The Vendreddi Fable

First Encounter

Daniel and Scott trekked through the forest for what seemed like hours on end. The entire time, they had both been speculating as to how they got in this forest in the first place.

"Maybe we were abducted by aliens." Scott ribbed at his brother.

"Get real man, we ain't walking funny so there's no way it's aliens." they both burst into laughter. They continued walking through the undergrowth for a long while. The sun was just over the horizon when they started walking, now it was directly over their heads. At that point Scott called to Daniel.

"Hey man, I'm starting to get hungry." Daniel nodded in acknowledgement, and started looking for any kind of edible plant or berry. Nothing.

"Will you... eat..." he ripped off the bark of a nearby tree "Tree bark?" Scott gave him an unamused look. Daniel responded by waving the bark underneath his own nose like a piece of artisan cheese. This elicited a chuckle from his sibling.

"I don't think we'll find anything to eat here." Daniel said

"Yeah, I know." Scott replied "I don't even recognize any of the plants here." he stated, gesturing to the entire forest. A look spread across Daniel's face as if he was contemplating something. We can't see shit from down here, he thought to himself. So how should we go about finding food? Or even getting out of this forest in the first place? He leaned against a tree and looked up as the shock from his body hitting the tree scared a flock of birds to the air. Bingo.

Without a word he stared climbing up the tree to gain a lay of the land.

        "What are you doing?" Scott called up to him.

        "Getting a bird's-eye view!" Daniel called back. After another twenty-five feet, he was finally able to see past the treeline too... another treeline. Great. Daniel looked closer at the trees in the distance and could see what appeared to be small red orbs in their branches.

        "Hey Scott!" he called down

        "What?"

        "I think I see some apple trees up ahead!" Scott's mouth began to water.

        "FOOD!" he cried. Daniel descended the tree and face his brother.

        "It should be just a few hundred meters that way." he pointed in the direction of the now setting sun. "Come on." He started of in light jog towards the sun with Scott on his heels. After a while they both reached the end of the wood and bush and were greeted with a quaint wooden fence with apple trees just beyond it.

        "Sweet!" Scott yelled. The pair strode towards one of the trees. They both began scaling the tree towards their glowing red bounty. When they reached the top. Scott started grabbing apples and shoving as many as his jacked pockets would carry. Daniel however; settled upon a branch and unsheathed the katana from his back. He then started methodically cutting apples at their stems with precise two-handed thrusts, each of them falling to the ground below. After there were no more apples within his sword's reach, he climbed down to join his brother.

        They both started stuffing their faces with the apple's they had cut down. Daniel began greedily wolfing down every apple he could get his hands on. Scott looked at his brother with a mix of amazement and disgust on his face. Daniel continued to gorge himself until he suddenly stopped and looked at his brother, his eyes wide with fear.

         "Oh you idiot!" Scott thumped his brother on the back to dislodge the lump of apple blocking his airways. Daniel coughed up the piece of apple that had blocked his windpipe.

         "Thanks man." he wheezed out. He promptly continued stuffing his face.

         "I'm already placing my bet," Scott said to him "you're going to be dead before your thirty-three man." Daniel smiled at his brother, laid down his apple, and flipped his brother the bird.

         "Very nice." Scott shoved him, "that's how you treat you're older brother? I save your life and then you flip me off?"

         "Damn straight." Daniel replied. Scott laughed. Daniel sighed, "This is why I drink." he took an apple off the ground and held it above his open mouth squeezing it until juice came dripping out through the cracks. Scott fell out laughing again. Daniel looked across at the trees, apple juice still dribbling from his chin.

         Daniel had always enjoyed making his older brother laugh. Ever since they were children growing up in the streets of Paris, France, they had only had each other, their father, and Bryan. Poor, poor Bryan. When they two of them were just six years old, their mother was taken from them by ovarian cancer. After which, they were left with only their father, Deodat Vendreddi, who was a wealthy corporate man dealing in the buying, selling, and managing of luxury hotels in the city of Paris. The boys had lived a life of luxury with their father, but they never could get rid of that rebellious streak they had inherited from their father; as a result they often snuck out at night to cause mischief on the streets much to the displeasure of local sweet vendors.

        Daniel was raised on samurai and kung-fu movies. He had wanted to learn the was of the samurai since he was four, and he had a tremendous affinity for the code of Bushido. His father had gotten him his own array of practice katanas and instructors to teach him different martial arts, everything from Aikido, to Kendoka, to Shurikenjutsu.

        Scott was fixated on the military. In his first year of high school, he signed up for the army preparation program "Unifiee". He was top of his squad in marksmanship and tactical commands and leadership. He had always favored spending time with their veteran uncle of seventy-one. He had educated Scott on all manner of semi and automatic firearms and how to operate them. If you had a question about any firearm from any era, Scott was your man.

        "So where do we go from here?" Daniel asked.

        "Um, we should try to find civilization as soon as we ca-" Scott tried to say as he was cut off by a stone striking the bark of the tree above his head. "FUCK!" he exclaimed, ducking behind the tree followed by his brother.

        "What the hell was that!?" Scott asked aggitatedly as another rock struck the opposite side of the tree.

        "I don't know!" Daniel responded, a third rock hit the tree.

        "Come on out of there ya varmints!" a pastoral voice call out from behind the tree. "Ya'll best have some money tah pay for those apples you ate!" Scott and Daniel both looked at each other before Scott called out,

        "We mean you no harm! We're just... lost." There was a long pause before they got a response.

        "Ya'll can talk?" the voiced asked inquisitively. The two looked at each other with raised eyebrows, Daniel responded, "We're coming out." The brothers slowly revealed themselves from behind the tree.

        What they saw next would be the beginning of their new lives.