Feeding Ground

Passing through the Village, Fawn couldn’t help re-playing what the Hunter had said.

He said be merciful. What could he mean?

The idea of someone as strong as one of the Hunters asking her to be merciful would make her laugh, if she wasn’t so confused, and still so weary of the danger they posed. She had seen these people attack and kill others. She had thought she was going to be dragged back to the Cast by one, but this was entirely new.

Why did he let me go?

She was divided now between looking for more that she could take, and just taking what she had. It had been a very fortunate night, and the feeling that if she stayed it would eventually turn against her was significant.

She turned her attention to the smells in the air: there was food, blood, timber and dust. She could smell the people cooking their evening meals, she could tell some were injured, she knew some of the women were at the bleeding end of their cycle. She could smell the anger from the men who gathered together; the fear from the people that knew the Cast were coming.

There was more sound in the air than she liked to be close to, so she began to move again.

The sweet note that she was still searching for amongst the odors was that of her oh-so-loved Sweet Stars. She drifted through the empty spaces between homes and paths until she found the scent she knew so well.

There was a small home close to the outer edges of the Village wall that had the distinctive sweet and smoky smell she knew so well. She made her way toward it, keeping to the empty spaces and away from the commonly traveled areas.

This time there were people in the home. There was a woman and her young daughter sitting at their table, eating the paste that once constituted most of her diet. They seemed quiet and subdued, the common standard for villagers in their position.

With no sign of any men in the house, it was likely that they had been taken by the Cast for one infraction or another, or were committed to long-range work detail.

Whatever the reason, it had left the two looking forlorn, and at risk of the whim of passers-by. They must have been aware of their precarious situation because Fawn could see, as she got close, that they were very uneasy, eating small bites and constantly looking around.

As she watched through the window, she felt a sense of sorrow. It was like she was watching another version of herself, eating with a mother that had made her food. It was nice to watch some people just eating, and behaving in a way that she once could have.

Her desire to steal their Sweet Stars was ebbing as she felt the mounting pang of guilt at the thought of taking the only treat this child had.

She wandered around the outside of the house, and perched where she could see, without being seen, to observe for a little longer. She couldn’t help feeling a sense of loss for the life she might have had.

After a time, feeling lonely and missing her home, she looked up and let her mind drift into following the pattern in the wood that comprised the dwelling.

I suppose I have gained as well as lost.

After watching the two eat and share the small amount of the Sweet Stars she could smell, she saw the mother wrap her child in a blanket and hold her closely.

A wave of sadness came over Fawn, and she wanted more than anything to do something to help the child that reminded her so much of herself.

Her life will be so hard. There is nothing she can do to change it. At least I have some say over my strange life.

There was nothing she could do to help the other child at this point, and of course, if she were to be recognized by the mother, she would doubtless put herself at enormous risk.

Now utterly unwilling to take anything from an unhappy child just to serve herself, she resolved to journey back out of the Village and into the endless dust.

First of all, she would find a place to rest for a while and feed herself. This had been another long and trying day. There were few places that provided shelter or concealment around the paths, and she was more cautious than ever of people traveling.

She had not seen any Cast for some time now, and as welcome as that was, it was also uncomfortable as it meant truly not knowing their movements. Her resolve strengthened by the unwelcome mystery, and she turned attention to making a clear choice about where she would be best to go next.

She knew from her lessons that the Village had been placed the way it was to reduce the effect of the world’s savage star. She recalled one of the tutors saying that it was something to do with the Sun traveling East and West or something. With that in mind, it meant she could consider the Village gate to be a North point, which made the mountains a Southern point.

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She now had some idea what was South of the mountain range, but no idea what lay East or West of the Village.

The woman called Sheya had, in that case, come from what Fawn would now refer to as West. That meant that there was at least a meaningful amount of Oil Brush that way, if not other things, that might be of use.

She knew there was no sign of the enormous trees she had seen South of the mountains, but some form of timber made the houses.

Clear in her decision to travel toward the West for a while, she climbed the Village wall and started on her way, looking for a resting place.

As she traveled away from the Village, she found a cluster of boulders not too far from the path, big enough to hide her from passing eyes. She wrapped herself in the cloak she had taken from the Hunter’s home and sat behind the boulders to eat, drink and rest.

The food she had been given was significantly better than that which she had managed to burn and scrape off of flat stone in a fire. This food tasted as if it had been made from more than one ingredient, and cooked on a clean surface. There was a great relief as she ate something she enjoyed and drank from a cool, clean water container.

Curling herself against the boulders, she wrapped her cloak tight about her, pulled the hood over her head and lay still hoping for sleep.

She awoke with a snap.

How long have I slept?

She looked around frantically, but it was still dark.

Morning ... ? No, ok, ok.

Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself and gathered her things. It had not been long but the rest had made a real difference. She felt the strength returning to her legs and a calm to her stomach that she had not felt for some time.

Keeping her cloak tied on, and tightening her mask, she started walking with conviction out and away, in a direction she knew nothing about.

After a time, there was evidence of a path of sorts, tramped into the ground. Evidently there had been plenty of people along this way before. She took little comfort from the idea, however.

The tramped path was deep and relatively narrow: there must have been a lot of solo walkers coming through here.

Fawn remembered her brothers talking about people being escorted by the Hunters out into the empty spaces to retrieve things, so this made some sense. The idea that she was walking this narrow, well-trodden path on her own shook her nerves.

Eventually, like the accumulation of dust in her clothes and on her mask, came the reminder of where she was.

First, she caught the smell: an odor on the breeze she didn’t know yet. It smelled sour and grim, like something old and wet.

As she got closer to the source of the smell, it became so pronounced that she stopped and covered her mask with her hand.

A dead villager lay at the side of the path. Fawn caught herself trying not to gasp. The smell was awful, far stronger for her than for most. For a moment her intense sensitivity was almost unwanted.

She moved carefully up to the side of the body––a girl with a carry pack. She had most likely been sent to gather more Oil Brush, or whatever else there was at the end of this path.

As she drew closer, she saw the girl was missing her head. The shock took Fawn a moment to process. It was the first time she had seen real decomposition before. The wound was ragged, visceral and torn by something. There were fragments of bone and pieces of flesh strewn across the ground above her shoulders. Fawn crouched next to the girl and unbound the straps of her pack, empty though it was.

“I’m sorry, but I need this and I don’t think you do anymore.”

As she lifted the pack, a swarm of black insects scattered from underneath the girl’s clothing, having eaten away at her back.

Fawn jumped backward, swiftly moving her feet from the dissipating crawlers. She shook the pack as a precaution.

The smell and carrion creatures around the body meant motivation for her. She hooked the pack over her shoulder and ran along the path. As she was running, she began to think about the body that she had just seen, the wound, her missing head.

Where were the Hunters to protect her? If there were no Hunters with her, then what was she doing out here? Or worse, if there were Hunters with her ... where were they?

There was no sign of anyone else, so she kept running along the path with her eyes open, and ears up.

Dawn was climbing its way back into the day, and with the sun came more heat, and less cover from enemy eyes. She slowed her run as she crossed an unfamiliar texture with her feet.

The ground here was different: softer, less dusty, with a gathering of small, light-green plant life over some of it. It felt very unusual to her. She stopped and picked up the dirt in her hand.

“It’s so soft ... I didn’t know dirt could be like this.”

There was almost a moist quality to it. She stopped and looked around––this was the area the dead girl was coming toward.

There must be more here than I can see.

She carried on along what was left of the path, it was less distinct, but still discernible. As she got further and further West, she came across increasingly soft dirt, and the light-green lichen.

Eventually, she saw the reason people came this way: a dense, far-reaching field of Oil Brush and beyond that, something taller.

“Aha ... I found something useful.”

She felt a sense of self-reliance that she hadn’t before. Reaching into her makeshift bag she retrieved some food, ate it and transferred the rest into her new pack. A quiet moment took over.

I ... still need to learn to feed myself properly.

She felt as though she had been rescued from starvation by chance and the intervention of others too often.

Eris used to always say ‘Luck is not a solution’ ... I need a solution.

She examined her food, and decided it was enough to see her through a little while if she was careful and rationed it. She unwound her roped claw and began spinning it above her head.

“I must figure out how to use this to hunt.”

She spoke to herself with real determination in her voice, to be the instructor she didn’t have.

Moving her body around the rope and then the rope around her body, she started to understand how it might work. There was a certain predictability to the weight of the claw as it circled. She began to understand how to remove herself from its trajectory, and then plan a new one.

Walking and jumping through the plants, she loved the freedom to move unhindered, and delighted in the feeling of the brush against her legs and feet.

Running through the field, she enjoyed herself the way she once did playing with the other children, although it felt like a lifetime ago.

–Garrick M Lynch–