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alittlehinkyCricket is careful in the Wilds. He always has been, knowing he cannot run from anything that might hurt him, knowing the antiviolence field is weaker out here. More so now that the Fallen have claimed some territory, though he’s never seen them. He comes out armed with a shotgun--he’s never used it, not here--and carrying food and water in case he gets lost. But he still comes out, because of all the places he frequents in the Nexus, the cooler, more forested parts of the Wilds feel most like where he came from.
The topography always changes. Most days he prefers to walk on soft, flat ground, but today he feels stronger than he sometimes does, his legs back to their best for maybe the first time since Winter’s end. So when the path slopes upward, winding through massive boulders and vanishing into green leaves, brown humus, black crooked trunks, he follows it. He’s curious.
It feels like a hard climb, but the smell is fresh, clean, like after an early morning rain, and the air is just the right temperature, and the birds are singing all around. Off to his left, he looks down into a little hollow, and he can see sun slant through the canopy and into the shimmering leaf-litter below. And there’s a fox trotting across the ground, copper in the light, paying him no mind at all as it goes on its way.
He takes that as an auspicious sign.
Along the way he pauses to look at wildflowers, to collect ramps and fiddleheads for eating later. He takes a break to lie on one of the boulders and listens to the cicadas singing. But, though the progress is slow, he continues to ascend for another couple hours.
At length, he comes to what they would call a bald, back home. It’s not completely bare; there are small laurels clustering around the path, none more than a couple feet taller than him, heavy with bloom and bees. But he can see dead trunks extending skyward past them, grey and weathered and twisted in funny patterns against the limitless blue overhead.
That kind of thing happens close to a peak. The wind is uninterrupted by rock there, and the plant life is wracked by both summer and winter storms, higher trees stripped clean by powerful winds. The laurels are so dense, it’s honestly hard to tell what’s ahead of him, but he’s not uncomfortable in this territory. It’s familiar. It feels like home. And when he hears the sound of running water, he decides to make for it, and turn around and head back after filling his canteen. It might be a good fishing spot. Or a place to swim and play.
A few steps ahead, and the sound of the water seems to be much louder. More so than one would think from the short distance he’s traveled. Cricket pauses to listen again, and notices there is no more birdsong up here. The bees and bugs are undisturbed, though. Maybe it’s just the lack of trees.
But the water gets increasingly louder, no longer a ripple but a dull roar, blended with hissing and thin whistling notes, and he realizes it’s not water but wind. He looks up as soft grey wisps roll through the dead trunks, cranes his neck above the laurels. A storm?
No. His heart leaps into his throat as something large and grey and white comes into view, moving soft and smooth. The wisps of mist seem to come before and behind it, obscuring it a little, but he recognizes the way it moves. A deer or an elk. A deer? No deer has ever been thirty feet at the shoulder. No deer has ever had a rack of antlers that spanned so broad. But it moves like one, grazing at the dead trees, calm and careless as if it knows damn well it’s too big to have predators.
Something this massive should make the ground shake, but all Cricket hears is the whistling wind.
His heart pounds so hard it hurts.
The animal—if that’s what it is—has translucent eyes, and when it takes notice of the trembling human amidst the laurels, when it looks at him, ears flicking, he can see the blue, blue sky through them as if they were windows. He makes a small, helpless noise, struck by beauty and terror, and the Wind Elk puts out a pink tongue and licks over the dark patch of its nose and lip blandly.
Those antlers. It must be what’s decapitated the trees up here.
There is no fear in the windows that are its eyes, but after a long moment of chewing and thinking, it leaps suddenly, springing across the path in front of him and loping away, trailing tendrils of mist. Cricket cries out in shock at the motion, but the noise is lost in the sound of the other elk that follow their leader. Lesser antlers on these, some may be other, younger males, some may be does, and the smallest ones—still bigger than draft horses—must be fawns. They’re grey like fog, with paler stripes and spots on their sides.
One of the fawns stops in the path and leans toward Cricket as if to sniff at him, and he cannot move, rooted to the spot with awe. He could almost touch the face. The breath is sweet, floral, as if the creature has been eating the laurels. But before it can get too close, there’s a bellow, a roar of wind from one of the does as she calls her baby to follow. Its head goes up, it ducks, and then it turns and runs after the others and is gone.
He doesn’t move a muscle until the sound of rushing wind fades and all he can hear is the sound of cicadas, and crickets, and bees. Then he sits, collapsing into a heap in the center of the path. He gets out his canteen with a shaky hand, drinks the last of the water in it, and breaks into quiet, giddy little giggles.
That’s the Nexus for you. Sometimes you run into things you never would have expected. He can’t wait to tell people about this adventure.
The topography always changes. Most days he prefers to walk on soft, flat ground, but today he feels stronger than he sometimes does, his legs back to their best for maybe the first time since Winter’s end. So when the path slopes upward, winding through massive boulders and vanishing into green leaves, brown humus, black crooked trunks, he follows it. He’s curious.
It feels like a hard climb, but the smell is fresh, clean, like after an early morning rain, and the air is just the right temperature, and the birds are singing all around. Off to his left, he looks down into a little hollow, and he can see sun slant through the canopy and into the shimmering leaf-litter below. And there’s a fox trotting across the ground, copper in the light, paying him no mind at all as it goes on its way.
He takes that as an auspicious sign.
Along the way he pauses to look at wildflowers, to collect ramps and fiddleheads for eating later. He takes a break to lie on one of the boulders and listens to the cicadas singing. But, though the progress is slow, he continues to ascend for another couple hours.
At length, he comes to what they would call a bald, back home. It’s not completely bare; there are small laurels clustering around the path, none more than a couple feet taller than him, heavy with bloom and bees. But he can see dead trunks extending skyward past them, grey and weathered and twisted in funny patterns against the limitless blue overhead.
That kind of thing happens close to a peak. The wind is uninterrupted by rock there, and the plant life is wracked by both summer and winter storms, higher trees stripped clean by powerful winds. The laurels are so dense, it’s honestly hard to tell what’s ahead of him, but he’s not uncomfortable in this territory. It’s familiar. It feels like home. And when he hears the sound of running water, he decides to make for it, and turn around and head back after filling his canteen. It might be a good fishing spot. Or a place to swim and play.
A few steps ahead, and the sound of the water seems to be much louder. More so than one would think from the short distance he’s traveled. Cricket pauses to listen again, and notices there is no more birdsong up here. The bees and bugs are undisturbed, though. Maybe it’s just the lack of trees.
But the water gets increasingly louder, no longer a ripple but a dull roar, blended with hissing and thin whistling notes, and he realizes it’s not water but wind. He looks up as soft grey wisps roll through the dead trunks, cranes his neck above the laurels. A storm?
No. His heart leaps into his throat as something large and grey and white comes into view, moving soft and smooth. The wisps of mist seem to come before and behind it, obscuring it a little, but he recognizes the way it moves. A deer or an elk. A deer? No deer has ever been thirty feet at the shoulder. No deer has ever had a rack of antlers that spanned so broad. But it moves like one, grazing at the dead trees, calm and careless as if it knows damn well it’s too big to have predators.
Something this massive should make the ground shake, but all Cricket hears is the whistling wind.
His heart pounds so hard it hurts.
The animal—if that’s what it is—has translucent eyes, and when it takes notice of the trembling human amidst the laurels, when it looks at him, ears flicking, he can see the blue, blue sky through them as if they were windows. He makes a small, helpless noise, struck by beauty and terror, and the Wind Elk puts out a pink tongue and licks over the dark patch of its nose and lip blandly.
Those antlers. It must be what’s decapitated the trees up here.
There is no fear in the windows that are its eyes, but after a long moment of chewing and thinking, it leaps suddenly, springing across the path in front of him and loping away, trailing tendrils of mist. Cricket cries out in shock at the motion, but the noise is lost in the sound of the other elk that follow their leader. Lesser antlers on these, some may be other, younger males, some may be does, and the smallest ones—still bigger than draft horses—must be fawns. They’re grey like fog, with paler stripes and spots on their sides.
One of the fawns stops in the path and leans toward Cricket as if to sniff at him, and he cannot move, rooted to the spot with awe. He could almost touch the face. The breath is sweet, floral, as if the creature has been eating the laurels. But before it can get too close, there’s a bellow, a roar of wind from one of the does as she calls her baby to follow. Its head goes up, it ducks, and then it turns and runs after the others and is gone.
He doesn’t move a muscle until the sound of rushing wind fades and all he can hear is the sound of cicadas, and crickets, and bees. Then he sits, collapsing into a heap in the center of the path. He gets out his canteen with a shaky hand, drinks the last of the water in it, and breaks into quiet, giddy little giggles.
That’s the Nexus for you. Sometimes you run into things you never would have expected. He can’t wait to tell people about this adventure.
