Bog weed

"North of the Blue Sea, I must warn you, you'll have to cross the marshes over rides and rides again. And beware, child... these are treacherous lands, where apparences aren't trustworthy, where a single step can mean death, where Sen  will gladly test you day and night [...].

You want to avoid falling. You want to avoid tripping in the bog and rancid water. And most of all you want to avoid certain areas. The one true danger of this land, it's not the cold, predators, parasites, those we can expect and beware for. It's the call for safety. Your very instinct within pushing you to make regrettable choices.

You'll try to stay on solid ground, for sure, and you'll fall into the trap of this plant, we call bog weed.

This plant, it's evil I tell you. It grows floating on water where it is the deepest and darkest. it creates a thick layer, almost solid to the touch. You can't distinguish it from solid ground around it. So you take your step, and you don't feel it right away. You don't feel it give way to your body, as you plunge in the cold water. but the worst is to come, because below the surface has the weed deployed its trap. Its roots, barbed and tortuous, will entangle you as you try to swim back. the water that was a second before a few dactyls deep is now bottomless. And you can't see, you can't feel the up or down. You disappeared without a sound, and noone around, if there is, can even come to your rescue, because the weed muffles your struggle. It's a perfect killer. Silent, quick, unexpected, inescapable. You're trapped and can't survive. It's over.

You die painfully, as you can't prevent yourself from taking water in. This black, boggy water with a foul taste of death. And your body will start decaying in the mud, feeding nutrients to the grass which will strive on you until the next prey comes."

These were the words of an old man I had crossed paths with in the region. He had great stories from his past life around the northern cities, those which we lost in the war. I forgot that man's name, unfortunately. I don't know why but I can't recollect it...

Bog weeds can cover several square cords of marshes. Those can trap adult aetes. They grow over thousands of years, slowly spreading and thickening across generations of people. Down there, they are the reason of more than nintey percent of accidental deaths, but at least the region isn't as populated as it once was. Why the heck would one want to cross the northern marshes anyway these days? Leen Latour Jr.