Disclaimer: I own nothing. Mercedes Lackey owns everything. I just write about it for fun.
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Chapter 2: Pain
Kira was prodded back to consciousness by something nudging her in the ribs. She hissed in pain, pulling her face out of the dirt to see who was poking her. For a moment, she wondered why the child before her seemed to have fur on its face. Blinking rapidly, she cleared the dust from her eyes until she could see clearly. It wasn't a child who'd awakened her, she realized at last; it was the treehare.
"This is getting to be a habit with us, isn't it, little friend?" she said quietly, relieved that no adult had found her lazing about. She was about to sit up, but her control over her muscles disappeared as she got the shock of her life.
:Kira hurt!: the treehare babbled. :You hurt, you call, we come. Predators gone; we protect Kira. You better now?:
Kira lay very still for a long moment. Did I just hear that thing speak? Impossible! Animals don't talk! Am I hallucinating? She started to shake her head in bewilderment, but the resulting pain made her stop in mid-gesture. I'll just pretend everything's normal, and hopefully it'll all go away.
"I think so …" she responded tentatively to the treehare's question. She started to push herself up, but waves of pain shot up her left arm, and she blacked out again.
This time she came to after only a few minutes. The treehare was nuzzling her worriedly. "I guess I'm not all right," she said seriously. She'd been beaten up badly in the past, but this was far worse than normal pain. She was afraid her arm was broken, and she didn't want to think about what that would mean. I'll have to do everything one-handed, so I'll be slow, and they'll punish me … She cut off that train of thought immediately. She had enough problems right now without worrying about what would happen in the future.
The treehare was still licking her, trying to help. As it moved around her head, it pushed a bushy plant into her face. One of the leaves poked inside her mouth; she spat at the bitter taste, turning her head away.
Wait a minute. Bitter? Kira turned her head back and tried to focus on the plant right in front of her eyes. After a moment of squinting, she ascertained that it was indeed rill, as she'd suspected.
"Thanks, little one!" she exclaimed aloud. The treehare seemed confused, probably having no idea what he'd done, but she was too busy stripping all of the leaves off of the plant to care – or to notice that she now thought she understood the creature's feelings, as well as apparently hearing it speak. She chewed them up, wincing at the bitter taste, and lay still for a long moment. Fresh rill wasn't quite as potent as it was dried, but with the amount she swallowed, it didn't take too long for the pain suffusing her body to subside to a bearable level.
With a sigh of relief, she pushed herself into a sitting position to take stock of her wounds. Her right ankle throbbed, probably twisted, and her ribs were definitely bruised. It wouldn't have been worse than any other time they'd caught her, if it weren't for her arm. Looking at it, she was almost certain it was broken.
"Now what?" she wondered aloud. The Priest would of course splint it – with many lectures – but her main concern was simply getting back to the Clan. Perhaps if I wrap it in something …
For the first time she was grateful that her clothes were worn-out cast-offs, too large for her petite frame. It made it possible to get her sleeveless doeskin tunic off without jostling her arm too much. However, it caused her enough pain that she knew there was no way she could remove her blouse and wrap it around the arm. She bit her lip, staring blankly down as she attempted to think of a solution.
After a moment of pondering the problem, she shrugged and slipped the tunic back on. :Why?: the inquisitive treehare asked, sounding puzzled. She was tempted to ignore the thing, which could not be talking, but in the end she decided to answer it as if it were real; after all, it had helped her earlier.
"I'm just trying to keep my arm from moving," she explained, carefully bending her arm up close to her chest. Removing the piece of rope she used as a belt, she tied it in place. "Hopefully, this will immobilize it enough for me to get back."
The treehare still had an air of confusion – despite the fact that animals shouldn't be talking to humans in the first place – but she had to get moving. The pain was slowly returning to her body, and she had to get to the Priest and his healing herbs before she fainted again.
"Ouch!" As she tried to stand, Kira's ankle twisted under her once again. It would be far too painful to walk on it all the way back to the Clan.
Well, if this treehare is acting intelligent, maybe it can help me. It was a crazy idea, but no crazier than everything else that was happening. "Can you find a strong stick almost as tall as me?" she asked it.
It scampered off, looking glad to be doing something useful. Oh, great, now it has expressions? I must be hallucinating. I can tell their basic meaning from their actions, like anyone else, and they'll listen to me, but they do not talk or broadcast human-like emotions! She shook her head gingerly and tried to put the whole thing out of her mind.
It wasn't easy, since the creature immediately began talking again. :Right here, right here!: it chattered excitedly. Tentatively, she crawled slowly over into the bushes after it. But to her surprise, it had found a perfect walking stick; thanking it, she hauled herself to her feet and began the long walk back to the Clan.
The treehare darted around her feet as she struggled along. At first she was worried that he would trip her up, but soon the pain took up all her attention. For a while she ached all over, but as the drug wore off, the agony centered in her arm. She felt dizzy and had trouble staying on the path. It took all her self-control not to drop down and weep with the pain, to keep putting one foot in front of the other. She concentrated on one thing: the Priest and his healing herbs. Just make it there …
She didn't even realize she had reached the clearing until she nearly walked into a building. Looking up at last, she realized that for some reason, the Center of the Clan's lodgings was filled with light, the bodies of the Clan members silhouetted against the fire. She stood still for a long moment, trying to make her eyes focus through the haze of pain. That's funny, she thought vaguely. I didn't think there was a Gathering announced for tonight. Well, it didn't matter. The Priest, as one of the three most important people in the Clan, would surely be in the middle with the WarLeader and ClanMother. She'd have to wait for whatever was going on to end before she'd be able to speak to him. With a sigh, she moved forward to the outer edges of the fire lit circle to sit and wait for the end of the Gathering.
As her eyes adjusted to the light, she realized that there was a fourth person standing beside the fire in the middle, a much smaller person. He was talking; it took her a moment to recognize the voice and face. With a start, she realized it was Darus.
"… Jorn grabbed her arm, trying to keep her from falling, but we heard something snap, and he let go. The next thing we knew, all these animals were charging at us! All kinds of creatures, from deer to panthers to birds! They attacked us! When we moved back, half of them formed a ring around Kira …"
Kira abruptly realized that he was talking about her. Her crutch slipped from a hand suddenly gone numb, thudding against the packed earth beneath her feet. Some of the Clansman turned to see who had caused the disturbance, disapproval etched on their faces. When they recognized her, they froze. The silence seemed to stretch on and on. At last the ClanMother broke it, ordering, "Kira Wolfwind, come here."
At these words, Kira began to quake. A girl's truename, found by her mother in a dream after giving birth, was told to no one but the ClanMother and the girl herself. For her truename to be spoken before everyone like that was a symbol of ultimate shame, an expression of the fact that she was no longer worthy of the divine name which had been bestowed upon her by the gods. Her truename was not longer sacred, and her inner self had been irreparably violated.
Kira found herself down by the fire without any conscious memory of how she had gotten there. The ClanMother's face was devoid of expression, causing Kira to huddle away from her. That blankness was always a sign of extreme punishment to follow.
However, it was not the ClanMother who spoke next, but the Priest. He moved forward to stare at her, his face a mottled purple as he pointed at her with a quivering forefinger. "Demon!" he cried.
Kira tried to protest, but he cut her off. "Do not bother trying to lie, demon; you summoned the wild spirits of the forest, betraying your true nature. Now we all know you for what you are!"
He turned to the Clan and shouted, "We were warned by the gods long ago, when they removed her mother from our midst, but still we harbored this demonspawn! And now the repercussions of our folly have come upon us! She summoned the wild spirits of the forest to destroy our sons; we can only thank the gods that they were strong enough to escape! Now we know her for what she truly is: rkuchnentu, a hungry ghost-devil! We must eradicate her from our tribe, or her evil will be able to consume all of our souls!"
Kira heard the words, but her mind could not process them. Rkuchnentu? Eradicate her? It made no sense – at least, not until the ClanMother and WarLeader moved up to the Priest. Her gaze was arrested by what the ClanMother carried: the Book of Life, open. No, they can't! Please …
No god heard her plea; she wasn't even sure to whom she was directing it. She was frozen in place by shock and terror as the WarLeader handed the Priest the ceremonial dagger he bore. The Priest lifted it high over her Page of the Book, where all the important events of her life were recorded. Without this record, the gods would not know her when she died, and she would be doomed to wander the earth for eternity, hopeless. And to the Clan, from the moment it was destroyed she would cease to exist.
In one smooth motion, the Priest slit her Page from the Book. "Great gods, witness our deed this night! I hereby declare that Kira Wolfwind was never part of this Clan! No such person ever existed! Protect us by thy might, all-powerful ones, and remove the curse of this demon from our midst! Do not let it consume our lives and souls and send us into death before our times!"
He let the Page drop into the conflagration before him. For a moment, the flame-resistant material withstood the fire, but at last it began to crumple, glowing red. Kira watched, helpless, as her life went up in smoke. Someone had to stop this! She wasn't a demon! Why were they doing this to her? Kira stared helplessly at the Priest. He was still holding the ceremonial dagger, and he glared at her in a way that made it clear that he would be more than happy to use it to fulfill his own prayer and remove her from the Clan. But still she couldn't move. She looked frantically around.
Seeing Trian sitting on the front row, she tried to catch her eye. Surely her best friend, her only friend, would stop this! For a second the older girl met her gaze; then her face hardened in mixed fear and determination. She stared through Kira as if she wasn't even there. Her one friend, the one who had been like a mother to her ever since her real mother died, thought she no longer existed. She considered Kira a demon.
Something inside her snapped. Kira turned and ran out of the firelight, out into the night.
