#sadoc

Few sights are more rare in the world than a young boy too tired to eat his breakfast. Less rare are the thunderstorms that scour the tall grass of the wide lands during the weeks before the summer. Not many hours prior, a particularly fierce storm had raged against the peace of the predawn hours. Animals of all shapes and mostly small sizes had scurried about in the dark for whatever shelter could be found from the rain and thunder. The large animals here and there, like the wagons of the Harfoots, had to stand alone against the wind and hail. 

Children don’t sleep well in rain-battered wagons with the wind howling outside.

The Harfoots, a hardy, traveling sort of folk, took such things in stride as they always did; small strides, as they were not large people. The morning fire had still been lit, though the towering massif of the storm’s anvil cloud had only just moved out from overhead. The orange rays of the day’s first light landed upon the cheeks of Harfoots, already bustling about their business. 

One such order of business was to warm breakfast for the caravan. Another was to eat that breakfast quickly so as to return to the trail as soon as possible. For if the Harfoots didn’t cross the grasslands before the end of the summer, what water that could be found would have dried before it could ease their thirst; and more dangerous than that thirst, the specter of fire on the trail. Little boys refusing to eat their breakfasts cause delays, but Sadoc didn’t care. In that moment, the peaceful light of dawn in his eyes chasing away the sound of thunder from his ears was all his little mind could want.

“Sadoc?” his mother called. He looked up to see her in the midst of strapping his baby sister, Hyacinth, to her back.

“Yes, mother?” he piped up from where he sat on a rock, a bowl of porridge growing cold in his hands.

Her eyes lighted upon him and she beckoned him over to her. “Come, I need to make sure you’ve packed correctly.”

Obediently, for Sadoc was always an obedient boy, he scurried over to and presented his pack for her to dig through. Evidently, everything was to her satisfaction and she sent him away with one last tug to his straps before calling his older brother, Falco, over.

Falco was a big, strapping boy of about ten or twelve, a few years older than Sadoc. As their mother was redistributing the weight in his pack, Falco focused his attention on his brother. “Hey, Sadoc, how many snails d’you reckon you’ll catch on our way to Rhûn!?”

“More than you, that’s for certain!” Sadoc taunted right back. 

“No way!” Falco protested as their mother finished with his pack. “I’ll collect… ten buckets more snails than you!

“Ten buckets?” their mother interjected. “You’re lucky to get five on the whole journey!” Falco pouted, but said nothing. 

“Now, before you boys run off,” she continued, “I need you to promise to stay together and Stay. On. The trail.” Her words were pointed more at Falco, who had a bad habit of wandering off, but Sadoc nodded and agreed eagerly.

Falco, on the other hand, rolled his eyes and grumbled. “Yes, mother. I promise I’ll stay on the trail this time.”

She eyed him disbelievingly. “See that you do. No good comes to anyone what leaves the trail by themselves.”

~Falco Burrows, consumed by the fires of the wide lands, we wait for you.~

—------

Sadoc enjoyed the peace and quiet with his wife Chrysanthemum, known to most as Krissy, and a bowl of snail mix. They didn’t speak, looking to most as a couple in the midst of a long argument, but Sadoc knew better. Occasionally,on a long stretch of particularly boring trail, they would share the thoughts that had come to them over the course of the week, or month. But generally speaking, there was nothing either of them could say that was more interesting than their own thoughts, and they both knew it. 

They both enjoyed silence, and each other, in a way that only they could understand. That was how Sadoc knew that his Krissy was probably thinking of flowers and trees and all growing things. She liked to think about where they came from, how they grew, why some things grew in certain places but not in others. Always trying to figure things out.

Some said they were one mind in two bodies for the simple ways in which they completed each other. Sadoc pulled the wagon, but, were it not for Krissy, the wagon would never have been full in the first place. She always liked puzzles, and making every pot, skillet, and doily that they’d gotten as wedding presents fit into that sturdy, if a little small, wagon was just the sort of puzzle she could get lost in.

Sadoc preferred to think more of organic life: the fishes in the little rivers, the little beasts he ate, the big beasts he hid from, the tribe that surrounded him, his own life… and the stream embankment that cut through their path just ahead. 

The spring rains had moved the streams some, pushing back the higher ground beyond. Standing on the low, broad bank staring up at the insurmountable four-foot high cliff of the high bank on the far side of the stream, it occurred to Sadoc that Life… is like a trail. It was winding and unpredictable; some trails going on for miles and miles, some coming to a sudden stop. There were also many different ways a Harfoot could take to get where he was trying to go, but only a few ways that were safe. 

Nothing about getting up this embankment was going to be easy. Just so, nothing in life came easy either.

His mind was as empty as his snail mix bowl as far as ideas for getting the wagons up that monstrous crag was concerned. With huff he turned his attention away from the cliff and back to his own thoughts.

Sadoc did his best to stick to the safe ways, the traditional ways, the old ways. He followed his father and learned everything he knew, he helped to pull the family wagon during migration, he wove his own wagon and carved his own wheels when the time came, he courted his dear Krissy for exactly one migration cycle before marrying her.

He stayed on the trail and never walked alone and, because he followed all of the rules and traditions, his way had been smooth and pleasant so far. All he had to do to keep it that way was put one foot in front of the other. 

The next step: Children.

Caught up in his planning on how best to raise a little one to walk the trail behind him, Sadoc failed to hear Krissy’s sister, Malva, come to join them near the edge of the cottonwood shade. 

“You two will not believe what the Goold girl just did.” She said, without preamble, plopping herself down in the (admittedly generous) space between them.

She was an arrogant, unpleasant woman who talked too much and thought too little. In the past, he had always avoided her whenever possible, but now she was inescapably his sister.

He took a deep, calming breath, and reminded himself that even the smoothest trails had a few roots.

—--------

The power that smell holds over the mind baffled Sadoc from time to time with how clearly a scent could recall the past. Just then, he was certain that the apples would be ripe for the pickling by the next week from the faintest whiff of sweetened air. His amazement only grew when he returned from the sweet memories of the ripened apples of his youth to find that the scent even had the power to wash Malva out of his mind, if only for a moment.

“We carry on like we’re doing,” he huffed to Malva, who sat beside him. “Go around the town and make our way back to the usual trail after.”

The Men living in the land north of the Great Rhûn Sea had always lived in villages thereabouts that were easy enough to avoid. The trail gave each little hamlet a wide berth. During the summer while Sadoc oversaw the Harfoots’ comings and goings in the forest near the sea, the Men had begun building a new… something… just upriver from their usual crossing where the river began to widen out into the Great Sea.

His sister-by-law scoffed. “Right, go a little north and try to ford a chasm with little ones and wagons or go a little south and swim the Great Rhûn Sea.” Sadoc did not appreciate the sarcasm just then. Especially as she was right, not that she’d ever hear it from him.

Sadoc forced himself to take a deep, calming breath and folded up the map; he knew exactly what he had to do, he just didn’t want to do it. There was no barely-out-of-the-way shortcut around the strange construction and there was no way his tribe would be able to sneak through under cover of night. Not to mention, human settlements had a nasty habit of growing rather than shrinking. Even if they could find a viable shortcut, in all likelihood, it would be gone by next migration.

No, there was nothing for it. They would simply have to cut a new trail.

He turned his eyes to an ancient map in his lore-book. It had belonged to his great-great-grandfather, who led the tribe more than a century ago by different paths. Those paths were long abandoned. 

Not because they were choked by weeds or blocked by sinkholes. They were abandoned because south of the Great Sea there were no longer any groves or long grasses. That land left them nothing to conceal their passing. Although he knew that the southern route would be empty; mostly, Sadoc just hadn’t been willing to risk such an open trail.  

He soothed his doubt with the conviction that travel would be faster through that dry land. Perhaps the longer trail traveled quickly would match a slower, shorter trail that they would have had to clear. They’d have to move quickly and carry extra water with them; uncomfortable, even by Harfoot standards; but it would still be better than bushwhacking through uncharted wilderness.

“Alright then Malva,” he set the book between them. “What about this trail?” Sadoc pointed to a trail that bent away far south. 

Malva shook her head exasperatedly. “No, you dimwit! We abandoned that trail two hundred years ago when the rains stopped, and all of the grass and trees died. Do you think they’ve all just magically grown back!?”

“Listen!” he sighed. “It will take too long to explore the banks of the North River to find a new crossing. Even if we find one, too much delay and we risk getting stuck in the Brown Lands during fire season.” No horror gnawed at the minds of the Harfoots more than that of fire when the trail led them over the endless grasses west of the Western Hills. “If we took this here trail south around the sea and swung north again after the foothills, it could work.”

Malva eyed the map skeptically. “That’s a mighty long walk… And there doesn’t seem to be much to drink along it.”

‘That, my dear Malva, is why I’m in charge!’ is what Sadoc desperately wanted to say.  

“Yes, I had already been chewing on that,” was what he said instead, his tone slightly more cordial than he would have liked. “But if we move quick and ration our water, we might just make it.”

Malva raised her hands in insincere deference. “Whatever you want to do, Sadoc. You’re in charge after all.”

Sadoc shot her a sharp look but said nothing. She had no idea what the right decision was and they both knew it; she just wanted to be able to place the blame elsewhere when things inevitably went sideways. Not for the first time, he found himself wishing he had a child to teach this to. They would likely be no more unhelpful than Malva, and would give him a lot less lip while they were at it.

Unfortunately, he and Krissy had never been blessed with children and she had no head for maps. So it fell to Malva of all people to help him.

Delightful.

~Birinus Goodenough, Clover Goodenough, Odo Meadowgrass; dysentery. We wait for you.~

—-----

Sadoc cursed himself as he went about picking up the wreckage that remained of the camp. Nothing good ever came from anything new, he knew that, and he had still let that ratty giant trail behind like a lost dog. Sure, he had fended off wolves and made the grove flourish overnight, but he had also burned one of Sadoc’s star charts, terrified Elanor Brandyfoot, almost killed the other Brandyfoot girl, and then brought those damn witches right to them!

Distantly, he heard Largo assuring his eldest daughter that everything would be alright. His wife, sensible woman that she was, of course pushed back, insisting that Nori was too old for lies now. 

Instead of listening to his wife, Largo argued, stubbornly insisting that everything would turn out fine in the end. Sadoc butted in. “For pity’s sake, Brandyfoot! Give us a moment to weep.”

Maybe they would survive this, but it wouldn’t be easy. Harfoots didn’t carry much with them as a rule, but even the very little they did have had just gone up in flames. People were grieving, people were mourning, and they needed the time to do so. There was bound to be more loss in the coming days.

“Weeping!?” Largo burst out. “Is that all you think we have left in us? We’re Harfoots!”

Sadoc said nothing and let him rave. The man was grieving, just like the rest of them, in his own strange, optimistic, Brandyfoot way.

The whole camp fell silent at his outburst; looking to Largo for what? Hope? Entertainment? Because they had nothing else to do? Sadoc didn’t know. Largo himself floundered for a moment. He had no idea what he was going to say next, and no one knew what they wanted to hear.

At last, Largo met his daughter’s eyes and it gave him the strength to go on. “Look, we don’t slay dragons. We’re not much for digging jewels. But there’s one thing we can do, I warrant, better than any creature in Middle Earth. We stay true to each other,” he encouraged gently.

“No matter how the path winds, or how steep it gets,” he went on. “We face it, with our hearts even bigger than our feet. And we just keep walking.”

With that, he took his wife by the hand and led her away, leaving them all to think on his words. Sadoc shook his head and turned back to his work. The man was delusional, crazy. And yet… he couldn’t deny that he felt a mite better hearing that somebody still had some spirit left.

That didn’t change the fact that he was a barking mad optimist though.

Sadoc was drawn out of his thoughts by the voice of Marigold Brandyfoot. “Nori, where are you going?”

The girl was packing a few apples in a bag slung over her shoulder. “To help my friend,” she replied. “Warn him what’s coming. He deserves at least that.”

Of course she was, Sadoc thought to himself. That girl never had any sense to speak of, especially not when it came to outsiders. And unfortunately, since her parents had obviously failed to restrain her or at least make her think before doing something stupid, the job fell to Sadoc himself as the tribe’s leader.

“Going off trail? Now? Alone?” Maybe he could at least convince her to take some precautions, like a map, or a friend.

“She won’t be alone.” Poppy Proudfellow spoke up. “We’ve left enough folk behind, we’re not leaving him.” When those two had become friends, he had hoped that Proudfellow would be a calming influence on Brandyfoot. Now, it was clear that the opposite was true.

“You girls aren’t going anywhere,” Marigold interjected. Finally! A sensible voice in this madness. “Not without me.”

Sadoc’s jaw nearly went slack in shock. Marigold Brandyfoot was one of the most level headed people in the entire tribe! That big fellow must have had more of an impact than he thought.

Vilma, Malva’s dearest friend, tried to dissuade them. “If you go into those woods, you may never come out alive.”

To Sadoc’s, and likely everyone else’s surprise, Malva contradicted her. “They might if a trail-finder were to go with them.” 

Sadoc stared at her in shock. They had disagreed on many, many, many things over the years, but there had always been at least one rule that neither of them would dare violate: nobody goes off trail, alone or otherwise. It had only ever brought them disaster. But here she was, staring directly at him, suggesting that he himself lead the expedition to go find the giant; the outsider she had never liked to begin with!

He said nothing, so she went on. “The Brandyfoot girl was right to help him; was right all along; and if you think Malva Meadowgrass is too proud to admit it, well- What’s the point of living, Sadoc, if we aren’t living good?”

Damn her. All of his life, Sadoc had stayed on the path as well as he could. He had studied under his father to one day take over as trail-finder, he had carved his wheels when he came of age, he had courted and married a beautiful woman, he had led the tribe on countless migrations, he had helped to raise every child born into their little family despite never being blessed with his own, and it had been good. It had been good for a long time.

But now, they were without carts and wheels. Their food was all but gone. They had nothing but the love in their hearts, the hair on their feet (most of their feet, anyway), and an honorary tribe member wandering who even knew how many miles away.

He knew what he had to do. “You know, Malva, once- just once- it would be grand if you weren’t right all the time.”

The small smile on her face almost made it worth it, though it didn’t change the fact that he was getting too old to be putting up with these ridiculous, youthful shenanigans anymore. “I’ll fetch provisions and get me stick,” because, regardless of what the Brandyfoot girl thought, a few apples were not enough to sustain a person on a bushwhacking journey. “I’m coming with you.”

As he tramped off to get his things, he threw a grumble over his shoulder in an attempt to keep their expectations low. “Doesn’t matter anyway; we’re all gonna die.”

—----

As the Brandyfoots (and honorary Brandyfoot) had their reunion, Sadoc sank down on a nearby rock. The wound in his belly burned, his head spun, but most of all he just felt tired. He could feel the very life draining out of him as his blood drenched his tunic.

There wasn’t much time left and he knew it.

He blinked and Marigold was at his side, pulling his hand back to examine the wound. “Hold still,” she said gently. “We’ll find a way to carry you back.”

It was an empty platitude. He was going to die and there was nothing for it, and as much time as Marigold had been a Brandyfoot, even she couldn’t blind herself to reality through sheer, stubborn optimism.

“I’m sorry, good lady,” he said to her. “I’m afraid I’m about to go a’wandering off-trail.”

Poppy Prowdfellow couldn’t hold back her tears. “Mr. Burrows…” 

She had lost her whole family and almost everyone she had ever looked up to, Sadoc knew, and he did his best to comfort her. “It’s alright, Prowdfellow.” He looked up to see the sky brightening with pre-dawn light. “The missus will be waiting.”

He could almost see her now; curly yellow hair like morning dew caught in a sunbeam, a straight back that never bent for anyone, beautiful brown eyes that betrayed the depth of her thought. Sadoc couldn’t wait to see her again.

“Now, if you don’t mind,” he went on. “I’d just like to sit a while- watch the sun come up.”

Marigold nodded tearfully and moved to sit beside him on the rock. One by one, the group gathered around him to watch the sunrise, trying to stifle their sniffles.

He thought of all the people who had wandered off the trail before him: his brother, his father, his mother, his wife, and many of his friends. Some of them had passed peacefully, in their own wagons, but a few had gone far off the trail and died alone.

Some part of Sadoc had known he would die once his feet left the path, he thought. Perhaps the feeling came from long experience, perhaps it had just been apprehension at leaving the trail for the first time, but perhaps something had really been whispering to him ‘It’s time.’

And yet, he had walked on regardless. Now, because of him- because of his sacrifice, Nori was still alive and breathing, huddled up next to him. He may have been off trail, but even now, he wasn’t alone.

Perhaps there were worse ways to go…