27 July 2012
*This is my very first post on OPUSS, and the beginning of the now 19 (and possibly more) part story that has grown from post to post...*
The girl hurled herself to the top of the mountain ridge, her muscles straining for one last push to drive herself onwards towards the top. As she paused, she stood erect, slightly swaying in the wind, the way a lily does in the cooling breezes of the dying day... Heck! What was I thinking? I was getting all poetical on you. I'm sorry; I don't know what came over me just then. I was probably lost in the memory of it all... Anyway back to the story.
I was standing up straight not because I was some sort of super honed plain runner, able to run 60 miles in one day without breaking a sweat, but because I had to. I was absolutely knackered, but I had to keep an eye out for the thing I was hunting. Or possibly wasn't. I mean, it's all very well and good when you are the clan's Second, but having to journey out in the middle of winter to sort out a possibly imaginary problem just doesn't cut it for me. I'd rather be curled up by the fire, listening to all the old stories the loveable old Elders had to tell, but that's beside the point. I was up here, standing on a narrow mountain ledge, with the wind whistling through my well worn robes (poetry alert) to see if I could deal with the problem of a dragon. Well, minor wyrm to be exact.
A Problem (Revisited) • Opuss № I