Don't Starve: Woodie

[Reader]

Disclaimer: I don’t own anything under this franchise. I haven't played the game either, so there's a good chance this will be criminally OOC. Lastly, for those that want to give this story a try without being familiar with the game, it will probably feel like you're being dropped in the middle of the story. Still gonna read? Cool!

@striderlicious Surprise! I wanted to write something for you. Please enjoy this origin theory for Woodie and Lucy.

 

Lucy

Under the pitch black night in this starless world, we only had the fireflies to guide us to Maxwell’s door that they never flew too far from.

Woodie and a few of the others that survived dragged Wolfgang’s unconscious body along. Despite Wolfgang casting the biggest shadow among the group when fighting the monsters, it was better that he hadn’t been awake for the dark maze.

Woodie muttered under his breath with a grunt, the strain of carrying the Strongman causing the veins on his hand to be fat and engorged.

“Almost there, Lucy.”

I see it. We can make it!

Woodie squeezed my handle as glimpses of the archaic door with too many extra nuts and bolts could be seen through the flickers of zigzagging lights up ahead. His grip was firm and warm with his calluses rubbing against my grain agreeably.

As soon as we reached the wide, wrap-around porch of the mansion that held Maxwell’s door, multiple moons appeared in the sky and the door flew open.

Woodie and the others laid Wolfgang down and crouched around him. With a pat to his cheeks, he woke rather abruptly. Where his skin once looked brittle and grey, blood rushed to the surface and a healthy sheen returned to him as he looked around at us and spoke in his broken English.

“Me not dead?”

A chorus of replies came from the group

“Not unless we are all dead.”

“Your heart still beats.”

“I would be watching your cremation if so.”

“You lost the chance for a warrior's honorable death.”

Wolfgang smiled in relief and then made sure he had everyone’s attention.

“You saw me save us, yes?”

A few groans from the group didn’t dampen his spirits or diminish his wide grin. Some of them left him to examine the inside of the door. We wouldn’t know what new world awaited us until we walked through the portal though.

“I’ll go first.” Making sure no one was within swinging range, Woodie lifted me up and advanced toward the door. Walking us into a new world always made me feel a little disoriented, but this was different. Where moments ago I was erect against Woodie’s shoulder with his hands keeping me secure, now I was malleable and those same hands dug into me.

“Lu-Lucy?”

I spoke my thoughts to him in answer, but it didn’t feel the same. The temporal channel between us was gone. The effort to push my thoughts outside my mind did nothing but exert me. I tried talking the way he did to me.

“Yes, it’s me.”

Tears sprung to his eyes and he pulled me closer. He wasn’t careful around me in this form and nestled into the area just under where my blade should have been.

With a bit of wiggling, I inspected my form in this world. It was human and female. Woodie lifted his head and whispered my name. I tried to whisper back, but didn’t have the practice down pat yet so it came out as just husky.

“Well, we already know how different I am in this world. What about you?”

Woodie, still looking me up and down in wonder, shrugged his shoulders.

“My throat is more parched than a decrepit log and I could use a good rest, but I’ve got you back!”

His voice was different. It was still deep and grizzly, but it sounded like the outer layers of it had been peeled away. Thinned. Every time he forced in air through his nose, it sounded like dry leaves being crunched underfoot. He turned his head as puffs of forced air charged out of his mouth. It left him breathless and desperate for air.

“What’s wrong?”

He shook his head and then smiled back at me. No longer hindered by the metal filter over my vision, I drank in the clear view. His smile would be the first thing I missed seeing properly when we survived this world and moved on to the next.

“Just a cough.”

Cough. He seemed familiar with this world and its ailments. Maybe this room as well that stored a bed, dressers for clothes with picture frames faced down, and shelves for books. He looked unwell and sallow complected. The orange hairs on his head, above his upper lip, and sprouting from his jaw couldn’t hide his deep eye bags full of exhaustion or the reddish tinge that outlined his nostrils.

His previous words echoed through my mind again.

“What do you mean you’re glad I’m back? I was with you in the last world. And the one before that. Ever since you picked me up, I’ve been with you.”

It was so easy to see his expressions now and to see the emotions play out on his face that I used to only hear in his words. He was hesitant to answer my question. He rested his head back on to me with a noisy chest sigh.

“Nothing.”

I let it pass. My warning meter didn't go off, so it wasn't anything dangerous. He lifted his head, but stared somewhere over my shoulder with a dreamy-eyed look. I used my fingers to till the hairs closest to his cheek. Soft in one direction but resistant when I ran my thumb up the other way. He took in a slow breath that fluttered at the end and made his chest jump. He shifted me around a bit before his hand became a blur when he scrubbed his nose. I could tell he was reluctant to put me down, but whatever was bothering his nose seemed to require two hands. Finding this form more than helpful, I rested my arms on his shoulders and wrapped my legs around his waist. He quickly let me go and cupped his hands around his mouth with a forward jerk.

HiiiHH'SCHIU! HUH'XCHOO!

He looked up with dazed eyes. His forehead furrowed while his eyes closed to slits and his upper body rose again. He rubbed his nose up and down in clumsy, hurried movements as the cause of these bursts didn’t abate. I couldn’t see what was happening with his face, so I moved his hands away.

“Lehhh..let me hihh go. I...I have to sneh-snee...”

It became apparent that it was difficult to talk during a snee. When he pulled, I held on tight before bringing his hands down and lifting my hand next to his cheek.

“I can cover just as well as you, but I want to see what’s happening.”

“Nose is….tiHh...hihhh..ckly.” 

It twitched to the left and right, helped by how much he was contorting his face. He was gasping in breath after breath with his mouth stretching wide open and chin tilting back. I moved my hand in front of his mouth just as his head surged forward.

IHhh'SHMPH!...HehHH'TsCHOO!

It was just air. Maybe a hint of wetness. It seemed harmless. Woodie looked to be having a bit of a hard time though. His whole body shook with each build up and a few tears puddled together on the rims of his eyes every time his nostrils flared.

IgHHh'SHIEW!

This snee was much wetter. I could feel and see the spray settle on top of my palm. All these bursts of air started from his active nose. I reached out. His nose, warm with a rim of glistening moisture, bent under my hand. Certain spots made his breath catch and caused his breathing to stutter into the pattern that indicated a snee was coming. This time it didn’t come. He just kept pausing between hitches and blinking out tears while speaking gibberish.

“Hah-...Eh-...Hhh! Hhhh!

He just barely lowered his head toward his chest at the harsh snee that trembled his lips.

Warning tingled within me. Whatever these bursts of air and spray were, they were a trigger to his cursed wereform. In the last world, 38 swings had been the limit. Did that mean he would shift after 38 bursts within a time frame or once he reached 38 bursts?

Woodie

I'd always hoped she was trapped in the axe, and that I wasn't imagining her voice when I looked at the object. There was no way I could perfectly recreate her voice, right? Was she really my wife or was this torture set up by Maxwell to drain my sanity? I dragged my fingers through my beard and blew out a groan, feeling every ache wail when meeting the hard floor. I wasn't sure I'd be able to survive this room, let alone this world, with the items that replicated my old room that I shared with Lucy and those picture frames that I knew would be glued down so I couldn't check. My past memories were hazy with the horrors of each new world eroding the old ones to make room for the nightmares, but I tried to hold on to my happiest memories. Like the times I shared with Lucy. Until she disappeared.

Maxwell had found me searching months later and promised to grant a wish. I’d desperately asked to be with my wife, expecting death, but I woke up in a new world with an axe named Lucy beside me that had the voice of my wife and the adoration she held for me.

As soon as I heard her voice, I asked Lucy the axe what wish was given to Maxwell. The only thing she remembered from her first world was her emotions concerning me. If Lucy and the axe were the same, there was no doubt Maxwell had twisted her words. She probably wished to have the skills to work alongside her lumberjack husband.

“Woodie.”

Her whisper blanketed my mind and filled in the fractured pieces that I hadn't even known were splintering.

“Yea, Luce?”

“Why must I sleep over here when you're over there? You usually keep me next to you. Even though I can't protect you very well in this new form, I don’t think we should be this far apart. So you’re either joining me on the bed or I’m moving to the floor.”

She waited. It was the same voice my Lucy used when she was determined to get her way. Even as I weakly protested, I was already sinking into the bed behind her. Its bouncy material cushioned my aches.

“I told you I’b—”

“Sick. And this sickness causes you to snee and cough. It builds up thick fluid in your nose and chest and it changes how your voice sounds. Oh, and this can be transferred to others. Right?”

I rumbled out a yes, knowing that saying “sdeeze” would be just as bad as “snee.”

“My warning senses went off with the last of your snees. It’s your trigger. I need to count them when they come and figure out how to limit them from coming out.”

I didn’t tell her that a sneeze couldn’t be controlled, that so many things in this world could cause a person to sneeze, and that colds were filled with a ridiculous amount of them. Instead, I just pulled the covers closer around me and scooched a smidge closer to her to rest my forehead against her back. Though it did nothing for my physical soreness, I swear my sanity gained a few points from the contact.

A/N: Was it just warning that tingled within her? ;) Hahahahahaha, sorry for shamelessly throwing my preferences in. Anyways, just in case you're not up to date on current happenings, the forum will be closed over the weekend for a chunk of time.

 

[sistersneezes]

ooh hoo hoo! well thats fun! i have never played the game and i have no idea whats happening but i really liked it!

[Red Ring of Death]

'Eyyyy, it's always good to see more Don't Starve on here! -thumbs up-

Interesting perspective shifting between Woodie and Lucy, it's a nice dynamic. Dude loves his ax.

[striderlicious]

This is so brilliantly well written!! Then again, most of your stories are. I love your writing so much and I'm honestly absolutely honored that you would write something at all for me. You're way too sweet! Thank you so much honestly this was beautiful. I appreciate all the work you do! Now I wanna write you something aaaa. Adulting is hard unfortunately and I haven't had much motivation. But this is just fantastic, honestly.

[Reader]

@striderlicious!!! Your praise is too much!!! Thank you!!

Hahahahaha You know I didn’t write this for you to write me one back. I did have motive though and even if it takes years, exactly ten more motives should come up. But yea I wrote this before life kicked me in the butt so let’s regroup and come back stronger another time. I miss you. Talk to you later. And thanks for reading and enjoying my story! 

@sistersneezes oh my goodness!! I can’t imagine what you must have thought as you were reading. 😂 I’m happy you gave it a chance. Thanks for letting me know you liked it! 

@Red Ring of Deviancy Thanks so much!! Yea I definitely like my theory better than some theories I found. Hopeless romantic here 😊

Edited February 4, 2019 by Reader