Faithful Pebble
Part Ninety
It didn't take long for them to finish. She led him, Pebble. Like earlier, she stepped forward revealing in silence her family's bathing stream. It bubbled quietly nestled behind her tattered cottage. The secluded brook tarried outside the forest's border. Out of reach, it rippled away from the meadow's sheltered range. Out of sight, it danced in private comfort completely veiled from the clearing's gleaming warmth. In its pearly black waters, Pebble bathed. And while she did so, the wanderer hunted. In the dark, her dark, he swam in a sea of light.
She said it was safe, the wanderer remembered. Pebble insisted. With great caution, she instructed. The area about the stream was safe. When the splatter of ivory ended and the violet began, it was a warning. When the guiding flowers dispersed into distinct paths, only then had he wandered too far. Stay in the light, she had said, whispered, murmured.
"In the light?" he asked.
"The violets," she answered, replied, responded. "They kind of shine in the forest. The blue light makes their colors glow, especially the ivory variety. Clumped as they are here, as numerous as they are, their petals seem to shine at times. The light they give off is a little eerie, but… as a child, I quickly learned to love it. It made the flowers seem magical, as magical as the moonlight's mournful dance, as alluring and striking and soulful as its seductive evening song. They very nearly replicate it, the light from the moon."
They capture it perfectly, the wanderer thought. His flowered fence was ethereal in its dance. He had a hard time looking away. Still, he needed to and did so regardless of his desire. He was here to hunt, not dream.
The wanderer sighed and readjusted his bow, a gift from Pebble, a black and ancient hand-me down, one of her father's many treasures. His grip tightened while he eyed his prison. To his relief, he had room. To his relief, he didn't need it. He could roam on his leash. The expanse of forest was plentiful and abundant, but the wanderer quickly learned he needn't travel far to catch his game. The hunting was easy and surprisingly ample. It was clear the animals, again no bigger than a squirrel or a rabbit, rarely witnessed men in these woods. Men with weapons, men with intent, men with hunger and skill, they were unused to seeing such dangers and thus were easily caught and easily trailed. Yet in spite this obvious peace, the would-be-hunter could not dispel a feeling, a thickly sharp aroma. It tickled his bones, borrowed deep beneath the soil of his mind. Danger seeped further and further the more he ventured from the hut and its light, the meadow and its warmth, his Pebble and her company—
His Pebble?
The wanderer shook his head.
Something was watching. Something was following trailing his steps in the woods. A sound alerted him. A shuffle. It snapped him from his focus and re-aimed it at the forest.
He stopped, the wanderer. He watched. He waited.
A branch moved.
This section is getting very hard to write. I apologize for the delay in putting it up. Bare with me. - Calla