6th Cylus, 717
Arlo had outdone himself that night, preparing a meal to feed the three of them that camped outside the walls of Desnind. He'd spent more effort than usual as a way of earning his keep, on gathering the ingredients he wanted by bartering away a little of the venison that he and Vega had brought back from a previous hunting trip. He'd managed to catch a couple of large trout in a crude, submerged trap that he'd made. He'd cleaned them, filleted them both and stuffed them with peppers, mushrooms, wild onions and garlic. Then he'd made a pepper sauce to drizzle over the top. It was spicy food. Maybe a little spicier than intended. But they all would have agreed, he was sure, that the meal was delicious.
After they'd eaten, the young man had decided to tell them a story. Not because anyone had asked him to or even wanted him to. But because just a trial earlier he'd told Vega a story from his childhood, about a fabled beast and a dusty hayloft. And because she'd seemed, to him, to not take it seriously, he decided she ought to hear the real story as passed down from his step-father, and his father before him. The Legend of the Dreaded Skeeterwampulus, that's what he called it.
It was a long, dark and twisted tale that he told with the appropriate theatrics attached, set to rhyme with a strangely familiar flow and rhythm. Now maybe she was impressed or maybe she wasn't. And maybe she'd fall to sleep before it was over, or breaks after it was finished and forgotten and then slipped into peaceful dreams of her own. But some people said that spicy food causes nightmares. And there might be some truth to it. But it might also be that sometimes, it wasn't inexperienced dreamwalkers that stumbled into a dreamer's dream, but them that stumbled into his.
It wasn't the end and it wasn't the beginning. But instead the verses that ran through the slumbering dreamwalker's subconscious that night, were somewhere in between.
Moon and star shone bright that night,
This fearsome beastie took his flight;
Before mine eyes, 'cross fields of gold,
A sight to make men's blood run cold.
Through stalks of waving wheat he lumbered,
Whilst each farmhouse gently slumbered.
No silence broke to mark his passing;
Save my heart, it's frightful beating.
The moon and starlight were shining bright that night on a field of ripe wheat that stretched for miles around dark and slumbering farmsteads. Most anybody with any sense, or work to do the next trial had been abed for breaks now. But through the tall wheat that grew gold and silver in the moonlight ran a young boy wearing a vaguely familiar hat. He appeared to be about seven arcs old or so, and wore overalls that were too baggy and too short, as if they'd been intended for someone else rounder and shorter than him.
No shirt, no shoes, just those overalls and his hat, and a long stick his hand that he held like a lance or spear. His hair was dark and curly and his eyes dark brown. And whether he was running away from something or after it was impossible to tell. He was just running, looking behind him at times, sometimes above him and sometimes ahead. But for all his running, he looked more determined than he did afraid. Or maybe he was a little afraid after all, but he wasn't about to let on. "I know you're out there!" he shouted as he slowed to catch his breath. "Show yourself!"
