291. Hunting, 3

(Rose)

The sky is melting over the land. We see the rays of light filling crevices and mountains along the horizon.

Shards of light pierce the clouds and the land.

I breathe slower as my scope is aligned toward the body of a small wild goat.

The loud noise deafens us, and echoes in the landscape.

I saw the goat jump in shock, and then falling down just further away. I resume breathing, and stand up.

R - I think I got it.

B - Let's go!

We walk swiftly to the place in the bright distance.

We literally see bits of the sky along the land and ground. Like shards of perfectly clean mirrors left there.

But they are always showing reflection of the sky only, no matter the angle you look at them. As if they were windows to it, and the land nothing but a thin and hollow sheet in the sky.

We can't find the goat at first as we step into this surreal landscape.

Bleue tries throwing a rock in one of the shards of sky fallen to the ground, as we cross more and more of them.

And... The rock falls through and disappear, instead of sitting onto a mirror surface.

I'm agape now.

They really are holes to a sky below? Not mirrors?

When I poke one of them with a stick, I see the end of the stick disappear, but I feel it hitting something underneath. It reached the ground. They are optical illusions. The ground remains, thank goodness.

They are covering the ground like mist, and shows whatever they want to. They are floating pictures, giving the illusion that the ground is gone and there's sky behind.

Seeing it, Bleue has her fun running over the skies.

As the further we go, and the more of these soft puddles there are and the bigger they get.

It's like a deep fog, on a very thin layer, lingering just above the ground.

We finally find the goat, fallen over a bit of sky.

~

The goat is skinned by Bleue and I. Then we remove its head and guts. We keep the heart and liver, and brain. Everything else from inside, we don't.

Since we don't have much water with us, we clean the minimum afterward, just our hands and knifes.

My clothes have turned into a makeshift dress that has become a set of dirty rags and layered cloth.

As we walk above the sky, heading north, the goat is hanging below our flying tree and cooling down.

B - I'm hungry. It's hard to wait till tomorrow.

R - Says the one who already swallowed the brain whole.

She shyly smirks. It's a kind of delicacy I'm not seeking nearly as much as her. It's like melting pudding and fat. I'm not fond of them unless they're properly fried and spiced. But, she was really hungry as well I guess.

Bleue throws a few of her last seeds of the flying trees along the way.

We reach a point where the land fully disappeared, along with our feet. It kind of feels as if we could suddenly be falling into the sky at any moment. We still feel the rocks at our feet, but we don't see them.

So we walk very carefully. And we do trip and fall a few times each, but only to the ground thankfully.

Falling into the sky was a childhood nightmare to me.

I do my best to manage my insane vertigo, with good success.

It's a little tiring.

I notice that the sky is wet, and soaking our clothes. So we see sky and clouds climbing onto our clothes.

It makes out trousers and dresses look rather nice. There's sky-scapes being painted onto them.

Obviously, Bleue then proceed to fill some empty bottles with this false and liquid sky.

Since we can't find dry land to camp, we have to build it. We dig a hole and build a pile of rocks protruding from this sky snow.

We don't have a lot of space to sleep but we manage.

As we try to fall asleep in each other's arms, we're still mesmerised by the landscape. We see stars everywhere.

This or these things really imitate the sky perfectly.

The night is cold. But we're camping in the middle of the milky way. It's gorgeous.

B - I'm so happy to enjoy sights like that with you.

R - So am I.

B - I love you. I'm so happy.

She snuggles her way closer to me to steal some of my warmth, and we fall asleep.

~

My dream involved me walking in the middle of the sky. Afraid to fall, but brave enough to keep going.

Maybe I flew at the end.

It was almost as beautiful and nice as reality.

I'm sure Bleue dreamt of something similar.

As we wake up, we're greeted by the most beautiful and coloured sky, all over us.

We also notice a swarm of eels, swimming at the surface of the sky snow.

They are almost invisible, but we see them swimming at our feet as they head west. This layer of moisture gives them a wild land to travel through.

Once the poetry has filled our hearts, we proceed to fish out as many as we can of them. Though they're hard to catch despite their numbers. Eels are especially slimy and swift here.

But we really need to get some more food, so we work on it anyway.

R - I could use a bird of prey here...

B - I should be the one saying that... Well... In a way.

R - I had a flying snake for a short time, but I didn't keep it along.

We use bags and catch a swirling and twitching handle of them. We're quite happy. Sorry for them.

We then keep most of them in a bag filled with this fluid sky snow, like a stock. A few we kill and proceed to roast whole. We leave the moving bag of eels in the sky snow so it doesn't get dry while we get our late breakfast.

They taste nice.

I cut slices of the goat that I hanged to dry. It's a long work. Lots of bones. On Bleue's suggestion, we now use the sky snow to wash ourselves and tools, since it is a kind of heavy moisture.

Squeezing cloth that is soaked with it does allow drops to fall, before they expand into that thick mist again. This liquid is very ethereal and vaporizes fast.

Bleue filled her bottle to keep with it, and we use this staining water to wash everything. When dry, some of the pictures stay, like chalk or make up.

Everything ends up looking like living paintings of the sky. We love it.

Almost invisible, we resume our journey carrying these paintings with us.

~