IMPETIGO

Meadowlands

- 2 -

Brun nervously raised his head to take a quick look around the small shacks to make sure that everything was still okay.

An old ram was busy repairing the door to his hut before dusk arrived, two smallish sheep threw chestnuts at each other. Their giggling mixed with the beating of the ram's hammer and the faint chatter of two ewes washing some clothes.

The narrow streets weren't as busy as they used to be in summer. Most villagers didn't have time to gather and fool around, because their homes and stocks needed to be prepared for winter.

Brun sighed.

Nothing had changed around him since last time he had checked, but he wasn't sure if this was a reason to relax or to tense up even more.

He realized how uptight he was as he noticed the dark spots on the cabbages he was shelving. Imprints of his clenched hooves.

He took some deep breaths and stretched his fingers.

He wasn't even sure what he was looking out for and decided to count the positive options: None of the big idiot rams had shown up yet. They were probably out on their last patrol. After all evening drew closer.

And there the positives ended already and Brun was left with the more difficult things to contemplate and to wait for. For example what he would do if Fara suddenly appeared without him being prepared.

The problem was that he had no idea how he could even prepare for it. He would probably just stare at her like a mute jumbuck staring at a shiny apple.

It was best if she stayed away and left him alone with those cabbages.

And at the same time her not being around was just as bad. It meant that she was somewhere else, most likely with someone else, not with him and not with his spotty cabbages. And the more time passed without her appearing the more likely it became that she liked whatever company she must have found.

Why was he expected to ask a ewe if she liked him? Why was there this special day in fall? And why did the ewes wait for the rams to ask them first before they revealed if they actually liked them back or not?

Who had come up with these rules and where had this person written them down, because Brun had never been shown some sacred scroll with ancient mating guidelines.

And why was it Fara he had laid eyes on? Why was the only ewe he found likeable or simply interesting one of the village chief's daughters? Why was she so kind and loveable? Or maybe she was simply polite, because that was what people expected from the chief's daughter.

Why had the gods made Brun's head mushy and had guided his eyes towards her? Were they playing with him, fooling him while laughing? Maybe that was the kind of fun immortal beings engaged in, right in between pulling the sun across the sky and dragging the moon out from behind the mountains.

Maybe they were sitting there on those far away hills and giggled at that one ram with his pathetic cabbages.

He wished that this day was over already and at the same time was terrified of the thought of it being over, terrified of going to sleep while nothing had changed for him, while he was still a lonely, uptight ram. A thought that would stay with him for at least another full year until next fall.

He had told his former self from a year ago that he would finally find the courage to look for a mate -- actually he had told himself that at this time of the year he would not only have looked for one but that he would have asked her and that he would have learned to deal with whatever answer she might have given.

That was the resolution he had given himself when he had stood at the very same spot last fall and he had repeated these words to himself almost every sunrise in spring and then in summer and then in fall and now he had just repeated them once again while nothing had changed.

Every cabbage had already heard him utter this pathetic mantra. The pine trees had heard it, the flowers on the meadow, the rocks at the river. Almost everything Brun had ever interacted with had heard him babbling or muttering or cursing about this resolution, the only thing he had never said it to was the ears of a ewe.

Brun had accomplished nothing.

Well, not exactly. At least he had collected those mud onions and he had helped getting the last pruney apples off the crooked trees and those cabbages were nicely shelved. That was_some_ accomplishment. Some that didn't make him nervous, some he was good enough at and that made him not feel like a total waste of fur.

The other villagers could laugh at him, but they couldn't point at him and complain that he's sucking up too much air.

How could he ever make Fara like him? He would never grew strong or wise by hunting onions and plucking apples. She would probably laugh as well, but in the most kind and loveable way.

He raised his head again.

Still nothing. Just the same hammering, chatter, babbling of the young sheep who had found an old, slimy mushroom and squabbled over who should have it. Child problems.

Brun thought about taking a break and a short stroll through the village to check if Fara was around, but he immediately shook his head, ruffled his fur and pushed the thought away.

Wandering around aimlessly would make him feel even more like an idiot.

He meant, no, well -- great now he had acknowledged to himself that he was acting like an idiot. He was hiding like a shrew. Just like Ike had said.

He spotted another ram and a ewe.

Was this Hadu with the frizzy hair? Yes, and the ram next to her was Wido.

Brun was baffled. What kind of spell had he used on her to get her attention? There was no way for a ram who was known for using his tongue to pick his nose and his horns to scrub his butt to attract a mate.

Witchcraft was the only plausible explanation. And it must have been a strong spell, because Wido was a known lazy-ass. Instead of shelving cabbages he preferred to eat them, indicated by his voluminous belly that seemed to slowly grow into a big cabbage itself.

If even Wido was able to find a ewe, it meant that Brun was even more pathetic than he had previously admitted to himself.

Brun huffed and turned back to his work, the only thing that prevented him from feeling like a completely useless fool.

Ike's head appeared from behind the shelf and first Brun thought the most terrifying cabbage of the bunch had spontaneously sprung to life to bite him as another joke of the gods.

But instead Ike just watched him like a sneaky bastard while munching on a swamp nut.

Brun wrinkled his nose. "You eat them raw? They taste awful like that."

"They also taste awful if they're cooked", Ike replied.

Well, the curly-head was right, as always.

Ike kept watching Brun sorting the cabbages after size and color. This was neither necessary nor useful, meaningful or fun, but it kept him busy and it kept his mind away from alternative activities he should have pursued instead.

Ike was nibbling noisily on the squishy onion. "If you keep up with that you'll make the village ready for winter all on your own", he said jokingly after a while.

"Good", Brun replied. "That means I'm doing something valuable for the village."

"Maybe. But you're not doing anything valuable for yourself if you're hiding like this."

Brun grunted. "I'm not hiding!", he insisted, mainly to convince himself. "I haven't seen you doing what you were tasked to", he said to turn the conversation around. "Maybe that's why you're sneaking around all day. Is the old Aistulf after you, because you bailed on him again?"

"He may or may not have thrown me out. Only the stars know the answer."

"And do the stars provide you with a place to sleep tonight?"

"I'm staying over at the crooked tree."

"Where everyone goes to pee?"

"No, the other one next to it. The grass there is lush and soft, which may or may not be a result of it being mucked."

"If you sleep outside I won't help you picking ticks off your butt again afterwards."

Ike chuckled and suddenly looked over Brun's shoulder.

Brun tensed up and slowly turned around to face whoever Ike had spotted there. Maybe it was Fara or one of the big ram idiots or -- worst of all -- both, holding hands.

But the street was as empty as before.

Brun sighed in relief.

"Why's the watch post empty?", Ike then asked.

Brun glanced at the small wooden tower on the other side of the yard. It was constructed against a huge maple tree and allowed the guards to overview the meadow -- well, if there would actually have been a guard on it.

The village rules stated that there should be a watcher on each of the three towers at all times, but the chief was away, meeting the head of the village farther down the river, and if the chief wasn't around the rules weren't worth much.

"Wannabe warriors", Brun hissed in disbelief. This time they seemed to have managed to forget themselves.

Ike jumped up. "Maybe I'll sleep up there tonight", he said and giggled like a little lamb. He strode straight towards the tower.

"But we're not allowed up there!", Brun shouted after him.

"Come on", Ike replied, shook his head and made his curls bob. "Life's too short to follow rules nobody enforces. One day you'll wake up and notice that you're dead. If the gods ask you what you did with your life, do you want to tell them that you've shelved cabbages all day or do you want to answer that you've watched them move the mists?"

Neither.

He would have told them that he didn't enjoy their decision of making him a scrawny ram.

And that they could have spent some of their mist-moving powers on making his horns slightly bigger and his fur just a tiny bit curlier.

He would have also ask for some bigger balls, but he figured that this would only have let to thunderous laughter and maybe a landslide burying the village -- and he didn't want to be remembered as the scrawny ram who had made the gods destroy his hometown just because he hadn't been satisfied with the size of his marbles.

He envisioned the baffled faces of the scribes who had to copy that line from a scroll.

"If you keep staring at the tower like this it might collapse", Ike said and made Brun realize that he had spaced out and was staring into the void.

Ike had already climbed the wooden post and was now looking down at Brun, waving his hand and signaling that he should come up too.

Brun huffed and took a careful look around to make sure that the guards still neglected their duties.

He saw no immediate danger and joined Ike.

The curly-head was right: The view from the tower was amazing.

A flickering veil had covered the mountains in the distance and sent shimmers of blue and purple across the valley. The river had turned into a glowing stream of gold as if the dying sun had bled into it and was now radiating from the core of the earth.

Brun could feel a cool wind on his fur. It was as if the sky emptied its vast chest to fill the valley with its evening breath. It enveloped him and made him feel like being part of this vast scenery that was older than the village, older than the tribe of the Horned Runners.

An unfathomable eternity lied there and wrapped itself around him with light and sounds and scents -- proud, unwavering, breathing and pulsating.

Compared to this nameless vastness the village with its tiny shacks seemed minuscule. Brun's thoughts and worries about ewes and warriors and cabbages felt pale and fleeting, not even pathetic, no, just like a breath of air that touched his skin and was already gone the second he noticed it.

In that moment Brun saw that Ike was right, with everything. Brun was hiding away from all of this vastness. Nobody was able to force his will onto the grandeur of this world, but he was ignoring all the small things that could actually be influenced by him.

Fara might have been a tiny speck within this grand scheme, but she was a speck Brun was able to be close to and she could become part of the vastness that was his life.

And he understood Ike's desire to go out there on a journey to a place he might not even find. Maybe it wasn't important to find it as long as he could take the journey.

Who knows what was waiting out there behind the glowing purple veil: mysterious villages, oceans of light or bottomless gorges in which the gods sleep?

Brun looked at Ike. The dark curls of his fur jittered in the wind.

Ike's eyes were fixated on the forest, on the same line of trees he had observed that morning. His nose was flapping again.

Brun had no idea why Ike was so fascinated by this spot.

"What do you see over there?", Brun asked.

Ike ruffled his fur as if he needed to pull his mind back from the forest. "The evening patrol is nowhere to be seen", he said without answering the question.

Brun took another glance over the meadow.

Ike was right, but wasn't it normal for the patrol to be stealthy and sneaky? They wouldn't have been of much use if every rogue stroller could have spotted them from a mile away.

Ike hadn't averted his eyes from the forest.

Brun poked him, just to make sure that there wasn't some kind of witch hiding behind one of the rocks who hypnotized him.

"Those trees aren't right", Ike said in a low voice.

Brun looked up again, but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. It had gotten late and the edge of the forest was nothing more than a dark belt encroaching on the meadow.

"Maybe you've seen one of those Long Necks", Brun theorized. "It's been a long time since they last visited to buy some of Aistulf's cloth."

"It's been a long time because his cloth has terrible quality."

"Well, they traded with some moldy figs."

"That was their way of making fun of the fact that he offers bad quality. Maybe there's a Crooked Neck waiting down there for the night to come."

Brun shuddered at the thought of it, but wasn't able to tell if Ike was serious or just making a dark joke.

A knock on wood made both rams jump.

They looked down and spotted a sheep curiously staring back up at them. Its fur was so light that it could have been a ghost, but it was actually something much more terrifying.

It was Fara.

Brun immediately felt his body tense up again.

All the colorful mountain lights in the distance and the vastness of the valley fell over and shriveled into a tiny shrew that tried to hide somewhere in a dark place of seclusion and patheticness.

Fara looked at him, seemingly waiting for some sort of greeting he wasn't able to think of. His head was empty like an abandoned snail shell and the awkwardness of the situation grew with the duration of the mutual staring.

Ike poked Brun's back which was stiff as a stick and nudged him forward, but Brun had fallen completely silent.

Ike chuckled quietly and nodded towards Fara. "Greetings from a windy evening sky", he said.

Fara smiled and nodded back. "What are you two doing up there?", she asked.

Brun felt the life being drained from his body. This was so terribly awkward.

Every word of her seemed to add another stone to a pile of boulders that were hovering over his head. He could already feel them smashing him.

"Nothing", he squeaked and immediately hated himself for it. "I mean, you don't need to tell your father that we're up here." His self-hate grew stronger.

Fara chuckled. The sound was so gorgeous, like a song of birds and a softly purling stream he wanted to listen to while being far away from this awkward place.

"I may be his daughter, but I'm not his spy", she replied.

Another pause of drawn-out silence followed. Brun knew that every word he could have uttered would only have made him look like a bigger fool. Hence he kept his mouth shut, knowing full well that this didn't really help the bad impression Fara must have gotten from him.

He wished that he could just teleport himself back to the shelves. There were surely some more cabbages waiting for him. Or maybe some smelly mud onions. They wouldn't judge him with curious eyes.

It took another nudge from Ike to bring Brun back from his evasive fantasy.

"Brun was busy all day making the village ready for winter", Ike said and put his hand on Brun's shoulder. "And then he said that it may be a good idea to be on the lookout for Crooked Necks that might try to sneak into the village. Right?"

He nudged Brun some more. Brun just nodded with pursed lips.

Fara chuckled again.

Brun would have loved to listen to her chuckle all day and to tell her how the sound made his heart jump.

"Nice to see that you're taking care of things", she said. "Unlike some other rams."

She glanced sideways to hint at somebody who clearly wasn't around.

"Yeah", Brun uttered and praised himself for not having forgotten how to form words, only to immediately castigate himself again, because now he had to continue with a follow-up sentence or to stand there again in shame and silence.

"The guards aren't really helping much", he said.

This was the stupidest answer he could have given. Bad-mouthing the guards and how the chief had trained them -- and in proxy bad-mouthing the chief's family, which included Fara herself.

Bad ram! Bad, stupid ram!

Fara exhaled soberly. "They're dense as rocks and equally stubborn. If there's a Crooked Neck in the valley they'd probably only spot it when it crawls into their nests and bites them. Rams may have huge heads and big horns, but that doesn't mean heads and horns are what makes a ram."

Ike poked Brun and whispered: "See, she'd be just fine with your not-too-huge horns. Just go and talk to her."

"I have no idea about what", Brun whispered back and kept smiling at Fara, hoping that she didn't hear their awkward exchange -- a hope that was of course wishful thinking, but as the chief's daughter she had good manners and waited diligently for Brun to finish being weird.

"Tell her about what you feel, beet head!", Ike suggested and pushed him closer to the ledge.

"I feel like barfing."

"Okay, talk about something that doesn't involve your bodily functions."

Ike almost had to push Brun over the ledge to finally make him climb down.

Brun stood some feet away from Fara and raised his hand to greet her again, completely unnecessarily, but he had no idea what else to do with his hand.

Her manners demanded her to greet back once again. She smiled. He wasn't sure if it was also part of her manners or just because she found the situation funny or possibly because she found it silly and made fun of him, but it didn't really matter, because he loved this smile and wished for it to never end. He would have loved to marvel at it for the rest of his life, examining every detail of her gently curved lips and her tiny black nose in a sea of milky fur.

"I thought you were busy today", he uttered while trying to tear his eyes away from her mouth before his stare became creepy.

"I was. The runner sent in some documents for father I had to look through while he's away."

This wasn't what he had meant.

"Your father -- I mean the chief, does he tell you what work to do and what kind of ram you should -- I mean the person you should take -- I mean work with. If you have work to do and if you don't do it alone, I mean, I'm trying to say, you know?"

She chuckled again. Like a sweet spear that was softly impaling him.

"I'm free to decide", she replied and then came closer to whisper, "Actually I'm the one who tells father what work needs to be done. But don't tell anyone, okay."

Okay, he replied internally while concentrating on how the air that left her mouth tingled in his fur.

"Father is away to talk to the other chiefs about exchanging workers and guards between villages. I think it's a great idea, but the other chiefs are a bit traditional and like to keep their villages to themselves."

"Sending them some of our guards might cause a war", Brun thought mockingly and noticed that he had actually said it out loud.

His mouth seemed to actively try to make him look bad. Bad, stupid ram!

"That might happen", Fara replied. "But they'd lose the war if they use our guards", and smirked.

Brun mirrored her chuckle. It eased his anxiety. "I didn't know you were so critical with the guards. Aren't you considering to accept one of them as your --", he tried to find a good word, "-- as your assistant."

Yeah, that was a good one. She surely needed a good assistant.

She let her eyes wander as if she was considering her options. "I'm hoping for someone who can take on responsibilities and who gets things done."

There was some ruckus that caught their attention.

Two of the praised ram warriors appeared, walking in a line that resembled their curled horns. One of them carried a mug with grass beer and the other a wooden spear he scratched his butt with.

"Unfortunately, a sense of duty doesn't seem to carry over with the seeds", Fara added.

Around this time of the day these guys should have been patrolling the meadow. No wonder that they had been nowhere to be seen.

But these guards didn't look like going anywhere. They didn't even wear their protective plates -- these might only haven been made from wood, but the local armorer wasn't able to do magic with the resources he was given, and besides, everyone knew that a ram's head was the strongest and most dense material around. People said that with their foreheads they can repel cannonballs that equal the size of their ego.

Instead of their protective gear the rams wore cowl and sash -- clothes that were usually reserved for festivities.

Maybe Fara's presence had made Brun forget about some special ceremony that was taking place that day, but looking at the ewe's baffled face told him that she had no idea what was going on either.

The two rams noticed Fara and the expressions on their faces changed instantly. One immediately turned around as if he had just spotted a mountain lion and the other strode towards her as if he mistook her for a shiny apple.

"Greetings", he said, bowing down and spilling the rest of his beer.

"Greetings", Fara replied with her eyes widened in bewilderment and a forced smile.

Good manners she had indeed.

Brun's eyes were widened too, but the reason was a different one.

He disliked this traditional costume the ram wore, because it was made to only cover the upper body while displaying the goods at the bottom. The Horned Runners were known for their sizeable hogget pots and Brun always got intimidated when he was faced with some that were bigger than his head.

The considerably drunk ram ogled at Fara and flapped his nasal wings to inhale her scent.

Only then he seemed to notice Brun's presence and greeted him with a snide glare and a sneer.

The mere glance of the ram made Brun's testicles shrivel up in proportion to his dwindling chances of competing with him for Fara. Good thing that Brun wore a loincloth to cover up hid meager display.

"Are you threatened by this guy?", the guard asked her. His facial expression changed to a mocking stare once he noticed that Brun clearly wasn't a potent competitor. "Or bothered?"

Fara waved her hand. "I'm doing very well", she said while already having gained back her composure. "It would be much appreciated if you'd take as much care of the safety of the village as you take care of me. These two lads have taken on your responsibility to watch over the village", she said and pointed at Brun and Ike.

"That's really nice of them", the ram replied with another spiteful glance. "But they should've called us and we would've taken care of it. But they didn't say a word, those dutiful lads. And they should honor the craft of the guards instead of violating it by spreading their fur at places it doesn't belong."

"What honor?", Brun hissed.

The ram looked at him. "Do you feel the need to tell me something?", he growled.

Brun first ducked his head but a side-glance at Fara helped him to gather some courage and he replied: "I do."

The guard looked surprised, but in an unpleasant way. He didn't seem to be used to getting backtalk.

Brun pointed at the fence. "What if there's an enemy out there? What if there's a Crooked Neck? It could just sneak into the village without anyone noticing."

Fara nodded. It gave him the confidence to put more force into his voice.

"What's the point of first having to call you over if it could already have crossed the meadow by the time you decide to finish your drink and climb the watch post?"

The ram slammed his fist against the tower to make it quake and Brun jump.

"Careful with that yappy snout!", the guard grumbled. "Or I'll bash it in until even drinking water hurts like hell!"

"Stop it!", Fara said and stepped between the two.

"Excuse me", the guard replied. "I'm in charge of the villagers' safety, aren't I. And I think this lad is posing a threat to the peace of the village."

He gently pushed her aside and turned back to Brun.

Brun huffed. "Am I more of a threat than a Crooked Neck?", he said, feeling more cocky than what was good for him.

The ram laughed dryly. "There haven't been any Crooked Necks around for years! They don't cross the mountains anymore. Stop acting like you're some kind of guard. You don't know anything, you're not trained and your opinion on stuff doesn't matter one bit! Go home and crawl into your nest or pluck some heather or whatever you're good at."

The guard put his hoof against Brun's forehead and pushed him back.

Brun hated that. Touching a ram like that was the fastest way to make him mad. After all rams' heads are dense and they're too stubborn to back off when challenged in this fashion.

Brun stared at the guard and held against it, even if it had no effect, because the guard was much stronger than him and pushed him back anyway.

But Brun didn't want to just give in, especially since Fara was standing right next to him. He might have been weak and scrawny with short legs and horns that could have been slightly bigger, but he wasn't a coward. That stupid rock-head with his big muscles could push him across the entire village if he liked, but Brun wouldn't duck away.

"It's enough!", Fara said.

"I'm sorry", the guard said and pulled back his hand.

Brun was still pushing and the sudden release made him stumble forwards and he fell to the ground.

The guard chuckled at him.

"You're tasked to defend the village", Fara said to the big ram, "and not to tell other villagers what to do."

"You're perfectly right, of course", the guard replied and looked down at Brun. "This lad has gotten cocky. I wonder what made his juices rise like that." He chuckled again and let his nose twitch to inhale the sweet scent that radiated from Fara like from a flower on a field of summer.

"But I can tell other guards what to do", the big ram added and put his hand on his chest. "Hence I appoint this lad as a new member of the village guards. I give him the honorable responsibility of defending the village against all threats from behind the fence and ask him to go out there and fight that Crooked Neck he's so sure about lingering there. I'm sure his superior senses and knowledge will aid him at completing his task long before the moon hits the mountains."

Brun's eyes widened in a mix of surprise and bewilderment.

He had always imagined how it would feel like to be accepted as one of the guards. He had imagined being proud, cheerful and elated, but at that moment none of these feelings was present. Instead he only felt ridicule, spite and shame.

He pulled himself back up and brushed the dirt off his fur as if this could ease the awkwardness of his situation.

"But maybe he's not brave enough to go out there to fulfill his duty", the big ram said and put on a face of false compassion. "Maybe he wants to go home. I could understand that. He just needs to say it and I'll gladly allow him to go back to his warm nest."

Brun bit his lips.

He looked at Fara as if he expected her to say what he should do. Her facial expression made him realize that he must have looked much more determined than he had expected.

"You don't have to do that", she said. "You know he isn't serious."

"Oh I am", the guard replied. He pulled a wooden spear from the scabbard on his back and handed it over to Brun.

It was a ceremonial weapon with colorful markings, not made for actually fighting, but the guard treated it as if it was the real deal and looked at Brun expectantly.

Brun stared back and took the spear with the same determined expression. It might not have been a real weapon, but it was still better and more robust than his own wooden stick.

At least that was what he told himself to bring himself into the right mindset.

He glanced at Fara again. Her face seemed to question what the hell he was doing there.

Brun didn't really know himself, but he was determined to not look like a coward who can be mocked and played with.

She had said she wanted someone who can take on responsibilities and that big muscle-ram clearly couldn't. If that meant that Brun needed to show him how it's done, then so be it.

After all this was what he always had wanted -- not exactly the way he had imagined it, but it was like Ike always said: Good enough.

Brun looked at Ike up on the tower to get some emotional support, but he was greeted with a worried expression and a wag of Ike's head. The curly-head wasn't backing him up then.

Brun grunted internally in disappointment, but even that wouldn't make him back out. He clenched his hooves around the spear and glanced at the gate that led to the meadow.

He heard the guard chuckle again. "You'll also need this", the big ram said, pulled off his cowl and threw it over. "You should dress like a guard, because you're representing the village now, you know."

Brun knew that the gesture was nothing more than a provocation. He knew that this big rock-head would have loved to see the small ram rejecting the offer; to make fun of him some more and to hold him up as an example of a bad junior-guard who refused to follow orders.

Brun realized that there was no positive way out of the whole situation. He could have rejected going out on the meadow altogether or he could have excused himself and said that he wasn't strong or brave enough after all or he could have asked the actual guard to do the job for him -- didn't matter, all these options would have made him look like a coward in front of Fara, the guard and everyone the idiot would tell this story to.

Brun wouldn't back off. He wouldn't complain. The guard could laugh at him, but he wouldn't be able to call him a coward or an idiot or a waste of fur.

Brun took the cowl and put it over his shoulders. It was too big, of course, but he tried to look unfazed.

He took off his loincloth and felt a cool breeze greeting his goods. He tugged on the fur down there to get everything in place and avoided looking the guard or Fara in the eye.

A small and scrawny ram had balls too. Such a shocker, right?

He tried to shrug the unusual display off and told himself that it was part of looking like a guard -- like the smallest guard ever. Plum-sized to be precise.

The big ram snickered. He must have thought the same.

Brun turned around to face the village gate.

He took a deep breath. Time for him grow just a little bit.

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© 2018, Kranich im Exil

Part of the collection "Weltenzoo"

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