The sun beat down overhead, sending wave after wave of oppressive heat, leeching any free moisture from soil and flesh alike. Plants that should have been green and heavily laden with fruit and berries drooped, their offspring withered on the vine. The rivers and creeks, strong flowing only weeks before, lay stagnant and shallow, revealing flaking clay and powdering dust on their banks. The air that should have been filled with the songs of birds and the humming of insects lay silent, instead heavy and swollen with the angry static of a lightning storm waiting to spark. The Hungerer had awoken, and all of Nature suffered under his presence.
The first bits of his flesh turned to bark, those on his hands, were now covered with mossy growths and had hardened to the point that they turned the bite of insects and steel alike. Those that followed later were still soft, but he could tell that the atmosphere was accelerating the change, as if his Curse was aware what was coming and sought to have him ready for the challenge. If so, then it seemed that Grandfather’s gift was more far-reaching than even he knew. Still, the new growth across his torso itched, and only a good soak with cool river water from the few ponds left near the beaver’s dams seemed to ease it.
Sinking bare feet deeper into muddy soil, Etienne once more considered the task before them as he let the waters seep into his tired body, satisfying a thirst that he had been unaware of until it was sated. They had fought their way through the tunnels, across rivers of bile and pools of acid, through waves of parasites and rat-folk, only to be confronted with a solid wall of flesh and bone as the final barrier to the Heart, the source of the great evil and where their fates would be decided. They bore steel and song, the powers of faith from both traditions, along with the most recently developed weapons that they could forge…but would it be enough?
A single cry split the silence of the day. Falcon, a frog caught in his talons alighted on the smooth boulder nearby and began to eat his prey, before turning to consider the man (was he still a man?). The druid turned to face his friend and companion, the first spirit who had ever been willing to speak back directly all those years ago. “Falcon. How fares your range? Is there something I can do for you?”
Yellow eyes pierced into his own, unblinking and endless in their depths.
*Prey is scarce. The forest, afraid. The Court grows silent, and so the land waits.*
“Waits? Waits for what, the turning of the season? For the Court to make a decision?”
*Waits for you. For the People. To act, to decide. Will you succeed in your struggle, or will you fall? Will you retreat into the Other, or will you remain here in the Green?*
“We have already agreed to stay here, that running away won’t solve our problems and would be abandoning our purpose to Vecatra. Why then do you all wait?”
*The Mother asks what the Mother should already know. My, the People do love to talk, don’t they.*
A few quick pumps of wings, and then the talons, still streaked with blood and viscera, sank onto his wooden shoulder, the hooked beak beginnig to preen his hair, bringing order to the sodden chaos.
*The Spirits *have been*. The Spirits *are*. The Spirits *will be*. Locked in the cycle of the Green, as ordained by Vecatra in the beginning and playing our parts until all returns to being one in Her embrace. To Change, that is the gift of the People, one given alongside your tasks to Name and Question, to Steward and Prune. Of all of Vecatra’s creatures Man was given no special gift of claws, or fangs, or thick hides or furs, but of the idea What Can Be.*
*Hope. That is your gift, and your great curse. It can lift or destroy in equal measure.*
*And so we wait.*
Silence once more reigned in the shadow of the trees, even the burble of the waters seeming to fade as he contemplated the sudden deep truths he was given by his old friend, before a particularly harsh preen drew him from his thoughts. “Ouch! I know I’m more bark than flesh these days, but that’s no reason to go digging for bugs that aren’t there!”
*I’m hungry. Get me a fish.*
Laughter, unbidden and deep overtook him at those words, sending him into such a fit that he all but fell over and sending Falcon hopping back to the stone, squawking at the indignity of almost being thrown into the pool.
What did he have to worry about? After all, they would do their best, and what would come would come. Why waste what time they had left stuck thinking dark thoughts when they could spend it with their loved ones? Finally, he managed to control breathing enough to respond.
“Falcon? Never change, my friend.”
—
And so the rest of the day went: he set a line to cry and catch a fish; Falcon told him of the goings on of the forest and hills, of leshen and bee alike, and he felt the despair leave him and be replaced with a sense of peace.
What will come, will come. We know the task before us, so let us be about it.
