For milliways_bar. Unrelated to dear_multiverse.
To the ears of someone accustomed to the sounds of a human city in their heydays, or the sounds of Milliways, it's quiet. There's no machinery to be heard anywhere, no engines of any kind. There's no music trickling through the background. There's no sound of human speech.
To someone used to the sounds of wilderness, it's only moderately quiet. Insects are going more dormant as evening draws on, and birds are still twittering to one another, though they're one by one roosting and dropping off to sleep. Tree branches and undergrowth chatter in the occasional breeze, the last gasps of anything like summer before autumn gets its chance to shine.
And the fire hisses and pops, crackling gleefully in its little pit. That's probably the first thing someone newly awakened under the late evening sky will notice in the little clearing, unless it's the worn and torn burlap underneath them, or the former saplings stripped down to poles on either side.
The only other human in the clearing doesn't even figure into it; he's on the other side of the fire, holding still in his camouflage fatigues and dark green vest, and isn't likely to be noticed under the best of circumstances. At least, not just yet.
To someone used to the sounds of wilderness, it's only moderately quiet. Insects are going more dormant as evening draws on, and birds are still twittering to one another, though they're one by one roosting and dropping off to sleep. Tree branches and undergrowth chatter in the occasional breeze, the last gasps of anything like summer before autumn gets its chance to shine.
And the fire hisses and pops, crackling gleefully in its little pit. That's probably the first thing someone newly awakened under the late evening sky will notice in the little clearing, unless it's the worn and torn burlap underneath them, or the former saplings stripped down to poles on either side.
The only other human in the clearing doesn't even figure into it; he's on the other side of the fire, holding still in his camouflage fatigues and dark green vest, and isn't likely to be noticed under the best of circumstances. At least, not just yet.