Spirit Fire - Amos

Chapter 5 - Going Home

It was near dawn when I continued my journey home alone. Icarus had left me at the edge of the woods near a gravel path. We gave a quick farewell then he flew back the other way.

     The morning air was still and brisk, the sun beginning to lighten the sky. A thin layer of frost covered every blade of grass and leaf in the woods. Almost no noise could be heard other than the slight rustle of awakening animals.

     I stepped out from the treeline and onto the gravel path. As I continued walking, I heard rustling nearby. I stopped and listened while I pulled out my bow and nocked an arrow.

     I waited quietly until I heard it once again. To my right, a young female dear leaped out from the bushes and stood just before the path.

     "What are you doing out here all alone?" I whispered and put my bow away. I looked around but did not see any other deer. With a sigh, I knelt down, grabbed a half-eaten apple out of my pack and dropped it in front of the foal. "You hungry?"

     The little deer lowered its head and sniffed the apple. It nudged it a few times, and then nibbled it, followed by a large bite out of the side.

     Content, I smiled and watched.

     Suddenly, I heard loud cracking and rustling in the woods behind the foal. The deer sprinted past me in the opposite direction. I stood with attention, armed once again, and looked for the source of the noise.

     As the noise got louder, I saw a huge black bear with matted fur charging out of the woods. I panicked and started running tripping over tree roots and stones. Up ahead, there was a gnarled tree covered by vines. I ran up to it and just started to climb as the bear burst on to the path. I kept climbing until I was out of the bear's reach. I got a closer look at the black bear as it padded up to the tree.

     There was a big scar reaching from across its left eye to the edge of its mouth. Dark matted fur covered its body in large tufts. The bear constantly scratched at the base of the tree and looked up at me. Its eyes were almost entirely black with a small amount of iris at the edges. Its gaze fixated on me.

     Forced to wait in the tree, the bear seemed content to do the same at the bottom of the tree. It sat there and stared, probably thinking of what part of me he would eat first.

     I could not shoot it, it probably wouldn't do any good but make him angry and attempt to climb, and I had no use for his meat, I was not hunting bear. I put my bow away and settled into the vines.

     Scared for my life, I do not know how I managed it, but I slowly nodded off and all I remembered was opening my eyes and seeing the bear below me, resting its head on the ground. The sun was higher in the sky by a bit, spilling golden light on the world.

     As I got up, I looked down and noticed that the bear was actually sleeping too. I took advantage and quietly crawled out of the tree, creeping past the dormant beast, and walked away until I was out of earshot, then started running, constantly watching to see if the bear would wake.

It was after noon and bright outside by the time the farm came into view. I was eating a chunk of bread as the tip of the roof poked over the hill. As I walked over the rest of the hill, I had a perfect view of it all.

     A white, two-story house stood near the edge of the road, its sides dirty with peeling paint. A smaller building, the barn, stood to the right a bit behind the house. Its wood stained brown. The stables, made from the same wood, rested against the barn. Inside them, stood a brown colt and a white mare, eating hay. The stone cellar was just a few yards from the back door of the house. The rest of the twenty-acre property consisted of fields or sheds. This was a private, self-providing farm. We only sell extra produce in town.