Chapter 21:
About half an hour after she had left, Naysun was in a big hurry, even for a meerkat. For one thing she and Hafiz were already late retrieving the water because they had found Shani. And she had left her brother Nuru, who has a strong dislike of rogues, to watch over her while she and Hafiz collected the water. She wanted to be sure he had kept his word and is now taking care of her. After depositing the water next to a row of water-filled coconut shell halves Naysun made a beeline for the deeper part of the tunnel where she left Shani and Nuru alone. She hurried as best she could without raising suspicion, and finally made it to the chamber. "Nuru?" Nuru was sitting next to the empty nest with his arms folded in front of his chest and his head bowed. His staff was laying by his side as he softly snored. Naysun gasped at seeing that the nest was now empty and rushed over to it, making sure her eyes weren't playing tricks. She furrowed her brow, turned her eyes to her brother, and stomped on his tail.
"YAH-HAH!" Nuru yelped at the pain in his tail and tried pulling it away from the foot that pinned him. But Naysun kept her foot and the tail where they were. "What'd I do?" he growled as he looked up at Naysun.
"Where is she, Nuru?" As she asked she pressed her foot harder on Nuru's tail, making him grit his teeth and wince. "WHERE IS SHE?"
"What are you talking about?" He turned his head to the nest and sniffed several times, trying to ignore the pain. "She must've wondered off while I fell asleep! You can't blame me for her wanting to leave."
Naysun arched a brow as she looked down at the dirt. There were three sets of footprints on the ground, each of them were different sizes. One set belonged to herself and they were the smallest among the three. The next set belonged to Hafiz, whose feet were much larger than hers. The last set had a distinct walking pattern, as if walking with a limp, and had an additional marking next to them, made by a staff. These were Nuru's footprints. But she did not see any new tracks at all around the nest... apart from Nuru's on the side of the nest. She slowly lifted her foot from his tail, relieving him of the pain. She decided to hurt his ears with a lecture instead. "What did you do with her, Nuru?"
Nuru rubbed the spot on his tail where Naysun was stepping on and looked up at her. "I didn't do anything; I was asleep." He yawned for good measure.
"In the middle of the morning?"
"You've never heard of a nap before?"
"I know you, Nuru! You wouldn't be able to sleep when there's a rogue in the same room! And there aren't any other footprints besides yours, mine, and Hafiz's! Now where did you take her?"
"What do you care--?" Nuru grunted when Naysun dropped down and grabbed him by the front of his chest.
"I care more than you think, and you have no idea of what you've just done! Where did you take her? To a jackal's den? The foot of an eagle's nest? If she's on anyone's menu because of you and your stupid fear of rogues, I swear I'll--!"
Nuru's eyes widened behind his bangs, and then his face scrunched into a growl. "Hey, first of all, don't confuse me with the new bosses!" Nuru spat, slapping Naysun's paws from his chest. Naysun gasped at the sudden snap and took a step away from him. Nuru only coolly dusted his chest, but his voice said otherwise. "I'm not cruel like they are! I would never go out of my way to kill someone without cause!"
"And her being a rogue isn't--?"
"Hey. You said so yourself, that you'll shoo her off after you're done with her. If she does act like a rogue and try to get into the colony, it'll be a different story." While still looking at Naysun Nuru pawed the ground for his staff, which he found and used it to stand. He walked over to the doorway of the chamber, stuck his head out, and sniffed several times in both directions. After that he turned back to his sister. "Second of all, fear and hatred are two different things. The only things I am afraid of are the predators that hunt us down. My fear was renewed that day." He tapped the tip of his staff on a round-shaped scar on his right ankle. Naysun grimaced slightly, remembering where he received that scar. "Anyway, what do you want with the rogue anyway? What could you possibly want from her?"
Naysun shook her head, still upset about what Nuru had done. But she decided if he knew more about her he may have understood better, if he knew who the rogue looked like. "You have no idea who she might have been."
"Might have been?" Nuru arched a brow, unseen through his thick bangs. He blinked when Naysun came over to him and leaned into his ear.
"I think she's the daughter of Great Timon. She looks like his mate and Sly's old girlfriend Zuri." Nuru's eyes widened again and he gasped. He nearly stumbled, but caught himself on the staff. Naysun helped him upright and dusted his fur. "If she's not related to him, but still a part of his colony, or was a part of his colony, maybe he can help our colony again. I have to try, Nuru... for the colony and our sister's sake..." Nuru softly exhaled, suddenly feeling extremely guilty for trying to lie to Naysun about the rogue. "So please... what did you do with her?"
"... It's too dangerous to keep a female rogue here if you want to keep her alive for whatever reason, especially with the new bosses around. So I moved her to a safer place nearby where she can rest and you can talk to her whenever."
Naysun sighed in relief, feeling a great weight lifted from her chest. "Thank the Circle of Life... but I'll have to go when I'm off digging duty so they won't wonder about me. So where did you put her?"
"In the galago's tree... I just hope she doesn't mind the company..." Naysun's small, relieved smile soon turned into a tired, worrysome frown. She let out a small groan, to which Nuru helplessly shrugged. "I know, but it was the best I could think of at the time. She'll be fine... as long as she can tolerate Komba's urge to speak her mind..."
Elsewhere...
Shani felt cold, hard water beating against her body. Her fingers were dug into the dimples of the rock as she desperately tried to climb onto it, but it was too slippery. Barika was safe on the shore, but frantically worried about how she would save her. Finally Shani lost her grip and the rushing water carried her along the river, trying desperately to keep her head under. Shani fought back and managed to capture precious breaths of air, hearing Barika crying out to her briefly.
"Waterfall ahead!"
There was nothing she could do as she went over the cliff that seemed to be fifty miles high. As she fell she reached out to grab an out-hanging branch... only to miss it at the last possible second. "Rika, help me, please!" She opened her eyes and saw the warthog falling right past her and into the mist below. "BA-RI-KA!" There was no reply, nor was there time to hear one. Shani only cried as she watched the bottom of the river getting closer, with hundreds of hungry crocodiles waiting with their mouths wide open. Shani clamped her eyes shut as she was in the direct path of one croc's mouth and--
Shani woke up in a cold sweat, panting frantically as she sat up. Her eyes were wide and her pupils were small, scared stiff from the nightmare of the last thing she remembered. She took a moment to regain herself and took a look at her surroundings. She was inside of a hollowed tree trunk, about four feet around and a knothole just above her head. Of course she wondered how she got there, but her head was spinning and she could barely think. So she decided to lay back down with a paw over her eyes... and then she paused. She was leaning against something small, furry, and warm. Without looking back Shani took her free paw and felt the thing she was leaning against. And it was meaty and breathing.
"Mmm... a little more to the left..." a sleepy voice sounded from the object. Shani gasped and sprung to her feet, only to fall back onto her tail when her head began to spin again. "Hmm?" The object stirred, uncurling itself and stretched out, yawning. It shook its head and unfolded its large, bat-like ears from against its head. It was quite small, smaller than Shani, in fact. But its tail was much longer than its body by a few inches. It turned its head and opened its large, round amber eyes to the visitor. "Where did you come from?" it asked in a high-pitched female's voice.
"From the oasis," Shani replied matter-of-factly. The creature looked just as confused as ever from the reply, but Shani paid no attention to her as she began to talk to herself. "But I don't remember much after I saw--" She paused, her eyes filling with tears. Whimpering she pulled her legs to her chest and started to sob. "Barika... I'm so sorry... Why am I still alive after what happened?" She rested her forehead on her knees and shook her head. "I shouldn't be..."
The creature tilted her head to the side, and then rapidly scratched her ear with a foot. "Whatever the reason you're alive and here, I'm not sure what to think of you. If you don't even know how you got here, maybe I should board up the knothole during the day so I can get to sleep." She spoke quite rapidly, almost as rapid as her scratching. Shani lifted her head from her knees and wiped her eyes, unsure of the exact words the creature was speaking.
"Now, wait a minute... I had a dream that someone found me and told me that they were going to take care of me... she had eyes that looked like the sky..." She looked to the creature, who was yawning and smacking her lips. "That wasn't you, was it?"
"I've never seen the sky, but I don't think it's amber. Well, actually, I have seen the sky several times. I mean, sometimes it's clear and you can see the bright dots and that big moon, or sometimes it's really cloudy, or sometimes it's a mix of both. But I never look at the sky when the sun's out 'cuz normally I'm asleep from when the sun rises to when the sun sets. That's just how we galagos are, we're nocturnal and we sleep all day," the creature ranted, rubbing her eyes.
"Gala-what?" Shani wrinkled her nose and blinked several times. She's never heard of such a word, nor as she ever seen a creature like her, let alone such a chatty creature.
"Gal-a-go. You know, bush babies. Though I don't understand why they call us bush babies, since we're only babies for a certain amount of time and then we're adults for the rest of our lives. Well, there's always exceptions, I mean a baby bush baby could die or be eaten. That happens out here, so it's hard to say, but we're not all babies." She stretched out and yawned again. "Oh, it's way too late to be awake..."
"... Bushes have babies out here?" Shani blinked, that being the only thing she heard from the galago's chatter. She shook her head to clear it and muttered to herself, "I'm too hungry to understand anything right now..." With that she started to pat at her throat... and paused. She patted several times before she looked down and sighed. "Oh, great... I dropped my bag of bugs somewhere." She turned back to the galago and smiled politely. "Uh, excuse me, Miss... uh, Miss...?"
The galago was straightening up her nest when the meerkat grabbed her attention back. "Mm? Are you talking to me? Oh, my name isn't 'Miss.' Really, I don't think I've ever met a 'Miss' before. Well, there's plenty of folk who go by 'Miss' Something-Or-Other, but no one I've ever heard actually named 'Miss.' Well, there may have been a 'Missy' among the hornbills, but other than that, nope!" Shani's mouth only hung open, trying to get a word in, but she found herself cut off at every opportunity. She felt her headache restoring. "But for future references, my name is Komba, which isn't the most original name in the world, but then again my parents weren't so--"
"Fine! Miss Komba! Great! Would you mind if I ate off your tree? I'm starved!" Shani finally interrupted, and actually got the word in.
"Why would you want to eat off my tree? The bark tastes terrible, but I guess that's just me. I mean, different animals have different sense of tastes, so do members of the same species for that matter. For example, I like dragonflies and beetles with bright colored exoskeletons, but my brother likes fireflies and spotted beetles. So, like I said, it's an acquired taste. Well, I didn't say it's an acquired taste, but I guess I should say it's a matter of a person's sense of taste." She paused a moment and blinked at Shani. "I thought meerkats liked bugs, not bark. Are you that hungry?"
"Yes. I mean, no! I mean, I am hungry and I'd like to eat the bugs that are under the tree bark. I'd just want to make sure it's OK if I did, and I promise I won't clean you completely out." Shani was getting confused from the chatty galago, and she couldn't take much more of it.
Komba blinked, and then nodded. "Oh-oh, yeah, sure, go ahead. My tree is your tree. Well, I'm not asking you to live here, I mean, if you're going to spend the day here and take up all my sleep time it's just going to throw off my whole schedule. What I mean is go ahead and stuff your face. Well, not stuff-stuff your face, I mean--"
"Thank you!" Finally allowed some quiet time and something to eat Shani climbed out of the knothole of the hollow tree, gulping as she looked down the length of the tree. The tree itself was over fifteen feet high, and the knothole was about halfway. Thankfully there was a fat branch just above her head for her to climb onto and eat. She climbed out of the tree and climbed up to that branch, sitting down next to the trunk. She licked her lips as she pulled a large piece of bark from the tree... and blinked. While there was a fair amount of insects lying underneath, it was a comparably small amount when measured up to the oasis. Shani leaned down towards the knothole and called, "Hey! Miss Komba!"
Komba sleepily stuck her head out of the knothole and blinked several times at the bright light. "Ohhh, that hurts my eyes... what's the matter?"
While she was mildly surprised that Komba had very little to say Shani decided to take this as a blessing and continued. "You didn't refill your cupboards! They're nearly picked clean, and I could eat more than what's here!" Nonetheless she dusted the bugs onto the piece of bark and started to inhale them.
"Well, I normally don't eat my bugs right off the tree, not that I hadn't tried, but it's a galago's--erm, bush baby's--instinct to snatch the bugs right out of the air instead of picking them off somewhere. So I never touch the 'cupboards,'" Komba explained, scratching her ear with her paw rapidly.
Shani grimaced slightly, having finished the insects she had gathered already, and she was still quite hungry. But she straightened up, confident she could continue and tossed the piece of bark down to the ground. "Well, that's all right. Meerkats have instincts to dig for their food, so I don't have to worry about cupboards either." She stood and stretched, a little sore from the waterfall incident. "Ohhh, that's sore." With a small yawn she turned back to Komba. "Say, you wouldn't happen to know if there's a mob nearby, would you?"
Komba was nearly half-asleep, but snapped awake when she heard Shani speaking to her. "Mm? A mob? I don't remember there being any ties to the Mafia, but then again I could be wrong and I hardly ever listen to the news, but--"
"No-no-no," Shani sighed with a paw over her eyes. "I mean, are there any meerkat colonies nearby? Mob is one of the names for a group of meerkats."
Komba suddenly smiled, understanding. "Oh, a colony of meerkats! OK, I get ya... nope, not a clue." Shani sighed and whined at that bit of news, but suddenly perked up when Komba suddenly spoke. "However... there is this one meerkat I know... his name is Nuru. He walks with a limp from an injury he got last year from something or other, but anyway, because of that limp he wouldn't be able to walk long distances, so you have to figure he must live around here somewhere. I don't know which direction he comes from, but if that helps at all--"
Shani smiled as she climbed down the tree to meet her at the knothole and shook her paw. "Thank you, that's all I need to know! I just have to look around and find this Nuru and his colony and I'm as good as being a real meerkat!"
"You're not a real meerkat? You sure look like one to me... well, not that I've seen that many meerkats in my time, and certainly not a lot of females, but--"
"Good-bye, Ms. Komba! Thanks again!" With that Shani climbed down the rest of the tree and took off to the north, leaving a tired and bewildered galago alone.
"Huh... chatty little thing, wasn't she?" With a small smile she shook her head and climbed back into her knothole in the hollowed tree to return to sleep.
To be continued...