Caesar soon joined Maurice, who still stood looking after the disappearing Mary, a sad wistful expression in his eyes.
"Thank you and Luca … for helping her lay Koba to rest," Caesar said quietly.
"Luca and I were happy to do it. We both knew you would have done it, yourself, if it had been possible," Maurice answered his friend solemnly.
"I think almost everyone heard her song," Caesar commented as the ape girls' blonde head finally disappeared around a corner. She has grown up so fast," Caesar remarked, almost to himself.
Maurice nodded.
"Do you remember when we found her?" Caesar asked the Orangutan. "When … he … found her?"
The hunt was going very well that day, extraordinarily well. They had taken so much game they almost couldn't carry it back to the village fast enough. Caesar's part of the hunting party went on ahead, preparing to head back to the village. But Koba and some few others were still out, stalking.
There pray was finally in sight. Koba stood stock still, his spear at the ready, and then just as his kill would have been perfect, and would have brought down the biggest deer the apes had ever seen, he froze, letting it gallop past him.
"Why did you do that?" Gray signed angrily.
"Quiet!" Koba barked.
He held up a hand, his head cocked, listening to something.
"Did you hear that?" he asked Gray.
Gray and the closest apes around him only gaped at him and shook their heads, hearing nothing.
Koba had almost convinced himself that he had imagined it, when it came again, a short cry, gone almost as soon as his ear registered the sound.
"Wait here," he told the other apes.
It took nearly an hour as Koba tracked the intermittent sounds. And just when he was about to give up and sat slumped on the ground, feeling frustrated and defeated and a little sheepish for chasing ghosts, he saw it. One tiny little foot poked out from underneath a fallen log.
Koba gasped in shock, and bounded over to the fallen log. It did not take him long to free the owner of the foot. She was the skinniest saddest looking Ape infant girl child he had ever seen, not that he had seen many. But this poor little thing looked as if she did not have a cry left in her. Her ribs stuck out painfully beneath her almost hairless skin. The most fur she had was on her head and around her neck. A light orange ruff stuck out around her neck, Koba thought it looked almost like an Orangutan's fur. And on her head, was a thick shock of hair so blonde it was almost blindingly white.
Koba had never felt so frightened in all his life, not even in his time in the human's labs or being locked in Tommy's cage at home when Tommy was at his most drunken and violent. Trembling slightly, he held the baby tenderly in his hands. He had no mate yet and no children. He was not too sure what to do, so he let out a long loud distress call to draw the others to him. Caesar's wife had just given birth to the Ape leader's first son not more than two days before, and Rocket's wife was also expecting their first child at any moment. Koba thought maybe they might know what to do. But even as he let out his calls and he cradled the baby against his chest, she began to snuggle against him, whining very softly.
Something in Koba's damaged heart melted then. He began to slowly rock back and forth, holding the child close. She nuzzled at his chest, and he gave a gentle bark of a laugh.
"I Have no milk for you, my sweet one," he murmured to the child.
At the sound of his speaking out loud, the child snuggled even closer to him, and whimpered even more excitedly than before.
She knows speech, Koba thought. She is used to speech. How can this be?
He continued to rock her very gently, and eventually with a little sigh, she gave up nuzzling at his chest, and simply buried her tiny muzzle in his fur. Something disturbed him, though. She made no motions to even try and cling to his fur.
Despite being the farthest away, Rocket and Caesar were the first to reach him.
"Koba, what's wrong? Are you hurt—" Rocket started to sign. He froze in surprise when he saw Koba cradling an Ape infant against his chest.
"Are … are we missing any young ones?" Koba asked, already knowing the answer.
Rocket shook his head, staring at Koba's find in wonder.
"Something is wrong. She can't cling," Koba muttered. He did not know much about taking care of infants, but he did know that they were supposed to be able to cling to an Ape's pelt not long after they were born. But this little bundle did not even seem to know how, or have the strength even if she did know.
"Where did you find her?" Rocket asked as Caesar came running up.
Koba pointed to the fallen log.
"Wedged under there," he told his friends worriedly. "No sign of Mother. None."
Rocket went to inspect the log as Caesar leaned in for a better look.
"Newborn," he said out loud. "Not much more than a newborn."
"Am … am I holding her right, Caesar?" Koba asked.
Caesar nodded.
She can't cling," Koba repeated. For some reason, this was what bothered him most about the strange infant.
"Maybe she is just too weak from hunger," Caesar suggested. "We'll take her back home, now," the Ape Leader decided.
Koba tried to hand the baby to Caesar, who also tried to take her. But the minute the scarred Ape pulled her from his chest, she began to whine pitifully, and it grew louder the further out he held her.
"You carry her," Caesar said, running one gentle finger through the Ape baby's thick blond hair. "She wants you, Koba. Rocket, Gray, Luca, you all stay for a bit. Fan out around this area. Keep looking for any signs of her Mother. If you find her, tell her we have her baby. Bring her if you can."
Koba and Caesar shared a look. They both feared that whomever this strange babies' Mother was that she might be dead. That was the only thing they could think of to explain the babies' hidden and abandoned condition. No Ape Mother would willingly abandon their baby.
"We will take her to Cornelia," Caesar told a worried Koba as they both headed back home at a run. "Cornelia will feed her, I'm sure.
But some time later, as Koba paced anxiously around the outside of Caesar's home, he heard the babies' distressed screams.
"Koba, come, now!" Caesar barked.
He was a little reluctant to enter Caesar's home and disturb Cornelia while she was nursing. But the sounds of distress from the baby urged him on even more than his Leader's commands. When he entered, Cornelia beckoned him to her bedside with insistent gestures. He glanced at Caesar, who only nodded in agreement.
Slowly, Koba approached the bed, and a very distressed Cornelia held out the wailing infant. The minute Koba stretched out one hand and touched the baby's head, she fell silent, her wails subsiding in to a soft panting.
"Oh, Koba," Cornelia signed, now that her hands were free. Her own first born clung to her pelt and gazed over at the noisy newcomer in his home with open curiosity. "She trembled so much! I was able to get her to feed a little, but she is terrified of me!"
Caesar put his arm about his distressed mate.
"No," he tried to comfort a quietly crying Cornelia. "She is terrified of any female Ape, Koba. Tinker and several of the other women also tried to take her, gorillas and Orangutans and our Chimpanzee women all tried, but they couldn't even touch her without her screaming her head off."
Koba jumped as Maurice stepped forward and began to sign. He'd been so upset by the babies crying that he had not even noticed the big orangutan was there in the corner.
"She only let Cornelia nurse her a little when Caesar started to speak to her out loud," Maurice took up the tale. "I can't imagine why she was so soothed. You would think the sound of speech would terrify her even more, but it seems to sooth her."
"And Maurice stroking her and cooing at her helped," Caesar added.
"She'd only take milk from me if the males were close around," Cornelia sniffed, finally getting herself back under a semblance of control.
And that phrase was what seemed to lead to Koba's becoming the Apes very first single Father in the entire village. Many of the women tried to put up a fuss at first, but Caesar and Cornelia calmed them, and Koba was permitted to raise the foundling baby he called Mary.
Maurice gave a low chuckle.
"Koba was so relieved when she finally started nursing from Cornelia without his presence," Maurice remarked, lost in the memories for a second.
"Never left her with Cornelia long though, did he," Caesar commented, remembering his tortured friend's total fear yet absolute devotion to that strange funny-looking infant. "I don't remember ever seeing Koba be so happy and gentle and patient with anyone, not even my Blue Eyes."
"and protective," Maurice went on, also remembering. "Overprotective. Remember the scolding he gave poor Luca for always tossing her up on his shoulders and galloping around the village like a wild horse? Then Luca started teaching her how to tame and ride those horses, remember, but not without Koba right there, always looking on."
"I missed that one. I remember him scolding Mary for standing upright on the horse's back while it ran," Caesar said. "But I also remember the scolding he gave you," Caesar gently teased his oldest friend. "For taking her up in to the tallest tree you could find and swinging one armed with her clinging to your back, upside-down."
"I had my other arm twisted round her the whole time," Maurice insisted. "He just didn't see that. And I was trying to forget that one," Maurice huffed.
Caesar gave a low chuckle, and the two started back in to the human ruins.
"Have you noticed," Maurice commented as they made their way through the streets. "How much her fur grew to look so much like Koba?"
"Except her head," Caesar agreed. "She still has that long blond hair. I had a human friend who had hair just like that. Well, at least she lost that hideous orange ruff around her neck."
"I beg your pardon," Maurice objected. "I was rather fond of that fur, myself."
"Sure, you liked it, because it looked a lot like yours," Caesar teased.
The two friends continued their walk-in silence, knowing that Mary's blond hair, her always upright and totally vocal nature, and the mystery of her true heritage was something they would likely never know. And, neither of them cared. Just like her Father Koba, they loved her, no matter whose child she really was.
A/N:
This is for ZabuzasGirl, who specifically requested a flashback to when Mary was found.
Thanks to everyone who is still reading, and special thanks to anyone who reviews and/or PMs me about this story.
Keep the feedback coming, folks.
