Dreams

Another morning dawned and for Birk, it was another wonderful day. After the late snow melted away, milder weather returned much to the pair's delight. Morning still comes in cool but the flowers have started blooming everywhere. Ronja found a few early editable mushroom and Birk, true to his word, bagged a rabbit for the meal. His culinary skill now consists of smoked fish and smoked rabbit meat.

Ronja made some bread loaves, not quite as good as Lovis' but passable, and occasionally soup with leftover meat and mushroom she found. Mostly she just tags along with Birk and both just play around in the woods, watching animal and exploring yet another part of Mattis Wood. They have more or less settled into routine life away from the robber's keep.

Birk noticed as he stepped around to add wood to the smoldering campfire a bag, a bucket, and a bowl of eggs. Someone from the fort had come and dropped off food and apparently didn't wait for either of the kids to wake up. The bag contained a few loaves of fresh bread and the bucket has some milk. Birk took a cupful of the milk and drank it up.

Over to where Birk left the water bucket the day before, he scooped a handful of water from the bucket and splashed them on his face then shook his head. No sooner than he was done shaking the excess water off that a certain annoying white butterfly landed on his nose. He glared at the butterfly cross-eyed.

It had been a few weeks since the butterfly made itself known on Birk's toe and for almost every morning that wasn't too cold, it came back to annoy Birk. Birk swore to Ronja one day the butterfly must be watching him like how Mattis would watch him to ensure he didn't make her sad.

The annoying butterfly even earned the name Mattis. It only shows up if he's up before Ronja and has never landed on Ronja or once bothered her. "Good morning, Brother"

Birk turned to see Ronja stepping out of the cave, pointed to his nose and said "Mattis is back again"

She took one look at his crossed eyes and his frown, and burst out laughing. Birk tried to catch the butterfly but it flew away quickly. No matter what he did, it just didn't want to be caught. "One of these day, I will catch Mattis and send it to hell's chasm!"

He and Ronja sat on a rock near the edge of the cliff overlooking the valley. She handed him a slice of the bread, and she had some milk. They enjoyed their meal in peace.

In the few weeks they were together, they've had issues with gray dwarfs sneaking into their cave, and they ran into wild harpy only once. Birk had a good idea of building a simple wooden wall out of small logs to cover the cave's mouth, both to keep the pests out and to keep warmth in during cool mornings. Thankfully the harpies still haven't figured out where the cave is so the pair were safe.

"I had an idea" she told to Birk. "I just realized we have never left Mattis' Wood, and I was thinking maybe we could go on a few days trek beyond this area to see what other part of the world we have yet to see."

With his mouth full, he yelled (well, somewhat incoherently) "Great idea!" He swallowed the last bit of the food and added "Let's wait until after the second full moon, when nights are warmer so we don't get cold while sleeping outside."

She nodded and finished the last piece of her breakfast. "So what do we want to do today?"

Birk already had an idea, he jumped on his hapless sister and started tickling her. "This, my sister!"

She shrieked and yelled "Not fair!" She did have one advantage over Birk, she was still wearing her night slip while Birk was still topless and thus more exposed to her counter-tickle.

The brief yet fierce tickle fight ended with Birk surrendering and both just laid on the ground, panting hard from nearly nonstop laughter. "How about we just see if there's young fox pups up and playing around in their den?" he suggested.

It was raining very hard outside when Ronja woke up a bit groggy but with a foreboding sense of something wrong.

She yawned and called out "Birk?"

No answer. She looked to her side and noticed Birk's bed was nowhere to be seen. Only Ronja had the bed and it was sized just for her. The cave also had very little, a bag of food and bucket for water but nothing else. There should have been lots more food and some equipment like Birk's gears and extra firewood.

The cave simply looked empty and somewhat uninviting.

She stepped outside and just realized the cave mouth was missing the wooden wall she and Birk helped make just weeks earlier. "Birk?" she called again.

Still no answer. "This is not funny! Show yourself!"

As time dragged on, she was starting to feel more uneasy that something is wrong. She started for Mattis' Fort in the rain. Her feet was splashing the water everywhere while occasionally making squishing noise when she stepped on moss or mud.

Oddly despite the heavy rain, she wasn't getting wet at all. Her fear grew even more and after some time, she finally reached Wolf's Neck. No one was to be seen anywhere even though normally there should be a couple watching the passage for unwanted visitors.

She ran faster than ever and finally reached the main gate of the fort. The gate were wide open like it was busted ages ago. No one were to be seen either.

She barged into the Great Hall. Instead of the crowd of men or Mattis sitting around while Lovis cooked food, the hall was cold, barren, and empty. The dust and cobweb everywhere hinted nothing had been around for many years.

"Birk!? Mother? Father?" she hollered some more. "Anyone at all?"

The only thing stirring was a rat.

She stormed up the stairs to the roof and ran across it only to stop short of where Hell's Gap should have been. The roof was whole, the fort was intact as if that storm never happened.

Ignoring the oddity, she reached the other side of the fort where Borkas men would have been. But like the Great Hall, the other side were empty and barren and filled with nothing but cobwebs.

Ronja started to cry and ran out "BIRK! WHERE ARE YOU?"

She was experiencing something that made her even more scared. The hollow feeling of loneliness. Of not having anyone around at all. It was an awful and painful sensation she hadn't felt that way since when Mattis captured and beat up Birk long ago. No, it was much worse than back then. She collapsed into heap and cried even more. "BIRK!"

Birk himself was also having unpleasant dream. Not quite as bad as Ronja but it still scared him enough that he woke up with a gasp. That's when he heard her cry out. He rolled over onto his knee, and picked her up against his chest "Ronja, wake up!"

She woke up quickly and it took her a moment to realize Birk was holding her. She grabbed him into a tight, bone-crushing embrace and cried a bit. "Bad dream?" She could only nod.

After some minutes had passed, she stopped shaking and sniffling but she still didn't let him go. "Can you sing the Song of the Wolf?" He hoped it'd help her calm some more and be able to get back to sleep.

It was the most wonderful feeling Ronja was experiencing. For a while, she didn't dare to open her eyes to find Birk went missing again like her dream but when she finally did, a pair of bright blue eyes were staring back. "Good morning, sister!"

She was still in his embrace. Sometime during the night, she had fallen asleep while still clutching to Birk and he didn't let her go at all for the rest of the night. And for her, it was a very wonderful and pleasant feeling. "Good morning, brother!" she exclaimed and untangled herself from Birk. "You been awake for a while?"

"Yeah, probably an hour or so. I didn't want to disturb you after experiencing that bad dream of yours." He got up to his feet, grabbed a piece of bread along with his tunic and pants, then put his clothes on while holding the bread in his mouth. Stepping outside, he helped himself to some water before he sat on the ground to enjoy the bread.

Ronja changed from her night slip to her day clothes and joined Birk outside. She wrapped her arms around Birk's neck "Thank you for staying with me during the night!"

"Anything for you, sister!" he said with a big smile.

"So brother, what do you want to do this morning?"

"The same thing we do every morning, sister. Refill the water bucket, check the stream for fish, check for mushroom and berries."

She signed "But that's boring! Can't we do something different?"

"Well... we could check for berries first, then mushroom. After that, check the stream for the fish and finally fill the water bucket." He earned a slap on his head, which caused him to break out laughing. When he saw his sister's pouting face, he laughed even harder.

Eventually Ronja joined him in laughter, she did ask for it after all. "Seriously, I was thinking of going swimming after we're done with the boring morning stuff."

TBC...