Pen ran away from home, and now waking under the golden sunspots tickling him in his little one-night cave. Leaves on his muddy face, but rather than disturbed, he wakes up at peace with a deep breath and smile. He has got nothing with him except for his art supplies. No bag, no extra clothes, no food, yet the ground feels at peace and the air is fresh. Nothing is better for him than waking up on dew soil and see the fire ants freshly finding their meals. He too thinks he should find something to eat, but this wild forest provides him with only berries. As far as he knows, blue and red berries, both sweet with different tastes, grow in this forest and it is the only fruits he knows that grows here.
Ah…but there are hares jumping around with carrots in their mouths. He can catch them, but, the thought of eating what is alive in his hand AHHHHHH, a bad idea. It is a bad idea! No hares! No animals! Only fruits! Berries only for breakfast. Plucking off a purple one which is new and tasting it, which, has not taste at all. The reds are sweet like strawberries while the blues are also sweet but a tad bit sour like young mangos.
“Sour is good!” Grandpa speaking in his head, saying that if the food tastes bad, it means it is healthy! Or, if you want to puke later, that means it is bad! Like what happened with him on Grandpa’s first dish when trying to cook with Ox legs. Pen thought he can man it down with one gulp but would he even be able to when the food tastes like a mudfull. He wanted to puke right then and there. But he gulped it down, just as he said to himself. Which he asks after if it was edible and the charming gramps simply smiles in his own fantasy and nodded yes. “It is perfectly healthy because it tastes like herbs right?” Which was more like herbs with their roots and a handful of mud. “If it tastes bad,” He continued, “Simply puke it out later.” Which the boy did.
“Ah…Ox legs scare me” Pen finishes plucking and munching down 50 berries. Quite the abundance in this forest and he does not know why. Maybe it is because of the Gods, or something living and nurturing them like berry sprites. Haha, who would believe him if they were actually berry sprites? Nature sprites—figures manifested by mother nature to take care every specific aspect of her. So if it is a berry sprite, it would look like a giant berry like the one blocking his way right now.
“Uhm…”
“Berry berry—” This bulbous berry fruit mumbles, spreading its tiny leaf hands when it’s body is thrice larger than Pen, “Berryyy berry”
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“You look cute…” If this was truly a nature sprite, then it would have attacked him for taking the berries. Just like how trees would get mad at illegal loggers. But the berry seems too fat to show any expression on its eyes. And every time it opens its mouth looks like it is burping.
“Berry~ Berry~” It wants something? Extending its leaves for Pen who does not know what to do except to give it a handshake…”BERRY!!!!” IT SUDDENLY STARTS SCREAMING!
“GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” Pen runs for his life from a two-legged berry who runs like a mix of penguin and ostrich. What kind of thing runs like that! Apparently, this fat ass berry sprite. “I DID NOT DO ANYTHINIG I’M SORRY!!!!!”
“BERRRYYYYY!”
The two chases themselves out of the forest and Berry sprite rolls on the sloped down hills like a bowling bell. Hitting “Berry! Berry! Berry!” Rocks, some stumps and fallen trees down to the grassy plains.
A wide prairie landscape greets him. With a river so mighty that it cuts mountains and great grass plains in half. Pen walks towards a hill that is further up. Looking down at the majestic river below that can only be the one in the history and school books that every teacher and adult are talking about when the subject is water. “The lifeblood of Cyndoryll, great mighty Micelea!”
It is all mighty, big, and long but it sounds like baby’s nickname. So cute and peaceful like the lands around it. Slumbering plains and mountains that keeps a flowing stream from the mountain, Ādr-beorg. Which means a vein mountain! Pen takes out his tiny notepad in his pocket and a pinky sized chalk of charcoal. draws the beautiful Micelea, adding with some passing birds and the a certain funny stupid berry sprite struggling to roll itself upright at the riverbank. In the background where the river leads up to is the Ādr-beorg, shading it as majestically and light as possible. No extremely hard shadows or strokes, simply sketch like appeal that takes his breath away just like how he saw the view for the first time.
He draws the airscape on a different page. Clouds stretching from the distant western kingdoms all the way to the central capital—Kinguin and then to the eastern kingdoms. Ah, look! The great Lunaria is up high in the central sky with her sister moon Lumeris on the far west. Though they can be seen, it is still high noon with the first sun Leoht exactly above his head. While his brother sun Ceald is still shy somewhere behind heaven’s fluffy cottons. Now, he wonders why Atormis has a lot of celestial bodies but it all depends on the season really! When it is Sumerin, the brother suns stay up late in the wake sky while the sister moons would be quite shy with the warm clouds every night. Other seasons will be drawn on his other pages, for now, it will just be the sumerin sky while he rests his back on the chill grass and feel a gentle breeze.
Closing his eyes almost seems like a new experience as well. Do rivers speak? Because it sounds like someone is whispering at him from below. Someone who is singing in hushes while someone is drumming at Ādr-beorg. Sssha~ shha~ shha~, fwosh/fwosh/fwoosh/. Like a couple serenading each other with their sweet and sour voices, reminding Pen of the berries he ate for breakfast.
R-right…Why is he lazing around now when there are more sites he can visit to! It is now time for lunch too but where in Kinguin’s plains can he even find proper food?
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