Melinoe
Disclaimer: see previous chapters.
Pleistocene, 30,000 yrs ago
It was spring. Though it was still technically an Ice Age, and would remain an Ice Age for millennia to come, for the moment the winter's icy grip was loose and it was actually quite hot outside.
"What's with all the biting insects?" J.W. grumbled as they all covered their unclothed body parts with ochre.
"Don't you have any of them down south?" Jenny replied wryly, even though she was not too pleased with the ochre herself.
"Yes, but not so soon after winter!"
"This is the Ice Age," Helen said wryly, as she was sharpening her knives instead. "When spring comes here, everyone and everything is in a rush, from the biting flies to the mega-beasts."
"The mega-what?"
"The mammoths, the cave bears, et cetera," Helen sighed.
There was a pause as everyone remembered the cave bear. After killing the Arsinoitherium that came through the time anomaly, the cave bear ate it for several days, eating most of it, before other hunters and scavengers arrived. The wolves and cave hyenas kept away, realizing that the bigger carnivore could take them on, even if they attacked as a pack, but then several other cave bears arrived – apparently, not unlike the modern black and brown bears, the cave bear, though mostly a herbivore, didn't mind a bit of meat in its diet as well, especially if it was already dead...
A bear-on-bear fight ensued, which quickly became more than just about meat. Two of the cave bears wrestled each other like a pair of oversized grizzlies, before one of them decided that enough was enough and fled, pursued by the victor, but not too far, as the latter soon returned to court the smaller female. The latter, however, was not quite ready yet, and made this known in a way that was just as loud as the fight itself was. Needless to say, the humans decided that this was enough bear romance for them and quickly left, moving first to a temporary camp away from the mountainside (and the bears), and then simply moving away to the north, where the open tundra – and potential time anomalies – awaited.
"Are you sure that this is where we should go?" Ryan asked Helen quietly soon after their trek began.
"No," Helen confessed, "but something inside me suggests that this is the right way to go, and, well, this is what I always do – listen to my inner voice when in doubt. So, I am going north. You?"
Ryan hesitated: on one hand he did not really like the idea of following anyone's intuition anywhere; on the other - south was the direction of mountains full of angry and frisky cave bears, so for now the tundra did sound like a good place to be.
"Very well, let's go north," he agreed. "But if it doesn't work out – I reserve the right to tell you so."
"Fine," Helen muttered and agreed.
/
Same place, same time, about 10-11 days later
The trees were gradually giving way to the tundra. There was no snow on the ground, though there was plenty of mud, but as long as people did not remain to close to those patches, it worked.
Well, actually, it was more of a fine balancing act – they could not go far away from the water because they needed it, but they could not remain too close to it either, because other animals needed it too. The cave bears may have remained to the south, in the forests and mountains and caves, but other animals, the grazers, were much more plentiful. There were the giant Irish elk, whose males had lost their trademark antlers and were hungry after an autumn and winter of guarding the females. There were the woolly rhinoceroses, odious and short-tempered and hairy – just like Helen's ex-mother-in-law (according to her).
And there were the woolly mammoths – the great hairy giants of the north. Similar to modern elephants in many ways, they were just as woolly as the rhinoceroses were, but more social at the same time. More playful as well.
"They are very amazing," Jenny commented one night, when the group settled down for their supper. "Very much like the elephants I saw once in a circus."
"Perhaps, but just try to remember that this isn't a circus," Helen said wryly, as she and the others pulled out their musical instruments for another impromptu musical session. "There is no ringmaster here and this place is much...more...dangerous..." The last words were said in a different tone as Helen looked at a point behind Jenny and Ryan – and not at the mammoths. "Bloody Hell! What is she doing here?" She got up and walked away from the campfire.
Naturally, the others looked in that direction, and there, standing small behind the herds of woolly mammoths and local prehistoric bison was another person.
"Hey, does that mean that we're saved?" Joey said eagerly: so far the closest they came to a coherent plan was to go through one of the time anomalies that led to the Cretaceous, and from there try their luck with the other time anomalies.
"I don't know," Ryan replied thoughtfully: during the Ice Age spring and summer, evenings and nights were relatively short and well illuminated, and right now, even in the relatively shaky light, he could see that there was something off about the newcomer, especially around their face, but he could not put his finger on exactly what. "Let's wait and see how Helen handles it instead."
And surprisingly – or not, because the newcomer's wrongness was subconsciously evident to everyone – they waited.
/
"Melinoe," Helen greeted the newcomer even as the two of them sat down for a quite, private chat. "What are you doing here?"
"You should ask!" the newcomer was definitely a woman herself, though it was hard to tell with her black-and-white, checked makeup on her face...or maybe it was not makeup at all. "You have something of mine!"
"What?" Helen instinctively asked, before wincing. "The children, right?"
"Yes! Exactly! I had plans for them and for their kin, but what I got now is another civil war in Boeotia – boring! I need them back, Helen, and at the right time too." She paused and added: "Plus, you could probably live without a discovery of Bronze Age Greek hoplites in a late Eocene fossil deposit either."
"The Eocene?" Helen said in a voice that was not too happy, actually.
"Or early Oligocene – I don't really know, this is your thing, Helen. Now, about the children-"
"Are they going to survive?" Helen asked flatly.
"Well...maybe one of them," Melinoe admitted, slightly reluctantly. "Probably the boy. Does it change anything?"
"Probably not," Helen agreed. "Can't we come to a different arrangement? Maybe we can clone them – I mean real clones, not the chronological ones that I usually use."
"You would risk it?" Melinoe sounded surprised for the first time since their discussion.
"Yes, I suppose I shall," Helen nodded. "So?"
"So, all right, this will be interesting to see," Melinoe nodded, getting back onto her feet. "Helen Cutter, you got yourself a deal."
"Here's the passkey," Helen pulled out a small passkey in question. "Enjoy. But don't overdo it."
"You're too kind," Melinoe smiled, and it was not a particularly human smile. "But I'll remember this." She turned around and vanished in the dispersing twilight of an early northern summer. "See you... in time..." And she was gone.
/
"What was that all about? Who was that?" the questions came to Helen from left and right, but she was even quieter than her usual self was – and then, soon after the sun came fully out, they saw a time anomaly that caused the questions to end, at least for a while...
End of Melinoe