Once upon a time, in a land not so far away...
You wake to the feeling of being watched. Of a set of unfamiliar eyes, of warm breath on the back of your neck. A jolt back to the land of the living, and it's gone. No matter how quick you are, how sneaky, the source of the disruption has long since disappeared, so you have no choice but to try and ignore it. To continue on with your day and try to set that moment of strangeness aside.
You eat, drink, speak with others. Perhaps you explore a little. Whatever it is you choose to do for the day, that feeling from the morning won't return. And by the time the sun sets and the moon glows brightly above, you've likely set those moments of strangeness aside. It's not like it's anything new, after all.
It's the same again for the next few days. No better, no worse. Something best ignored, right?
A speck of blood on the doorframe. That wasn't there before, was it?
A snap of twigs in the distance. A crunch of leaves.
Claw marks gouged deeply into the door.
Into the wall above your bed.
Scraps of red fabric, turned darker with blood. Pieces of fur. Of flesh.
Do you run and hide? Do you fight? Whatever you choose, it's definitely time to make sure your body parts aren't scattered next...
...what a horribly big mouth you have.
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Since first waking up on the island, characters have been stuck with that feeling of being watched. It isn't a constant. Isn't more than a few seconds at a time, dotted throughout the day. Investigation has never turned up much, and there's never been any sightings of the cause of it all.
Until now.
Throughout the first half of the week, characters will find themselves suffering from that feeling of being watched on a far more constant basis. Rather than it being a one-off, few seconds occurrence each day, that feeling will last for minutes at a time, and on multiple occasions.
However, it isn't until the fifth day that they'll start stumbling across physical signs of their monitoring. There are claw marks on doors. Spots of blood on the paths outside. A crack of twigs in the forests, or the imprint of bloodied paws in the snow.
Ten days in and those signs start finding their way indoors. Wet footprints, tinged with red. Claw marks in the walls, the floor. Torn sheets and the smell of wet...something. Whatever it is that's been watching you, its finally decided to come and say hello.
Two weeks in and characters will begin to have sightings of the creature, its fur dark and its eyes a glowing yellow. At times it looks like a wolf, prowling in the distance. At other times, it's walking on its hind legs, almost human were it not for the muzzle full of gleaming sharp teeth. Get too close, and it slips away like a shadow, gone between one blink and the next. It decides when to reach out to characters, not the other way round.
It's after characters finally get a good look at the creature that it starts leaving...gifts. Characters will start to find familiar items from their home worlds amidst the mess. The remains of a childhood pet, perhaps. Photographs of loved ones, faces torn almost beyond recognition. It's only once it delivers its final gift that the creature retreats to the trees again: a blood-splattered item of clothing that clearly belongs to the person the character misses the most at the time, alive or dead.
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No worries!
He's been watching Bucky for a while now. A lone wolf doesn't get far in any world. Better to find people he can turn to, even if they are only humans. At least he knows how to deal with people. Keep them at arm's length and he never has to worry about getting hurt.
no subject
Looking around — no obvious ambush points, nothing hostile that he can detect — Bucky folds himself into a seated position on the ground. He's more than aware of his own physical size; taking steps to minimize it just makes life easier sometimes. Looking relaxed while being on alert is something he's long since perfected.
"Well, I'm just going to sit right here then, and you can decide if you want to come over. What are you doing out here?" And especially this early in the morning, when few people are even awake.
no subject
In response to Bucky's question, all Tsume says is "Hunting." Which seems odd considering that he doesn't have any sort of weapons or equipment to trap animals with. But those are things for humans. Wolves need nothing to hunt with but their own fangs. Indeed, Tsume's been keeping well-fed the past couple of days. There's far more prey here than at home.
no subject
Maybe Bucky isn't the only one who's gone in search of their source. Even so, it's strange to him that his young companion seems unarmed; it doesn't match the wariness he reads in his posture. Maybe there's some sort of strange ability at work here but it seems odd to him that anyone would come hunting without some sort of supplies or weapons — unless he's very good at hiding them.
He runs a hand through his hair, brushing it back from his face. "What's your name?"
no subject
"Tsume," he tells Bucky. There's no last name that comes with it. Wolves don't exactly have those.
no subject
"Bucky." The lack of surname doesn't bother him, but it does mean he doesn't offer his own. He cocks his head to the side. "Been up for a while today, hunter?"
no subject
"Since dawn." Wolves were usually nocturnal, but like everything else in his world, they'd adjusted when human beings encroached on their territory. It was common for Tsume to spend several days diurnal and then suddenly switch back to being awake at night.
no subject
"Not many people up this early." Or if there are, Bucky hasn't run into them, at least not regularly. Then again this place is certainly big enough that it could just be a matter of location. But someone else up this early may have seen something that could explain anything of the marks he'd found against the door frame. "Gotta ask— seen anything unusual?"