Others come, giving their own answers. I remain still, hidden by the thick shadows of the boughs above my resting place, even as the distant figure begins to change. It does not actively seem to dislike those of us that choose to <i>treat</i>, but the tension-gnawed edges of my nerves grow ever more frayed.
Already tense, the theatrics that accompany the disappearance of roughly half the other grazers is met with nothing more than a sharp stamp of my hoof and a snort. I do not like this. I do not like it at all. Is this why envoys from the Roof of the World no longer visited Beqanna? Had they been driven off by spooks and ghosts and devilry? This world has wonders; but I begin to doubt they are worth the risk.
But then…
It appears, glittering, not so far ahead. Different from those that the others find, and while perhaps not better than those, it is perfect for <i>me</i>. That I feel at the very core of my being, an iron certainty that no tension could bite its way into. I stamp my hoof again as if to cancel out the fright of the first one, and step toward the treat that the figure has gifted me.
That single step changes everything. What starlight there had been winks out, and the space between the gift and I stretches far ahead. I am sure there had been only open space between it and I, yet now there are living trees lining a deadfall-riddled path, and the smoke from the others’ disappearance becomes a cold mist – too dark to see but ever present against my skin. I shiver, just once, before taking another step forward. Nothing changes this time, nor with my next step.
I have made it three-quarters of the way through the thick forest that lies between myself and the gift. My breathing has grown labored, and the distasteful smell of blood from one of the many cuts and scratches the forest gave the delicate skin of my legs and undersides. I’ve just scrambled up a fallen log, perched to leap off it and closer to the gift when a rush of sound from overhead forces my brown eyes upward.
Something hurtles down in the darkness, crashing into the trees far to my left. It is far too dark to see what it might have been. Another crash sounds to my right – a little closer than the first. I descend from the log, urging my tired limbs to move faster. A third crash echoes behind me, and then time there is a thumping after it, like whatever had fallen rolled along for a moment after impact (crushing trees like grasstems as it went). The fourth impact is right in front of me, so close that the thin wisps of my mane flutter from the impact.
A huge rectangular prism, as pink as the salt crystals my homeland is renowned for, has crushed the earth in front of me. Its surface is perfectly smooth, covered across the entire surface with unfamiliar white runes. It’s waxy too, and firm with the faintest give, like late autumn grass on a hill in a bog. Walking across it seemed the logical choice, the way it had landed in the earth requiring only a small scrambled to reach the surface. My gift is right at the other side; I can see it glittering.
Though the surface is hard to walk on, and the saccharine scent of too many flowers has risen, unbidden, from the darkness, I press on. Distant crashes reveal the falling of more such objects, though the sound of impact is not always the same. I am too frightened to wonder about the variety of things that might be falling from the sky in Beqanna. Too frightened until one falls just to my left, and skittering to avoid it crash into the one that falls on my right. The first thing slides harmlessly down the incline of the pink surface I walk across, but the second is prevented from slipping by my body. After the impact (a bruise that I am sure will spread from hip to shoulder), the attacking thing has been as still as the surface under me. In the darkness I can see it is a bright yellow, round as the bowl of the moon, but the size and shape of the giant-turtle-of-the-sea-shells that the Emperor so prized. It too, smells sickening of sweetness, and I shudder as I try to keep my footing on the slick surface while allowing the yellow thing to roll away from me and slip down the prism, landing with a soft bump in the night.
My pace is slowed by my injury, but I have made it too far to stop. Though objects continue to fall around me, no more endanger me so, and I reach my gift at last, breathing hard.
Already tense, the theatrics that accompany the disappearance of roughly half the other grazers is met with nothing more than a sharp stamp of my hoof and a snort. I do not like this. I do not like it at all. Is this why envoys from the Roof of the World no longer visited Beqanna? Had they been driven off by spooks and ghosts and devilry? This world has wonders; but I begin to doubt they are worth the risk.
But then…
It appears, glittering, not so far ahead. Different from those that the others find, and while perhaps not better than those, it is perfect for <i>me</i>. That I feel at the very core of my being, an iron certainty that no tension could bite its way into. I stamp my hoof again as if to cancel out the fright of the first one, and step toward the treat that the figure has gifted me.
That single step changes everything. What starlight there had been winks out, and the space between the gift and I stretches far ahead. I am sure there had been only open space between it and I, yet now there are living trees lining a deadfall-riddled path, and the smoke from the others’ disappearance becomes a cold mist – too dark to see but ever present against my skin. I shiver, just once, before taking another step forward. Nothing changes this time, nor with my next step.
I have made it three-quarters of the way through the thick forest that lies between myself and the gift. My breathing has grown labored, and the distasteful smell of blood from one of the many cuts and scratches the forest gave the delicate skin of my legs and undersides. I’ve just scrambled up a fallen log, perched to leap off it and closer to the gift when a rush of sound from overhead forces my brown eyes upward.
Something hurtles down in the darkness, crashing into the trees far to my left. It is far too dark to see what it might have been. Another crash sounds to my right – a little closer than the first. I descend from the log, urging my tired limbs to move faster. A third crash echoes behind me, and then time there is a thumping after it, like whatever had fallen rolled along for a moment after impact (crushing trees like grasstems as it went). The fourth impact is right in front of me, so close that the thin wisps of my mane flutter from the impact.
A huge rectangular prism, as pink as the salt crystals my homeland is renowned for, has crushed the earth in front of me. Its surface is perfectly smooth, covered across the entire surface with unfamiliar white runes. It’s waxy too, and firm with the faintest give, like late autumn grass on a hill in a bog. Walking across it seemed the logical choice, the way it had landed in the earth requiring only a small scrambled to reach the surface. My gift is right at the other side; I can see it glittering.
Though the surface is hard to walk on, and the saccharine scent of too many flowers has risen, unbidden, from the darkness, I press on. Distant crashes reveal the falling of more such objects, though the sound of impact is not always the same. I am too frightened to wonder about the variety of things that might be falling from the sky in Beqanna. Too frightened until one falls just to my left, and skittering to avoid it crash into the one that falls on my right. The first thing slides harmlessly down the incline of the pink surface I walk across, but the second is prevented from slipping by my body. After the impact (a bruise that I am sure will spread from hip to shoulder), the attacking thing has been as still as the surface under me. In the darkness I can see it is a bright yellow, round as the bowl of the moon, but the size and shape of the giant-turtle-of-the-sea-shells that the Emperor so prized. It too, smells sickening of sweetness, and I shudder as I try to keep my footing on the slick surface while allowing the yellow thing to roll away from me and slip down the prism, landing with a soft bump in the night.
My pace is slowed by my injury, but I have made it too far to stop. Though objects continue to fall around me, no more endanger me so, and I reach my gift at last, breathing hard.