INTO THE WOODS

[knightly]

Who: Xavier Rosales and Ravinder Dhaliwal
When: Tuesday, September 6, 2013. Around 1 AM.
Where: Bighorn Sheep Trail
What: Xavier and Ravi walk back to their cabin after Astronomy.
Status: FINISHED

While Gooseberry was wonderful during the day, Xavier found it a bit unsettling come nighttime. Perhaps it was because back home the night landscape was virtually treeless and even under the light of the moon one could still see a good distance, unlike at school. At Gooseberry, a person’s field of vision was almost always blocked by a portion of the dense forest. Xavier wasn’t really a fan of that as it lead his mind to wander what exactly could be out, which wasn’t exactly a fun thought when walking home from Astronomy near one o’clock in the morning.

“I swear with each passing year these woods creep me out even more,” he said in a quiet voice as he looked over at Ravi. “Part of me will be glad to get away from them.”

“Really?” Ravi had his wand out, lighting the path ahead of them. It was a short walk from the lodge to their cabin—the shortest, easiest walk of any house, which was one of the nice benefits of being a Ribbonfin, along with pleasant night sounds and not having to constantly oversee rule-breaking and fighting among their classmates. However, at Ravi’s insistence, he and Xavier had taken the slightly longer way via Bighorn Sheep Trail. Ravi had wanted to enjoy the night.

He lifted his wand towards the trees lining the path, which were tall enough to block the sight of the Ribbonfin cabins. “I always found it beautiful,” Ravi mused. “Even with the ghost stories… It’s almost intriguing, the idea of something out there we can’t see. Like Thestrals, you know?”

Even in the faint light of his wand, Ravi could see the face his roommate made at the comparison to Thestrals. He obviously did not agree with the statement. Not in the least bit.

“It’s nothing like a Thestrals.” His statement was accompanied by a vigorous shake of his head. “Even if you can’t see them, you know a Thestral is there. You can’t see what’s in the woods and you definitely don’t know if it’s there.”

Ravi laughed, but gently. Xavier was far from the first person to express discomfort about the woods, and Ravi wasn’t arrogant enough to dismiss the possibility of unseen spirits who meant them harm. Even so, he couldn’t bring himself to feel scared. “The teachers wouldn’t bring us out here if it was really dangerous. And no one’s ever died, right?”

As if on cue, a strange noise started on Xavier’s side of the path. A low growl, steadily growing in volume—almost too steady to be an animal. It could’ve almost been a machine, whirring away inside the forest.

“Ahh!” he yelled as he jumped back and lightly crashed into his roommate. Reaching out his arm, Xavier grabbed hold of Ravi by the wrist, giving it a hard squeeze. “You hear that, right?”

“I don’t…” Ravi broke off as the growling (was that growling?) reached his ears, but just as he turned his light towards the noise, it stopped. Mountain lion, his brain thought rationally. Or maybe a bear. He would prefer the bear. He was pretty sure he’d read that most bears were actually more afraid of people than people were of them.

One second ticked by, then two. “Maybe it’s nothing,” Ravi whispered, but he didn’t lower his wand.

With his hand still on his roommate's wrist, Xavier went to grab his own wand, but he couldn’t seem to find it. The adrenaline pumping through his body left his hands shaky and his brain unable to remember where he had stored it. “I don’t think it’s nothing,” he hissed as he continued his attempt to locate his wand. “It sounded like a—”

The noise cut through the darkness once again.

“Go,” Ravi ordered, and twisted his hand to grab Xavier’s and pull him along. Mountain lion or bear or whatever else, he was not risking his friend’s life. Admittedly, Ravi didn’t know a thing about forest predators, but he’d learned a few defensive spells by now and had the vain hope that a cougar wouldn’t be more enraged by getting Confunded. “Go, go, go!”

Ravi pushed Xavier ahead of him, and checked over his shoulder with his wand, seeing nothing. It took another moment, his thoughts still caught between the beats of his thudding heart, to realize the sound was fading out the further they ran.

All thoughts about finding his wand were forgotten as he began to run. While Xavier was never much of an athlete, the fear of exactly what was making the noise was enough to drive him to run faster than he had ever managed in any class. Occasionally, he looked back both to check on Ravi, but otherwise his focus was solely on getting back to the Ribbonfin cabins.

His legs didn’t slow until he finally reached the wooden steps that lead up to the boys dorms. Out of breath, he leaned back against the railing as he looked over at his roommate. “That wasn’t nothing,” Xavier managed to say between his gasps for air.

Ravi just shook his head, unable to speak for a moment. He was the prefect of this cabin, and a senior to boot. He could keep his head. He could remain a sane, rational voice at all hours of the day and in all circumstances, including 1 AM and just after encountering some kind of dangerous animal.

“It was a bear,” he said emphatically once he had his breath. “It was more afraid of us that we were of it. Not that… either of us were afraid.” Ravi cracked a self-deprecating smile, and gestured at the cabin door. “After you.”