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+---- Thread: around the bend (/showthread.php?tid=11499)
around the bend - Remi - 06-13-2025
Remi’s stride stretches long and sure as he dives into the Wildwood. The forest leans in around him, all golden mist and beckoning boughs, and the scent of rich, living soil curls sweet and familiar in his lungs. He breathes it in like a secret.
Slowing just enough to brush his fingers against a thick-trunked birch, Remi whispers, the sound threaded between the rustle of leaves and the firefly flicker of Will-o-Wisps. [say]"Do you remember that dragon who used to live here?"[/say] Remi murmurs, mouth curled at one corner, his voice pitched soft as honey. He ducks beneath a gnarled branch, then twists, weaving between mossy trunks with practised ease. [say]"Tore through here more than once in a temper. Knocked a dozen of you over, maybe more. I did try to stop him, but you know how he gets."[/say] The grin in his voice is unmistakable, fond and fiendish. [say]"Well, he’s back. Just ahead of me now, stomping about like he owns the place."[/say]
Another low-hanging branch brushes his curls. Remi leans into it like a conspiratorial shoulder-bump. [say]"If you could see your way to slowing him down—nothing cruel,"[/say] he adds quickly, [say]"just… tangle his laces a bit. Encourage a little wandering. A loop or two, back where he started. I’d consider it a personal favour."[/say]
The wind stirs gently in answer, or maybe it’s laughter, or maybe just the trees shifting in their eternal whim. Either way, Remi presses forward with renewed lightness in his step, content in the knowledge that the Greatwood—at least for now—is on his side.
RE: around the bend - Ronin - 06-13-2025
While Remi waxes lyrical with his good friends, the trees, Ronin has gotten himself truly, thoroughly and deliberately lost. Which may, as it happens, mean that the Greatwood doesn't need to very much at all to encourage his wandering about and looping back upon himself, but at the very least, the Knight is having a great time. Ducking beneath the bough of a mossy and long fallen trunk, it's only the sudden whisper of a breeze - and the familiar draconic trill of his companion, that has him slowing his footsteps.
Just up ahead, believe it or not, he can see Sugar coiled ever-so-casually around a low hanging branch, and just beyond her - Remi. Ronin almost curses out loud and gives the game away entirely, and he starts to creep closer, intending to creep right past if he can, when out of nowhere (and that's how it feels, so smooth is the betrayal), a root leaps up to meet his shin.
Biting the inside of his cheek so as to not make a sound, Ronin nevertheless goes down with a hard whump that has a few birds scattering. He lays there, unmoving and utterly without breath (mainly because he's winded, but shut up), and hopes that his husband hasn't noticed.
RE: around the bend - Remi - 06-13-2025
Of course Remi notices. It’s hard not to, with the birds taking off in an indignant flurry overhead and the very air rustling with the telltale sound of a husband-shaped body colliding ungracefully with the forest floor. Pausing mid-step with a grin tugging at his mouth, Remi leisurely bends to retrieve a thick branch fallen from a nearby maple, its tip rough and splintered but just straight enough to play the part of a sword.
He takes his time strolling over, the branch balanced lazily across his shoulders at first, then dropped into a mock ready position as he steps around Sugar’s perch and surveys the tragically felled knight before him. [say]"Oh no,"[/say] he says dryly, letting concern take exactly zero root in his tone. [say]"Whatever happened here?"[/say] As if he hadn’t just asked the trees to do exactly this.
With all the exaggerated pomp of a man absolutely drunk on boyish mischief, Remi lowers the stick and taps it gently—first to one of Ronin’s shoulders, then the other, voice deepening with faux gravity. [say]"I hereby knight you...Sir it."[/say]
And then, with the grin of a man who very much intends to enjoy the consequences, he drops the stick beside Ronin’s outstretched hand, pivots on his heel, and bolts into the trees with a shout of laughter that echoes brightly through the branches. [say]"Try not to trip this time!"[/say] he calls over his shoulder, already vanishing into the shifting green.
RE: around the bend - Ronin - 06-13-2025
If he tries hard enough, Ronin thinks, then he will just become part of the Greatwood, and his husband will never, ever notice him. Not the way he's covered in leaves and smudged with dirt, not the fact that Sugar is all but circling him overhead like a flag, or like tweety birds around the head of someone who has just taken quite the nasty bump. Nope, he is quite simply a part of the forest now. Nothing to see here. Certainly nothing to knight.
And yet, as the sword-stick lands on each of his shoulders with the weight of a thousand mistakes, there it is. Sir It. [say]"I get the distinct impression that you had something to do with all of this,"[/say] Ronin groans, his smile audible as he peeps up from the undergrowth to narrow blue eyes at the departing shape of his husband. [say]"I'll do my best!"[/say] he shouts back at Remi, pressing his hands into the soft earth to get himself back to his feet.
[say]"I'm sure there's an old saying that applies here,"[/say] he mutters to himself, brushing the dirt from his shirt and pants. [say]"Something like I hate to see you leave, but I love to watch you go."[/say]
Either way, once he's given Remi what he thinks is a suitable headstart (and sneakily caught his breath), Ronin sets off once more in pursuit of the man he loves.
RE: around the bend - Remi - 06-13-2025
[say]"Oh babe,"[/say] Remi calls out sweetly through the leaves, his voice echoing from somewhere just beyond the twisting path ahead, [say]"you’ve always had a problem keeping your feet under you."[/say] A soft tsk follows, feathered with affection and teasing in equal measure.
He could have run. Could have melted into the underbrush like a ghost or a manticore or something far more dramatic. But there’s something delightfully impish about choosing a more unassuming option. So with a ripple of energy that barely rustles the air around him, Remi’s form shrinks until there are small paws against bark, the shift so seamless it might’ve been mistaken for a blink of light between the leaves.
Where a man once stood, now a raccoon clings to the trunk of a nearby tree, ringed tail flicking like a metronome of mischief. He’s plump in that charming, wild way, with clever paws already tugging a few leafy twigs loose to make his perch look more accidental, more coincidental.
He nestles in like an opportunist—because he is one—and peers out with black-button eyes, watching the path below like a bandit casing a mark.
Let’s see what you do when I cheat, he thinks, smug and small and hidden just well enough that Ronin might stroll past without ever knowing he’s being stalked by a masked menace. Remi crouches, tail curling close, ready to launch down at just the right moment—ideally with a squeak and a dramatic tangle of limbs to mark his triumphant ambush.
~FIN