Everything is broken

Everything Is Broken- Part 5

Buried deep in a wooded glen, where the overlapping, overhanging rocks that slope up to the windswept moorland either side are coloured by a vibrant green moss, and where a small stream cascades over and around jagged rocks and smoother pebbles, there's an old path, lit by a shaft of afternoon sunlight, carpeted with soft green grass and dotted here and there with wildflowers. The amber light comes through the broadleaf canopy in a dappled pattern, coming at a sharp enough angle to reach the dark, mossless undersides of the rocky sides of the narrow valley and making the ancient path, apparently rarely trodden, visible through the ground-level thicket of branches, roots and ferns.

The trees here grow from the ground at seemingly random angles, blue and red lichens colouring their trunks and a furry green moss growing down from their bases, merging indistinguishably with the vibrant grass either side of the rocky stream. On either side, the gentle brightness of the glen gives way to darker, denser woodland, the steep ground turning brown and leafy and making the one or two flowers that were scattered here and there stand out more clearly from the darker backdrop. It's cold for the season, despite the sunlight, and the calm swaying of taller trees in what was on the hills a roaring wind is audible beneath the regular gurgle of the brook and the occasional cries of small animals. Squirrels, maybe.

It's along this old path that Nuada and I walk. Maybe two minutes walk behind us, the building used by the Myzers blends into the thick forest, and somewhere ahead of us, an old wooden bridge will let us cross the river safely and climb onto the moor. Nuada and I haven't spoken since we left. Something seems to have got into him, but I don't really get it: after resting, eating and washing - and after changing out of the scratchy clothes, which turned out to have been both too small and made of the worst kind of fabric - I'm in a good mood.

"The 'blood heart', then," says Nuada, saying the name of the sacred artefact with particularly sarcastic venom. "If I had great magics, or whatever, from before the Great Destruction, I wouldn't name them like I was writing a young adult book."

"Don't be so caustic," I say, trying out a new word. I think it means 'nasty and sarcastic'. "Didn't you see the electricity? Wasn't it cool! And knowing that the Myzers aren't evil."

"I don't know," he says uncertainly. "If they really weren't evil, why capture teenagers to do their... bidding." He said the last word a little bit like he was joking, but I knew him well enough to work out that he was being serious. Somewhere ahead of us, a bird I didn't recognise made a call, which was answered by the more familiar sound of a seagull.

"Everyone else thinks they're evil, though," I say reasonably, admiring the wild scenery. The closest to this I'd ever seen were patches of muddy sand in some of the coves we'd visited, where adult-high, straight trees grew, and made a miniature forest. "It's not like they can show up at our school and just ask for recruits." I remembered playing hide and seek there, and thinking they were the tallest, wildest plants I'd ever seen.

"Then why throw us in jail?" He persists, as usual. "I remember what you looked like when you came to, Elle-"

"Ellianna." I pick up a stick from the ground to use as a cane, or a staff. It would be useful for getting up the hill, certainly, and I could lean on it for a moment when I got tired.

"-and whatever your name is, you looked awful. Almost like your magical heroes had knocked you unconscious for nearly twenty minutes."

He's answered with a yelp from some way behind him, as I discovered that the wood from the floor was rotten. "Shut up, Nuada," I say with unabated enthusiasm, at least partly in expectation of him laughing at me falling over. He was apparently in too bad of a mood to bother with even that, simply giving a vague sniff of disapproval. I laugh, pushing myself up from the rock I fell on and deciding not to let his grumblings disturb my otherwise positive mood. He could go and be Completely Right And Logical to someone who cared. "What kind of bird was that, a minute ago?"

"How should I know? They're not native to this far north, but it sounded like a halcyon, or some kind of tree kingfisher."

(Written by my friend)