“Dead Fish”

The air feels thick. Fog dances above their heads and snakes its way over the wooden bridge and across the treeline. Something of a mystery, a riddle to be solved, only this one is untouchable.

(Can you enter? Yes. Should you? No.)

No, this place sucks you in and guts you like dead fish. And the smell, the smell of something rotten.

(Fish? Perhaps.)

Yes, the air feels thick and then you can’t move, or maybe you can but you won’t. There is something here that screams ‘stay away’ as though you had a choice.

And once blue, the sky doesn’t look as inviting. It had only been days since they swam in the lake, yet they are so much farther into the unknown. The hues take turns in making gray look like purple and then red and then it looks like a color Leif doesn’t entirely know how to describe. Oh and the whining. There is something in the air still, wherever they walk it follows.

(Maybe it’s dead fish.)

(Stupid, fish can’t walk.)

(I don’t think.)

Leif enters first, it’s safer that way. He won’t be prey to whatever hands are trying to grasp the feathers on his tail. He moves, one hoof in front of the other, then his paws after that.

(Feet stay steady, do not fail me.)

His mother follows, mouth touching his croup and eyes alight. They are both on high-alert, just in case.

The drums in their heads do nothing to calm their pulse. If anything, Leif quickens his movements, less careful, more inclined to step wrong and fall. But the rumble is getting louder, and now there are strings and it’s sharper, harsher and he feels like he can’t breathe. He breaks into a canter, eyes wild and chest heaving, he can’t get away fast enough but the fog-

He falls. Stumbles on uneven terrain and crashes head-first into misty grass with a thud. His head spins, unfocused. There’s a rhythmic banging near and his feet grow cold until he recognizes the sound of the steps.

Geštinanna hums from behind, her voice immediately soothing him as she slows before nuzzling him, helping him back on his feet. He shudders before he calms, breath slowly evens out. His legs feel wobbly. She examines him from his pasterns to his withers and then his neck and face.

(Of course he is, mother is here.)

“Small one…” She starts, her voice a bit shaken. “Why did you run?”

And Leif has to think for a moment. Mind unscrewing and twisting itself to remember the sound of the drums and the strings damning him.

“Dead fish,” he says instead.

“Dead fish.”

“Did you not smell them coming in?”

His mother huffs and then the pair fall into silence. This time they walk side by side, never letting the other out of sight.

In another time, the sun burns through the fog and they move as one. Older and wiser. Not afraid. The fog would look like damp air from wet grass, and the forest would look alluring and inviting. Not eerie and abandoned. The only connections they ever had would not forgo as soon as they left. Movements would lack calculation.

(This is what we are.)

Now, if they are lucky enough, even the thick of the forest let’s them enter. Legs steady, eyes sharp, direction deliberate.

Before them, the path is almost tangible.