Chapter 28

Bron wandered around, pondering. He wasn't going a distinct way but his tracks slowly approached the nesting place of Ali and, moreover, Cho and her mother Yuyun. "Cho..." Bron's thoughts were focused on the event that happened the other day. Cho, the jetblack little one who had been among the hatchlings that he had found when he was roaming the Mysterious Beyond for his now found son, had been severely hurt by his adopted son Shorty. He recalled from the few months he was directly taking care of them prior to their adoption that Cho had always been a sort of underdog even amongst the hatchlings, not to mention Shorty... "Shorty..." he sighed deeply. The grown-up made an attempt to exclude Shorty from his thoughts, at least for the moment - he had more important things to think about. It seemed to work as his mind fixed on the young girl again. "She had always been bullied... sorta," he remembered. "But she was stronger than she looked and undoubtedly tougher than most of the others... strangely..." Cho had indeed been taking much more without whimpering than the others did. They would always cry around for, not seldomly, absolutely ridiculous reasons. Cho, on the other hand, wasn't a girl who complained. She hadn't spoken a single word when hunger and thirst had aggrieved them and tried to do things on her own almost as stubbornly as Shorty. "Though Shorty was proud... and still is...Cho was only shy and undemanding. She only requested help when she really needed some," Bron noted. It was true; Cho always stayed for herself. He never really got to know more about her than that she didn't have any parents, once she got old enough to learn speak. "Amazingly, she learned speaking just as good as the others despite hardly ever using speech at all..." Bron recalled. She had always spoken very articulated and clear, much to his surprise.

"I'm drifting off..." Bron noticed with a slight chuckle. Actually he wanted to ponder about something other than Cho's speech patterns; actually, he wanted to remember some facts about Cho to have a better understanding of Shorty's attack.

"She had always shrugged off Shorty's words..." Bron recalled. "Wait! Did she really ALWAYS shrug them off?" Bron believed to have a memory where the very opposite happened. The tall Longneck rummaged in his brain. "No, she didn't!" Bron had found the memory. It had been long ago but, now that he remembered the memory, the images and the dialogues were engraved into his mind like he had known them forever...

It was a day like any other day in the mysterious lands. Bron had just become the leader of a steadily growing herd a few weeks ago who were roaming through the land they had decided to become their new home - the Lands of Daily Skywater, as they called it for it rained almost every day.

One day - Shorty had meanwhile become sort of his adopted son - the green Longneck had interrupted him while talking to some member of the herd, with a bloody nose.

"What happened Shorty? Why is your nose bleeding?" he asked.

"That weirdo girl tried to kill me!" the young one shouted furiously.

"Who happens to be "the weirdo girl"?" Bron continued, not being able to suppress a grin - he knew exactly how Shorty got his bleeding nose and from whom.

"That jetblack Shadow!" Shorty cried in fury.

"Jetblack longneck hmm... name?" Bron kept asking.

"Pfffft! I guess her name is "Cow" or something like that..." the youngster grunted.

"Ahh, you're talking about "Cho"!" Bron exclaimed, acting very well to hide that he actually knew who Shorty was referring to. "Well, what did she do? Kicked your butt, huh?"

"Yeah, she did, that ugly thing!" Shorty roared.

"Beaten by a girl... what a shame..." Bron mused, snickering at Shorty's face.

"Actually, she didn't kick my butt that badly," Shorty declared defiantly. "I kicked her ugly behind worse!"

"But I don't see her whining around..." Bron teased, as Cho's foster mother walked only a few trees ahead of them. "Actually, I don't see her anywhere... she's usually with Yuyun..." he thought, his eyebrows furrowing.

"Well, I..."

"You didn't hurt her, did you?" Bron raised an eyebrow. "I don't want to start a searching party to find her lying in some bush..."

"I'd never do that!" Shorty shouted.

"You know where she is?" The grown-up's words grew a little stingy.

"Well, no!" Shorty cried. "She ran away like a coward!"

"And you're not gonna run anywhere today!" Bron said strictly, grabbing Shorty with his tail.

"What!?" Shorty whined but his supervisor didn't pay him any further attention.

"Did anybody see Cho?" Bron questioned nearby Longnecks. "Black little one about this size? Noone?"

A few minutes later, Bron had called a break and ordered a search party to find Cho. It wouldn't have been the first time the young one went missing...

A few minutes later:

"Cho, is that you?"

Bron had found the little one sitting on a tree trunk, seemingly sobbing.

"I FOUND HER!" he called loudly to inform the others so that they could cancel the search. He turned his attention back to the young one. "Cho, we were starting to worry... what's wrong? Why are you staying behind?"

Cho's sobs grew in intensity.

"Was it something Shorty said or did?" Bron said calmly, dropping the leader-tone he was using just some moments ago and replacing it with a soft and understanding one. Unknown to the girl, Shorty sat on Bron's tail, ordered to keep his mouth shut.

Cho replied with a nod; Bron could make out a tear that dribbled down her nose. Then she answered. "Are you mad at me?"

"Oh, why should I?" the grown-up mused. "I can tell that, having known you for quite some time now, you wouldn't hurt a bug so Shorty must have said something really awful... Tell me about it, Cho. Please?"

"No." It was only hummed but her words conveyed much more than defiance, anger and sadness. Bron knew he had lost but he still tried to make her see reason.

"See, little one... I only want you to tell me what happened so I can sentence Shorty properly. I won't tolerate him bullying you but it'd be easier if you were more open with me sometimes..."

Cho seemed to ponder about this, her tears still flowing steadily.

"I only want to help you, little one..." Bron explained, almost begging.

Bron couldn't tell whether his request had worked but he COULD tell that Cho was starting to actually cry out. Then she suddenly screamed.

"HE INSULTED MY MOTHER!" The girl had turned around to face the leader of her herd. "My real mother..." she whispered, choking in sobs. Then she returned to her original posture and broke down.

Bron gave Shorty a look that indicated that now was an especially poor moment to make noise. He approached the dark-skinned girl gingerly, having in mind to comfort her but Cho shrugged off his attempts to nurse her defiantly, only crying louder and louder. "Shorty must have reopened an old wound," he thought.

"An old scar..." Bron murmured. He had stopped meandering across green meadows, now facing the very place where the girl crying in his memory had been tortured. "She must have experienced a terrible loss at a very young age..." Bron concluded. "Though it would be remarkable that she was able to memorise a scene that happened in her hatchling days..." Hatchlings usually couldn't remember things that happened prior to them learning how to speak properly, which in Cho's case must've been months after losing her mum - he was assuming that her mum (and possibly her dad) died some way or another.

"What might be reasons for Shorty to hate Cho then?" Bron questioned himself fiercely. It couldn't be greed or jealousy since Cho, like Shorty, was adopted, having experienced terrible things in his young days. Also, Cho had never done anything to offend Shorty's pride in any way, nor did she insult him in any other possible way - as far as he was informed, that was. In truth, she sometimes did fight back when cornered by the green-coloured bully though she'd never start a fight.

"Must be something else..." Bron murmured, beginning to pace in circles. Since he couldn't come up with anything, he decided to continue going through his memory...

"Uhm Cho?" Bron asked carefully. "Would you like me to carry you back to the herd? We need to move on..."

"Leave me alone!" she cried in response.

"Cho... I understand you..." Bron sighed. "But now the whole herd needs to move on and I can't let them have a break for a young one's special needs. Have you not thought about what herd life would be if I accepted every request? Sometimes the wellbeing of the herd is more important than the wellbeing of a single individual. Don't be so self..."

"SHUT UP!" Cho roared, sprinkling tears everywhere. "You don't understand..." she added much much more softly.

"Because you never give people answers when they demand them! Now, I beg you, hop on, little one..."

Cho shook her head, sobbing heavily.

"Would you agree to hop on if I told Shorty to apoligise for what he did and said?" Bron asked, enervated. He didn't fail to notice some bruises on Cho's flank. "Cho!" he warned as she didn't reply.

"I-I will if he doesn't..." she murmured quietly.

Bron raised a brow. "Yes?" he wondered.

"He can't take back what he said..." Cho explained. "And anyway, what does an apology mean if it is forced and not coming from deep inside your heart? What does apologising for apologising's sake mean? Nothing!" The last word, the little girl spat out in disgust. Then she jumped up and hopped on Bron's head, curling up into a tight ball of misery.

"So it's fine..." Bron mumbled absentmindedly; Cho's words made him thoughtful - not only because they were as true as words could be but also because her reasoning indicated a much higher level of intelligence and maturity than her outward appearance, behavior and age suggested...

In the night, he could hear somebody crying oneself into sleep, wailing painfully, and Bron had a good guess who that someone was...