ShadowHawthorn's Clan

Picture the delta, a sandy expanse of ever-shifting loops of the great river, little patches of silt and mud, tufts of stiff marsh grass and shallow ridges of rocks and driftwood washed down by the floods each winter. At its southern edge, steep hills rise suddenly from the edge of the sand, shockingly suddenly, a riot of bright ferns and dark conifers, marked in places with bare patches of the basalt that lies beneath. Water drips from the moss onto the sand; streamers of fog linger in the treetops. In the throats of the valleys, tiny streamlets emerge foaming from their tunnels of undergrowth, only to vanish into the maze of water running through the delta.

An impossible, shifting estuary. A cold, steep forest, so waterlogged even the air seems to drip.

If they put you off, if you turned right around and went to somewhere warmer and drier and less overgrown, that wouldn't make you a quitter. It would make you sane. We wouldn't blame you.

But if on the off-chance, you spotted one waterway, larger than the others, and it led you deep into the hills where the sides of the canyon rise into mossy walls around you until you're walking over stones instead of sand, the cold water tugging at your feet, while above you the brambles and licorice ferns close into a glowing green roof - if you came this far, you might see the falls. At the back of the slot canyon, the river roars over the edge of a cliff of basalt columns. Don't get caught under it; it's stronger than you are.

Look up to the top of the falls. Maybe here's a hole above it, a gap in the green roof, and if that gap is just big enough for you to fit through, you might reach the point where the little river flattens into a shallow, pebbly bed. Salmonberries and willows might reach out from the banks, but if there are no logs blocking the riverbed you might be able to follow it to where the valley narrows, steep fields of talus marking some long-past rockfall on one side, and a huge moss-covered boulder on the other.

The ferns sprouting from it might brush against you as you pass, and if you do, you might see the valley shrug and spread, the cliff to your left pull back behind a curtain of ancient fir trees and a stand of white oak, and the ridge on the right leaning back into a welcoming pattern of sloping meadows and stands of the wild edible plants whose seeds might as well have been strewn here at the end of each autumn. At your feet, the river might slow and widen, and around the bend is a pool where hatchlings may be playing, or the older dragons fishing from the rocks. Come up to the outstretched arm of the ridge around which the river curls, and pierced through it you may see the holes and entrances to our dens and tunnels, and us, the members of our clan, looking up and calling out in welcome.

Or you may not. The river may be overgrown, the ridge impassable with deadfall wood and bracken, the firs huge and imposing sentinels over a silent little valley. No hatchlings in the empty pool; no one fishing from the rocks; the salmonberries leaving scratches in your sides and the rocks in the riverbed threatening to turn your ankles at every step. From above, the valleys all look the same; the constant wind from the sea scours you out of the sky. Below, the shifting sands and rivulets of the delta turn the walking approach into a stinking, salty, fly-ridden slog. And through it all, the cold drizzle dampens everything.

Best not risk it, eh?