"No!" Mayfal barked.

Wrong! Very scary. Everything here was so scary. The creature's abjection to the idea only made Mayfal more determined to protect themself from the inevitable attack.

Mayfal gave the lowest growl they could manage, which was still rather high in pitch. Still, they had to prove their strength to avoid confrontation.

@Sniffles

That strange, otherworldly sense of grief hung over this place.

Though the tree neither screamed nor spoke now, signs of recent damage scarred its bark--places where it had split, places it was only slowly healing.

It would, perhaps, be wisest to ask those who lived in Cetus. Certainly at least a few might know of what transpired--and of the nature of the Divine. Past that, it seemed unlikely to divulge its secrets, for the time being.

@Sniffles @Mayfal

The sounds stopped, and the fox was freaking out. Sniffles didn't quite understand why. Nothing about the sounds in the swamp was scary - if anything it provided something to listen to through the silence of the lands and how quiet it always was. The fox didn't seem to like it, though.

"Nothing there!" The snake called out to the fox who was bristling. It was just the tree. Always the tree.

@Mayfal

This huge, smelly creature seemed to not know fear and where it lurked.

"But how do you know?!" Mayfal snapped in response. The sounds may have stopped, but one who senses continues to observe.

Maybe they should have been more suspicious of this creature who was afraid of nothing, but it didn't seem to have the mental capacity to be dangerous themself. Mayfal didn't feel threatened by them, so they could trust them enough to continue to stand next to them and ask rather pointed questions.

"How do you know?" Mayfal asked again, still trying to get used to the smell that was now choking them.

@Sniffles

How did Sniffles know that there was nothing there? Well... They could see for one. And that nothing ever really tried to mess with the snake, whether that was from good luck or from their smell, they would never know. It didn't matter much anyway, if nothing bothered the snake then the snake had nothing to worry about! Which means they had no reason to be scared!

"Can't see anything!" The snake declared. There was no scary things to be seen!

The tree did make noise - that was evident by how it did when Sniffles touched it before. They had been younger then, talking to a strange wolf thing with horns and skinny limbs. It had been so very surprised that the tree made noise, Sniffles just thought it was cool.

"No scary thing see!"

@Mayfal

Although this creature was difficult to understand for many reasons, as far as Mayfal understood, they somehow had something in common.

"You can't see? You're blind, too?"

There was so much naive hope in the little fox's voice. They were ready to cry from relief, the idea of another sharing their burden. And if someone who was blind wasn't scared in this moment, then Mayfal could remain calm as well. They were almost happy.

@Sniffles

Sniffles didn't know what this 'blind' was, but they knew they could see. There was nothing that prevented them from doing it! Sniffles even had multiple sets of eyes! If one of them went blind they still had their other eyes to look around with. They weren't particularly scared of being blind.

"No! Can see! No Scary here!" The snake basically shouted.

Whoopsies!

@Mayfal

Mayfal winced at the creature's response. Partly because it made their ears ring, but they understood that they were the only blind one here. And now this giant, smelly creature knew their main weakness. The only scary thing here now was whoever this strange being was.

Mayfal kept on guard. They decided to make sure that they weren't about to be hunted.

"What do you eat, mainly?" It came out of seemingly nowhere, but Mayfal wasn't really trying to make conversation right then.

@Sniffles