"One time, in the jungle camping..."

[Colle Mellifera]

“And that’s when Papa realized we’d been playing host to a family of squirrels!” Poppy exclaimed. Jasmine doubled over laughing and Colle curled into Harroc’s chest for support. Vera giggled from her seat on Amaiais’s lap, which was unsteady from the Kerasokan’s laughter. Chloe snorted and knocked her crutch off the end of the bench.

Harroc looked over at Chloe, concerned, but she waved him off. “It’s fine, I’m not getting up anytime soon. I can grab the wall if I need to.”

“This was a good idea,” Poppy said to Colle, taking a sip of her cider. “Probably more work than you should be doing still-”

“Nope. Harroc and Chloe helped out a lot, and do you really think Harroc would let me overdo it?” Colle leaned their head back against Harroc, smiling up at him.

Chloe tapped on Harroc’s shoulder. “Add some fuel, it’s getting low.” She handed him a few sticks to put into the stone fire pit. Leaning back, she resettled herself on the bench. “Alright, Colle, it’s your turn. You can’t have planned this thing and not have a scary story of your own.”

Colle stuck out their tongue and said, “Teaching you to make pie crusts.” Chloe batted at them indignantly as Harroc set the wood to guiding itself into the fire with his magic. Colle evaded her easily.

“I do have one - but it’s firmly in the category of ‘things Mom and Dad should never hear about’, Jas. Swear,” Colle said, holding up a pinkie finger.

“Fine, fine. I swear.” Jasmine leaned over and hooked pinkies with her sibling. “Now tell!”

Leaning back against Harroc’s chest and tugging one of his arms to come around them, Colle stared into the fire. “This was a while ago - maybe a hundred years ago? You were in your apprenticeship, Jas. A group of us went out for a week-long trip to the Lament of the Willow. Honestly, it was an excuse to get out into the jungles, get a little drunk, and indulge in things we probably shouldn’t do in town,” they said, huffing a quiet chuckle.

“It was a pretty big group, as we figured we should probably have people stay up during the night, keep the fire going, make sure there weren’t undead everywhere - and safety in numbers, right? Sixteen of us. The first night was fine. We didn’t have any problems with the tents, even."

"The second night, it was my turn to stay up for a few hours. My partner at the time - Verarle - she stayed up with me. We’d all heard about camping in the jungle before. After sundown, things were going to get a whole lot worse. Since she was a Ranger hopeful, we figured she could take on anything we’d find in the deep jungle.”

“We were making the rounds and uh, keeping each other awake-” Colle said with a wry grin. Jasmine rolled her eyes at her sibling. “Come on, like you wouldn’t,” Colle retorted, moving their shoulder as if to nudge Jasmine. “Anyway. We were walking around, checking the torches and stuff. One was out, so I went back to the main fire to light a stick and relight the torch. Verarle had gone on to the next torches in the circle so we could finish the round.”

“At the very edge of the light from the fires, I saw a giant wolf - skinny, slinking in the shadows. Thinking it was a wild animal, I lit the torch, lifted my stick and waved it toward the wolf. ‘Go on, shoo,’ I said. Then I realized that the jungle had gone completely silent - no chirps or buzzes or anything.”

“It turned its head to look at me and stood on its hind legs. Its face - it wasn’t a wolf’s head. Like, if you’d dug up a humanoid corpse and stuck its head on a wolf body - that’s as close as I can describe it. As it raised itself, its torso looked more like it was wearing an entire wolf pelt, minus the head. The eyes looked like burning coals, its cheeks gaunt, the hair on its head tangled and matted. As I looked into its face, it screamed.”

Colle shivered. “That scream got into my bones, I swear. I’ve never been as terrified before or since. Not only was it loud, it sounded - wrong. Like it was screeching underwater or something.”

“Right then I was hit with this horrible smell; it smelled like rotten meat or blood that’s old and started to clot. Between the fear and the stench I thought I might puke and then pass out before this creature came and did - whatever.” Swallowing hard, Colle stared into the fire again.

“Thank the eidolons that Verarle came back to see what was taking me so long. She grabbed the torch and swung it at the creature. It cried out again, harsh sounds that I realized was it trying to say ‘go on, shoo’ like I had earlier, but it couldn’t form the sounds correctly. The words were all garbled.”

“I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it. It smiled at me, sharp fangs shining, and brandished its sharp claws at me. Verarle shoved me back toward camp with her hand and yelled at me to get her bow. I scrambled to the tent we were sharing with the other night watch and pulled the bow and quiver out. When I gave it to her, she picked up the stick I’d used to light the torch - I’d dropped it - and ran the ashy end over an arrowhead before nocking the arrow to shoot the creature.”

“It bolted into the jungle. Verarle lowered her bow, breathing fast. ‘We need to move out, first light. It’s not safe with that around.’ She kept her bow on her the rest of our watch and I didn’t get more than a pace or two away from her again that night. When we woke up the next watch pair, we told them. They laughed at us for being scared of ‘a wolf’ - but whatever it was, was no wolf.” Chloe fidgeted next to them and they quietly put a hand on her knee.

“Once we reached the Lament, Verarle found an older Kerasokan who took both of us aside. He did some kind of ritual with a bundle of dried herbs and feathers that Verarle said would remove any curse the thing might have put on us. The man gave us each one of the feathers, said to keep it on us until we got home and then to burn it completely to ash.”

“I kept that feather the whole way home, terrified I’d see that creature again. Verarle and I did burn the feathers once we got back to Ajteire, but it wasn’t long after that we broke things off.” Colle watched the flames dance for a bit. “I think we kept reminding the other of seeing that thing - and that’s not something you want to remember.” They shook their head and leaned back against Harroc's chest, the group of friends silent as they stared into the fire.