The Smell of Water

Fallon and Drindl awoke early and tucked several flechette stones into their pouches. At first light they headed away from camp, walking silently through the brush, eyes in a fixed gaze and unvarying focus. The hunter's gaze saw only motion - the twitch of an ear, the flutter of a small wing in a bush. Flechette cocked in his hand, Fallon moved in an arc away from Drindl. Seeing motion to his left, Drindl  sent the stone flying with a practiced throw. A small cry and a tik-tik bird rose up from a bush. Drindl sent his stone slicing through the air and the bird fell. The neck had been severed. Fallon knew that it was either luck or extraordinary skill and he complimented Drindl. Fallon found that he had taken a hare. He finished the animal quickly.

After cooking the tik-tik bird, Drindl shredded a morsel of the sweet breast meat with his flechette. Alithea mixed the meat with a berry paste and fed it to Erthen. He flapped his little arms with delight and made "tik-tik" sounds as he chewed. Bebe gave the Faerie the rest of the paste.

As the sun climbed above the eastern hills, the wind shifted. From the west came the smell of the ocean, and all of them turned to draw in the scent. Bebe showed her frustration. "The maps! We left so quickly. They were in the bargaining tent."

Bebe's passion was her map making and tribal history. When Alpen made the decision to abandon the warrior camp and flee their village, had he thought of Bebe and the others? Did he have the right to make a choice for all of them? They had trusted his judgment.  "How far is the ocean?" he asked.

"Still a few days journey," Bebe answered. "The coastline gets closer as we go south."

"I went with my father to the ocean," Fallon said. Alithea had heard the story before and placed his hand on her egg pouch. "We stat on a rock at the shore. He told me not to look at the sun as it settled above the water. When it had almost disappeared, I could look. The orange glow made a path across the water to where we sat. I was like an Alsace bird. My spirit rose up from my body and journeyed out across the water. I wanted to stay there with the Cawthingi tribe. 'We are a mountain people,' my father said. I remember my last time seeing the water. I was standing on a hill and the gleam of light on the blue gray water. My father reached around me as I stared. I turned and buried myself in his arms and cried."

"We used to be mountain and seashore people," Bebe said. "Before the Great Divide."