The Wilds had a way of being similar and yet startlingly different when one paid enough attention. The bridge on this side was less traveled than the other considering the latter led to the onsen's pools. This side bore the reputation of being much trickier to navigate, not in the least because of the presence of fae and other naturae in the surroundings. Certain things stood out to warn people if they were perceptive enough - objects that caught the eye but were just slightly out of place.
The phone booth stood as one of these, overgrown and mossy but just enough off the path and away from the Seiiki bridge that its placement was odd. Aetherphones tended to be more portable now anyway and typically the city's officials were fairly good about removing outdated structures. Still this one seemed to have withstood the test of time, enveloped enough by nature that a spotted deer stood nearby munching on some grass. The animal was white where it might normally be brown, the spots a silvery gray. The short nubs of growing antlers were visible on its head as it went about its meal.
Calliope's largest spider daughter is nestled between her antlers. She's set the other two out already to spy in the wilds, looking for any signs of Murke. After having spent time growing the three are now formidable beasts with an intelligence too keen for both animal, and the dumbest of national park visitors. The fae knows they'll return home after the day out, and for now is focused on searching for a good spot to leave the last.
Until she spots a beast ahead. The white coat. Silver spots glinting in the dappled light. The antlers. Her pupils go wide and she barks, despite the being on two legs. She's not that way for long and she lopes towards the pale deer, her form shifting on instinct. Her spider chitters furiously, confused as suddenly they take off.
The deer's carefree munching was more farce than anything. He had been on a stakeout, nose and ears alert for approaching things that might come and investigate the little both that had been set up to snare the attention - and personage - of too-curious cityfolk. When he attracts the attention of a very colorful, bounding fae creature instead his head bolts upright and his legs scramble, launching him into couple of zig-zag bounds along the hilly terrain.
The telepathic message comes to Calli as if thrown over his shoulder. //HEY HEY HEY WHAAAT are you DOING!// he demands and while it sounds like protest there is the very obvious sense that if the deer could giggle in his current form he absolutely would be.
Calliope runs after, always slightly slower the deer though in her mind she runs full throttle, her view of reality warping as she scrambles over hiss and rocks, trying to follow the exact path the deer had taken instead of anything faster. What the puck gets back as a response isn't words, it's a need, a behavior ingrained the very fabric of her self. She must chase the white stag. There's no hatred, anger, if anything there's a sense of joy entwined with the need to chase. Though like a hound following a thrown stick, there's a hunger to wrap her mouth around it and pick it up. The closest translation is //Huntchasebitekissrun//
There ever so slight trepidation from the deer as he bounds up the hills only to leap back down into the valley again. He's fast, practiced at evading predators but still nervous enough about this particular one that every so often he stumbles and has to recover. Calli gets a few chances at actually nipping at one of his legs before he twists and regains his footing and changes direction, turning sharply for the water instead of the bridge.
//I'm not kissing you you smell like death!// comes the next protest. Despite the intensity of that run his hooves don't seem to leave an imprint that lasts on the grass. Bent blades fix themselves shortly after he leaves, a touch of magic restoring any damage done. As he nears the water he launches into a magnificent leap, splashing down into the clear waters of the river. Rather than break the surface again Calli's eyes can spot the form shifting to something more humanoid, likely to aid in the effort of swimming away.
Calliope's teeth chomp at only air and when he leaps into the water, she's following behind him. The spider atop her head releases her hold and lands on the hilltop to avoid going down into the drink with her ship.
When the hound comes up for air however, she's confused, looking all around for the deer and seeing only a deer-like humanoid, but it's not the same. She swims in circles, whining. The mental call back perking her ears once more. Again there's no words exactly, but reflected back to her 'kiss' not meets with disapproval. \\Not kiss. Kiss.\\ It's both the command of a hound trained to lick on command and of packmates' greeting. She whines again. Sniffs the air and starts swimming towards the humanoid, but tentatively, confused and no longer chasing. \\Chase Death! Love Death!\\ To the simplistic ideals of a hound, Death is both a specific person, and a mortality just out of reach which might make her real. The puck's head breaches the surface, treading water almost clumsily until he can get to the small rock formation in the middle of the river. He clings to it, peeking out from behind it at the whining, colorful dog-thing approaching him. The sodden white hair and antlers are still there even when humanoid and his pointed ears flick and turn much like a deer's would.
"Death-hound!" he calls out but seems uncertain of even that title. "Whatever you are! Why are your colors like that? Those aren't DEATH colors!" he asks, almost as if offended by the misrepresentation. Calliope doggie paddles while being swept down the river, she never makes it to the rocks in the center, instead finding stability on the shoreline across from him to pad back upstream. Though the longer she goes without seeing a white stag, the more coherent she becomes. She pauses on the shoreline to shake all the water off and words come from the hound's mouth. "Calliope. These are my colors, some of them. I have others. Do you need to see them too? I'm not a death-hound. I hound death. Don't take people to it. Usually. Follow people to it but I can't ever catch up to them and they all leave me." Her ears droop and her tail stops wagging.
His ear flicking keeps bringing her eyes back to him every time they wander off. "Did you see where the stag went? I have to find it. It's going to die. I need to catch it so it won't." He scrunches his face up at her as if parsing her response takes some effort. "FINE!" he says explosively and pushes off the rock to swim over to the bank and join her. He clambers up, doing a little twist and shake that ends at the stub of a tail jutting out behind him. "You have too many colors. Some of them are for others too you know," he says, almost chastising. Setting his hands on his hips he bends to look her over. "Well maybe you're too slow, you ever think of that? Get faster maybe."
The puck straightens up and twists this way and that at the waist, limbering up his limbs. "Why should I tell you where it went anyway huh? It's not going to die. Death is too slow too."
Immediately the hound's ears perk back up and her tail wags, overjoyed with the news that death is too slow. She bounces up onto hind legs, front paws waving in front of her as she starts to shift back into her own humanoid form. "Oh! Then you can have these! I'll keep my other ones! I don't need these any more." The idea of get faster is met with a nod before every hint of dog is gone and there's only Calliope's pastel form left. Though there's a moment of disorientation, coming back to this version of herself with all its complications giving her the feeling of whiplash.
She staggers and plops to the ground, looking up. "Oh. Oh. I uh. hmm. Hi, I'm Calliope, sorry for chasing you, I..." She blushes a glowing gold that lights up her face before she ducks her head down again.Calli is distinctly taller than he is in human form, made much worse by where they each stand on that hill. He scrunches his face up again until she plops down, apparently taking that as a choice rather than a necessity and nodding his approval - until she mentions giving her colors to him.
"WELL- Well no, I don't want them! But others - others might, so it's not fair to claim them all, is what I mean!" he clarifies, huffing as he crosses his arms over his chest. Once she introduces herself he takes a few steps sideways so he's on a higher part of the hill and puffs out his chest. "I'M King! We voted," he proclaims proudly. "And only say sorry if you didn't mean to do it. If you're a chaser you chase, it's what you do. But if you didn't mean to chase it's just dumb, 'cause that means someone tricked you."Calliope smiles sweetly as he puffs up.
"Don't worry, Little King, I have shared my colors and sharing them does not take them from me. Oh, were you not trying to trick me? Trick all who saw you?" The sweetness takes on a playful sharpness as she steps in closer. "I didn't vote for you to be king. Do I get a voice? Or is this another trick?" The puck doesn't uncross his arms. His face remains a shade of petulant as she steps in closer and he refuses to step back despite the quickly disappearing personal bubble.
"Well you must have missed the voting! But everyone has a voice, everyone should get one. Were you going to vote no? Or for someone else? I guess we could have missed other ones too... we just voted on all present," he says as he stares up at her. "But there'll be another one, in..." he looks up at the sky and purses his lips. "...twenty-one? Sun-ups? Minus one. Something like that." Looking back down at her, 'King' waves off in the direction of the phonebooth. "I wanted to trick people, not like US. They've been wandering around lately and it's RUDE."
"Can I bring my wife to vote too for the next one? Where do we vote?" She leans down, knees bent and hands on them so she can see him at eye level. "They're always wandering, it's what they do. Is it rude for birds to fly?" Her head tilts from side to the other.King nods firmly. "Of course you can! Voting is voting and it's for everyone," he confirms. Calli bending down to be at eye level puts a scowl on his face but it's much more like a tantrum than any true offense. He rocks up onto his tip-toes and stretches himself out as straight as he can stand. "It's not the same. Birds don't go making a mess of things and putting out big smelly houses in the woods. And leaving it smelling of ick. Death. Made me wonder about YOU but it's different, a little. Enough."
Calliope covers her mouth to stifle a giggle. "We must know different birds." Though it doesnt' last, her expression turning sullen. "The humans, leaving it smelling of death, do you know which ones were doing it? I saw a big patch of dead and desecrated grass around a stone house. Is that what you mean by them making messes? ""Probably. It's hard to know all of them. They fly out and in all the time and some of them just don't like talking," he replies. The shift in tone isn't lost on him though. The first true frown creases his youthful features and he turns to nod into the distance. "Yeah. Stone thing, all... burned and broken up, everything feeling terrible. The grass won't grow back," he explains. "There were three of them. Two small ones and a bigger one. More in the house maybe... but why do you want to know anyway?"
"I want to fix it, but I might need one of the humans to do it. One of the small ones, did she have purple hair?" Her stance is lost, worry causing her to rise to her full height and shift from foot to foot.King's pointed ears twitch at Calli's description. "The humans can't fix it, they DID it!" he retorts, flinging a hand out in the direction of the aforementioned stone house. "If anyone's going to fix it it's US, not humans. Doesn't matter what their hair looks like or their ugly clothes."Calliope looks over towards where he's motioning. "I tried to fix it and I couldn't. Can you?" Her eyes turn back to him, serious and concerned. "If you could you'd have fixed it already. Their ugly clothes might tell me which ones were doing it. I will hunt them. Let me hunt for you, King. So they will not come back and ruin our home."
Appealing to his ersatz role as monarch seems to do wonders. His expression softens from stubborn to at least open to discussing things and his arms relax, one hand moving to smooth through his hair and ruffle the fluff around his neck so he can shake loose clinging water. "I can't on my OWN. But with help maybe. Probably." He half-turns and sucks in a breath, shutting his eyes to consider the offer. "Fine, fine!" he says to no one in particular and turns back to her. "The purple one did it, the ick. Lots of black clothes, a pale face and - and looking like she sneezes a lot. The other little one had guns. And a hat, a big red scarf. And an older one burned, plants and things. And made that house stone. He wore the ugly clothes, black with straps up and down," he explained moving his hands up and down along the front of his torso to mime suspenders.
Calliope kneels as he recites the information, her head bowed. "I will find them. If you know anything else about them, hair and eye color, or see them again, you can find me in town by the human name I offered. My spider daughters are in the woods too, so they'll bring you to me. They're big and warm brown, teal too, smell a little fae and little like death too." She pauses to look up at him once more. "Can you tell me where I should report to you, and bring back proof they're dealt with?"King takes on a proper straight-backed stance, setting his hands on his hips again. "Then I'll give you the information! For protecting home," he agrees. Reaching out he moves to put a hand on her shoulder, imparting images from his mind to her own. There's the sight of two humans plodding through the forest, Murke following after the hatted and shaped young figure until they reach the house with the older man on the porch. The appearances are clear in that memory, the chaos of the combat that follows less so.
The last image he gives is a zoom through the Wilds, a path he's run many times it seems. It winds through the foliage to the rockface nearby, showing her the hidden tunnel that leads down underground to a grotto that sits under the mountain. //Or ask the others. They'll find me,// he instructs. As if to confirm, when he removes his hand a little brown squirrel hops up to clamber up onto his shoulder, seeming to chitter in his ear. He gives Calli's shoulder another pat before he heads off, leaving her with the parting words, "Hunt swift and true, Calliope! Be bright, like your colors. And faster, too fast for death."