Boreal Woodland Caribou

Boreal Woodland Caribou

You follow a pale ribbon of trail through a vast meadow, high above the city, where winds carry the scent of pine and open sky. Near a cluster of lichened boulders, long grass parts to reveal the medallion. You press your palm to it—and a breeze lifts as if the whole tundra sighed.

A deep thud‑thud ripples across the meadow—soft, steady footsteps echoing like a heartbeat. You turn to see an elegant figure appear: slender legs, silvery-brown coat, antlers branching like frost-lit lightning.

He stops a few paces away and lifts his head—majestic and calm.

“I am Alder,” he says, voice wide as winter plains. “Caribou. Wanderer of rifts and rhythms.”

You step closer. He bows his head in greeting.

“You touched the token,” Alder continues. “That opens the path. Not just to me, but to journeys you forgot you could take.”

You ask, “What are the medallions for?”

Alder gazes toward the horizon as if scanning future skies. “They are waypoints on a map written in seasons. We caribou follow paths etched by instinct and memory—across tundra, mountain, and tales.” He turns his gaze gently back. “These tokens… they tune you to the same routes. Help you remember how to wander, how to cross thresholds between what was and what will be.”

You ask, “Why mammals?”

Alder steps forward, each hoof careful and deliberate. “Because we carry change in our bones. We trek through snow and sun, giving birth to new life, feeling the world shift beneath us. We pass stories in migration, in shared steps. Birds may fly, fish may swim—mammals carry the moment inside them.”

His antlers tap a steady rhythm. “The medallions echo with that. They hum of long roads yet to travel, of bond‑lines that stretch across cliffs and creeks.”

You hesitate. “What if I find them all?”

Alder’s eyes hold both warmth and wind-blown distance. “Then… perhaps your journey begins anew. Finding them all may mean you no longer stand in one field—but stride across many with purpose.” He bows his head lightly. “You may walk every meadow, every forest, every shore—and carry the song of the world in your heart.”

A gust sighs through the grass, and Alder begins to drift away, snow‑bounds set on other horizons.

“But,” he calls over his shoulder, antlers framing the sky, “when the wind howls by the lake, and the stars shuffle across the sky… know that one of us remembers you.”

And then h