1. HUNTING A DREAM

Alve was scanning the ground meticulously as he walked through the vegetation, making sure of the tracks he had discovered. Careful not to disturb the life of flora in his wake, he sometimes stepped from stone-to-stone rather than ground itself. As he rummaged through and about the forest, he saw the expanse of which was blanketed in a wild pageant of mosses, vines, flowers and other stripes of foliage grasping for his attention.

From where he was standing though, he managed to spot something queer between the entire scene: a few aloe vera bushes and their leaves, backed by a large stone and some branches were lying across the field in front of him. The branches looked fresh but chipped, and on the stone beside them was a bright splotch. Immediately he thought: it must be hiding in there! He approached as light but spirited as a tree sap could be, for this was his chance.

Alve had been hunting all season long; squirrels, rabbits and any other small and rather passive fauna he could find throughout the lands of Arenthia are fair game. Every season he did this, from Rain's Hand to Hearthfire, since he was around nine years old. The meat would be saved for the tougher months of later year, and the biggest pelts would be sold. This season, however, was special;

"this will be the year-" he muttered to himself as he drew closer to the aloe vera bushes "-this will be the year that I finally get my very own bow!"

The air was cooling and shadows were growing around him. Few bosmer were foolish enough to hunt at night. The trees allowed only thin rays of moonlight across the jungle floor, confounding the senses to simple touches and smells; a perfect setting for creatures with fangs, poisons and other lethalities to take advantage. The hunter literally became the hunted.

So Alve acted quickly.

In anticipation to what he might find, he stretched out his hands and with a swift but tentative motion, he spread apart the bushes. Two bright, blue eyes beamed at him, and for a moment Alve began to relax.

"It's just a fox," he said.

Its fur was a pale orange with white freckles along its tail and back. His body was lean and bristly, and his face was a soft triangle that had whiskers drooping from the base of its nose. He was a beautiful creature, to be sure, but not the one Alve was after. A deer would be 15, maybe 20, if I could find the right buyer, he thought to himself, but a fox is only 4 septims at best.

The fox was trapped between him and the towering stone behind it. A well of pity was forming inside Alve, and he could feel his heart drop to the pit of his stomach as he reached for his ax. Eyes widening, it backed up against one of the branches and turned its head away (but there was no escape). Alve thought: maybe I could let him go? Surely I can find something better on my way back home. But his belly chimed in with a low, gurgling growl, interrupting his thoughts and reminding him of his own survival.

He looked at the fox, and then at the trees above, taking notice of where the branches had been broken. Through a small crack of the jungle heights he could see a visible sky. It was a deep, dark blue with only a few stars given away. Instantly, he remembered something a fellow bosmer had said while he was passing by in the marketplace,

"-was nighttime, and there I was, face-to-face with this foul creature; its mouth spewing venom and its eight legs-"

He shuddered at the thought of running into something like that and instead looked downward out of fear, back at the fox again, their eyes meeting with a similar glance.

It wasn't unusual for the bosmer-folk to share about their epics of hunting and adventures in the forest. But there the fox was, staring expectantly at Alve. This story wouldn't be a triumphant one over some great creature of the green, he thought. Slowly he began running his fingers across the fox's body, stroking the fur. It winced and wriggled under the weight of his hand, but only lay there in the end.

"No, you would be a pathetic tale," he said, chagrined.