Samuel. Titania's wisps are left to dance excitedly around the camp. At one point Abraham is almost lost in his venture to track a ghostly buck, most of the day wasted scrambling to reunite with the Fairest before the Hedge took him for an extended trip.

By the end, everyone is starting to get a little hungry, the sources getting more and more alien. Circe's gun misfires when she tries to take out an impressive looking doe with moss and thyme coating her back, and she could swear she hear the quiet mocking laughter buzzing in her ears. Eventually, Samuel produces a handful of shards and snaps them as if it were smelling salts. The effect of the Token is jarring, as black veins of corruption burst around the nasal cavity and his eyes turn pitch in a shocking outline of his skull. He finds food. Lots. With the inevitable questions, he explains he can see and track the scent trails with the chemical, not appearing to register the alarming nature of his survival measures.

The fourth morning (Samuel apologized profusely) is greeted with the camp surrounded in a circle of fresh blooms and resting milky butterflies. Snow is falling in their immediate surroundings, the Mantle all the more obvious. The peacock is already up and scouting, clearly stressed from the timing and having developed a limp in his normally graceful posture.

[Sonnie Wu]

Sonnie had taken to sleeping in trees overlooking their camps, wrapped in her blanket and nestled in strong branches with no fear of falling. Out here, in this quiet wilderness, the monkey in her was highly uncomfortable sleeping on the ground. Trees were safer, her animal instincts told her. So she did this unless the weather made using shelter necessary. Even then, she didn't like it.

And as the days wore on, and the trek dragged forward, her bestial side was more pronounced. Constantly on alert, eyeing every shadow for predators, becoming grouchy when hungry. She made keeping the group together a priority, and was clearly miffed at Abraham for nearly getting lost in the Thorns.

Mama Monkey protected her troop.

The fourth morning, her blanket stayed draped over her like a cloak, warding against the cold as she ate her meager breakfast. A hodgepodge of leftover goblin fruits. Trying to keep this group fed was stressful, her own usually large appetite aside.

"Titania? You gonna be okay? Barefoot in this snow?" she asked, concerned for her Telluric friend.

She'd been fighting the urge to repeatedly ask 'Are we there yet?' of Samuel. Her sense of humor had taken a backseat lately.

[Titania]

To say the trek had been distressing would have been an understatement. Not only the porters were nowhere to be found, something that had made her keenly aware of her father's insistence on the plights affecting the commoners, but she had to joust between the discomforts of food deprivation - the meager harvest they had collected certainly couldn't be called lucullian - and her less than outstanding choice of footwear. Since her wisps couldn't carry her, she had almost hoped one of the two gentlemen would knightly oblige, but again, in all honesty could she really burden them, when a single clause was all she needed to flush away the signs of tiredness? And so she did.
She acknowledges the courteous monkey's question. Her worry was as moving as the snow was cold, but again, she just knew how far she could push her body and how far the Wyrd would assist her. "It's not too troublesome. Keeps me awake. Thank you. How are you faring?", they had all slept in makeshift shelters, at this point she was sure the monkey was putting up a front of buoyancy.
To be fair, something else plagued the Bright One, and it was visible in the way her wisps moved every time she looked at Samuel. She distrusted him, whatever was occurring to him whenever he used his token just compounded on the restlessness from the trip and made the feeling of enmity stronger. A corrupting disease plagues Denmark this expedition and the people in it.

[Circe]

Circe complained about the situation albeit somewhat muffled by her scarf, "Cazzo questa merda all'aperto, fanculo. La prossima volta compro invece un cazzo di MRE. No, basta andare a fare escursioni, rubare un camion." And she'd have plenty to complain about. She didn't like the ground as a bed, and that one time trying to imitate Sonnie had gone, rather poorly.

Circe took full credit for cheering them all up with her jest. Her drooped down ears had not been a sign of humiliation, nor had been the blush.

And fae bullshit making her gun fail, low ammo, and dear Lord Titania was trying her hand at hobbit hiking. In. Snow. Circe hadn't expected it but she'd a scarf, hooded coat, and boots because THORNS! She sighed as she stomped beside Titania to release a blast of her Mantle. Its heat briefly pushed back the snow and cold from the pair, though not for long. "I ain't complain' since I'm the best dressed fer this weather, but Titania do not try ta tough it out if yer stop feelin' yer toes. Frostbite is very bad," somehow the Elfin Fairest managed to sound both angry and concerned at the same time. The burst of Mantle were a regular thing to keep the shotgun clean of snow.

And Abe made a good point, "Indeed Sammy. Siamo arrivati?" The words may have been Italian but the tone was all too familiar to many a parent on a road trip.