| Subject: Bitter Harvest (Part 1) |
Author:
Belekir
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Date Posted: 00:03:33 01/22/03 Wed
The air was cool and crisp - a bit earlier this time of air. A gentle wind carried with it a promise of rain, likely the last of the season. While sooner than usual, Belekir found himself wishing the snow would come. The season had been dryer than usual, and, as it grew cooler, the deciduous trees had lost most of their leaves in more of a quiet shriveling rather than the explosive display of their fall plumage which a wetter autumn would have brought. A blanket of virgin snow washed over the increasing dingy and decrepit looking trees would only help the troubled beauty of the land, at least hide the detritus of leaves which had carpeted the ground. By the crispness of the air he knew it would not be too long before the snow came, each passing of the clouds through the mountains drew the white caps of the peaks further down. He likely had less than a week before he should harvest.
Belekir made his way along the innocuous trail through the woods. They were not as tall and stately as the Faewoods, but tangled with undergrowth and with little in the way of note worthy clearings. It was easy to get lost if one did not know their way. Belekir knew his way quite well and followed the trail from his quietly nestled farm to his field. It was not large, but enough to feed his family, a little left to trade in Aaerdowns, and some left over to leave in the wilderness. The field was a good distance away, but it was as close of a clearing as he could find for the planting, not wishing to uproot any of the trees. It made for a nice brisk walk through the trees at any rate. It brought him a certain amount of happiness, an odd and often paradoxical feeling of solitude and connection.
The birds sang to him as he strolled to the small field. Their chirping calls and trilling songs always greeted him along the way. Jreldana had said they were the eyes and ears of the forest, but he never quite learned how to hear the whispering of the timberheart. He could still appreciate their presence and had come to know them if only by voice rather than sight.
Today, his ears heard them only vaguely as his mind was busy churning over a different cord. Had he not been so introspective, he would have heard the difference in the songs of the birds today. Their calls were not greetings and territorial declarations which he had grown accustomed, but trilled warnings of caution and alarm. His ears did not fully register the difference, indeed, were someone speaking to him at the moment, Belekir would have heard their voice but not understood what they said.
His long ears rang with four words. Those four words were now threatening to alter his life as much as the three words which brought him here to the highlands above Aaerdowns. It was three years ago that Caelra left him dumbstruck with the simple, yet soulful statement ‘I love you..' The words she spoke today unsettled him greatly, while joyous, it shook him to the core. "I am with child." He could hear her voice still as some phantom echo whispered softly in the gentle breeze, yet somehow louder than the singing of the birds, the crunching of the dry leaves underfoot, or the beating of his heart.
It was three years in coming. While not a long time, Belekir was thinking such was infinitesimally unlikely, if not impossible. Unions between elves and humans did not seem remarkably fecund, at least by elfin standards. He had put some stock behind such ideas, while entertaining the notion, never truly giving it too deep of thought. Now, whatever the odds were and however unlikely it may have been, his wife was carrying his child. The world, as he had come to know it, had turned a bit askew.
On a basic level, he was happy, but his joy was mostly in the way Caelra seemed delighted at the news. Within his own heart, he was troubled. Never having a dominant father figure in his life, he felt as if he did not measure up or at least lacked the experience of being a child to such a father to draw upon. Worse yet, the humans seemed to put unusual deference upon the male. As ready as Caelra was, he felt all the more insecure at the notion. He knew her child-birthing years were coming to an end, likely less than a decade. She had much to be overjoyed about.
Her time was running out. He knew that and had decided long ago, despite the protests of his family, his enclave as a whole, to share his time with her. He would never deny her the privilege of bearing a child. Belekir had made a silent pledge to make every day of Caelra's life pleasurable and memorable so, when the inevitable came, he could take solace in the delectation her life had become. She did not even have a century of life left, likely half of that if they were lucky. The time suddenly seemed so short and fleeting, all the more with how swiftly the last three years had flown by. He would out live her and even the child they bore together.
A cold breeze rustled through the trees, drawing him from his introspection as the pit in his stomach gave way. Cresting the final hill, the clearing lay sprawled before him. Where tall plants near harvest had stood in orderly rows, there was only a chaotic tangle of broken stems and scattered plants. The furrows had be dug at nearly effaced in what could only have been an act of malice.
Animals had taken to raid his crops from time to time, but they seemed to take their fill and leave and Belekir was all too happy to share. This despoiling of his field willful, an act of intelligence and maliciousness. Had the humans found their abode and the more uneasy of their number taken to driving him out? Caelra usually went to Aaerdowns herself and did not say much over the fomenting of their ire. Even when Belekir accompanied her, they were cordial enough. Was it a band or raiders, brigands that were skulking the country side looking for easy prey? The realization sent a chill through him.
The local authorities did much to curtail such activities, but it was not unknown. They did live just far enough away that such a scenario could be a reality.
With a practiced stealth, he crept closer to his field. The destruction was total. That which was not harvested for food was ripped out to the roots and scattered about. Clods of dirt and broken shafts littered the ground. The wind teased a rotting and unpleasant scent through the air.
Sniffing lightly, Belekir quickly founds the source of the smell. An unfortunate rabbit had been impaled to a tree by what looked like an arrow with the fletching snapped off. The creature had been mutilated in some unwholesome fashion; its remains dripped with blood and gore. Furtive creatures, the rabbit would have likely been killed before caught by the likes of such men. It was a cold consolation. The willful destruction could only be some sort of sign or symbol he could not quite fathom - other than it was time to flee.
He lingered for a moment too long, transfixed by the gruesome remains, puzzled to the core as to what sort of man would spend his time mutilating an already dead creature. Its fur was not harvested and, if any meat was taken, it had to be ripped from the body as he could see no evidence of proper butchery. Belekir had always found the eating of meat vaguely repugnant, but the humans sure seemed to love such.
Shaking his head lightly, a new scent wafted to his nose, one he could not quite identify. There was a light rustling about the brush, likely a carrion eater smelling the rabbit. At least it would not go to waste. Turning to leave, the undergrowth exploded from movement on both flanks and darkened figures charged out from the trees.
With sharp reflexes, Belekir sprang back. About to run as a harried hart, one of the figures was too fast, despite its clumsy bulk. Lunging forward in a dive, the creature grasped his foot, causing Belekir to stumble. Quickly recovering, Belekir bolted off. He made it two steps before the second figure on the flanks slammed into him on a full run, driving him back into a tree at the edge of his field. The impact of the shoulder in his stomach knocked the air from his lung explosively, and how hard his head bashed against the tree slammed him into a welcome oblivion.
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