@Michaelvaliant Wild Encounter by RS

• #Flashfiction of the class #suddenfiction < 750 words. This is a #1st draft written in one hour, so have mercy.

This was me living again. Sandals slapping heels on a forest path, the humidity steaming up from the ground as eveningshine approached, a map in hand guiding my way, and a backpack with a tarp weighing on my shoulders. I liked darkness and gloom; my room as a child had been a grey wonder of silence that made reading my books all day a joy. My world had become green in these last few days, and fragrantly pine-scented. Rabbits skittered through the underbrush. Dirt ground into my sweaty skin reassured me. Not having to care felt like paradise.

I saw the doe and fawn first, and they didn't look happy. The mother stared into the distance, then whirled her head to glance at me. I saw her body tense, before she nosed her fawn, seemingly to say, "The wolves, the wolves!"

They bounded off. At a tangent. I'd caught them between...

Needles rustled and I saw light peek through branches.

That direction.

Thaumlight! It had a sparkle to it only someone like me could detect. It wasn't electroluminescent or bioluminescent, or firelight. I mustn't be far enough from the city after all.

I removed my sandals. The leaf litter caressed my feet and proved I'd built up sufficient calluses as I crept forward into the warm dusky world. It wasn't my world, and usually not that of people either. The Wild claimed the wild areas between the cities and the farms as their own, and they didn't like incursions in their unblemished fair demesne. People who passed through respectfully never saw the capital-F Fawn, the Wood-horned. Those that trespassed—

Well, people did disappear. When I'd run away, certainly some people assumed I'd be one of those, but the broadsheets said I'd been kidnapped.

As I padded along, with hushed crinkles and mashing sounds, the shadows and the ghostly forms resolved from glimpses to a tall thin structure with a pointy bark-shingled roof. I saw a cold chimney almost as I scented last night's hearth. My heart beat faster as it all felt wrong. I glanced at the map. I'd paid well for it from a traveler with a rep. I saw no settlement, no indication of a border with the Wild near here.

Closer, the forest veil slid to reveal: Plastered and cracked walls. Wood frame real-glass windows heavily varnished, but dark with age and constant repair. Despite the growing gloom, the three windows glowed with thaumlight.

Homey.

Hospitable?

Someone like me might live there, but in this danger?

Between where I'd stood before and the house, a form moved. A branch cracked. A young man—no, a teenager maybe slightly younger than I.

In the shadows melting into the trees behind him, a glint. It was too far, but I knew those were caramel eyes, looking my way. At first I thought a tree moved, but I saw wood move as she tilted her head. On a deer's, that would be a rack of possibly six points. On her?

Maybe I didn't understand anything about the Wild. Less about one of my kind living amongst them, though intuition said it wasn't bad.

I bowed my head in her gaze and didn't look further. I didn't want to be invited in. I had left the cities of the northeast to disappear, but not in a wild sense. Circumstance had led me to be crowned to lead the syndicate after I'd been responsible for its director's death (not that anyone understood she'd become too stupid to live). The conservative faction would eventually kill me. Those I helped flourish with my advice would die protecting me. I'd done my utmost to calm the conflicts that caused the war, before ghosting the organization.

I wanted to leave no traces of my passage that pursuers might discover. I needed to "disappear" for months on my way to Home City. I didn't need the guilt of more innocent deaths to add to my personal tally.

I dropped my sandals with a measured slap to show I wasn't hiding, and quickly marched away from the welcome light. I liked the gloom, and the humid heat, and was happy to sleep where no one would suffer because I existed.

[Author retains copyright]

#shortfiction #fiction #sff #fantasy #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompt #promptodon #BoostingIsSharing

Could be an #excerpt from my WIP.