Chapter 21: I Am Not a God

"To change the future is no simple matter, Merlin. To do so is fraught with danger."

Kilgharrah says this to young Merlin in the television show Merlin

We learn more about the "wizard" Merlin and also a little fluffy romance starts for the being called Waah-i-ald.

The Future

With a heavy sigh, Merlin waved aside the holographic projected image of the ocean. He was troubled, because no matter what era he looked into, he still did not find this legendary island in the middle of the Great Sea where the bison, bears, gray foxes and others lived. Wiping his hoof across his eyes, he rubbed his horn in frustration as he absentmindedly picked up an old book. It one of his most prized historical possessions because it was also an enigma of time. The history book was supposedly published in the Burrows long after the cataclysmic war that destroyed much of world's civilizations, including the great city of Zootopia.

Stepping to the window, he looked at the university students below and then the gleaming city beyond. The glorious city of Zootopia was still there reaching out for the future and still calling itself a place where "Anyone can be anything." He glanced down at the book he held in his paw, a history book about a war which never happened. "You wanted to see me professor?" a voice called from his doorway. A young adult warthog boar stood there in a white lab coat.

"The drone we sent to get the other pocket watch, has it returned?"

"No sir, it's been chasing false echoes again."

The boar wore a badge around his neck, a simple biometric ID card with his name and an insignia with Zodiac symbols along with the name Project Chronos printed on it. Chronos or Father Time was the mythological god of time, representing sequential time or the past in the future. "Any idea what is causing these false echoes?" the old goat asked, but he already had an idea of what might be happening.

"We think they are being caused by it again."

"Didn't someone start calling it Aion? That seems appropriate, after all Aion was the old Legionnaire god of unbounded time."

"Yes sir, but we can't get a fix on where he, I mean it is, or even what he or she might be."

"Keep trying, I am going to take a nice hot shower and then after a cup of tea, I am going to bed. Please have someone wake me when that damn drone finally returns."

The student nodded and began to leave.

"Oh, Daniel!" the professor called out. "Have someone set out some defensive gadgets. I have an appointment back in Arthurian time with a witch named Mim in a few days."

"THE Mad Madam Mim!" Daniel gushed out in excitement. "I remember Merlin having a magical duel with her in that cartoon, you know the one about Arthur drawing Excalibur from the stone! She changed into different animals and you, I mean the cartoon Merlin, did too. I'd love to see that duel!"

"Daniel, there is no such thing as magic and it won't happen that way."

"Sorry sir, I got carried away." The boar apologized as he exited the room and the door swished closed.

"Magic duel…ha!"

Setting the book down, he shook off his cloak of black raven feathers before he sat down at his desk again. Time travel wasn't an exact science and it had taken years for them to unlock the secrets or at least learn how to manipulate the powers of the broken watch. Project Chronos had been developed to ensure that history evolved the way they thought it should happen. The problem was that this being or entity, he now decided to call Aion, seemed to be changing things in history too.

489

The sixteen year old in the blue jeans and black vintage rock band tee shirt stood upon a dirt trail and watched the peaceful village slumber below. He loved these villagers, the foxes and the coyotes that now slept in their huts. For several past generations and even more generations yet to come, he had and knew that he would watch over them. Whenever they seemed in danger, he would tweak some event to change the past in order to protect them in the future. With a soft sigh, he leaned against the tree next to him, as he allowed the sensations of both dizziness and fatigue from his recent time jump begin pass. Time jumping always took a lot out of him physically and after he did so, he always needed time to recuperate.

There was the intentional snapping of a twig behind him and he smiled as he sniffed at who had snuck on him. "Greetings elder!" he whispered to the aged coyote who stood there wrapped in a blanket and stared at him in awe.

"You have come!" was all the coyote could bark out. He began to knee before his god.

"Please don't," the young long eared, big footed fox looking creature said as he put his paw out to assist the coyote to stand again. "I am not a god."

"But, you are Waah-i-ald!"

"Yes, in am Wilde, but I am not a god. Actually, I'm not sure what I am."

"We have done as you commanded us to do so many generations ago."

"I know, because I am standing here in front of you even now. Thank you for doing that for me."

"How did your mother and father…I mean, your mother was showing with child the next morning after their marriage, was that a god's blessing?"

"Just a play in time, something a certain watch seems to have a say about. That one night of bliss here, was really weeks of romance for them both."

"I do not understand, what is a watch?"

"Sometimes I do not understand these things myself. I just know that my father told me, or will tell me, that it was one of his favorite times with my mother. It was an opportunity for the two of them to be alone in a primitive paradise."

"Have you come with another command?"

"Actually…I'm finding this embarrassing, but I was wondering if I could just hang out around here for a while? I'm actually kind of lonely and very tired right now."

"What does hang out mean?"

"Stay here for a few days or weeks."

"We would be honored to serve you."

"No, I will help out like everyone else. Besides, in a couple of days the shad will be running off the coast and you will need some help with the catch."

"How do you know that? Did you talk to the god of the sea?"

"I am after all Wilde." The fox with long ears and big feet laughed with a shrug of his shoulders. "I just know these things and no, I did not talk to a sea god."

The elderly coyote looked at him and then towards the moon. After a few moments, Waah-i-ald sighed and his ears fell flat. "Ah chief, is there someplace I can sleep?"

Waah-i-ald was happy in the days which followed. Once he got everyone to stop treating him like he was a holy object, he worked preparing the nets with the rest of the villagers. It was early in the morning and he had stripped down to his boxer shorts to join the others in the surf as they prepared to pull at yet another net full of silvery fish.

"What are those?" a coyote named Kanuna asked. Several of males who were about his same age, had gathered around him. He slapped at their paws as they tried to feel his boxer short's texture.

"That is my underwear, leave them alone!"

"Why do the gods wear those undeewares?" another one of the coyotes asked. "Seems to me that they will get wet, why not just go naked into the sea like the rest of us?"

"Because…" he began to answer. Then he hesitated when he realized that if he told them that being naked was wrong, it would change their entire way of life. Instead, with a heavy sigh he peeled off his boxer shorts and put them on the beach next to his jeans. "Never mind, you are right."

"You are blushing," one of the other foxes chuckled. "Why are you blushing?"

"I'm not used to being without clothes in public."

"Why not, do you want a loin cloth?" a feminine voice asked. The fox rabbit literally jumped in surprise when he heard her. Snatching his tail, he awkwardly held it to cover himself. She was about his age and one of the prettiest vixens he had ever seen. His nose twitched as he looked at her, she had reddish orange fur and the cutest green eyes. He was both relived, and also somewhat disappointed, that she wore a blanket type poncho made from the spun inner bark of the red mulberry tree to protect her from the sea wind.

"Turn around!" he commanded her, a just little too harshly and she was confused momentarily until she looked back and saw he had on those strange things around his waist again.

"Did I offend you somehow?"

"No, it's just a… ah…me thing."

"You mean a god thing?"

"No, I am not a god," he softly sighed. "I'm just shy about certain things."

"Oh, then I will go and leave you to your work."

Waah-i-ald watched her head back towards the smoky fires. She was slowly wagging her tail behind her as she walked, which drew his attention. "Ah, Nockotia! She is most attractive for a fox," Kanuna said as he too watched her walk away.

"Does she have a boyfriend?"

"Not currently, are you interested? Do you want me to formally introduce you to her parents?"

"Why would you do that?"

"Because that is proper and since both your father and mother are not here, you will need someone to do that for you. Even a god should do things proper."

"Okay, I guess I'd like that and I'm not a god."

"Does the word okay mean yes?

"Yes it does."

"When you meet her parents, ask them if you can eat your evening meal with her."

"Why?"

"Because that will mean that you are interested in their daughter."

Nockotia had watched the god with awe as he worked the lines with the other males. He looked so much like a fox but had oversized feet and those long ears, which was not surprising to her since she knew that his father was a fox tod and his mother was a rabbit doe. She found him oddly attractive and thought he was a combination of being very cute and handsome. When he was bare chested, she saw that he was lean and not quite as muscular as the other tods that were his age. The one thing which seemed to mesmerize her the most was his eyes, because they were the color of the spring violets. She knew that his mother had the same colored eyes.

Before they had come down to the sea, the chief had called her grandfather and the other village elders together for a council and told them that their god was going to live among them for a few days. He had told them that Waah-i-ald denied he was divine and wanted to be treated as any other fox. The elders agreed to humor their god and treat him as he requested. He had lived peacefully among them before, although the legends handed down from their forefathers seemed to say he was older.

It was late afternoon and the god who said he was not a god, now had those strange blue things covering his legs to his waist as he played tchung-kee with the other boys. A disc-shaped stone was rolled before them and they threw their long stripped painted spear like sticks towards the disc, trying to land it the closest to where stone finally stopped. She giggled as she watched him throw his stick, because he wasn't that good at the game. He tried his best and was laughing with the others just like he was one of them and not divine.

Waah-i-ald had earlier asked her father if he could join her for the evening's meal and her father of course relented. After the long eared fox rabbit left, her father warned her that although he claimed otherwise, Waah-i-ald still had to be a god. "Do what he says," his father warned her. "No matter what he tells you, don't forget he can curse us all if he doesn't get his way!"

"But father, what if he wants to…you know?"

"I said no matter what he tells you to do girl! If he becomes angry, he might destroy us all."

With trepidation she waited for him by the fire and he came from the river, having washed himself clean in the fresh water. He still had those strange blue things over his legs and had also pulled a tight fitting black thing over his chest. She wore her poncho and also now her favorite shell necklace. Her fear began to dissolve when he smiled at her and she giggled as he offered her a bunch of flowers for some reason. "Am I supposed to eat these?" she meekly asked.

"Not unless you are a rabbit like my mother," he chuckled. "They are a bouquet of flowers. I was told by someone that you should always give your date flowers."

She looked at him in confusion, because the words he spoke were not in the fox tongue. He at first blinked in confusion himself, before he finally realized what he had just done and then repeated what he just said in a language she understood. "Was that the language of the gods?" she asked. "What you spoke to me before."

"No, it was a language spoke elsewhere. I am sorry that I forgot that you do not speak it here."

Looking around, she found a place to set down the flowers in front of the plank where they would eat their dinner. He noticed her nervousness and smiled again. "I only wanted to have the evening meal with you and just talk, nothing more." Then he took her paw and lifted it to his cheek, she felt the softness of his fur. "See, I really am not a god and I wish everyone would believe me. I would not or could not hurt you and your family." She smiled at him and reached up to touch his long ears.

She giggled as he closed his eyes and sighed. "They are a bit sensitive to the touch," he said. "That must be the rabbit side of me."

"We don't know any of these rabbits. I was told that your mother was the first we have seen in many generations."

"That's too bad, because I understand that they make great farmers."

Slowly reaching out, she pinched the clothing he wore over his chest fur. "What is this?" she asked as she felt it.

"It's called a shirt."

"What does it do?"

"It covers my chest."

"I can see that," she giggled. He squirmed some as her paw traced the design on the shirt. "Why do you wear it? Is it because of this painting of a bloody skull?"

He grimaced, because he had forgotten he was wearing his Black Sable shirt and it had a dark red skull with dripping blood printed on it, along with the band's album title of The End. "It's not very attractive is it?" he groaned.

"Do the gods hunt ferrets?" she asked as she pointed at the skull.

"I am not a god and no, they don't." He yanked up his shirt and pulled it off, tossing it in a ball onto the ground. "That was a dumb thing to wear tonight."

She put her paw on his cream colored chest and felt its softness. "You look much nicer this way, none of the other males wear a shi..shit.."

"Shirt," he finished her sentence.

She nodded as she first picked up the shirt and sniffed it, before she took his paw as she led him to their places next to the plank. They spent the evening talking and he asked her things about herself. As he spoke to Nockotia, her father began to relax. If Waah-i-ald was an all knowing god, he sure didn't know anything about his daughter and he seemed harmless enough.

When the meal was over, they walked along the seashore and he told her about the stars, he explained to her that they were not grains of cornmeal left by the hungry wolf that ran through the heavens. They laughed as they compared their different names for the many constellations in the heavens above. After a while, he bid her good night and she returned to her pallet among her family and he went to his own pallet near the fire were the unmarried males slept.

Just as Nockotia began to fall asleep, the vixen suddenly remembered the wadded up ball of cloth, Waah-i-ald's shirt, and that it was still laying on the dirt near the board where they had eaten their evening meal. She pushed back her sea grass blanket and walked over to pick it up. Holding it, she looked over in the distance and saw that he was already asleep. Deciding that she didn't want to awaken him, she carried it back to her pallet and put it on the ground near where she laid back down. After staring at it for a few moments, she reached over and felt the shirt again and wondered what it would feel like on her? Tentatively, she pulled it over her head and after a few attempts finally popped her arms through the smaller holes and her head out of the larger one. It had his masculine scent and felt good, almost like he was embracing her. Lying back down on her pallet, she stared up at the stars above and fondly remembered their evening. Finally, she nodded off while still wearing his shirt.

It had been a good night for them both.

Tchung-kee, Chunkey, or the Hoop and Spear Game is a Native American game played by many tribes and nations. It is a game of skill which is played by rolling stone or clay disc across the ground while others throw spears or sticks at them in an attempt to land the spear as close as possible to the stopped stone. The Cherokees scored their game in terms of how close the stone was to certain marks on the throwing stick.

The stars being grains of cornmeal is inspired from the Cherokee tale of how the Milky Way was created by a Spirit Dog.

Kanuna is a Cherokee name, it means Bullfrog.