[Pegasi Woods] Walk like a fox

[Nyl]

Cycle 5 of Melora, Spring of XIV
Tracking - practice

Spring was nearly done and though he had been away from the farm that had been home all of his life less than a season, it seemed very much longer than that. Of course, the seasons were not constrained by the attempts of people to place names and dates on them and certainly none of the animals realised that next cycle would be officially summer. In truth Nyl wasn't especially aware of the fact either. The changes in the weather he knew and he could tell that the seasons were turning but he had no access to a calender and he had only the vaguest idea of what the date might be for it had almost no importance to him.

But such things were not on his mind just then for he was back out in the woods, though not so far from the farm that had been his base earlier in the month and even now provided a source of rations to fall back on at need. Instead his mind was taken with the ongoing tasks that the farmer had set for him to continue his studies.

"You walk like you were pulling a plough," the farmer had commented somewhat unkindly. "Which is all very well for a young lad whose job was to scare the birds off the crops, but it isn't going to help you if you ever want to find what you are tracking. It will even make your learning more difficult because an important part of learning to track is to understand what you are tracking, and if you can't get close enough to watch them, then it won't happen. At the moment, every bird and animal with ears to hear is going to cover as you approach or more likely making off in the other direction as fast as it can."

He mused for a moment, his eyes calculating. "First thing is to slow down. With practice you can learn to speed up again, but you need to learn how to walk again. Your pace should be a fraction of your current speed when you are looking around." He stood, "watch me," his hands waved as he talked, pointing. "Head up, body relaxed. Don't look at your feet, they won't fall off, learn to remember the ground that was ahead of you. Your focus should be on what's happening around you, not on your feet. Move your foot forward, place the outer edge on the ground, roll your toes onto the ground and then the ball of the foot. If there is anything there, dead leaves, twigs that will make a sound, gently move them out of the way or put your foot down somewhere else. You might want to lose the sandals because you won't have the feel for the ground that you need. Bare feet or a thin sole is best. Then let the heel down on the ground. Once you've done that, and only then, put your weight onto the foot, and then move forward again."

It had seemed simple enough at the time, but now that Nyl practised the skill, it was harder than it looked and already his calves ached from the effort of putting his feet down differently. It also forced him to move much, much more slowly than he had before, and he discovered that the older man had been right. The woods were much more alive than he was used to. His progress, slow and silent, attention around him like the fox that the farmer had used as an illustration revealed much more than they usually did.

His more upright position allowed his weight to remain on the back foot more than it had in the past, when he'd committed himself to the next step before he'd even made it. Somehow it felt better, more in tune. He'd never had an issue with looking at his feet, too much experience of walking on rough country had meant that this wasn't too much of a change to be impossible for him. He lifted each foot with his thigh instead of the calf and he placed it down directly ahead of the other, so that he almost walked a tightrope, but such he did in some sense for he was now balanced in his walk and not heavy of foot and clumsy as he had been. Of course he had a long way to go before the change came naturally, but he felt that he was making progress and he was happy with it. The slower speed of movement gave him the time to actually see what was going on around him, time to inspect a bush for nibbled buds or leaves bent by a passing animal. Time to see the grass pushed down or a blade circle as some insect moved at its base.