Of Caverns and Casters ✓ [TLRQ #1]

Chapter 23 - Sean

We've been walking in this stupid forest so long, my legs feel numb. My stomach growls. I hadn't finished eating yet when Bird Girl dragged me away from what few resources we had and the only people that gave us any chance of making it back home. Thanks, Riveirre.

Now we're wandering through foreign land, with no knowledge of what's out here and absolutely no safety net if we fail. We have nothing to save us from dying except whatever meager survival skills we have. So we walk. Maybe we'll find some sort of resource, some shelter. Maybe we're destined to walk until we can't anymore, until we're skeletons sitting against a tree, just waiting for some other poor soul to wander upon us centuries from now.

One hour passes.

Two.

Four hours.

Seven.

The light of the dying sun turns murky, dripping through fall leaves and barren branches. The air is hazing into liquid amber, like we're specimens in some vitalitist's jar of formaldehyde. In the silence, the dry crack of our footsteps against deadwood makes an eerie echo. The wind creaks against the trees, cutting colder each minute. Riveirre shivers, hugging her arms closer to her chest.

I glance away. "It was colder in the Valleys."

She glares. As though trying to cover her reaction, she looks away, dropping her arms. "I know."

"Skies, Riveirre, I wasn't making fun of you." I shove my hands into my pockets. "I was just saying that we shouldn't freeze to death."

She's uncharacteristically quiet, the steadily rising wind speaking for her instead. "Shouldn't," she finally says, "is a lot different than won't."

Her level, weighted words give me pause. I stop walking. "What are you saying?"

She keeps moving. "Standing here isn't going to find us shelter."

"Hey." I catch her arm. "What are you talking about?"

She turns to me, her serious brown eyes staring into mine. "A storm's coming, Sean. So I'd suggest you let go and help me find somewhere safe."

Her arm drops from my grip, and she keeps walking. Despite her collected tone, the tension in her shoulders betrays her apprehension. She glances left and right, searching but not finding.

I can't even see the sky through this canopy, much less make out a storm cloud. "And how do you know?"

Now she pauses, facing me again. The air whips her hair in swirling rings around her head, and the evening shadows shroud her gaze. "There are no birds in the trees, Sean." A dark colored blur flies between us, and I startle. The darting bird buries itself beneath a bush. "They've been doing that for a while now. Have you not noticed?"

Night finally falls as I try to reinstitute a regular rhythm to my breathing. "So what? Dive-bombing birds equal our impending doom?"

I pull my lantern out just in time to see her eyes spark. "You know, Sean, sometimes animals are smarter than humans. Especially certain ones." She stares at me pointedly. "Birds hide before a storm. If we had half the sense they do, we would too."