Little Boy Of The Mountain C
--C--
As he ran down the winding path towards the house he was pondering what part of the valley he would visit. To the wooded waterfall? Or the tumbled stone mound covered in moss and fallen trees? To the sunny glade across the little river?
He reached the house, and as he put his hand on the doorhandle to enter, he suddenly realized he had misplaced his special walking stick. Perhaps he had left it in the woods on his adventure two days ago? Perhaps it had loosed from the bindings on Clipper's saddlepack, and dropped quietly and unheard onto the soft springy grass?
Now this stave was one of the boys prized possessions. It was more than just a walking stick. He had put great effort into carving and shaping an attractive and strong fallen branch he had found a year ago. He had put semi-precious stones in its' handle, which was wrapped in fine leather. It had an attachment for his sling, which allowed him to cast stones much further than he could with his little arm alone. While he had mastered the sling by itself, he was not yet very skilled with the sling-staff combination, but he was working on it with practice. He got the idea from some boys he had seen in the village playing with similar gear. He also used the stave as a fishing pole, though it was rather large and thick for this purpose, however, being enterprising, the boy had built a tripod near the waterfall where it could be mounted and attended without hefty effort. He would have to retrace his steps and find his staff.
He had a Quest!
It was very rare to bump into another in the forest valley, and the boy had no worry that his stave might be moved or stolen by another person (unless it were the tricksy fairies that his mother spoke of in her bedtime stories - which the boy was old enough perhaps to begin to disbelieve, though he did not, for the reason of two strange sightings: indeed he had twice caught glimpses of an unknown figure standing on the cliffs or high on a rock outcrop. The first time he had looked back and the shape was gone, but the second time he had stared into the face of a strange woman, wearing what seemed to be a cloak of glowing white that appeared to be made of large feathers fluttering in the breeze. He was held for a moment, but was then distracted by his father calling from a distance. He had looked again, blinking in the light of the bright day. She was gone. His memory of the event was confused: she had been far away on the ridge, but he had seen her face so near...
He had told his parents what he saw then, and for a while they kept an eye out for strangers, but eventually they dismissed the tale as a trick of light or one of the boys imaginariums.