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A Friend in the Clearing
Lia buried them first thing in the morning. She dug for hours in the small garden they kept behind their house. When she was finally finished she took two large stones worn smooth by the waters of the lake and rolled them to the bases of the graves. Then with her father knife, she carved a single jellyfish into the stone of her mother’s and a fox into that of her father’s.
When Lia was finished she sat dangling her feet into the lake, her new spirits circling around her. She watched them as they danced along the surface of the water, never quite touching the glassy plane. Their reflections shimmered and sparkled as their translucent tentacles caught the morning light. Minutes washed into hours.
It was hunger than finally forced Lia to retreat back inside the cottage. She ate just enough to get her growling stomach out of her mind before making her way to the animal skin that rested over the entrance to the cellar. She slid it aside and lifted the door to the dark room, cringing as the creaking of the old hinges rattled through the house. She dropped onto the bare dirt floor and a thick cloud of dust rose into the air. Coughing, Lia rubbed at her eyes as her new companions spread through the cellar, illuminating the old wooden shelves with their otherworldly orange glow.
The spirits eventually collected in the back corner of the room, ushering Lia to where they hovered in the air. With each step another plume of dust rose around her casting all sorts of unusual shadows as it cut through the light of the jellyfish. As she approached, one of the creatures wrapped its tentacles around a small case and gently carried it to Lia, placing it softly into her open hands.
Lia ran her fingers over the ornate wooden surface, tracing the grain and circling the knots that were raised ever so slightly out of the solid exterior. The entire thing was bound by a single strip of leather with a buckle in the front. She took in a deep breath of the dank air before her fingers fumbled with the buckle.
Inside the box lay a single browned piece of parchment and a cloth sack. Curious, Lia unclenched the sack and peeked inside only to see the shimmering surface of various colored coins. As she unrolled the parchment she immediately recognized her mother’s lyrical handwriting.
My Dearest Aelia,
First, your father and I love you more than you can imagine. We always told you that we lived here because the rest of the world would be unforgiving of your mixed upbringing, but that was only a half-truth we told to keep you safe. When your father and I were young we had some of the greatest dreams and goals that we tried to achieve, and in pursuing those dreams we each were forced to make choices that we have come to regret.
In my endeavors to grow stronger in the ways of magic, I forged a pact with a demon, and I used its power in ways I should not have. If the time has come for you to read this letter you are no longer safe here.
All of the actions your father and I have taken have been to protect you. Now you must trust the spirit in the lake, it is a dear friend of mine who has protected me throughout my life. You must go to the grand city of Terminus, the city in the stories we read you before bed. There you must find your Uncle Renato, he will know what to do.
We love you Lia,
Mom and Dad
Tears rolled down Lia’s cheeks as her eyes scanned the letter. She jerked the parchment away from her face to keep the tears from smearing the ink. She felt a warm brush of tentacles rub against her cheek and the back of her hand. Carefully she folded the last message from her parents and tucked it away inside the box. She wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve, mixing some of the dust in the air with her tears, and smearing a small streak of dirt across her cheek.
Taking a deep breath, Lia collected herself and started to gather whatever she could think of that would be useful for her coming journey. She gathered various dried herbs and dried foods, and packed them neatly into the traveling backpack her father had stitched for her on her twelfth birthday. She then returned to the ground level of the cottage, and slipped into her parent’s bedroom. It only took the girl a minute to track down what she was looking for, in a chest underneath the bed she found the books that her parents used to teach her everything she knew about the outside world.
Lia thumbed through several of them before finally settling on a few choice selections, all of which were scribbled in by her parents with notes of things they thought would be particularly interesting for her. She packed them into the sack, making sure to leave her mother’s journal on herbs and alchemy more readily accessible. She then found her father’s stash of wilderness supplies and pillaged a map, flint and steel, a skinning knife, various strands of twine, and anything else she could carry.
As she left the house for the last time, Lia took a single moment to look back inside. As a child she had loved the way the light had filtered into the space, making the whole floor feel alive with the energy of the sun. Today clouds blocked out the rays of light from reaching the windows, and the place felt cold and stagnant. Pillows of dust rose up from the cracks in the floorboard that lay above the cellar as if someone was still rummaging around beneath her feet.
Lia was an orphan now. Her chest tightened with each breath as she stared into the place that had been her home for as long as she had known. There was nothing here for her now. Just as they had before, Lia felt tentacles touch her hand and lightly wrap around it. Quietly she let the spirits guide her away from the home, away from the memory of her parents, and into her new life.
Lia lay wrapped in her sleeping bag until the rays of sunlight crested the tops of the trees and finally cut through the thin layer of frost and turned the blades of grass around her rigid. It was her first morning on her voyage to the city of Terminus, and despite a blanket of spirts that had settled on her sleeping bag, she spent the crisp night in a state of half consciousness, unable to truly sleep, unable to stay awake.
As the young Spurri stirred, the jellyfish rose into the air, spreading out around the clearing she had settled in. One of them took the cup she had drunk from the night before, and carried it to the nearby creek, filling it and carrying it back. Lia smiled and sat up, reaching her bare arm into the cold air to take the water. She drank the water slowly as another spirit carried a small parcel from the backpack she had hoisted into a tree last night to keep predators away from her camp. She unwrapped the dried nuts, and ate just a few, knowing they would be a rare delicacy as she traveled.
When she finished her breakfast it only took Lia and the spirits a moment to pack up her camp and retrieve her pack. She pulled her father’s map and compass from the outermost pouch of her pack, oriented herself, and began the day’s journey. As she walked she examined the map closely as the spirits kept watch for anything unusual.
The orphan tried over and over again to guess how long it would take her to make it to Terminus based off the previous day’s progress, but the distance seemed so far, and her progress so small it was hard to actually gauge her progress. Eventually she gave up, sliding the map back into the pack, and focused on the small wonders the forest and creek held.
Lia tried to catch glimpses of as many animals as she could, glancing to the base of trees and rocks looking for ground squirrels, or scanning though the branches of the trees for various types of birds. She never was as good at the game as her father was, and more than once she expected his broad arm to stop her suddenly and silently to point out a rare eagle or heron. Every time she caught a glimpse of a woodpecker or the splash of a fish in the creek, she would long for someone to point out her find to, and give up on the game for a minute or two.
The spirits were good company in theory, but ever since that first night they had never spoken a word to Lia. They seemed to always know what she was thinking, doing various chores, or clustering closer to her when she felt nervous, but they never responded to anything she said. Instead they opted to drift through the forest, illuminating the dark peripherals of her vision to shield her from danger.
After several hours Lia found herself on the top of a solitary hill that crested just above the average height of the trees in the forest she had been traveling through. The trees had stopped growing on the hill, leaving it bare and grassy and the perfect place for Lia to scout the area while enjoying lunch. She sat down on the sun-warmed grass, and pulled a pouch of edible herbs she had been collecting out of her bag. She ate them silently, adding in a mouthful here and there of dried meats from her house. As she took in the picturesque scene, her eyes spotted a small flash of movement at the base of the hill.
“Hmm?” Lia asked no one in particular. She spotted the source of the movement at once, it was a little furry creature, no larger than a small dog that skirted the edge of the clearing, clearly taking in the new owner of the hill. The little creature had abnormally large ears, and she remembered her father pointing out a creature like this before. When they had encountered it before the creature had been large, almost as tall as she had been at the time and had ears that stood so large Lia almost believed them fake.
“A Pruina,” her father had told her later that day, “they’re predators, although they never feast on anything large at all. In general we’re safe from them, unless their pups are nearby, and then I’ve seen them strike a man lightning fast, and with their size there’s not too much a man can do to protect himself. It’s best to steer clear of them just in case.”
Curious, Lia watched the little creature while she finished eating. Its deep blue eyes watched every movement she made, and its ears seemed to turn autonomously of one another, responding to each and every sound in the forest. It looked thin to Lia, and its fur seemed matted in some areas, and puffed out in others, as if it hadn’t groomed in days.
“Where are your parents, little guy?” Lia questioned the foxy creature. It only stared at her handful of dried meat.
“Are you hungry?” she lowered her hand to the ground and dropped a piece of the meat at her feet. While the Pruina seemed interested, it did not move. A few minutes more into her meal, Lia observed the creature emerge into the clearing for the first time. It looked a lot worse for wear than she had originally assessed, looking dangerously thin, and its fur was caked with mud and a dark red brown substance Lia assumed was dried blood.
Her eyes welled with tears for a moment, and she reached tossed the last of the meat she had for herself toward the creature. It looked at it for a moment, but gobbled it up the instant it realized what it was. Then, cautiously, it made its way up the hill to the meal she dropped earlier. It darted in close for just an instant to grab it, then ate it out of arm’s length.
As it ate the meal, Lia watched the jellyfish spirits silently descend on the distracted creature. As they moved to rest on it, there was a moment of hissing and growling, but the second the tentacles touched the young Pruina it stopped, and instead started to make a noise that sounded like a mix between cooing and purring. Smiling, Lia stood and approached the creature, but once she got too close it jumped back, breaking its contact with the spirits.
The two shared a tense moment of locked gaze, until the foxy creature turned and bounded down the hills. As it reached the edge of the wood, it looked back over its shoulder and waited.
“You want me to go with you?” She followed the creature, first to the edge of the wood, and then deeper and deeper into it. She walked for what she guessed was a mile before the Pruina finally stopped and sat down. Curious, Lia pushed through the growth of vegetation to reach the creature. She immediately saw where the young creature had stopped, and immediately she gagged.
The stench of death and rot assaulted her senses, and in front of the pair lay the body of an adult Pruina caked in blood and mud. Lia’s eyes immediately found what looked like charred handprints in the fur around the slain creature’s neck, and a single clean, but very wide, puncture wound in its stomach. Inside the wound was nothing, as if everything inside the creature had been sucked out through the hole. The markings on the neck immediately brought back images of her slain parents, each of whom had similar char marks on their neck.
“That’s your mother…” Lia felt tears welling in her eyes. “It killed your mother too.”
She looked to the juvenile Pruina that simply stared at the remains of its dead mother. As the tears ran freely down her cheek, she and the spirits moved as one toward her new friend, who seemed to have forgotten them. She wrapped her arms around the little creature, pulling it into her chest. Its fur was coarse against her bare arms, and she felt the mud and blood fleck onto her clothing. In one motion, she lifted the Pruina and turned him away from the grisly scene.
“You don’t need to see this anymore,” she whispered into its ears, “from now on I’ll take care of you. It’s you and me now…”
Lia fled the scene as fast as her legs could manage, she ran until she reached the hill again. When she reached the top she lay down on her back, letting the Pruina lay silently on her chest. The foxy creature was heavy, and she felt its claws dig past her clothing and into her skin, but she didn’t care. The pair lay like that until the sun started to fall from the sky. Lia pulled what remained of her meat from her bag and fed it all to her new companion.
“So, you’re a boy huh?” Lia asked as his claws finally released from her clothes and he started to eat the meal Lia had lay out for him.
“I think I’ll call you Nicoh,” she remembered the name from a book her mother had read her when she was a baby. “You don’t have to worry anymore Nicoh, I’ll keep you safe, always.”
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