Two Travelers

A common woodland bumblet, the spiny snoot spends much of its time in tunnels below ground, and is seldom seen. But on warm evenings after heavy spring rainstorms, these reclusive vivas readily emerge from their tunnels to look for food: earthworms, beetle larvae, and small tribbets, all of which are drawn out of their own hiding places by the showers. They are capable - if infrequent - travelers, their forearms now firmly upright below their bodies, letting them walk for long periods with little wasted energy. For one young snoot, it is his very first time out of the burrow he was born and raised in. His mother plods along, poking her long bill into the damp earth at the base of a tuft of grass every so often in search of a meal. She is self-assured and steady. To her the landmass of Striata is home. The world she lives in, now in the middle Pangeacene is familiar, consistent in its seasonal changes. She knows, after a long life, what to expect and what is expected of her.

But for her baby, everything is new, and surprise is behind each and every bloom and blade of grass. He walks tall and proud. He knows by instinct to stay close to his mother, but cannot resist eagerly waddling over to investigate every new sight, smell, and sound of the meadow intermittently before shuffling back in line behind her each time she notices he has strayed. All around him new life blossoms into being. As the rain lets up, a golden glow fills the landscape as the evening sun coats the meadow in a final veil of light and casts a splash of color across the dark grey sky. Soon night will cast a shadow over this beauty, bringing his mother a sense of safety. Spiny snoots are nocturnal animals, and thus rarely are treated to sights such as this. The little one doesn't know that yet. He takes it all in stride. With defensive quill-like feathers hidden in the soft plumage along their backs, these snoots have become significantly less threatened by enemies than those which lived before them. Such ventures into the sunlit world in the short moment before day turns to night grow a little longer with each generation. And so this exuberant youngster might be the one to spend the most time of any so far in the daylight once he is grown and independent of his mother's watchful care. If it were up to him, he would keep going to the far reaches of the world. There is simply so much out there to see. The pair pass by a strange animal, tall and alert, its own fur colored like the rays of the sun. A circuagodont, a sort of grazing molodont tribbethere. It too has changed from its earlier forms, growing taller, more graceful. Now it can outrun most of the dangers of its world, and so no longer needs to hide. It stands tall and proud, and the little snoot seems inspired at the sight. Two characters in the book of life ever so briefly intersect, before each continues on its own path.

Life is made up of countless little moments, coming together into stories that intertwine with time. For now, the snoot and the circuagodont's lives just barely pass parallel. But who is to say, one day long from now, that these travelers will not meet again? Time will change them, as time does. But they will live on in their descendants, every new generation holding on to a piece of those which came before, a chain of lifetimes through the ages.

It's a nice thought, at least.