Snippet #2358698

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The air here in the Badlands was much drier than anything she was used to. Though she’d been told much of this place, she had never been before, and the words, however true, had not done the barrenness proper justice. ”Journey to the very center of the Badlands, where nothing grows save resentment and heartfire,” he’d told her once, ”and you will find my home.” He’d sounded… sorrowful when he’d said it, though why exactly that was, she’d been too young and insensitive to place at the time.

Now she was a little older and considerably wiser, and she had a feeling that maybe part of his meaning was clear to her. Everything Rikash had ever told her had layers upon layers of meaning, and she’d loved that, the challenge of setting her mind to peeling away at them without destroying them, like coaxing open a tightly-shut blossom. Words were beautiful things, capable of moving hearts and stirring souls, and he’d had a particular kind of way with them that she tried to emulate, though her voice, soprano and lilting as it was, would never carry the solemn, gravelly weight that his had.

She’d heard about the initial event, the spark that had ignited this conflict, what might soon become a war, and the term, heartfire had immediately leapt from memory into the forefront of her mind. It was important; she wondered if he’d known it would be. This was not something she would put past him—his wisdom had seemed to her at times almost infinite, and rarely had she found him stretched beyond the limits of his understanding. When they’d met, she had been in the very earliest bloom of youth, nothing more than a child, and he perhaps come to middle-age. Time had changed her little and he much, and she’d watched with deep disquiet as he grew old and died. It had taught her at the very least that age and wisdom were not one and the same, and she hoped that perhaps something of what he taught her could now be conveyed back to his people… if they would be willing to hear it.

She suspected the Shatterhearts would at least lend her an ear. Rikash had formally adopted her; she bore the mark of the warrior’s blood-bond, and any vyldkin would know what the scar signified: she was daughter to one of theirs, whatever skin she wore. How much weight they would give it would be the sticking point. His clan was small, but well-respected. The environment in which they lived was the most marginal, unyielding part of the Badlands, and it had toughened their small numbers to something of an elite force; he had told her that there was not one among his own clan who was not a fierce hunter. But they were also wise and discerning, as they needed to be to survive. The other clans… he had told her that if ever she met them, she must not count them too quickly among her friends. Berry had frowned at that notion—slow to decide in many matters, she was quite the opposite when it came to finding friends. It would be a difficult thing to remember.

Sighing, she paused at the crest of a small rise and peered out over the landscape. Nothing yet; she had not run into any wandering clan, and the Badlands were vast to the reckoning of one with short legs and no horse, but she was hardy, and she’d endure as long as she had to. Picking up a moderate lope (something else he’d taught her), she ate the ground at a decent pace, following a road mapped only by instinct and vague notions of cardinality.

It wasn’t long before she did spot someone, but she couldn’t help but think that, even from this distance, there was something wrong about the shape. Certainly, whomever it was could be considered tall (though to her, everyone was tall), but… they didn’t look broad enough. Either that was the skinniest vyldkin there ever was, or else no vyldkin at all. Pressing her lips together, Berry picked up her pace, kicking up little dust clouds with her passage. The grass was nearly as tall as she was, and she could only barely see over the top of it to gauge her position relative to this other person. Of course, she would have been able to follow the slightly-parted grass, but tracking by eye was much easier.

After about ten minutes of this, she at last drew up alongside the person, surprised to note the pointed ears and fine-boned facial structure of an elf. What was an elf doing all the way out here? Then again, it was probably no more curious than her own presence.

“’Ello, stranger,” she greeted amicably. “I’ve got t’ say, I wasn’ quite expecting t’ run int’ anyone what wasn’ vyldkin, out ‘ere.” The statement carried the implications of a vague question, but it was no accusation by any measure.