Thursday, April 14, 2011

Loss - Part 1


A plaintive cry rose above the various early evening calls of the many denizens of the jungle forest.

"Ma'van'te! Ma'van'tan!"

A young she-cub clambered to the top of a large slippery rock lying along a ruined river bank, carefully pulling herself erect on her two hind feet to peer about the swirling waters of the now swollen stream. Unable to see what she searched for, she sniffed, trying to catch the scent of her parents. But the only smells that came to her questing nose were mud, water, and the deep rotting pungent odor of uprooted trees.

Flinching from the water that still violently splashed and sprayed as the angry torrent surged past her rock, the child crouched on all fours, leaning out as far as she dared. One of her hands slipped, and her arm plunged into the water, the strong current tugging at her. She almost fell in. Scrambling frantically back, she panted rapidly in fright, her ears falling and eyes growing wide as she saw the twisted carcasses of several dingu carried by on the swift waters. Shivering, she climbed the steep side of the torn and deeply scarred bank, soft, black earth crumbling to the hungry waters below and smearing her golden fur with mud as she sought higher and safer ground.

Once gaining what she felt was firmer footing, she trotted downstream, casting anxious glances at the river as she went. A powerful feeling of something horribly wrong so overwhelmed her, it made her stomach cramp with nausea. She called repeatedly, receiving no reassuring answering yowl, and struggled to keep from mewing, but the longer she kept going without finding her parents and the longer the shadows became, the more anxiety she felt.

Finally, daylight faded so that she realized she needed to find a place to shelter for the night. She looked forlornly about and spied a hollow tree trunk, a remnant of a tree apparently split and shattered by a bolt of lightening many years before. Standing about ten feet high and three feet wide, moss and vines had all but enveloped its base. The cub shinnied up its girth to a ragged oval opening in its side, sniffing cautiously for any possible inhabitants. Finding none, save a few dark brown beetles that she grabbed and popped hungrily into her mouth, she crawled inside.

The she-cub crouched, ears drooping, as twilight faded and the dim gloom of the tree's interior transitioned into darkness broken only by faint starlight glimmering through breaks in the trees' canopy overhead. She felt a squall rising in her throat and clamped her jaws tightly around it, strangling it off into a ragged whimper. She knew enough at her age to realize the importance of her remaining very quiet in her vulnerable situation so as not to attract any nocturnal predators.

She wondered where her mother and father could be and why they didn't come for her. They had been hunting along the river at a spot where it widened and many types of game liked to come to drink. She had been interested in hunting at first, but after her father left her try using his bow a few times, helping her steady the arrow and draw, her attention had turned to the brightly hued river pebbles along the bank.

Her mother had given her an admonition not to wander off too far. Absently promising obedience, she ambled along the river's edge, picking up the occasional pebble and putting it in a small leather pouch hung on a thin woven braid of leather about her waist, all the attire young children wore. As the cub gathered her tiny treasures, a gossamerfly flitted by her nose, dipping and swaying, its bright orange and blue wings all aflutter in a dazzling display of color.

The she-cub couldn't resist such a pretty target. Dropping the handful of pebbles she was currently examining to scatter on the ground, she sprang after the gracefully dancing insect, laughing and springing into the air to bat at it with her tiny hands again and again. It fluttered into the tree line and for a moment the cub paused, looking back to her parents on the bank. They were some distance away, but she could still see them, so with a giggle, she bounded after her prey, determined not to let it escape.

Dropping to all fours, she raced up a small hill and leapt upon a large rock resting between two large trees to spring upon the gossamerfly hovering in front of her just out of reach. Her ears fell as she realized the boulder rested on a small ridge, the edge dropping abruptly several feet. Tumbling to the ground, she landed heavily, the wind knocked from her, and lay still several minutes, dazed.

When her head cleared and she was able to catch her breath, she groggily sat up, looking about. A profusion of sweet smelling mosa and go'la flowers carpeted the ground around her, their soft delicate petals a riot of colors. She grinned, delighted.

Suddenly the ground shuddered.

A colossal roar reverberated through the forest, as if from the throat of some great mythical beast of an ancient legend. The child cowered on the ground, ears plastered to her skull, eyes rolling in fright, her claws digging deep gouges in the trembling earth. She was paralyzed with fear. Strange sounds came to her; snaps, groans, pops, crashes, some sounds she couldn't identify, but each imbued with the ability to strike terror into her heart, and over it all came the powerful roaring sound of rushing water.

As the cub trembled on the ground, her screams and wails drowned out by the catastrophe occurring around her, she felt fear for her parents grasp her heart in icy skeletal claws.

"Ma'van'te! Ma'van'tan!"

The she-cub sat bolt upright with a gasp. She was huddled in the hollow tree with night wrapped around her. Wearily, she realized she must have dozed off. She curled up on her side to try to go back to sleep, when a noise caused her to prick her ears.

It was the faintest of sounds, barely more than a whisper, and as her ears trembled in the warm dark, swiveling to catch the slightest noise over the soft chirring of night insects, she heard it again. She wasn't quite sure what it was. A slow, soft dragging sound, like someone pulling a heavy load along the ground. Or something or someone with a limping gait.

Fear rising in her throat, she pressed herself down as much as she could. She lay perfectly still as a thin, gaunt hand reached through the knothole, ebon claws groping about in the darkness....

To be continued

1 comment:

  1. excellent descriptors and a a feel for the vulnerable as well

    ReplyDelete