in the forest they dwell with a misty spell [Calla/Freyja]

[Lyn𝛿is]

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GALLEY.

Being dressed as a tree really didn't suit Zeus.

It was rather insulting, in Galley's opinion, how their stylists had tried to make him into a matched pair with the girl, him with the tree-print suit, her with that leafy dress. Her brother had absolutely nothing in common with the tiny girl who'd stood shaking on the stage with him; he ought to have been a hunter or a woodcutter, something that showed him as menacing and powerful.

Duality constantly runs through District Seven - bright summers followed by long, cold winters; life in the forest nourished by dead animals and decaying leaf litter; the walls of paper mills pressing against old-growth trees and climbing ivy that constantly seek to reclaim their territory. But the Capitol has never understood the forest - only seeing it for what they could take from it - so she supposed the awful parody of an outfit shouldn't really surprise her.

She still hadn't figured out where Zeus' knife had been hidden.

The power dynamics inside the Prank house had been shifting, too, since Zeus volunteered - their mother a little more withdrawn, Drôle a little more prickly. If Zeus returned a victor, everything would change. If he didn't, everything would still change but in a different direction. It reminded Galley a little unpleasantly of when they'd all been caught up in rooting for their mother to become mayor, only for all that energy to come crashing down after she got defeated by Mr. Sayer. Off balance. Strained. As the youngest sibling in a chaotic house of no particular significance in the district, utterly and entirely out of Galley's control.

She heads into the forest.

Once you get past the logging trails, past the newest field of stumps cut down by the lumberjacks, the forest recognizes no one as its owner. Even her little clearing, where she'd pulled out shrubbery to make more room for the berry bushes, where Galley had found a tree hollow to stash her treasures to keep them hidden from her siblings, was merely borrowed from the forest; there were too many power struggles in town and at home, after all, for her to have any desire to fight nature itself.

When she gets to the clearing this time, however, Galley is startled to notice that she's not alone.

Lounged against one of the thicker tree branches is a young woman, with such an expression on her face that Galley couldn't help but be reminded of a rather satisfied cat in a children's picture-book, licking its lips after drinking a saucer of particularly creamy milk. She blinks up at the woman. There's a wild beauty to her, wreathed in the golden glow of dappled sunlight, and Galley feels a sudden ball of nerves appear in her throat as she opens her mouth to address the woman.

"Um. Hello?"

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[tick 12a / calla]

i know my way through the night to your door
you know the blood that i'm owed is all yours
the wishes i've made are too vicious to tell
the devil already he knows me so well

Freyr is handing her a clump of henbane when it begins. He's cut the stem messily, and Freyja holds it between her fingers with a look of agony, but drops it into their basket without complaint.

His eyes are sharper, she knows this, because he was blessed with the sight of the eagles, and he hunts leagues above the other Forresters because of it. She knows this. She also knows that there is luck in twins, and that it's no coincidence that the two of them never return empty handed when they venture out together.

So she will hold her tongue, and she will tolerate his heavy feet, and with any luck they will be back before dark.

Time is different this deep in the forest, where the canopy is so thick that it stops the sun and the trees are so tall that the clouds wrap themselves around the trunks tight like vipers. An eternal twilight falls over them, a space between here and there, and sometimes, when they're lucky, it will sing.

Freyr turns back to the foliage, and Freyja tries to salvage the work of his fists when she hears it.

A crow sounds overhead, loud enough to alarm the flock and it sends them all flying. Their wings beat against the wind and it sounds like an earthquake, with enough force to shake the sky from its place, and when it stops, it echoes.

“Go, search,” the trees whisper, “quickly.” And they shake their branches and creak against the wind, the soil between their roots shifts until they’re screaming and the foxes scramble to echo it back. She drops her basket and leaves without a word, with barely a glance at Freyr.

They're both children of this forest. And neither of them are stupid enough to ignore its call. She doesn't turn to see if he's noticed.

But the brush seems to part for her, and the rabbits that run alongside her feet seem thunderous. The blood rushes through her head and she can taste in it in the back of her throat, still the birds call and still the trees shift and together they all scream “FASTER!”

She doesn’t see what’s made the commotion, she doesn’t understand until she hears it and

Oh.

She stops. Goes so still that a doe sneaks by and brushes against her leg before it continues through the brambles. There’s a twig snapping first, out in the distance. There's a rustle of leaves and an intake of breath - the sound of something unfamiliar with the forest. Something fragile. Something young.

Her hands pull her up into the boughs until she feels the branches curl in to cradle her, and then she waits.

It doesn't take long. And the thing that wanders into the clearing is so small, so heartbreakingly unaware, that it beats at something in the back of Freyja's mind. It reminds her of baby birds born blind and of a lamb before a slaughter. It reminds her of the wolf mother and the feeling of a snout against her palm. It reminds her of Eirik, waiting under the careful eyes of the healers back home, barely even a year old.

Suddenly Freyja is a year younger, with hops blossoms in her hair and lady's mantle under her tongue. Feast or famine, there is a consistency to what the trees show her. Suddenly, she realizes, feast or famine, sacrifice or saviour, the forest is providing again.

“Hello little one.” She purrs when the thing finally notices her, drags a finger down the branch, scrapes a nail against the bark until it comes back torn. She draws her vowels out low, smiles like she has a secret. “What are you doing out here all alone?”

phildel — the wolf