Sunday, October 17, 2004

still title-less part I continues

Above the top layer of leaves, Simile began to get her bearings. The mountain was just to the west of her, so it would be easy enough for her to retrace the path they'd taken before. She was looking for a grove of fruit trees they'd passed the previous day. A few crab apples would be a good enough breakfast to get them started today. Once she's worked out the way they'd gone, she zoomed off in search of the trees. She spotted them a few minutes later and headed back down through the foliage.
Below, however, was a bit of a complication. A young girl was standing at the foot of the tree trying to scramble up it. As a rule, Doom pixies were to avoid contact with the big people unless it was necessary. Simile puzzled over this for a while and decided just to wait until she left. Hiding behind a leaf, she watched the young girl struggle with the tree.
She couldn't have been more than eight years old. As with many young children, it was hard to tell if she was human or elfish, but since the elf population was so small in this area, Simile assumed the former. One thing was certain though; she was not attired for tree climbing. She was wearing an ornately patterned green dress with silver trim, identifying her as nobility. This came as a bit of a shock to Simile since, in her understanding the humans who lived nearby had no aristocracy. The only elves in the forest were wood elves, who would never wear such a costume; they detested gold and silver, and found dresses far too restricting. Thus what a girl so attired would be doing in this forest was a bit of a mystery.
She was having quite the time of it, trying to climb the tree in that dress. Eventually, she succeeded in getting to the lowest branch. Standing on it, she reached for one of the few ripe apples on the tree, but it was too far away and she nearly fell. So she struggled up to the next highest branch, but now the apple was out of her grasp. This was taking longer than Simile had expected, and realizing the girl's intentions, she decided to speed things up a bit. She spotted a ripe apple on one of the highest branches and moved towards it. Grabbing it at the stem, she succeeded in yanking it off of the tree. It was heavy, but she could manage it. With the apple, nearly her size, in her arms, she flew to wear she was directly above the girl and dropped it. The girl reached out for the falling apple, lost her balance, and tumbled out of the tree.
She was unconscious when she hit the ground. Simile flew towards her, horrified. She breathed a sigh of relief as she realized the girl was still breathing. She'd probably wake up with nothing more then a nasty headache. Simile certainly hoped so. She felt kind of bad for the girl, but she was a big person, even if she was only a child. She'd be alright. Since there was nothing else she could do, Simile picked her crab apples and headed back towards camp.

2 comments:

Nathaniel Cornstalk said...

I know that seemed pretty pointless, but bear with me here. The story is going somewhere.

Evey said...

bearing with you