Strangers? On my mountains? Curious.

Oh, travellers may come and go as they please, I am no tyrant here, but the jumbling slopes themselves have seen off many a wanderer. The hills are alive, they say, with grumbling, booming voices and a constant shuffling of their great grey shoulders. I hear them under the moaning of the wind, the wordless rumbles of the shifting earth. What do they say? I don’t know.

But the voices build and grow, their anger felt in my chest, then in a rush the slopes begin to writhe and tumble, throwing boulders to the foothills like a dragon spitting bones from its teeth. Do not ignore the chatter of the mountains. To pass them is a test, one with many perils.