darkelf105 | Tidbit (Reply)

Here's a tantalizing tidbit of the short story I am working on for Philly. It's called Ladybird. Enjoy,

Squinting against the bright sun, Calvin of Gust Town surveyed the windless valley. A sweaty lock of his dusty brown hair flopped across his eyes and he scowled. Without the breezes that usually cooled this valley and the little town that nestled in it, the foothills of the Lonely Mountains were unbearably hot. And brown. Calvin could not remember a time when no rains had come and no winds had blown. He had never known that the sun could be such a golden tyrant.

“Cal! Cal!”

Cal lifted a hand to his brow and shielded his eyes, looking down across the valley from his hilly perch. He spotted a splotch of color moving across the dun colored foothills towards him and waved. The splotch waved back, redoubling its efforts to reach him. A white blur raced along behind it. Janie and her dog Scoundrel had returned. Calvin hoped that they had been successful in their mission of procuring lunch. His stomach groaned and felt shriveled and empty inside of him. Breakfast had been four hours ago.

Calvin was standing on the flattened top of the wide hill known as Gerber’s Roost. The hill dominated the town and was the very first in an ever rising series of rocky, wood covered humps that receded slowly into the distance to eventually tower into the Lonely Mountains. Gust Town, nestled at the bosom of Gerber’s Roost and bounded on the west and east by smaller hills, was the last outpost of civilization until one crossed over the high peaks of the mountains into the Eastern Lands where one could find such exotic and exciting things and the Great Wide River and Sargis, the capital of the world. But those places were far and distant, behind the rocky palisade of the mountains. Only Gust Town could be seen from here, its little chimneys poking the blue of the sky, its streets deserted. It was too hot in the valley during the day to do much work.

To his right there was a scrabbling that raised a fine cloud of dust. The little ledge at the top of Gerber’s Roost had to be climbed onto and Janie’s fingers were clambering for purchase. Calvin rushed over to the edge and helped heave her up. Dust smudged both of her cheeks, but she was grinning widely. On her shoulder was a red bag. A few moments later, there was more scrambling and Scoundrel bounded over the ledge. The dog heaved a sigh and flopped over panting.