Seth and the Prometheus Guild

Disturbed Leaves

The leaves were rustling in a cold breeze, painting dancing shadows across his skin. Seth watched the display, sleepiness making his eyes heavy.

"I really don't think this is what the exercise is supposed to be about."

Seth's gaze flicked to Kaya who was sitting on a sturdy, lower branch, her arms securely wrapped around the tree trunk. Funnily enough, it had taken her quite a few tries to get even that high.

"This is easiest."

"You're just being lazy."

"Saving energy," Seth corrected her. This had been an important survival trait back in the wild where his next meal had never been guaranteed. Not that a human would understand, though.

"I feel a bit bad about just ambushing a team. We should have searched for the flags ourselves."

Seth shrugged and closed his eyes, not really caring for these human sensibilities.

Their time with the Guild for this week had ended and school would occupy the remaining three days until the weekend. As Mr. Donovan was gone, Gregory had taken over P.E. and started with an exercise similar to the game of capture the flag, only that this time the students were already paired up in teams of two. Gregory had hidden some flags in the forest, supposedly surrounded by clever traps, and as the amount of flags was smaller than the number of teams, some were bound to fail.

Seth hadn't even bothered searching, though his sensitive sense of smell would have certainly given him an advantage. Instead, he'd climbed a tree close to the edge of the forest and was lying in wait for the first successful team to come along. As long as he'd exit the forest with a flag, if stolen or found, he and Kaya would pass.

Seth glanced down past his branch, making sure Kaya was still sitting on hers. The way her scent once again disappeared into the forest' aroma really messed with his head. When he looked away, he was suddenly sure she was gone, so used was he to her normal smell by now.

"What kind of traps do you think ..." Kaya began but suddenly stilled.

Seth had felt it too, but was more surprised that Kaya was able to sense it.

He'd already noticed that sometimes humans almost appeared to have decent instincts - noticing when they were being watched or stalked, going quiet once someone more dangerous was around. But till now he had never seen one of them really act on those feelings, instead dismissing them, convincing themselves nothing was wrong.

Kaya was frozen though, only her wild curls dancing in a breeze. Seth lifted his head, trying to catch a scent, but the wind blew from his back, not carrying anything unusual.

As always, he couldn't really say what had tipped him off to the danger. There was no unusual noise and no unnatural quiet either. But he felt watched, cornered. His eyes roamed the forest beneath him, and he focused on his peripheral vision which was more likely to detect offbeat movement. The rustling branches and twittering birds were obscuring the only sounds in his vicinity.

Just as suddenly as it had appeared, the feeling passed.

Seth cracked his neck, not stopping his perusal just yet. Somewhere off in the distance he heard footsteps, breaking through the underbrush, but the accompanying voices sounded like his classmates. A bird took flight somewhere to his right. A rhythmic clomping sound came from deeper in the forest, maybe a woodpecker.

And a crystal-clear scream shattered the silence in the center of the forest.

Kaya flinched so hard she almost fell off her branch. Seth rubbed his poor ears with a grimace.