Pale patchy mist clung to the gradually sloping sides of the Mutia Escarpment wreathing the forestry and bottoming out in the craggy basin below. Steadily, fingers of searching sunlight began to grasp and haul back the day. A flock of birds took sudden flight. Jagged black shapes burst through the verdant canopy and were highlighted against the cinnamon skyline; their abrupt chorus jarring and harsh against dawn�s cool tranquillity.
Beneath the threaded branches, Aisha stumbled drunkenly through the jungle. Her feet dragged and tripped and snagged in the twisting vines, her breathing ragged and laboured. The dense foliage slapped and scratched at her skin as she bouldered through, crashing against crooked tree boles and heaving beneath low slung boughs. Her vision danced and flared as fractured light filtered through the canopy and dazzled her eyes.
She paused a while, leaning heavily against a stout log, swaying with the exertion of flight as exhaustion dragged at her limbs and numbed her mind. Sucking in stout lungfuls of air she fought for composure and waited for the dizziness to abate. Her skin was grey, mud splattered and leathery, her eyes dull and lustreless, her sight diminished by age. She flicked wearily at the flies that buzzed and dived at her seeking the dewy moisture around her eyes. Something cracked in the shadowy stillness of the undergrowth and the twisting thrill of fear sparked her flight mechanism once again. Barrelling forward, she trampled over the lush vegetation, pushing on blindly, seeking, and fearing that she her destination was out of reach.
Aisha thrust herself through a wall of dense undergrowth, crashing through it and pressing onwards, focussing her efforts into spearpoint determination. And then, almost imperceptibly and without prelude it was there. The faintest of sounds, a hushed whisper that haunted the edge of the world. A calling. A song.
They were closer than she had anticipated; old age and sickness had dulled her senses but there they were. Those who sung in the forest. Her heart lurched in her chest and something deep down in the pit of her belly knotted and rolled. With each tentative step, taken so gently as not to break the spell of the song, Aisha brushed aside the greenery and made her way down into the basin. With each footfall, the song rolled and travelled across the dripping vines, looping upwards and snaking in the sultry air.
The terrain plunged and dipped; the hidden track becoming slick with fallen leaves, soft earth and rainwater. Aisha followed it steadfastly, her large ochre eyes fixated upon an unseen point ahead. Broad glossy leaves were bent back to reveal a deep valley lake bordered by steep banks and liana drenched trees. The song was at its most vibrant here, crashing, triumphant and tumultuous. Aisha let the sound wash over her, bathing in it before she moved forward.
Nestling against the furred bole of a giant fern tree, Aisha came to rest. She stared out across the lake and watched the golden fringe of a new sun begin to play upon its surface. She thought briefly, but without sadness, of her children and knew that they would fare well; it had been a long journey, such a time since she had seen them last. The flies continued to buzz but now she paid them little heed. Her eyes flickered once, tracing the long curving shapes of the bones and hooked tusks that littered the basin, rejoicing in how as sunlight touched each one that the ivory seemed to change momentarily to gold.
Exhausted beyond compare, Great Mother Aisha of the Herd closed her eyes and allowed her breathing to trail away. She was home.
Music courtesy of Nightwish.
![[send message]](https://www.writerscafe.org/images/mail.png){kind=small}
![[befriend]](https://www.writerscafe.org/images/friend.png){kind=small}
Share This
Email
Facebook
Twitter
Read Request
My Library
Flag Writing
