Hi all!

This week I'm going to tell you about the guardians - the ones in Mute whose job it is to prevent the wendigo from eating people. They also stop people from turning into wendigos by killing them. I thought I would tell you about their story, and how they became guardians.

In the Mute universe, cats are the guardians of the underworld. Their job is to guide new spirits into the underworld and prevent old ones from escaping. There are billions of spirits, so there are also billions of guardians. Some are assigned to keep watch further in the underworld, while others watch the gates. Despite the sheer amount of guardians, Solaris and Lunaris are the most well-known. This is because they made a grave mistake, allowing a certain spirit to escape. A spirit that would become the first wendigo.

Solaris is a ginger tom cat with green eyes. His sister, Lunaris, is a grey molly with blue eyes. Lunaris is the older of the twins, daring and more confident than her brother. Their first job when they were made guardians was to guard one of the gates. They both did their watch dutifully for a few years, until they got bored.

Solaris created a ball out of moss and grass, which he then started to play with. Lunaris joined in, with the two of them batting the ball between each other. However Lunaris got too excited and hit it too hard, meaning it rolls away from the gate. Without thinking, the two of them rush after it, eager to continue their game. While they were distracted, a vengeful spirit managed to escape. It attacked a Native American tribe and influenced a living man to kill someone and cannibalise their corpse. That spirit then took over their body and transformed them into a wendigo. Using their own flesh, they fed it to the corpse and created another wendigo.

By the time the twins realise what has happened, there are several wendigos. The two of them are scolded by the other guardians, and are punished with the task of getting rid of the wendigos for good. However, they are given powers to help them. Their claws will grow to three inches long when needed, and are made of the same wood that grows on the wendigo. The guardians also craft a dagger, which can be used by a human to subdue the wendigos. The two of them are then cast out, not allowed to return until all of the wendigos have been returned to the underworld. This brings us to Mute, centuries later, where the twins are still trying to correct their mistake.

That's it for this week! I hope you enjoyed reading! See you next week!

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Hi all,

With Halloween next week I thought I would share something about my horror book, Mute. As the title says, I'll be discussing the designs of the wendigo.

The main antagonist of the book is a wendigo, an undead creature with extreme speed and a taste for human flesh. In Mute, there is one wendigo that the characters face up against, although it doesn't look like a traditional wendigo.

Human-like.

The wendigo in Mute is shaped like a human and has human features. Although many people depict wendigo as a large deer-like creature, I prefer the human version. Mine has ghastly pale skin which is rough and rubbery. It also has longer limbs than the average human and usually walks around on all fours.

Branches.

A lot of depiction of wendigo contain antlers, so I thought I would play on that a bit by having rotten branches instead. These branches stick out the back of the wendigo and can move independently, like limbs. They are used to impale prey and cling to high places.

Teeth.

The wendigo has a mouth full of sharp teeth, layered like shark teeth. They are small, sharp and yellowed. Some are even permanently stained with blood.

Eyes.

The wendigo has a pair of bloodshot eyes with pale irises. Unlike in some depictions, it's not blind. It can see as well as a human can, so it doesn't have better sight in darkness.

Fingers.

The fingers are long and bent into the shape of claws. Each finger has a wooden fingernail on the end, some of which are sharp and others are dull due to tearing.

Throat.

I like the concept of the wendigo being constantly hungry, no matter how much it eats. I thought I would change that idea up a bit by having an open wound in the wendigo's neck. This way, all the flesh it eats falls through the hole instead of getting consumed. This would explain why it is always killing and eating, as it can literally never fill its stomach.

Voice.

The wendigo has the power to mimic human voices, or in the case of the main character, take her voice completely.

Blood.

With the theme of rotten wood, I decided that the wendigo would bleed a sap-like substance. This only happens when it isn't pierced by a silver object, in which case real blood would be drawn.

I wanted the design to be creepy and nightmare-ish, as I find the concept of a human-like creature hunting scarier than a deer. I wanted to write about a wendigo since discovering them online and reading more about them.

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed. See you next week!

Love Halloween but not a fan of horror books? Check out these fantasy reads!

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