Ranger's Roundhouse

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Grass whispered softly beneath the girl's feet, murmuring sweet nothings to itself. Ordinarily she would have stopped to listen for an hour or two, soaking in the songs of the wind and the tales in the trees — but not today. Pīhi and Tāwharu's eggs were due to hatch at any moment, and with that knowledge she couldn't stand to be still.

Sunlight crept cautiously over the horizon, stretching out long golden fingers to caress the earth.

The girl broke into an easy jog. She could sprint through the forest unimpeded on even the darkest of nights, but today she somehow didn't want to.

As she passed, leaves fingered her face wonderingly. Branches whispered their constant query — 'What are you?'  — and thorns turned aside at a word. The wind sang through her hair in a dark cloud, threatening to obscure her vision, but she brushed it aside impatiently.

'There's no time — move, please, move aside!'

She broke through the trees to the fence and spun, bounding alongside up the hill with long, easy strides.

The fence was silent as a tomb amidst the calls of the forest, and an uncomfortable chill crawled down her spine. The steel nagged at her mind incessantly — like a prickle. It didn't feel... right. Sometimes she wondered if it was really alive.

She had climbed the thing once or twice, but the top was furnished with long lengths of wire; huge, ugly, twisted barbs of it grew too close together for her to squeeze between, and the ordinarily simple act of climbing had hurt her fingers and toes more than tree-branch and rock ever had. She'd never particularly felt like braving the spikes. A couple times when she was lonely she had tried digging under, too, but the roots dove too deep. She was half convinced the thing was endless — that it had sprouted from the ground with the hills and grown like some twisted, mangled tree.

Skin crawling, she shook her head sharply and forced her thoughts back to the falcons.

Maybe Tāwharu would bring her new food to try — although that was unlikely, as she was managing to find food for herself. Truth be told, she preferred eating fruit to small birds; however, when the falcon offered, she'd never yet had the heart — or stomach — to tell him so.

The ground levelled beneath her feet and she picked up speed, wondering if maybe Tāwharu had instead found new places to explore (or tell stories of if they lay outside the fence).

He was by far her favourite storyteller — and his first had been the catalyst to her meeting the wire — but sometimes he left her uneasy. Sometimes he compared her to chick and the fence to an eggshell, and that was comforting. But sometimes the steel was "clipping her wings", and the way Pīhi scolded him afterward left a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She didn't actually have feathers, but still, it was unnerving.

At last nearing the roots of the Fallen Kauri, Kaia slowed to a walk and calmed her wild mind; it was funny how her thoughts raced faster than her feet when she ran.

She rested a small, dark hand against the cool bark for a moment to pant, taking in the smells and sounds of the forest appreciatively as she waited. But something was wrong.

Or maybe not wrong, but something wasn't right. The birds were quiet. The trees hushed. A strange chill radiated from the earth.

A cold-fingered shiver scuttled down the girl's spine.

Hesitantly, she took half a step forward — then stopped, biting her lip.

Did she dare? She had visited many, many times, but never without the falcons' permission — and the first time she'd stumbled across the site Pīhi had almost attacked her; she wasn't keen to incur the falcon's wrath again.