[Flashback] The Plain Sleeps Too.

[Aolther]

Fall AV 499

The orange dawn was still very much sleeping and the dew of the tall grass cool and wet when Grenland roused his younger brother Aolther, stiff and swimming in the depths of night. A kick removed blanket and opened eye to a quiet and dark world. Removed from the sanctuary of bed the pavilion was still and chilly. “I have lost them” Grenlad said hushed and shaken. “And I was only gone but a short while!” Groggy Aolther wiped the sleep from his eyes only half listening to his elder brother “All of them? "

"Well not all, three, the young female and two yearlings, father…” Aolther knew tonight was his brother’s watch over the grazing herd and being a budding youth was prone to stealing off to warm himself with Erma, a neighboring redheaded girl. The loss of a young child bearing female Zibri would certainly spurn father’s wrath.. Silent, Aolther wrapped his green cloak about his small shoulders, pulled up his breeches and laced up his dusty leather boots. The hearth fire was low, starved and dying. Aolther groaned knowing no rest would be had tonight.

Outside the pavilion the moon was waxing and shed a pale light upon the rolling plains like a giant luminescent candle. The winter months were fast approaching, the hours of light would slowly recede like the bales of wheat as the cold dark idle hours grew. The ground was hard and the grass glowing with crystals. Long before the Zibri’s udders offered milk in their routine early morning ritual, and the cracked hands of women kneaded and worked the flour for the breakfast cakes, the boys mounted their striders and crept off into the night.

[Aolther]

The going was slow for the moon god offered little. Aolther and Grenlad kept their striders to a trot anxiously looking but mostly listening for any sign of their lost Zibris. The boys had been out an hour, riding easterly to where grass was not yet fully grazed. A thin hope remained of finding the yearlings and mother lazily feeding. Hunching over Aolther buried his face into his horses crest. The mane ticked his nose. He relished the soft hair brushing against his skin and the strong fragrance of animal and sweat. Strider and rider moved as one, their bodies breathing and warm against the night chill. To the young Aolther nothing was more pure.

Grenlad walked along the bank of the small pool inspecting the fauna and soil. “They were not here” he said and cursed his face tight. It was not uncommon for the herds of zibri which accompanied the nomadic pavilions to wander. Unfortunately it was also more common to find the carcass remains of a lost zibri. It was luck for a wanderer to make it home alive, glassbeaks were known in this country. Losses this season alone numbered three females and one male, the females always being the most grievous

Over the long gently sloping plain the boys rode and squinted into the colorless night veil. All was shapeless save the dancing tall grass which whistled from side to side. They backtracked and searched northward. Up to high land and alongside the small wood patch. Hope was lost when Aolther and Grenlad reached the boulder cluster known as the rump. The rump as it was aptly named was a large and round ancient rock mound. Smooth and easy to climb the rock gently rose in a gradual slope from the earth, having being beaten by untold years of wind. Once atop the mound Aolther had seen a hawk dart down and swiftly kill a jackrabbit. Nothing had been more raw and fierce and beautiful. But that was in summer and the thought of roasted rabbit reminded the boy that he was hungry.

The dark of night was beginning to ebb as color crawled into the world although slow. The yellows and whites and purples of wildflowers were painted dull upon the canvas plain, in a few hours they would be bright and alive, if only for a few more weeks before they became brown and dead. Just as dead as the boys hopes for finding their lost zibri. Trotting past the growing green ridge the outline of the far off hills were rising and the lower valley both filled with lines and distinction. An uneasy anxiety settled on the boys. Looks grim and defeated they began to turn their horse’s home. While the new day would come and the sun rise, but a dark cloud would hover over the boys once their father had made the discovery.

Some mischief is created from boredom or spite, the mischief to come was born of desperation. “Grenlad, Old Yullen’s pavilion is not three miles from here you know” noted Aolther. “Just past the barrow, he has a small flock”. Yullen or 'Old' Yullen as he was called was a wizened and ancient man who lived with his only surviving daughter who was aged herself and her own two daughters. The small family usually traveled on the outskirts of the larger pavilion families either out of embarrassment or love of solitude. laying his heels into his strider Aolther raced off leading his elder brother, down into the valley where Old Yullen would lay snoring. The grimness of Aolther’s face was washed away with a curling smirk from his cleverness.

[Aolther]

......As told by Grenlad

We tethered the horses behind a hill and stole across the yard like bandit foxes. The late night was purple and the grasses whispered ancient secrets of the plains. Stooping low we snuck down the field, not that stooping was necessary but only the truly wicked can thieve with a straight back. Old Yullen’s small pavilion slept. The once bright lemon canvas of the tent was a stained piss yellow. The pavilion slumped to one side as the molded wood decayed. I had heard it said Yullen was the last of his peers to break a horse, the last to take a wife and of them the tardiest to die. The old man had lived over ninety name days and each was celebrated with a glass of honey ale. Yullen had seen so many, time having murdered memory, he had forgotten what the ritual ale was for. Sun browned and brittle like old straw it was also said that he could speak the language of the grasses since he was nearly in the earth himself.

The youngest of Yullens daughters was lame of mind and still lived with her father. She had two homely daughters her husband buried on the plain. Aolther tapped me on the shoulder and pointed off into the grey purple gloom to silhouettes “There”. With every step the smell of soiled fur and dung grew stronger. A dozen or so zibri stood in the dim light, big eyed and stupid. Their large mouths moving lazily side to side stuffed with grass and their coats thick matted and stinking. Bells hung around their necks softly singing as the beasts swayed. I told Aolther to ready the rope and drew my knife to cut the alarms.