Sometimes seemingly random choices have ripple effects—changing everyone's lives. A choice about love, an action, a journey, or step toward one direction or other—once put in motion new stories unfold.

CHAPTER FIVE

Trail Tales

Luu broke their silence. "Qelly-honey, I think we had better take a good long rest, now. It's colder still, here in the shadow. We'll make a small fire. A good cup of tea will keep you warm." Qello knew this wasn't her own want or need. Her mother, however, could sure use the rest. They stopped in an area where a fallen tree trunk hung over a pile of moss-covered rocks.

Luu took off the old yakel horn that hung on a cord around her shoulder and waist. Inside the horn was her own fire-bundle kit, with a tiny lit ember she had started this very morning from the fire in their house. She had thought well ahead about how to make firecraft easiest for her daughter to gradually master. Luu had more dry fire chunks inside her pack and pulled out already dried twigs from her pouch. Leaving them on a dry patch of stone, she then showed Qello how to gather bits of sap off the trunks of some trees and to start the fire quickly from embers. "Here poke this just a little, while I get us some water." She handed Qello a stick.

Soon two small water-filled pots were tucked into the flames.

With the fire easily lit, tea was made with nettles and honey. They munched on Luu's cheese biscuits, soaked sunflower seeds and apples left over from winter supplies. Luu's arms began to wave. She recounted quick bits of stories of far away villages, the lore of the land, folks far-flung to distant places intent on learning more about their true purpose or sagas of those rumoured to have secretive plans. Some men and women had journeyed a long way for study or to find their own luck in exciting trades and adventures—all telling stories. Qello and Luu relaxed, sipping hot tea for a leisurely time until bird chatter began to prompt the returning of strength now for Luu.

Luu had learned her storytelling skills from her father. Occasional stories appeared from imagined lands that were purely for fun! Luu's hands moved fast when she told these fabulous tales and Qello was often amused, always spellbound, as it was on this day. Luu became more animated.

"There is a story of a young girl collecting clams on a beach who found a cave on the seawall and against better judgement wandered into and down its corridor length. Making her way through the long tunnels, she marvelled at the size, as they seemed both wide and tall for a cave. Caught up in the awe of it, she did not hear the only warning she would receive—a subtle hiss. It was like steam escaping a large iron kettle."

Luu rubbed her hands together and again jabbed at the fire with a stick. "Is that the story you want—I should tell you...?" Qello was pleased. Luu had paused the story, as she always did to add extra tension on reaching the good parts.

Qello nodded. Luu went back to performing.

"Coming finally to the main chamber of the cave, the girl caught sight of a motion, up high above her, but before she could even gasp, she had tripped—falling over the tail of a dragon, and was quickly pinned by it. 'Why do you disturb my refuge?' the behemoth hissed." 

Again Luu paused, "Come, sit beside me, Honey. Here." Luu patted her leg and waited for Qello to settle in against the log. Qello liked it whenever Luu stroked her hair. She sat on the ground, head on Luu's knee.

Then Luu softened her voice and went on.

"Some awed light seemed to illuminate the darkness as the dragon spoke to the girl—his intruder. It hung in the air, like starlight. She tried to regain a scintilla of composure, tired as she was, yet, daring to deceive the dragon she'd met, she said, "I thought that you might be hungry, maybe." 

The dragon hissed vehemently, "Liar!"

Qello's nose wrinkled, as her mother emphasized "liar", in her own twisted tone. Luu winked at Qello, and then continued to speak as if she, herself, were the girl in front of her newly found dragon.

"Forgive my fear," she added quietly. "I have some clams in brine," she almost whispered. "Fresh?"

But his hissing increased!

The girl in the cave hoped. Did he, perhaps, seem less agitated? "Yes. Fresh. All yours, if you'd like them, and I could bring you more, if you wish?"

"The dragon released her, using his tail to help her get up, then he motioned her closer.

Luu paused her story, poked the fire and shifted positions—all done on purpose to build more suspense. Qello started to help, but Luu pulled her back down, then went on with the telling.

"The girl cautiously held the jar of clams out towards the dragon's huge face, trying to steady her shaking hands, while watching his eyes and seeing a claw brought up to inspect its contents. It was at that moment she noticed a wound on the dragon's talon."  

"I could see to that," the young girl said, pointing!

The dragon nodded slowly and watched her through fierce glittering orbs. As she approached, she was timidly quaking. The girl could see the hilt of a sword embedded near the large bloodied claw! "This may hurt a moment," she called up to her monstrous patient and held her breath. And then in a quick motion, she pulled the sword from his claw and tossed it aside. She next pointed to the jar and said, "I'll use this brine to cleanse the wound!" He roared but he let her tend to it and afterward, she fed him the clams. The dragon watched her ever so closely. He calmly considered her fate. Would she bring more vicious humans with her, if he let her go?"

Luu now had to embellish. "Now, as we know—there are those who fear the dragon, or would kill the dragon, but there are also those—" And she paused for effect, "—who are Dragon sworn—some among us who cherish all life, for only they can be called to live Dragonsworn. And in the case of the young girl with the clams—well—" Luu looked down at her daughter, and winked, pretending a sigh. The storytelling paused, again. "And—I think we'd better stop there." Luu had long ago formed such a habit. She broke from weaving her tales at the most dramatic of points. She somehow hoped without thinking that Qello might tend to come home more often if she did not tell her the ending of stories so fast.

Qello was quite used to this pausing and thought about it only a moment. What happened?

Stiffness was clinging to Luu's body. "Enough, then?" Luu's eyebrows raised to consult Qello and she stood up, lovingly moving her daughter's head from her lap. "We'll continue at sundown, when we rest for the night, okay? You awake?"

Qello hadn't been sleeping. She was simply enjoying her newfound contact. She whimpered mock sadness and scrambled up—always willing, always helpful. Luu smiled at her daughter and straightened her red scarf on Qello's head. The girl's hair was so thick and shimmering blond—it barely stayed in place, scarf or no scarf. They readied their things to continue their climb. "Come on, Qello. Grab your kit and your drum and your stick. Anything else over there? Okay, let's be getting up there."

"Oww." Luu winced as she got herself up. "I'd like to find a shallow spot where some small part of the stream comes down and we can wash. Now don't get far from me, hear?" Still sore, she tried raising each knee to limber up. "Kiss me, and tell me you won't run off. You know I can't hear you, if anything happens. Stay in front."

Not far off, a small space in the trees gave way to the distant echo of falls, while beside them, water leaped and crashed down along a fast-paced course. Luu yelled and responded to Qello's hand gestures with her own waves and pointing. Qello signalled 'excited', through now deafening noise. Luu felt tears in her eyes—Qello was happy. Both of them laughed.

Qello grew intent on understanding each new thing her mother relayed. At first, she had been afraid of the fire they had lit out in the open. She had only seen flames, contained in their house, but even her fear went unnoticed—her mother was so alive and intent on more lessons.

"Listen, Qelly," her mother said, "—a small fire like the one that we used for the tea, will not build up heat to keep us warm in the dark, without a lot of wood nearby, ready, and dried and kept safely—in case it should rain any more than it did. I will need some good help from you when we find the right over-night spot where we camp. Okay?"

Qello was intoxicated with the waves of real consideration. No one had ever actually asked for her adult participation before. She wanted to try her hardest. She could not wait to have her mother show her more things and try to light a wee fire of her own. Qello wished she had paid more attention to Eldrid's job, now. Gathering firewood had seemed straightforward and unimportant, before, but now she realized there was much more to it. It turned out it mattered what type of wood she looked for and how far from the river it was and the size and the dryness of bark on each of the pieces; or even if the wood was dead or it wasn't. Wood that still lived was a part of a tree—no matter whether it had started to die. Those living parts were left alone for life force to do what it could, before it must choose to be part of the All and provide its own body for mulch in the soil—for the worms and the bugs—all those who lived.

Qello knew they hadn't gone far, but each thing in turn would be shown to her now. Once I can learn to get fires started, in light of day, Muma will trust me to show me how she rolls longer pieces in to keep the blaze lit all through the night.

They were moving again, but Luu sounded exhausted, "We'll find a good spot with a pretty view, I hope, honey-pie! Careful there! It's treacherous up where we're headed. There are many places you could fall in the gorge. You're going to have to pick your feet up and climb really, really carefully now. It's a long trek from here to any other village and I don't even know which one is closest to us, so we'll follow the river course back up the mountain. That way, there's likely to be less danger of us getting lost. If we stay back from the river, there will be more spots where you can see from, when we climb onto the much higher rocks."

Then Luu started explaining. "I think, maybe, we can find a lovely village that will take you on, in some sort of apprenticeship, even though you can't say a word. I know you're good and you always do as you're told, but—" and Luu paused. "Maybe we'll bring the girls up and stay." Softer now, she tried to sound natural. "I can't see what's going to happen to you, if I were ever hurt, now that your father's gone from where we are, and there's no Eldrid to look out for you for some time to come."

It couldn't be said for sure if Qello was just too tired, or too drained from seeing so many new things, or just plain overwhelmed with excitement, but somehow her mother's words about 'finding a village for her' came and went without any notice.

Mostly, Qello listened, attentive, with many questions held in her head, but getting tired now, herself, she did as instructed, and gave it her all, without variation. Even her normal enchantment—the plentiful rats, rabbits and birds she'd spot in the bushes to play with, were left to attend to their animal ways—in spite of a deeply pulling temptation to visit.

They climbed until the sun passed its crest, then climbed on still further, but Luu abruptly stopped them much sooner than she had intended. "This will do." She let out a groan. "Not perfect, but we should take it. It's got a route down to the river—a gentle slope with good shelter from wind—" They had finally found their camp spot, in the forest for that night.

They looked for old birds nests and peeled tiny strips of the underside of eclait bark for kindling. They searched for the right kind of branches they could pare down to a dry under layer and found others they could shave into peeled wooden feathers. These would need sap to catch light from Luu's glowing firekeeper ember.

"Here, watch how I light it!" Luu demonstrated, lighting a hot white torch flame. The embers Luu carried were packed between two layers of moss inside her own polished 'firehorn'. "This has been carved from a yakel's horn, one raised by my mother. She was the Scrimshaw Master from Krokeet. Twice a year, she was known to come in from the hills to demonstrate her bone-carving talents, at the Binderland high-ground markets. In my lifetime, I have come across two young girls, now fully grown, who were taught by your grandmother. They were named Scrimer-Keet Luusa and Scrimer-Keet Fallan, during their apprenticeship time." Luu took quick breaths. She waited until the end of her stick turned red hot and buried the firekeeper chunk where coals would be gathered, banked in against a cleared space, lined with some rocks to keep the fire from spreading into dry roots through the earth. Qello waited her turn.

They dragged more dead wood for the fire. "Oh, dear! You're arms are too tired," Luu said. "I'll do it this time. You can do more later."

Qello looked up at the birds in the sky. Her mother got busy. She was glad for a break from gathering, even dry grass. They were both spent, but aglow with exhaustion. She stood high on a gigantic rock that had taken huge effort for her to climb.

Qello raised her arms in the air, feeling the mists rising off the river that was crashing and disappearing below. The cool clean water on her skin and her face was delicious and sweet. She wiped her eyes, surprised how much had accumulated—how fast! It dripped off her hands. Her whole body was rapidly covered. She could feel the whole world vibrate. A hawk swooped and dove, dancing gingerly on drafts and currents, too numerous to glide. It came to sit on a branch, high but strangely nearby. With head down in Qello's direction, it focused and squawked. It got her attention.

At last, joining her on a nearby surface, a few feet below, Luu took off her boots. "Sometimes I wonder how high this water ever gets in the springtime. I can see, down there it's up to those rocks and it's not even high water time, yet. That storm last night had me worried some. I wonder if we can get some better weather, tonight? Could you fetch me some more of that brush from over there—" she pointed, "—and break it? I'm going to get the fire built up bigger tonight, somehow. It's going to be slow from the moisture this close. It's not starting well at all. Will I ever make it to see the soles of my feet dry out from these blisters?" She was inspecting them closely. "That was some progress we made. You must be really tired, honey. Come, sit beside me, when you're done or just gather the brush and we'll break it together, after I get some more of the bigger stuff."

At first, Qello thought she was just tired. She heard what sounded like distant thunder. The world still seemed to vibrate, and then it shook more. Qello was about to toss a pebble for her mother's attention to remind her, that she was supposed to be trying to do more of the fire that night, but the rumbling strengthened, and she crouched holding the rock to hang onto her balance. Before, either Qello or Luu could do anything else, a huge roar was suddenly heard. It came fast upon them from high up above. At first they saw nothing, only heard the huge curious noise and then they made out sounds of rushing of water.

Alert, they both jerked their heads looking hard up-River.

Stunned, with only their eyes having time to react—they were paralyzed. A massive wall of frothing, brown foam headed straight towards them, rounding the bend only yards from the place where they were. They froze. Nothing could be done. The mass of froth and debris was already upon them. No alarm. No warning of flash floods. Just the roar and the wall of the water and the All.

≈≈≈

Everything was going so well...until River did what rivers sometimes do.  What do you think might happen to our pair of travelers?  Write your predictions in a comment. I'd love to know what you're anticipating and always—what you'd LIKE to see happen!

Thank you for joining Qello and Luu on their journey.  If you plan on sticking around to see what fate has in store for them, please give a click on the vote button below.

In Chapter Six | Panic, unforeseen events have dramatic costs in the mountain woods.