Drip. Drip. Drip.
I barely register the sound of the rain battering the canopy of leaves I was resting under. Not like I cared anyhow. The place was deserted anyway and I was the only one, layed down at the foot of a mighty pine tree, willing the time away by idly staring up at the ceiling of the many pine needles protuding from the tree branches above me. I'm simply in the middle of a small clearing of pine trees, surrounded by various shrubbery of differing sizes, yet not so far I couldn't see the way out. I told myself I wouldn't wander too far inside the forest for fear of getting lost, and this time, I'm determined not to saunter off into the opposite direction.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Rolling over, I try to get some sleep and find I have little success at all. I wandered out of camp some time ago - night maybe? - to get some piece of mind after spending so much time holed up in that damp ruin with Redain. She probably suspected something about my rants and ramblings but doesn't press on and we leave each other to our own devices. It stresses me even now, knowing once I got back I'd be bombarded with unending questions over my disappearance. I'm not even sure if I liked Redain at all. We seemed to be allies enough, respecting each other, but I we always seemed to run like formal trading partners and the thought of that makes me want to dig my nails in the dirt out of indignation. I'd known her for quite sometime now but we never seem to break each other's shell, always staying away from the other, making a few off-handed comments over the weather. The only time she's really there is when I wake up from a nightmare, or when I'm hallucinating something completely irrelevant.
My attention is diverted as I promptly sit up and register the growl of my stomach. I brought nothing to eat with me and I feel stupid for forgetting in my hassle to get away, but then who could blame a dellusional woman wanting some time alone for herself? I smack my head at such an idea and then roll over to the other side again to rummage in my pack for a book. The first thing I snatch is a grey, dog-eared Book called, "Herb-lore of Bree-land".
I leaf through the pages, dully looking at all the edible plants I could eat. I need something nourishing, I thought. Meat.
Yes, meat. But where and how would I get something like that? Sneaking into town to steal something is obviously a fool's choice, and from this point I could see no brigand camps where I could sneak up and snatch some food. The latter was something I could always relied on. No matter where I go, I seem to find Brigands, outlaws, or travellers making their way throughout the land. Some encounters would end with Bloodshed, others would often just hand me their provisions after a few threats. Innocence seems something like a luxury now, but I can't afford to get sidetracked in a land where bounty-hunters, outlaws, and other nasty things roam around freely, waiting to strike from the shadows. I stand up to ponder my next move.
Anger suddenly courses through me as I throw the book into a section of the foliage, feeling distraught by my lack of care. How am I supposed to find something to eat in this dense forest? Hunt with my spear? I'd probably miss anyway. Sword? Animals already scatter at my loud footsteps. I'd get a bow and a sheath of arrows, but of course, I don't have a bow and I'd most likely poke my eyes out with the tip of the arrow-head.
A rustle through the shrubbery alerts me as I look quickly towards the spot where I had thrown the book. Unlike most people who'd probably be cautious or run away at first notice, I feel a surge of optimism at the chance it could be something to cook. If it was a full-grown man, meh.
The rustle grows stronger and stronger as the creature begins edging closer to me. I ready spear, sword still in sheathe. Besides, what better way to get dinner piked and ready to roast at the first moment's notice?
Before I can even react however, a four-legged something darts towards me from the bushes and I'm knocked onto the ground. My instincts kick in as I begin fighting off the evidently furry creature off in a battle of teeth and fur. I didn't really know what I was up against, except that it had a scruffy, tan coat with dark brown dirt specks flecked here and there.
My first thought was to mercifully end this creature's life but before I can do so the thing - a mutt now that I see it clearly - jumps off me and takes several paces backwards, growling at me. Did I hit it with the book I just threw? Must have. Now that I can see the dirt-flecked mutt I peer at it curiously, though it decides to aggressively snarl to keep me back. I've never seen any mutts before because my family never had housepets. Mother hated all forms of animals and father would break into itchy hives whenever he came near a cat. I don't know or care what Meinir thought about them, and most of the mutts I see around Bree are chained to a wooden post with metal collars or strays begging for scraps of food.
I notice this dog had a metal collar as well and I look around tentatively, knowing that this mutt would evidently have a man or lad with him. I'm in no mood to converse or talk with someone so I decide to kill the thing before it makes any noise to keep unwanted attention. Then I notice something.
The mutt's eyes. They look back at me with a certain anger I'm all too familiar of. Anger of loss, of vengeance. Sorrow. I've never been good with cats and mutts but I know just enough to know that the mutt has evidently suffered in the way I did.
I decide not to kill it. Easy way out of pain, but if you want to be strong, you have to know what pain is. I'm not even sure of myself as I decide. I don't think I can even kill the thing without feeling some form of anger as well.
I sit there frozen and staring at the dog, when it leaps into the air again and starts ravaging my armour. I feel my hair frizzled as the dog scratches at my head. Stroke for stroke I feel the dog's claws scratching my skin and warm blood slowly breaking to the surface as I'm scratched. Since I have no other way and I refuse to kill the dog, I do the only sensible thing and go limp.
It must've been days, nights, maybe even weeks, before I feel the dog's weight pushing off me. At this point I'm sure my face is a bloody mess because I can feel the blood trickling down my cheek and neck, but I don't care. I open my eyes and raise my head just enough to see the dog prancing around in an agitated way, evidently in anguish.
"You lost something?" I ask gruffly. I know it's crazy to talk to dogs, but what else is there to say? The dog looks at me a brief moment and bares it's teeth, but I soothingly try to reassure it with gentle, understanding tones. Something I haven't used for days. The dog seems to understand at least once I start talking to him with a soft voice. Up until the point where I drop my spear and start crawling towards him, and he takes a defensive stance with me still coming slowly and cooing, "It's okay, I ain't gonna hurt you."
The irony of my gentle words makes me want to laugh but I crawl forward to the large dog and gently hold a hand out. The mutt growls and steps away briefly, still defensive. I don't know what expression I'm wearing but I guess it has to be one that doesn't tame the dog fully.
I look away promptly at that point. Stupid, considering I'm actually at the mercy of a stupid mutt that I don't want to kill out of sheer sympathy and idiocy, but it pangs at me with curiosity because I'm determined to know why the dog was suffering the way I did. It seems to work as the dog's growls fade as I passively sit there and say, "I won't hurt you."
I draw something from my pockets which has the dog briefly growl again, but once I roll it towards him, across the green, leaf-strewn forest, the growling stops. I look up briefly and see the dog nibbling at the apple, which baffles me since I hear dogs only tend to eat meat. But of course, there's nothing around and I guess the dog can't hunt like me.
"No meat eh?" I ask tentatively. The dog continues nibbling but I take his lack of response as a "no". I reach out to pet the dog.
Before I can even lay a finger on his fur the mutt is up and bounding away with the apple.
"Bloody... that was my last apple you stupid mutt!" I shout after him, realizing I had inadvertly given away a delicious treat by mistake. I take my pack and spear and run after him, bounding into the bushes and scrambling after the mutt with sheer anger. But with the anger was curiosity. Why was I following him anyway? I don't know, but I know I'm angry and I know I want to know where he's going. Then I feel wary. Maybe he was going to lead me to a town where I'll be arrested and thrown in the stocks at the mercy of townsfolk throwing tomatoes at me.
I stumble through a similar clearing, ignoring the dirt and stings from various plants I pushed away in my haste to follow. Then I start to register what I see before me.
There's the mutt, pacing around in the grass. I see a large ensemble of various trees dotted around clearing, with one big tree growing in the center. The floor of the clearing is strewn with the brownish autumn foliage of leaves that the trees shed every year before winter.
However, my attention is drawn to mutt, who now sits down and with a sad whimper stares up at something. I follow his gaze and from there it goes so fast.
Two brown lifeless eyes following my gaze with a haunting familiarity.
I think back to father with his burly build, curly brown hair, and panhandle moustache with those warm, kindly, chocolate brown eyes that I hated so much. Sure, that time when I and Meinir came back in the dead of night a wreck was an exception where he seemed genuinely concerned for me, but I don't dwell about it.
This man had a striking resemblance to my father minus the burly build. He was more leaned and muscled and had a stubble instead of a moustache, and he was wearing garbs my father would have looked on with a mixture of disgust and contempt. My eyes follow from his face to his chest, where I see arrows embedded deep into his leather vest.
I walk forward slowly, but thanks to the crunchy leaves beneath me I make cracking noises that cause the dog to leap up and growl at me defensively, all forms of kindness I had shown previously forgotten. Then I realize.
This was the very person the dog had lost. I understood now why he was so enraged. Why he was so angry and sad.
"Dogging his steps..." I mutter.
But I didn't understand how the mutt lost him.
I ignore the mutt as I walk forward carefully, leaving my spear on the forest leaf-bed approaching slowly. The mutt barks sharply again, poised to attack, but then relaxes as I simply crouch down and slide my bloodied fingers over the man's eyelids, closing them gingerly. I look down at the mutt and realize he's sitting and looking at me expectantly, but a voice takes me completely unawares and I'm up and staring angrily into the face of my sister, Meinir.
"So heroic." She smirks at me, "You'd close a stranger's dead eyes but run away from your own family."
I take a defensive stance, my temper flaring, "Shut that pampered mouth of yours."
"But it's true isn't it? You left us for freedom, but are you really sure this is the freedom you want?" My sister crosses her arms and looks at me in genuine concern this time.
"I did it because you hated me! All of you!" I yell back.
"But we miss you..." She says it so innocently and before I know it my rage has hit boiling point and I'm running for my spear. I close my eyes and screech out a shout of anger as I aim the spear towards my sister before throwing it in a sloppy fashion towards her.
No shout of pain. No thud. Just a rustle. I open my eyes and find myself staring at the empty bush where my sister had stood before. A few paces to the side, my spear stood limp on the floor and I'm on the ground, bashing my fists on the forest floor and cursing.
So angry, so sad. So fearful. The emotions in me are too much to take that I cry and cry until I feel exhaustion. I see my reddish tears hit a yellow leaf. Then sleep washes over me and I'm plunged into a sea of nightmares.
***
In my dreams, I'm drowning under the sea and various hands reach out to grab me but always pull back at the last moment. I see Flynagin's face diving in to save me, and Redain reaching out to grab me, but before I can yell or even kick Flynagin in the face and reach Redain I'm sucked into blackness and wake up sweating, yelling, and with my cloak coiled around me. And my face full of dog saliva, stinging.
"Ugh." I wipe my face hastily and look down on my hands to find them red with blood. I sit up and register the dog sitting before me, licking me and whimpering.
It must have noticed I was having a nightmare, as it gently lays it's head on my frizzled, leaf-strewn head of hair. I pat it before gently getting up, but I know I'm angry thanks to those nightmares and I stride forward to collect my spear and bag, ready to move on. I want nothing to do with this place, and start to make my way out of the grove, but as I pass the dead man I feel a twinge of pity and turn around. The mutt is at my heels, whimpering. Feeling bad for the dog, I resolve to give it my entire bag of edible plants, unsure if it would eat them, but it seems too neglectful to leave a dog and it's dead master behind after having hallucinated and treating the dog with an apple. Therefore I grab a small string of nettlecoil that I made myself. Must thank Randir when I next see him, I think to myself vividly as I pick up a bunch of wildflowers and arrange them into a bunch. I tie them together with the coil of nettle and then take my spear, tying the flower arrangement to the spear. I drive the blunt end of the spear into the ground next to the man, with the mutt silently watching, and gingerly take his hand. I notice he has a death-hard grip.
When I prise it open, I find another arrow in his fist. I take a moment to examine the crude, rudimentary work and realize that orcs had shot him at somepoint. The man had died trying to pluck the arrows out of him. Yes, I can imagine the shame of falling to orcs, I think shrewdly. I decide to leave the arrows in his chest so that people will know what he fought against before dying. Honourably. Then I take his hand and enclose it against the spear.
Satisfied, I stand up and prepare to move on. Yet as I leave, I take a look back at the spear I had stolen and feel a pang of pain. But then, had I really loved it? I ask this to myself several times, and with each question, I feel the pain dulling away, and I knew that the spear wasn't important. I could barely even aim or throw it anyway. Then I see the gleam of polished wood. I crane my neck around the tree trunk and spot the gleaming wood. It was a bow, made of wood I couldn't really identify. Beside it was a dark leather quiver, holding arrows of good craftsmanship, specked with white fletches.
Immediately I start edging towards the bow and the desire to hold it and learn from it engulfs me. As I grab the bow, I think back to the mutt and the dead man, and turn to check on the dog to make sure he isn't on the verge of attacking me. But the mutt lies next to his dead master, apparently in sleep. He does hear my steps however, as his ears perk up and look in my direction. Seeing me with his master's bow, I know I must be prepared to fight off another dog attack.
But the attack never came.
Instead, the dog just turns back to lazing around on the ground, and I blink to make sure I wasn't hallucinating again. No, not hallucinating.
"You don't care?" I ask, clueless. The dog starts glaring at me with a look that awfully reminds me of, "Just go." Apparently, the mutt doesn't care, so I just take the bow and sling the quiver over my shoulder.
"Hope you don't mind if I take this." I snarkily grunt as I take the dead man's bow and quiver. I'm about to test it--
"Burty? Burty! Burty!!" I hear someone shouting and I immediately jump of shock. Not because of the voice, but because the silent mutt next to me had begun to bark. I was in risk of getting caught.
"Stop making noises you stupid mutt! Sto-- argh!" I see the rustling of the bushes nearby and make a full run for it, deciding there's no more time and I'd be found out if I stuck around any longer. I made for the bushes, cursing the dog. It was just a trick to get me in trouble!
I ran, and ran, and ran, and ran. Never looking back. I hear the dog howling and hollering and wonder why it didn't follow after me. But then as I hear the howling, I hear another voice, shouting curses, causing birds above me to take to the skies and fly away. I realize the dog wasn't even trying to rat me out. It was alerting one of it's master's companions to it's fate, diverting attention from me. Then I think about it. The spear might come in as questionable, but I know it'll be obvious orcs attacked the man, since I let their arrows be. The man's companion will probably blame orcs for the stolen bow anyway.
I'm surprise but relieved, knowing I'm safe for the moment. I look around and find myself in the dense forest, lying down on the ground between two trees. The stings on my face return and I growl at the pain before I realize that I've just gotten myself lost in the forest.
Stupid! I think as I hopelessly look past the numerous trees looking for plains or an open space, but all I see is endless trees and more trees, showing no sign of ending. I groan and sink to the ground, beating it with my fists again. My dried, bloodied fists... like the petals of a rose. Lost in this forest, I lay down and give in to exhaustion, like the lonesome thorny flower I was.
Like the withering thorny rose, isolated and alone amongst the trees of the forest on a cool, winter day.
