A "story shot" from a short blurb that I wrote a little while ago. Supposed to be a speed paint, though it did take me 45 minutes, so I'm not sure that it qualifies for once, except for in style.

“The hedge creatures are out.” The man is digging a grave for his dog at the far end of town. Just beyond them is the Blackwoods, who's pines creak in slow wailing moans.

“Get me out.” The trees are screaming. “Pull me from the roots and get me out of this accursed ground.”

Or. At least that's what the grave digger imagined trees living in the Blackwood would say.

He had addressed a man on horseback. A lantern burned dimly on the side of the saddlebags.

“Mhhm yeah?” The horseman asks, spitting out a wad of tobacco, and then replacing more in his lower lip. “Yer dun say?” He looks at the grave that the man is digging, and as if on cue the wood replied with wind, and the sound of a strangled animal.

“Yerp.” The grave digger responds and raises the wick of his own lantern that sat on a stump nearby. “Keep yer fires lit.” The traditional warning in that part of Prydein. The horseman tips his hat, and also raises his wick.

“Fires burn bright.” He responds, and steers his horse into the darkness of the Blackwood Pines.