Journey of a Rock
#1 of The land of Gale
The heavy boot of the Gundyr smashed down on the squealing rock. There was a sound like the chewing of stone and then silence. The giant kept his pace and swung a long staff, whacking a small fleeing stone and sending it tumbling, tiny arms over tiny legs, into the underbrush. The group of other small rock creatures fled the giant and his wrath, scattering out of the meadow and into the bushes and ferns of the forest.
As this happened the giant lost track of them. Grumbling in his own tongue he marched back to his small campfire. It was the middle of the night, his rest haven been rudely interrupted by a number of tiny hands attempting to slit his throat.
Snam watched the lumbering footsteps march all the way back to the burning logs. He hid under the wide, green leaves of a mulberry bush. His tiny stone hand pushing aside one of these leaves so that he could look upon the meadow. His eyes, glowing now because of the light of the fire, drifted down to the twitching pebbles that littered the ground a few giant's steps away.
Snam saw a small glowing stone, surrounded by the thin blades of grass and blooming flowers. As he watched it, it moved, and he could see now that it was an eye. It frantically looked about, no doubt stunned and confused. As every part of its body could be felt scattered across the dirt.
Snam has a strange felling arise within him then. It wasn't just fear at the same thing happening to him, how close that great foot had come to scattering him. No, it was a desire to assist this creature. It could be done, he had seen fellow Trox in his Ratask with limbs glued by the sap of the svartur trees. It would be a weeks journey to the notten forest over the mountains and back again. He could collect the sap and begin too... but why would he.
Why would he do this thing? That which only benefited another. He would simply waste a week, potentially putting himself in danger and getting smashed too. Notten forests were not known for their warms heaths. Though what Trox would wish for a fire he did not know, it was not as if a stone shivered in the night air.
Snam felt the ground shiver as the Gundyr took a seat beside his burning wood. The giant hadn't yet noticed the pair of glowing eyes hiding under the mulberries. But Snam didn't want to risk it. He began to lower the leaf that exposed him to the meadow. Yet he was compelled to take one last look at the scattered Trox. Unfortunately, he found the glowing eye of the helpless creature staring back at him. The franticness had left it. It was wide, unsure...
Snam maintained the contact for a moment longer before lowering the leaf and scuttering away from the edge of the meadow as quick as his two tiny stone legs could carry him.