The Adventures of Stonefeet and Bagworth

Dedicated to N. Waters, one of my best friends, and victim to rambles,

pillows, and unedited first drafts.

Songs of the mines filled the air. Songs of digging and mountains and stone. Song that were, perhaps inevitably, bellowing from the lungs of Dugward Stonefeet, who by his very name one can guess his ancestral occupation. Bearded and armoured the former miner strode down the path, along with a smaller figure, barely shoulder-height, who was bellowing just as loud. Rosemary Bagworth, curly-haired and bright-eyed, somehow kept pace with her friend, in voice and in speed.

            “Y’know,” She started, breaking off her part of the song, though Stonefeet carried heartily on, until he noticed his friend was no longer singing. She had been distracted from her sentence by a butterfly, fluttering before them on their path through the plains of Kailia.

            “Y’know?” He questioned her, looking behind them. He thought he’d heard something, something like the crunching of dirt underfoot, but he couldn’t see anything. He stroked his coal-black beard in thought, tracing some of the braids, and the runes on the bands that secured them. Bagworth was reaching her hand out towards the butterfly before them, and its red and purple wings, majestic in their swooping through the air. Her cloak fell behind her shoulder as she reached her arm higher, the green fabric swaying slightly in the wind. Stonefeet turned around, there was more noise, something like that chattering of a group, but again, he couldn’t see anything. They had drawn to a halt; he scanned behind them.

            “Y’know,” Bagworth started again, smiling at the butterfly now resting on her finger, “there’s this new place in V’tixi,” V’tixi was Stonefeet’s hometown. Not the most glamorous of places, nor the most reputable, but the Stonefeet family had always lived there, Bagworth only really knew it by reputation, “Oh, yes, that’s it,” She found her train of thought again, one the butterfly carried on derailing. Stonefeet was still scanning behind them, there was a different sound now, something like a SWISH, and this time he could see something. “there’s a new axe-throwing place in V’tixi”

            Stonefeet didn’t know whether to laugh or shout. Spinning towards them, with repeated sounds of SWISH, at the right height to split his head open in a heartbeat, was an axe.

            He ducked.

            Bagworth was still fascinated by the butterfly, completely oblivious to any impending threats, such as an axe spinning closer. She was, however intrigued by the silence, surely this would be something Stonefeet would be fascinated by. Axes and V’tixi, not just axes but throwing axes. Axes that can split apart logs as easily as your enemies, axes that when thrown spin head over heel until the metal connects with the target with a satisfying thwack, such as the axe might that was spinning over Stonefeet’s helmeted head this very moment.

            She had to investigate this silence, so she turned around, once the butterfly had flown off her finger and continued in its journey on the wind to wherever it was headed, pausing for a moment on Bagworth’s brown curls. Maybe it was headed home, quite a foreign concept to Bagworth.

            Stonefeet was looking thoroughly unimpressed, and any hint of colour had drained from his face. It was like he’d seen a ghost.

            What Bagworth couldn’t see, was the axe spinning over her head, and thudding into the ground. Stonefeet looked at Bagworth’s open smile. Bagworth looked at Stonefeet, as he released a long-suffering sigh, and spoke.

            “They must be expanding,”.

(Based on true events, with credit shared between myself, and my friend who suffered the aforementioned axe (online, he’s fine), N. Waters, thank you for letting me share this.)