Paintings in the Dark

Grug was born to a family of giants. His mother and father could never find a cave big enough to stand upright in, and his five brothers kept the cave roof clean and their hair brushed neatly back at the same time. Grug was the runt. Grug could only reach the roof with his fingers.

The rest of the boys could be kept in line with a beating or a well-aimed strike or a shake or even a period of being sat on. That was their discipline. It was a habit that continued well until their father was old and frail and shaky…if one of them misbehaved or said something he didn't like he'd come at them with ghostly punches and they would humor him, letting him have his way.

Any of the older brothers could help with the younger ones…so Grug ended up being sat on a lot. He got the life squeezed out of him, alternating between red-faced screaming and purple-faced staring. His mother was afraid he wouldn't survive, being so much smaller than the others…so she sat him down and began using words to teach him how to behave.

She was the one who, while scavenging, found the dead bear cub and turned it into a puppet. She was the one who started using clay and mud to paint on the cave walls.

Nearly disappearing in her lap, Grug remembered clinging to her and watching her safe, muscular arms as they spread magic in the dim shaft of sunlight coming through the door. He watched the dead little bear in his hands come to life and dance across the rocky surface, saw the new, frightening adventures and the death that always followed. But he also heard his mother's voice echoing in her chest, rumbling against his ear…warm and kind and always nearby.

When her husband snarled suspiciously at the new lines and asked her what she was doing…she scrambled for an answer. "Story…" she said at last, ruffling Grug's hair idly. "Because it rhymes with Tori."

"Tori is a bird's call," her husband replied. "Those lines aren't real. We don't need them."

"They are real," Tori shook the dead bear in his face, pointedly. Then she tucked it back into Grug's little arms, chuttering softly to him as he squeaked in gratitude. "And Grug needs them."

And of course, she got her way. Tori always got her way…she was the only person in the entire wide world bigger than Gorg, Grug's Dad.

And when Tori was eaten, Gorg and Grug's five hulking brothers lay in miserable heaps around the cave, unable to bear each other's company, unable to bear each new day without her. Grug shivered, curled up in a tiny space near the very darkest, coldest end…and longed for a sleep-pile, a thing where everyone would snuggle together and, for a moment, forget that any of them could ever be gone someday.

A sleep-pile sounded like a nice thing. Maybe someday he'd get to try it.

When he woke up all alone, he reached out to touch the story-wall as he struggled out of the niche where he'd been sleeping. His hand left a smudge. Grug stared. Was it possible…could Grug make magic too?

He started to draw…Tori. Mama. He made the big round body, little nubs for her legs and arms…eyes. She had eyes. How could he draw eyes when he'd already drawn the head?

Suddenly, Gorg's hand swept across the thing, slapping rock and smearing the clay until the image was torn and bleeding to the ground, swept completely out of place and unrecognizable. Grug wanted to bite that hand. He snarled.

But Gorg's brown eyes were right next to his, closer than he could ever remember seeing them before. His stiff beard spiked out in all directions, his weathered, beaten face close to him with all its scars. Grug barked in fear and false bravado.

Gorg put his hand, still dirty from the clay, on Grug's head. "The only thing worse than new things, Grug…" the next words seemed to make Gorg's eyes hurt…Grug saw how they were bleeding water, "is trying to hold onto things that are already gone."

Without his mother and without her stories, Grug got sat on like everybody else when he misbehaved. He managed to survive. Then, one by one, all his brothers grew to enormous sizes and left the cave to find their own homes, leaving just Grug and his Dad.

Gorg's brown eyes turned purple. His shaggy, muddy hair turned white and wispy. He grew shivery and bent like a dying plant stalk. All day, he wandered from end to end of the cave and berated Grug for staying with him. "You need to find a mate!" he barked as Grug handed him dinner. "Go get your own cave!" he grumbled as Grug carried him out to sit in the sun for a few precious minutes. "Go make a family!" he screeched, beating Grug's back with feeble fists when Grug refused for the tenth time to let him go scavenge.

"I'm not a baby…" he whispered, as Grug held him close in a sleep-pile and listened to how his breath rattled like wet stones.

"Of course not," Grug whispered back, forcing his face to grin, "You're my Dad."

After Gorg died, Grug lived alone in that cave for a year or so…neighbors lived so far away with so many dangers between the residences. Besides, Grug didn't have quite the heart to start making friends for the first time in his life.

Eventually, he had to run even farther into the desert than ever before looking for food. He screamed all the way, tearing up the ground and making as much noise as possible. Loud, fast, strong…like a caveman should.

He went after a Horned-Lizard. The tail was easy to break off and an excellent source of meat if you could avoid the lizard's paralyzing venom. If you didn't rough the beast up too much it would stay in the territory and grow a new tail…so win-win.

Unfortunately, even his solid weight clinging to the tail wasn't enough to rip it off as the lizard flung him into a petrified bush and gave an ear-splitting scream, puffing out its red fanned neck and hissing with its triple-jointed tongue. It was big enough to eat him in maybe two bites, and the venom would make that easy…so Grug gave a cry of fear and tried to scramble deeper into the bush.

Until a tiny mammal with a brown pelt and a tuft of red feathers on its head seemed to come diving down from the sky like a bird. It sank its teeth somewhere behind the lizard's fanned head…and then rolled sharply sideways, snapping the tail off.

Feeling sickly unbalanced and a little naked, the lizard gurgled, stepping sideways like a drunk monkey before it turned and slid into a huge crack in the earth.

Grug peered from the bush, lifting his eyebrows as the new creature looked up at him with eyes that were grey…like dusty fish-scales or rainclouds. Beautiful.

He felt even better when he realized that the pelt was only tied around its real skin, and what he thought was a tuft of feathers was actually a springy tuft of red hair. It was a cave-man…like him. No…it looked like Tori. It was a cave-woman.

Cautious, keeping his head down and his knuckles firmly planted on the ground, he gingerly crawled out of the prickly bush.

Still gripping the tail firmly in her mouth, she tilted her head, backing away. A warning snarl on her lips.

He heard his stomach growling. "Um…that was amazing. You should keep that. But I'm really hungry and I helped distract it so…mind if I have a bite?"

That was asking a lot of a total stranger. Food was more important than manners. Sometimes more important than other people. But after a minute's hesitation she finally let the tail roll out of her mouth. It fell to the ground with a thump of dust.

Casually, flashing her a grateful grin of his teeth that were also weapons he was not afraid to use, Grug approached the tail. Then, together, they tore the thing to shreds and devoured it. The meat went first. When they were down to chewing the skin and grinding the bones, Grug tried to strike up a conversation.

"My…my name is Grug," he said, offering her a particularly thick shard of the bloody tailbone as a grand gesture. "You?"

She wolfed down the bone, tiny white chips of it flying out of her mouth with a loud crunch. She finished and gave him a careful look. "Ugga."

The sound made her throat heave and Grug remembered how Gorg began choking on bones and Grug had to start smashing them with stones so he could eat. He blinked, genuinely concerned. "I'm sorry, did I….did I give you a bad piece? Is your throat okay?"

She showed her teeth and threw her head back. He shied away, thinking she was about to attack…and then his shoulders slumped in surprised relief when he realized she was laughing. Ugga stopped to breathe. "That's my name, Grug…sorry to laugh, it's just my…my Dad named me because he choked on his weekly meal when Mom told him I was a girl. So…you're still right."

Grug wanted to ask why her father choked, but he wasn't completely sure if it had killed him or not so he didn't press. "So you…you've got a family?"

Smooth.

Ugga shrugged. "No…I know it's unusual, but Mom was sold to my Dad against her will, so she says I can choose…whenever or never."

Grug felt a little swell of panic at the word never. "And what…what would you choose?"

"Someone strong and smart," Ugga had a spark in her eyes as she looked at him…it was clever and knowing, like a snake's eyes. Grug swallowed. Ugga continued. "Someone kind and careful, willing to put up with my Mom…"

"Aww, that doesn't sound too difficult!" Grug interrupted her, thumping his chest far too eagerly. "I get along great with old people! I took care of my Dad until he died."

"You don't know my Mom." Ugga straightened on all fours and turned away sharply, almost dismissively. "And I didn't say I was ready to choose." She began trotting off, away from him.

Grug flailed helplessly after her. Ugga smiled to herself. "Do you have neighbors?" he asked, throwing useless questions after her in a vain attempt to get her to stop. "How's the scavenging around your place?" He tripped over a root of some kind and cursed, still struggling after her.

Finally, as the sky turned a deep blue and the stars began winking and the world seemed to change into a different place…full of moaning, hissing wind and far off cries of strange beasts…then, Ugga let Grug catch up with her. Shoulder to shoulder, staring fearfully into a sea of shadows, they made their way to Ugga's cave just before the last drop of sunlight winked out of the horizon.

Grug did not get along with Ugga's mother. She was NOTHING like Gorg. She was awful.

"Why'd you let THAT follow you home?" She barked…though her bark was like a whine, piercing and yet frail at the same time. Covered in alligator skin, she slithered protectively around the cave and snapped at his arms when he dared to come near. Grug drew back and stared at her little animal eyes. Some of his older brothers were primitive like that…Gorg was like that, until he got old and Grug had to care for him.

Obviously, this woman didn't need anyone to take care of her. Didn't want anyone to. She was twisted and lined and tough, like a desert bush beaten by the wind. Every step she took was rooted to the ground, and every snap of her jaw near his ears felt like it could crush his skull.

Ugga tried to make nice. "Mom, he helped me hunt. I couldn't just leave him in the dark."

"Helped you hunt?" the old woman wheezed, "What did he really do…mess it up and let you save him?"

Grug blushed unhappily. Suddenly she was standing right in front of him, clutching a long white stick of curled brushwood. She sniffed and snarled, showing all her teeth as a deep growl ticked in her weathered, thin throat. "And did you bring anything back? Nothing? Nothing for poor, little, old ME?!"

Grug realized he'd made a terrible mistake.

"SUCH MANNERS!" Suddenly sweet Ugga's horrible mother was beating him, driving him from one end of the cave to another. Some of the blows hit his dusty pelt with a thump and slid off harmlessly. But others landed square on his skull and, yes, even though it was made of rock…it hurt.

He hadn't gotten quite angry enough (or brave enough) to save himself before Ugga snatched the stick and quickly threw it into a strange cleft in the roof. "Mom, that's enough!" She barked. The sound was shocking and scary and echoed through the cave. Grug stared at her, at the way her shoulders hunched aggressively and her teeth gnashed together. Beautiful.

Grumbling, the old lady hissed and curled up in a sulk against the far wall. She gnawed on a handful of pebbles and stared at Grug until he felt like she was shooting venom at him with her eyes.

Ugga gave him a strange look. Half-thoughtful, as if she'd been studying him for weaknesses and found something…different. Something she hadn't expected to see. The other half told him that he was becoming an uncertainty…and uncertainties were dangerous.

But Grug was undeterred. Because her eyes were so bright and her voice was so lovely to hear after so much silence. He cautiously curled up in his own corner and tried not to stare as she curled up in hers.

When the sun came up, Ugga's mother announced the dawn by screaming directly into his ear and then skittered away laughing to herself as he instinctively took a swing at her. It was scarily like being woken up by one of his brothers. The thought made him uncomfortable.

But every other thought fell out of his head like so many pebbles when he saw Ugga, sitting in the mouth of the cave. She was framed by sunlight, and it made her hair look brighter than blood or sandstone or even shining gems. He chuffed softly and went to sit beside her, trying to look casual.

Ugga looked at him and he felt a shock…she seemed to be exhausted. Her entire aura was dull and bitter, as if she were warning him off. Grug tried a weak smile.

Ugga blinked and groaned, pounding her head in frustration. "What do you want here, Grug?" she asked, finally. "Why did you follow me?! Don't tell me you want me as a mate or I'll…I'll feed you to grandma."

As long as neither of the two got their teeth on him, Grug was reasonably confident that he could escape in one piece. So he felt brave enough to grab a handful of earth, loose from the passage of feet in and out of the cave, and damp from the overnight dew. Grinding it finely in his palms, he met Ugga's eyes. "Can I show you something, first?"

Ugga nodded gruffly.

Slowly, stretching out his muscular arms, he spread magic on the cave wall, glinting in the early morning sunlight. "Once upon a time," he murmured, a little shyly. Clearing his throat, he tried again. "Once upon a time, there was a big, gruff, slow bear who left his cave to hunt in the desert for the first time. There, he saw a sabre-cat running across the sand. The bear had never seen such a creature before and didn't even know if it was friendly. But even then, even the first time the bear saw it, he was astonished by how brave and quick and beautiful the sabre-cat was."

Swallowing as he thumbed in the finishing touches on the first set of images, he risked a glance at Ugga. She was enthralled, staring as the wall changed before her eyes into something she could see…and hopefully, something she could understand.

"But the sabre-cat had never seen a bear. Would a bear eat the same food? Would the bear want to fight her? Hurt her? Or would he…could he be a friend? She had to choose…to trust him, or to send him away."

"The sabre-cat wondered. But the bear never wondered. The bear always knew. The sabre-cat was the most beautiful creature he had ever laid eyes on…and he had to at least let her know, before she chose…she had to know that he had chosen her."

Ugga clapped her hands suddenly, slapping them on the floor and jumping up and down in excitement. "You told me something by using wrong words…different words! And you made little shadows that look like the bear and the sabre-cat! And you chose me?"

She lunged forward. Grug had a mini-heart attack that melted into relief and joy when he realized she was brushing her forehead against his, seeking his face with hers. Slowly, waiting every step of the way for her to stop him, he slipped his muscular arms around and pulled her close. She smelled of dirt and rain and her awful mother. She smelled amazing.

Ugga nuzzled him just below the ear, purring happily. Then she whispered, "What do you call that? Telling truths with different words?"

"Oh, that?" Grug couldn't take the credit. The sun was warm on his skin, but not nearly as warm as the feeling of Ugga in his arms. "My mother taught me. It's called a story."

"Well, Grug," she lifted her head off his shoulder and gave him a nip on the nose. "If you promise to tell me a story every day…then I'll choose. I'll choose you."

From somewhere in the shadows, Grandmother gave a howl of despair and disgust.

Grug and Ugga were married. They found a new cave, strategically chosen because it lay in the heart of a small box canyon that larger creatures couldn't access. They brought Ugga's mother along and Grug was often made to remind himself that Ugga was worth that sacrifice.

It only got better when Ugga had their first child. A girl.

Eep was the first new thing Grug ever loved. She had Ugga's red hair, short and wiry and ferocious. She made new sounds neither of them had ever heard before, and learned dangerous ways to almost die that Grug had never considered. She made him wiser and she made him older. And she had eyes that were green, like new leaves.

Grug had brown eyes, Ugga and Grandmother had grey eyes. Sometimes Grug and Ugga would wonder where this new plant-color came from.

"Maybe our eyes got mixed together," Grug suggested one day. He was holding Eep in the air as Ugga plucked worms from the riverbed for dinner. If he put the baby down she'd speed across the banks and scare all the worms into their holes.

"No." Ugga shook her head, pausing her work to scoop up some handfuls of rich dirt. "If you mix brown and you mix grey, you just get…mud." She slapped her hands together to make her point. It spattered from her palms in a mini explosion.

Grug frowned. He didn't know about Eep's eyes…that was unsettling. "What if our next baby has red eyes? Or yellow? Purple?"

Ugga rolled her eyes. "It doesn't really matter, Grug…I'm sure they'll be just fine."

And then Thunk came along. Grug loved him in a special way, perhaps because he needed it more. The boy was born strange. His feet were flat and big and flexible, almost like flippers. He grew heavy in odd places, and he never learned anything half as quickly as Eep did.

Unlike his ferocious sister, Thunk was meek, skittish and easily terrified, as if he knew he couldn't survive out in the world on his own.

But fat and simple and weak as he was, Thunk was alive. And when he first saw Grug bending over him, he laughed, clapped his hands, and reached out for his father's face. Unlike Eep and later Sandy, baby Thunk was never feral. Baby Thunk never wanted anything but to be cuddled and to laugh.

Grug's father might have thrown a baby like Thunk out into the wilderness. His great-great grandfather might have eaten him. But Grug kept Thunk. He held him whenever he was sick or cold, which was often. He was patient, and careful, and always willing to teach the same lesson ten times over just to make it stick.

They adored each other.

It wasn't long before little Eep grew jealous. She began to complain about the baby. "He's…he's new," she snarled, back arched like a cat as she backed away distrustfully from the toddler in Ugga's arms.

Ugga huffed firmly. "We talked about this, Eep. He's not new…he was inside my stomach all this time, remember?"

"No!" Eep replied stubbornly. "Where was he before that?"

Ugga glanced down at Thunk and smiled softly. She couldn't help herself. "In my heart." She looked up again to see Grug pacing impatiently back and forth. "That's how I chose your father…he'd been in my heart too, all along."

Eep barked, sensing her mother was distracted. "But Thunk isn't like Daddy! He isn't like me…he's little and weak and slow. Why do we keep him?"

Ugga reached out and snatched Eep suddenly, without warning. Ignoring her daughter's outraged yips, she folded her tightly into a shared hug with Thunk. "Nuzzle his face," she instructed, in a tone that was rarely disobeyed. Eep did, naturally falling into the role of playful contact. Thunk's chubby, tiny hands hit her in the nose as the baby giggled.

A change came over Eep. Her eyes softened and her mouth twitched into a delighted grin.

"We take care of the weak, and the annoying, and the different cavemen," Ugga said slowly. She tried to sound careful and true, like a Story. "Because they are family. Because they are ours and they belong to us. Never forget, Eep."

A pair of large cavemen entered the canyon's mouth and began to dialogue with Grug. When they were done, Grug turned around and walked back to the cave. His mouth set in a thin line. His hand was latched on Gran's tail as he dragged her back home in disgrace. She snarled and clawed at his arms and screamed obscenities at him. She must have been plundering someone else's food stores again.

Ugga met Grug's eyes and shrugged apologetically. Then she turned back to Eep.

"If you keep them long enough, they may show you something beautiful, something wonderful inside of them."

Eep wrinkled her nose at Thunk, still a bit distrustful. But her ears twitched. She was listening.

Ugga glanced up as Grug let Gran go and jumped back to avoid a swipe of her claws. Grug saw them both and started loping towards them. The stress was falling from him like autumn leaves, and a smile was growing on his face as he saw his two babies interacting.

She would hint to Grug to wrestle with Eep tonight, maybe even let her win. That would cheer her up and give her some much-needed time with her Daddy. Grug plopped himself down next to her and ran his knuckles through Eep's hair lovingly. There was a strange, sweet kind of wonder in his face.

"Sometimes," Ugga said again. Grug realized he'd interrupted a story and met her gaze respectfully, waiting to hear the rest. Ugga smiled. "Sometimes, if you keep them long enough…they'll show you something beautiful inside of you."

FINIS

Author's Notes: Who else is so absolutely chuffed that the Croods might still get a sequel? The movie was stupidly beautiful, thoughtful, and sweet . A real surprise since its about caveman in the midst of a cataclysmic change. Thanks for reading, and please leave reviews! My plot bunnies won't feed themselves and if they get hungry they might...*gulp* TELL MY STORY. :P