Skuld stories - cutting fences

Note: skuld stories are fictional. I, Cath, am not cutting fences as we travel. Tempting as it may well be.

Uisce, Anail and I, Skuld, travel. We travel as we wish. Mostly. And as we must. At times. Likewise we stop. It seems that in these difficult and tumultuous days we travel more than we stop.

At times we find a place to be at rest. Often times we will be greeted with curiosity and smiles if we happen to be near a settlement. Often enough we will be greeted with distance and distrust. But always if we linger long enough it will become clear that it is time to move on. The settled become unnerved by the unsettled. The curiosity becoming distrust. The reflections of themselves in the mirror too clear. Grasping on to an idea long gone, these places so often bleak in their desperation; heartbreaking in their memories.

Sometimes we will find ourselves in the company of other movers, nomads, travelers. More often than not we will find ourselves welcomed if still on the outside. If our paths are in the same direction, the same envisioning, we will happily travel with them if allowed. We know we will have many chances to tell our stories, our songs, our tales of safe and unsafe places long into the evening. I will often hunt with them if there is game nearby willing to feed us.

Many of these groups that we come across are known to us and that is the most wonderful thing! Many times it will have been years between visits and there will be many tales to tell. We have moved with these friends at times for months and it always ends with sadness when it is time to part our ways. It always happens that we must part. My search is not theirs.

We travel through a scoured landscape long ago scraped clean by machines and poisons; from the mining of ore that no longer is of any use but leaves its mark never to be completely wiped clean.

Some old roads still leave a mark of the paths that they took. Linear. Grid. North South East West as though it were meant as a prayer to the Mother. Though of course they were a part of the impulse to destroy the Mother. I suppose that could be a prayer of sorts.

We follow roads at times but mostly these lines covered with holes and eroded edges are difficult going. Out on the open is our choice.

Fences. There are still fences. Here and there. Keeping nothing out or in. I cut them when ever I find them. They are mostly so rusted that one swipe from my blade cuts them clean. Cuts them through. One of many last remnants of the civilised that be encounter as we travel.