Damascus was quick to pop his head up from Boris' shoulder and look over at Schadel.
"No, it wasn't your fault this time, I promise!" He said earnestly, "I was the one who asked you, and who got lost. And.. and, if you want to say it's your fault, say it's mine too. We'll share it. And we can both promise to be less scary together."
Last edited by ChristenedPages on Sun Dec 08, 2019 3:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Okay!" she agreed. She liked that idea a lot! Damascus and her were really similar, even if she had never really thought about him that way until now. "But I don't think you look that scary. You look really, really cute-"
Her eyes widened as an idea came to her.
A very, very good idea.
"I know what would make all of us look not-scary," she said. She didn't give any other explanation - she just ran off to where she had gotten the flowers for Edward's flower crown and the flowers she had inserted into his braids, cheerfully humming away as she started collecting materials.
Edward, meanwhile, looked between his brothers and sister. "I'm not sure we're the problem," he said, clutching William tightly in one hand. "I think it's the forest. It's getting dark..."
"All the forest has done is make it so we can't understand each other," he said, watching as Schadel ran off, again. "A forest is just a bunch of trees."
"But every time we go into the forest, at least one of us gets scared by something," Edward pointed out. "It's like reading a scary story before you go to bed - you're just in your bedroom, but being in there with the lights off can get scary when you're reading."
Damascus pulled back from Boris' arms and gave his head a single pat before attempting to join the conversation. He tried to understand what Edward meant by it being scary when the lights were out. It was dark where he lived all the time, but he didn't really think it was scary.
"Is your darkness alive somehow, Edward? That does sound a bit scary." He paused, and then suddenly thought of something he'd heard about humans and their imaginations "Oh! Or is it what you think about that's the scariest of all?"
Last edited by ChristenedPages on Tue Dec 10, 2019 6:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
He stood up slowly, and told the tale, gesticulating spookily for dramatic effect.
"The witch of the Russian woods, old as sin, skin like tree bark, teeth like cragged stone, and the longest nose in the world. Her hut walks about on chicken feet, the fence is made of human bones. With skulls on top. There's always a spare pike for another one, because there's nothing she likes to eat more than soft, juicy children.
She goes after the bad ones first, so you might be able to escape if you leave me behind." he said, grinning wickedly.
Bad souls have born better sons, better souls born worse ones -St Vincent
James’s head kept bobbing around, following from person to person as the others talked. Even though he was having fun, more or less, he was starting to wish he was home, and Boris’s weird story didn’t help either.
“That sounds like a story mommies and daddies tell so you don’t run out of the house alone,” he muttered, thinking f his parents would think he did just that. Would he be in trouble when he got back home? Were they worried about him? He wasn’t sure...
Schadel, meanwhile, keep humming away as she gathered up the flowers. She was far too occupied with her newest idea to pay attention to what the others were saying. As she bent down to grab a bright blue flower, she paused - another idea coming to her!
She returned to collecting the flowers with gusto.
If Edward liked her doing his hair, their other brothers would, too! And their hair would look pretty with the flower crowns she was going to make.
Arms now laden with flowers, she returned to her siblings.
"Hi!" she chirped. "Where are we going now? I need somewhere to sit down."
Boris pouted, disappointed. Little Edward had been so easily spooked before, so he expected that frightening him would be easy. It must have been the fault of those shape-shifters. Witch stories just didn't have as much impact after Martians and bears.
Time for a ghost story, then.
"Alright, you've got me on that one." Boris conceded. "But this next story is real. In these very woods, my neighbour Grete-"
Interrupting Boris, and replying to Schadel, tree roots erupted from the ground underneath her feet, and grew into the shape of a throne, encrusted with stones and beetles and clumps of earth. Six more sprouted forth in a circle, unasked for, and uncaring. They wanted to be there, so they were.
Boris stood and stared, but said nothing.
Then a big dark shape crept toward the camp from the darkness, and broke into a hop, with a stretched and skeletal shape that ill befit its strutting gait.
It strutted into the firelight, and promptly sat itself down behind it.
It was a tent, a completely regular tent, save for the fact that it had walked there on chicken feet.
Boris froze for a half-second, then shivered in annoyance. He settled into crossing his arms. This whole thing was getting ridiculous.
"But it's not a hut. So it's fine." he argued with nobody. "It's not made of gingerbread, and there's no skulls, so it's fine."
To prove his point, he crawled inside it, sat down, and recrossed his arms. A defiant look remained on his little face.
The tent jiggled side to side, readjusting its seat. The flap fell closed, and the tent jerked back and forth some more. Boris was fine.
"No, no no, I'm sorry! Please don't eat me!" he cried, and crossed his fingers.
They'd fall for it this time, for sure.
Bad souls have born better sons, better souls born worse ones -St Vincent
Edward gave a startled yelp when the tent suddenly appeared out of the forest, immediately clinging to Schadel's legs. It wasn't intentional, but he didn't try to move away from her, either.
A flower fluttered down from Schadel's arms.
And then before either one of them could react to it, Boris darted inside.
Edward stiffened a little when he heard Boris's cry.
But any fear he might have felt faded when he realized how calm the tent seemed. Schadel's reaction didn't help - and, seeing that Schadel was a grim reaper, he would be more trusting of her reaction than Boris's.
"I wish there were skulls," she said, frowning and slumping her shoulders as she stared at the tent. Edward just barely managed to let go of her before she started heading towards it. He watched as she pushed open the flap to the tent with a little tiny strand of darkness - her arms too filled with flowers to open it.
"Hi!" she chirped from inside.
Edward raised an eyebrow.
Grip loosening on William, Edward hesitantly went inside the tent as well.
Damascus had been sitting quietly in the corner, his arms wrapped around his knees and his cheek resting on his arm as he listened to Boris' stories. He had been listening to the boy's voice more than he listened to his words, trying to figure out what his purpose was in telling stories.
Boris, to Damascus, seemed to be trying to produce a reaction in them. Maybe he was trying to scare them, but it seemed much more good-natured than the way that the older mentors tried to scare spectors.
He was only rattled from his thoughts when the ground moved under him, scooping him up and forming a chair around him. He yelped a little as his toga twisted around his legs, and fought to right himself again.
"Jiminey!" He exclaimed when he finally fought free. "What happened?"
He barely had time to glance around at the thrones that had appeared before he realized where the others had gone. There was a tent that had walked out from the forest on chicken legs, and Boris had crawled inside for some reason. He hopped up and scampered over to stand by Schadel and Edward, blinking widely.
Damascus poked his head in the tent.
"Boris, I didn't know you could create things with stories! What a miraculous ability." He grinned his approval.
He stopped. He didn't think he had any sort of authorial powers, or precognition, but no other explanation had come to offer itself. There was something he had to try.
"And then Sigmund appeared in the forest, too."
He waited.
"Thirty seconds after the tent appeared." he clarified.
Still nothing.
"No." said Boris, smiling to soften his disappointment. "Looks like I can't."
Bad souls have born better sons, better souls born worse ones -St Vincent
Gender:
Points: 1234
Reviews: 590