Combines both Halloween RE's Siji getting drunk on apples in an orchard and Kova coming across a giant toad.
Not sure if this thread should be switched form P to RE in order to get the RE points at the end though? Thread was posted on the 31st so should be good.
Kova had been a good boy for quite some time doing regular chores and tasks for the pack as well as keeping close or inside of the borders. It had been some time since his last visit to the outside world, but the awesome moon that filled the sky for the past two nights gave Kova the motivation he needed to just get away for a short time. He wanted to run under the moonlight and enjoy the brisk night without any distractions or troubles. So the boy took off and trekked farther than he had for some time. Kova was more confident in his ability to get back home by himself nowadays and had no fear of getting lost.
The tart smell of apples made the silver lad drift towards an orchard like a wraith. He had come across only one other orchard prior to this, and during that joyous adventure had chased a nuisance animal away with Firefly. Now, wanting to relive that happy time, Kova pointed himself into the apple orchard still loping at a quick pace through the forest. The wind then changed bringing with it the smell of someone familiar. Kova slowed his pace then turned about to greet the she wolf. I wonder why Sijinali is all the way out here? I guess its kinda close to the woodlands... he thought quietly while looking through the fog and mist for her form. The moonlight lit up the fog so that the low lying clouds cast shadows upon the earth. It was truly a beautiful sight.
Then something large hopped to his right as he approached it. Kova almost tripped to a stop as he turned quickly to see a giant toad trying to hop away from him. The thing was at least as long as his tail and its eyes were rather round and scary looking. Kova was immediately intrigued in it. The scent of Sijinali made him pause to think about whether he wanted to see her first and leave the toad, but he thought better than to do that. The toad will run off and I may never find it again. She will always be around the thickets hopefully. His thoughts progressed quickly before Kova went to follow the toad.
He had hunted frogs before and eaten them, but they had never tasted good to the young male. This thing certainly looked like a frog, but it looked dry and smelled different too. He was very curious as to whether it would make a good meal or not. Since the toad already had spotted him Kova had no choice but to hop around trying to catch the thing as it bounced away from him. Eventually he was able to pin the stupid creature and start gnawing on its back trying to get a good grip on it. Kova tasted something horrendously gross and let go before seeing the white stuff leaking out from the toads poison glands. He of course didn't know that those white droplets now smeared against his tongue, teeth, and jaws were the frogs poison though, but he definitely did not want to keep biting into something that tasted as bad as this thing.
“It's worse than a rotten through maggot filled opossum belgh..” He tried wiping his mouth off onto his leg while the toad began hopping away once more. After a little while Kova realized that the taste wasn't going away and gave up. Occasionally he would smack his lips as the silver prince meandered towards Sijinali's scent. He wasn't in a hurry to get to her, not with how things were turning out so far tonight. He had half a mind to actually bed down right there and go to sleep.
"Kova..." a gritty old voice spoke out to the young wolf making him twist around to see who had called him. The voice was achingly familiar, one that he could only remember in dreams now. No one was there when he gazed upon the moonlit earth.
"Kova.." a second much more feminine voice echoed to his left making Kova jump around to look for the voice he had imagined. “M-m-mom?” Kova asked looking around at the misty terrain. He spotted a flicker of movement, then watched in amazement as his father seemed to form out of the fog itself. The young wolf began shaking as he watched wide eyed at the scene before him. “Father? H-how?” He trembled as a second form appeared over his shoulder. Kova yanked away and fell onto his side looking back up at his mother Minka stupidly.
"We're here boy..." The spectral form of Tokino rumbled warmly before looking to Minka and winking at her. Kova felt his eyes begin to tear up as he gazed back and forth at the both of them. Their colors were drab against the dark bluish gray landscape, as if the earth and rain had washed out the life from their eyes, but it was really them.
"Don't cry Kova." Minka appeared to caress the top of Kova's head but he felt nothing. Instead he only watched as she made the motion of comforting him. Then he broke down and starting crying the hardest he had ever cried in his life. “...b-but I missed you so much... b-both of you p-p-please come home w-with me! T-the others.. Kino, Draven, and Ari..... T-they need-” His voice was cut off as Kova looked up and saw the forms of his parents beginning to mush into the fog once more. His heart bled as a new crack was torn into it, then he watched as their loving faces suddenly turned into evil angry ones.
“M-mom? Dad?” Kova sobbed before their shapes turned into two somethings with big round humps. Their eyes stretched out of their sockets and their skin became shiny and wet. Their long muzzles turned into round gaping holes of blackness with sharp needle-like teeth. As his mothers form slowly turned into this monster thing Kova scrambled sideways away from her and got up onto all fours. Fear covered his gaze and as soon as the two specters turned to howl at him the gray prince yelped before turning around and running from the two snail monsters that were now trying to eat him. The trees around him started to look as if they were bending as he ran by; as if they were made of twizzlers instead of hard wood, and the fog produced ghost after ghost of his parents turning into slugs and snails alike. He was frightened out of his mind as Kova barreled sprinting forwards not two feet in front of @Sijinali and tripped over the roots of the tree she had just been next to. The young male tumbled hard onto the earth scared as hell because a giant snake had just managed to trip him.