Once Upon a Winter's Night

8

Reveling in the warmth of the Summerwood, Camille shed her cloak and vest, for although evening was drawing nigh, her green-silk jerkin sufficed. Through the duskingtide pressed the Bear, and stars began to dimly shine, growing brighter as he and Camille left the twilight border behind and as night drew down on the land. And a slowly cooling waft of air coiled among verdant trees and bore the fragrances of summer: of grasses and green leaves and mossy loam and oozing sap on the bark of wild cherry trees, of wildflower blossoms and reeds in water and the aromatic foliage of mint. All these and more did Camille distinguish drifting on the air, while crickets sang in the surround, and far-off frogs breek ed, and some thing or things scuttered alongside in the dark.

In the distance ahead, Camille espied the glimmer of a fire, and just as had been in the Springwood, here, too, did a camp await their arrival, this one with a quintet of quail roasting above the flames. Camille ate two of the birds, the Bear the rest, she carefully nipping the meat from the fragile frames, he snapping up his trio and crunching them down, bones and all.

The next dawning, Camille found awaiting a breakfast of scones and tea. And she reveled in this meal, for embedded throughout the biscuitlike pastries were tart, sun-dried fruit nuggets, contrasting with and yet enhancing the honey-sweetened taste of the tea. As she sipped her drink and ate, Camille could hear the Bear off among the nearby trees, snuffling and rolling over deadwood and pouncing on that which he found ’neath.

Grubs, mayhap, or beetles. Camille shuddered, and continued with her own fare.

Finished with breakfast, Camille fetched forth one of her chew-sticks and began cleaning her teeth. Yet now and again she paused and listened, for occasionally she thought she heard a small, piping voice somewhere nigh the Bear, and grunts from the Bear in response; but when she hearkened, the voice spoke not, and when she looked, she saw nought to account for whoever or whatever might be in converse with the Bear.

At last the Bear came padding back, and Camille broke camp as day washed into the sky.

On went the Bear with Camille throughout the Summerwood, the cool, green forest shaded by rustling leaves above, with shafts of golden sunlight streaming down through the gaps between. They crossed warm and bright fields and sunlit glades laden with wild summer flowers, where the air was filled with the drone of bees and the flutter of butterflies, all flitting from blossom to blossom to burrow in or to elegantly sit and sip. Occasionally a lone bee arrowed off into the forest, bearing its precious nectar and pollen treasures to cache in honey-burdened trees, leaving behind the butterflies to continue their vivid dance. And to Camille’s wondering eyes, now and again, among the stir of airborne creatures, she thought she espied tiny, winged beings clad in gossamer green and darting thither and yon, perhaps teasing the butterflies-Sprites? Pixies? Hummingbirds instead? Camille could not be certain, for none flew nigh the treading Bear with the wide-eyed girl on his back.

Down into a river-fed gorge they went, the lucid water sparkling, green sward and willowy thickets adorning its banks. From somewhere ahead Camille could hear a cascade, and soon the Bear trod alongside falls pouring down amid a spray of rainbows into a wide, sunlit pool. And on the opposite shore otters played, a handful or so, sliding down the steep bank and into the glitter of water to disappear under, only to emerge and turn about and race ashore and scamper up to slide down again.

“Oh, Bear, do stop. This water looks warm, and I’ve had nought to bathe in but chill.”

Grunting, the Bear looked at the sun standing nigh the zenith, and halted.

Moments later, Camille glided through the clement, crystalline water toward the play of otters. As she neared, she could hear the chime of laughter, and lo! the moment the otters splashed into the river, Waterfolk they became, with their tiny frames and long fishtail feet and along each side a translucent fin running from wrist to ankle. Their eyes were large and they looked at Camille and then playfully darted between her legs and ’round her back and up between her breasts. One paused before her, and then Camille could see that he was a male… they all were males.

Squealing, Camille fled back toward the shore on which lay her clothes, as Waterfolk swam over and under and about her thrashing legs and flailing arms and ’round her waist and across her bosom, brushing against her most private places and giggling.

Gaining the shore at last, Camille scrambled up the bank and to her clothes, flinging them on in spite of her wetness, while Waterfolk laughed joyously, and swam back to the opposite shore to shift their forms and resume their otter play.

“Bear! Where are you, Bear?” she called, looking about for her absent guardian, furious at the laughter behind.

A grunt came from higher up the embankment, and she saw the Bear sitting amid a patch of brambles eating dewberries, his muzzle stained purplish from the fare. Struggling with her boots, “You could have warned me,” cried Camille, cross with embarrassment.

“ Whuff. ”

With a foot half in, half out of her last boot, Camille stopped and glared at the Bear. “Does that mean you could have warned me?”

The Bear grunted and pulled over another thorny vine and began to rip off the dark berries.

“Oh, you!” Camille stamped her foot into the boot, and, fully dressed at last, she glanced across at the Waterfolk otters and then began to giggle.

That evening, another camp awaited the Bear and the girl, with a brace of marmots roasting above the flames, and large leaves laden with dewberries sitting off to one side. Camille ate a leaf or two of the sweet blackberries, as well as a hind leg and a fore, the Bear eating all the rest.

Unlike the Autumnwood, with its mild days and chill nights, in the Summerwood Camille needed neither cloak nor vest by day, and only a thin blanket at night, and that but near the break of light. Yet just after the dawntide of the third day in the wood, from a grey sky above a very light rain began to fall, more of a fine mist blowing than a drenching pour, and Camille wrapped her cloak about to ward away the mizzle. By the noontide, though, the sun broke through, and ghostly vapor seeped up from the earth and coiled among the trees, like streaming wraiths seeking to escape the sun.

Even as the insubstantial vapor swirled about, they topped a hill, and there the Bear paused and grunted. “What is it, Bear? Why do you-?” Camille’s words chopped short, and her heart suddenly sprang to her throat, for down below and shrouded in ethereal mist twining ’round, stood a great mansion midst widespread grounds. And Camille knew it could be nought but the manor of the Lord of Summerwood, the manor of her husband-to-be.