Chapter 12
"Reflection"
I am knowledgeable. My experience makes it so. Many years make many memories. Some I wish I could forget, but I would not be Mother without them, so I must remember. I can never forget.
"These must be the strange creatures Warrior spoke of at council," Scout whispered to me as we lay side by side on our bellies under the cover of the grasses.
The sun was still setting, so we had to be careful to stay low where the shadows were deep.
"These are not creatures," I told her, eyes steady down the hill we hid on. "These are humans."
They came earlier in the day, ahead of the pack, moving in the direction we came from, towards the Yawning River. Alpha sent Scout to do what she did best, to watch and to make sure they were no threat, but she did not know what to look for. She was still young yet, so she called for me, wanting to know what I made of them. I did not blame her for seeking counsel. Humans led busy lives that did not make sense in the wild.
"What is it that they do?" Scout asked, just as curious to understand as she was to discover.
"They prepare for the night," I told her, counting their party, remembering their faces and what they did.
Some moved square crates from one place to the next. Others hammered stakes into the ground. They threw tarps over wire, rustling and clacking and banging without a care in the world. Unafraid of what they might attract or disturb by doing so.
"So many things," she wondered, glancing between packs and sacks and tents. "What are they for?"
"They work for their food and for their rest," I explained. "They cannot live in the wild as we do. They are too fragile."
"Then, they are no threat?"
I heard the lift in her voice. The desire to get closer.
"They have tools," I warned. "Weapons that can hurt us. Catch us."
Scout looked to me for clarity. Uncertainty did not frighten her. It was why she excelled at scouting the land and the everyday unknown. I nodded for her to take a closer look at the things the humans had. She huddled down a little tighter and watched. She was not like Hunter, but her gifts were similar. Well rounded in sight and smell and Spirit. She often led the way for the pack. Finding prey and danger faster than the rest. It did not take long for her to figure out what I meant. There was a glint of light. The smell of metal. An Iron Mouth clapped shut, startling the human who cleaned the chain beside it. Scout looked at me and folded her ears, making the connection like skins to snakes or webs to spiders.
"We will go no further," I told her.
There was no point putting ourselves at risk. The human pack was too large for just the two of us. It would be a struggle to try and take them. But we had learned much. The humans were setting traps along the river. Other places too. Why, I did not know.
"You have seen humans before," Scout realized as she compared my knowledge to hers.
"Yes," I answered. "I met my first human as a young one long ago."
Back when I let the Spirit carry me as reckless and wild as a stormy wind.
"Did he come in a pack as these?"
"No. He appeared on the horizon one day as himself. He followed us for many nights at a scavenger's distance, so the pack treated him as such."
The pack encountered new creatures all the time and he was no different than the other odd shapes and sounds and energies we were accustomed to.
"I was curious like you," I told her, "So I stole away from the others to watch and to learn the things he did."
"Did he work as these do?" Scout added, finding common ground between us.
Me, once as bold and daring as her. She, as unquenchable for knowledge as me.
"He was different, yet the same," I told her.
And immediately, I could tell Scout wanted more. She wanted a story because stories had lessons, and lessons, knowledge. Something she was as hungry as the hunt for. Scouts were those most alone in the pack, driven by bravery and Spirit to hunt and to explore and to live as long as a Mighty Hena could. They were tethered to the pack only by the need to satisfy their loneliness. Recognition was her guide. To know and to understand so that she could inform Alpha of her findings without fault. So I told her what I knew.
"Humans do not grow like many creatures do," I told her. "Their coats change, but their bones do not. The human I knew wore the pelts of other creatures on his body. Tanned skin and feathers and fur. All things from the wild but changed by his hand."
Scout pondered this, then looked at the group of humans further on. She wrinkled her nose at the hard acrid burning scents that came from embers in their mouths, powder on their tools, and salves on their hands. But I wanted her to know more. She had opened the way to my memory and I could not help but slip farther into it.
"He wore black marks on his eyes and face, and when they faded or bled, he darkened and straightened them again."
And now that I remembered, I saw how closely he resembled Omega's own markings. He must have learned this habit from the Mighty Hena.
"A small feather dangled beside a twist in his hair. It was long and silky and black like ours. His skin was red like the clay of the earth."
"These ones are not like that," Scout said, already using her trained eye to find the differences. "They are of all shades and wear things not of the wild."
Her nose crinkled even further.
"They are loud and rough and arrogant. Look how they kick up dust and spit and waste."
She tensed, filling with the Spirit."
"Don't," I whispered to her, nodding my head again. "We are not the only creatures here."
Scout quickly calmed and looked for what I saw, a bat with no eyes and twin tails, sitting on the post of a tent. A Sky Shrieker. Its large ears twitched.
"It is not afraid of them?" Scout asked, trading disgust for curiosity again.
"It is not," I confirmed. "It watches for them."
I had my eye on the Shrieker for a while now. It stayed with the humans and did not fly away when they approached. It followed around one in particular and took food from it. I recognized this, for I once did the same. But there were many reasons a smaller creature followed something bigger.
"Will it find us?" Scout cautioned, returning my whisper.
She was wary now that danger had crept a little closer.
"It is not of the wild," I reassured her.
Or, at least, it was not anymore.
"Otherwise, it already would have."
But I did not want Scout to be afraid. It was good for her to be here and to learn these things. The night was falling faster upon us. It would give us stealth and strength. There was still time to learn more.
"Why does it stay?" Scout asked as she eyed the bat more closely.
"Humans have a strangeness about them," I told her. "It either draws creatures in or drives them away because of it."
I reflected on my own experience.
"The human I knew was quiet until the day I revealed myself to him."
Scout lost all concern now. She looked at me with wide unbelieving eyes. I turned my own to her and let the smallest of smiles shape my mouth. She then realized that, as Mother, there was very little I did not do. It became a secret between us. Utterly irresistible to her devouring mind.
"What did he do then?" She asked, crawling closer.
Better yet, what did I do in his stead? I took his food, pulled at his clothes, misplaced his things, dug into his pack and bundles, and slept in his bed. He would scold me and wave, threaten me with his tools, and throw things at me, but was otherwise powerless to stop me. I was too quick and my teeth too sharp and my shadow too strong.
"I tested his boundaries and he tested mine," I summarized. "This created a trust between us."
The story was pulling me in again. My eyes grew distant, following the trail of the campfire I used to haunt at night.
"In quiet moments, he would speak to me for long times, but I did not understand his words at first. I came to realize he was looking for something. Like a young one looking for purpose. Maybe he was looking for himself? He had no name but called himself man. I did not know who he was. He did not know who he was. So human he became."
I did not tell her that he too had named me because it was a special name reserved only for us. It had power, like that of the self and that of the pack. He, My Man, and I, his Moonshine. For the glow of my eyes at night when I lingered at the edge of his fire were like the full moon. It was so close to my Self that it prickled my skin to think of it even now.
"What happened to him?" Scout asked, because clearly, he was no longer with me.
"He continued to follow the pack for many days, making use of our kills when we were done with them and offering meat from his own when I came by his hearth. I learned of fire and metal and tools. He learned of Alphas and obedience when the pack followed me and came to test him one night."
Scout could not hide her anticipation of what was to come. I was tempted to laugh but remembered the bat growing harder to find against the darkening sky. I saw a flutter of wings elsewhere. They were larger, quieter.
"He became a friend of the Mighty Hena," I went on, "as long as he kept his distance and respect. Then, one day, he found whatever it was he was looking for."
Scout looked up at me and nuzzled my mouth for more. I lowered myself to match her intensity.
"One night, he made a large fire and danced and chanted with great ceremony and dress around it. It felt like the summonings of the Bone Takers which I despised even then. The man was no creature, but if there was a chance he could use cursed spirits against us, I would not let him follow the pack any longer. That night, I meant to kill him. If curses were involved, there was no other way, but another Mighty Hena intervened. He came from the man's tribe to save his life."
"And his life was spared?" Scout hoped, always on the lookout for a happy ending.
"Indeed. It was."
Because it was Calian Summer Smile who stopped me. The next night, My Man was gone. I did not know what happened to him after that, only that I had traded one mystery for another. I had not thought of these times in years. Looking back, I could see that what the man did was not evil. But these men here were not like My Man. They cajoled and burned and roared with tools on their belts and iron in their crates, stomping down the grass and spewing smoke into the stars. They did not live from the earth, but trampled over it, and my desire to kill them was the same now as it was back then. But there were too many. They were not part of our purpose. Not yet.
The sun fell quickly, darkness settled in, and suddenly, a Brown Owl came out from the sky and snatched the Sky Shrieker off of the post. There was a small squeak. A flutter of air. One of the humans looked up and around, unsure of what had happened.
"Come now," I told Scout, narrowing my eye at the sky. "It is time to leave."
If the humans decided to search out their missing pet, they would find much scarier things instead. The pack was also drawing farther away from us and we could not let them get too far ahead. We carefully got to our feet.
"Remember these things," I told her, emphasizing the last lesson the wild had taught us, "and always be on the lookout for them."
For if the humans ever returned, I may have to finish what I started so long ago.
