Strahliana chapter 1: Trigger
Ahleri had always figured she was pretty content with her lot in life. Sure, farm work was tough, and the textile stuff could get a bit tedious, but all in all it felt quite good to do an honest days work.
Plus woollaby joeys were pretty adorable, so that was a major bonus.
So at 19 years old she had come to accept that this was probably how her life would pan out; That she'd keep helping dad with the animals, mum with the cooking, assist with caring for her younger brother (who was sickly and needed quite a bit of help), as well as weaving and embroidery work with the other village women.
And then, of course, at some point, meet a boy, get married, have kids, and continue farming.
Overall not an easy life- farming never was- but a good steady one. Bakkaberk was a place filled with good steady people, and quite a happy and close knit community.
If you'd told Ahleri that she'd soon be leaving this nice little community and just how and why, she'd have laughed and said you were a bloody great yarn spinner, and that you'd draw a real crowd down at the local pub with your tall tales.
As it was, the day everything changed Ahleri had gone stomping off into the eucalypt forest behind the top paddock to look for a missing woollaby. Trigger was a sod of an animal, one of their prized jumbucks, but he had a nasty habit of escaping and going walkabout by himself. She was forever having to go round him up with Ourem, her favourite of the station's resident okari herding togs. She often had to half drag Trigger all the way back, and he definitely wasn't very cooperative about it.
"Ourem," she grumbled to the massive shaggy dog-like creature beside her, "when we catch that mongrel, I'm gonna wring his silly neck and have mum make us a big ol' feed of Trigger pie. I'm sick of that pain in the butt jumping the fence every second day and forcing me to come out here and drag him back, I've got better things to do!"
Ourem just sighed in his usual tired and irritated manner and kept on walking. He had Nimble, Ahleri's obnoxious pet sumic possum, riding on his head behind his bony head plate. The scruffy golden menace was currently chittering loudly and excitedly rather too close to Ourem's upright ears for his liking. The tog was a very patient animal in most regards, but the little possum really pushed him to his limits on the daily. Neither creature was paying much attention to Ahleri's empty threats (she'd hand raised Trigger the woollaby from a joey, it was her own fault he was such a menace to begin with).
As the three of them kept moving through the dense gum forest, they kept a lookout for any sign of Trigger, or for any threats. Strahn devils weren't uncommon in the area, and they would jump at the chance to chew up a lone woollaby. Though, catching one would maybe be a challenge, as the chunky big jawed creatures were more fond of eating things that were already dead rather than having to catch them.
Thankfully there hadn't been any thyrinna (wild relatives of togs) or bewaries sighted nearby for a long time, but it was always possible they might have moved back in. The giant bewary birds tended to keep clear of humans, since they were usually killed or driven off when seen. It was common knowledge they could eat an entire mob of animals in an hour, and that made them very unpopular with farmers.
Ahleri was less concerned about any of those native creatures than she was of encountering a blighter. Blighters were animals and sometimes plants (and very rarely, people. Ahleri didn't like to think about that) that were infected by the Blight, a horrifying force that... changed them. Made them into nightmares. She'd never actually encountered one, but she'd heard plenty of stories and didn't want to find out for herself.
Much to the trio's relief, there were no signs of any threat. Unfortunately, there was also no sign of Trigger. Usually he didn't wander too far, and he had a few favourite spots he often turned up in, but there were no fresh signs of him in any of them. Ahleri was beginning to get genuinely worried. What if he really had been taken by a thryinna pack, or a bewary?
She tried to push her growing anxiety aside as they kept moving deeper into the forest. There were fewer tracks here, and the ferns and underbrush grew thick. She had to watch her step as there were quite a lot of mowbat holes, tree roots and branches around. The trees themselves were quite enormous; great towering smooth-barked pillars that dwarfed Ahleri and made her feel small for once. She usually felt a bit awkwardly large, standing almost a foot taller than the other girls in the village, though despite being teased about it often she was also rather proud of her height. Having extra reach definitely helped with a number of chores, though it did make shearing a bit harder. Her back was always sore after she helped her dad with that particular job.
At this point she still hadn't managed to find hide nor wool of Trigger, and was on the brink of turning back, when she caught a glimpse of something white up ahead in the bushes. She moved forward cautiously and pushed some leaves aside, only to stumble back in shock when a white bird took flight straight past her face, so close she could feel its wing tips brush her cheek.
After she recovered from that little fright, she noticed something shiny buried under the smaller plants and half covered in dirt and leaf litter. Curious, she bent down to pull it out, and was surprised to find a beautiful ornate pair of bracelets that seemed to be welded together.
"What is this? Why would someone make such delicate gold filigree and then stick them together like that? They almost look like shackles for the world's fanciest convict!"
She laughed and held them out to Ourem to inspect, who simply gave one sniff and then looked disinterested. Nimble on the other hand snatched them off Ahleri and attempted a taste test. Discovering them to be inedible, he made a disappointed noise and promptly threw them in disgust, which made Ahleri laugh again.
"Not a gold fan ey Schnimby? I thought you'd like it, being golden yourself?"
She bent down and retrieved the bracelets from the forest floor, brushing off the dirt.
"They really are quite beautifully made, though I've never seen a pattern like this. Looks almost like connected tree roots or something, but more straight? I wonder where they came from, and how on Lhoam they ended up out here."
As she had a closer look at them, she was suddenly overcome by the urge to put them on her wrists. The desire came on so forcefully that she found herself obeying before she could even question it.
The gold glistened against her tanned skin.
Then began to sink into it.
