'IT IS SUMMER then?' a small voice asked amid the tight little gathering in what passed for a clearing in this part of Arbornica.
'Indeed child,' the great wisdom affirmed. 'There are flowers upon the mother trees, just up there, beyond your reach. Our harvesters would gather the nectar from them in due course if not for the Green Moon.'
'Then we'll starve,' a teenage lad said angrily. 'Why did we squander the fruits of last autumn so we have no stores left before the next fruitful season?'
'I think Plumpy Missalbird might be able to answer that.'
Everyone looked at the large figure wrapped in plainspun as she sat comfortably upon a rock at the edge of the clearing where dew dripped upon her shoulder unregarded. The people of Arbornica favoured plainspun, a simple fabric that served many purposes, even the sifting of moss pudding. Extravagance had its shortcomings in such a land as this.
'I was hungry,' she defended herself with a quiver of indignation. 'Takes a lot to keep a body together it does. Perhaps a migration is in order?'
'Another one?' someone sighed near the centre of the gathered villagers.
This meeting of the settlement presided over by the village wisdoms was not going well. As soon as a doomsayer had passed through the area spouting warnings of another plague of moon spiders all the settled routines had been overset. Rations were scattered, harvests neglected and festivals of appeasement poorly managed. And Plumpy Missalbird had found her way to the communal stores to pass her final moments of doom in her favourite way. In the chaos no one had sought to stop her of course.
Thus it was deemed the settlement had inevitably outgrown its immediate resources yet again. There was not enough food to go round and the families would have to split. Usually it was the young, with a few wise heads for guidance, who abandoned the known territory to make a trek through the forests over hills and across valleys in the hope of finding a better place to settle and perhaps to live. Time was short for with the harshness of winter if no suitable place could be found the whole caravan of travellers could be wiped out by the cold.
'A drawing!' someone declared for once the decision had been made there could be no more hesitation. It was summer, or so the wisdom suggested by the infallible signs of nature, and the seasons would wait for no tourist party in search of thrills.
'I'll forgo that bit,' Plumpy Missalbird suggested and belched softly.
'Too right. You'd only slow everyone down, except downhill of course, yuk yuk,' someone added a pinch of Arbornican humour.
Youngsters were gathered and then they were numbered. Parenting in the village was a collective effort yet it was no less painful to know one's child or one's charge were both to be separated by an unknown fate amid the greeny wastes of Arbornica's Creeper Realm.
The children were selected, twenty of them, boys and girls of equal number. The youngest was only six. Ten adults provided protection and guidance. Some wanted fewer to go for it was ten workers removed from the settlement, so a compromise was agreed upon. Five of the adults would be elderly, active enough to keep up but less of a loss to the workforce among those staying behind.
And then the agony truly began, for those who stayed and those who departed might never see each other again. Quite possibly both halves of the settlement of Moss Cleft might perish in the coming winter.
One wisdom who was staying summed up matters succinctly.
'Don't fancy your chances much. Glad I'm staying. Enjoy your wander and don't touch them yellow mushroom things to the east of the Faithless Streamlet.'
'Are there poisons of which we were unaware?' came a worried comment.
'No. It's just that they taste bloody awful they do.'
With this final parting piece of advice the small contingent now named the Mossy Clefters till they could find some better and more original name, set off amid sobs and the waving of brown-speckled lettuce leaves that would be eaten in a festival of remembrance once they were out of sight.