Breathlessly, I emerged from the coverage of the brambles about the western edge of the widland, cuts and scrapes plainly visible on every forward-facing surface of my torso, face, and legs. Panting, I jetted through the hamlet as quickly as my oversized legs would carry me; screaming bloody murder all the time. Townsfolk peeked out of their boroughs, and cottages, with a trademark detached concern that veiled a knowing solidarity. As humans, we were all limited in what we could do, in The Stalks. It must have been clear from my disheveled appearance that it's where I had just come from.
Regardless, an elder named Corak called after me, hoping without faith to hear any news that had nothing to do with the great forest. "What is it, boy?!"
"It's Rilah, sir! She's in The Sunset!" I cried back to him, as the tears stung into my eyes. An audible gasp escaped from all the townspeople in the slender street that I was running through.
"Dearest me...!" shouted the baker, as she placed a hand over her heart.
"By the great big blue..." murmured her customer, as he shook his head, solemnly. "It's a damn shame."
"Not the little farmer girl!" came a voice from the left, as another came from the right saying "Are you sure it was The Sunset?! M-maybe you meant The Daylight!" People often returned from deep in The Daylight, but the further you went into The Sunset, the lower your odds got of returning back, alive. Unfortunately, I couldn't stop to tell them that we were so deep in The Sunset Domain, that I even set foot in The Great Swamp; if for only a second. I had to hurry back to her parents' ranch. If anyone would know what to do, it would be her family, who had a long line of explorers and privateers; and nobody knew the Nightwhere like her grandatha, Vassur.
I turned the corner onto their property, and sprinted down the pathway to their front door, where I burst though the pelt lining with all the fury of a jayfly out of the bathies. "Vassur! Somiath! Kilphy! Where are you?!" I shouted, panting nearly to the point of hyperventilation, hoping that one of her parents, or hopefully her grandatha himself, would be in earshot to hear my urgent plea.
Rilah's Atha, Somiath, stumbled into the room, dressed in his butcher's smock, with her Abba Kilphy right behind him, still holding the hide of some poor creature. "What's going..? Zoel?!" his eyes widened at the sight of me, all scratched and bloodied, drinking in all the details of my form, until his eyes landed on what I held in my right hand. What I clutched there—still in balled up, sweaty fingers, that I hadn't had the presence of mind to let go—was the enormous feather that Rilah had found. I hadn't even realized that it was still in my hand! His wife took a single look at me, and seemed to freeze in place, as if her entire world had just stopped turning at the implication disclosed in the sight of me; but he was not perturbed. He looked me square in the eyes, and placed a palm on my shoulder to steady me, before he spoke; both clearly, and forcefully. "Tell us what happened. Where's Rilah?"
"Th-the Sunset Domain..." I burst forth, the accumulated weakness in my knees seeming to hit me all at once. I would have collapsed right there, if he hadn't thought to support me, upright.
Her mother dropped the pelt from her hand, and it fell onto the stone foundation with the sound of a hollow, wet plap. Her bloodied fingers flew up to her mouth, and she shook her head, almost in disbelief, but I pressed on, nodding in a rush to get it all out. "We got separated, and I think something took her. I couldn't find her, and I ran back here as soon as I realized there was nothing more I could do, because it was getting really dark, and there were these birds everywhere that sounded just like her and—"
"Automimicry, aye?" groaned a deep, baritone, resonant voice from the doorjamb behind me, and I turned to see a stout black silhouette wash over the hanging pelts that I had just come through. The tall, older man deftly pulled aside the curtain that acted as a door with his broad, scarred forearm, exposing to all his identity as Vassur—our glade's own hadal spelunker, the wayfinder, the human compass, the killer of the dark—as a retired pioneer, he was now a man of many names, but to us in the farming region he was mostly known as grandatha.
My family raised raptors, goats, and other little critters, but true to his legacy, he and his kin were the only ones entrusted with the responsibility of herding big game in town. He continued, seizing a hold of the conversation like it was always his authority to handle such situations, with a grimace on his face, and a rub on his disheveled scraggly chin. "Sounds like a pack of Calling Cards. Those aren't usually found in The Sunset. Are you sure that's where you were, when you lost her, boy?"
I nodded, avidly, willing myself not to cry in front of a man that all the children of the glade looked up to, and probably some of the adults, too. Her father spoke up, "Well, what about that you have, there? That doesn't look like any normal feather, to me, Zoel." I looked down, as shocked at its existence as anyone else; like I were seeing it for the first time. "Did that come from what took Rilah?"
"I-I ...well, it's not s—um, I just, kind of, nuh-" I fumbled, trying to find the words to explain how I had come across such an arcane artifact.
Vassur just held up his hand to quiet me, and turned his palm away, to gesture with his fingers in a motion to hand it over. "Hmm, it's much too large to be an Overfather. Perhaps it was a Black Massowary, or a Great Vane...? Goodness gracious... I can't seem to think of anything that fits, at the moment." He tapped his foot as a sign that he was lost in thought, and stroked his boar's pelted chin.
I thought back to what Rilah had said on the matter, when we encountered the enormous artifact. Now significantly less panicked, with her grandatha on the case, I cleared my throat, and proffered, "Rilah was wondering about that too, when we found it. Could it be... a Gigasven?"
He snapped his fingers. "Aha! That's the name. I knew that girl was sharp. It's such a shame, though..." and he turned to leave, back the way he came, to my utter confusion.
"Where are you going? Don't you want to hear the rest?" I furrowed my eyebrows, and looked at her atha for answers; but he could only avert his gaze. Wordlessly, he gathered up the pelt that his wife had dropped, and wrapped her in his arms. "Sir? Where is he going?!"
His voice was strained, when he replied. "You did good, kid, getting out of there alive." Then, on the verge of tears, he whispered on the edge of a sob, "Run along, now. We need to be alone for the evening. Do me a favor, and let the butchers know that we're closed for the day."
"But....." I started, but I realized the answer, before I had asked the question. 'They had already given up...' I wanted to argue, to scream, to pound the earth with my fists, or to shake them out of their reverie, but out of respect for all the trouble I had already caused them today, I elected to follow the elder, instead. 'He was going somewhere with a purpose...! Surely, he has a plan! Surely, he is going to figure out a way to get herback!'
I scurried after him, in a rush to get started, and help in any way I knew how! It was my fault, after all, for letting her get that deep into The Stalks, in the first place. "Vassur? Sir?" I started, making sure to keep my tone level, and respectful, for his understanding. "I really do hope you can forgive me, some day."
He burst into a loud peal of laughter, so suddenly that it startled me. "Hohohohoho! Fear not, lad. I hold neither you, nor your kin, any ill will. You don't get to live to be my age by thriving on the blade of vengeance, after all. Truthfully, that child refused to listen to instruction, as long as she has been able to understand the common tongue. No, this was bound to happen, eventually. Just be glad that you made it back to us. With a pack of Calling Cards around, you were very lucky to make it out of there, unscathed. It was the right decision, to run straight to me. Now, I can make the final preparations."
I just about leaped in excitement. "I knew it was right to count on you! You do have a plan!"
"Aye, I suppose you could call it that...!" He chuckled, darkly.
"How can I help?"
"Oh, you're a kind lad, but I believe that these are some matters better suited to her own kin, to handle. Why don't you run on home, and thank your mother for raising you to be so intelligent."
A little puzzled at his wording, "I-I don't need to run home, yet. Her atha told me to deliver a message to the butchers. If you're heading that way, I could at least accompany you!"
He pursed his lips thoughtfully, and then nodded without changing the velocity of his elderly gait. We continued on like that, for a minute, but the lack of urgency began to gnaw at me. Sensing my impatience, he quirked an eyebrow. "Is there a problem, young man?"
"Yes, sir. Sorry, it just doesn't seem like you're in much of a hurry to get there. Aren't we wasting time, here?"
"Hohoho, not as far as I'm concerned. I'm an old man, you know! At my age, you only get to move at two speeds! Slow, and slower." he laughed, jokingly.
"But...? Surely there's something I can do to help you, even if we're not related! I don't know what it is, or how my kin factors into your plans, but surely you could make an exception! I mean, we're practically like kin, aren't we?!"
He shook his head, solemnly. "It simply isn't proper, son. You might understand that, one day. Besides, a rushed job is never done in order. These things have to be handled properly."
I sputtered, and gasped, "I don't understand, sir! By the sounds of things, I'd think you weren't even interested in the rescue of your own granddaughter!"
He balked, eyes bulging open at even the utterance of such a preposterous idea. "Rescue?! Bah, Zoel! Where did you ever come across such a foolish notion! You abandoned a nine year old girl in the middle of The Stalks, in the presence of at least a flock of Calling Cards—and perhaps even a Gigasven! No telling, whence that came!—I am going to prepare a funeral." he spat. Then, raising a finger to my face, continued, "And don't think I'm so green that I don't know you were actually in The Bathytaigatic Zone. I didn't want to call you a liar in front of her grieving father, but Calling Cards only nest around bodies of water, and I know burislichen spores when I see it. You might want to change your top the next time you try that one, again."
I flailed madly, looking over the surface of my poncho, until I tugged on the tail that allowed me to see the spot of putrid, iridescent green on the back. 'Dammit! I knew I should have been careful about those spores!' My cheeks flushed, and my whole body burned from the embarrassment of having my white lie exposed, but I pressed on, regardless. "Even so... How can you just give up on Rilah, like that?! She's .....special, isn't she?!" My fingers fretted against my will, for the anxiety of my ungodly mistake.
"Aww, that's mighty sweet of you to say," he nodded, "and yes; intuition, curiosity, strength, poise, luck, she had all of these plenty enough to make a great pioneer, some day. But she lacked the patience to wait until her talents developed! It's only—"
"Stop talking about her, like she's already dead!" I shouted, with my full chest. The echoes of my fevered voice echoed through the town with a repeating chorus of "dead, dead, dead," just like I was back in the bathies, with those insufferable birds repeating her ultimate, dying throes—mocking, taunting, humiliating me with the weight of my sin. My breath bore heavily on my chest, as if I had just sprinted from the woods; all over.
Vassur simply put his hand on my shoulder, and whispered, in his most understanding voice, "Give it up, son."
Disbelieving the impossible scenario that I had somehow blustered my way into, I shook my head, and tore his hand from my shoulder; snatching the feather back, as insult to injury. Backing away, slowly, I murmured, more to myself than anyone else, "I don't believe you. I don't—I don't believe...! She looked up to you! We all did!" Then, I turned and rushed away. There had to be another way.
...and I wouldn't rest until I had found it.