Mae was hunting for food when she heard a startling crunch of dead leaves. She froze, straining to hear if it was near her. Crack. Crunch. Crrk.

Yep, it’s definitely near me and it’s definitely big, she guessed as she cautiously stalked towards the sound, making sure that she wasn’t crumbling the crunchy leaves, unlike the noisy thing that was.

She peered around a big oak tree. There, in the distance, She could make a distinct impression of a human. A boy, around her age with an axe in his hands–or is it a hatchet? His skin was roughly tanned, and Mae could see, even from where she was standing, that he’d been here for a longer time than she had.

Should I approach him? she asked herself as her grip tightened on her bow and arrows. This is what I’ve been wanting though, isn’t it?

Mae shadowed him as she checked that she was upwind, then rolled my eyes at herself. What was she doing? This is a human, not an animal. He can’t smell her scent.

Still, Mae made sure that she was careful as she slowly walked towards him.

Mae slowly took in a breath, then called out, “Hey.”

The boy whipped around, eyes stretching in surprise as his hand tightened, then slacked, on his axe-hatchet-thing.

“Hi?” he replied, hands twitching as if he was debating whether or not he should attack her with his sharp weapon thing.

Mae held my bow tightly as she secretly loaded it with an arrow behind her back in case he attacked, then responded, “How’d you get here?”

He looked around as if he was a cornered animal and Mae was a predator. “I crashed a plane.”

She felt her lips twitch. “You crashed a plane?”

“Uhh… yeah?” he said. “Long story. What about you?”

She shrugged. “I came here for target practice with my mom and bow, Hope. Buuuut then I got mad at my mom, so then I stormed off, then I got lost somehow, which has never happened, by the way. So now I’m stuck here—mostly because I’m still mad at my mom. I can also totally obviously get out of the woods any time, not still lost anything, nope, not me.”

Mae could see the slight twitch in his mouth as if he was battling a smile. Then, he suddenly asked, “Hope?”

She shrugged again. “I name all my weapons. It helps me bond with them. For example, this arrow is called Long Shot, this arrow is called Determination, this arrow is called Bullseye, and this arrow is called—”

“Bond with them?” he echoed again, rudely cutting her off. Mae rolled her eyes.

“Duh. Bonding with them helps me reach for them when I’m in danger and not hesitate to shoot the person who’s trying to threaten me,” she explained. “You’re lucky that I chose to talk to you instead of shoot you. Totally not because I’m lonely or anything,” she quickly added.

He smiled. “What’s your name? You never told me.”

“What’s yours?” Mae countered.

“Brian,” he told me carelessly. “What’s yours?”

“You don’t deserve to know my name,” she told him, smirking. “Although I guess part of it is because I’m still not totally sure whether or not to trust you. You know, survival instincts in the woods.”

He smiled again, bigger this time. “Do you have trouble finding food?”

“Nah.” She threw the word out casually. “I know where the berry bushes are. Plus, I’ve got Hope!” She showed him her bow, loaded with a sharp, pointed arrow—Mae spends hours sharpening her weapons every day, with a sharp rock like flint or tough stick. She laughed when he flinched away.

“Where do you live in the woods?” he finally asked, scooting away from her arrow.

“I built a little wood house-cabin-place-thingy near a lake. It’s pretty spacious and homey—the cabin, not the lake,” Mae clarified.
He perked up. “Is it L-shaped?”

She shook her head, although she had seen a lake that distinctly looked like an L. “No, but it’s pretty big, and plenty of fish in there to spear through with an arrow, or a rock if I feel like throwing something.”

We spent the rest of the afternoon discussing life in the woods: making a fire, finding food, and everything in between.

“Meet you at the L-shaped lake tomorrow at midday?” he asked. “You know where it is, right?”

“Of course,” she told him. Mae could feel that there was a small hollow feeling of loneliness, but she quickly shook it away. She had a sort-of-friend now, and they were meeting tomorrow. “See ya!” she called as we left for our own shelters.

Credits:
Brian Robeson from Hatchet
Keeper of the Lost Cities for the idea of naming weapons

caca

Prompt: Describe the beginning of autumn in 3rd person limited with no characters.

Autumn had started.
The air had already turned crisp and cool, and leaves had already started to perish. They seemed to lack their usual lush green color, and a few had already started falling off of their tree branches, littering the ground with crunchy, brown leaves.
A warm breeze flew by, lifting fallen leaves and carrying them with the wind, sending them skittering across the grassy ground.
Then the sun had started to set.
A warm sunset, with bold reds and vibrant yellows, contrasting against the pale cerulean-blue sky. Streaks of pink also brushed across the sky, with puffs of fluffy pastel-colored clouds scattered here and there.
Everything seemed like… like autumn.