Still getting used to this, but I guess I’ll start by posting some of my short stories. I’d post the main one, but it’s too long.
Kirk swamp is a really dark place, with tall mangroves that form a thick canopy overhead. In fact, it’s so thick that even during the day you’d be hard pressed to find the glare from the sun. Giant salamanders the size of human children drudge through the calf deep murk. Their size is unfortunate for the lost traveler because they’re the least deadly thing here. Even the trees have been known to suck the life out of you when the water level drops. In every way this place is inhospitable to foreign life, but even so I call it home.
In the morning I descend down from the tree cavity I live in, with a rope made of entwined vines. Had to de-thorn those things, they’ll make your eyes bleed. Then after sliding down twenty feet, or so, I stop by the home of one of my only friends, Burkle. He’s a canopy rat, his bite will make you delirious for about a day. I found him a few years back with a broken leg. I fed him till it healed, and he just followed me since. Unlike the other ones I’ve met, he doesn’t squeak about loudly. No, he’s really quite. I ask him how he slept, he just silently stares, like he’s saying, “The same as always.”
I climb down the rest of the way, and pat the tree, thanking it for not eating me. Such a nice tree. Once a swore I saw the leaves shake when I hugged it after a bad day. Stretching in preparation to go get some grub, the swamp birds began the great squawk. I learned the sun makes them flee into the lower canopy around this time when I climbed an unusually tall tree awhile back. The noise wakes up the salamanders, who begin the “laborious” task of scavenging for algae and carrion. I follow them sometimes to see where they go. Got my clothes from some corpse they lead me to. They use to be cautious of me, but they don’t mind anymore.
Food can be scarce. If I tried to eat one of the animals here they’d take more notice of me, so I can’t. Some travelers I overheard said that the salamanders taste like lamp oil, and vinegar though. So I usually look for edible plants. The best one is this moss with little golden flowers! It tastes great! I always spread the seeds for the plant, and eat only a portion. Have to treat the swamp properly, or you’ll have beetles in your spine. Bark bugs to be exact, they eat drifters that sleep against the trees.
Even with all the danger I still love my home. However… I would love to see more of the world. I want to meet many people! To travel free, such a lovely thought.
Caught up in my thoughts I frolicked, and strutted about for some time. Happening about I came across another friend, Scratch. Oh, mister Scratch! I have some food for you! Scratch is a Rough Wood Deer. He has antlers that make him look like a tree, and I only stand up to half his calf. I call him Scratch because he has weird scars on his sides. I pulled out some grass from my pocket. Here! He lowered his head down to look at me, turning it to its side to get a better look at me. I picked it off a swamp turtle when I cleaned its back! Go on, it tastes good! Scratch grabbed it with his prehensile tongue, then lifted his head back up. Always standing here like a statue.
What are you looking at so far away? Sigh, guess you couldn’t tell me even if you wanted to, huh. Oh well. See you later Scratch! Time to head back home, I’ve gone too deep into the swamp again.
By the time I had arrived, it was dark out. At night the trees contract their foliage, allowing the moonlight to reflect down into the swamp. Burn Beetles fly out of their holes, joyfully lighting the night with their almost glowing, palm sized bodies. They get the glow, and their name, from their acid blood. The occasional whack from a passerby’s metal stick, will show how fun that is.
Ah, there’s a new mark on Mr.Tree here. Feels shallow. Thinking nothing of it I climbed to my abode. I slept well that night. When I woke up, I stretched my arms free. Turning to my doorway I saw a child around my age standing there.
“What the hell are you doing in my house?”
“So? That doesn’t sound like my problem.”
“Why are you being a yak’s ass? You were being so nice to all those animals yesterday, that I thought you might help…”
Around this time I got tired of the strange boy. Standing up, I walked toward him, and placed my hand on his chest. The brat was all flustered, saying something like why’s a girl living in a swamp? I looked him in the eyes, and said, “I don’t like people. Get out of my house.” I pushed him out the door. I’m sure he’ll be fine, had a metal stick on his side. People with those are a bit harder to kill than that. Since he clearly was following me yesterday I decided to just stay inside today.
For some time, I can’t remember how long, he climbed back up to my room every morning. I would always treat him so badly. However he always came back, then one day he didn’t come to greet me like always. It’s funny, I was so worried that day.
Where could the fly be today. He’s usually here by now. Whatever, it’s not like I care… maybe I’ll just look for him for a bit.
I climbed down the tree wandering about the swamp without direction.
“I’m completely unguarded!”
“Oh… I guess he’s gone now. It’s fine… yeah. I’ll just go visit Burkle’s house. Haven’t done that in a while.”
Even though Burkle comes to visit all the time, he doesn’t live that close. He goes through the canopy so he can get to my house pretty fast, but I have to go through this muck to get over to his. So I don’t go too often.
Burkle lives in one of those metal chests the foreigners wear. It’s covered in moss with a single yellow flower growing on top. The stem is so small it’s hard to see, and I’ve never seen it out of bloom. It probably wilts when I’m not around, there’s no way a flower can live so long.
“Ugh, the muck around your house is so much thicker! Hi Burkle! You home? Burkle~! Hmm, doesn’t seem to be around, and it took me so long to get here too!”
When I turned around I saw something I would never forget for the rest of my life. Scratch was standing there covered in wounds. His horns were broken up, and he looked straight at me. It felt so much longer than I could ever say. My friend injured without me even knowing, It hurt so much.
He rushed toward me, and reared me onto his back, and began running. I was so panicked, it felt like my heart was held back like a bowstring.
“Scratch what happened to you!? Why… why are you so hurt!? Where… what hap… happened to… to your horns”
Sobbing so loudly it echoed in the silent swamp, I hugged the back of his neck. He stopped, and nudged me slightly. His gaze at several dead people in the water being eaten by salamanders. His once mighty horns scattered as fragments in the water.
Against a tree on the far side of view was him, the boy who failed to greet me. His left arm was gone, and the metal stick usually at his side rested in the back of the corpse closest to him.
“So he was your friend, huh… It’s good he found you. You can bandage him...”
The boy became silent just like that. At first I thought he hurt Scratch, but I changed my mind when scratch kept tapping him with his hoof looking at me with a face he’s never shown. I bandaged him with plants around the area to stop the bleeding, then we took him, and his metal stick back home.
The second we got back, I sent Burkle who was nearby to get some herbs. I took an extra vine from the trunk of Mr. Tree to replace the the current bandages. We worked through the night.
As the sun rose on the most stressful night of my life so far. The boy who I had treated all night looked up at me.
“Good morning, my name’s ---- what’s yours?
All my emotions, stress, and grief came out at once as I began sobbing above him.
“Sh… shut up. No one asked.”
“Ah~, so cold. Haha… agck! You could be nicer. What’s your name?”
We sat together for the rest of the day talking about trivial things. He comes from a nomad tribe. When he got separated from them he didn’t know where to go. Remembering the words of a local he entered Kirk Swamp looking for “The swamp witch” hoping she’d let him stay with her. Such a stupid idea.
“I had some jerky, but I ran out a few days ago. On my first day here I saw a man eat a flower, and his nose exploded. Really doesn’t make you eager to eat things around here when that’s your first impression.”
“Why didn’t you ask me for food?”
“When you kept tossing me out?”
“So… are you really The Witch of Kirk Swamp? You’re a lot nicer than they made you out to be.”
“They were probably talking about my mother…”
“Oh? Where’s she? I haven’t seen her.”
“It was a few years ago, she died fighting off a stone man.”
“Is that what they’re called? I didn’t know.”
From that day on we lived together. Those were the happiest times of my life. If only time could’ve just stopped then.
Year 1017, Month 2 of the New Calendar, day 16. 1 year until the invasion of Kirk Swamp.
blakekathryn
yousharknotpass
izzy806