A/N: I don't own Oddworld. You should know that. |D
PART II
The Song of Kin
Chapter Five: The Vow
Gabby's dark world opened into a sea of light. Whatever sound she had made was lost to the wind as she sailed over the cliff and into the steam beneath her. She caught only a glimpse of Zeke before he vanished completely behind a wall of white.
Gabby was blinded. The world was full of tingling, warm, moist droplets and her heart leapt into her throat. And the little gabbiwog plummeted like a torpedo into the water. When she hit the surface, her streamlined body had instinctively rotated head first, and she hit it seamlessly, turning in the water and spiraling in its warmth before coming once again to her senses.
She swam upward to the surface, mouth opening and closing and body moving as she tried to move oxygen through her body. Up above, the steam curled and formed a canopy she couldn't possibly hope to see through. She jumped back underwater and renewed herself before returning again to the surface, cheeping.
The sound was made not by lungs, but by a special set of muscles in her body against her swim bladder. These muscles would eventually disappear as she grew lungs, as she would no longer need them. She had no idea how she made the sound - only that when she made it, Zeke came to her. It was her song of kin. She needed him.
Time passed and she continued her noisemaking, both underwater and not, circling the place where she thought she had fallen. But Zeke never joined her. She remembered his instructions, although she wasn't sure what he meant. She didn't know what lungs were. And she didn't know where she was. But 'stay' was a word that rang in her mind like an alarm. Stay.
Gabby knew she'd wait for him. The gabbiwog there, until her childishness overtook her and she grew bored of waiting. The pool seemed to expand deep into the steam, but she could clearly see underwater. Her stomach growled in protest, and this time, there was no Zeke to bring her that delicious smoked fish.
However, along the bottom, she spotted several fish of different sizes, several of which larger than she was. When she was younger, she had survived off the tiny bacteria in the water, and was often ill. But fish, she knew, somehow, was good food. It was there, in large schools, dancing about in celebration of their freedom. Her tongue slid out and licked her lumpy jaw.
She lunged for the fish, but each of them scattered in such unison she thought they were one fish. Several times she lunged, and missed each time. The fish did not move far - just out of reach, as though she were no real threat. Frustrated and out of breath, Gabby sank back and watched them. When she caught her breath she repeated, only to be outdone each time.
Zeke had not come, and she knew she had to eat somehow. Yet each attempt to catch the stupid fish failed. Repeatedly. Gabby heaved a sigh of distress and continued watching them.
At last, her hunger drove her to dive deeper to the bottom of the pool, where it was warmest. There, she saw the largest fish, and it was them she avoided. The largest she could see was at least three times her size - possibly about the size of a fully grown Gabbit. She wanted to be sick. Still, she examined the bottom of the pool, hunting for something, anything to eat.
Unable to find anything edible, she settled into watching the fish. Her hunger was developing an instinct in her that she shouldn't have had to develop. Eventually, she was going to have to kill one of those fish. At her age, her parents would've still brought her food. Hell, she shouldn't have even been in these waters for a few more months. But things happened. And because those things happened, she knew she had to live. Somehow, she had to.
For now, Zeke was forgotten, and her most immediate need was food. She observed the fish carefully. There were several small ones - small enough to kill, if she could fight them. Her large eyes slid back to examine her tail. She flicked it once, twice, testing its power. Not much, she realized, but perhaps enough to stun the tiny fish. But more than that, she knew there were other ways of killing the fish.
Gabby swam along the bottom. The fish, she noticed, did not move too close to the rocks on the bottom, and she realized the water was almost painfully hot within a foot of them. It gave her an idea. She swam up higher and observed the rocks around the fish. They were tight, but the idea in her head was forming. She kept swimming, noticing with delight where a rock jutted right out from the bottom of the spring, extending several feet up. She moved around it, noting with delight the cracks and crannies large enough for her to hide in, and the large hole in the middle she could easily fit through.
Already her survival instinct was kicking in, as she summoned the energy in herself to do this great thing. Gabby focused on a fish she liked, then launched herself towards them as before. The fish were well used to her by now and simply moved out of the way. But when she didn't stop her chase, the fish kept moving and Gabby kept chasing them, attempting to herd the one in her view towards that rock. It took a lot of work, but she'd successfully cut it off from the rest of the school.
The other fish did not try to help it. Like many herd animals, they understood that the sacrifice of a smaller, weaker one meant the stronger ones could move on. It was how life worked. Gabby, growling ferociously, was trying to cover her lack of energy and desperately keep the fish away from the others. The tiny fish was mortified, but every attempt at trying to reach its school was completely cut off by the hungry Gabbit.
Gabby was shaking now, terrified of losing the fish, but just as she managed to pin it against the wall and lunge, reality got in the way and she missed, slamming her head against the rock. Her jaws came together with a painful click, and, stunned, she let herself sink slowly to the bottom.
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"I don't believe it!" growled Bill, staring down into the steam. "The rat fecking tricked us. I'll bet he threw the lil' gabbit down there, di'n' 'e?"
Hal adjusted his hat and sighed. "Probably. But don't worry. We got time. Remember how they used to say Gabbits'll stop in that eh... Spawning Spring to grow their lungs? All we gotta do is wait for it to happen. The Gabbit leaves, we get the Gabbit. Simple."
"What about the rest of 'em, boss?" asked Shorty.
"We'll get THEM, after we get the Gabbit," said Hal, picking up a rock and tossing that rock into the water below. "Agh, I hope it hits ya!" He snarled into the water. "Let's go."
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The rock that sailed into the water was nothing short of a stroke of luck for Gabby, for she had just come to her senses about the time the rock hit. She watched it as it sailed into the water. The fish overhead scattered and one of them made a beeline for her, not realizing she was there. Gabby froze, but just as it closed in on her, her instincts reacted like lighting and Gabby's tail shot up, smacking the fish into the wall behind her.
The fish bounced off the wall and Gabby, in spite of her dizziness, pounced on it, tearing into it with her tiny, hardly-formed teeth. She could only gum it to death, so she ate it head first. The fish was a little smaller than she was, but she had no choice. It was still a small fish, and by the time it should've awakened, she'd already digested half of it. The tail end of the fish floated up towards the surface and Gabby didn't move, stuffed in that one moment. She almost threw the fish back up again.
However, that one stroke of luck was enough to feed her twice over. In fact, she had enough energy to plan out her next kill. Gabby knew she'd be okay, even if she went hungry now and again. Night fell, but the steam was still very thick and she only caught glimpses of the moon. She whimpered to herself, wondering if she'd ever see Zeke again. Gabbits were not meant to travel the world alone, and already she was beginning to feel the pang of homesickness.
Time passed. She could not measure time, so she only guessed this by her own changing body. She'd managed, however, to get the art of trapping down quite well. And so, Gabby could feed.
She formed various traps for the fish, startling them with some noise and then closing in on the fish that swam too close. When she wasn't hunting, she was swimming madly about, desperate to build the muscles in her fin. She noticed, during one inspection of herself, that she had three little toes on her fin instead of a single tail. It aided her greatly, increasing her speed and strength as well as delivering more powerful blows to the fish.
She had her eye on one particular fish - the fish she believed to be the king. It was nearly twice her size, and Gabby wanted to take it down. However, it was old and wise, easily avoiding her attacks and once, when she swam too close, it delivered a smack of its tail that sent her clear out of the water and to the other side of the spring. She had a large, thin gash on her forehead that bled profusely, forming little red clouds that floated ot the surface.
She explored the spring until she knew it like the back of her fin. Everything she did in that pond was all about planning her next attack. And every attack was all about planning the biggest attack - that great fish that always eluded her grasp. While part of her longed for cooler water, she didn't mind the heat so much. When it rained, the steam would pile up even more, but it was often blown away by the wind and she could see the cloudy sky overhead. It was then that instinct began to overcome her.
She began exploring the edge of the pool, hunting for a way out. It wasn't time for her to leave yet, but her instincts were starting to kick in and soon, she would be able to. For now, she just needed to know where it was.
During one exploration, she found a narrow tunnel underneath the rocks on the opposite end of the pool she'd fallen into. She swam under and into it, tail flicking and pushing her onward. She felt the water cool off slightly and nearly came to the surface. However, when she spotted the figures camped out by the end of the pool, she stopped dead and immediately fled, hurring back under and into the warmer pool.
What was she to do now? The Outlaws were camped just outside - right by her exit. The moment she came up, they would undoubtedly catch her. There was no way out. She rested with her back against the side of the wall of the spring and trembled. They had taken Zeke away from her, she knew that much. She knew they had been following her since she and Zeke first fled from Ma'Spa.
She also knew something else. It was a vague memory, as she had only just been born, but the eggs around her were netted up. Her own egg had been knocked away by the jarring about of the other eggs, and many times she was narrowly missed. It had to be them. Somehow, they were the same. She had to get away from them. But how? She was still young and...
Gabby growled to herself, startling the nearby fish away. She had to live. Still growling, she vowed to make it through.
