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2. BRINDLESTAR
I sponsor a student writer’s club called the Rough Writers. One of the things we are exploring this semester is the concept of world building. Because many of the students write fantasy, and I write science fiction, I was interested in developing a world in which both could conceivably exist. That was the birth of Brindlestar, a world with three suns. Read on.
Left foot, right foot. Pause and listen. Left foot, right foot. Pause and listen.
Mira had learned the pattern of safely traversing Helfang Forest from her father, and even though she had no fear of being attacked by a giant leechlion or a Barbary raptor—not this close to Brindlestar—she kept to the pattern she had learned long ago. Her heavy moccasins slipped silently across the white forest floor, the snow clinging to the rough leather of both her feet and her breeches.
She heard a heavy sigh behind her. Jair, on the other hand, didn’t see the point of caution, and for every careful step she took through the woods, he scuffled two steps in the snow.
“This will take us forever, you know,” Jair said, his thin voice cutting through the silence of the forest.
Mira shook her head. “Jair, it’s a wonder you haven’t been eaten before this,” she said. “I bet every longtooth within thirty sectors knows that you’re coming.”
“Yeah, well, if we lived in New Athens like most people, we wouldn’t have to worry about longtooths, er longteeth.”
“Plural is longtooth,” she said. “Now let’s be quiet or you will be someone’s lunch.”
“Lunch? I’m hungry,” he said. “When do we stop to eat?”
“There will be plenty to eat when we get to New Athens,” she said quietly, still looking around her. “You haven’t been to a Brindlestar Festival before. Knowing how much you like to eat, it’s something you will never forget.”
“How old were you when you were at the last Festival?” he asked.
“Just about your age,” she said. “Now shush. We’re almost there, but there still could be wild things around here.”
“I’m not worried, not even if there was a specter around,” he said. “I’ve seen you shoot. You never miss.”
Mira glanced back at Jair and smiled slightly, then glanced at the bow on her shoulder. Jair was right; she never missed. But that didn’t make her any less wary. Being wary is what kept you alive in Helfang Forest. Father had taught her that, sometime before he had been killed himself.