[Althy Day] Perspectives

[Garron]

"Ick... the smell of this place", said Berm with disdain when pulling his boot up from the deep mud, almost falling over from the suction. "It smells like wet death"

"Rather be at your mothers chest, Berm? Balls yet to drop? Come, we need to find what we were sent to investigate," snickered Jurice, mouth pulling into a smile, poking at the uneven swamp path with the end of his nickeled sword.

"Mothers chest would be warmer, and I wouldn't have to deal with those pesky wood things."

"I always knew you were a pansy tit baby. Year 22 and you act though your ass is still chalky. Why join the Rangers if you're still in linen wraps around your crotch?" Jurice laughed, his barrel of a belly jiggling wildly under lichen hued boiled leather and green tunic, deeply greykissed long beard dancing with his belly. His large bald head shone in the moonlight, and his faded black breeches were rolled to knee to ward off wet and mud.

Berm shrugged off the jab, pushing away from his path a dew drenched, low hanging finger of a vine hanging carelessly from a grand cypress. Curling remnants still brushing a pull to curly blazon orange mop. "You know, it's said those wood creatures pull out your eyes and drink them down like raw eggs with bog water, then fillet off your skin while your still alive. Strange things are happening in Corone of late."

The unease in Berm's voice pulled at Garron’s arm, sliding his palm over the hilt of iron sword in his loose fitted black belt for some shred of comfort in it's wet, sweat stained handwrap. Garron was on his first bog sweep and bickering of legend excited the boy of year 15. He wasn't even sure what their small group was looking for, but he could feel a dismal static to the wet, chill air hovering over slightly warmer wetland. White fog lingered over the moist stink. An enhancing ghostly blanket handed down by the three quarter moon through lazy tall cypress, trunks nearly as thick as Garron was tall, adding a eerie sheen off egg shell white bark. They looked as if he were among large bone sentinels waiting to take him to otherworld at a wrong glance. Garron strained to keep his greenish blue eyes down and forward, hidden under the oversized hooded brown cloak of his mother’s Order. Crisp greens as new as he too was in his mother’s world. She was never one to hide her feelings, and her strongest lately was chiding him to join the Rangers, but he always heatedly refused for want of his own adventures. Garron figured he’d quell her bickering a bit by joining in on this mission to see how he’d like it.

Jurice snorted, then shot his dull blue eyes back to spear Berm, voice booming in the tree caves surrounding the three. "You're going to scare the young lad! I'll be sure to first feed your tender ass to those wood creatures, if indeed they even exist", tip of dull, nickle edged iron sword pointed at Berm, drinking in the moonlight, leaving the sword to look worse off than it's lackluster smithing and upkeep permitted. "They'll enjoy your sweet young blood better, I reckon."

Berm's visage melted showing he younger than his years carried. His powerless brown eyes welling up, curling into a boyish hunch while walking over rotten fallen branches and a thousand years of marsh. Cold and shivering in woolen green cloak pulled tight around neck. It was true, he was a momma's boy still wet behind the ears even at year 22. His strong father hated her for coddling him, and found the lad worthless, seeing as he couldn't even use a wetstone properly, let alone a sword. Great disappointment, his father always used to say to his armory master. Berm’s place was in a kitchen, he knew, not sweating in steel, but sweating in front of iron and stone. Breads, not bows. Stews, not swords. Cooking in the safety of castle walls, not sweeping through nasty, death riddled swamp vapors.

"Keep your eyes lit, boys," said Jurice in almost a feathered whisper land-marking his grey and many years, holding a hand back stiffly to halt the other two. "Get down, now."

It didn't take long for the two to follow the order, ducking behind a wide white licked fallen cypress. Garron flicked his eyes to the dimpled track stamped in the dark mud by boots, and gasped when seeing them fill in one by one towards their one sided shelter, trembling deeply from a cold chill. Garron slapped Berm against the shoulder too tense to speak, and pointed out the best he could for the other to witness. Berm gasped, but it wasn't the mud to steal his attention. Streams of dark, short tilling shadows darted from tree to tree, shrill creaking sounding as wet and cold as the mud cradling them, seemingly getting deeper with each breath. Boots to ankle. Ankle to shin. The dark mud was starting to bubble, slightly making the muck come alive around their perimeter in a seemingly controlled manner.

"Keep it down, boys. I'm going to sweep around that clearing. Easy breathing, and keep your iron at hand. Things 'bout to get interesting and keep from soiling yourselves. We are a fortnight out, and your stink shouldn't be from your own ass's," Jurice warned, yet teased, slipping away from Berm and Garron. The man of gray year 60, 30 years in the Rangers and veteran of many swamp sweeps, vanished into the white stew hovering, weeping.

The rank swamp muck began to bubble at a slightly heightened state, and rise. Berm twisted with heavy unease, shooting to his vertical length to keep his knees above the bubbling muck, slipping into his adolescent mind and remembering the stories his uncle used to tell of legend at blanket. Getting lost into the ignorance of his mind, Berm climbed up to the top of the fallen cypress their backs were holding, and snatched iron from belt. The dagger was heavy in his shaking hands, with his inexperience blazen in stance. Hunched and lankfooted, Berm challenged the air with tear filled fright.

Heavy snapping riddled the air with thunderous licks, and Garron sank to a crouch and withdrew his iron in the rising, icy bubbling mud. He circled around to the left flank of his Ranger mate above, back behind tattered wood and browned vine that once dominated, wishing he was back in the warm embrace of a campfire between each deep breath. Garron managed to whisper racked words of distress before a wicked snap drew his lungs full of smothering mud momentarily, loosing his sword in the muck. Just as quickly, a vined object came drudging from between tree and rock, slicing a double wave in it's speedy wake through the swampland. Then another emerged. Then another. Five suddenly appeared, looking like corralling sharks sweeping crossway and in and out of the monstrous cypress watching from above through knot sided eyes. A hideous splash from behind the boys near threw Berm back off of his perch, struggling to hold his terrified, noodled legs under him in the tsunami of mud and force. Suddenly it was before them, orange orbs of glowing disdain dancing wildly from no visible eye sockets, with the waves of murderous vines slicing from behind with no order or action. It just stared at them, lifting it's pike shaped branched left limb to hover midst Berms right flank. The towering root twisted beast creaked to it's vertical total, flanking it's shifting orange eyes down upon Berm, a good three heads below, even standing on thick cypress trunk.

Words were caught in Berm's throat, almost choking him with each shallow breath. The twisted wooden arm flung forth, sweeping heavily for Berm's temple. His heavy right arm pierced upward instinctual, barely parrying the sweeping, twisted limb with the tip of his iron, just enough to protect his temple, but loosing a patch of orange hair with. Berm teetered back, sliding to his left foot. "The damn wood is sharp! How the hell is wood sharp?! And why small patches of gray hair?!!" Both young lads couldn't comprehend just what was happening, nor did they know how to defeat this terrifying foe. Even it's wood-like armor shifted, twisting roots tightening and loosening with each movement. Green to brown. Dull yellow to black.

Twisted limb came crashing back towards Berm just as quickly as he could take a breath, ducking just beneath it's flashing path. Jabs to his left, to his right, to his head and groin. The linking attacks came flurried and Berm just barely escaped full on direct contact with razor edged quickness, but he did not completely escape injury. Deep lacerations to nicked flesh, pluming a deep crimson to tunic, drowning out any link to life Berm grasped dearly while the moments slithered slowly on. He stumbled to block and toss attack, but his iron dagger just sang off of the seemingly metallic wooden fury with each blow. Clearly agitated with the human, a snaking whip snatched from beneath the watery muck. Arching high above the creature, it's connected vine-like tail pulled it's heavy anchor high to Berms left side, flinging the muck covered Garron from within it's ending tine that was buried into Garron’s side before release, to batter towards Berm's left, knocking him and Garron to the muck with a splash. The creature’s right branched arm sent lithe, long uneven fingers to pummel, combing harshly to Berm’s right side. The weakened Garron summoned a small burst of energy and slammed into his side with tremendous blinding force in the muck, rolling Berm in a wake of mud like he was a ragdoll, forcing him away from another direct attack before he himself settled on his knees in the swampbed.

“This was not how things were supposed to go,” thought Garron. Through his eyes, the world was erupting with fun adventures just waiting to be discovered, but what was happening here was a little crazy for his teenage mind to comprehend at the time. Garron usually loved the fight, but he wasn’t loving this go round. He felt like this was going to disappoint his mother, as he too was in himself. He was a prideful teenager and failure always ate at him like a carnivore to flesh. He was not happy with his performance here. Garron was propped on knees motionless and gushing blood, although his pain came from failing in the eyes of himself and others. It was a different story for Berm, however. He seen things from a far different perspective… He always failed. His father always told him so, so confidence was depleted to nothing for the young man. He always did try to make his father proud. He even joined the Rangers as a reaching move to make his father respect him. Though, he figured for a few minutes at least, he was going to be brave and just maybe make his father proud for the first time. Even if he didn’t make it out of this, Berm’s trembling lips curled into a slight smile while his head bobbled in the muck, thinking on how he finally found courage after a life of cowering before the creature’s movement cast an eerie shadow once more.

Within Berms enlightened stupor, the creature’s gnarled lithe arm shot out with hateful force, driving uneven fingers to bury deep within the warm, tender flesh just below his jawline before he could move. His body drew up stiff instantly. Slight pumping lumps took to it's lengthy twisted limb, sinking wooden fingers deeper still, filling veins with a sweet smelling amber hued like sap. Tiny sprouts dimpled from Berm's cooling, hardening flesh shortly after, adorned with tiny leaflets tangling in the cool breeze as his life drifted in and out of the wakened world, eyes beginning to spark a tiny orange glow… Garron fell to his side, his intense wide-eyed expression at what was unfolding before him quickly flickered out into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness from loss of blood.