If you've read my earlier post today, you will know that this is my second Short Story Weekly post for the week. Main lyt because I wasn't wble to get the post up by Sunday...so instead of missing a week, I'll be doing this second story. It is crazy to think that October is half a month a way! This year is flying by so fast, and looks to be the best year for the Malacast Editorial, thanks to all of you who come here weekly to read posts. I hope to eventually be posting daily, as the day we receive internet access up in my lonely little mountain top comes nearer, I'll be able to do much more than I've been limited to now.
For this week, I'll be doing something slightly different, most of my stories no longer have a sequential order anymore, and this one will be no different. With-that I present:
Scavengers of the Deciduous Niche
The tiring winter drowned onwards, leaving an icicle-covered full moon in tow, lupine howling wt the sight if the full sphere, the winds howling throughout hallowed dendron. A savage most rolls out from escaping heat through cavern maws. The world is a splendid silence, even the soft steps of paw prints in the snow keep even the shriilest ears at ease. Relentless snow had fallen weeks before, but not even a gentle flurry has ruined the skyscape, the portrait was as clear as freshly molded glass.
The pairing off of coupled loves for the winter rest had staked their mutal claims, and off to burrows and caves to vanish for the months leading up to til spring. All was right in the forest, nothing was out of place. It was a beautiful aura of all things simple. And yet, there was slight disturbances, carried off on wings of blood, talons of greed. Beaks that tore fresh meat from off rotting bones. Even in this purity of white, there was a death to behold, a murder by predators, an epitaph for prey.
The clear skies gave fright chills to the fauna that caught a hint where fur did not patch skin. Wolf stood by with rubies dripping vicariously from her jowls. Rabbit had lain by her feet, rose petals covered white fur, a few twitches of the knee, but he was long lost to the shrieking winds. She had been lonely on the night's terrain, and smothered herself with the deadly curiosity of Rabbit, tearing white strewn fur from pink flesh, giving it a new home on the forest floor, heating the graves of where tree leaves once fell, now a dust frozen under permafrost.
Wolf bays out to the moon, Rabbit's blood coagulates over her panting jowls, looking outwards she sees Partridge, forlorn at the sight, but turns about and flies away up I to the conifers, where only the hardiest of birds may roost. Squirrel, on the off-chance of waking too soon for a quick lick of snow, sees her cousin Rabbit lain out in puddles and fur, a ragdoll wonder of viscous carrion....so he slinks back into his hallowed birch, to dream of nightmares of the prey's mutilated corpse for three months to come.
The world is rough, and if a lappen is not going to be made out as a meal for mongrel lupine, than he'd better know to flicker his tail, and break the speed barrier. Squrrel knows how to avoid treachery as this, by clambering up the nearest tree, and hollowing out the nearest lichen-infested region, protected then by a bubble of sap, and a prickle of pine resin. Still, these skills are not applicable to the whoosh of birdshot, and next thing she knows, there is nothing left of her but stew and moccasins.
Wolf howls and moves on, a beast into the shadowy night,where even others of her kind fear her solidarity, neither knowing if she had turned to the sickness, or had been sick all her lie, she mushed off towards a region of darkness that not even the Ursa lumber. Leaving a foul stench of death, where not even fowl dare peck, Raven and Crow prefer the head on their shoulders, over the snippets of tendon-bound strings that lay beneath in No-Bird's-Land. Their meals will have to come later that day, when the cherished meat had been picked by mongrels less savory than Wolf, and here was to hoping to receive some marrow for their patience. They dared to not pick fights with Badger and Fox, hunger was more a saving-grace to remind them that they were still alive.
For now, the night carried on, the forest floor alive with the sultry coldness of death as its surroundings. A Florentine fitting of majesty carved into the canopies, nothing but splendor for Trees' only enemy was miles away in cabins made of their fallen brethren. The placid dance of fire, Man's call signal, would not haunt such a deep-wilderness place, the spectators of centuries' past, Trees stand strong.
The darkness grows darkest only for shielding of the light, but with it comes mourning, prey escaped to feed the predators' hunger...Crow is unamused, Raven basks in the deplority of it all. Desth still lingers for the fallen lappen, and Wolf is miles from the great Sun's rays. All beknownst to the scavengers of the deciduous niche, as they pick the ribbons off Rabbit's bones....sun breaks, Crow and Raven get their long-awaited, ravenous turn. They gouge on the splintered calcium, the lukewarm marrow...bellies engorged, they break into tranquil, laziez-faire flight. Business as usual.
Thank you for reading the Malacast Editorial. We are now down to eight more Short Story Weekly posts, one that is being worked on as the third-to-last, and it has been in the works for some time, if it is worthy of third-to-last, it will be up the second(?) week of October, which is upon us faster than ever before, so-it-seems. Still, I'm excited to move on with this blog site, and do more posts that are more focused on the true aspects of this blog site, especially reviewing films again. To segue into next week, along with a new #SSWkly, I'll be posting a review of Don't Breathe, the most recent film I've seen. It will be up next week, because any longer and it wouldn't be worth reviewing, but I'll try to give a narrative that is unique to other critics, so it will be at least intesting if you've already watched the film.
Again, I'm sorry for missing a second week, so I hope this short story makes up for it, and thank you all again for the avid support!
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