Mischief

Smoke rose from metal, the signal of malfunction. While a functional method of incapacitation Cunning Fool felt it lacked magnitude. Humans would be pleased with their slowed pace under the demands of their no-doubt Fomori foremen, and the fomori would catch wind of the magicks and charms that bound their progress. When dealing with brutes, it is sometimes best to be brutish.

Cunning Fool took a long look at the tinted glass of the machinery's driver seat from a distance, the last remnants of the sun being shown in a distorted orange and purple splotch. He smiled to himself and suddenly was invisible to the senses of man.

The effect of the humans had already stabbed into the Umbra, verdant life peeling away from the twisting and gnashing teeth of cruel and barbaric methods. Their machinery was invisible here, as expected of the reflection of the natural world. Cunning Fool smiled at the trail of magicks where his  new companion had planted some tricks of his own. The kit had potential, though his methods were wasted on such small minds.
**
Otto Jackson was looking forward to bedding down for the night. His rig had sputtered and coughed to a halt just before he was scheduled to take his leave for the evening anyway, and he was thankful for the lucky break. Otto was new, not only to the camp but to deforestation in general. Pentex hadn't minded, though, and the paycheck certainly showed as much. He'd never been offered a job paying so much before at an entry level and he knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. The way the economy had been, he didn't even mind when they offered to relocate him.

He was looking forward to putting his feet up and maybe trying to win back his pocket money at a poker table when he heard a commotion coming back from the front line of the machinery. It took a moment for his ears to tune in to what it was specifically, but after a second he realized it was laughter. Loud laughter. Turning in his tracks, Otto hurried over to the noise and immediately began to join in.

Scrabbling through the dirt looked like a dog, only it was covered with a white bedsheet. It was barking and sounded sort of strange, but it kept rolling over and trying to knock the blanket from over his head. He chirped and barked and yipped, pawing at his face and coming up with nothing. It looked like something out of a cartoon. Barney Williams called over some of the others.

"Youse've gotta see this! Someone stuck a sheet on a dog and he's rollin' 'round like a fuckin' idiot tryin' to get it off!" Sure, the humor might have been juvenile but the work was so busy and the pace so hectic that it didn't take much to knock the edge off.

The dog seemed to become aware of the laughter and stopped to sit, the sheet drooping around his body in a very dog-like outline and he stared strangely at the crowd, tail wagging. The men laughed even harder when they saw the childlike-cuts in the cloth around the eyes, like a rudimentary ghost costume. Otto smiled but felt strange; When he was a kid he'd gotten in trouble on Halloween for ruining one of his mom's silk sheets. He remembered how dumb he felt when she yelled at him and how she had told her neighbors and they had a laugh, and he remembered how angry he felt after crying because it was her fault that they were too poor for him to have a costume anyway and-

"Who the fuck did this?" A sharp female voice came across the crowd and hushed everyone's mood. The dog's tail stopped waving. Parting the crowd, a small white female with stark black hair split them, her eyes all business and her mood angry. Otto didn't recognize her but wouldn't mind getting to know her a bit better, and no one else said a word.

"I said, who the fuck did this?" She repeated, crossing her arms and looking around at the men. "You know the foreman hates slacking. You think this is funny? A dog trying to shake a blanket off of his head?"

One of the dimmer workmen spoke up. "Well, it weren't as funny until we noticed he looked like a stupid ghost..." She shot him a look that could skin rabbits and he closed his mouth, looking down and away. As if on cue, the dog began to howl low and loudly. Low enough to be confused for a lazy and insincere "boooooooo." The laughter was caught in their throats and instead came out of their noses, choking restraints on the unexpected and silliness of it all.

"Oh, yeah, har fucking har. Real funny." The dog continued, getting louder, and the men looked up with visibly struggling faces. "Go ahead. Laugh. Get it out. I mean it." Her tone softened a touch and the men, taking her permission, began laughing harder than they had before, doubling over and wiping tears from their eyes. The dog continued howling, beckoning them on.

Otto shook his head, the joke seemingly soured in his stomach. It was too weird, and struck a memory he had long forgotten. He looked at the guys surrounding him and gave a look back towards camp, turning his attention back to the lady who had taken charge.

"Mother of God, what-" he choked out, pointing and stammering over the rest of his sentence. The sheet was now six or seven feet off of the ground. He realized that over the din of laughter he hadn't noticed the howl had not only gotten louder but deeper. Angrier. Some of the men snapped to attention, their faces turning from red with merriment to sheet white. Amusingly enough.

The howl was no longer recognizable as a howl by then, having transformed to a guttural growl. The eyes were still sitting on top of a nose and looked vaguely canine, but there were only two feet touching the ground. The dog's shoulders were widenin- Since when do dogs even HAVE shoulders?!

"What, now it isn't funny anym-" the woman spoke, dropping her sentence when she turned and had to look up to see the eyes. Too large to be real paws reached up, looking more like hands and claws than canine pads and gripped her by the shoulders. The growling stopped, the sheet took a step backwards and suddenly the woman was airborne, her shriek the only thing left behind as she was thrown through the air and towards the canopy. Without waiting for the men to come to their senses, one of those paws reached up and tore down the sheet, a hulking bipedal wolf with blazing eyes of fire stood and roared an open challenge.

Otto no longer remembered his childhood embarrassment or his job or his cards. None of the men who witnessed it remembered anything, except the sound of their screams. And fear.
**
"I didn't throw you too hard, did I?" Cunning Fool gave his feathered friend a playful but compassionate look.

"I was back on wings before I was coming down. You've gotten good at this trick." Her tone was simultaneously defensive, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing he'd done a good job, and complimentary.

"An easy trick, but a good one. Borrowing a Gauru's skin for that one does wonders; The fomori will be hesitant to press forward and their human compatriots will be unwilling to continue. For a time."

"For a time." She flapped up and took a seat on the coyote's head. "Let us find our new friend. I'm curious what he'll make of you and your brutish, obvious humor."