Post by Grimm on Nov 2, 2020 10:57:10 GMT -5
Whose woods these are I think I know.
Stories are living, breathing entities. They change over time based on the needs or motives of the teller. They change because of the very nature of memory, its fickleness and unreliability. They change because the blind spots swirling around us need filled with something. And so they are passed on, from one generation to the next, with power in the repetition. Fragments of the collective unconscious.
Thrills and sorrows, curses and hexes, all of it written in ink, soot, coffee grounds, and blood.
And thus The Grimm waited in the woods.
Some said it had simply always been there…that maybe it had been there first. Others offered that due to the very nature of the land, its distinctive atmosphere of place mingled with the focus of the crossroads, and, after a sprinkle of stumpwater and turpentine and iron dust, some manner of dangerous, forbidden sorcery, a genius loci emerged with an exacting and terrifying single-mindedness.
However The Grimm found its way there, it was there. And it waited.
It waited for The Angel and The Hunter to try their luck once again. For the first time they had entered these woods, and had detected the feral sweetness and walnut bite that clung to everything, they had done so with the anticipation of proving The Grimm to be nothing more than an old wives’ tale used to keep children in line.
You mustn’t be rowdy at bedtime, or The Grimm will hear you and come gobble you up!
You mustn’t go into those woods, or The Grimm will snatch you and gobble you up!
So much gobbling. You know the drill.
That was Mistake the First.
They discovered the being was most definitely real, barely escaping with their lives. The Angel, strutting about in the finest leathers and chainmail, wielding a very fine warhammer he had named Blackfyre. The Hunter decked all in black, with a cowl pulled around his head, and his hand on the hilt of an almost-as-fine-but-not-quite short sword known as Deathshot. Keen-edged and perfectly balanced for throwing, if necessary. The duo hadn’t believed the stories, not really, but they had come prepared just in case they stumbled across something.
Which, you may have guessed, they did.
A flash of preternaturally blue eyes, a gnashing of teeth, and The Grimm appeared from out of the underbrush. It moved like a man. It fought like one, too (to a degree), what with its flurry of fists, feet, knees, elbow, and head strikes. The Angel and The Hunter picked their attacks carefully. They attempted to pinpoint perceived weaknesses, and they assumed their methods would be as successful as they had been against other quarry.
They were not.
So those tactics went right out, and the battle turned into a brawling free-for-all.
This was Mistake the Second. The Grimm broke on them in a torrent of oblivion.
But manage to escape mostly intact, they did, with ruin and tears the only signs of progress. And The Angel and The Hunter considered it a personal insult that despite their deeds of derring-do in other far-flung lands, the talk in the tavern and around the hearth always seemed to circle back around to that ancient creature in the woods. Still. Even now.
What good is that here, everyone asked, along with other similar sentiments, but the duo had always pretended not to hear as they continued in their tale-telling.
So they had come back for another attempt at glory. At redemption. With nets and chains and gauntlets forged just for the occasion, in all their noise and brilliance. Back into those woods, where time moved slower and man-made materials decayed faster. Where a sense of unease, of a presence, settled on you as soon as you stepped into what amounted to brief interludes between darknesses. Where you wove your way among the greens and blues and silvers of mosses and lichens, and the unsettling shades and geometries of toadstools found only here. Where one had to contend with whispers and breaths, sporadic bursts of eerie song, and shades keeping pace on either side. It all worked to give most anyone a severe case of the Woolly Horribles.
But…
But…
…this time they would not be alone. For Dr. Lokinstein had finally been successful at creating his magnum opus. He’d placed the brain of The Major into a shape constructed out of various other bits and bobs, and was convinced this monstrosity would be what finally conquered The Grimm.
This monster, this abomination, a creature so offensive to the natural order that The Grimm had sensed it at its first unholy breath. Sensed it, yes, and decided to bend the monster to its will, and convince it of its true purpose. The Grimm would use it against those two heathens. The good doctor had worked so long and with such focus it would be a shame were his efforts all for naught. But, were the results of those efforts unwilling to cooperate, The Grimm would destroy it -- along with Dr. Lokinstein -- like it had so many others.
They would all meet in the woods, where the interlopers would once again presume this would be the day they would eradicate The Grimm from these lands for ever more.
Unlikely.
The Grimm had many more miles to go before it slept.
Stories are living, breathing entities. They change over time based on the needs or motives of the teller. They change because of the very nature of memory, its fickleness and unreliability. They change because the blind spots swirling around us need filled with something. And so they are passed on, from one generation to the next, with power in the repetition. Fragments of the collective unconscious.
Thrills and sorrows, curses and hexes, all of it written in ink, soot, coffee grounds, and blood.
And thus The Grimm waited in the woods.
Some said it had simply always been there…that maybe it had been there first. Others offered that due to the very nature of the land, its distinctive atmosphere of place mingled with the focus of the crossroads, and, after a sprinkle of stumpwater and turpentine and iron dust, some manner of dangerous, forbidden sorcery, a genius loci emerged with an exacting and terrifying single-mindedness.
However The Grimm found its way there, it was there. And it waited.
It waited for The Angel and The Hunter to try their luck once again. For the first time they had entered these woods, and had detected the feral sweetness and walnut bite that clung to everything, they had done so with the anticipation of proving The Grimm to be nothing more than an old wives’ tale used to keep children in line.
You mustn’t be rowdy at bedtime, or The Grimm will hear you and come gobble you up!
You mustn’t go into those woods, or The Grimm will snatch you and gobble you up!
So much gobbling. You know the drill.
That was Mistake the First.
They discovered the being was most definitely real, barely escaping with their lives. The Angel, strutting about in the finest leathers and chainmail, wielding a very fine warhammer he had named Blackfyre. The Hunter decked all in black, with a cowl pulled around his head, and his hand on the hilt of an almost-as-fine-but-not-quite short sword known as Deathshot. Keen-edged and perfectly balanced for throwing, if necessary. The duo hadn’t believed the stories, not really, but they had come prepared just in case they stumbled across something.
Which, you may have guessed, they did.
A flash of preternaturally blue eyes, a gnashing of teeth, and The Grimm appeared from out of the underbrush. It moved like a man. It fought like one, too (to a degree), what with its flurry of fists, feet, knees, elbow, and head strikes. The Angel and The Hunter picked their attacks carefully. They attempted to pinpoint perceived weaknesses, and they assumed their methods would be as successful as they had been against other quarry.
They were not.
So those tactics went right out, and the battle turned into a brawling free-for-all.
This was Mistake the Second. The Grimm broke on them in a torrent of oblivion.
But manage to escape mostly intact, they did, with ruin and tears the only signs of progress. And The Angel and The Hunter considered it a personal insult that despite their deeds of derring-do in other far-flung lands, the talk in the tavern and around the hearth always seemed to circle back around to that ancient creature in the woods. Still. Even now.
What good is that here, everyone asked, along with other similar sentiments, but the duo had always pretended not to hear as they continued in their tale-telling.
So they had come back for another attempt at glory. At redemption. With nets and chains and gauntlets forged just for the occasion, in all their noise and brilliance. Back into those woods, where time moved slower and man-made materials decayed faster. Where a sense of unease, of a presence, settled on you as soon as you stepped into what amounted to brief interludes between darknesses. Where you wove your way among the greens and blues and silvers of mosses and lichens, and the unsettling shades and geometries of toadstools found only here. Where one had to contend with whispers and breaths, sporadic bursts of eerie song, and shades keeping pace on either side. It all worked to give most anyone a severe case of the Woolly Horribles.
But…
But…
…this time they would not be alone. For Dr. Lokinstein had finally been successful at creating his magnum opus. He’d placed the brain of The Major into a shape constructed out of various other bits and bobs, and was convinced this monstrosity would be what finally conquered The Grimm.
This monster, this abomination, a creature so offensive to the natural order that The Grimm had sensed it at its first unholy breath. Sensed it, yes, and decided to bend the monster to its will, and convince it of its true purpose. The Grimm would use it against those two heathens. The good doctor had worked so long and with such focus it would be a shame were his efforts all for naught. But, were the results of those efforts unwilling to cooperate, The Grimm would destroy it -- along with Dr. Lokinstein -- like it had so many others.
They would all meet in the woods, where the interlopers would once again presume this would be the day they would eradicate The Grimm from these lands for ever more.
Unlikely.
The Grimm had many more miles to go before it slept.
