Migratory Crane

393 AC - I watch the cranes extend their wings, while the fish that Orchid just caught sizzles on the flat stone I had placed in the fire. They rise gracefully, and I hear the splashing of water followed by the beating of feathers. Nature always sends signals. They're barely noticeable to many of us: a slight change in temperature, a wind picking up from a specific direction, the sky darkening in a unique way when the sun disappears at a certain point behind a certain mountain… It's the signal to leave, to move to another place. All too often, we forget that we are "programmed" by nature, as Treyst likes to put it. But our senses and subconscious never forget. Our unbreakable link with nature is encoded in our instincts.

And so I wonder… I wonder to what extent the Expeditionary Corps, and the entire Rediscovery Endeavor for that matter, are really the result of a choice, rather than a necessity we feel deep within us. Maybe there are actually thousands of signals all around us, telling us that the time has come, that it's time to leave… I watch the cranes soaring in the sky. Their silhouettes stand out against the brooding gray of the clouds. It's believed that they can sense magnetic waves and energy lines, and that they know where they're going when they migrate. I wish I could say the same. Orchid told me that none of the places we had been were like the place where she had found me. So we have no choice but to keep moving…

RIN