Note: This story is relating to a two log session involving Holly and Walter. It would be best to read 'Lookout' and 'A New Start' before reading this one. Special thanks to Willow for the title.
'It's too bad that this colony doesn't have a dandelion on the /East/ side,' mentally noted the female ant, known as Holly Rosethorn. However, then it also occurred to her that it would not be in her best interest to use any of the spores to travel, since it was of most important that no one-not a single unnecessary ant to know of her departure before she was well out of anyone's reach. The only ant; at least as far as she knew of her plan to depart was that muddy lavender foreigner named Walter. She knew that there was a risk that he might report to someone in the colony, and her chance to escape and beginning a fresh start would be gone. Perhaps forever. But it was a risk she had to take.
With fully loaded leaf pack slung over her right shoulder, with vine strap keeping it securely in its proper place, Holly began her travels well before the first crack of dawn. She could hardly sleep, so she had made plans, gathered food and water for the journey, and had plenty of time to go out into the colony undetected. The lone ant was at the edge of the cracked riverbed when the slightest bit of light filled the Eastern sky.
But this was a better way to go. The ants didn't pay as much attention to the Eastern side of the river. The island was more covered by foliage on this side, and the rock 'alter' they'd kept the food for so long helped obscure the view, it was on an uprising of the area adjacent to it. Also, as the light came up, she'd still be in the shadows of the side of the river. Even dropping down and traveling at the bottom of the cracks would be chosen-if necessary.
Every once in a while, Holly took the occasional look over her shoulder, but as she was able to keep within the shade of the riverside, her confidence became more and more apparent. However, a sound in the very soft wind caused her to stop. Not immediately, but slowed her pace and her antenna picked up which had been the sound of other ants. She looked back, winced, and stood there for the longest time. The sound grew, as did the pounding of her heart.
But as she stood there, studying what the source could be, it occurred to her that the sounds didn't come any closer. She breathed a sigh of relief. 'Harvesting'. It was the sounds of those strange contraptions that she was hearing. That... and the bits of indistinguishable conversation from the ants discussing this and that. After lifting a hand to brush her forehead, not from perspiration, but an unconscious way of dispelling anxiety, she turned in the other direction toward the edge of the river. That was the last time Holly Rosethorn would ever see the colony known as 'Ant Island' again. More relieved, she could not be, but for a single traveling ant, it's not always the easiest of trips.
The 'lone traveler' made nary a stop for the better part of the morning, until she was well out of sight of the colony. She looked around and let out the biggest shout. "I'm free!" She took in the deepest breath. The air felt fresher, the light... brighter! Everything was so much more open. She was finally free. Free of all those looks from the others. They didn't know what she had gone through... loosing her kids, her family. Life threatened by slavers. A little colony, with little ideas, and /very/ little understanding of the world outside of their little island. Oddly enough, at least to her, she was happy for them. They don't need to worry about such things. Just live the peaceful lives they now have.
With that in mind, she found a comfortable spot within the shade of a clover, and had lunch.
It wasn't for a good two days of travel that Holly encountered any real problems. Oh, her feet hurt, and her back. She'd only done any actual work in the colony for a handful of months after her 'incarceration' in her chamber, where she'd become rather sluggish. But body aches were a minor detail. Heat was a significant problem.
She had plenty of dew to drink, what with the mornings supplying ample of the clear liquid refreshment, but it caused her to loose pace, and she knew as well as any ant that traveling wasn't the safest of activities. She remembered one time that crazy blue ant back at 'Ant Island' had made a hat for sun protection, so she attempted to fashion one for herself. It was a fairly reasonable facsimile, but the vine was a little short, and the leaf was a little too small, so it didn't exactly stay perched on her head too well. The 'antenna holes' were a little off, so every once in a while she found it necessary to lift the hat a little to gently massage the areas that felt rubbing from the leaf.
It wasn't long before heat and the irritation of a misshapen hat became far distant problems. It was while walking through an open area that Holly heard some crunching sounds not too far to the right of her. She stopped dead and looked that way for several seconds, but the sound didn't reoccur until she began to walk again. The crunching kept up this time as she stopped and looked. Her eyes grew wide as berry buds as she found the source of the crunching had a large white and fuzzy body as the source: A field mouse.
Fear paralyzed her mind as several scenarios intertwined, meshed and by and large managed to ram into each other. Did field mice sense movement? Were they sensitive to sounds? How far away could they smell? But one word managed to push its way through all that whirling and twirling of panic to the point that it dominated all else. RUN!! And... she did so. Hard to think clearly when potential death is looking you in the face. Or at least it's pink tail and fuzzy behind-
As Holly made a full speed departure, several rocks were scattered by her feet, alerting the mouse to her presence. And since this particular mouse favored ant to grass, it very quickly passed on the current morning menu and pursued Holly in a full run who would eventually become its meal, if it hadn't been for one little detail. This mouse was crosseyed. Had been from birth so chasing the latest meal usually resulted in a missed meal. The female ant was well in the mouse`s sight, but as she looked behind, didn't see the blade of grass she veered into, that with a spring sent her flying a good distance into a berry patch. The mouse had no idea of these events and kept running.
Holly landed in a less than dignified manner over a couple of black berries, but was nonetheless in any worse shape. After the sounds of the running mouse slowly diminished, and did not return, Holly managed to climb down and get to her feet. 'Crazy mouse,' she called out as she tried to get her breath back. 'I guess I'd better stay away from open areas,' which was a good plan, that worked for the next four day, until she ran into a serious obstacle.
Holly poked her head over the edge of the precipice. 'Of all the things I needed, this wasn't one of them,' she commented to herself in a sarcastic tone. A dry creek had crossed her path on the way to East River colony. She'd done this many times before; looking over the edge, but there really was no way to cross the chasm that lied below here. And she'd walked the edge of the creek bed three times over, hoping for a place to cross.
The problem with the creek bed was this: In areas where the creek was shallow, it was much to wide to cross, and where it was much closer together; at times just a little more than a jump's distance to the other side, it was so deep, that any wingless bug or ant would plummet to their demise. So it seemed that this journey to freedom had come to a bitter failure. And Holly made well know of that, in thought and in action.
"Dang it all! What does it take to get my freedom?!" She then kicked a pebble into the creek bed, then shoved an acorn into the opening right afterward. Then with arms folded, she glared at the crack before her. 'I'm not going back. I can't! They'll never trust me again. They'll probably think I've gone off to find those slavers or some other stupid deal."
After several minutes of casting disparities at the dry riverbed, her feet began to ache, so she went in search of a place to sit that was a little more comfortable than the ground. A twig became the subject of interest, and she made good use of it for about twenty minutes. As her situation felt more and more hopeless, she lowered her head to her hands, and stared at the ground. Then... she stared at the twig she was sitting on.
Quickly Holly got to her feet, and she gave the twig a good, long look. An image came to her mind: The twig lying over both edges of a narrow part of the creek bed. She immediately began to drag the twig by grabbing hold of a smaller twig branching off to one side, and pulled it to the nearest area she felt was narrow enough for it to work, but with its heavy weight, it took her a good half an hour until she was able to reach the destination.
Several times she had to stop to either catch her breath, or rub and stretch her back, or wipe a bead of perspiration from her forehead. None of these helped to improve her mood, and the farther she went, the more she wanted to just heave the 'stupid twig' over the edge, as she did with the pebble and the acorn. But common sense prevailed, and was able to reach the narrow area.
Only one problem remained. She wasn't strong enough to push the twig across the chasm without it falling into the creek bed. A decided frown crosser her face as she studied the matter over in her head. 'How to get this thing across?' She remembered once a creek not too far from her own colony, where in a nasty storm the wind had blown a sapling over, and it bridged the gap-That's it! With all her effort, Holly stood the twig on end, and pushed it over, which caused it to bounce and roll a little, but the portion of the branch she'd used to drag the twig kept it from rolling too far and into the crack.
After it came to a rest, she climbed up onto the twig and began to cross. The twig shifted a little as Holly's weight pressed down upon it, coming somewhat close to her to loosing balance, but didn't slip any. This angered Holly to no end, and desired to shove the twig into the chasm as soon as she was across. After Holly made her way to safety she then bent over with hands on the end of the twig, ready to shove it in and over the edge... but stopped.
For reasons that even Holly wasn't sure of, she stood up, looked at the twig for a long moment, then turned and left. After several steps, the blue ant looked back one more time and sighed. "Eh, what's the use," she asked herself. "Besides, maybe someone can make use of it." Then onward she walked."
It's interesting to note that about three weeks later, a rather industrious pill bug came along also desiring to cross the dry riverbed, and finding the twig sill lying across the chasm. While he found that it was a bit unsteady, the pill bug looked around and located four large rock: two on each side of the river bed, and placed them on each side of the ends of the twig as a brace so as to keeping it from moving.
Other bugs had come along later on, found this 'bridge' and made use of it; many who were really quite thankful of it's existence, and felt gratitude for the bug or bugs responsible for creating it. One in particular was a five-year-old ladybug whose wings hadn't grown in, and at that time had a nasty fear of heights. Her mom told her that she (the mom) would have to fly over, holding the little girl in her arms. This terrified the little girl deeply, but when the bridge was found, the little girl was elated, and with a few small pebbles, left a pattern of a smiley face, thanking the 'bug owner' (as she called them) of the bridge.
About four days later, Holly began to become rather concerned. Was she still going the right way? Had she gone too far? She knew that the colony was along the riverbed, but how close? She approximated the distance in hear head, but she was already a day past that, so she decided to give herself one day before veering off course and pushed herself well into the night, traveling by the light of a nearly full moon. It was nearly morning as she collapsed from exhaustion, and quickly fell asleep with one leaf covering her, from a significant dip in the temperature.
The sun shown brightly and well into the sky by the time Holly awoke. But it wasn't the warm comfort of the sun that awoke her, but the sounds of voices. Two distinct voices reached her antenna, and as they spoke she got to her feet and observed them through two blades of grass, as well as the sight of an anthill in the distance. 'Looks like I made it,' thought Holly as she noticed that the two ants looked much like her. Clearly they were not fire ants, so chances are, she'd have luck in being accepted. She listened for a bit, as both ants walked slowly along.
"But the point I'm trying to get at is that he cheated! There is no way in all the land that Private Leafcutter could have had those chips!" A greyish-blue and very tall male ant exclaimed with furor.
"So what? You know, as well as I do that no one is going to challenge him," a female ant of dark blue and black freckles adorning her face and thorax stated in response. "Unless you have irrefutable proof, there is no way that anyone is going to challenge it. With his father being one of the counselors and all. No one wants to deal with that... Unless you intend to go to Princess May-Blossom or Princess Hyacinth about this."
Silence was all that was carried through the air for the longest time.
"What say we send him on the next trip to West River?" The male ant smiled evilly.
"A dangerous trip for cheating? Once again you remind me why I chose you for my platoon,' the female ant responded with a mild snicker.
That was all Holly needed to hear. The ants were also far enough off that her plan, the plan that had been rolling though her mind since before she left Ant Island would now comes into play. She reached down, and with the leaf pack in both hands, tore a considerable hole in it. Then she reached for a drop of dew, wiped it on her face and thorax, and after grabbing two fistfuls of dirt, smeared it roughly onto areas of her body. "One more lie, and that's it."
With a sudden burst, Holly ran full force toward the two ants, with hands held out, and managed a most emotion worn look. "Oh my G- ants! PLEASE!!! You have /got/ to help me!!!"
The two East River ants stopped and very quickly turned around to see the rapidly approaching ant. Neither of them spoke at first, but the look on both of their faces clearly shown surprise, definitely due to the fact that they knew that this female was not from their colony.
Without any kind of significant decrease of speed or emotion, Holly practically ran into the male ant, with arms around him, releasing deep sobs. Between gasps for breath, she managed to speak. A little. "My... my home... it's... it's been destroyed. Everyone died. The dam it... it broke... My family... everyone... all gone. Dead!" She continued to cling to the male ant, 'attempting' to regain her breath.
The female ant looked on with an expression of sympathy mixed with shock, while the male ant gently patted her back, clearly not knowing what to say, only bein able to imagine if something similar to East River were to happen...
Finally Holly was able to 'calm down' enough to regain her composure. "I'm so sorry, it's not like me to be so emotional, but I've been wandering for days-at first to find help, but now I guess to find a safe place. It's a really dangerous world out there!" She wiped her eyes a few times with her right hand. (As may or may not be a surprise to many, Holly can not only be a very good actress, but call for tears nearly on command, something she could do as a child, a skill she never really lost.)
The female ant was the first to speak. "I'm so sorry to hear about that. But please do understand that we have to follow certain procedures before we can accept you in our colony-"
"Lilac," the male ant spoke with a slight tone of reproach. Lilac's eyes flashed a look of irritation, since Jypsum, the name of the male ant, was a subordinate. "I'm sorry, miss, but she is right. However, I see little problem with you being able to stay, if that is your desire. Oh, and I should introduce myself, I'm Gypsum Brightsun.
"And I'm Lilac Meadowdown," offered the female ant.
"Holly... Holly Rosethorn. And I understand. Is there some kind of trouble going on?
"Nothing new... just our conflict with WR... er I mean West River colony," began Gypsum in an even, nonchalant tone. "It's a neighboring colony on the other side of the second river... but you shouldn't worry. We're well guarded against the 'Westies' for any kind of trouble."
Holly nodded a few times in acknowledgement. This was not news to her, due to the information that Walter gave to her, but it seemed a good idea to pretend ignorance. "I'm glad to hear that; I've had more than my share of trouble and conflict with the 'Great Outdoors'," she stated sarcastically, and then continued. "For a while."
"Very understandable," stated Lilac, Meadowdown, a recently promoted Lieutenant. ", But if you would be so kind as to follow us, we need to have you meet with some members of our colony, just to be sure."
Holly nodded, and the three ants walked toward the colony. With her face turned momentarily away from Lilac and Gypsum, she beamed about the brightest smile she could muster. 'Finally, I'm free, and if all goes well, which I have no doubt after meeting these two, I'll have a new home!'
Sergeant Brightsun spoke next. "Yeah, but I suspect that once they hear about your tragedy, they'll give you a chance to stay. Just be careful what you say and do, and I suspect you'll be accepted." A warm, yet sympathetic smile was offered to Holly, then Gypsum continued. "You might even be meeting with Princess May-Blossom, so you might want to be prepared. Normally the queen would be meeting with you but-"
A significant 'Ahem' followed by a bit of a jab from Lilac cut Gypsm off. And if that didn't, the look she gave him most likely would have. He too cleared his throat a little.
"Right. She's going to be busy tending her flower garden and all."
Lilac's eyes rolled, but she said no more.
Later on inside the colony, Lilac and Gypsum escorted Holly to where she would meet with a handful of the leaders of the colony, including both Princess May-Blossom and Princess Hyacinth. Many expressed their sympathies at Holly's 'tragic circumstance' and it was essentially unanimous to give Holly a try as a new member of the colony. She would be observed, and if she were proven trustworthy, her stay at East River would be permanent.
After the meeting was adjourned, and Holly was shown her new chamber by Lilac and Gypsum, the two East Riverians departed to their next duty. As they reached a location just out of sight, Lilac gave Gypsum a significant eye-roll. "'The Queen will be tending to her flower garden?' Brightsun, you /really/ need to work on your cover stories," she sighed softly.
"What's wrong with that? I can certainly see a Queen could have a flower patch she'd like to spend time in?"
"So can I," conjectured Lilac. "But does that make more sense when we very seldom have visitors? That she'd rather spent time doing that then meeting people who've deal with such a tragic and horrible loss as Miss Rosethorn did? Well... at least it was better than your last excuse. Stampeding aphids. Really."
Gypsum simply said no more as they walked down the tunnel. His grandmother loved flowers, why not the Queen. Okay, maybe he did need to work on his story a little, but it wasn't all that bad, was it? He certainly didn't feel it was, so with a little refinement, he'd be using it again. Perhaps not around Meadowdown, but to someone who could appreciate it.
|
|
