A close encounter

Silent and still. It was a lesson Runt learned from his earliest days in the kennels as a way of avoiding punishment. Now, in the forest, it meant safety from a frightened animal. Runt learned that almost none of the creatures in the Deeps were aggressive, merely easily scared. And, though it’s rude to say it so bluntly, they were mostly quite daft. By simply sitting still and making no noise the creatures of the Wilds would ignore Runt and continue munching the trees. After mastering his instinct to run, and learning instead to freeze and watch, he began to learn so many wonderful things about these creatures. In the months and years that followed, long after this story was done, once Runt became a true Wild One from the Deeps, he made some startling and outlandish discoveries.

For example, the kiddner’s laid eggs. One at a time, usually. Then, instead of keeping it in a nest, they carried the egg around in a fold of skin in their belly. Mammoths and hoppers, on the other hand, gave birth to live young. But not in the same way that, say, dogs gave birth. When Stripes was born, he was covered in fur. Within a week he’d opened his eyes and began tottering around the kennel. Some babies, like those from sheep and cows, were born almost as a mini-adult, up and running within hours. A baby mammoth, though, was nothing like its parent. They were born hairless and helpless, looking, more than anything, like a deformed slug. A full-grown mammoth weighed up to three tonnes. A new-born mammoth, slimy, hairless and with translucent skin, could be held in one hand. They crawled, inch by inch, over their mother’s fur, into the pouch, and wriggled inside where they stayed for months and months.

The striped wolves of Demon’s Land had pouches, too. They were just one of many mysteries Runt would uncover in the months that stretched ahead.

Silent and still. Runt waited in the canopy of a fey-tree close to the port road. The tree soaked up the last rays of sunset while ones further off already sat in the shadows. It was one of the trees that he saw the harpies flying to first the previous night as the sun grazed the horizon.

The head of the dragon was on fire. The sun sat in the middle of the mouth, now, and illuminated the outline of the mountain while casting its near side into darkness. The teeth glowed red, the smoke billowing from the nose darkened menacingly, and the eye seemed to shimmer and stare. Runt reminded himself it was just a pile of rocks – he climbed it only yesterday – but it was easy to see why people told stories about it.

Silent and still. He watched the sun dip lower, sinking into the belly of the dragon now, and, for a moment, actually forgot why he was up the tree, so entrancing was the sight. Runt heard the harpies coming before he saw them.

One by one, and then in a swarm, they began crashing into the foliage. Runt, sitting in the shadows, watched intently. They really were like a fluffy, flying cat, with skin stretched between their arms and legs. Their faces were not cat-like, though, nor were they human-like either, despite what Greybeard said. They had overly large eyes that faced forwards, triangular ears, a pointed nose, and a dainty mouth. Their faces were entirely covered in fur. Their hands, though, could easily belong to a person, only shrunk down to a tenth of the size. The skin of their hands was leathery, brown, and wrinkled, the fingers long and nimble. The harpies used them to grab branches and swing about. Their feet were a similar size, but furry, with long toes that curled around the trunk when standing. Runt saw them sometimes run along branches like a person but, other times, hang upside down using only their feet and tails for support.

Oh, and they talked. They literally talked non-stop in a high-pitch, melodic voice. Like the night before, there were so many harpies chattering at once that their voices became a blur but, closer up, Runt began hearing snippets of sentences.

“… told you I was gonna beat you home…”

“…saw one of the wolf pups got its first hairs…”

“…I got the most stardust, it’s not about…”

“…teacher got really cross when they saw…”

“…not a competition…”

Not much of it made even a little bit of sense. Then, suddenly almost every single one of them as a group sang “ready, steady, go!” and, without any further warning, the tree burst forth its pollen. An enormous gust of wind swirled upwards. The harpies cheered and spread their wings apart as they were sucked up and out of the tree. Up and up, they spiralled, singing and laughing and swooping through the pollen. Within moments they were gone, moved on to the next tree.

Silent and still. Runt sat, dazed, in the fork of a tree and wondered at what he saw. He watched the harpies glide to the next fey-tree, this one in shadows, crash into the foliage, then soar up and away again. On and on this continued until they disappeared from sight, leaving a trail of pollen clouds in their wake.

His ears tingled with a new noise from the other direction.

“Waaaait…. Waaaaaaaaaaaait!”

Runt turned just in time to see two more harpies crashing into the foliage. They immediately began arguing.

“I told you we’d miss it! You do this all the time!” The bigger of the two harpies spoke with a frown.

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“I just wanted to check the kiddner puggles coz another one hatched yesterday and they’re soooo cuuute when they’re freshly hatched and then I saw there were tadpoles in the lake again and some of them already had legs and – “

“You could spend as long as you want looking at those after the loop. Now we’ve missed it, again.”

The bigger harpy crossed its arms and glared. The little one didn’t seem to notice.

“Well the kiddners go to sleep at night so I wanted to look before – “

“That’s enough. We’ve talked about this. Flying the loop is more important than kiddner puggles or tadpole legs or your odd-shaped rock collection or any of your distractions. Tell me again: why do we fly the loop?”

“To collect the stardust,” the little harpy replied in a flat, dejected voice. Runt suspected this conversation happened on a regular basis.

“And why do we collect the stardust?”

“To feed our friends too old to fly the loop.”

“And what happens if we stop?”

The little harpy rolled its eyes before replying.

“If we stop our old friends go hungry. Their tummy eggs won’t grow. And…”

“Yes?”

“And then there will be no more harpies.” This last part, the small harpy nearly whispered.

“Right. So, you’ve missed flying the loop. But you can still get some dust. You need to go back to the mother tree to wait for the others.”

“Wait, you’re not coming? You’re making me go back on my own?”

The bigger harpy looked down sternly.

“The great teacher asked me to investigate something.”

“But – “

“No buts. I’m off. I can’t watch over you all the time, you know.”

“But – “

“I said no buts. Oh, and little one?”

“Yeah?”

“Make sure you check for drop-bears before you land. They’ve been getting bolder, lately.”

Then, with a flurry, the bigger of the harpies vanished into the darkening sky. The smaller harpy sat, twirling a stick between its fingers for a few moments. It didn’t seem in any hurry.

“mAke SuRe yOu cHeCk fOr DrOp-bEaRs,” the little one said in a mocking, sing-song voice, tipping its head from side to side as it repeated every word, and then shouted “I hope you check for drop-bears! Wouldn’t want you to get eaten!”

It stood up, then, holding the stick out and started swishing it around.

“Boy, if a drop-bear jumped at me, they’d be sorry. I’d whip ‘em,” the stick whizzed over its head, “and whack ‘em,” the stick crashed into a nearby trunk, “and poke ‘em and smack ‘em!”

The harpy leaped and danced over the branches, whipping and whacking this way and that until, by chance, it landed on the branch right in front of Runt. It froze, and stared.

“Um, hey there.” Runt said timidly.

The harpy scurried back a few paces and held the stick out in a trembling hand. It was about a foot tall, mostly grey, with small dark stripes, a white belly with the hint of a pouch there, a pale grey furry face, but with a dark coloured patch of fur around its left eye. Runt very slowly reached into his bag.

“You want one?” he said, holding out some fruit.

The harpy tilted its head, stared at the fruit, the bag, then up at Runt.

“Are you lost?” the harpy asked him.

“Uhhhh. Sort of?” Runt replied.

“It’s ok, I won’t hurt you.” the harpy said, throwing aside the stick. “You should follow me, little guy. You can put your food back, though. We don’t eat those.”

“Oh, ok.” Runt put the fruit back sheepishly and, when he looked back up, the harpy was gone.

“Hey, wait!” he yelled, running along the branch to the edge of the canopy. The harpy was already not much more than a small dot, headed towards the giant fey-tree over in the swampy lands beyond the port road. Suddenly he slipped and the world tipped upside-down. The ground swayed back and forth above his head.

There was a crash in the foliage. He found himself face to face with the harpy again. Runt looked down at his feet, which were actually up, and saw them hooked over a branch. “Lucky catch.” He thought. The harpy was hanging by its tail within arm’s reach.

“Why didn’t you follow me, little guy?” the harpy said.

Runt gingerly held his arms out wide.

“Ohhhh, right right right. No wings. Hmm. Forgot about that. Guess we better walk? Gotta look out for drop-bears, though.”

The harpy looked at him quizzically and reached to touch his hair.

“You’ve got funny hair, though. Different to what the teachers told us. Hmm.”

Runt, realising gravity had done its thing, instinctively grabbed at his hair to pull it over his face, before slowly letting it go again. Would a harpy even think of him as ugly? He let the hair fall back and grabbed, instead, for the branch above and heaved himself up.