From Night On: Pathways

Chapters 9-10

Chapter 9:

Guardians

(Les)

When I awoke, I found myself encircled by the same talismans I found after I had fainted, but my hosts were nowhere to be seen. I sat up and watched for a while as the wind moved through the trees and swung the spike fruit on the vines. A small creature that looked much like a chipmunk scurried across the line and snatched up one of the fruit effortlessly and without the spikes shooting from it. I stood up quickly to try and see how the critter was holding its prize, but I must have startled it because it dropped the fruit and ran back to the cover of the branches and leaves. I walked to the fallen fruit and saw that it still had not exposed its clever trap and thought that whatever the furry creature had done had nullified the spikes. I leaned over and lightly tapped it and, to my painful dismay, the spikes shot out and impaled my right index finger. I quickly ran my hand to the pools of water, which were left behind from our night of wine and philosophizing, and submerged my throbbing finger under the water that had not been turned to wine. The fruit slowly retracted the spike and the pool quickly turned red with my blood. A very noticeable hole had been left through my fingertip though the bone had only been grazed.

If only the masters had showed me what to do with the fruit around here, or maybe left some first aide supplies. I wrapped up my finger in the end of my shirt, but my shirt was very dirty and not a good bandage. I walked back to where I had slept and retrieved one of the paper talismans. The paper was not waxen at all, but a rough, absorbent paper that seemed to act as an adhesive strip when I wrapped it around the wound. It held to my finger nicely and even seemed to reduce the pain a bit. Maybe they had left me some first aide supplies after all? When I was sure I wasn't going to bleed over the rest, I gathered up the other talismans and put them into my front right pocket.

Placing my injured hand on my shoulder to reduce any bleeding, I looked backup to the trees to see if my furry friend had returned for the meal I scared out of his hands. I could see a little bit of movement amongst the leaves and stood as still as I could. With a couple cautious hops, the critter eventually moved back out onto the line. Slowly, it approached one of the fruit and removed it. I watched, intent on learning the little guy's secret technique. He quickly grasped the stem of the fruit and pulled away from the vine. After retrieving the food, he scurried back to the tree. I followed as quietly as I could to see how he would eat. Looking up through the branches, I watched as he made a quick meal of the fruit and noticed that he never let goof the base or stem, but what happened to the spikes? As the creature munched away, I didn't see any spikes spat out or hear the crunching of what might have been. Instead, it sounded like the juiciest piece of fruit ever.

I walked to the nearest low hanging vine and attempted to follow the technique of the critter. I first quickly tapped the fruit with a twig and watched as the spikes shot out. I noticed how the spikes retracted into the fruit and then slowly release as the spikes reloaded. "Okay, that's simple enough." I grabbed the stem, pinching tightly at the base of the fruit, and managed to pick one without incident. Carrying the fruit to the pools, I found a small rock with a slight edge to it. On the table of the pool, I used the rock to cut, more like smash, open the fruit to find that there were no spikes within it. Following my Scouts master's instructions from when I was a kid, I tried rubbing some of the fruit's juices on my inner arm first to make sure I wouldn't have an allergic reaction. After some time and no rash or irritation, I applied a small amount to my lip and left it. Again, no reaction, so I licked my lip and tasted what could only be described as a mixture of blueberries and pomegranate. I lightly tapped on the outside of the now smashed fruit to see if the peel would still spike out if I bit into it and nothing happened, so I took a full bite of the fruit and began my tasty breakfast.