[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

Ichabod was sick and tired of fog. Cold, wet and blinding, it obscured the forest trails and left weary travellers to roam in circles, until they lost their will or became part of the forest as he had.

Day after day, night after lonely night, he wailed and haunted the forest to the best of his ability, but he had been doing it for centuries and his heart just wasn't in it any more. His routine felt stale, much like the pumpkin he wore, and he was so very tired of the smell of pumpkin.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

It had been so long since he saw his own face, Ichabod had forgotten what it had looked like. Certainly nothing like the grim visage which peered at him from behind the eye sockets of the mouldy, rotting pumpkin which served as his current head.

If he was completely honest, his first foolish mistake was entering the forest all those years ago, when he'd been young and a lot braver than he was smart, and hadn't believed in ghosts and ghouls and things that go bump in the night.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

He remembered very little of his previous life - a little light and laughter, perhaps, and a whole lot of love, but nothing physical. Nothing concrete. He was just so sick and tired of wandering in the mists.

He shook his head, and bits of his pumpkin were suddenly flung off, to stick to the nearest tree. It was time to visit the pumpkin patch, and Ichabod drew himself up and dragged himself off into the darkness, disappearing within a few steps.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

Even Ichabod found it eerie how he could materialise seemingly out of thin air; he had spent the first hundred years trying to puzzle out the forest itself, but had given up when he realised it simply kept looping him, as if it were a never-ending maze - he supposed it was exactly that, with the Crone's shack bang in the middle of it.

Ichabod never went near the shack; if you weren't dead before, you would be after you went there, and if you were already dead, you would be something even worse.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

This time, he was skulking round to the old abandoned farm beside the river; decrepit and in ruins, the vegetable patches grew wild and an assortment of gnarled and twisted crops grew unattended.

Chief among them was the pumpkin patch, where every so often Ichabod picked up a new mask - for it was a mask. The first time he had caught sight of himself, he had sworn never to let another living thing see his face - or rather, the scarred remains of what used to be his face.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

He felt another piece of the pumpkin fall away, and scowled, though it could hardly be seen behind the remains of the vegetable. Years of wearing the hated things had left him with a strong dislike of the smell of them, and seeing anything round and orange caused an irrational spike of rage, but he couldn't bear to be without a mask, and nothing else in this forest worked quite as well. At least the pumpkin fit over his head.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

As the pumpkin patch swam into view, a flock of corbines flew overhead, screeching in the perpetual semi-darkness that always surrounded the old farmstead, as if the sun itself couldn't penetrate through the fog. He stepped forward, and a twig snapped under his paw, causing a vine to reach out and wrap itself around his leg.

Ichabod swiped at the vine with his claws extended, and it recoiled, whatever it was attached to letting out a shriek which echoed louder than the corbines had.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

Ichabod peered carefully through the gloom, and lowered himself into a crouch, feeling a snarl pull what remained of his lips back to expose his teeth. There, over where the biggest pumpkins grew, was a pumpkin which seemed to have sprouted four legs and a tail, and which was attempting to climb up on top of a bigger pumpkin to where a small four-legged creature with a crow's beak and another with purple stripes were sat watching its attempts. From this distance, he couldn't tell if they were yelling jeers or encouragement at the pumpkin.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

He snarled, frustrated at the interruption to his plans. These little creatures were between him and the pumpkins, and worse, they were climbing all over them. He didn't want to consider what would happen if he was unable to get hold of a pumpkin to cover his face, and the one he had on wouldn't last much longer.

A low rumbling growl left his chest, and he froze as it echoed through the fog, causing the small creatures to stop what they were doing and perk up their ears.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

Ichabod drew his paws in under his body, opting to watch the small creatures until they left. At present, they were cautious, looking around for whatever could have made the rumble that had come from his chest, but they soon returned to their activities, the pumpkin-shaped one attempting to reach the others once more.

Ichabod snorted at their ridiculous antics, and grimaced in dismay as the rotting pumpkin around his head shivered and finally gave up, falling into pieces on the floor.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

He shook his head to dislodge the stray pieces of pumpkin that remained, and winced as he felt the moist, misty air on his damp, slimy fur; a ribbon of pumpkin innards hung from his ear, and for the first time in a while his nose could smell something other than the fetid stench which had been surrounding it. He resolved to return a short while later, and turned to shuffle off to the nearest pond in order to clean himself of the slime and hopefully rid himself of the smell of rotting pumpkin for a while.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

He turned, and disappeared, the sudden silence causing the odd creatures to look around them once again.

He made his way to the nearest pond and sniffed the water cautiously, glancing at the black sludge and green algae and grimacing at the smell of stagnant water. He wasn't kidding himself; there were no safe pools of clean water in this forest, and he didn't smell too sweet himself on a normal day, but he'd rather not trade one smell of rotting vegetation for another.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

He sat a while and considered his options; there was an old water pump back on the farmstead, and he wasn't sure if it would still work but he doubted it could smell any worse than the pond did. The only problem was how to get there without being seen by anything or anyone along the way.

As he stood and walked away from the pond, he reminded himself to be grateful that the algae covering it had prevented it acting as a mirror.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

As he materialised out of the mist, he glanced over to the pumpkin patch where the creatures had finally succeeded in sitting on top of the biggest pumpkin together, and sighed; it looked like he would have to find a replacement without being able to visit the patch for a while.

He cast his eyes around in case there was a suitable substitute in the vicinity, but was greeted only by the sight of discarded tools and an old rusty pail by the ruined farmhouse.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

He made his way closer through the gloom, stopping to sniff the air as he reached the pump. There was no sound, save for the occasional fluttering of wings or cawing from the Corbines which lingered overhead and perched on the old farmhouse chimney stack which remained standing tall, though the crown of it had fallen off long ago.

He straightened his shoulders, and hooked his paw around the handle of the pump, raising it and pushing it down for the first time in goodness knows how long.