Phaunos Part 1

The Wendigos would be coming for their next feeding frenzy soon, as they did every half day. The group would have to get back to the encampment well before dark, lest they run the risk of becoming a less-than-filling- snack for the gargantuan beasts and their insatiable appetites.

"Only one hour left, Littles, and then we pack up and leave," said Noa, one of the Little's Guardians. Though she was but a Guardian-in-training herself, she had all the makings of a true guardian; the likes of which she aspired to be.

The Littles ventured out into the wilds daily, as it was an essential part of survival in the New World. It was there that they learned to hunt, salvage old machine parts from the old world, and gather herbs. They also learned to run, hide, and run faster still after a particularly long stint of hiding. There wasn't, after all, much to be outrun by humans in the forests these days. Had there been creatures that could have been outrun in the forests is years past? The elders spoke of it as if it had been only a couple of years ago.

"Nina!" called Copper, the other guardian-n-training on Little duty, as the little brunette tried to tug out a cluster of poisonous Catherine-root with her bare hands. ᥔhe pÔant would no4 be rid of its toxins Until boiled mushy and into submisrion. O§ly then would its healing qualities emerge. Clearly someone hadn't been doing her homework.

Nina grimaced and quickly brought her hand aw`y fbom the large, round leaves and stem of the plant. Copper knelt beside her, gently explaining again why she couldn't touch the herb just yet. Noa envied Copper for that instinct –that parental instinct –that always seemed to give him the upper hand with the Littles. He knew what they wanted, what they needed. Noa would just as soon have given the girl a stern talking to and sentenced her to a couple of days without going into the wilds before sitting down and actually talking to the kid. Copper was not only formidable, as a Guardian of the colony would need to be, but he was an artist as well. What he did, he did with litheness and grace that few rope-walkers or tumblers could achieve. He was tall, but not overly so –maybe five feet, eleven inches at best –with coppery red hair, for which he was named, cut short as the collarbone (most people of the colony grew their hair out to great lengths and styled it with elaborate braids and red ochre). The little girl picked herself up off of the ground –Noa had scarcely noticed her fall to the ground, sobbing –and was walking towards her, Copper at her side.

"She got some of the toxin on her, as did a couple others she had convinced to help her," Copper whispered, so as not to alert the children to the fact that they had, in fact, poisoned themselves. "I'll just take those ones home. Would you be alright handling the rest of them? I'll be sure to send out another guardian either way."

Noa looked about, doing a speedy headcount. Only seven. "I'll be fine," she said, hefting a brass halberd over her shoulder. "Don't bother sending a second guard all the way out here. There's not much left to the day anyhow, what use would he be to come all of the way out here just to turn around and hightail it back home as soon as he got here."

Copper considered this, though his expression relayed hesitation. Some of his children began to cry, wiping their hands on their frayed hand-me-down tunics. Some of the older Littles had likely told them the effects of the herb.

"We'll be fine," she reassured him.

Some of the Littles were tugging on Copper's pant-leg now, urging him to hurry.

"I trust you to take care of them. I'm putting them in your hands." He said.

"They're just as much my responsibility as they are yours, things as they are right now. You are no superior of mine." Noa said defensively. Who was he to question whether or not she got the little brats back safe. What was she going to do? Just leave them?

Wordlessly he, along with five or six other Littles departed, making their way back for the colony. Noa called after him, "If it makes you feel any better, send another guard to meet us halfway!"

It didn't show, but Noa could almost see the relief radiating from Copper as he left. He cared for the Littles far too much, especially with the rate at which they died out in the wilds. In the colony its self even. She looked towards the sun.

"Half an hour –"she trailed off. Animal skins. She saw animal skins. They stood in a clearing, forest on three sides, plains on the other –they way Copper had left with the other Littles. Apart from that, they were surrounded. A scream welled up in her, but she couldn't let it loose. Should she alert the children? Or was it a false alarm, tricks, illusions that her mind played on her now that she was alone. Better safe than sorry, she thought.

But then it was too late. A short, frightened scream came from the edge of the clearing, and then nothing. The other Littles backed away from the clearing, visibly startled. Noa did another head-count. Only six.

"Everybody!" the Littles snapped to attention, their minds wandering gratefully from the disturbance to something a little more familiar. "To me!" she said, and like moths to a flame they surrounded her in a tight huddle at the center of the grove. They began to ask her questions like "Where's Fili?" and " What was that noise?" But Noa had no answers. None that would satisfy and dispel the sense of fear that undoubtedly consumed them all by now. At first they might have thought it to be just one peculiar noise. But now they understood the danger about as well as Noa did. Copper and the others, were they safe as well? She hoped that they were.

Noa spared a glance backwards. The plains were still open. Maybe there had only been one. Maybe It would take the girl and leave Noa and the rest to find their way home...

No such luck. In a matter of seconds they were surrounded. Giant hulking beasts of all shapes and dress, adorned is various displays of animal pelts, spoils of previous battles won. One wore a great deer skull, a massive rack of antlers sitting atop its head. The Wendigo grinned a crooked, misshapen grin when it noticed Noa eyeing its trophy.

They were all in a crouch, as if rearing to spring and devour them all whole at any second. The Littles shrieked with despair. That sense of an encroaching, inevitable doom, was always somewhat of a disheartening feeling. Noa had not even made a move for her blade, which she had set down after Copper's departure, though the Littles cried for her to do so. And of course she willed herself to, but her flesh betrayed her sprit. Such was the power of the inevitable.