Umbra Copse I Won’t do That

for @Marian

Vasco had felt a brief spell of relief after his talk with the young man among the red ferns, but now his despair was back with a vengeance. The mountain still towered on his right, blocking any travel to the east, and as he continued going south, the forest only seemed to grow denser, and more abandoned. He’d seen no more traces of wolves, not even remains from a scavenged kill by any loners passing through. Vasco truly felt alone!   The young man had only spent a short bit of his life on his own, and it honestly wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. In the Estuary, he’d been ranked among the lowest wolves, but he’d never minded, simply happy to have the company of Valle family; And my Sita! Oh how his heart ached for his one true love – and other parts too, though those were pushed to the background by his general worry. He still didn’t know what had happened, to himself or the rest of the family, though he figured it was all connected; which, he hoped, also meant they might be here somewhere too. Yet he had walked and walked, for days upon days, and found nothing, no sign, no word. What if I’m wrong? He thought, not at all for the first time. But then, he had no other options than continue his search.   With every day that passed, he felt a growing pressure to change direction. As he moved from the uncanny forest of red ferns, into the chillingly ethereal woods filled with blue fog and further into deep, shadowed growth, it seemed more and more clear that there was nothing here but trees, and he longed to go west, hoping that, if nothing else, he could reach the sea and find his way back to Drowned River. But the mountain bared his way. Vasco might have grown up in the foothills of very similar mountains, but he had never attempted to climb that high, and certainly not during the spring melt and on his own. His continued trek south was mainly in the hope of finding a pass, though by now, it seemed unlikely that it would happen before the woods grew to dense to traverse as well. Word Count: 377 Thoughts ”Speech”

Lakela @DA

(This post was last modified: Mar 21, 2021, 03:16 PM by Vasco.)