Broken Glass - Taekook

27

As the sun slowly sets, painting the flat, seemingly endless plains of grass in orange and gold, I find myself staring up at an evolving sky. The stars are slowly beginning to blink into view, one by one, and the silver glowing disc of a full moon is rising in the east. We're setting up camp slowly tonight, without the fire, as we're just in the middle of open fields. 

We've not had a campfire for the vast majority of this part of our journey. We've had to be a lot more quiet and careful, so we've kept the flames down and non-existent most nights. It's colder, but it's sensible, out in the open like this. If we threw all caution to the wind, I don't think we'd survive. 

Jimin doesn't leave anymore, because there's nowhere to go to find anything. Instead, he focuses on clearing the tracks of the horse's hooves, and removing the grooves of the cart's wheels in the plains behind us. It's too obvious of a trace, and too easy to follow, especially from the air. So he makes it his mission every single day to follow behind, brushing away the evidence of our movement as we go. 

The remnants of his foraging successes, alongside the dried food we still have, is kept in the cart. It acts as a fail-safe for the days we don't find food on the fields. Seokjin takes over the maintenance and control of that, ensuring that everyone has enough to eat and planning for the amount of time we expect to be on the plains. Jimin has more vegetable-based food in the rations Seokjin allocated to him, but the rest of us are fine with this. He doesn't want to eat meat, and we're not monsters. We're not going to force him if we can avoid it. 

Sometimes, we do manage to hunt the small rodents that live in burrows below the surface. On those days, we have a fire on one side of the cart and Seokjin ensures that it doesn't end up being too obvious or visible. Any food we eat in this way is cooked slowly. And some of it is smoked or dried over the fire, or laid over hot stones so that it can be cooked separately and eaten cold later on. 

Occasionally, we come across thickets and shrubs with edible berries or nuts or leaves, and these are immediately laid over a drying rack if we know that it won't rain. Most of the plant-based rations are dried, or given to Jimin straight away. After all, it's much harder out here to find plants that we can eat, than to find animals to hunt. And the pixie isn't a fan of meat-based meals, so it doesn't take long for us to agree to let him have more of the food he'll actually want to eat. 

Every other day, Yoongi kneels beside the earth and digs out a small hollow. Whilst Aphelia is out to check that nobody is around, he calls up water from the ground, lifting it into the hole he's created, and filling up our waterskins. Each time, he covers the hole back over, shifting the turf itself so that the grass looks unchanged. Occasionally, the entire group work together to change the hole into a burrow-like structure, so that it appears more natural to the untrained eye. 

It's probably not worth the amount of time we spend on it, but we do it anyway, because it's better than doing nothing. 

This particular night is clear, however, and a chill breath of wind is making its way over the grasslands. Everyone is wrapped in extra furs, thanks to the lack of fireside warmth, but Aphelia is patiently glowing a faint yellow in the middle of our tight circle, providing us with light. It seems odd, allowing her to brighten up the grasslands and foregoing the fire, but it's actually a lot better in terms of staying hidden. 

Unlike a fire, she can blink out into near-darkness without needing to be dampened down, and if the person approaching is able to sense magic, her aura is much smaller than Seokjin's would be if he had to bring down a fire quickly. And anyway, fires are a clear mark on the earth that take time to remove. Aphelia doesn't leave a trace of her presence on the ground below. 

Despite the layers I'm wearing, a small shiver runs through my body at the sheer thought of how exposed we all are, out on the plains. There's something very humbling about it, how vulnerable a person can feel out here. There are no trees to protect us, nothing to hide behind. There are no buildings to crawl into, no caves to trek through to avoid being seen by anyone looking from above.