Below are the 8 most recent journal entries recorded in Erika's NaNo and Related Rantings' LiveJournal:

Wednesday, November 26th, 2003
10:32 pm	Can I finish? Maybe They walked toward the field used for warming up, a large broad plain that had once been choked with grass but now, trampled with many hooves, was now smooth, naturally churned dirt. Sergeant and Butterscotch pranced as they caught sight of all the other horses galloping to and fro, mostly matched teams. Each team wore the colors of either their own selves or the stable they rode for. Miress and Ky’s shirts were blue, their protective vests gray, and the large saddle pads the horses wore were striped in blue and gray. Panthé helped first Ky and then Miress onto their horses. Ky swung aboard, facing backwards as he slid his feet into the rings, grabbing behind him for the reins. It took horses a few years of training to grow accustomed to people riding them backwards, and though he was animated Sergeant accepted it and moved off on Ky’s leg. Miress rode facing forward, standing in her own stirrups, which were rounded and attached to a surcingle rather than an actual saddle. Ky had begun to warm up, moving with ease from facing backward to the second set of ring stirrups closer to Sergeant’s withers. “Show off,” Panthé called. Miress chuckled and leaned back in her rings, using her legs to keep her mare going forward. Ky grinned and nudged Sarge into a light canter and guided him out onto the discing field, Miress following a few feet behind. Panthé scanned the field, looking at all the other competitors. There was always tough competition at Festivals, and today was no different. Two men on rangy black geldings made her wince, Galad Arrowknock and Orion Monbanc, two of the best discers around. And the pair rounding the far corner of the field didn’t settle her stomach any more. Two slim, tall girls atop highbred gray mares and dressed elegantly in the jade green colors of their family name with calm looks and turned up noses came thundering down the stretch, heedless of the people on either side of them. The other practicing teams got out of their way in a hurry, scowls on more than a few faces, horses expressing like sentiment with pinned ears. Ophelia and Fredetta Riverbend, daughters of the Butterfly’s chief adviser. Both girls firmly believed they owned the world and they didn’t hesitate to make sure everyone else knew it. Pyar caught the look on her handmaid’s face and followed her gaze. “Who’re they?” She asked. “The Riverbend girls. They talk to no one who isn‘t rich, powerful, or handsome. But they make sure they scorn just about everyone else.” “I wonder if they’d recognize me. I greet their father all the time at the council meetings. He seems quite nice.” Pyar defended, waving as the twins cantered by. Ophelia looked down at her and then dismissed her with a snort and a chuckle, throwing a look back over her shoulder that Fredetta caught. “What’s with them?” She asked, her face forming into an instant scowl that told Panthé the younger girl was ready to fly into a tremendous pout. “Well, seeing as you look normal and are showing no outward signs of wealth and power, you are not worth their time. You’ll find that alot in the real world, highness.” She added gently, trying to get through to a girl who was used to being complimented and having attention paid to her her entire life. “Don’t call me that!” Pyar stormed, crossing her arms and looking more now than ever like a two year old refused her favorite toy. “I like people who see me, really see me. You, and the other grooms do. But they have to get over the whole Young Butterfly thing. I mean, I feel like a regular person, I’ve just been locked away my whole life is all.” Amazed at Pyar’s new outlook, Panthé nearly missed the call to get seating for the discing. Pyar dashed quickly, for she, her mother, and father would be sitting in a special section. Panthé dashed as well, for like all others she would have to shift a seat for herself. Waving one last time to Ky, who winked in return, she headed for the discing track. A mile long and very straight and wide, the track had seating all along its length, where people crammed in almost shoulder to shoulder. Some had wagers while others merely enjoyed the thrill of watching the teams thunder down the stretch as they exhibited their equine acrobatic skills. Panthé slid into a seat almost exactly halfway between start and finish. She knew she’d have to help Ky and Miress once they finished their performance, but now she just wanted to watch the others. Pyar sat with her parents near the finish on a raised dais, guards at four stations around the family. Scanning the crowd, Panthé spotted her fellow grooms, each jumping excitedly as they waited for the march of all the competitors. And there they came, each team walking out onto the field in a parade of bright, different colors. Ky spotted her and waved, and, looking up, waved at someone higher. Panthé followed his line of sight and saw Pyar waving enthusiastically to him. Grinning to herself, Panthé resettled in her seat to brace herself for the excitement to come. Garb stood at the start, helping the teams with any last minute adjustments of tack and bridle, giving encouraging words to everyone. They all seemed to know him, and he was the sort of fellow no one could snub for long, even if he did wear the palace colors. The first team to go, Galad and Orion, set themselves. Galad edged his horse to the starting line, facing forward for his first throw. He grinned down at Garb and the two men exchanged friendly banter for a second before Galad’s face became a stern game face. Panthé was a little surprised that he was not facing backward for his first throw, it was all but a rule in discing. Though Galad and But the starting flag was waved and the team leaped into action. They managed five back-and-forth passes before Orion’s horse stumbled on a clod of earth and his throw to Galad was thus unbalanced. Galad, hanging from the haunch-harness, missed the catch. The crowd gasped in disappointment as the horses slowed to a walk and left the track. The next few teams managed seven passes each, Panthé praying that her friends had more up their sleeves. Finally, Garb led the familiar Sergeant to the starting line, his neck arched as he snorted breaths into the crisp morning air. Ky was riding backwards, feet flexing in the rings and hands flexing on the reins. Panthé could barely make out Butterscotch’s black, Roman nosed muzzle but she had a feeling Miress was just as focused. And from Ky’s face, they were also communicating silently, debating which moves to use. It didn’t take any hand signals or head shakes, such was their deep seated communication as they waited for the flag to be waved. There it went! Sergeant didn’t need Ky’s urging to leap out at a heady gallop, the boy fishing from the hard cased leather pocket near his knee the ball that would be used in play. The first few passes seemed to fly by Panthé who had blinked, but the person sitting next to her shouted “Five!” heartily and cheered heartily. Panthé tossed her head back and let out a long war whoop, they were two away from drawing even with the competition, and there was still half the track to go! Ky swung around so that his feet nearly brushed the dirt, one arm clinging to the large ring attached to the surcingle. Catching the ball, he threw it nimbly to Miress who had now stood up on Butterscotch’s back, knees bent to go with the mare’s motion. They had to change positions each time the ball left their hand, so that by the time Miress had thrown it back again to Ky, she was already plunking down and hauling her body into a different position for the catch. Panthé gasped as Ky caught the ball one handed before it nearly eluded his fingertips. No matter what the pass count, if he lost the ball they were out of the game completely, but he was already throwing it again. Ten passes, and the finish line was coming up quickly. Now Ky was standing forward on Sergeant’s back, his hand turned to catch the ball. Miress threw it and then somehow maneuvered so that she was hanging onto the side of the surcingle with her head aimed down toward the ground. Ky caught it, and threw it low in a pass that made the entire crowd gasp collectively. Could a throw go so low and be caught? Miress answered by catching it as it flew past Butterscotch’s powerful churning forelegs. Swinging, she threw it again and hauled herself up so that she had one foot through the stirrup and one hand on one of the surcingle’s many side-straps. But it didn’t look as though she could pass it back once they had caught it, for Sergeant was fast approaching the finish line. Panthé drew a breath as Miress caught it yet again and threw it back, Ky nearing the finish line. They had thrown it back and forth twelve times, but Ky was making a strange motion to which his partner nodded at. Was he going to try and play on the back runner rule? It looked so, for Miress was standing on her harness again, this time with both hands spread out, knees bent as she watched Ky. Technically, the teams could throw to each other until the back runner had crossed the finish line entirely. But not many teams attempted to chance such a throw, for most horses sped up on sight of the end of their run, throwing whatever throw that had been made out of balance. But the ball left Ky’s hand and landed in Miress’s as Butterscotch thundered across the finish. With no time for heavy cheering, Panthé slid and skidded down to the end line to help with the cooling down of the palace horses. When she reached them, Ky and Miress were both dirt streaked, sweaty, and grinning insanely. They hugged each other furiously before spotting Panthé and hugging her too. “You’d best go get cleaned up,” she said with a dancing grin, “for you’ll be in the end parade sure enough.” Both she and Miress lapsed into delighted girlish giggles for a moment before Panthé remembered her duties and went to Butterscotch, stripping the mare of her tack and spreading out the pad to dry. She was dimly aware of someone taking Sergeant from Ky as he and Miress headed off to their tents to clean the dirt and sweat from themselves, but was too delighted with the goings on to really care much who it was. Once the sweating, snorting mare was all untacked, Panthé began walking her out, letting the strain of the work evaporate as they moved out under the shade. “That’s my little brother,” a voice near her ear said laconically. Startled, Panthé nearly jumped, causing Butterscotch to spin. “Chet! Don’t sneak up on people, it scares their horses. Besides, I thought you were off skirt chasing on your reprieve.” “Nah, I had to see Ky’s ride, he IS family after all.” Chet negated as he and Sergeant drew even with them. Scowling, Panthé walked faster, wishing for all the world that she could just deck Chet and see him sprawled on the grass. He was so annoying. “And then Garb spotted me and put me to work. Go figure.” The girl couldn’t help but laugh as they walked. That was Garb alright, his personal philosophy being no one was too important to do work. “Well, if you HAVE to walk near me, for Dovi’s sake be QUIET.” Panthé said, patting Butterscotch’s neck as they walked past the menagerie. Sergeant snaked his head out and attempted to give the mare a nip. She swatted the stallion‘s nose irately, causing him to snort and shake his head. “And control your beast.” “Aye, captain.” Chet saluted smartly, trying to keep the smirk off his face as they moved. Hearing the roar of the crowd as they moved, and passing other teams, Panthé tried to gather how Ky and Miress compared to the teams going after them. She groaned as she saw Ophelia and Fredetta moving toward the track with their mares. “Have faith, girl.” Chet said with a chuckle. “Thirteen is a hard number to beat, you know.” After what seemed like an eternity, the girls came off the track, both wearing identical scowls. Panthé exchanged a grin with Chet. “Wanna go see how they did?” Chet remarked. “They wouldn’t tell us,” Panthé said as they casually circled nearer and nearer to the post-run untacking area. “No, but they don’t exactly talk quietly. Let’s just blend in, it’s not like they really notice anyone who doesn’t come simpering to them.” Panthé couldn’t help but agree with this, and they proceeded to try and spy on the twins. “Eight! EIGHT! How come you didn’t throw me more?” Ophelia stormed, thrusting her reins into the hands of a flustered groom. “Because you were too far ahead of me! If I had thrown more, OPHELIA, you wouldn’t have caught them. And it wasn’t exactly like you were switching positions...” “Eight. We beat them, we won!” Chet exclaimed in delight. “We?” Panthé inquired with a raised eyebrow. “Well, the palace did. And since Ky is my brother, it means I won too. So yes, we.” Panthé gave him a shove as they headed back to the place they had set their tack. The last team was finished and it was near time for the winners to return to the track for a ceremony. Retacking Butterscotch, Panthé waved to Miress and Ky as they came back in fresh clothes. Miress helped Panthé finish tacking as Chet hefted Ky onto his horse. Both riders faced forward and gave a grin and half-salute to Panthé and Chet before they set off at a trot for the starting line again. Panthé wasted no time in scrambling to a good vantage point in order to watch the Butterfly come down from her dais to wreath Ky and Miress in crowns of twined orchids. Sergeant nearly lost it because Ky’s crown showered petals onto him, but the young boy kept his charge well in hand and the horse behaved himself. Ky and Miress lead the procession of winners in a slow victory gallop up and down the discing lane. Pyar and her mother and father would have to stay and oversee the proceedings and officially greet any dignitaries arriving today. Since this was so, for a time Panthé would have some freedom to do things she wanted. Going back to the tent she shared with the other female grooms, she dug through her rucksack and came up with a handful of coins. Grinning, she put them down, fastened her worn belt pack to her waist, and quick as a wink the coins were transported from the rucksack to her pack. Ophar was just emerging from the boy’s tent and caught her eye. “Panthé! C’mon, the Ty’il are gonna put on a show! They gots bears and elephants!” Grinning, Panthé followed him, excited to see any sort of show. Others apparently had that idea, as Panthé saw many festival goers headed toward another large field. This field was different from the warm up ring the discers used, as it had a cracked, rotting fence encircling most of it, and many large painted wagons hugging its outskirts. The heady smell of animals reached everyone’s nostrils, and the sounds of the large camp could be heard clearly in the midmorning. The Ty’il camps were a bustle of people, horses, dogs, tigers, elephants, and various other animals. Panthé could see flashes of brightly colored costumes and hear jingles of harness bells before a man on a strikingly colored horse galloped into the ring and halted at the center. The horse reared and the man held out his arm, giving a whistle. As the animal came back down, a large eagle soared down and landed on the man’s arm. Everyone clapped, and he grinned, bowing in his elaborately decorated saddle. The horse bowed as well to more clapping before the man spoke. “Ladies and gentleman, parents and children, we welcome you humbly to our family, to our show, and to our lives. Please, enjoy the proceedings.” And with that, the horse turned delicately on its haunches and the eagle took to the air again with a call. Then a vast collection of children in leotards came out, some with tambourines and others with piccolos, and they began to gambol and cartwheel about. They hopped over and around each other, tumbling and hand standing, balancing and laughing as the crowd clapped. Ophar grinned and clapped loudest as one little boy took a running start at the fence, ran halfway up it, and pushed off to do a flip. After the children came a few horse acts, with horses and dogs running free in the ring as a young man stood and instructed them, followed by three girls on fat shaggy ponies balancing and switching mounts as the ponies cantered at a serene pace around the arena. Then, the man who had introduced the entire procession in the beginning came in, this time on foot and accompanied by five tigers. Panthé backed up as he worked the cats, two of them trotting the length of the ring. “The cats of the far jungle! Heed to me!” He called, at which point all five of them sat in a circle at his feet before they began to do incredible stunts and balancing feats. As soon as the tiger man had gone, a young woman danced in wearing veils and rather little in the ways of covering. The men in the crowd were very delighted as she started dancing, grinning and beckoning to a few as her hips and shoulders twined in their own rhythms. From somewhere, a harp and a few flutes struck up, and the tempo increased, as did the cheers. Unseen by many, including Panthé, seven small children skittered under the fence and began to raid the crowd as the dancer was joined by three others, all in outfits similar to hers. The children began to wander innocently through the crowd, lifting and plundering the pockets of enraptured audience members, men mostly. The girls, led by the woman who had entered first, Aiisash, began a slow exit as the music dwindled to a stop. In a breath, Aiisash, astride a large gray stallion, charged back into the arena, the same girls also riding horses. They were followed by a young man with large bears lolloping on either side of him as he waved to the crowd, and behind him was the older man with the tigers, then more people astride horses as they made a circle around the fenced area. A whirl of color, bells, and noises signified the Ty’il shows, and this one was no different as the “parade” of sorts got larger, more groups of children, adults, and animals circling and making gleeful tunes on tambourines, flutes, and one woman atop an elephant playing a harp with stately grace. The children who had been doing the stealing slunk back into the arena as well, joining the procession as they paraded and danced around joyfully. After a few moments, however, the people danced out of the arena to make room for a gigantic cart pulled by four large bull elephants, each one with tusks at least five feet long and capped in heavy bronze bands. Everyone fell silent as a thin, wiry man with reddish hair slid down from his perch on one of the front pullers, balancing on an extended elephant foreleg before landing on the ground in a nimble flip. “Lords, Ladies, kinsman and children, prepare yourselves to be amazed.” His voice was so dynamic and hushed that the crowd seemed to draw a collective breath, all of their attention riveting on him. “I must ask for silence, it will alarm them. Found in the jungles living among the giants was a child. Through great peril and providence, she has moved from the land of trees and beasts into that of men and horses. Born among elephants, brought before men, here is the Elephant Child!” A hush fell over the crowd as the wagon moved in all the way. A loud trumpet from one of the occupants shook Panthé to the bones, and she felt her teeth knock together as she heard the trumpet again. But another sound followed it, this one with a distinctly more human ring to it. And then she saw the child, the elephant girl. She couldn’t have been more than twelve, it looked like. Her hair was a bushy, knotted clump and her knees were sharp, triangular protrusions from skinny legs. The Elephant Child looked Panthé straight in the eyes and gave another weak trumpet. Other people gasped exclamations, pointing to first the girl and then the other elephants she was entrapped with. “Those others, my good people, are the family of the Elephant Child. They commune and share food, the Child even talks as they do!” The man’s banter was lost as Panthé watched the girl scramble towards the younger of the elephants who couldn’t have been more than four months old. The Elephant Child caressed the baby’s back with one curled arm, and Panthé realized with an odd jolt that the girl was using that arm as a trunk. But after a moment the cart turned ponderously and lumbered out. “If you wish a closer look at the Elephant Child, it will be five rivka.” And with that the show was over. As the crowds began to filter out, Panthé felt an insane and odd impulse. Pushing against the leaving people, she struggled and shoved until she reached the place the cart had stopped. Handing over the money as she struggled to catch her breath. The woman seated on a wooden stool nodded her through curtly. “Don’t you get too close now, child.” She warned with a gruff look over her shoulder as Panthé went toward the wagon. Afternoon shaded the large wagon as it sat in the aftermath of the show. The elephants that had pulled it were being unhitched, directed by the red haired fellow. The massive jingle and jangle of their harness chains made No Nose jump. “Have you figured it out, yet?” Warrior Eye asked her quietly, tracking the girl with hollowed dark eyes. “I think so. I hope so. I will try with the next one that comes near.” No Nose replied, hunkering as close to the bars as the chain around her waist allowed. Sure enough, here came a human. She was clean and No Nose could smell horse on her. Unnerved a bit, she scooted back a step from the front of the wagon as her watcher took a step forward. “Hello.” The watcher said slowly, raising one arm and giving the peculiar grimace that monkeys gave before they attacked. No Nose saw the watcher bear her teeth and covered her head with her arms, knowing the gesture for a hostile warning. She did not wish to be pelted with fruit or leaped at. But then again, she remembered that most humans used the teeth-baring as a modes of describing happiness. Well, she had been listening to the odd din these animals made for a few days, perhaps she could try to imitate them. She made as close an approximation to the watcher’s mouth sound as she could, but it came out more of a grumble than an actual word. Still, it had a visible effect on the watcher. “Hello.” That same set of mouth sounds was repeated, and No Nose wasn’t good at telling tone of voice, but she could almost sense shock in the second mouth sound. “Heggh.” she said slowly, coming a bit closer in case the watcher would speak again. She needed to see how to move her own mouth. Her trunk hand moved to her lips and tried to help them form around the words. “Heglo.” Definite surprise from the watcher this time, and No Nose shifted uneasily as she saw the female’s face work in agitation. “What am I saying? Angry things?” No Nose asked Warrior Eye worriedly. “I don’t know. Try it again.” “Hel-lo.” She said, articulating this time. She felt the blood race to her temples and she felt giddy as well. “Are you okay?? Do you need help? Are you hungry?” The questions flew thick and fast from the human, almost knocking No Nose down. She squinted and made a motion with her trunk-hand that meant ‘slower’. Of course, the human didn’t understand, and No Nose sighed. “Do you need help?” The watcher asked again. It sounded like the first mouth sound, but a little different. “Hel-puh?” No Nose repeated, her head tilted quizzically to one side. Then the watcher did something that stunned her. She strode over to the massive door of the wagon-cage and gave it a yank. Smallest Leaf trumpeted in startlement and the watcher repeated the word. “Help. I can help you. Free.” Another yank on the wagon door. “Help?” No Nose was thoroughly confused. Help meant yanking and loud noises? Help meant...what? It wasn’t the same as the first mouth sound, but only just different. “’Help‘, what does ‘help’ mean?” She asked Warrior Eye and Smallest Leaf. “Can you tell?” “It means free!” Smallest Leaf said. “See? She wants to open the door of the human trap and let us free! Free from the box thing.” No Nose watched the girl tug at the door again, then the girl pretended to yank the lock from the door and fling open the box-prison. “Help. Free.” The girl watcher repeated. No Nose looked to Warrior Eye, whose eyes were shining with new dawning of understanding. “She DOES mean free. Say it! Say it and she’ll do it! She likes it when you make human sounds, see how she shakes? And that weird monkey grimace?” “But I don’t use my trunk!” No Nose protested, squealing and shuffling to the safety and warmth of her elephant kin. “What if it is the wrong mouth sound?” “Say it and we’ll be okay. Exactly as you heard it.“ Smallest Leaf assured her, giving her a nudge of his own trunk. “Help. Freeeeeeee.” No Nose said slowly, many times. For good measure, her trunk hand swung wide to include herself, Warrior Eye and Smallest Leaf. “Help. Free. Help. HELP!” She called, as the girl was standing there starkly wide eyed. No Nose slid again to the front of the cage, pressing her trunk hand through the bars, trying to touch the girl, trying to get across how much this prison was hurting her. Only the tips of her fingers made it out as she looked deeply, pleadingly into her watcher’s eyes. “Free.” The girl reached to touch No Nose’s trunk hand with her own, slowly, slowly the hands came close to meeting. No Nose felt hope, and the watcher’s hand, which was so much like hers, touched her own fingertips. “I did it!“ She exclaimed to Warrior Eye and Smallest Leaf. “We are free!“ To her dismay, however, the watcher drew in a deep breath and backed away, cradling her hand as though she had been bitten by a virubug. Only wide olive colored eyes met No Nose, and though she wasn’t versed in human, she somehow knew the girl was completely afraid. “I’m telling you, she talked to me! She knew what she was saying!” Panthé said excitedly to Miress, Ky, Tann, Ophar and the rest of the grooms. “The Elephant Child?” Ophar, who had seen the performances too, asked. “The dirty little thing chained in with the elephants? Panthé, she doesn’t understand a word of it. She’s probably just mimicking you.” “But the way she looked at me! It can’t be right to keep a human locked in a tiny place for so long. And those elephants too!” “Even if she DID want out, you couldn’t free her. She’s Ty’il property, you know.” Miress negated, taking a bite of her bread roll. “They’d be out for your blood.” “And you don’t want that to happen.” Beliny added, accompanied by her sister Meliny’s nod. “Maybe if the Butterfly bought them? Or Pyar? Pyar might buy them from the Ty’il.” Panthé flung desperately. She didn’t know how or why, but the Elephant Child had crept into her heart and nestled there like a persistent, burrowing tick. “But at what price? They wouldn’t sell such a rarity cheap, you know. Besides, it isn’t worth it. Let the Ty’il worry about her, we’ve got our own lives.” Meliny dismissed with a mutter. Panthé shook her head and nibbled on her meal, suddenly not hungry for anything. “I’ll help you.” Ky said, speaking close to her ear. “And so will Chet. And if you tell the Young Butterfly, I’m sure she will help as well. At midnight, we’ll meet beside the menagerie.” Grinning, he sat back up and gave her a small wink to which she smiled with a twitch of her lip, still preoccupied despite offers of assistance. Midnight had Panthé almost wishing she had never gone to see the Elephant Child. Cold and starless, she could not see an inch in front of her face. “Panthé! Over here!” A hushed voice whispered. “Drat it...curses! Grrrgh!” Panthé muttered as she stumbled and faltered her way towards what sounded like Ky’s voice. “She made it, good.” Another voice, one Panthé knew for Pyar’s called from her left. Pyar had been positively thrilled when her handmaiden had told her of the midnight meeting. “Alright, we’ve got a few plans.” It was Ky, she could see as she squinted. The dim lights of the nightwatch lanterns let her see that. “The Festival ends the day after tomorrow. Pyar is going to try and buy the Elephant Child and her company from the Ty’il before we leave Tsarma. If that doesn’t work, we will free them ourselves and return with them to the palace. They can be concealed easily.” Ky said quietly, his voice a mere hush. “Concealed? How?” Panthé asked in a sort of stupor. “Well,” it was Chet, she was sure, “the girl can be stowed easily in one of the menagerie wagons.” “Chet you idiot! The menagerie wagons are full!” Panthé hissed. “No, no. We sold the jungle prowler yesterday, lovey darling.” Chet contradicted, in a voice that clearly illustrated a superior smirk. “To a couple of breeders in the Bordertowns.” “And the elephants?” She asked scathingly. “We have a masking cloak that Master Samalk packed. It was going to be for his magic act. But he took sick. Anyways, he’s used his Skill on it so it is very good at being undetectable, and has size changing as well.” Pyar chimed brightly. “It changes with whatever it is cloaking.” “They’re wild elephants! Surely they will be heard.” Panthé protested. “Trumpeting and rumbling and fighting. “We’ve thought that through, too. Sergeant and Sunspot will both have gotten a bit lame. Sergeant from his hard work and Sunspot from a cow kick. We can stay well enough back to deal with the elephants, Panthé.” “Why me?” “Because you’re the one who instigated this whole scheme!” Chet remarked cheerfully. “And you seem to have a rapport with the Elephant Child, from what you told us.” “Well...I...” Struggling to find good footing for arguing, Panthé felt as though she were trying to do a handstand in a rockslide as the group nodded in agreement and decided to return to camp and their beds. The plan would begin the next morning. “Seventeen gold shibes. Surely, sir, that is a tiny price for six heifers and a stout bull calf!” Panthé argued, trying her best to keep a bright smile on her face as the man in front of her scowled darkly into the pen. His bulky build and clipped accent branded him Malimar, and they didn’t enjoy bargaining. This fellow, however, seemed to break the mold as he wheedled and grumbled at the price. “Fourteen gold shibes, I see a scab on that hock.” He grunted, pointing to one of the heifers and his scowl deepened.. Pipe whined at Panthé’s heels, eager to work. “Sixteen. That’s all fair for us both.” In answer, sixteen coins were swiftly and grudgingly placed into Panthé’s hand. That was all Pipe needed to hear as he slithered into the pen among the cows. “Hie, Pipe, three and two, three and two!” She called, whistling and gesturing him as she opened the gate of the holding pen. The cattle the dog cut out lumbered into the catch-pen and the gate shut firmly behind them before any unwanted bovine could slip through and mar the customer’s small herd. “Don’t let him harm any of them cows.” The Malimar man growled. Panthé heaved a not altogether inconspicuous sigh and tossed several ropes at the man. “Halter them and take them out of the catch-pen. They belong to you now.” As her customer endeavored to undergo his task, Panthé returned to her perch against the fence, feeling hot, tired and irritable. She wished the cattle would just sell themselves, or at least catch the eyes of people who didn’t complain about every cent they were spending. If they wanted royal cattle, they should expect to pay royal prices. That only stood to reason. She was about to head for the shaded tree near the north side of the holding pen when she felt a tap on her shoulder. Resigned to the fate of selling cows in the sun, she was surprised to meet Pyar’s sorrowful blue gaze. “They didn’t want to sell. Not even for seventy thousand shibes and twelve head of horses. I tried, I did try.” Her eyes were filling with tears. “That woman was so MEAN.” Suddenly Panthé found herself unwittingly patting and talking to the Young Butterfly, who was sobbing onto her shoulder. “There, there, Pyar. You did your best, we’ll just have to switch plans is all.” Pyar nodded, pulling back and wiping her eyes fretfully. “But you’re right. I saw the Elephant Child, and she looked straight at me, and I felt her, Panthé. I’m worried though, there was a tiger loose in the camp! Loose! The woman assured me it wouldn’t hurt anyone, but they guard the place at night. And so do the dogs.” “We’ll take care of it all, Pyar. You look like you need a sugarspin. I’ll find you a vendor.” “I don’t want a sugarspin. I want to help you, remember? We may not be able to rescue until tonight, but you still have things to do. What are you doing now?” “Waiting for Miress to finish her cleaning of the menagerie and feeding the horses so she can come sell these damn cows. Then I have to go change Slasher’s wing bandage.” Panthé couldn’t help but shudder. The Brey falcon’s temper had not been dulled by his incident, and Panthé had tended him the previous day as well, earning herself a nice slash on her forearm. Garb didn’t kid around when he named birds, that was for sure. Pyar skipped merrily after Panthé as she went to find the liniment and fresh bandages. Slasher screeched as the girls approached, flaring his good wing and clicking talons on the branch he had been perched out on. Panthé muttered as she grabbed his jesses, securing him swiftly and then clamping onto them. Tann, who was watering horses near the perch out area, came to assist them as Pyar held bandages like a nurse. An hour and several small cuts later, Panthé was back among the cattle, her head full of the things she had learned that day. They would have to strike at night, with a plan and alot of strength. It seemed impossible, what they were taking on. But somehow, she felt like that was just what she wanted. Giving a small shiver, she turned to address the woman who had approached her, pointing knowingly at one of the steers. (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 6th, 2003
10:51 pm	Balancing was hard, Aiisash reflected as she carefully extended one hand, the other holding firmly to the harness of the animal she was practicing on. You had to keep everything in mind, even little annoying things like her daughter yammering at her. “Momma, I wanna go see what‘s going onnnnn“ Aiisash‘s daughter Chemsha babbled. Dropping down onto the elephant‘s back, Aiisash looked down at her daughter with a sigh. “Fine, Chem. Take your brother and go, but be back by sundown.” Chem skipped away gleefully, her hands clasped together in utter enjoyment. Sighing, Aiisash got to her knees on the elephant. “Alright, Conna, you know the drill.” She said. The elephant, having been a performer for many years, seemed to nod as Aiisash gripped the harness. Rearing onto her back legs, Conna lifted her trunk and gave a trumpet. Some of the other elephants in their camp and the surrounding camps trumpeted as well before Conna returned to earth. “MOMMA!” Chemsha called suddenly from out of nowhere as she raced back into camp. “Motra Miira, you need to go see what’s in Graytel Spearnow’s camp!” Chem’s gray eyes were wide with real excitement, and Aiisash relented, seeing she would get little practice with her daughter as worked up as she was. “Conna, foot.” She said, to which the elephant extended one foot and Aiisash slid down from the massive gray back onto the foot and then to the ground. Not bothering to restrain the animal in any way, Conna knew who fed her and took care of her, she allowed Chemsha to take her hand and lead her to the other camp. Graytel Spearnow, head of her family, was a shrewd business woman. Her dealings with Aiisash’s family were sometimes strained, though at Festival times, all six of the larger families kept pretty good relations. Aiisash was part of the Footdodger family, and both the Footdodgers and the Spearnows were part of a larger group of people called Ty’il. The Ty’il, which meant street trash in the old language, were divided into six families; the Footdodgers, the Spearnows, the Breadsnatchers, the Stonemarks, the Dogfollowers, and the Shadowcamps . These families were large and branched out into many groups and bloodlines, intermarriage being a big thing among them. Aiisash ad her sister, Oka, had once been Spearnows from a branch clear in Madrestan, though no Ty’il really “came” from anywhere as they were wandering souls. Performers, they often drew collections of animals such as dogs, tigers, elephants, bears, birds, and others to assist them in performance. Every family kept a golden eagle, as the birds were venerated highly in Ty’il religion. The Great Eagle, Motra Miira and her son the King of Halves, were something even the youngest children knew about. The golden eagle each family kept was like an emissary from the King of Halves himself and was released into the sky every night with ceremony. The individual families were often large, interspersed with cousins and kin, and the Ty’il begrudged no one food or a place to stay. Well, Graytel might, if it came to that. Her gray eyes, a trademark of the Ty’il along with darkish skin and dark hair, watched as Chem bounded into the camp with Aiisash in tow. “Your daughter has already been to see our attraction, perhaps I should charge her for coming again.” “Oh, leave off it, Graytel. You act as though we’re land tied. I only want to see what she’s so worked up about.” Aiisash said with some annoyance at the older woman’s cantankerous money grubbing. Ty’il didn’t tend to value money as heavily as most. They got their living from their performances and parades by subtlety and teamwork. At the parades, they would employ two or three people to lighten the merchants and parade-watchers of food and sometimes valuables. A Ty’il who could not earn money the honest way (as they felt this was an honest living) and had to resort to land tied methods of money grubbing was looked down on. Aiisash knew that Graytel and her sons and kin enjoyed finding odd and unusual things to bring to the Festival. Land tied people would pay money to see things like a monkey with two tails or a bird with no legs. Aiisash only wondered at where she found such things as Chem led her to where the Spearnows kept their elephants tied. Another strike against Graytel, she had to tie her elephants and chain her bear as well. Any respectable Ty’il could train and trust their animals to stay still. But all derogatory thoughts regarding the woman flew from Aiisash’s mind as she looked on the large wagon Chem had lead her to. Two elephants were tied with heavy restraint in chain and rope to thick poles embedded in the wagon. The larger one, a female, looked exhausted beyond belief, her eyes drooping and her trunk tied against itself. The smaller one was tied less harshly, as he couldn’t fight as hard, doubtless. Between them, however, was a human girl. Aiisash blinked to make sure she saw correctly. A very thin girl that half squatted, with wild eyes whose color reminded Aiisash of a brackishly green stream. The color negated the fact that she was Ty’il, as did her semi thick nose. As Aiisash and her daughter watched, the girl gave a noise so akin to an elephant’s that for a moment Aiisash looked toward the large female. But the female was sleeping and now the girl was caressing the small elephant with her trunk, repeating the sound over and over. Noticing Aiisash and Chem watching, she froze, arching her back defensively for all the world like a frightened elephant. “Motra Miira.” Aiisash whispered under her breath. “That’s what I said,” Chemsha replied before walking up to the wagon and pressing her face against the thick bars. “Hey,” she called softly, quietly, “it’s alright, come here.” About to warn her daughter to get back, Chemsha leapt back on her own as the girl charged the bars, feet scrabbling in the straw and free arm flared out like an ear. She almost reached the bars before the heavy chain around her waist pulled her back mercilessly with a grunt on her part. Shaking herself off, she went back to patting and stroking the little elephant. “She’s scary, momma. She’s like a wild girl.” Chem buried her face in her mother’s soft hip with a whimper. “Wherever in the seven rivers did you FIND this creature, Graytel?” Aiisash asked as she moved away from the oddly disturbing scene of human girl and elephants. “Abdal’s band caught her and sold her to me. Found her wandering around in the Wycanth Jungle with a herd of about forty animals or so. Said she was Rachein and mebbe some Khalat blood too.” “But she’s....she doesn’t...” “Speak? No, she speaks to the elephants. Who not even Yarvad can work with, if you want an idea. The littler one we thought would be easy but he’s not, and when we tried separating them, he starved hisself almost to death. The big one we can’t touch at all, but the girl can. And she’s bitten Teev and me as well when we’ve fed ‘em. And charges alla time, but she’s weakening.” “Can she speak to your other elephants?” Aiisash wondered, baffled by such goings on. “She’s tried, but they don’t speak back.” Graytel responded. “I don’t know what I’m to do with them once the Festival is through, probably continue on to Eitoo and see if I can get them out to Maea island and the colonies or some such. Make some more with this bunch and maybe it’ll gentle them.” Aiisash frowned at this. A Ty’il was not judged on what sorts of strange things she could find, she was judged on how she could sing, fight, and steal her living to prove her blood true. Graytel’s family felt like a betrayal, and Aiisash wouldn’t be surprised if they all went to temples to worship that Dovi goddess and betrayed their King. “Well, I’m sure you’ll make quite a living from them. Come Chem, you have to help your uncle feed the tigers,” Aiisash said with all the dignity of her person. “Aza!” She called, for the boy had followed Chemsha to look but had stayed back against the horse pickets, “come too.” The silent child followed his mother and sister as they left the Spearnow camp in the gathering quiet of dusk. No Nose paced frantically, occasional rumbles of distress coming from her. “Rest, sister. It’s doing no good.” Warrior Eye said tiredly, attempting to lie down in the unfriendly straw. “Just rest.” “I had bad dreams, Warrior Eye.” Smallest Leaf moaned, stretched out on his side and looking a bit sickly. “I had bad dreams about mother and Aunt and the herd getting hurt. And I smell tigers and prowlers and bad things.” “We won’t let the bad things hurt you, Smallest Leaf. We won’t.” No Nose said, patting him quietly. “I’ve heard the things talking, and maybe me looking like them means I understand them, but I cannot get the things to let us go.” “I’d be surprised if you could, No Nose. The things do not hear when we speak, how could they hear when you do?” Warrior Eye asked, shifting tiredly so that her chains jingled. “But they make different sounds with their mouths, and they do not use our trunk and ear talk, only their mouths. Or sometimes they do this,” No Nose did an exaggerated nod, “and then one might do this,” she smiled so wide it was more a grimace “like the monkeys do, only it does not end in biting. And then they do this too,” a fierce shake of her head, “and make more noises.” “Maybe if you copied the noises, like an yddub bird does, they would let us go.” “I could try, if the things that look like me talk that way, maybe I do too.” No Nose felt almost dirty at admitting that, downright filthy by connecting herself with the things that tore her from her family. At first sight of the things, she felt an extreme revulsion for them, that they could be so cruel. She knew, had been told by her mother and even by old Thunder Ear when he had lived and she was very young, that she was not of their make. She was different, though she was one of them. But that those that looked like her could be so cruel astounded her and hurt her. What Warrior Eye and Smallest Leaf must think of her! Absently picking at the straw with her trunk arm, she lay down beside Smallest Leaf, pillowing her head on the side that had lately gotten so thin with no feeding. If she could convince the things that she posed no harm and that she was only trying to get back to her family, perhaps they would let her go. As it grew dark in the wagon and the noises of the camps surrounded her, so unlike the noises of home, she trembled before sleeping. Panthé yawned and stretched inside her warm coverings of blankets. The cot was so comfortable, she didn’t feel like moving. But she’d promised Ky she’d help him tack Sergeant and fit Miress’s tack before she rode Butterscotch. Since the cattle were all penned and Pipe was guarding, she was basically at beck and call for anything Garb or Pyar needed, but she could watch the discing and the shows that the wandering people put on. Liberty horses and elephants always amazed her when she went to festival, they were so huge and listened so well to their trainers. Receiving a nice hot mug of cinnamon milk courtesy of Beliny, Panthé began to feel the excitement of the Festival creep into her bones. That was until a bright voice called “Hello!” into her ear. “Pyar?” Panthé asked as the other grooms ducked their head in respect for the girl that had just stepped among them. It was indeed Pyar, dressed as the rest of them in breeches and a loose shirt with a warming vest. Her hair was pulled back in a loose gold chingon and her smile was bright. “You got all that done yourself?” “Well, Ulee said she would do my hair but everything else....I did it. So what are we doing today?” “Forgive, your majesty, but what are you doing mingling with likes of us?” A boy by the name of Ophar asked as he tugged on his boots in nervousness. Panthé looked at him strangely before remembering that none of the other grooms really had dealings at the palace or with Pyar. Lucky them. Great, she had to formally introduce Pyar, she had forgotten about that. “Lords and Ladies, may I present to you the crowned Heir of Khalat and Young Butterfly, Pyar of Ylbmew.” Her voice, used to saying such a thing to dignified and uptight blooded people, pleased the young grooms as they felt it a special presentation just for them. “Oh, stop that silly.” Pyar said with a frown. “What’s your name?” She added to Ophar, who blushed solidly to the roots of his red hair. “Ophar, Majesty.” “Don’t have to call me that, I’m Pyar. Ophar, I like your freckles.” “But you’re the princess.” Ophar insisted, a bit abashed at his brazenness but needing to dispel the confusion. “I want to do more than just sit around, see. I want to do things. Whoops,” she added as she fell off the stool she had been sitting perched on. Panthé rolled her eyes as Pyar flung her arm around her. “And Panthé is gonna help me get started! So what’s first?” “We’re going to tack up the discers,” Ky supplemented, more worried about his performance than about offending the Young Butterfly. “What he said,” Panthé added as she rose, Pyar in tow. Ky untied the fretting Sergeant from his picket and gave the lead to Panthé. “Go with him to get brushes,” Panthé hissed to Pyar, who complied as obligingly as a little child. Too overcome to be star struck by her offering or presence, Ky numbly handed Pyar brushes and took some of his own. “See,” he spoke to no one in particular as his brush fairly flew across the stallion’s chestnut coat, “I’ve never disced with him. Garb watched our practice yesterday, and he’s light and fit, but other than that...” trailing off, he looked at Pyar and blinked. “You gotta brush harder than that, and under his stomach too.” Pyar nodded seriously and set to work, not even flinching when Sergeant leaned his lanky head close to her shoulder and sneezed all over her nice white shirt sleeves. “Now, then, Pyar wants to learn about discing, Ky, maybe you should tell her how dangerous it is,” Panthé said meaningfully to her fellow groom. “Here’s the pad, you might want to brush it of burrs since it was in the grabgrass all night. “Discing? Oh, discing is such fun!” Ky said merrily as he brushed the clinging burrs from the thick plaid saddle pad and put it on the stallion’s back. “We run fast, and you have to be really light in your saddle, you know. Especially since you don’t really have a saddle to be light IN to begin with. Just these rings here, where you balance. Then you have to have a good partner. I’m lucky in Miress, she’s always there to throw or catch as I need her.” “I’ve watched. I’ve always wanted to learn to ride it,” Pyar’s eyes shone with delight and somehow Panthé doubted Ky got her message to highlight the dangerous aspects of his sport. “Don’t forget the time you broke your ARM, Ky.” She said loudly. “Or your NOSE, Ky, and it bled and bled...” She remarked loudly, making eye contact with Pyar as she did so. “But we won, and my arm got better. I also got some compliments about how rugged my nose made me look.” Panthé, about ready to swat Ky heavily with the lead rope, merely settled for giving him a look Alphaz the dark god would cringe at. If Pyar got into discing and broke something or put herself out of commission, it would be on Panthé’s head, through no fault of her own. The look burned with what the girl knew to be the intensity of a thousand suns. He ignored it, blathering on and on about the virtues of discing. “You start out slow, of course, on a nice horse as you get used to moving in a saddle. And you wear guards against falling.” He motioned to his arm and wrist guards with a grin, “and a helmet.” “Forget discing,” a voice said behind the three of them, causing Sergeant to spook anew. “Sailing is the way to go, your Majesty.” “Chet! Look what you made me do, stupid.” Panthé muttered as the owner of the voice strode into view. Chet, the oldest groom and now a cabinboy in the employ of the Ylbmew harbor, was perhaps the most irritating and most lovable person all at once. He could be moody, he could be easy going, or he could be aggressive. It all dealt with how he was feeling on a particular day. It looked like today he would be in show off mode for Pyar’s benefit. “Sailing? What’s the fun in sailing?” Pyar asked, turning and noticing, like most girls did, Chet’s looks. Years of being out in the sun as a groom had tanned him, and his eyes which were a dark blue, could sweep a girl away. Or so Meliny and Beliny and Miress always told her. She didn’t believe a word of it. Perhaps that had to do with the fact that Chet was the one who always let the cattle out on her for sport and then told Garb. Pyar was just glad he had taken an interest in sailing and was phasing out his time as a groom. She had enough dumb beasts to deal with without him present. Pyar, Panthé noticed, was reacting in the sickeningly normal way. “The fun? Well, it’s got water, boats, knots, and sometimes you see sea brothers. I thought all girls liked those.” “Only if the boat goes fast,” Pyar returned, bored already with talk of boats. “About discing, how do you win?” She asked Ky, ignoring Chet who frowned a bit. “Looks like your studly cabinboy routine did nothing to impress the princess and she’ll be settling with yon humbler younger brother.” Panthé said with a great deal of satisfaction as she grinned fliply at Chet. “Perhaps for now. Just wait until she gets out on a boat. It will be a whole new game next time.” “What are you even doing back here? Don‘t you have a deck to mop?” Panthé asked irately, giving Sergeant’s bridle a yank in her annoyance. “Hey, easy there,” Ky said when the yank resulted in Sergeant to skitter sideways. “So anyway, you have to crouch down and know your horse, really...” “Reprieve,” Chet continued with a grin that could probably have melted butter if aimed in the right light, “for Festival. Came to see what was about. I hear they’ve got something really spectacular somewhere around here.” “Really now?” Panthé asked with mock interest. “Why don’t you go look for it then? Because unlike you, some of us have to actually WORK today. And deal with princesses.” “Hand her over to me if she gets to be trouble. I’ll set her straight.” Chet asserted with a cough. “Oh yes, I can see it all now. The cabinboy of love and his princess entourage. Go on, go bug someone else.” Her last comment was accompanied by a rather good natured shove. Chet could be a pain, but he wasn’t a terrible pain all the time. Except when he was tomcatting and playing with the hearts of his admirers. Which could or couldn’t be intentional, depending. He gave a wave, mouthed ’remember’, and left. Panthé shook her head, that boy was a piece of work. Once Ky’s horse was all decked out, Panthé tried to slip to where Miress was grooming Butterscotch without Pyar noticing. The Young Butterfly could keep talking to Ky and perhaps Panthé could get through the day without being noticed too much. No such luck as Pyar accompanied her to Miress’s side. Miress eyed Pyar and then gave a short shrug of her round shoulders before turning to Panthé. “She’s a nice one, very easy. But she’s a bit round in the stomach. So I need to let the tack out, okay?” “Alright. I’ll measure.” Panthé agreed. Soon they had all the necessary equipment placed on the mare, including the back and breast harnesses that were used to keep the rider aboard. “Tail and leg wraps?” She asked, Miress’s nod getting her set into action. She tossed a coiled cloth wrap to Pyar and bent by one of Butterscotch’s thick front legs. “Wrap exactly as I wrap.” She said slowly, Pyar’s frown of concentration heavy as she followed along. By the time Panthé had wrapped Butterscotch’s right front leg, two back legs and tail, Pyar was still on the left foreleg. Taking pity, Panthé helped her as Miress emerged from the dressing quarters, decked in the shin, elbow, rib and shoulder pads worn in the sport. “Ky can’t find his helmet, have you seen it?” Panthé asked, remembering the other day’s mini drama. “Garb leant him one, everything is at peace,” Miress said with a cheerful wink and then a nod to Pyar as she untied Butterscotch from her picket and began to head out to a large field where many horses and riders were gathering. “Well then, ladies, it’s time to warm up.” (Comment on this)
10:48 pm	The next morning she woke up terribly sore and tired. At the gathering Panthé had faked ill and ducked out of the ballroom so she could sneak back into the barn. She hadn’t tested the mare yet and in her typical lack of forethought decided to do it at night. Changing from her dinner dress to an old pair of breeches and shirt, she had made her way down to the stall block where the animal was kept. Taking her out, Panthé had merely ridden her around at a walk to test her pace and temperament. All was going fine until one of the other horses reared, startling the mare into spinning around and dumping the girl. The rest of the night had been spent tracking the mare down and putting her back in her stall. Rubbing her head, she groaned with the knowledge that she’d not have a moment’s rest today. Finding the clothes specially set aside for this one day of the year, she pulled them on with extreme dislike. They were embroidered with flowers at the lacy cuffs and collar of the shirt, and the breeches had trellises of ivy lacing down each leg, while in her boots and braid she put sprigs of mayflower as tradition dictated. Before readying her mount, she’d have to go tend to Pyar and assist Garb and the rest in loading the menagerie animals into their display wagons, as that took nearly everyone to go smoothly. Pyar was resplendent in her spring green, velvet dress, grinning happily as Panthé laced the lavender through her elaborate plaits of hair. “Oh this is just the funnest! Festival day is my favorite, unlike those gatherings.” “Bmfmdg ghdfgdh” Panthé said, a piece of lavender in her teeth as she worked. If Pyar didn’t stand still, she’d never get dressed in time for Panthé to be early to her next job. “What was that?” Pyar asked, moving yet again. “I said stand still, you want the seal to slump on your head? I can’t do this if you keep moving.” “Oh,” Pyar said, abashed. “Do you think I look alright?” “You look fine, Pyar. I’m sure your mother’s got something for you to do so if you’ll just let me go I’ll...” “She doesn’t have anything for me to do. I have to stay in here all day until the fun starts. I wanna come help YOU.” “Well, I don’t think that would be a very good idea,” Panthé replied, a bit startled. Pyar always seemed the type to enjoy sitting around, riding occasionally or maybe practicing her archery, but heavy stable work? Cow herding? She didn‘t thing the Young Butterfly knew of what she was wishing. “I do, I never get to do anything. I get on the horse and I get off, or I get lectured by mother about not finding my skill, or I get lectured at by Master Samalk about this and that. I want to be out of here, I want to actually learn how to sail the boats I’m riding in.” Panthé nodded in what she hoped was an understanding way. In truth she did identify with Pyar’s yearning, but she didn’t have the time to identify with it much. “Maybe your mother would let you when you got a bit older.” She suggested, knowing it probably wouldn’t happen but glad she could at least say she tried to help. “Maybe. But when did you start here? When I was seven?” “I was eight, and you were seven, yeah. I’d been living with a family where I was sleepin’ in the basement. Didn’t like that, too dark, so’s I ran off.” “But how’d you get in here? I mean, the gates are locked and you didn‘t have anyone to bring you or speak for you...” Pyar asked as Panthé resumed placing the last flowers in her hair. “Garb found me. I was trying to steal a pony to ride around on and he snagged me and made the whole story come out. Said I could work with him an’ the other grooms. They were a bit older’n me but I didn’t care. I was away from the basement and that’s all that mattered.” “But why’d your parents keep you in the basement?” Pyar asked, hands lifting to her cheeks in veritably horrified amazement. “They weren’t my parents. My ma died when I was born and Pa gave me to a midwife to nurse because he couldn’t take care of me. He also gave me this,” she took from her neck the tooth necklace, the canine flashing briefly before disappearing back under the shirt. “Midwife handed me over to a good two people who raised me and told me all they knew about my parents. But they had to move away and at six I had to go live with the Daldrans. And then I ran from there.” “Oh.” Was all Pyar could say, looking slowly from the mirror in front of her to the reflection of Panthé behind her to her own clothes. “Oh.” “Have you any luck with your skill?” Panthé asked as she fought with the last lavender stem, more to keep conversation flowing than to really enquire. “Not so much as a candle flicker. Mother says I should have shown it by now, and it’s this big scandal I haven’t. Every royal ascender of the Khalat throne has a magical skill except me. Even with the most royal blood I can’t do a thing. It feels awful.” “It’ll come, it’ll...damn stem don’t mmph tangle, come. Or they can just have someone standing by ready to procure magic for you,” she added as the stem finally obeyed and slid through one coil of golden hair. “You really think so?” Pyar’s eyes shined with hope as she turned to Panthé. “Yes. Don’t forget your earrings. I have to be off.” And before Pyar could reply, Panthé dashed out of her chamber and back into the sunlight. After Panthé had gone, Pyar stood looking at herself in the mirror. Sitting on her bed, she cradled her head in her hands with a sigh. She was just pathetic, it seemed. Unable to find her skill and unfit to care for herself, they had her locked away in this place for the rest of her entire life. She suddenly felt emboldened and strode off to find her mother. The Butterfly of Khalat sat in her bathing room, attended to by six young women and staring composedly ahead. Heavy worry lines on her forehead and at her eyes and mouth made her seem much older than her thirty five years. Her dark hair was pulled into a heavy, severe bun and white crownflowers, the wearing of which exclusive to the Butterfly herself, were entwined as a circlet for her head. Pyar, summoning her greatest bravery, strode into the bathing room and up to her mother. One look into those calm dark eyes and she gulped heavily. “Mother,” she began, thoughts of her initial purpose flying from her head on looking at the woman. “Yes, child?” Avonise Buckthorn, the queen of the large surrounding area before the Akiron mountains and the possessor of probably the most powerful skill of anyone in the royal family alive, looked at her daughter with some appraisal. She seemed unsure, nervous, qualities a Butterfly must learn very early to dismiss in life, as they let her be seen as a weak, easily walked on adversary. “Mother , I’d like it very much if I had more leave to...to learn things.” “Things?” Her mother tilted her head in inquiry, arched eyebrows raising delicately. “Well, about the horses, and about the harbor and just...things. I want to go out and actually help dock the boats and saddle my horse and....it’s boring just watching. It’s boring having to say ‘I’m going here to there’ and waiting for three men to arm themselves and follow me. Momma, I want to do things myself.” “I appreciate that, Pyar, I do. But your skin is protected, you are going to be the Butterfly someday and we want that to be possible. We can’t have you off getting kidnapped or breaking bones and such.” Avonise reasoned, inwardly proud that her daughter tired of the easy life. She’d have to convince her mother that she was ready, persuasion was another aspect of queenship. “But Momma I would still be doing the same things and going to the same places. I’d be with the same PEOPLE. I’d just be doing more. I wouldn’t need Thorbin or Phan there to wave crossbows around because I’d be around Garb and Harbormistress Jella. And they have no reason to kidnap be anymore than Thorbin or Phan. I’d not go outside the walls to learn a trade, I’d stay! I’d stay!” As she spoke, her voice grew more fervent in pitch and Avonise could not help but smile and nod in accession. “Very well, you want a taste of what folk do for a living, you’ll have it. Starting tomorrow. But who will introduce you to all these things?” “Panthé can! I’ll tell her I can start working with her tomorrow! She’ll show me how to do things, I know it. Oh THANK YOU Momma!” Pyar rushed forward and gave her mother a fierce hug, inhaling the smell of crownflower and grinning. “D’you want me to go make sure papa is getting dressed too?” “Would you?” Avonise asked with relief, “I wanted to but I’m not halfway done with these blasted alterations on the dress. Doesn’t fit like it used to for some reason.” With a giggle and a relieved nod, Pyar skipped out of the bathing room and down the halls to find her father. The Butterfly settled back in her chair and shut her eyes with some satisfaction. Maybe Pyar would turn out alright as an heir after all, and her worries would be unfounded. “Shut it, shut it! Now! He’s turned!” Garb shouted as the two men holding the guillotine to the wagon-cage released their ropes, shutting the small jungle prowler into his wagon. Panthé, helping Tann and a girl named Beliny coax a wolf into another wagon to join her littermates. Once they had shut the guillotine, Garb called them over. “Alright, we’ll move the four tigers next. They get one wagon, so we gotta work together. They’re all large and quick. Ready?” Panthé considered ducking out and disappearing from view. Tigers were some of her least favorite animals, they always seemed ready to snatch her up or leap at her. She didn’t know why but suspected it had something to do with her necklace. As though they knew she had a piece of one of their own on a chain and with her all the time. These particular tigers, three of them orange-yellow and one white, seemed that way alot. They eyed her as she moved to a spot near their enclosure to begin driving them toward the wagon. Mostly they followed the sounds of their keepers, who sat atop the wagon, and soon all four were readily inside. Walking up to the wagon’s side, Panthé peered into the eyes of Misa, the oldest of the group. Misa flattened out on her stomach and watched Panthé right back with the large yellow eyes of one who has nothing to fear. After a moment, Panthé looked away and then moved from the cage to join the others, unnerved as always by the tigers. Ky was feeding scraps of meat to the jungle prowler, who rolled on his back and chirred for more like any common cat. “He looks so tame,” Panthé remarked as she watched one paw extend upwards and backwards, trying to get at the meat in Ky’s hand through the bars. “Well, he’s not, not really. If he could he’d leap at me.” Ky said, tossing the meat into the wagon cage swiftly. “But what’re we doing here, Panthé? We’ve got horses to prepare!” He exclaimed, dragging the girl with him by the arm as they made their way to the stables. After grooming and readying her own mount with muscles that were a bit less sore than they had been initially, Panthé swung aboard and headed out to the cow pasture, small prod in hand. Halting the mare and opening the gate, she let the lowing, stampeding animals out, all of them well bred and slick black with grass fed plumpness speaking of their good care. Steers and cows made up the group she was driving now, some of the animals bound to be sold for dairy while others were headed to the butcher. The palace kept the best beef and dairy cattle for its own use, of course, but they always made excellent money from the highbred animals they sold to farmers in need of quality. Once she had gotten them out the gate, she gave a sheer whistle, using two fingers to punctuate the sound. A dog, low to the ground and moving fast, answered her whistle. Since the others grooms would be busy riding and showing off the horses and participating in discing, she would need help from Pipe, the cattle dog employed to both guard and herd. “Pipe, let’s go, go to boy!” Pipe eagerly set about snapping at the heels of the animals, his blue eyes alight with the joy of his work. When one cow kicked out at him, he ducked faster than a cobra strike before darting in to snap right back at her. They managed to get the cattle in line between the two of them and soon they were joining the procession of people headed out of the palace gates and onto the road that would lead them to Tsarma. It would take most of the day to get there, and they would pass through quite a few other towns, such was the need for all the regalia. They all had to look their best for the people that saw them going. Ky and Miress, riding two of the new mounts in the tack they would be using for their sport, were doing warm up throws between them. Miress’s back runner skittered to the side as she leaned to catch the ball Ky threw to her. Panthé, paying attention to the two playing catch, nearly missed when one of the calves stumbled, but Pipe was on the scene and he had the animal up and going again. Sudden hoof beats told Panthé that someone was fast approaching her, and she turned around to see who it was. She turned back with a barely stifled groan. Pyar, astride a striking black and white gelding, rode merrily up to her with a wave. “I took your advice,” Pyar began happily as she slowed her horse. “I asked momma and she said I could start learning more things. And I told her you could help me if I got stuck.” Her eyes shining, Pyar grinned for all the world like a pleased child given a present. Constantly baffled by the younger girl, Panthé shook her head in confusion. “Wait, wait, so The Butterfly told you that I would help you? And you want to learn how to do work?? Why would anyone want to learn how to do work? Dovi, I’d trade with you in a second!” Unable to really look at Pyar, Panthé shook her head in amazement. “Getting to sleep in until all hours, getting to-” “Listen to my teachers yammer on about inoffensive politics, get to have that terrible Lady Gavhein drill me and drill me to find my skill. Oh yes, it’s SUCH fun.” Pyar said with a grumble before her eyes traveled to Miress and Ky. She watched Miress with an aura of wistfulness, the pudgy girl with the chopped black hair astride a dancingly skittish bay mare with large haunches laughingly oblivious of the Young Butterfly‘s regard. Pyar wished more than anything that her life could be so simple, the only worries being those of the animals and herself. “I want to learn that.” She said half to herself. “What do you want to learn?” Panthé asked, still a bit lost and half-waiting for Pyar to spring some joke on her. “That, that! Discing! I want to learn it.” Pyar replied, attempting to stand in the stirrups of the ornate saddle she was riding in. “You mean suicide ball? It‘s insane! Your mother would never let you! I‘m surprised she‘s even letting you do this!” “But you‘ll help me learn if I get stuck?” Pyar asked, turquoise eyes wide and troubled as they swung to Panthé‘s olive ones. “Yes, yes, I will. Help you learn to work harder than anyone needs to, that is.” Agreeing only because she felt the princess would crack after less than a day, Panthé shook her head and regarded the cattle. “Now you‘d better get back to your place with your family or the whole of the towns will think you‘ve been disowned or something. I‘d switch places with you in a second, except for all the politics.” Wrinkling her nose slightly, Pyar complied by legging her horse into a turn and heading back for her place. “Remember, we start tomorrow!” She added over her shoulder. “Whatever time you start at.” “Dawn!” Panthé called back, her last hope that the girl‘s resolve would disappear at the word shriveling when Pyar‘s face lit further. “Blast,” she added, turning back to her work. “Pipe, move ‘em out!” They got to Tsarma late in the afternoon, the procession a bit tired. The Festival lasted three days, though it was always described as merely one, for reasons nobody really remembered anymore. The arrival of the Butterfly and her court always heralded the beginning of the festivities, though merchants from all around came to display their crafts and wares. As did other types of folk, performers and singers, story tellers and merrymakers. As the palace encampment began to make their large camp for the evening, goings on in other parts of the Festival grounds unfolded. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 4th, 2003
9:42 pm	Dawn. The birds sang to it, the sky lightened with it, and the stables began to stir. Up in the hayloft, the head groom was walking about, waking up his staff. He paused at one cot and leaned down close. “Get up, missy!” his rough hewn voice gave the occupant of the cot a verbal kick and she shot out of bed with a jolt. “Guh, Garb, why in Dovi’s name is it so early?” “Because we’ve got a field to falcon and cattle to herd before noon. Now hurry up an’ get outta bed, the new horses from Vurn Kithur will be here within the hour.” Rising more slowly and voicing loud complaints, Panthé called a greeting to her fellow grooms, most of them boys and girls about her age if not younger. There were ten of them in all, and they all slept on cots in the spare hayloft that had been cleared to accommodate grooms. The large, expansive loft had been separated into tiny ‘rooms’ so each had a feeling of privacy. The head groom had his own room down below on the ground level, but he made the climb up to wake his underlings for work. Grabbing her clothes from the rough wooden drawer in her “room”. Panthé drew the small frayed curtain across the small space she had been allotted as her territory. Changing into warm breeches and a long sleeved shirt, she pulled a vest on as well, knowing she’d get warm with morning’s work. Especially if they were rotating the cattle again. And after noon, she knew, she’d be assisting the Young Butterfly in grooming for whatever social occasion was set for court that evening. When she had been appointed to the princess as a handmaiden she had been offered a room in the palace servant’s quarters but had declined since she still had her groom duties as well. And really, running from the palace to the stables at the ungodly hour of sunrise every morning didn’t appeal to her so she kept her home among the other grooms. The cattle were her main charge as she was quite uneasy in the saddle for reasons she couldn’t exactly explain, and she tended them every morning, setting them to pasture and bringing them in at night. She did help with grooming and moving the horses, and would ride if she had a long way to go, but never above a trot. And it looked like this morning she’d have to ride out if they were falconing. Putting her hair up in its braid, she tossed her necklace around her neck. It was a rather ugly thing, a large tiger’s canine tooth, yellowed and unattractively cracked with age, but she adored it as it was the base and only connection to her father. Tucking it into her shirt, she shoved aside the curtain as she pulled on her heavy boots. “Hey Panthé, have you seen my hard hat?” A slim boy with sandy hair and a very crooked nose poked his head around the curtain’s edge. “I know Garb’s gonna want me to try out the discers and I don’t want to ride without it.” “Haven’t seen it Ky, maybe Miress has. She‘s the one who collects things, after all.” Panthé replied placidly as she made her way down the loft ladder. Striding out into the brisk morning, she gripped her arms and gave a small shiver of cold as she made her way to the mews. Once there, she opened the main door carefully so as not to frighten the birds and shut it behind her just as carefully. Garb had beat her there, as usual, and was already coaxing a wary hawk onto his glove in one mew. Getting her own glove, she exchanged a nod with him before heading to the mews room to prepare her call-back meat pouch. Fresh meat was always delivered to the mews on falconing days, and slicing a medium sized hunk from one slab, she set to work chopping it into tinier pieces. Once those pieces were of a beak-size, she placed them in a pocket of her vest designed to hold them. She walked into the mew of the bird she hunted with, fingers of her ungloved had racing swiftly to attach leash to swivel. The large gray-brown Skyer’s eagle eyed her with some contempt, shifting from one formidably taloned foot to the other. Approaching carefully, she reached for the dangling leather jesses attached to the bird’s feet by anklets. Grabbing the jesses, she placed them firmly in the webbing between thumb and forefinger of the glove. “Perch.” She commanded, pressing lightly on the hawk’s stomach. After a moment, the hawk perched, looking as though deigning to comply with the request. Once the hawk was on her glove, Panthé threaded the jesses through her forefinger, and tied the leash to a small brass ring on the glove. Holding the animal close to her body, she exited the mew and waited for the other two who were falconing to catch and man their birds. “Gonna be a nice day today,” Garb observed, his bird giving voice to a small call. “We’ll just quarter the field, pick a section and let her hunt it. If and when you catch four rabbits, call her in and take her home.” Panthé nodded and the group set out to the field in question. Ylbmew Palace was plagued by rabbits, mice, rats and pigeons. Most of the animals seemed to breed and generate from the surrounding fields, coming in to destroy crops, ruin buildings (and in the case of pigeons, outfits and hairdos as well), and get into little indoor crevices to spread disease. The palace bred specific types of hawks, eagles and falcons to handle these problems. Panthé’s bird, a large Skyer’s eagle female named Chill, was one specially designed by nature to hunt and kill rabbits. Her smallish feet and talons made snagging the animals that darted into holes easier, as she didn’t have to worry about those feet getting caught and the prey squeezing out of them as it bolted down the hole. And since she was larger than most other raptors with heavy, muscular wings, carrying said prey was quite easy. Garb’s bird, a Wheeling hawk, was bred more for rats as evidenced by the thickened legs whose tough skin was almost impervious to the bites of the vicious rodents when they fought back. The wings were more streamlined as well, and being a male, colored slate and red for courtship rituals. The other two falconers had different kinds of birds yet. As the group made its way towards the fields, the bird a girl named Miress was holding baited. The small Mousehawk fell off the glove in a flutter of sharply sheared brownish gold wings, his fierce cries of vengeance high and comical. Miress merely let him struggle, knowing his high spirits for anxiousness to hunt, and he eventually hopped back onto her glove, continuing to screech. The last bird was a sulky looking Brey falcon held bravely by a young fellow called Tann. Brey falcons were dark brown and notoriously bad tempered. Difficult to keep, they often flew at people with feet upraised. But their surly demeanor translated to fierce hunting skills as they were capable of knocking most any other bird from the sky. The palace utilized all these animals in getting rid of their unwanted pest. Taking Chill to a large open part of the field, Panthé appraised the hunting prospects. They didn’t particularly look promising for rabbits, but the large bird was getting terribly heavy and she didn’t really feel like walking any further. Checking half heartedly to make sure her fellows weren’t too near and seeing nothing in the immediate vicinity, she decided it was good enough. Freeing the swivel from the jesses, she loosed the bird into the sky with a heavy upthrust of her arm. Finding her would be easy once she made a kill, Skyer’s hawks always gave a distinctive call when they had downed something. She grabbed one of the small hunks of meat and placed it in the center of her glove where it would be at the ready. Soon, the ululating call of the eagle rang through the morning and with a smirk she jogged for the sound. Chill crouched and flared over her kill of a large female rabbit. Panthé noticed with grim satisfaction that the animal was nursing. Perhaps the kits would starve, a horrible thought to be sure, but if they lived and bred and got into the crops, more than four or five rabbit kits would starve. An entire group of people, horses, cows, and other animals would starve instead. Whistling, Panthé pointed to her glove, careful to let Chill see that she had meat there. The eagle swiftly leapt from the rabbit to the glove, devouring the meat hungrily as Panthé took up the rabbit with her free hand. Once Chill had eaten the small bite of meat, Panthé set her into the air again. Once the bird was back in the air, the girl took a strip of leather from her other vest pouch and bound the rabbit’s back feet. She then tied the free end to her belt before resuming her casual scan of the sky. A noise swiftly honed her attention, the sound of a veritable warcry. What was going ON up there? Running, she watched in utter amazement and helplessness as the Brey falcon closed with the eagle, screaming and slashing with talons before both fell into a heavy dive for the ground, talons locked. “Dovi! Mother of Brak-ta what is going ON?” Garb asked as he jogged to where Tann and Panthé stood transfixed as their birds fell. “They were too close, the Brey got territorial...” Tann’s voice was muffled, dreamily wondering. Before it seemed they would crash into the earth, they separated and landed. Chill landed on a stump, panting and ruffled but on first appearance okay. Panthé approached cautiously, meat held outstretched to appease the injured bird. She finally took the lure and hopped greedily onto the girl’s glove. Panthé could feel Garb’s eyes on her and she kept her back turned as she attempted to touch Chill’s wing. All she got in response was a slashed finger which she pulled to her mouth with a small gasp. “Call in your birds, let’s go.” Garb said tersely, three rats dangling from his belt as he whistled for his hawk. Miserable, Panthé exchanged a glance with Tann who shrugged in apology before she fastened the leash back on Chill and headed heavily home. “DID YOU NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT???!” Garb ranted ten minutes later in the mews room, his voice expanding to fill the space. “THE BREY WAS HUNTING JUST FEET AWAY! FEET! YOU DIDN’T CHECK, DID YOU???!” “You’re scaring the animals, Garb.” Panthé said with as much sauciness as she could muster. His snarl caused her to look down immediately. “I DID look.” She defended without heart. “I didn’t see him.” “NOT WELL ENOUGH! Now one of our best animals is out of hunting for the season due to a tendon injury. You’ll have to care for him.” “No way I’ll care for that monster! He’s Tann’s responsibility!” Panthé burst out, afraid. “Tann did not initiate the scuffle by flying his bird too close to yours. Tann will hunt Chill once her wing heals, and you will care for Slasher.” Panthé flinched at the name, gritting her teeth. “No more discussion, you’ll do it or you’ll scrub perches ‘till you’re thirty. Honestly, sometimes I don’t know why I hired you.” “Because I’m the only one who’ll work for just her keep at the stables.” Panthé said with a slight grin, causing Garb to smile as well. “But Pyar’s been learning about fair and equal wages or some such and decided I need to get some so I don’t revolt or uprise on her.” “You, I’m sure, have been giving no impressions to negate the payment.” Garb said with a snort, to which they both exchanged glances and smirks. “Of course not, silly. Any money I can get’s good money, even earning five tark for the milk I deliver to the villages.” “Come on, the horses have come and we need help moving them.” Garb said, relenting as he rose. “Aww, c’mon Garb, ‘m hungry!” Panthé protested as she followed him. “And not out of trouble with me yet, missy.” He added sternly. “You’ll eat once these beasts are cared for.” “So since you’re still mad at me you’re starving me?” Panthé asked in disbelief as they made their way toward the courtyards. “That’s the look of it. Now quiet down an’ get to work. Ky! Miress! Tann! Everyone get yer bloody selves out here to help, the Vurn horses are here.” And they sure enough were. Ten animals all told, three stallions, five mares, and two young colt foals. Panthé took the lead of one of the mares, a stout limbed animal with a gentle dark eye and a colorfully spotted but somewhat muddy coat. It was this kind of animal she enjoyed more than any high spirited thing, a gentled down to earth sort of horse that would tolerate a shaky hand and seat. The more spirited animals were giving the grooms a bit of trouble, Ky had the lead of a tall, angular chestnut stallion who was giving him a wonderful side waltz as the boy tried to walk him out. Panthé tied her mare to a post with a ring on it and went to the tack room to fetch a few brushes. Soon she was lost in the rather nice motions of grooming and near heedless to the noise around her. “Don’t forget, you have to have this animal presentable enough to ride to the Festival come tomorrow.” Garb remarked as he walked by, patting the mare on the haunch. “It’s tomorrow? I haven’t even tried her out!” She protested. “Don’t cross me child. Remedy that before tomorrow. She’s pretty and she stands out, she’ll do great for you and look nice when you drive the cattle to market.” Muttering, Panthé resumed grooming, making a big show of the circles she curried in as she worked up the mare’s side. Great, just great. She’d have to ride tomorrow, and not only that, but she still had a great deal of work to do this day. Suddenly all she could think about was breakfast and how nice it would be to go to bed after eating. “Hmm...you think blue is too forward?” Pyar asked, tilting her head to the side as she twirled and spread her hands delicately. Privately Panthé wondered how a color could be forward or backward or sideways, but she shook her head anyway. “It looks a lot better than that red one you got from the suitor in Kiljad. That one was just heavy and terrible.” Considering, the princess nodded and clapped a hand on Panthé’s shoulder with a smile. A big warm friendly one that vaguely worried Panthé. “Thanks, I don‘t know what I’d do without you.” She said fervently, the smile widening to a very alarming degree. Panthé backed a ways away. “Uh...get another handmaiden?” Pyar’s smile turned into an instant, pouty scowl and she turned away to focus on her hair comb. “Fine, then. If you want to be so terribly unfriendly, be my guest! Oh, Dovi, I HATE these things!” “Actually, I think that comb looks pretty...” Panthé volunteered, adjusting her own plain green dress and tugging at a stray coil of hair. “I meant these political gatherings. You have to remember the count of such and so, the duke and grand archduchess of this and that, and if you forget one minor detail in their tiny lives, they’ll look as though you’ve murdered them. Why can’t you just honestly meet them and say things like ‘Hello, how are you? What’s your favorite thing to do when not at one of these things?’” “Because....you’re supposed to know as much about them as they do about you. You like it when people know things about you, right?” “Actually, not really.” Pyar confided as she began to twirl again. “I rather like telling people things about me than have them know more than I do about myself and my family history. And for Dovi’s sake, Panthé, take that hideous tooth necklace off! It looks like you’ve killed something.” Instead of taking it off, she tucked it into her dress, the thing voluminous enough in front as not to show the outline of the tooth or its chain. Pyar seemed satisfied with that and beckoned to the girl to help her affix her long blonde hair into an acceptable coif. Sighing with the moods of her employer, Panthé complied, glad the night would be over soon and that she wasn’t the princess. All she would had to do until half toward midnight was curtsy, nod, and straighten the Young Butterfly’s dress for her. What a life indeed. (Comment on this)
9:41 pm	“I’ll get you!” The voice rang out before a small elephant calf made a frantic scramble for a large, leafy plant. He dove into the plant and turned around, concealing himself and peering out anxiously in case his pursuer was coming after him. She WAS. He popped back into the plant with a small rustle of leaves. Catching the sound, the pursuer backtracked, walking very slowly as she made her way back towards the plant. Her feet, battered and scratched by walking on the jungle floor, made little sound as she turned her head this way and that in search of her quarry. Shaggy dark hair filled with leaves and old twigs and tangled, flopped to her waist, and small scratches nicked nearly every inch of her skin. Lifting her arm as an elephant would curl a trunk, she gave another trumpet. “I know you’re in there, Smallest Leaf!” The calf gave a stifled giggle as the girl’s frustration grew. She heard him, and swiveling around, pounced on the quivering pile of fronds. He shrieked with delight and burst from his cover, the girl hot on his heels, But she tripped and stumbled over a tree root on the jungle floor. Her hands shot out and grabbed the elephant’s tail, throwing him off balance. Girl and elephant tumbled to the ground in a spray of leaves. “No Nose, Smallest Leaf!” A voice trumpeted from a ways away. The two exchanged glances before running headlong in the direction of the sound. Orchid Finder, peering anxiously into the foliage, sighed in relief as her youngest son and adopted daughter slid into view. “Where were you two?” She asked sternly, feeling each one with her trunk to make sure they had no injuries. They both gave their mother a consolatory pat with their trunks in apology. Well, Smallest Leaf used his trunk. The human girl used a curled arm and hand, fingers held fused together with the thumb serving as a grasping mechanism. It had been nearly thirteen years since Orchid Finder had rescued the little child from the jaws of the tiger, and she was still scrambling around and falling behind. “Playin’, Mama.” Smallest Leaf said innocently. “Oh, I see. Well, don’t stray off again, you had me worried sick!” Both of her children looked abashed and she sighed, gentling her tone. “It’s alright. Go on and let your sister know you’re safe.” Returning to her browsing, she rolled her eyes skyward in a gesture of infinite affectionate irritation. “You shouldn’t fall behind, you know how mother gets.” Warrior Eye, Orchid Finder’s first calf, told No Nose bossily. “She frets so much about you two.” “I thirsty.” Smallest Leaf announced before he dashed off to find his mother for nursing. “We were just playing. You look itchy,” No Nose added, appraising her big sister with a solemn nod. “Well, come on, then, I’ve had this bite for WEEKS and I can’t scratch it.” Warrior Eye said impatiently, kneeling so No Nose could use her non-trunk hand and itch it. A relieved sigh escaped the young elephant and she rose up again, patting her little sister with her trunk. Both about the same age, the younger towered above the older, and weighed a great deal more. But they were sisters as seen by the ease and love with which they regarded each other. Neither smiled or laughed, but expressions could be read nearly perfectly through the eyes and combinations of trunk and ear motions. “She’s going to move us out soon, Aunt is.” No Nose nodded, grabbing a small peyl fruit from a branch within her range. Before it could begin its siren like yell at being separated from the tree, she popped it in her mouth and chewed furiously. “I’m glad,” she motioned, the burgundy juice from the fruit staining her tongue and hands, “these aren’t in season.” And sure enough, First Calf, who had taken over on Mother’s death two monsoons past, raised her trunk and gave the call to move on. The elephants stopped their eating and began walking. When she had first walked on her own, No Nose had developed blisters from the pace her family set, which looked deceptively slow but was actually very fast. For every stride they took, she had to take at least three if not more, and she scurried as they walked miles through the twisted, often rocky jungle paths. But over the years she had developed ways of coping, making her stride larger by practicing, or using nylavines to swing like one of the monkey troops that meandered through the trees. The swinging stopped when a group of territorial monkeys attacked her in the vines, causing her to fall. She had injured herself but not broken anything, young resilient bones proving too much for the leafy litter of the jungle floor. But this afternoon, First Calf led the herd to a large pool, small cataracts running into it on either end. Everyone, delighted with the chance for a swim, piled into the water and began splashing around. After about thirty minutes, No Nose was cold and wet, and hungry again. She hadn’t eaten as much as she normally did, and she wanted to prove to her family that she DID eat. So she scrambled out of the water in search of nourishment. Aha! Kiak fruit grew in heavy clusters, the fruit soft and gleaming faintly like large pearls. And on the ground, clusters of sweet rush struggled from the ground in clumps. Swinging from one delicious prospect to another, No Nose was unaware she was being watched. A large jungle prowler, fresh from his nap, tracked her. He ran a forked tongue across his gleaming, wicked needle teeth and his glowing green eyes widened in anticipation. Creeping forward with infinite patience, he scarce made a sound. Though his cat-like body was large, it was sleek and powerful, a thick mane of fur covering his neck up to his long reptilian snout. A multicolored coat blended perfectly with the sun dappled foliage and each paw, armed with two thick sharp claws, was placed with care around twigs as his prey wandered heedlessly closer. A small twitch of his tail made the tuft of fur at the end strike a leaf, and he winced. But nothing, this prey was busy eating, using its trunk-like, atrophied arm to feed fruit to its mouth. It smelled of elephants but it was the strangest elephant the jungle prowler had ever seen. If there was one elephant smell, there were more, and sure enough when he pricked his large ears he heard them gallavanting in the water. With a sly smirk, he gave a soft hooting call, the sound emerging as an innocuous yddub bird call. Soon, more of the large jungle prowlers were moving slowly through the undergrowth to join the large male. A pack twelve strong of these formidable animals could easily bring down an adult bull elephant, and they were thirty strong, at least. All different colors, most were shades of green-gold with some straying into black or gray. All had glowing, hungry eyes, and their head crests, much like those of lizards, raised and lowered expectantly. Eventually, No Nose began to feel the back of her neck prickle. She paused in her eating as she grew more and more aware of an awful sensation. She had been warned, never stray from the protection of the herd. Standing stiffly, she let her gaze wander slowly past the kiak fruit as she pretended not to feel the sets of eyes watching her. One set, two, a mane, a crest. Chills raced up her spine and it took all she had to eat the halved kiak in her hand. Jungle prowlers. She had to warn the herd. But she couldn’t run, she couldn’t move. Frozen in fear, her eyes darted frantically for an escape. And then one animal stepped brazenly from the bush, her low form and black-violet coat menacing in the afternoon sun. She uttered a soft, almost playful chirrup. Another one, this one a teal shade of green with black paws and streaks of black racing through his coat, stepped beside her and appraised No Nose. His features assembled into a rather nasty, mischievous smirk as a third slipped beside him. The largest of probably all of them, he was nearly the size of a three year old elephant, his silver fur and heavy mane proclaiming him the leader of this bunch. At his low utterance, they began to make a ring around No Nose, and in her panic, she arched her back and spread her free arm out by her ear, giving the impression of a flared ear. But suddenly one jungle prowler raised its head and gave an anxious bark-trill. The others snapped their heads in the direction he was looking, ears swiveling like bat ears to hone in on a sound. They too gave bark-trills before the leader let out a long, low whistle. At that they all abandoned their chase and bounded like deer back into the bush and away. Shaking, No Nose dropped to the ground in relief. But she was puzzled as well. What would make jungle prowlers leave an easy kill? She wasn’t sure, but she knew they were afraid of little. The times her herd had encountered them, they had fought, killing a few on each side before the elephants drove the jungle prowlers to the sea. The animals hated the sea, and soon had disappeared from sight and sound. They also hated fires, the fires started in the jungle in the time of hot-dry before monsoons brought the breath of green back. But what had scared them this time? Afraid they might come back, she scrambled to her feet and dashed fervently back to her safe, protective family. She was torn between wanting to talk about it and keeping silent. If she talked about it, they would know she had gone off alone, something she was never never supposed to do. She would keep silent, she decided. No one needed to know. After the water, the elephants basked in the warm sun, No Nose delighted to sleep near the leg of her mother in assurance that she was completely safe. When the sun began to go down, First Calf led them to a large thicket, where everyone piled leaves and the more nimble animals lay down and calves slept beneath the feet of their tall, dozingly watchful mothers. Despite her nap, No Nose cuddled happily beside Smallest Leaf, her trunk arm protectively over his back. “We don’t have any way to get them, though. There aren’t many things that can hold such a large group long enough to pick and choose among them.” Six men sat huddled over a campfire, their backs to the expansive jungle around them. A tall wagon rose in silent shadow, concealed partially by leaves . More men were reclining in the wagon, and several thick boned horses were tied to trees. The campsite had been cleared with hand axes and thick bladed machetes, disturbing the animals that had been residing in that spot and causing them to chitter uneasily away into the brush. The horses munched placidly at the dry hay that had been provided for them, the food more a distraction than a meal, in case one decided to take a bite from some nearby toxic plant. Armed men sat at the front of the wagon, staring into the jungle with their weapons at the ready. “I swear by Dovi and all that is good I saw a human with them!” Another man exclaimed, raising his left hand and placing it in the place of heart-oaths. “A girl, dirty and ragged with hair down clear to ‘er knees!” “How’d you know it were a girl, Sadis? And a human, coulda been a monkey ya know.” “Nah, it were a girl clear as day, she were wearin’ leaves an’ things but once you got daughters you know what girls be, though she were awful small for it. An’ dark, like them Rachein.” “See? There you are, mate. The Rachein got wiped out near thirteen years ago, and not a human soul’s been through here since that runner came to Khalat with the news. We be the first, and we be here to catch new elephants for the Festival, not gossip about phantom girls runnin’ with elephants.” This fellow, a man named Abdal Rush, was older than the rest and his voice spoke with a heavy authority. The other men nodded in deferment to his finality. “Well, when we come up on ‘em, and catch ‘em, you’ll see I be right.” Sadis defended sulkily. “That’s not the matter at hand anyway.” Abdal said. “I think there might be a way, my great grandfather used to trap elephants long ago an’ he used somethin’ to make ‘em stay in one spot. Now, I think I know where I can find what he used, but we’ll have to wait a day an’ make our plan to strike tomorrow night. Two of us have got to follow the elephants where they go an’ mark the spot they stop.” The other men leaned forward eagerly as Abdal began to make his plan. By the time the night was through, they were all in great agreement and ready to start the next day. First Calf led her herd further towards the coast, knowing that the strand of trees at the beach edge was ripe with things to eat, and the plants the sea washed ashore were very good. Some of the younger animals like Smallest Leaf and First Calf’s youngest son Branchbreak, had never seen the ocean and were very excited. But No Nose couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. The jungle prowlers haunted her mind. What could make such creatures abandon a hunt? Warrior Eye nudged her and she looked up in startlement. “You look like you’re lost in thoughts. Or maybe your mind turned into a peyl fruit.” No Nose, abandoning her heavy mode of thought, rammed her shoulder into Warrior Eye. Though such an action made no impact on the large, nearly full grown female, she nonetheless lifted her foot and pretended to lose her balance. Both of them continued to bump and jostle each other as they walked. Smallest Leaf ambled up after his spar with Branchbreak and the three of them played as they moved. When First Calf called a halt at the beach’s edge, No Nose was the first to dart out onto the sand, followed closely by the young calves and Warrior Eye, all of them emitting joyful bugles and thunders of excitement. The two men who had watched and stalked the elephants to their stopping point exchanged looks and nodded. They began their work of spreading out the food they had brought with them, hands encased in two pairs of gloves so to leave no odd touch on the greens and fruits they scattered about the area. And then they disappeared up a tree to wait out the results of their work. Soon enough, the hungry babies, soaking with salt and speckled with sand, ran back to join the herd in the constant search for nourishment. Some of the adults wandered down to the beach to soak in the water and allow the waves to crash over their bodies while others spread out on the sand to roll and feel the luxury of the small grains against their skin. Smallest Leaf lead the way toward the more shaded foraging area, and as the adults had eaten most of the produce at the edges, they walked a ways into the interior. Sure enough, there was food in abundance, and they began to eat heartily. Adults who wanted seconds joined them and eventually the whole herd was browsing the area where the men had placed the food. Both men watched and waited, skeptical that Abdal’s plan would work as the animals ferried food from branches to mouth with their nimble trunks. No Nose began to feel drowsy, and as she looked with half lidded eyes at her family, she knew she wasn’t alone. Stumbling back out onto the beach, she was just barely aware of making a nest for herself in the warm sand before everything went to contentedly enveloping sleep. A thud near her was Warrior Eye, sinking to her knees and then to her side, unable to stay awake. “What did I tell you gentlemen?” Abdal asked with a note of pride in his voice as he surveyed the herd of forty plus animals, all sleeping stretched out on the beach. It was late in the afternoon, and when the two scouts had returned to report the drugged food had done its magic, the wagon was harnessed up and the entire group went down to the spot where the animals slept. “Just one or two wroda seeds can make these animals sleep for hours, sometimes a day or more. Fearlessly he patted the gently heaving side of Dawnbreak, and when the elephant moved one leg in her sleep, several men took a step back. “Foolish, they be asleep so sound not a shout could wake them. We only need two. Preferably within the same family so they will not pine as much.” The men began combing through the animals when Sidas crowed in triumph. “Look here! A girl! Thin, cut, and filthy, livin’ and sleepin’ with the elephants!” All the men, even Abdal ran to see, and nodded in excitement. “She be Rachein, by the color of her, all dark like that with the near-black hair.” “There be no proof of that Sidas, she been livin’ with the elephants so long she got dark’s a Rachein, but she don;t have the acceptance tattoo.” “Where it be if she did have it? And how’d you know, Abdal?” Sidas asked, curious despite his irritation with the man for ruining his theories. “Because when I was little more’n a boy I lived with the Rachein for quite a bit, got m’own tattoo before I went home.” Rolling up the sleeve on his shirt he procured a black, slightly wrinkled mark on his upper arm, four jaggedly drawn slash marks akin to claws. “That be the mark they give males at birth, but mine’s on th’ side they don’t normally do, since I wasn’t born to ‘em. And see, the women get th’ same treatment only their mark’s gentler, like the whiskers of a tiger, see. Since they’s soft like that, and so sensitive.” The other men stood rapt with attention at Abdal’s story, many of them forgetting the fact that they had work to be done. “But then what’re these on her foot, Ab?” Sidas asked, lifting one of No Nose’s feet and pointing among the cuts to three slender, black curved lines that bent with the shape of the foot. “Brak-ta! The healer?” Abdal asked to no one, clutching his hand to his heart. When the other men gave him odd looks, he went on. “The healer and her children, yes it’s always a female what does the healing, they get their mark on the foot. The healer when I was there had just had a daughter, and we watched as she got her foot marked that day. It were many years ago, but I remember it. Her mate explained it to me, and though his grasp of our talking was broken, I understood.” “Should we take her with us? She would make a fine thing for the festival, and many would pay more.” Sidas said, nodding. “The last living full blooded Rachein found living with elephants! And brought to you from the depths of the jungle...” “She ain’t full blooded. Her nose is too thin and so’re her limbs. She’s got some finer blood in her, almost like Khalat blood.” “But she’s too dark to be from Khalat, she’s even too dark to be a Ty’il!” “The Ty’il can make that judge when they’ve seen her as they pay for our trouble. Get the ropes, she’s going. She and them two with her, the little calf and the large female. Hurry now!” No Nose woke slowly, her head ringing with forgotten bad dreams. She felt as though she had slept for years, but the ground beneath her rolled unpleasantly. She wasn’t walking, and she wasn’t in water, so why was the ground rolling beneath her? She was kneeling, she knew that much. But it wasn’t sand or soft jungle mud her skin was on, it was odd, slick, sharp grass. Pale yellow grass that felt like nothing she knew. Suddenly she began to be terribly afraid, more so than when the jungle prowlers had come for her. Where was her mother? Where was her family? A shrill, angry scream pierced her thoughts, causing her to leap to her feet. Warrior Eye! Her eyes barely made out the dim shape of her sister and she tried to run to her. Something yanked her off her feet and sent her reeling to the ground. Iron blood flooded into her mouth as she got up dazedly and looked at herself. Something was draped over her body like the dead skin of a snake, something that covered her from shoulders to knees and itched against skin used to only sand or leaves covering it in cold months. But more like a snake were the cold things wrapped tightly about her middle and the thick vines about her ankles. “Warrior Eye!” She called instead as she pulled against the snakes holding her stomach. “No Nose! No Nose!” Smallest Leaf shrieked from somewhere nearby before she felt his trunk fairly squeeze her in relief. She hugged him as fiercely as her binds would allow, and saw that he too had snakes encircling his middle and ankles. “No Nose, you ‘wake!” “Where mama, Smallest Leaf?” No Nose, reverting to baby talk in her fear and relief, clung to the one familiar thing in this terrible rolling place. “Mama not here. Things hurt Warrior Eye, make snakes over her almost so you no see her!” Smallest Leaf, quaking with fear and sadness, leaned against his sister as she gently patted his head for reassurance. “Warrior Eye?!” No Nose tried again, looking around the rolling box. And then she saw her, coiled and bound as tightly as the men could, each foot wound with rope and chain, her trunk tied to the ground mercilessly with a stake, and fury in her eyes. “No Nose, No Nose, these things took us! They took us from Mama and Aunt and family. I will kill them!” Another loud roar of fury from her before she tried to shift in her chains. “We’re moving, can’t you feel it. Look through the sky opening.” She added, dulled now from so much fighting. No Nose crawled to the end of the jouncing, jostling box and peered out. They were moving, to a place she had never seen before. Tri-deer leaped and spirited away from the horse-drawn wagon and No Nose’s heart crashed painfully against her chest in envy of their freedom. One, a doe, turned back to look, her small spoon-shaped ears flicking as she watched. No Nose shrieked painfully to her and she reared, her nimble legs catching her up with the family group. Crawling back to Smallest Leaf, she buried her head in the little elephant’s side and began to sob. Warrior Eye tried to move closer, and couldn’t but gave their mother’s familiar rumble of comfort as the wagon took them farther from their jungle home and into the land of humans. (Comment on this)
Monday, November 3rd, 2003
2:50 pm	Suddenly the enormous male elephant charged, ears flaring and trunk thrust forward. The tiger jumped back involuntarily, ears flattening against his head in utter distaste. “If you don’t leave, we’ll force you to leave.” He added with another step toward the tiger and his prey. A familiar smell reached his trunk and he grunted his displeasure. “You do know one has the Shadow Sickness, don’t you?” This caused the younger bulls with him to murmur among themselves. The yearlings were simply in awe of the human village, of which they had never seen but heard of only in tales from the elders. “Yes, I do. I was going to eat the other and leave that one.” The tiger said tersely, growling at his interrupted dining. “NO!” A sudden burst of leaves to the right of the village revealed Orchid Finder. Heedless of her grandfather’s warnings, she squared angrily with the tiger and looked him in the eye. Surprised at first, the big cat suddenly laughed. Orchid Finder’s glare deepened and she reached for the bundle that did not smell of the sickness, curling her powerful trunk over it. “You will NOT.” “Orchid Finder!” Thunder Ear called harshly, causing the young female to snap to immediate and guilty attention, the infant still bundled in her trunk. “Leave it be. The tiger’s business is his.” “But granpa, it’s helpless!” She argued, feeling the thing wriggle in its blanket. Thunder Ear shook his head, the child was always willful and sentimental, two things that constantly made him wonder at her. An idea came to him, and though a bit cruel on Orchid Finder’s part, would settle everything. “Tiger.” He said with a derisive flick of his trunk. “If you take that sick thing over the mountains and into the village, away from this jungle, and return before the sun goes down, this prey is yours. If you do not, my granddaughter will keep it. It hasn’t been easy for you to get a clean, healthy kill, I can read it in your ribs and eye hollows. This is easy prey and you are fast. We will stay and assure that the bargain is kept.” “And if I say no?” The tiger asked insolently, his growl almost a chortle. Thunder Ear charged again, startling the bulls, his granddaughter, and causing the tiger to scramble halfway up a tree. “Then we will kill you.” Thunder Ear said simply. “Maybe not this day, but we will find you and kill you.” Orchid Finder’s heart swelled with hope, and she looked adoringly at Thunder Ear. If the tiger was slow, she could take care of the little one and protect it. But...what was it? She didn’t risk exposing it to the tiger’s hungry stare, but she was seething with curiosity. She had seen the Rachein men when they passed the village foraging, and when she was very young had played with the small calves who ventured into the forest. The play had ended when mothers of both sides had anxiously called their babies away. She knew a little of the men and their habits, they lived in dens like the jungle prowlers and tigers, and they could hunt the tiger. They never hunted her kind, fostering a healthy respect for them in each member of their herd. Was this a little human? Leaping down from the tree, the tiger grudgingly took up his burden, careful not to touch the skin as he roughly yanked the child’s blanket up. With a final low snarl he began running in the direction of the mountain pass. The elephants, though safe from the tiger, relaxed a great deal as his footfalls passed out of hearing. “Orchid Finder.” Thunder Ear demanded sternly, standing up to his full height and gazing imperiously down at her. Head low in some shame, the young elephant walked slowly to her grandsire. But she would not let go of the baby. “Yes, granpa?” She asked tremulously, trunk clutching the bundle almost convulsively. “Tell Mudflick to inform your mother that the herd will forage around this village until dusk. But eat nothing of what you find among the dens of men, for it may have been touched with sickness.” Relief sprang to the elephant and she gave a headbob of acquiescence. Once she had passed on the news, she walked to a more private place to have a close look at her new acquisition. Gently pulling back the flaps of tattered, mud soaked blanket, she stifled a small gasp. It was a human calf, but it looked so funny! She had not seen them in so long, it seemed. Where a decent animal would have at least a muzzle, it had an odd pink stub and beneath that its mouth had no teeth. And its skin was hairless and pink. No, she admonished as she touched and inspected the baby with her trunk carefully, it was covered in hair, soft hair no one could see properly. And an odd patch of mud on its round head. No, that was hair too! Why would it have all that hair there, and no place else? Curious. Sensing that its body was soft and vulnerable, she cradled her trunk around it, careful as she noticed the heavy head bobbed back when she picked up the middle. Lifting the baby closer for inspection, her eyes widened as they met the clear pale ones of the child and saw the little hands and feet. Why, the hands were like those of the monkeys that leapt through the trees. Was this little child half monkey? Orchid Finder daintily set the calf down, her mind full of questions. One hand, making a random grab as it so often had done when the healer had put the child down, grasped Orchid Finder’s trunk in a grip so light it was almost a caress. The young mother-to-be felt her heart melt, and she uttered a soft, tender noise before carefully and heftily laying beside the infant to cover it protectively with her trunk. The other elephants were extremely curious about the baby, but Orchid Finder’s rumbles kept them well away. Their attention fell to inspecting the huts of the Rachein. Ones that didn’t smell of the sickness were subject to elephant curiosity. Spoons, blankets, pots, bowls, everything was flung around and strewn as the younger animals shoved themselves into the huts. Others found the jagged straw roofing a pleasurable itch, and one was so enthusiastic that the hut she had been scratching her back on fell down entirely. They all toyed with and examined the spears and utensils, throwing them back and forth and exclaiming over them as the sun sunk down into recumbent late afternoon. Mother and Thunder Ear began to be on the alert for the tiger’s return, for surely if any creature could make it there and back in less than a day, he could. Orchid Finder looked as well, but her heart wasn’t in it and her stomach danced nervously. She didn’t want the tiger to return. Her eyes tracked the movement of the sun as it finally sank below the horizon, dousing the jungle in dusk light. Rising to her feet, she trumpeted joyfully. “She is mine!” The others, caught up in the excitement, trumpeted as well, Mother and Thunder Ear merely exchanging glances. “Let’s have a look at her then, daughter.” Mother finally said. The elephants formed a ring around Orchid Finder, jostling curiously as the blanket was moved to reveal the tiny human girl. “It doesn’t have a nose!” “Almost like a singed monkey!” “There’s mud on its head!” Many other exclamations were made, but Orchid Finder gave such a stout rumble that they quieted immediately. “A young human, yes. A female by her scent. They do not hunt us, and many have brought lost calves back to us, it is my duty to take care of this lost calf and protect it from the tiger.” She lifted the baby and cuddled it against her cheek before looking plaintively at her mother. “We will find a place to rest,” Mother said, “let’s move.” And with that, the elephants fell into their instinctual formation as they marched stolidly away from camp, Orchid Finder cradling the baby protectively in her trunk as they walked deeper into the hushed dark night. The tiger was exhausted. Thoughts and promises of food had filled his mind and fueled his body to run. Cries from the fevered thing in his grasp stung his ears and exhaustion stung his lungs. His teeth ached with carrying the burden so long, but now the pass was half crossed and the afternoon was not even upon him. From his vantage point he could see the roofs of farm buildings. Enduring farmers had fenced and cultivated land right up to the edge of the mountain range. Their cattle and sheep grazed and meandered through the rocky soil and were hardier than most stock as a result. The tiger could smell cattle as he sat panting from his journey, the baby on the ground beside him. Cattle, fat and vulnerable, and healthy. His mouth watered with the thought and resuming his burden with a fresh burst of energy he began again to lope down the mountain trail at his odd gait. The baby resumed her crying, but the tiger was beyond caring as his nostrils filled with the scent of redolent, grain fed cattle. Once he was at the edge of the fence, he dropped the baby carelessly by a fencepost, and the straggling grabgrasses shrouded her from view as he leapt the top rail. A wail rose from the starving, jostled infant, a wail that drifted through the open door of the farmhouse and reached the ears of the boy inside. He raced to the doorway and looked out in utter amazement at the tiger in with the cattle. His eyes widened and he raced frantically back in the house, looking for the crossbow his father kept at the door in case Keb Parson’s cow-worrying dog ever decided to show his muzzle around the farm again. Now, though, the boy prayed to Dovi and all the gods of nature and good that his shot was steady. Standing again at the door, he took aim, noticing as though in a dream that the tiger had already been shot once. And then before he knew it one of the bolts had soared through the air to lodge itself in the tiger’s abdomen. The animal, forgetting for the moment his hunger, turned furiously to see who had wounded him. His eyes locked onto the pale, trembling boy and with a murderous snarl, he charged. Hands shaking, the boy loaded the crossbow again, lucky enough to not have the time to trip up with thoughts of failure. His second shot transfixed the tiger right between the animal’s malice filled eyes, toppling him to the earth. The cattle, panicked and lowing, broke through the fence on the far side as the tiger made one last drunken leap for the fence. His paws missed it and he toppled to the ground, lying motionless. Cautious but thankful, the boy set down the crossbow. Arming himself with a dagger used for cutting hay-binds, he carefully made his way outside, step by quiet step. Once at the fence, he leaned and peered over it, just in case the animal came back to life and leapt for him again. A muscle in one powerful forelimb twitched, sending the boy scrambling off the fence and halfway back to the house. But it was only a spasm, and ashamed of himself, the boy returned to his perch, dagger held at the ready over his head. Climbing over the fence with infinite care and patience, he sidled up to the dead cat. Nearly as large and long as a full grown bull, the tiger’s fur was a grizzly orange, the stripes racing across it like slash marks. The animal had been an old campaigner, scars and slashes marred the hide in many places, and the face was frozen in a grimace, killing teeth and claws bared as the furious eyes glassed over. Taking a breath, the boy sank down on the ground in exhaustion. He had done it! He had killed possibly the largest cat ever seen this side of the mountains! Even the jungle prowler Nil Lamplight had found climbing in his window looked a small terrier in size to this monster. But the cattle, he realized with a frown, had gotten out in a panic. And what troubled him more was the sound that had brought him out in the first place. It hadn’t sounded like an animal, more like a human in pain. It was just him on the farm today, his father had gone to Valerii to purchase a few animals for dairy and wouldn’t be back for weeks. And his mother had died when he was losing his milk teeth. She had been a Valerii woman, he recalled with the sudden unexpectedness of someone who has just stared danger and possibly death in the face. She had spoken in her language often, trying to teach it to him. “Come on, Ves, say squirrel, leriq.” And he had babbled happily and adoringly after her. Tiger, he thought giddily, was called panthé. The demanding howl brought him back to his senses, and with a sense of right, he hastily cut the tiger’s throat and made the proper words over the blood that seeped into the pasture. He would have to return to skin him after he found the source of the sound and caught the cows. Such a large hide could be quite a blanket, with the claws to be used as leatherworking tools. Maybe, he reckoned, he could even make himself an ornament for one to be worn out on occasions. But what was that cry? Climbing the fence, he followed it like a man bewitched to a patch of grabgrass. Pushing aside the grass, he gasped. It was a child! An infant with black sickness in its eyes and angry red fever on its face. He’d ride for Umma Hazel, the midwife and village doctor. She had many herbs and knew how to cure a baby. But he’d have to get her there. Running for the barn, he grabbed the whicker egg collecting basket and, padding it with straw for comfort, returned and scooped the baby into it. Taking the basket out to the horse stables, he set it on a wooden tack stand while he took from a stall a sturdy looking bay gelding. “We’ll have to ride fast now, Hobee, this child is sick!” Throwing a heavy woolen pad on, he hastily strapped the saddle with the prominent pommel onto Hobee’s back, the horse snorting tolerantly. In too much of a hurry to worry about the crupper or breastplate, he took a spare rein and fastened one end onto the basket handle and then looping the other one around the pommel securely before fastening it to the other basket handle with shaking fingers. Trusting that Hobee could be guided by merely the halter and rein, Ves mounted the gelding who was now fretting with the caught excitement. “Hi! Village!” He called into the air, needing little urging to power the gelding forward. They galloped down country lanes, skidding around tree roots and the occasional pedestrian as they made their helter skelter way towards the village hub of Par. Hobee’s hooves rang out on the cobbles as Ves guided him down street after street, searching for Umma Hazel’s residence. Finding it, he leapt down from the saddle and nimbly tied the snorting, panting horse to the post and rail fence running the length of the woman’s yard. Fumbling at the knots he had fastened the basket with, he finally wrenched it loose and dashed up the walk to pound on the woman’s door. “Umma! Umma Hazel!” The door opened and a short rough woman with silvery hair and appraising blue eyes took in the sight of a sweaty, wild looking boy all of twelve clutching a basket with a white knuckled hand. “Why Ves Calbine, what’ve you got there? Come in, come in then.” Once the entire story was out, Umma Hazel examined the baby with capable, slender hands and a practiced eye. “Ves, she has the Shadow Sickness, her eyes are practically all inky. It’s a wonder she’s not died from it, her fever would kill a bear.” “Ayuh, Umma. Can she be healed?” Ves, who had been given a mug of cool milk with a mint sprig in it, sat anxiously nearby. “She can, it will take some time, but I can make her better. She will need a home, however.” “I’d say we’d take her, pa and me, but it’s just us. No mother to tell us if we was feedin’ her right or not.” He said regretfully, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t want to harm her. Umma, why don’t she have no bites on her from that tiger? He was BIG.” “She has the sickness, no animal will eat a thing with the sickness, nor even touch it. Even the animals know. The question, Ves, is why would a tiger carry prey he can’t eat over the mountains?” Both fell silent for a moment and Ves felt a special chill go up his spine as he looked at the baby fretting and turning in the cradle. “Is she...from Dovi? Or Brak-ta? A special Message?” “I don’t know,” Umma Hazel said honestly, shrugging. “I do know, divine gift or not, she’ll not make it with no food. I’ll heal and care for her, but I can’t keep a child myself.” She laughed gently at the boy’s worried look, and patted his arm. “Don’t worry, I know of a place she’ll be well-cared for. But you found her Ves, it’s you who’ll name her. It’s like you birthed her by findin’ her there.” He flushed in embarrassment at the thought of what his friends would say about him birthing anything, but nodded acquiescence. “I know just the name, Umma.” He said proudly, nodding. “Panthé. It means ‘tiger’ in Valerii.” “A good name, Ves, well chosen. You can come and visit her if you like.” “I will, I wanna give her something before she goes. But Hobee and me gotta be getting home, the cows got out when the tiger spooked them.” Umma nodded again, smiling at the boy. What a little man Ves Calbine was growing to be! “Your father ought be proud of you when he gets home, you’re running the farm like a man, Ves. Take care.” He gave a small half bow and a pleased smile before turning and dashing out the door. Once he had untied Hobee and mounted, he legged the animal into a trot and waved over his shoulder before disappearing down the street towards home. Umma Hazel turned her attention to her pharmacopoeia in search of the medicine that would help the little mystery child on her way to wellness. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 2nd, 2003
2:01 pm	Dawn broke through the leaves, filtering and crystallizing the dew on stems and trunks of trees. Animals woke slowly, going about their routines of foraging with half lidded eyes as the occasional yawn was voiced. The soft rumble of a very large group of sleeping elephants could be heard for a distance. The animals slept in clusters, mates leaning on one another and younger animals clustered towards the back of the group. A beam of light gently invaded the thicket they had cleared for their rest and began to tickle at the eyes of the first few. The first one to wake was Mother, the leader of the herd. She stretched leisurely and her yawn was a rumble that made an yddub bird in a nearby tree leap from its perch in surprise, the animal’s preposterously large crest raised to its utmost height. The rest of the herd awoke with the same casual slowness, and soon they were shifting and waiting eagerly for Mother to give the signal. A loud “let’s go” rumble was issued and Mother lead the group out of the thicket in search of breakfast. Behind her strode her three daughters in order of their age and rank, First Calf, Orchid Finder, and Dawnbreak. Orchid Finder, heavily pregnant with her first calf, raised her trunk in greeting to some of the loose jumble that followed the structured march. In the jungle elephant herds, it was always the way they marched. Even the mates of Dawnbreak and First Calf could not walk side by side with them, for they were not of the leading females blood. Even calves, unless they were nursing and had to stay close, could not. Behind Dawnbreak things were much less formal but even there a bit of structure was present. Younger calves freshly weaned stayed near the center of the group, so if a predator leaped in among them, the young ones would be defended. Mates walked together, exchanging the occasional trunk touch as they moved. Yearlings and adolescents ambled at the back, playfully shoving each other and making little dashes to the side. Some of them threw nervous glances over their shoulders at the elephant that brought up the rear, Thunder Ear. He was the oldest of the herd, having lived through many things including human captivity, a flood, a fight with an entire pack of jungle prowlers, and a fire. Scars raced across his smoke gray, taut hide, and one tusk was broken in half, the other gleaming with the wicked sharpness of a much younger animal. Both large ears were incredibly tattered, and one eye was halved by a wicked scar that extended to his jawline. The father of Mother, he kept the young animals in line and generated a heavy degree of respect and a certain degree of fear not only from the elephants in his herd but from the animals of the jungle at large. Now, however, he was listening to a peculiar sound, one he hadn’t heard for quite a long time and was thus unable to place. He walked tersely from his place at the back of the herd, moving up through the ranks as elephants parted in his wake. Walking beside Mother, he murmured, “Stop, we’ll feed here.” Sensing the concern in her father’s voice, Mother nodded and gave the signal to stop and begin foraging. Delighted, the rank and file broke up as the elephants wandered through the jungle in search of fruits, leaves, stalks, and anything else they could eat. “What is it, father?” Mother asked in concern as the herd ate with hungry abandon. “Something’s out there, and I know the sound, but I can’t seem to remember.” “Do we want to go and see what it is?” She asked, plucking a kiak fruit from a vine and plopping the succulent, nectar filled thing into her mouth. “Yes, I’ll take some of the males, Digger, Stormhalter, Jun, and Rogue. Also Half Back and Eagle Talk since they are young and could learn.” Orchid Finder, who had been browsing close by , overheard her grandsire and mother talking. She walked forward hopefully, lowering her trunk and flattening her ears in the customary position of submission to authority. “If I could ask, mama and granpa Thunder Ear, I would go too. I’ve heard the sound and I want to know what it is. It almost calls to me.” “No, no, little one.” Thunder Ear said fondly, reaching to caress his granddaughter’s head with his trunk. “You are having a calf very soon, and if there is danger you would not be fast enough to run or defend yourself. You stay here and finish your breakfast. We will move as soon as we have affirmed the call.” Thunder Ear then flared one of his massive tattered ears, listening to a sound unheard by his daughter and granddaughter. His eyes grew serious and he gave a low sound of displeasure. “We must go to drive out the tiger. He is hunting to close to us, he is hunting the sound. If it proves fruitless he could come and hunt here.” Orchid Finder stepped aside to make room for Thunder Ear with a grudging look. She would follow her grandsire and his chosen band to whatever sound was calling the tiger. She wanted to see the sound for herself, it was almost bewitching in itself. But it was waning as well and her heart became unaccountably filled with concern. Perhaps it was that she herself was so close to motherhood, and the cries touched her maternal instincts. But she couldn’t speculate on it, for Thunder Ear and the males were charging through the bush in a way as to alert the tiger of the fact that they were large strong animals unafraid of confrontation. Making sure no one saw her go, Orchid Finder crept (as much as an elephant COULD creep) through the foliage after them. The tiger was close now, very close. But before he made any move to his prey, he had to assure himself that there were none of the creatures left that had sharp sticks capable of wounding him. He suffered such an injury from one of them, a small harpoon that had nearly missed his muscle lay embedded in his skin, long forgotten as it bobbed in time with his rough orange-brown fur. Pausing, he sniffed in the entrance of one of the many odd dens. Lips pealing back to reveal yellowed teeth encrusted in old blood, he moved on. The den reeked of the Shadow Sickness. Any creature would be foolish to touch paw in a place that reeked of said sickness. But he was convinced none of the odd two legged things that sometimes borrowed his stripes would come out after him. They had killed his mate before, but being a solitary hunter who would probably not have seen her much more before she batted him off with snarls before kittening, he wasn’t deeply saddened or resentful to them for it. He WAS resentful for the fact that they often stole kills that he himself had marked as his. But always, unless times in the village were lean, they left him a portion of the kill in tribute to him. The old glutton just felt they didn’t leave him enough. But now, oh, now, he could smell the prey. And it called for him like a beacon. Cubs, he thought, fawns left abandoned by their parents to his appetite. The place had not set in with the smell of the sickness, but he knew at least one of the infants had it, for it drifted acridly towards his nostrils. He could not feast here, he would have to get them into a secure covering of brush before he could eat. Careful not to touch either one, he gathered up the blankets and dragged both infants out into the morning sunlight. A heavy stamp of a foot caused him to whirl around, tail whipping the air like a cord. “What are you doing here?” He asked, glaring resentfully at the group of elephants that had encircled the village edge. “Leave.” Thunder Ear said simply, stamping his foot again. “Leave the prey, and leave for good.” “Why should I do that?” The tiger asked, stepping protectively in front of the infants, magnificently large claws flexing into the churned earth as he eyed Thunder Ear dubiously. (Comment on this)
Saturday, November 1st, 2003
12:53 am	It Begins The jungle echoed with the sounds of abandon. Animals called to one another across distances, and in the quiet, something prowled. It listened carefully to the squalls issuing from a tent heady with the scent of death and fear, and waited. Night fell, and still the creature waited, patient and watchful. He would make no mistakes about his killing. It had been an expedition the Butterfly had not wanted him to undertake. She had begged him to stay, wishing with all her heart that her consort and king was not also the commander of the armies. But he was, and he had a duty like everyone in Khalat did. She could no more bid him stay than she could bid the sun to turn green. So he left, and with him went the finest men of the cavalry to settle hostilities in the deep, treacherous jungles of Wycanth. The Rachein people, fierce warriors and stealthy climbers, were crossing over the mountains of El’kirs and Valerii to wreak havoc among the people in villages and towns even so far as Tsarma. The armies had to stop them before they reached Khalat and the Ylbmew palace. Many men had died before a peace agreement was scratched out, but once it was, the uprisings came to a halt and receptions were hospitable. Raiding parties were called back with the use of the Rachein’s strange, ululating bullroarers. The sound, the chief assured the visiting king, would reach the men trained to hear it, and they too would send a message using their bullroarers, and soon all would return home. Now it happened that during the struggles the king was greatly wounded and suffered a massive injury to his leg. The Rachein people refused to let him go until their healers cured the wounds their warriors had inflicted. Much in gratitude, the king had his men help bury those Rachein that had fallen in the battles and perform their rites of the dead. He also bade a messenger to tell his queen of the happenings, and that in three month’s time they would begin their journey home. The chief appointed a healer to watch over the king, a young woman with oddly dancing olive eyes. She nursed the king’s wound and helped him through the scourge of said wound’s induced fever. In his fever daze the man became dependent on her, clinging fiercely to her hand when a particular bout sent his body temperature soaring to levels even a boiling pot would be jealous of. As he recovered, the king remained dependent on the woman for healing and medical needs, but began to become dependent on her company as well. When his healing was enough that he could walk after a few days, his first shaky steps were to her hut, where a shy greeting was exchanged before he returned to his own tent. The Rachein, not much experienced with the ways of the foreign people from across the mountains, were as curious about the soldiers as they were about this dark haired, beige skinned group who painted themselves in tiger stripes before going to hunt. Many soldiers enjoyed the company of the Rachein women as well, whose marital vows weren’t so binding they couldn’t stretch just a bit. But the king was in deep, for the healer was also, of course, the chief’s daughter, and the chief frowned on what he perceived to be bad blood mixing. Comradeship was all well and good when it came to manly battles and peace agreements, a few of the Rachein women could kiss a few Across the Mountain soldiers, but he would not have his only daughter soil her blood or her lips with this man. And though she fiercely denied any sort of feeling she might have for the foreign king, such denials were much stupider than her father’s knowing observation. She should have known better. He should have known better too. And he did, but the swimming jungle air might have had something to do with the way he held her in his arms after loving her, protectively encompassing her back with both hands as her feather-light fingers raced across his collarbone to linger at a rough cheek. Maybe the fever’s malign touch caused thoughts of his home and wife to drift away as he helped to build homes and became an honorary Rachein. His men weren’t complaining, and no one was sending for them. He had forgotten, it seemed, they all had. Some nights his dreams were plagued with memories of a far off shining world, with a language he was damned if he didn’t know. But he was forgetting it. His men were all speaking in this new talk as he did, and life seemed so much simpler without councils or court games or pressings about an heir. Why, he already HAD heirs! His new wife was heavy with his children, their unborn forms swimming with his blood. He was as happy as could be expected, painting the tiger stripes and hunting with the men, forsaking his title of king for that of a warrior. And then it all began to change. Along with the birth of the healer’s twin girls came another, unwelcome child. Shadow Sickness lurked in the jungle, creeping through animals like its namesake and melding, carrying, moving. It made the carrier crazy at first, frothing crazy and stumbling before they eventually wandered away to die in the jungle. The creatures of the forest called it by its name, and feared it. If an animal in a herd was found to have it, they were shunned. It could be transmitted by touch, and by ingestion. And it began to make its way toward the Rachein village. One afternoon the tiger hunters, some paler than others but swiftly losing the pallor to hardened jungle sun, cornered and killed a large tri-deer. Bringing it home, they fed nearly the entire village and a celebration was held wherein the healer’s twins were named and accepted as Rachein. Even the eyes of the chief were shining with happiness across the leaping fire. The next morning, three young men in the village had fevers. These were the same young men who, credited with the kill, had earned the privilege of eating the heart of the kill. Later that afternoon, one of the men, just out of boyhood, began thrashing and growling like a wild animal, bloody froth billowing out of his mouth like smoke as he raked and clawed at the air. His mother and elder aunts tried furiously to calm him, but he pushed aside one, bit the other, and glared at his mother before galloping into the forest like a mad thing. The other two suffered similar fates, and the village was greatly troubled by these occurrences. Through the next days, more and more of the Rachein fell ill, frothing, thrashing, and eventually disappearing. The healer and her mate managed to stop one little girl from leaving by binding her with nylavine to a bed. She screeched, a thin keening wail, gnashed her teeth, kicked, thrashed, and raved before repeatedly tipping her head back as she twitched. Once the foam began to billow, the healer’s mate leaned forward, watching her eyes widen and snap with the madness of the disease. But then, suddenly, the eyes dulled, the form hung limp, and the child was merely no more than a slaughtered chicken in terms of presence. With great despair and worry for her own little girls, the healer ran back to her own home to cradle and nuzzle and reassure herself with them. Her mate stood behind her, placing a quiet hand on her head. The healer froze, the hand felt very, very warm. Turning slowly, she looked into her mate’s eyes and for the briefest second, their amber tint was touched with the darkness of something else. She pulled back with a soft cry and began to sob. Now, her once happy communal village was populated by the sick, dying, and dead. There was no chief, her father had died with none strong enough to mourn him save the healer and her mate. And now her mate had the sickness as well. Trembling, he reached for her again, but she pulled back, terrified that if she touched him, she too would get the sickness. But she was not aware that she already had it until a few days later. By then, she, her mate, and their daughters were the last alive in their village. He was scarcely so, sweating, shaking, eyes clouded in black filmy shadow and calling for his queen, his old life. Too enshrouded in the grips of the disease to care, the healer reached for her children. One, to her fever wrought hands, felt as she did. The other felt cool and looked normal, her large aware eyes watching the distraught woman with all the concern a child can have. Covering them with her body, she glanced at the bed where her mate had been lying. A dripping of froth was all that was left, he had wandered into the jungle. Seized with a violent, punishing spasm, she turned her head from the crude cradle her children resided in and threw up. Wiping her mouth, she wiped her brow in almost the same motion, sweat dripping from her forehead onto the pillow and quilt her daughters shared. One, the fever wracked one, began to bawl. The healer bit her lip in terror, tasting blood with the hot sting of fear. A tiger could hear them. A jungle-prowler could hear them as well. Anything could. They were alone in the village now. She tried to hush them, picking first the sick one and then the healthy one up to rock them, but her hands shook with weakness as another twist and cramp of her muscles forced her child from her hands. The baby fell harmlessly into the cradle but the sensation caused her to cry again. Panicked beyond any reason and consumed with her affliction, the woman screamed, her stomach sending forth more, that by the scream traveled past her lungs in a blood spume of froth. A large jungle prowler swam in front of her vision, breaking the necks of her babies with one shake of his slender snout before his large glowing eyes found her. Claws clicking, he advanced on the healer and she fled, her screams leaping into the empty night. It wasn’t until afternoon that the cries of the abandoned children reached a fevered pitch. Both hungry and one very sick, they needed attention, and soon. The kind of attention their cries attracted, however, left much to be desired. Yes, the tiger decided as he settled boldly at the village’s edge, he would investigate the matter of mewling meat further at sun’s first light. Current Mood: proud (1 Comment |Comment on this)