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Too Many Turtles
Alright. Well. Perhaps the Scalvorians weren’t completely out of their mind when they said there were bizarre things on Scalvoris.
At the very least, Jinyel now knew that this particular river, whatever its name, homed a truly staggering concentration of turtles. Big turtles. Small turtles. Tortoises which nestled like boulders upon the shore. A turtle which seemed made entirely of gemstones, which Jinyel glimpsed at a ten-yard distance so he knew it wasn’t a trick of the light. Turtles which flew? And turtles that seemed to be made of moss and sticks, though those ones were difficult to spot. And some of them were truly tiny, barely bigger than his thumb. Hatchlings? Did such a creature even lay eggs?
It was a survivor’s paradise. Or it would have been, if the greatest prizes weren’t so docile. The fattest, meatiest tortoises needed no hunting at all; Jinyel spotted one late in the morning, did a bit of stalking, and realized the tortoise didn’t need any stalking. He could simply walk right up to it, and the thing didn’t so much as look up from its grazing.
The tortoise was enormous, nearly seven feet long and half as wide. If Jinyel killed the animal and emptied the shell, it might be possible to physically curl up inside.
Heavy emphasis on the if.
The tortoise looked up as he approached, and a part of Jinyel wanted the thing to snap. At the very least, it could have done him the courtesy of running away. That was what proper prey animals did, when faced with a hunter and a wolf at his heel.
But there was no fight or flight. The tortoise simply gave a slow blink, watched him for several moments, and then went back to eating.
Jinyel drew his letter opener. No fear from the tortoise. He raised his iron poker as best as his injury would allow, poised to strike, and the tortoise looked up again. Blinked at the poker. Blinked at Jinyel. Blinked at Monya.
And went back to eating.
Fight me, Jinyel signed half-heartedly, as if the thing could understand him.
Monya understood. She chewed his hand, which was his own fault, really.
No. Jinyel directed her away from the riverbank, where a tall stand of raspberry brambles had telltale tunnels through the thicket. Rabbit tunnels. More reasonable prey than a tortoise who would let a man walk up and kill it.
Unable to raise a bow even if he had one, Jinyel turned Monya into his weapon. By his command, she waited on one side of the raspberries while he circled around the back. When he drove his iron poker into the brambles, several rabbits darted away from him ― and toward the wolf’s waiting jaws.
One squeak, one kill. Several ripe raspberries dislodged from the brambles. He ate a few, but they couldn’t afford to linger here overlong. They had to find Egilrun, which was said to lie at the end of a river. This river, Jinyel hoped, but he was losing faith each passing break.
Monya hadn’t eaten any of the rabbit by the time he returned to her. That was fine. She knew he would cook it, and she liked cooked rabbit much better than raw. Perhaps she was a bit spoiled, but it served Jinyel well as they moved on. He skinned and disemboweled the animal, and Monya licked his fingers to let him know that she was hungry, and that he ought to cook that thing soon.
They repeated the process a break later, at another thicket woven with rabbitways. Monya on one side, Jinyel on the other, and they had a second rabbit skinned by midday. They followed the river, and it seemed every bend of water had more of those enormous tortoises grazing along the shore. Time and again Jinyel walked up to one, waiting for it to behave like a normal prey animal, and time and again he had to walk away.
He couldn’t kill an animal that just sat there and looked at him.
Late afternoon was when Jinyel made camp. Even a half-day’s travel left his back pulsing. Although there were numbing drugs in the poultice across his skinless shoulders, there was only so much walking to be done before he needed ether to Energize: Nullify Pain. And because he was more or less lost in these woods, he didn’t want to spend ether unless absolutely necessary.
So, he used what little energy he still had to gather firewood, and to pitch camp against the swell of an enormous, bizarre boulder. The boulder rose fifteen feet out of the ground, as close to a perfect half-sphere as one could expect from a wild rock, and blocked wind from the north. Jinyel gathered wood beside it ― easy to find in these Vhalar-brittle woods ― and then left it to his other companion: Littlespark.
The fire anak had become comfortable in the stolen censer, usually carried at Jinyel’s belt. A constant, easy diet of twigs and dry leaves gathered on thejourney had kept the creature sated, but now, as he tipped it into the firewood, Littlespark flared excitedly for its actual dinner. It would take a few bits for the spirit to get comfortable, but it gave Jinyel time to prepare the rabbits.
The trees were heavy with their autumn bounty. Jinyel listened to the squirrels ― a peculiar species with red and black coats ― and soon found a stand of wild plums whose branches were bent under the weight of their fruits. Jinyel filled the empty censer with them, and on the way back to camp he bound the rabbits by the feet to roasting-sticks.
Jinyel was long past the dullness of simply surviving. Rabbits were an easy recipe now: he liked to first cook them belly-down, so their open chest cavity could roast while their back remained raw. As he waited for that to finish, Jinyel took his letter opener and cut the plums into halves, and threw their pits to the side. Once the rabbit cavities had been flash-cooked, he turned them over, and filled the cavities with plums as their backs roasted. A gooey compote would form, which could then be coated over the rabbit to make a sweet, crispy skin.
It was sticky work, and once the plums were set to cook, Jinyel went to the river to wash his hands. He foolishly believed, as he had believed at every new turn, that Scalvoris was done surprising him.
The glitter in the water would have seemed a trick of the light, if it weren’t still afternoon. Something green and crystalline sat on the riverbed under his hands, and Jinyel sat back on his heels. He could sense another bout of strangeness awaiting him there. He took a few moments to simply observe the glitter, and whether or not it might be able to bite.
There was a stick beside him. He used it to poke the glitter. Nothing bit the stick, so he took a breath of caution and reached for the mystery.
It was a… gemstone? The lower half of a turtle shell? It was definitely one of those things, with its rich green, crystalline shimmer and its several sections attached together.
He handled it too roughly. One of the sections broke in his hand. He turned it over, tapped it, and confirmed that it was semi-transparent. He would have mistaken it for genuine crystal, if not for the fact it clearly came from a turtle.
Perhaps the Hollow Prince would know about crystalline turtle shells. He put the thing in his pocket, and―
―Monya cried out in surprise. Jinyel whipped around, earning a bloom of pain from his shoulders, and saw the young she-wolf dance away from camp. The fire still burned. The rabbits still cooked. What had surprised her?
Littlespark, Jinyel called out. Are you alright?
Alright. The spirit seemed puzzled at the question. Danger?
Monya padded toward him, her eyes fixed warily upon the camp. In the space it took to cross that distance, there came the groan of great weight borne against the ground. The bizarre boulder, the bulwark against which Jinyel had camped, began to move.
Jinyel darted forward for Littlespark, but the spirit didn’t wish to leave. Comfortable, it insisted, and didn’t understand why Jinyel was so distressed.
A great leg emerged from one hollow of the boulder. Another leg came from a second. Then, off one side, there came a head. It rose into the sky, and kept rising, and then it rose some more when its four legs lifted its shell from the earth.
A giant tortoise. Of course there would be a giant tortoise here. There had been flying tortoises and mossy tortoises, why hadn’t Jinyel just assumed there would be tortoises the size of a house?
Like the ones dotting the riverbank, this one was docile. It took note of Jinyel, and gave him a slow blink. If anything, it seemed more concerned about the fire, and avoided burning itself as it ambled away and deeper into the forest.
Jinyel was left, wide-eyed, with a camp that was no longer sheltered by wind.
Windy, Littlespark complained. After cook, move?
... Yes. It took a few moments to form a reply. Move. Somewhere small, if find. That way cliffs?
There were some cliffs to the west which they might be able to camp against. Although, with his luck, those cliffs would somehow be another turtle.
At the very least, Jinyel now knew that this particular river, whatever its name, homed a truly staggering concentration of turtles. Big turtles. Small turtles. Tortoises which nestled like boulders upon the shore. A turtle which seemed made entirely of gemstones, which Jinyel glimpsed at a ten-yard distance so he knew it wasn’t a trick of the light. Turtles which flew? And turtles that seemed to be made of moss and sticks, though those ones were difficult to spot. And some of them were truly tiny, barely bigger than his thumb. Hatchlings? Did such a creature even lay eggs?
It was a survivor’s paradise. Or it would have been, if the greatest prizes weren’t so docile. The fattest, meatiest tortoises needed no hunting at all; Jinyel spotted one late in the morning, did a bit of stalking, and realized the tortoise didn’t need any stalking. He could simply walk right up to it, and the thing didn’t so much as look up from its grazing.
The tortoise was enormous, nearly seven feet long and half as wide. If Jinyel killed the animal and emptied the shell, it might be possible to physically curl up inside.
Heavy emphasis on the if.
The tortoise looked up as he approached, and a part of Jinyel wanted the thing to snap. At the very least, it could have done him the courtesy of running away. That was what proper prey animals did, when faced with a hunter and a wolf at his heel.
But there was no fight or flight. The tortoise simply gave a slow blink, watched him for several moments, and then went back to eating.
Jinyel drew his letter opener. No fear from the tortoise. He raised his iron poker as best as his injury would allow, poised to strike, and the tortoise looked up again. Blinked at the poker. Blinked at Jinyel. Blinked at Monya.
And went back to eating.
Fight me, Jinyel signed half-heartedly, as if the thing could understand him.
Monya understood. She chewed his hand, which was his own fault, really.
No. Jinyel directed her away from the riverbank, where a tall stand of raspberry brambles had telltale tunnels through the thicket. Rabbit tunnels. More reasonable prey than a tortoise who would let a man walk up and kill it.
Unable to raise a bow even if he had one, Jinyel turned Monya into his weapon. By his command, she waited on one side of the raspberries while he circled around the back. When he drove his iron poker into the brambles, several rabbits darted away from him ― and toward the wolf’s waiting jaws.
One squeak, one kill. Several ripe raspberries dislodged from the brambles. He ate a few, but they couldn’t afford to linger here overlong. They had to find Egilrun, which was said to lie at the end of a river. This river, Jinyel hoped, but he was losing faith each passing break.
Monya hadn’t eaten any of the rabbit by the time he returned to her. That was fine. She knew he would cook it, and she liked cooked rabbit much better than raw. Perhaps she was a bit spoiled, but it served Jinyel well as they moved on. He skinned and disemboweled the animal, and Monya licked his fingers to let him know that she was hungry, and that he ought to cook that thing soon.
They repeated the process a break later, at another thicket woven with rabbitways. Monya on one side, Jinyel on the other, and they had a second rabbit skinned by midday. They followed the river, and it seemed every bend of water had more of those enormous tortoises grazing along the shore. Time and again Jinyel walked up to one, waiting for it to behave like a normal prey animal, and time and again he had to walk away.
He couldn’t kill an animal that just sat there and looked at him.
Late afternoon was when Jinyel made camp. Even a half-day’s travel left his back pulsing. Although there were numbing drugs in the poultice across his skinless shoulders, there was only so much walking to be done before he needed ether to Energize: Nullify Pain. And because he was more or less lost in these woods, he didn’t want to spend ether unless absolutely necessary.
So, he used what little energy he still had to gather firewood, and to pitch camp against the swell of an enormous, bizarre boulder. The boulder rose fifteen feet out of the ground, as close to a perfect half-sphere as one could expect from a wild rock, and blocked wind from the north. Jinyel gathered wood beside it ― easy to find in these Vhalar-brittle woods ― and then left it to his other companion: Littlespark.
The fire anak had become comfortable in the stolen censer, usually carried at Jinyel’s belt. A constant, easy diet of twigs and dry leaves gathered on thejourney had kept the creature sated, but now, as he tipped it into the firewood, Littlespark flared excitedly for its actual dinner. It would take a few bits for the spirit to get comfortable, but it gave Jinyel time to prepare the rabbits.
The trees were heavy with their autumn bounty. Jinyel listened to the squirrels ― a peculiar species with red and black coats ― and soon found a stand of wild plums whose branches were bent under the weight of their fruits. Jinyel filled the empty censer with them, and on the way back to camp he bound the rabbits by the feet to roasting-sticks.
Jinyel was long past the dullness of simply surviving. Rabbits were an easy recipe now: he liked to first cook them belly-down, so their open chest cavity could roast while their back remained raw. As he waited for that to finish, Jinyel took his letter opener and cut the plums into halves, and threw their pits to the side. Once the rabbit cavities had been flash-cooked, he turned them over, and filled the cavities with plums as their backs roasted. A gooey compote would form, which could then be coated over the rabbit to make a sweet, crispy skin.
It was sticky work, and once the plums were set to cook, Jinyel went to the river to wash his hands. He foolishly believed, as he had believed at every new turn, that Scalvoris was done surprising him.
The glitter in the water would have seemed a trick of the light, if it weren’t still afternoon. Something green and crystalline sat on the riverbed under his hands, and Jinyel sat back on his heels. He could sense another bout of strangeness awaiting him there. He took a few moments to simply observe the glitter, and whether or not it might be able to bite.
There was a stick beside him. He used it to poke the glitter. Nothing bit the stick, so he took a breath of caution and reached for the mystery.
It was a… gemstone? The lower half of a turtle shell? It was definitely one of those things, with its rich green, crystalline shimmer and its several sections attached together.
He handled it too roughly. One of the sections broke in his hand. He turned it over, tapped it, and confirmed that it was semi-transparent. He would have mistaken it for genuine crystal, if not for the fact it clearly came from a turtle.
Perhaps the Hollow Prince would know about crystalline turtle shells. He put the thing in his pocket, and―
―Monya cried out in surprise. Jinyel whipped around, earning a bloom of pain from his shoulders, and saw the young she-wolf dance away from camp. The fire still burned. The rabbits still cooked. What had surprised her?
Littlespark, Jinyel called out. Are you alright?
Alright. The spirit seemed puzzled at the question. Danger?
Monya padded toward him, her eyes fixed warily upon the camp. In the space it took to cross that distance, there came the groan of great weight borne against the ground. The bizarre boulder, the bulwark against which Jinyel had camped, began to move.
Jinyel darted forward for Littlespark, but the spirit didn’t wish to leave. Comfortable, it insisted, and didn’t understand why Jinyel was so distressed.
A great leg emerged from one hollow of the boulder. Another leg came from a second. Then, off one side, there came a head. It rose into the sky, and kept rising, and then it rose some more when its four legs lifted its shell from the earth.
A giant tortoise. Of course there would be a giant tortoise here. There had been flying tortoises and mossy tortoises, why hadn’t Jinyel just assumed there would be tortoises the size of a house?
Like the ones dotting the riverbank, this one was docile. It took note of Jinyel, and gave him a slow blink. If anything, it seemed more concerned about the fire, and avoided burning itself as it ambled away and deeper into the forest.
Jinyel was left, wide-eyed, with a camp that was no longer sheltered by wind.
Windy, Littlespark complained. After cook, move?
... Yes. It took a few moments to form a reply. Move. Somewhere small, if find. That way cliffs?
There were some cliffs to the west which they might be able to camp against. Although, with his luck, those cliffs would somehow be another turtle.
