Ald’s eyes protested when the dawn’s light violated the inhospitality of the benighted jungle. Through a thorn-and-vines-ridden murk he had trudged on, mocked by hoots and hollers, stalked by shining dots in the distance, were them eyes or bioluminescent flowers. No matter which direction he turned to, scant were the pathways through the variegated foliage, and the importance of whatever inhabited among the bushes was enhanced by his mind. A small rodent, a prowling carnivore, or one of those elongated, limbless mammals he had seen resting coiled around a tree: a mere branch they made croak under their weight was, to Ald, a possible misshapen.
He extinguished his torch on the wet dirt, because the humidity made the heat it exuded unbearable. Furthermore, it was fire, and Ald feared this fire, not for it could burn him, but because it’s tip could curve unnaturally. It was best to not tempt fate going forward, to not draw even more unwanted attention.
What watched him? from where? Which plant was just a clever camouflage for a deadly nephew or niece? Night had brought a known paranoia, a rational fear of the predators that under the moon wielded better eyes than his. Dawn, on the other hand, broke in with a sort of thumping madness. All that he could see, was he seeing it for real? Darkness veils, darkness is treacherous, darkness is darkness and does what darkness is meant to do. Light was supposed to reveal, to wash murk away and sooth the fears, even in the case it replaces them with unwelcome images. Inside the festering guts of this jungle, however, dawn felt like a crueler night to Ald.
Every leaf his sword cut had to foster lethal poison, every stick he inadvertently stepped over was an alarm for a predator or paranoid herbivore to come and crush him, under every root nested vipers with venoms vastly more vicious than the ones of all their sisters around Felsia mixed together.
His gaze fell upon a mosquito on his arm and he resisted the urge to kill it. Its abdomen was golden and red, the typical markings that betrayed its species. Without other Felsians nearby, this little winged annoyance was bound to be harmless.
Ald let her feast on his blood and then go on her way. This was a known pest, a little bit of Felsia among the unknown foliage and hidden, alien fauna.
Despite his fears, he kept on advancing until he came across a fallen, rotting tree. He spotted a centipede crawling under it, and let the idea of sitting over it go. A nasty bite from a bug was the last thing he needed.
He needed fruits or flowers. Not to eat, no: it would be foolish to consume anything. Even what didn’t kill or ill the green faced monkeys above could be lethal for a Felsian. They had no animals for proxies: the Felsian medics were famous for complaining about their need for misshapen as test subjects, when veterinarians could use a cat or a rat to get a pretty good idea of what a substance could cause on a dog, for example. Even if he saw a bird, a turtle and a bat feeding on the very same fruit, Ald couldn’t be sure if it was safe for him to consume.
“Doleful aberrations of nature you made me, Mother.”
However, dispelling his thoughts about the playful ones leaping through the branches high above and enjoying the boons of the jungle, he kept on scanning his surroundings for any vibrant color. He was running away from Unkindness-knew-what, and into so many other beings never imagined by any of his brothers and sisters. He had time to pick some radiant flowers, like those little blue ones to his left. He would need them.
Ald approached a branch, swung his sword in wide arcs around it, and then sank the blade in the ground, alert for any small or big thing reacting around. Besides some movement in the wide-leafed bushes and a bunch of invertebrates fleeing from the spot among the dead leaves where his sword had dug into, nothing reacted nor got cut. He then picked the branch up with a quick swipe, immediately turning and scanning his surroundings once more.
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Ald then did what he deemed most logical, and beat the flowering bush with the stick several times. There was certain fury in his swings, certain hope of something ominous screaming and coming out just to be stabbed. To have one less prowling menace crawling about the back of his mind.
Nothing. He let the branch fall and caressed the bush with hesitation. He didn’t feel any irritation or tickling, which was a good sign.
He pulled a mortar and pestle out of his bag. Carefully plucked the petals out of the round, zygomorphic flowers, as there was no need to expose himself to the fluids that the cut stems would bleed out. He placed the petals in the mortar, and considered where to stand to see if mushing the flowers would provide him with a viable pigment.
He approached a tree that leaned away from him, kicked it three times to see if anything came out of possible, unseen holes, and then, placing the flowers on a jar he had brought for general use and stashing the tools back inside his bag, making sure his weapons were well sheathed and taking out the engraved dagger to be able to enact a quick defense if needed, he bared his feet, embraced the tree, and began climbing. The claws of his toes weren’t uncared for, but they had grown slightly sharp since the last tiem he had cut them, back at home. And, Felsians may have had nothing to do with cats, but one wouldn’t know that seeing the nimble Ald climb the inclined surface. Claws and nails dug into the bark and he didn’t fear the falls. He had climbed thinner trunks back in his orchard, just to grab a fruit that had grown in the furthest branch of his dear trees.
Once he reached the place where the first, thick branches bifurcated from, he hung his backpack from a broken stump that pocked out of the thinner one, and sat on the union of the thicker branch and the trunk. Recovering his mortar and the flowers, and making sure no ill-intentioned reptile was crawling towards him, he began.
He had never been this stressed while using a mortar before. The need of both hands for the task was vile; the height protected him from whatever lurked underneath the brown, orange and yellow mosaic of litter, but also make kicking dangerous.
And he didn’t know what he had to fear, that was the worst part. Death from below, from above, from inside the vascular system of the tree he sat on: misshapen could come from anywhere. They could be invisible, silent, odorless. Intangible, perhaps. They could bend his senses and the laws that bound every other being.
“Unkindness, care for me,” He pleaded, dejected.
A few moments later, a macaw landed over his head, lowering his own to stare at Ald in the eyes. It harrumphed. “I hear your pleas. But when I wear colorful, junglebound mirth, you should call me Pandemonium.”
“Your harmonious voice of sister is unbecoming of such a noisy incarnation,” Ald Joked, feeling the tension leave his back. Her presence alone was reassuring. When facing monsters, being on the side of one could be a blessing.
“Picking flowers is unbecoming of one pursued by a masterwork,” she retorted, the bird’s beak curving upwards in an impossible smirk.
“Don’t do that, please. As for the flowers, I need them. Painting is faster than carving, and easier. I am slower, weaker and probably dumber than the misshapen and masterworks out there. I must be ready to use my one advantage, my Felsian blood and saliva, as the machete that will allow me to cut through the vines of disgrace. I know runework. I am no expert, but I am no neophyte, either.”
“Runes are slow. Not many misshaped will allow you to spell their doom as a circle.”
“Runes are easy to store. Paint them on a leaf, tie it around a pebble, and you have a hand explosive, or a source of noise to cause a distraction, or a means to boil a puddle without getting close, or other uncountable other uses I may come up with in the following days. All for the small price of pigment, my time, a canvas, a little lick or drop of blood.”
The macaw flew away. This was why she had chosen him. Ald was a little bit paranoid, a little bit humble, a little bit intelligent. All things one needed to be a little bit of a god slayer.