Chapter 2: The Lesson About Life In A Forest
And so Judy went. As she arrived to the bottom of Stu's Mountain, she realized how stupid she had been. How could she have thought that a big stone hall was a whole world. Even amazingly huge Stu's Fort wasn't a whole world. The world definitely had to be larger than Stu's Mountain. It made Judy to gulp. Sure she had heard, when Stu and Bonnie were talking about what was on the other side of Stu's Mountain. They had mentioned a river. But only now, when she saw water rushing wildly from the depths of Stu's Mountain, Judy understood what rivers were.
Her parents had talked about a forest. But only now, when she saw all those wondrous, sibilant trees in the dark, she understood what forests were and laughed quietly just because rivers and forests existed. It was hard to believe. I think that if anything is a matter of laughing. Judy followed a path straight to the deepest part of Stu's forest which was imposing with greatness and arrived to a forest lake. Stu had said she wasn't allowed to go further. There it was. A deep, dark lake in the middle of many spruces. Only white water lilies on the water were shining against the sun. Judy didn't know those were water lilies, but she looked at them for long and giggled by herself just because water lilies existed.
Judy stayed at the lake for a whole day and did everything she never hadn't tried before. She throwed pine cones to the water and laughed when she noticed that she was able to make them to gyrate away just by dabbling water with her legs. Judy was having the time of her life. Her feet felt happy and free when they got to splash in water, and happier when they got to climb. There was big, mossy rocks, spruces and oaks which were perfect to this purpose. Judy climbed and scrabbled until the sun began to descend behind forested eskers. She sat on a rock, took a bread from a pouch attached to her belt, ate it and drank a milk she had in her leather flagon. Then she laid herself on a moss to rest a while. The trees were whooshing above her. Judy watched trees as she lied on a rock and chuckled just because they existed. Then she fell asleep.
When Judy woke up, a night had darkened and she saw stars shining over the treetops. Then Judy noticed that the world was even bigger than she had imagined. She got sad because stars existed but they were out of reach, no matter how much she tried to stretch her arms. Now she had stayed in a forest longer than she were allowed to. Judy knew she had to return to Stu's Fort because otherwise Stu would be out of his mind. Stars were reflected to the lake but everything else was intertwined into the blackest darkness. Although, Judy had gotten used to the darkness. It didn't scare her. She remembered how pitch-black Stu's Fort were at winter nights after a fire in a fireplace had gone out. No, she wasn't scared of the dark.
Just when Judy was ready to leave, she remembered her leather flagon. It were still there where Judy had been sitting and eating. She went back and climbed back on a rock to get it. Judy felt that she had gotten closer to the stars by standing on a high rock. She stretched her arms once more to try if she could pick some of them and take them home for Stu and Bonnie. It didn't work, so she picked up her leather flagon and started to descend from the top of a rock. Then she saw something that startled her.
Between every tree there were yellow, glowing eyes. So many eyes had appeared around a rock, which were guarding her and she hadn't noticed them. She had never seen eyes, which were able to glow in the dark and she didn't like what she saw.
"What do you want?", Judy shouted.
She didn't get an answer. Instead, the eyes were getting closer. Slowly, the circle of eyes was closing up and Judy heard some mumbling voices. Weird, old and somehow grey voices, which mumbled and chanted in a choir:
"Greydwarfs all, a bunny in here, A bunny here in greydwarfs' forest, Greydwarfs all, shred and tear! Greydwarfs all, shred and tear!"
Suddenly they were right at the foot of a rock. Those weird, grey creatures, which wanted to harm her. Judy didn't see them, but she sensed their presence. Now she knew how dangerous they were, greydwarfs which she was supposed to beware of. But now it was too late. Greydwarfs started to hit a rock with their clubs, sticks or whatever they happened to hold in their hands. The rumbling, thumping and rattling was so unbearable, it made Judy scream. Now she was scared for her life. When Judy screamed, greydwarfs stopped hitting a rock.
Instead, Judy heard something far more worse. They started to climb up towards her. They were getting closer from every direction. Judy heard a rasping of their legs and she heard their mumbling:
"Greydwarfs all, shred and tear. Greydwarfs all, shred and tear." Then Judy shouted more louder in despair and flailed around with her leather flagon. Soon those greydwarfs would come at her, they would shred her in pieces, she knew that. Her first day in Stu's Forest would be her last one. But then Judy heard a roar and she knew that Stu was only one who was able to roar like that.
Yes, it was Stu, her own Stu with all his robbers. Their torches were glowing through the trees and Stu's hollering was echoing in the forest: "Go away, greydwarfs! Go to hell before I kill you!" Then Judy heard how little creatures were thumping down from a rock. She saw them in a glow of torches, little greydwarfs, which escaped to the darkness and disappeared. Judy sat on her leather flagon and slid straight to Stu. He lifted Judy to his fathom and she cried against his beard as he carried her back home to Stu's Fort.
"Now you know what greydwarfs are", said Stu as they sat by the fireplace, warming up.
"That's right, now I know", said Judy.
"But what you don't know, is how to deal with them", said Stu.
"If you're afraid, they can feel it from a long distance and that's when they become dangerous."
"And same goes with pretty much every other creature, so it's better if you're not afraid in Stu's Forest", Bonnie added.
"I will remember that for sure", said Judy determinedly. Then Stu sighed and held Judy in his fathom.
"I hope you remember the things I've told you to be careful with", Stu double-checked.
"Of course, I remember", Judy assured.
Trust me when I say, on the next few days all she did was watching out for everything dangerous and practicing to not being afraid. Judy was supposed to watch out for falling to the river like Stu had said, and that's why she jumped on slippery rocks right at the riverbend, where a river streamed intensely.
To get to a river, Judy had to climb straight down from Stu's Mountain, which ascended sheerly from a river. At the same time she tried not to be scared. The first time was the hardest. Back then she was so scared of falling that she had to close her eyes. With every time she got even more courageous and soon she knew all spots to put one's feet.
"I was pretty lucky to find a place, where you can watch out for falling to the river and practice not to be scared at the same time", Judy thought.
That's how Judy spent her days. She practiced living in Stu's Forest more than Stu and Bonnie could've ever known. And at last she was like a healthy little wild animal. She became agile and strong and she wasn't afraid of anything. Not greydwarfs nor ajattaras. Not getting lost in forest nor falling in a river. No, Judy wasn't afraid of anything. She hadn't started watching out for falling in The Hell's Gap yet, but she had thought of starting pretty soon.
When the evening came, darkness casted above the castle and a fireplace was lit, Judy returned home tired of watching out for dangers. At the same time Stu and his robbers came from their trip, and Judy sat with them and sang their robbersongs. But she know the truth about robber's life. She saw robbers riding home at evening. They had so much belongings on their horses, in their sacks, leather pouches, boxes and cases. But nobody had told her, where all the stuff was from and in a moment she forgot that mystery.
Sometimes Judy heard when Stu and robbers were talking about Walter's Robbers and when she did, she remembered that she had to watch out for them too. But so far she hadn't seen even one of them.
"If Walter wasn't such a scoundrel, I'd almost feel sorry for him", Stu said one time.
"King Leodore's soldiers are chasing him in Walter's Forest, nowadays he can't have even a moment of peace. Soon they will fumigate him out from his cave. Although he's a shithead, therefore I don't care about him!"
"Walter's Robbers are shitheads too! They are same as their chief!", said Skalle-Ben and everyone agreed.
"It seems I'm lucky to be part of Stu's robberfamily", Judy thought. She watched, how the others were sitting at a long table and sipping soup.
All robbers, Skalle-Ben, Jesse, Pedro, Fjodor, Chris, Joe, Laurence, Jonas, Tristan, Tom, Sterling and Little-Killian - they all were her friends and she knew that every one of them would go through fire and water for her.
"We're lucky to live in Stu's Forest", said Stu.
"If those knucklehead-soldiers tries to come here, they will be swiped right to Hell, that's for sure!"
"Yup, they go there flying!", Skalle-Ben added.
Other robbers agreed and only a thought of a knucklehead who would try to invade Stu's Fort, made them laugh. The fort was unreachable at the top of Stu's Mountain. There was no other passage but only a little, narrow and curly path, which led to south from a castle and disappeared to the forest below. At three other sides of a castle, there was only abrupt hillsides.
"What kind of idiot would even start climbing that", robbers had said. But little they know about Judy's training sessions there.
"And if they even try to travel through The Wolf's Neck, they will confront a rain of rocks. And a little of something else.", Stu said and smirked mischievously. Skalle-Ben sniggered in his corner as he thought of what Stu had just said.
"I have hunted many ajattaras in my life, but now I'm too old and all I can hunt, are the fleas in my fur", he said and yawned. Judy pitied Skalle-Ben, but she didn't get why soldiers would come fighting to The Wolf's Neck. Besides, she was tired and didn't have energy to think about that.
She went to her bed and lied there, until Bonnie came and sang Wolf Song like every other night. Only Judy, Stu and Bonnie slept in The Great Hall, when robbers were sleeping in their own dormitories. Judy liked to lie in a bed and look, how fire was flaming and glowing. As far as she could remember, her mother had always sung Wolf Song, when night arrived. Judy knew it was a time to go to sleep, but before she closed her eyes, she always thought: "Tomorrow, then I get to wake up again". When a new day dawned, Judy literally jumped out of a bed. Regardless of weather, Judy wanted to go to a forest and Bonnie gave her a bag with some bread in it and her leather flagon full of milk.
"You are a child of a thunder night, Judy", Bonnie said.
"But you are also a child of a night of ajattaras. That kind of children are easily hunted down, and that's a fact. Go now and make sure that ajattaras won't take you!"
Judy had seen more than just once, when ajattaras flied over a forest and she had hastily ducked and hid herself. Ajattaras were the most dangerous of Stu's Forest's dangers. You had to watch out for them, if you wanted to live, that's what Stu had told her. Just because of them Stu had held Judy in a castle for so long. Ajattaras were beautiful, insane, and cruel creatures. They stalked the forest with narrowed eyes to spot someone to tear blood from their veins from. But not even one of them could scare Judy from her paths, places or wherever she happened to live her lonely forest life. Judy was lonely but she didn't need or miss anyone. Who would she miss? Her days were full of life and joy, unfortunately they were spent really fast. Before Judy noticed, a summer was over and a fall had come. At the time of fall, ajattaras became more aggressive and more insane.
One day they were chasing Judy through a forest until it started to feel really dangerous. Surely Judy could run as fast and surely she knew all hiding places in a forest, but ajattaras were following her obstinately and she heard their shrill screams:
"Hoooo, A little, beautiful bunny, now shall your blood be bled!" Then Judy dived in a pond and swam under a water surface to the other side of it. There she crawled to a strand and hid under a thick spruce. She heard how ajattaras looked for her and screamed in anger:
"Where is it, that little bunny, where is it? Come here so we can rip and claw you so you'll bleed, hoooo!"
Judy sat in her hiding place until she saw, that ajattaras flied away over treetops. She didn't want to be in the forest any longer. There was still many hours till night and Wolf Song, so Judy got an idea to do that one thing she had intended to do for so long. She would go to a top of castle's roof and watch out for falling to The Hell's Gap. Judy had heard so many times, how Stu's Fort ruptured in two pieces on the night she was born. Stu got never tired of telling that story.
"Curse and death, what a blow it was! You should've heard it, well… you heard it but only as a little, newborn, poor thing", Stu stuttered but cleared his throat.
"Boom, and we had two castles for one and a gap between them." Then he got serious.
"Don't you forget, what I have told you: Watch out for falling to The Hell's Gap!" And that's what Judy meant to do. That seemed to be a best thing to do when ajattaras raved in a forest. Judy had been on castle's roof many times, but she had never been near that dangerous gap, which opened abruptly without a protection of wall crowns. Now she crawled to the edge and took a glance straight to the abyss.
"It's more horrendous than I had imagined!", Judy thought.
Judy took a stone from the edge of a gap and dropped it. She winced, when the stone hit a bottom. It sounded very dull and distant.
"Yup, I really have to stay away from these depths", she pondered. Still, a gap wasn't very wide. With a proper jump, one could get over it for sure. No one would be that crazy, but Judy saw an tempting opportunity to practice being careful with The Hell's Gap. She peeped down the gap and then she looked around for the best place to jump. Then she saw something, that almost dropped her to The Hell's Gap from a pure astonishment.
A bit further, there was someone sitting on the other side of a gap. He was almost same size as Judy, maybe a little longer. That another child just sat and waved his legs on the edge of a gap. The boy definitely wasn't a bunny, an ajattara or a greydwarf. Stu had told her about red-furred bastards, that's how he had described Walter and his robbers. But this red-furred boy didn't seem to be a bastard. Judy knew that she wasn't only child in a world. Bonnie had told, that she was just only child in Stu's Forest. That red-furred boy hadn't seen Judy yet. She looked at him and chuckled just because he existed.
To Be Continued…
