Scoping Out the Area
You choose to take in your surroundings before you do anything else after giving it some thought, because that feels like the smartest decision. That, and, you think…
Where the heck even am I, exactly? you wonder, because you have no clue.
You glance around, scanning the vicinity – the area directly beneath you looks like a flat, grassy plain, with lush, dark-green grass and a scattered smattering of trees and stumps, with several hills here and there (as far as you can tell from being in the air, that is, since it may just be that they aren’t hills at all but simple raised bits of ground).
However, as you study the area, you see there’s more than just grassy flatland with a few possible hills overall, because depending on the direct you turn your attention toward, the environment seems to shift around drastically, as if it, too, is transforming, although the change in environment is considerably more gradual from a brief glimpse.
The further to the left you go, the more trees begin to pop up, until the trees become clusters that lead into a forest. But once that forested portion is reached, you can hardly see any further, as a thick blanket of mist envelops the trees from that point on – you try to squint, but, you can’t make out much beyond the vague shapes of the large trees. It looks as though the mist is hovering over the tree tops, though. It makes you wonder how thick the mist is or how far the forest goes, along with where the forest leads to.
Then again, it doesn’t seem very safe for something with wings, you think.
To your right, the landscape starts to become less fertile – in fact, the grass turns barren and rugged the further you look, until it’s a brownish-gray coloration that reminds you of clay or stone, effectively turning into a wasteland (or perhaps a desert, you aren’t sure). The trees and green end up being replaced by a lot of large rocks, including some literal boulders that appear to be just chilling on the ground. And in the distance, you see it leads toward a mountain range: there are several large, jagged mountains that tower over the ground high enough to reach into the very clouds. It’s quite impressive to view.
Definitely more suitable for something that flies, you muse.
Due ahead of you, the landscape remains relatively constant with what you’re already seeing – grassy flatlands, although you can at least tell there are more hills the further off you go. You don’t see any mountains or a forest or any mist straight forward from where you are currently flying in-place, but the hills do become larger and you wonder what may lie beyond the hills, if anything could be that direction. Then you glance back.
Behind you, it starts the same as the immediate area with flatland, however, you can see it becomes almost… moister, because not only is there a noticeable river (it’s too far for you to hear the sound of rushing water, yet it’s visible from your placement in the sky), but the ground appears to darken even further, and you get the sense it turns into a marshland just from the presence of more moisture and the ground’s texture.
The tree count increases the further off you look, but the trees are different from the ones below you and even the ones that comprise the misty forest – they’re darker and larger, casting a sort of dark shadow that blankets everything past a certain point.
You turn your attention back ahead of you and absorb all this in.
So the land starts off as plains, you think. And depending on the direction I go, I’ll either end of going into a misty forest, a mountain range, more flatlands, or a swamp, I’d say.
The fact you can fly now means traversing will be simpler, regardless of what way you go, although you do note that you’d need to be cautious if you decide to fly toward the forest or the proverbial marshland. That said, you aren’t in a rush to go anywhere yet, and you take a moment to fly around rather than endlessly just hovering in one spot.
You can’t help but marvel at how it feels to be able to fly – it’s a lot to take in, and yet, at the same time, it’s easier than you would’ve expected; you flap your wings and fly about aimlessly, going forward, then to one side, then to the next, and so on. You never go too far that the ground begins to change due to the shift in environment, but you cover a good amount of the area itself as you practice flying slow versus flying faster, and so on.
And as you fly, you feel other sensations besides the airiness of your body.
The air is clean and filled with a variety of rather faint, yet pleasant scents, which filter through your beaked nose thanks in part to your flying about and thanks to a calm, subtle gust that seemingly meets your body head on regardless of your direction. That wind is cool and comforting, caressing your fur-covered skin in a way that your mind envisions as tender. The combination fills your stomach with earnest ease.
So this is what it feels like to be able to fly, you think. It’s wonderful.
After several minutes of getting acquainted with your wings, you come to another stop in mid-air (a little lower previously), and out of curiosity, you turn your gaze back toward where you fell from – except to your surprise, the weird room you were in and fell from with the apparent glass floor has apparently repaired itself, as there’s no longer a massive hole where you fell through. It’s in one piece, as if it hadn’t broken previously. Stranger still, you didn’t notice before, but, the room itself seems to just be floating there, because there are no attachments of any sort, and it doesn’t go anywhere at all.
“What… what the hell?” you say under your breath.
You rub your eyes with your soft, furred hands, and you even blink rapidly just to be safe, but it doesn’t change anything. It’s a literal room floating in the air… like magic.
“What in the world did I get myself sucked into?” you say to yourself. There’s a boundless supply of ideas that bounce through your head, but you have no clue. Is this some kind of alternate universe? Am I in Narnia or Wonderland and I didn’t know it?
You shake these off for the time being and decide to flutter down to the ground, where a soft patch of grass greets your furred feet. You can still feel a bit of confusion and bewilderment flowing through your head, even once you’ve touched down and allow your wings to rest (you can tell now that they appreciate the chance to rest, and you suppose it makes sense since birds can’t fly forever without ever needing to stop).
You let out a sigh. I guess thinking about all these things isn’t going to do me any favors, not unless I magically gain some new insight into what the hell this is about…
So, you shelve your concerns and confusion, at least for now – and you instead take a pause to look around. Now that you’re at ground level, you can see your initial thoughts regarding the landscape were relatively spot-on, since the environment does indeed change as you go toward one specific direction… but your musing is cut off when you peer behind you and see something that you hadn’t noticed previously: it’s… a fox?
You blink several times. You’re not seeing things.
There is a red fox casually chilling on a stump a few feet from where you stand, although you can tell from a brief glance over that this fox seems to be… a bit bigger than you recall most foxes being. In fact, it’s definitely bigger, because it looks more like a wolf in terms of its size, despite the features like the ears and the bushy tail say fox.
Is that fox… staring at me? you wonder. Because it feels like it’s staring at me…
The rather large fox does indeed appear to be watching you, but you can’t exactly read its eyes or its expression given the distance between you and it – the sensation of eyes on you is strong, however, and you feel a little unnerved, especially when, after a blink, the fox’s expression changes, and you swear that it’s actively smiling at you suddenly.
You blink. You get the sense it’s not your mind playing tricks on you, but, you are still presented with options – you can choose to ignore the strange, large fox watching you, or you can perhaps go toward it. Something about the way it’s casually relaxing on the stump makes you feel like it may WANT you to come toward it, but, do YOU feel like it?
Written by Hollowpage on 06 June 2021