On one of these excursions into the great green yonder… or the periphery of the village rather, Father suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. It was a little jarring; I felt like a warning was warranted. However, I was forgiving when I felt the excitement he was giving off. "What is it," his excitement was starting to affect me. He got down low to the ground.
"Do you see this?" He pointed to a footprint in the soil—a rather large footprint. The shape at first suggested a large cat-like creature, but upon closer inspection, it seemed closer in line with a rodent's paw. At any rate, whatever produced this print had to be fairly sizable. Personally, I would be a bit nervous if I were to meet this creature, but Father didn't give off any of those vibes though.
"It's a paw?"
"Yes, but just not any paw. This is the paw of something special. And this is fresh too. I bet if we are careful, we could get a glance at him." Father wasted no time in heading in the direction of the footprint. "Now keep very quiet Indigo (in both sound and telepathic thought)." Now that was interesting, was this thing telepathic as well? In that case, it could be very dangerous if there was more than one of them. On the plus side, we may be able to parley with it, if it came to that. I hadn't yet learned the Whisper technique, and now I was starting to feel like I was really missing out on its benefits, oh well…
We worked our way further into the forest. By this point, we had well exceeded any interpretation of "village periphery" that my mother had set for the outermost limits of what she would tolerate for our adventures. Well, what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her, unless we got eaten... On second thought, perhaps we should rethink this. Reevaluate our impromptu itinerary. Maybe Mother really did know best. But alas, I was locked into this rollercoaster ride, and I couldn't even call out to the man at the controls in fear that this man... fox... cat... Whatever-we-are-eating beast might be alerted to our presence. This really bothered me, since I couldn't even let my father know how uneasy I was about this. He was kind of inconsiderate to put me into this situation, not even asking for my input before heading off on this escapade. But my father was a hunter, I would just have to trust that he knew what he was doing. And in truth, I couldn't hold it against him. I'm sure he thought I would get a kick out of seeing whatever this creature was, and probably thought it would be a good bonding moment. Unless we got eaten, in which case I certainly would hold it against him if I was fortunate enough to retain my memories again.
As we methodically tracked this creature, I saw my father ply his trade. He seemed to be pretty good at it, though I had no reference from which to draw for comparison. He kept low to the ground, often crawling on all fours. I also suspected he might be applying a little telekinetic lift to make himself lighter. Regardless, he seemed to float across the terrain, not even disturbing a blade of grass. When necessary, he would part shrubs and other foliage and slide past them like it was an art form. I will admit, that seeing this level of competence at his craft did help relax my nerves; I was in the hands of a true professional. Along the way, he would point out things he was using to track the beast: A broken branch here, a snapped twig there, a bit of rustled grass. Honestly, while I could see what he was referring to in some cases, in others, I couldn't see it at all. While I couldn't inquire further, my father, being a practitioner of the Whisper, could give me what he felt was adequate insight into the trail. Unfortunately, he had the bias of an expert.
Aside from the thrill of the hunt, this was my first time into the deeper reaches of the forest, and the farthest I've ever been from home, though this wasn't by any means a great distance. In truth, it didn't seem much different from just around the village, at least in terms of how pristine it was. That being said there were many things to see that were not near our humble tree-perched home. Of particular note, was a seemingly placid lake that looked surreal with the illumination of the forest reflecting off it, in the early and late hours it would have to look absolutely magical, like something from a fantasy painting. I say seemingly placid because it was actually a bottleneck in a river, and therefore had a river that flowed both into and out of it. My father later informed me that this was actually a popular bathing spot for residents of our village, as well as other denizens of the forest. I thought this might make it a great hunting spot but was quickly rebuked. This spot was kind of sacred, but my father wouldn't go quite that far. He said it would be an affront to the Goddess of the Grove to kill a creature here, although it seemed like they were not above waiting for next week's meal to leave the area before they took it down to avoid any demerits from an angry deity.
The pursuit continued. Time passed slowly. Partly because my heart was beating at an accelerated rate, but also because of the interesting things to see, like the aforementioned lake. However, time eventually converged on our unknowing target. As we came to the end of the trail, my father was already aware that it was just ahead, although I could not detect it at all. He reiterated his command to remain completely quiet. With my nerves all up in a bunch by this point, the only thing it was likely to hear was the beating of my heart. I resorted to my old standby of box breathing (inhale for 4, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4, repeat), and this helped. As he ever so gingerly reached out to part the last bit of foliage dividing us from the object of our pursuit, he took me from his back and tucked me just beneath his chest. As the shrubbery parted, there it was…
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What was I looking at? It looked like whatever artist had designed this creature took inspiration from several different sources. I had the head of a cat, or perhaps a tiger, with the long supple body of a weasel, and a flap of a tail that reminded me of a whitetail deer. Add onto that front and hind legs' paws that looked like a cross between a rodent’s and a bird of prey’s. It was almost completely white, except for a black mask-like structure around the eye that made him look like a member of the Wolverine Fan Club. There were also several pairs of small wing-like accouterments along the back, but they had to be purely ornamental. It looked like something you would see in the next iteration of Pokémon, to be honest. But what was most impressive was the size, this thing had to be the length of a bus, with a shoulder height of around 8 feet. Altogether, it kind of reminded me of one of those Chinese dragons with their long bodies.
We had to have been a good distance away from the creature. Not far enough, mind you, if it should spot us and regard us as a late afternoon meal. He was just lounging in the midday Sun in an open field, I guess it was an ideal spot. For whatever reason, I didn't find him too intimidating at that moment, so maybe that was the reason I slipped up and asked my father a question, "How is something this big able to move around without leaving a larger trail?" I was immediately reminded of the need to stay quiet, as the creature looked up almost instantaneously. My father let a kind of chuckle escape as he came to an upright posture, like a kid who got caught peeking at girls bathing.
Oh, Crap! Was this it? Would 5 months be stamped as my survival time? The serpentine beast glared at us with what appeared to me to be indignation, before letting out a snort and turning to scamper away. Yes, scamper. Seems like it should be an inappropriate word for a creature of this size, but it was very light on its feet, maybe even gliding. There was no way those puny wings could generate any lift, so it had to be using some kind of telekinetic lift. At any rate, he was gone in almost an instant.
Father only laughed. It seemed like he was satisfied with the sighting he had gotten. He seemed doubly satisfied that I had gotten to see it with him. "What was that thing?" I had to get more information. Apparently, it wasn't dangerous, at least not aggressive.
"That my boy was the Forest Guardian." I had expected him to give me some insight into this majestic animal, but instead, he gave me a name.
"Forest Guardian? Are there more like him?"
"Not that I'm aware of, but I think there were more of them in the past, sort of like an inheritance."
"Inheritance?”
"Yes, the role of guarding the forest. A new one is born to take over this responsibility when the old Guardian has reached the end of its cycles" By cycles I was pretty sure he meant years.
"So he is responsible for guarding the forest? What exactly does that entail?"
"Entail? I really can't believe you are not even half a cycle yet. Yes, he guards the forest. That means protecting it from anything that would harm it but knowing you, you probably want examples. Unfortunately, nothing has ever really threatened the forest in my lifetime, there are the occasional harvesters that come in and try to take things they have no right to, but they usually slip beneath the Forest Guardian notice—they are of no serious threat though—and I'm unfamiliar with any historic threats," he paused for a moment, looking up in thought before adding, "I really should arrange for you to speak to the elder..."
After this rather textbook father-son bonding session, we began our trek back home, only in an upright and relaxed manner now. I'm sure there was a big smile on my face, and it would have been a toothy grin if not for the fact that my teeth had only just started to break through as I rode my father's shoulders through the brush, and I had never felt closer to him. Either of my fathers for that matter. "Oh, and Indigo, this goes without saying, but don't tell your mother about this." I heartily agreed. It was the least I could do to repay such a splendid afternoon. "But to think we got to see the guardian. Can't wait to tell the guys!" Considering that these kinds of things tend to work their way through the grapevine, this didn't seem like the wisest idea, but oh well. Who was I to lecture a grown-ass man after all? On a side note, he never did arrange a meeting with the elder. As it turns out, while he could sometimes have lofty ideas, his follow-through was rather lacking.