He’s always been able to feel her in his blood, in his bones. Beqanna. When you’re born here, die here, and get spat-out reborn; you feel things. Some have even been physically slaughtered and risen again, but in Chem’s case it is mostly metaphorical rebirth. What a wild and vicious place she is, Beqanna. Her screams and moans rattle his veins; she’s doing it again. There’s never a pattern or a warning sign of any sort, but every so often, sometimes millennia sometimes decades – she rebels. Like an earthen siren she breaks the surface, howling and clawing, twisting the land in her fists. Things in this place are always subject to change, and things become warped right in front of you. Chemdog is familiar with the tingling in his spine, the cold sweat across his skin; she’s doing it again.
By the time he returns to Loess, to its steaming pools and rustling hill grass, it is dead quiet… not a soul moving about. “Ah, gaddam’it.” He breathes out quietly, stopping on a crest of land to the south and turning his big head from his east to his east. He bends down to have a sniff at the ground, circling a bit before catching a faint scent of something familiar. It’s mid-day and the spring sun is warm and uncovered by cotton clouds and hardly a breeze to speak of – which is kind of odd because the hills are almost always windy. Creepy.
Whatever Beqanna is doing, her residents have fled this area which happens to be his sort of home. He follows the smell he found on the hillside, trailing it south-west and finally happening upon some tracks where it seems a group of them gathered and traveled together. The path their bare hooves made were easy to follow as it seems the entire herd had walked it, some tracks old, some fresh; but the path itself is carved and clear as it goes on. He follows this worn down vein among the trees until the land starts to morph into a more fertile and wetter landscape. He emerges from the same path most of whoever may be here came from, his bulky body peeling from the shadows and into the light, turning his white face each direction to assess as best he can.
By the time he returns to Loess, to its steaming pools and rustling hill grass, it is dead quiet… not a soul moving about. “Ah, gaddam’it.” He breathes out quietly, stopping on a crest of land to the south and turning his big head from his east to his east. He bends down to have a sniff at the ground, circling a bit before catching a faint scent of something familiar. It’s mid-day and the spring sun is warm and uncovered by cotton clouds and hardly a breeze to speak of – which is kind of odd because the hills are almost always windy. Creepy.
Whatever Beqanna is doing, her residents have fled this area which happens to be his sort of home. He follows the smell he found on the hillside, trailing it south-west and finally happening upon some tracks where it seems a group of them gathered and traveled together. The path their bare hooves made were easy to follow as it seems the entire herd had walked it, some tracks old, some fresh; but the path itself is carved and clear as it goes on. He follows this worn down vein among the trees until the land starts to morph into a more fertile and wetter landscape. He emerges from the same path most of whoever may be here came from, his bulky body peeling from the shadows and into the light, turning his white face each direction to assess as best he can.
CHEMDOG
to the window, to the wall
to the window, to the wall
