The Veridians

Chapter 2

There is a bird. A light-ish gray bird, presumably a pigeon, but it could potentially be something else. This bird doesn't have anything special about its appearance, just a common bird you would find on your everyday street. We see the bird get into a certain position on the ground, positioning to do something. The bird spread its wings, and suddenly, the bird had taken off into the air. At first glance, they look to be alone. But slowly, more birds come flocking towards its side. Even with the vast sky, and even with the wide expanse of life surrounding them, the bird had a family. Even though it seemed alone at first glance, the bird wasn't alone. As the flock flew freely through the air, a loud whirring noise began to emerge from below. And another bird, this time one made of machinery & metal, came flying through the air. Children on the flight are peering out the windows of the metal bird, children as well as Julian, who hadn't been on a plane in his whole life before today. He was mesmerized by everything, & he watched carefully as the buildings slowly began to shrink & become harder to see. He watched as the plane lifted higher up from the ground, completely in awe of what he was looking at.

"Wow... everything looks so small from up here.." He smiled. "That truly is a sight to behold... isn't it weird to think that not too long ago this would have been impossible? Man, how has technology come so far in such a short amount of time?... It's funny how being in this giant metal bird is so similar to the human condition, yet it doesn't resemble it in the slightest at the same time. It's like, when you're down on the ground, looking at everything as this massive entity, it can get overwhelming. But when you get the chance to step back & really understand it all, it seems like a couple of really tiny buildings neatly placed outside of a plane window. Everything just... melts away. And life becomes easier, even for a few hours on a plane headed to Germany."

Julian sat back in his seat, feeling at ease. A bearded man with a blue ball cap looked at Julian in confusion, slightly concerned by his existential monologue which was seemingly directed towards him.

"Look man, I'm glad that you're goin' on your own... spiritual journey or somethin', but we're gonna be on this flight for a long while, so could you not be yappin' for the rest of this flight as much as y'are now?"

Julian hadn't realized that the man thought he was talking to him. He quickly reorganized himself & apologized to the man, "Oh, sorry! I didn't know that you were- okay, yeah. I'll try to keep it down for you."

Julian took out one of his books & began quickly flipping through the pages pretending to read something, when in reality, he was just trying to distract himself from the not-so-positive encounter with the bearded man. It wasn't a provocative encounter, but Julian didn't like it when something he did caused a complete stranger distress. Eventually, he genuinely began to read the book, which funny enough happened to be the book about the place he was traveling to.

"Hm, I don't think I've looked at this section yet." He thought to himself, so as to not irritate the bearded man any further.

"It's titled, 'Local Inhabitants.' Alright, let's see what the author has to say about them."

He began to read the pages of the book, fully investing himself in the knowledge it held.

"'The inhabitants of this plentiful forest are truly a sight to behold. You would imagine that the forest would only consist of a small variety of species due to the seclusion from the rest of society & from us, however, this would in fact be false. The blanket term for these creatures is Veridians, taking inspiration from the name of the forest itself. There are a couple of deviations from the term Veridians, but Veridians is just a term to describe land-dwellers mostly. In the forest of Verzawald, I encountered many of these Veridians. From centaurs to wolves, to vampires, fairies, forest giants, down to the littlest creatures inhabiting the forest, it seemed like anything you could imagine. I'm almost certain that everything I just listed doesn't go into the full extent of what this forest has to offer. So much land completely untouched by us, it makes me wonder why we remain away from it all..'"