Something was being hunted this day.
The being ran among the tree trunks, scampering over the roots and nearly tripping at times, breathing hard through the nose, small hands grasping at earth and vegetation to fuel its flight, branches slapping against its skin and face as it nearly whimpered, hearing the crash of its chaser behind it. Its flight was futile, as its pursuer was almost upon it, stronger, swifter, and inescapable.
He shrieked as his pursuer caught him up, tumbling with him through the foliage, growling and snarling and baring her teeth.
The shrieks turned to laughter as the pursuer promptly tickled him.
"Slow boy!" Tarzan laughed into her son's face as he tried to squirm away from her poking, switching between gorilla and human as she spoke, both of them giggling like mad as leaves and dirt stuck to them in their wrestling, "Slow boy, slow boy, you are eaten! Groawr!"
"No!" little Sam shrieked in a laugh, tugging on a lock of his mother's hair, protesting as only a six-year-old could, "No, no! I'm not food!"
Their crazy tussling slowly settled as they both ran out of breath, scrambling turning to simple holding while they rested.
"Not food." he repeated after a moment, now feeling a bit grumpy that he still couldn't outrun Mama.
Tarzan chuckled, letting the boy climb clumsily to her shoulders, where he began to pick debris from her hair, "But Sam is sweet!" she told him, an endearment she'd learned from Porter-Mum. He wasn't really sweet-tasting, but Tarzan knew it was a love-joke. So she liked saying it.
"Not food, Mama." he stated stubbornly as he settled down, and she laughed, "It's food time anyway, isn't it?"
He nodded and held on to her with his little legs, heels digging into just above her collarbone as his tiny hands gripped near her forehead, and she began to climb, and he automatically leaned in to avoid knocking himself on branches.
Tarzan paused, and shook her head, nearly jostling her son.
"Not good." she told him, and carefully moved him down so he could be piggybacked.
He obeyed quietly, and she moved on, and Sam watched their surrounds go by as they went Nest-Home.
. . .
"Hello, Sam!" James said, and let Sam climb into his lap. Sam was typically quieter around James, and that might've been because Tarzan was, as well. Sam liked to watch James draw, especially when he drew pictures of family. Sometimes James would have spare paper and charcoals with colors and let Sam make his own pictures, a few of which were pinned around the walls.
Some, however, while James had said they were nice, had to tell Sam they were Too Special To Be Seen, or sometimes, Not Good For Company. Sam didn't have much trouble accepting this, and James wanted to preserve his son's open mind until he was old enough to be Educated. Those Special Pictures were typically the ones where Tarzan hunted or 'got comfortable'. Those ones tended to use a lot of red and brown, respectively.
Later, though, when Sam was asleep, James would sometimes indulge in his own epicurean version of the Special Pictures, with Tarzan's input.
Hopefully, Sam would never understand James' reservations until he was older.
. . .
Dinner was a baked mango dish with pork that the family liked, and though Sam ate what he was told to, he quietly tried to avoid the fruit and its stickiness. Mama was much less messy than Papa said she'd been, but she still liked using her hands over the forks and knives. Sweet, hot, syrupy mango juice coated her fingertips, which she politely and quickly licked when it seemed decent to.
Sam wasn't allowed to use his hands much at Nest-Home, unless it was Grandmama and Mama's eating time out in the Jungle-Place.
He didn't like getting sticky, anyway. So he ate a bit like Papa and Grandmum did, except he had a special spork instead of a knife and fork.
He scooped up a chunk of pork with it, chewing carefully. Then something hurt in his mouth.
He blinked, and jawed careful—hurt! Something was loose in his mouth, hurting his tongue and feeling weird.
He poked it with his tongue, frowning a little.
Then he decided to bite down, hard.
Nnnrk! CRACK.
He blinked slowly, carefully, and did his best to not cry or show he wanted to cry as his mouth hurt and quickly tasted like blood.
Grandmum was looking at him, though, so he made it look like he was chewing, feeling that broken, hard thing move around his mouth like that one time he'd accidentally eaten a bone, and it felt weird... He worked at it again, and shivered.
He had to spit it out now.
"Facil'ties!" he announced quickly, dashing out of his chair to another room, holding his hand to his mouth.
When he was sure they wouldn't find him, he carefully spat into his hand.
He made a face at the gross, bloody spit and not-so-chewed pork and that little white thing.
He frowned, peering at it as he tossed the partly chewed food out a window, wiping his hand on his pants cloth.
He blinked, and, cautiously horrified, worked his tongue around again in his mouth.
Gone, leaving nothing but an empty spot and the taste and gicky-warm feel of blood and gum.
He panicked, looking at this little bit of himself that he broke.
He broke his mouth!
Then he felt someone behind him.
"Sam is okay?" Mama asked.
He turned around quickly—Mama was too quiet—wide-eyed and seeing her stare at him with Mama's thinking look.
She blinked, "You're bleeding." she told him worriedly, wiping a finger under his lip and he saw his bloody spit he'd spat out, and she was looking down at his hand, and the little tooth that showed that he broke it.
He broke his mouth, and that was a Bad Thing.
Sam couldn't help it when he sniffed, feeling his eyes start to sting and his mouth hurt and he didn't know how to fix it.
"I-I-I'm SOOOORRYYYYYYY—!" he cried, and through his tears, Mama didn't look mad, but looked very, very confused.
. . .
Later, when they'd managed to calm Sam down enough they told him about baby teeth. Tarzan even told him how she'd spat teeth out a lot when she was little, and how he grew his in when he was littler, and that he'd get new, big teeth.
Sam looked down at his lost tooth and understood he was Growing Up.
Tarzan had a moment of learning something new, when James told her about the Tooth Fairy job and how cherished losing teeth was.
Tarzan thought it was strange, but decided to explore the idea for her son's Growing Up.
. . .
The next morning, Sam was confused and slightly pleased to wake up to find a small, Sam-sized flint knife under his nest-bed pillow.