The fog is wonderful and horrible. The fog is evewhere, thick and white. It supplants the air we breathe -- we take in great breaths of mist, our lungs filling with half-formed water. We hear the howling of invisible beasts, foriegn things hanging around the edge of the forest, unable to enter, but unwilling to leave. They shake us in our bones, when we fear something, they become that fear.
But the fog drives us close to one another, blinds us to old grudges, when the light of our pictograms is so bright against the fog as to be meaningless. It is a great cloud, and it makes the world unknown -- it makes it marvelous and strange, something dying like the blackened poppy blossoms, but alive again, hidden in the mist.

I awoke and found Sluggs and two others resting in the fog -- Sluggs alone I recognized by set. And, of course, by the fact that after a minute, he began his usual tricks. He hid himself in the earth, growing and dwindling when he arose to be seen. When he appeared, he'd be angled like he was about to shoot up in the air. Mostly, though, it was only the thin light of his pictogram, bursting forth from the earth like a seedling. We played around. Some tried to sit over the spot, while I tried to duck my head beneath the surface of the ground to see his face, to see the Sluggs I remember from when I was small, winking at me. I almost succeeded. Almost. After he went, I ran off to sleep, hidden in fog and willow branches.

Later, I awoke and found Nevilly in the gof, huddled beneath a tree. She was shivering like a baby bird, jumping at the sound of the wolf-calls. She offered me a nervous smile as I approached, and rushed to my side. I could feel the shaking of her body when she stood next to me. She was so happy to see me, confident that I could find some way to make her feel safe -- and, to my surprise, I did. She makes me feel better than I am -- somehow gentler and stronger all at once, wiser and more noble, so much more pure. I want to protect her -- I want to be those things for her, to see that sweet smile spread across her face, that little contented sigh from that mouth. We settled in among the fog, and talked for a while... We talked about the future, a subject that made me as nervous as the fog made her. I've never been sure about the future -- there are so many of them, with so many endings I can't see. I always wonder if, in the past, I chose the best future for myself. I tried to explain this to her -- if even the choice to become the deer that I am was a right one is something I struggle with -- and she said what everyone says, that I can't unmake these choices. It's a scary thought, though I didn't say it. That doesn't make coming to a choice any easier. I'm tired of the future -- it always seems to dissapoint. She respected that, though. We laughed it off, and settled back into one another.

Clavier came by to see us, briefly, but she ran away before I could really introduce her to Nevilly. I'm glad to see she's well, though.

We took a break from the serious, and played little word games as we sat, laughing as we searched for elusive words in an elusive fog. We were joined by a few deer I don't recognize as well as I think I ought, and so had good company. The fog, for all its oddness, is really very pretty when you're surrounded by good souls.


((Oh, my favorite answer from the word-game Seed and Nevilly played over MSN chat as they sat in the fog..."eggmayonaiseoneed'scheek." Utter fail in an adorable way.))