Chapter Text
Chevron’s map was splayed out on the table where across from him was the mother of the household, a timber wolf of brown-colored fur speckled with black. Her cubs were watching him from a doorway behind their mother, eyes wide with curiosity while hers were narrowed in thought. Her spouse was nowhere to be seen, either out tending to the fields or conscripted to the war he could not tell.
“Follow the road, you’ll be safer on it,” she said.
He watched her paw trace the path on the map, frowning when it made a swoop down the southern region before returning north to avoid the forest.
“Couldn’t I just cut through here?” Chevron asked, pointing to a stretch of woodland that came down like a curling tail.
It made the road bulge outward, adding distance and time he couldn’t spare. He had to rendezvous with his team in a week’s time for extraction, but the established route was cutting it a bit too fine for his comfort.
The mother let out a sound, her eyes widening and hackles rising.
“No!” her voice boomed, making Chevron jump. “Avoid the forest.”
Chevron stared, dumbstruck at her outburst before his eyes blinked a few times as he regained his composure. He scratched his head in confusion, paw ruffling the black-and-white fur that indicated his Border Collie heritage.
“And why should I do that?”
Her expression turned grim as she stared at him with jade-colored eyes before speaking again.
“It’s... not a place for people. Few can go in and return.”
Chevron raised up a paw, maw open to ask another question.
“You need to leave,” she swiftly cut him off. “The frost will hit soon, and we need to get the harvest before it does.”
She walked past him without so much as a glance, her pups following after her heels, and leaving Chevron alone with more question than answers. He released a frustrated sigh and planted both of his paws on the map, gazing down at it. The map was carpeted with snaking lines that detailed the roads and topography of the area, every town and field recorded with painstaking accuracy so that nothing was left obscure.
In contrast, the forest was blank. A white, featureless area that nearly took up the entire center of the map, as if the cartographer had gotten fed up with their work halfway through. The forest neighbored the village he was in. It started off as frayed woodlands in the south that soon grew into a boundless expanse that stretched far and wide into the northern mountains. All of it unmapped. The only thing that was certain was the forest border, but even that was incomplete as solid lines gave way to uncertain dashes that quickly disappeared.
Seeing no other option, Chevron folded up his map and returned it to his pack before shouldering it. He walked out of the house and into the village square where the locals were intent on going about their business, walking briskly and avoiding eye contact with him. Knowing he wasn’t welcomed; Chevron departed without another word and followed the smooth dirt road southward.
There were fences that lined the road, some made of stone and others of wood. They marked the borders of the tilled fields he passed by, where yellowed leaves signaled that autumn was well and truly here. Stalks of wheat swayed silently from a passing breeze; their drooping heads heavy with grain, as the sound of insect wings droned by. Aside from a farmer or two passing by with wagons full of tools and harvest, it was a solitary and peaceful hike.
The pastoral calm reminded Chevron much of home, of carefree days where the few things he worried about was finding a perfect gift for a beloved friend or hoping that a crush would accept his invitation to a dance. Back when he was a lanky, awkward pup.
His vision wavered with tears pooling in his eyes as a familiar ache throbbed in his heart. It was a yearning for better times, when friends and family were around with smiles and cheer. That ache burrowed a hole in his chest, hollowing him out and leaving him empty and numb for most days as the longing remained unfulfilled.
The days where he felt something were the worst; when pleasant memories sent lancing pain through his heart to remind him nothing would be the same ever again.
Chevron was glad no one was around to see him furiously wipe his tears away.
Three hours in and Chevron could see the road ahead split in two. To the right, the path continued uninterrupted, remaining clear and wide as it kept to a relatively straight direction. The left, however, was a narrow line of bare soil overrun with weeds. Time had nearly erased the path from sight.
While the established road seemed intent on avoiding the forest, keeping it at an arm’s length while it meandered along the woodland border, the leftward road branched out defiantly to break through the neat cobblestone fence and embrace the forest.
Chevron tried to peer inside from where he was standing, his body leaning forward and neck craning upward to look beyond the first trees. The woodland seemed spacious enough; sunlight flooding through the open canopy and shining on the forest floor carpeted with leaves. Beyond that, however, there was little to be seen but the endless columns of trees.
It looked like any plain old forest to him; wild and dense with foliage. Chevron could feel his cheeks prickle with irritation.
“Damn locals and their superstitions,” Chevron muttered under his breath.
He looked at the two paths before him, head turning from one side to the other, debating on what to do.
“Tempted to go into the woods?” a voice spoke behind with a wizened tone that was like the creaking of an old oak tree.
“Good lord!” Chevron whirled around screaming, clutching his chest tightly.
A wolf stood behind him, fur faded by time and posture bent with age. He was wrapped in a woolen cloak, hood pulled over his head with pockets sewn in the shape of lupine ears. Both of his paws were resting on the head of a weathered walking cane as they looked up at Chevron with eyes of such brilliant green that the Border Collie, for a moment, thought they were aglow.
A throaty laugh came bubbling from the wolf, eyes stretching with mirth.
“Sorry for the fright, young man, but I couldn’t help but notice you gazing at the forest. Are you from around here?” the wolf asked.
Chevron responded with a shake of his head.
“Hm... I thought as much. Locals avoid the forest when they can. It’s usually the reckless, the adventurous, or outsiders that act otherwise,” the wolf said. “What draws you to it?”
“Just passing by the country. Hoping to save some time on my travels,” Chevron said.
“Is that so?” the wolf replied, keeping his eyes on Chevron.
It was an unwavering gaze, unblinking and magnifying. Chevron found it disconcerting, as if the old wolf was seeing more than just his face and was gently peeling back layers to look at what was underneath.
“Time must be of the essence,” the wolf said, their eyes finally breaking contact to look at Chevron’s pack. “Something of importance concerns you.”
The wolf held their gaze on it, causing Chevron to shift slightly so his pack slipped behind his body and out of view. The wolf seemed to not notice the act as he glanced at the gun holster wrapped around Chevron’s abdomen.
“Important enough that danger pursues you.”
“That information is classified and something I cannot divulge to civilians,” Chevron said, voice stern and eyes narrowed.
The wolf was beaming a good-natured smile, unfazed by the warning.
“Ah, don’t mind the ramblings of an old wolf,” he said with a wave of a paw. “I am not here to discourage you from your path, wherever it may lead you. But if you do decide to venture into the forest, I advise that you keep this in your possession.”
The wolf set aside his walking cane on the cobblestone fence to reach into their cloak and bring out a small pendant. The wolf took one of Chevron’s paws and placed the pendant on it, pushing it toward the Border Collie before he had a chance to speak.
Chevron blinked, taken aback by the wolf’s boldness, but nonetheless brought the pendant up to his face, holding it up by the length of twine that it hung from. It was carved into the shape of a deer skull from wood that was as white as sun-bleached bones, with small emeralds embedded in the eyes sockets that glittered in the light. From darker wood were carvings of ivy that encircled the skull and coiled around the antlers like a wreath.
It was quite morbid at a glance, and Chevron wondered if the old wolf had given him a pagan fetish. He was tempted to toss it away once the wolf wasn’t looking, but the craftsmanship was quite exquisite and unusually ornate. At a closer look, Chevron could see etchings on the wood that resembled leaf veins and fine grooves on the skull.
“Er... thank you, I suppose?” Chevron said, looking up at the wolf.
There was no one around for miles even as Chevron frantically turned his head to find the wolf, but he could find no sign that another was here. Not a paw print or distant figure. It was if he had been talking to himself the entire time.
A sudden gust went by, picking up loose straw and fallen leaves. It drew Chevron’s attention, forgetting the wolf to watch them whirl in eddies of wind that steered them toward the forest.
A shackling apprehension weighed in Chevron’s gut like a lump of cold iron, and yet his feet led the way down the leftward path. The direction felt right, every step banishing his doubts further away until there was only confidence in his stride, delivering him faster to the forest.
The open fields quickly terminated at the foot of the trees, establishing a distinct boundary underneath their shadows.
Chevron stood at this border and glanced back at the farm fields with their tidy fences that divided the land into neat patchwork. He turned back to the forest, which was unlike the fields behind him. There were no defined paths and the plant life, a few he recognized and many he had no names for, grew wherever it could.
Wanderlust suddenly struck him, coming in as a soaring thrill that sent his heart racing. Before he knew it, Chevron crossed into the forest and never looked back.