Work Text:
Ivy stretched along the forest floor and up the trees, choking them, draining them of any semblance of life. Their branches were bare of their own leaves, replaced with overgrown ivy that suffocated all other forms and beings.
Ivy creeped along dead logs, and ivy creeped along cold pewter and slate.
Ivy creeped through abandoned bones, in and out of rib cages, wrapping around femurs, twisting in and out of skulls.
There was one thing the ivy did not touch: a single bear; solitary next to the slate and pewter, the scattered bone.
The bear sat there, its fur ragged and ripped, its stitches slowly coming undone. Not even the invasive ivy was willing to embrace it.
The bear sat there, as the cold wind danced through dead branches as starving magpies heckled at it, as the bones next to it sank further and further into the unwelcoming ivy floors.
And in the moments that passed, the bear wished someone would stumble upon him and embrace him in away the ivy wouldn't
The bear wished he could walk away from the desolate forest, away from the rotting bones and the cold pewter, and the overgrown ivy.
But the bear couldn't. It was trapped in itself, and its own inanimity. It was trapped in an unforgiving forest, trapped by rotting wood that towered above him, trapped by the green chain that was fettered against the floor, trapped by an unfeeling hand of bone that once contained unrivalled warmth.
The bear could not move, nor could it see or hear, nor could it feel. But the bear was undeniably alive in a twisted sense. it was alive with the fear and confusion and loneliness of the cold dead hand grasping it, alive with memories of the forest and the child that once held it.
The child that was once more than just a pile of bleached bones, the child that cowered in corners, the child that was never free, the child that never spoke, the child that laughed the loudest when they were alone, the child that was chained down by more than just ivy.
Now that child is dead. And the bear; the bear was left with brittle bone,
trapped by ivy that fettered them to the floor, ivy that choked dead trees, ivy that chained the forest down, holding it in its grasp, keeping it from escaping.