Wormwood was no stranger to odd dreams. Perhaps he didn't have dreams that connected him to the spirits of beyond like Indie's did – although his dreams did connect him in a way to those beyond the grave, but his connections were more heavenly than dead – but he had certainly been having weirded and weirder dreams lately. Some of them so upsetting that he had taken to hiding himself away and not sleeping for days at a time just so that he wouldn't have to experience them again. It had been a hard process, and had even led to him once or twice hallucinating from sleep deprivation, but still, he had believed it better than having to experience the dark and twisted dreams with visions of blinding light and drowning tears that had haunted him even as he had wandered around during the day. It seemed as though Indie also let dreams control her life, but in a very different way to how Wormwood's had corrupted and changed his as of late. Her dreams guided her, while his sabotaged his waking hours. He wouldn't have really been sure what was better or worse – having visions of heaven and your dead and forgotten family screaming at you over your failures, or being confronted by old spirits that lured you off to unfamiliar places and then just disappeared off into nowhere. It wouldn't exactly be an easy choice to make, since both sounded pretty shitty.

The male had been out on one of his many patrols to keep himself awake as of late, when he heard soft voices nearby, ones that he didn't recognize. His ears perked up for a moment, before he headed towards the field that Indie now resided in, his large paws carrying him along before he found himself in front of the female. He didn't want to scare her, since he was in his winged lion form, by far his largest and most intimidating body. Well... his rotted hellhound body was also pretty damn intimidating and unpleasant to look at, but he didn't really want to welcome someone new in with his most hideous and scary form. Of course, that was if Indie actually was a new person, or somebody that was intending to join. At the moment she just seemed sort of... confused. She didn't seem aware of where she was or why she was there, and he wasn't even sure if she was aware that she had crossed any borders in her chase to hunt down the rotted male she had seen  in her dreams. Settling down in front of her, the male cleared his throat before rumbling softly to her, his head tilting to one side as he took all of her in, taking a deep breath to make sure that she didn't smell of the Pitt or anything like that, "Hello there, miss. Can I help you? You're on the territory of Tanglewood right now, in case you didn't know, and I was wondering if you had a specific purpose for being here." She really did just seem overwhelmingly frustrated and confused by what had just happened, with her canine subject turning tail and running off, which was why he felt the need to ask.

Huh. It seemed as though there was now yet another person at their border, looking for somebody else. It seemed to be a common theme lately, first with Redsteel looking for his mysterious "witch", and now with Indie as well. However, it seemed as though Indie had gotten closer than Redsteel had gotten with his search, given how enthusiastically she was insisting that she had to finish up her business here. Wormwood blinked at the female for a moment, the angel's tail flicking back and forth slowly behind him, and he rumbled after a long moment, glancing towards camp, "Well... if you cannot leave, then I suppose that you can visit here for a while until you find however you're looking for, if that's what your goal is. I'm sure people would be happy to help you try to find whoever you are looking for if we had a few more details... my name is Wormwood, and I'm a guardsman around here, which means that I know a lot of the people around here, so I would be happy to help out if you told me about whoever it is you're here for... it would also be appreciated if I could have your name, just so that I don't need to call you "somebody." He wasn't sure how much he could actually help Indie out, but he could at least try, right? Cause she seemed very much at a loss about how to move forward.

External interference could cause danger? A soft frown came to his muzzle as he heard this, feeling a bit of worry bubble in his chest at the thought. Hopefully whatever Indie was dealing with here wouldn't end up with any of his clanmates getting hurt in any way. Tanglewood already had enough on their plate right now, with the Pitt and everything else. They didn't need some ghost(?) going around and harassing others – that was what they had Beck for, after all. Even though the ghost boy wasn't actually out and about that much as of late... his thoughts were cut off all of a sudden, however, when Indie rubbed her tail against his leg, a flirtatious smile gracing her pretty face. Wormwood found himself blinking in confusion almost immediately at this, more than a little bit caught off guard. He didn't exactly flirt with a lot of people, and the last person that he could think of that he had flirted with was... Draekon, maybe? Although, what they had done hadn't exactly been flirting, since Drae had been far from the flirting type. So he actually supposed he had never really flirted with anybody in the past. It was a bit sad, when he really thought about it too much, but he shrugged it off, a soft sigh leaving him. He had more important things to be worrying about than flirting, even if there were some people he wished that he could flirt with.

He looked down at Indie for a moment before clearing his throat awkwardly and rumbling as he moved to step around her, leading her towards the main camp area of Tanglewood, "Erm... you're a very sweet little lady, miss – especially if you're here to deal with some sort of threat to us and others – and I'll be happy to show you to our main camp where you can find a place to rest, but I'm afraid that you're, uh... barking up the wrong tree." He felt a faint hearted blush come up beneath his fur, a sheepish look on his face as he padded ahead of her into the little town that made up the main Tanglewood area. He had never exactly had to... come out to anybody in the past, with the only instance of "coming out" that he could really think of being when his Mother had found out about his old boyfriend, but that had been a mistake, and had ended in his boyfriend's death. Needless to say, he had never actually had to turn a woman away because of his sexuality and very real attraction to men only, but he supposed that there was a first time for everything, awkward as it was.

Worm jumped a little bit when he heard Delilah's soft voice, having been frozen in nervousness after speaking to Indie. As he looked over at her, he chuckled and said with a little smile, "Ah, everything's alright, Del. Miss Indie here was just looking for someone, so she was calling out." He then heard Indie's comment about him being handsome, and found that he wanted to hide his burning fur beneath his paws. As a result of the way his cubhood had been, he was far from used to getting so highly complimented, and he found his wings twitching along his back as a result, itching to cover his cheeks. Instead, however, he just smiled a bit and said as he nodded, feeling father flattered that Indie thought he was handsome – after all, he may not have been interested in her that way, but he would have been an idiot to think that she wasn't very beautiful, "Thank you, very much... I can only hope that some others feel the same way about how I look." He laughed at his own little comment, although there was a faint sad lilt to it, mainly due to the fact that there was really only one person that Worm found he wanted to notice how handsome he was... someone who he doubted that would ever happen with. His tail twitched anxiously at the thought, and he quickly shook his head of those depressing thoughts, instead focusing on Delilah.

When the other feline mentioned coming with them – along with after Wormwood saw Indie's very entertaining reaction to Delilah arriving on the scene – the guardsman dipped his head to Del and said as he touched one of his wings to her back, "As Indie said, you're perfectly free to come with us, Del. More people to welcome in new members or guests are always welcome, of course." He knew that Indie would be barking up the wrong tree if she expressed her interest in Delilah, but that didn't mean it wasn't cute. Plus, it wasn't as if he knew Del's sexuality, given that he had never delved much into that line of questioning – however, he did know just how smitten Delilah was with Ren, and them having a kid now had only succeeded in deepening that love. Still, it wasn't his business to get in the middle of, so instead he just turned and began to lead the two towards the main town, moving towards the steadily getting stronger scent of Tanglewood, gently putting his tail against Delilah's tail to tell her that he was trotting along. The trees slowly began to thin as they grew closer to the square of buildings that made up their main camp, and he found himself smiling as they got closer, feeling safer by the minute.

Tanglewood felt like a small place whenever Worm was near.

That wasn't to say she felt any malice towards the larger male - quite the opposite, as he was overall one of the two people she actually knew in this clan, and one of the very few who knew her name. Indeed, she very much liked the man, though admittedly not in the way that Indie did - but that was getting ahead of herself. Worm made the world of Tanglewood feel small because he was simply everywhere. No matter what she did, no matter where she went, he was always there - and as a lady of the sea, someone who was used to her environment being somewhat fluid in terms of who was around, she wasn't used to it. Everything up on land was so locked in place. Sure, there was the geography of the ocean, the hills and the reefs (reeves?), the forests of kelp, the crab shells and eel dens. But overall, most sapient, or not specifically communicating, life tended to move around a lot, to where she rarely saw the same face twice... excepting her family, of course. They were always there, no matter what.

Not like she could do much if separated from them.

Wormwood - she still disliked that name for him, such a putrid name for a being such as he, who was large and bold, even though his mannerisms were more sheepish than lion - made the world feel small, but the good thing about a small world was that it was easier to navigate. Easier to learn, to figure out. Most of all it was easier to learn all the people in a small world.

Perhaps her metaphor was getting off course.

Magnetically, she was drawn to the winged lion, the color of fire and sunset, following his scent through the clan (it wasn't stalking if she was far enough away, right?) though it was intertwined with two others. She should have known, really, given that his whole job seemed to be talking to people, but still. Every time the thought of meeting someone breached her brainspace she began to take water, to sink into the deep seas of dread, because new people could be seconds away from ripping her throat out, or worse - whatever worse could be.

Tentatively, the small turquoise femme crept around the golden lion, looking out with eyes the color of a chlorine pool at the new person. New people, rather - one a weird-looking cat (which she would later discover was called a caracal, and in fact a lot of cats looked like that) that talked with honeyed words that made Echo blush, and the other was a strange pink cat, who was - blind? Maybe? She couldn't tell, she didn't really know. Blind fish didn't swim very far unless they were in the Depths, after all.

Coming to walk alongside the trio, Echo made to poke at Wormwood, hoping he wouldn't mind introducing her. I cannot talk, but I want to meet these new people, she wanted to say, and oh, there were so many questions she wanted to ask, and the massive scar and her throat began to ache, and -
She stopped herself before she could spiral any further, and waited for Worm to react. And if he didn't, she could wait for someone to say something that she could echo back in response. This would be fine, she tried to tell herself. Some questions could go unanswered, she failed to tell herself.

tags - "speech"