CHAPTER 2

I woke to the sound of birds.
Scratching the sleep from my eyes, I lifted my head and looked around the park. The fire that had burned through the night had shrunk to ashes, and there was no one around to be seen. I stretched my muscles while keeping hold of the small branch before wrapping my claws around it to slowly drop to the ground. I walked sleepily over to my families cave and peered inside. Nobody was in.
Rubbing the back of my neck, I tried to think where they could be. Maybe I had just overslept and the group had already gone off to harvest new bark. My tail shook off a stray leaf or two before I walked up to the nearest collection of trees at the near-side of the camp where the sun shone brightest. The group often went this way to find food so I sniffed around trying to catch their scent.
There was a branch low to the ground that looked to have recently been trodden on, so I investigated.
Yes! They had come this way.
I jumped up further into the tree and began making my way through the dark, following the scent of the others.
This is what I enjoyed most in the mornings - swinging through the trees. Sometimes I would travel for hours, simply for the fun of moving at high speeds over and under the miles of branches. Often I would get lost, but it did not matter, it just meant that I could have more fun aimlessly flying between the trees. It made me happy at the worst of times.
A Hork-Bajir learns to travel through trees at a very early age, usually after around 1 or 2 months. My father used to say that I was especially quick to learn. We learned by watching our mothers, clutching tight to her belly as she glided swiftly through the trees. Then, our parents would let us roam at their sides until we were confident enough to travel unsupervised. Of course, the parents would watch us, but from a significant distance. It was all about confidence.
After a few minutes of searching and sniffing, I could sense them clearly, and I knew that they were close. They would be nearby and already started with the day's work. I could not tell how long they had been here. It could have been minutes, or it could have been hours. Either way, they would wonder where I had been, and I started to feel the usual guilt that came with sleeping-in during the harvesting hours. It was the norm that I was always first to wake up and they would never expect a seer such as myself to be late. Sometimes I wondered whether their expectations were too high.
The trees suddenly disappeared as I came to a clearance. I slowed down, jumped onto a low branch and began looking into the large open area. It was surrounded by a circle of beautiful trees and filled with lush green grass, a lovely little collection of wildlife and colourful plants. Just as expected, the group was here and hard at work.
There were two Hork-Bajir to each tree. One would strip off bark from near the top of the tree and pass it down to the second, who in turn took bark from lower down using their leg blades, and would place all of the bark by the bottom of the tree with their tail. Some Hork-Bajir collected the bark from the tree bases and placed it in the centre of the clearing.
We would strip enough bark to last the day to make sure that we did not run the area dry. We even made sure we planted seeds when the opportunity arose. This was an efficient process.
The group looked organised and it was pleasing to see. At this rate they should have been finished in minutes. They did not really require my assistance.
I could have gone back to the camp to sleep. I was still tired. They would not mind if I took a little nap back in my tree.
I grappled the nearest branch and prepared to leap back into the mass of trees, just as a face poked around the side of the pine I was sat on. He eyed me over and crawled up close, clamping himself onto the trunk.
"Hello Toby Hamee!"
"Hello Bek."
He hesitated for a while, as if figuring something out. A big grin appeared on his face. "Toby late. Toby sleep." He began to laugh.
Bek was a good friend of mine. We had known each other since we were little, both cooped up within a hidden valley before the war ended. I was slightly older than him, perhaps by a couple of months. Nevertheless, he would enjoy teasing me whenever he got the chance. I guess he is, as a human would say, 'cute', though I was not interested in him such a way.
He realised that I had overslept and must have found it rather funny. He jumped onto the branch I was standing on and moved next to me. "Toby never late."
"I was tired and I have not been sleeping well. Not lately anyway." I looked over the grassland, and I quickly noticed the number of Hork-Bajir there. The trees were crawling with them. "Bek, how many are here?"
He paused to absorb the question, and then he followed my gaze. He pointed downwards towards our group who was busy collecting bark from the trees below. "Us." Then he looked around the area and narrowed his eyes. After a few seconds of silence he turned to me and grinned. "Lots."
Well, I guess I was not expecting much more of an answer.
"Lots and lots." He continued. "Group from that way." He pointed over to the trees at the other end of the opening. "And that way." He pointed in another direction. "Gather. Big feast."
There was more than just our group here. From what I saw, there were at least four separate groups harvesting the trees, and with the amount of bark we were collecting, it was easy to see how busy it would be at the campfire tonight.
The Hork-Bajir had been split into groups spreading over an area of Yellowstone Park. Each group moved to its own harvesting area, yet stayed within about a kilometre of each other. This way, trees weren't over-stripped, but we stayed close enough together to communicate without problems. Today though, the groups had decided to harvest together, and whenever groups harvested together, they feasted together as well.
"And this feast is at our camp?" I asked.
He nodded.
"Will you be joining us?"
He thought about it, then shook his head.
"No? Where will you be?"
"In tree."
I felt slightly disappointed, for I always enjoyed his company.
"Toby want play? Swing?" He grabbed a branch up above with one strong arm.
"No, thank you. I need to rest." Then I smirked playfully. "You still have a lot of work to do."
He laughed, and in a flash, he shot back down the trunk and disappeared below.
I sat down on the branch and gazed up into the colourful morning sky. I leaned my back against the trunk of the tree and let my tail drop and sway below me. I just wanted to relax. Maybe I would skip the feast tonight, just crawl up my tree and get a good night's sleep. No one would mind.
I felt myself starting to drift off into sleep, but just as the last thoughts escaped my head, something tugged on my tail. I lifted it up onto the branch and held it against my chest. I didn't want to be disturbed.
"Toby Hamee?"
The voice caused me to jump and almost fall from the tree. I looked left and right but saw no one. "Hello?"
A face - an unknown face - was peering down at me from above. He was young, perhaps a year old. He jumped down and landed clumsily on the branch just in front of me.
I tried to put on a polite face, but frankly I was not in the mood. I must have looked terribly agitated.
He was holding a large chunk of bark in both his hands, and he turned to face me, using his tail to balance his self on the struggling branch. "Hello Toby Hamee!"
I did not recognise him. He would have been from a neighbouring group. However, he certainly recognised me. He was ecstatic, bouncing playfully on the end of the branch.
"Hello." I said back to him.
"Toby sleep?" He asked as he started to calm down. Maybe he was slowly getting the hint that I did not want to be disturbed.
I steadily got up onto my feet and moved up to him. "No, I was not sleeping. Do you want help?"
"Sha find bark." He handed me the large chunk he was holding. "New bark."
So this was why he was so excited.
"Good bark? Good to eat?" He questioned.
I took the bark and began inspecting it. I rubbed my fingers across the rough surface, then with the underside of my hand, rubbed the smooth interior. I lifted it up to my snout and sniffed at it, licked it. It tasted fine. There was no apparent abnormality.
"Where did you find this bark?" I asked him.
"Big tree. By river. That way." He pointed.
I handed him back the bark and gave him a friendly face. "This is good bark. It will taste nice."
"Thank you Toby Hamee." He moved his attention to the slab of bark and inspected it himself. Then, he used an elbow blade to swiftly slice the bark in half, and held a piece up to me. "Tree have lots. Toby Hamee have some."
"Thank you, Sha." I gently bowed my head forward and our blades met.
This was a normal thing to do when I met another Hork-Bajir for the first time. Sometimes, it is just a way to show love to another. Walking around here through the trees, you would often see partners doing this on the ground below. In such a case, it is a clear sign to leave them alone... In this case however, it was to show friendship.
We held there for a second, and then we drew our heads back. With a child's smile, he was gone.
I looked at the bark once again, and I quickly came to the conclusion that I never seen this species before. Maybe the child had found an undiscovered area of the park. I lifted it to my nostrils and gave it another sniff, before closing my jaws around the soft edge. I held it in my mouth without biting, figuring the taste. It was easy on my tongue, and the taste…
The taste!
I had never experienced bark like this before, not even on the Hork-Bajir home world. I bit into it…
My eyes went wide in shock, and my jaw almost dropped. I almost dropped my food. Thankfully I avoided such a disaster.
I held the bark in my mouth for as long as I could before I instinctively swallowed. I even tasted it as the large chunks slithered down my throat, and I stood there in the tree, almost bawling in the pleasure.
I wanted more, and my stomach rumbled in agreement. I grabbed onto a branch up above and swung myself up into the trees, following the direction in which Sha went.
I began to follow what I thought was his scent. It led me away from home and around the far side of the harvesting area, going into a place I had never been to before.
Decreasing my speed, I watched the background zoom past me, and I took in the smells and the sounds that flowed through my senses. This place was not too different from where I lived, but the trees were foreign. Maybe this was where the bark had come from…
I stopped and glanced around the area. I was surrounded by unusual trees, ones that I hardly recognised. I felt the smell of new bark massage my nostrils.
My stomach wanted food, and I could not disobey it.
The tree I was stood on was fresh and unmarked. No Hork-Bajir were around to care for these, so they were grown long and rough. I shuffled over to the trunk of the tree to fetch a little snack.
A noise. To my left.
I turned to blink at the surrounding flora, and saw nothing but what I knew was already there.
Trees. A bush. Bark.
A tree wavered. I narrowed my gaze and waited to see if anything would appear behind the trunk.
It was another Hork-Bajir. A male.
He crept from behind the trunk and casually leant against an over-hanging branch, holding a large chunk of bark. He was only a few yards from where I stood, camouflaged against the trees. Looking closer, I saw clearly what he held. It was the new bark I was after. He opened his mouth to begin to eat, but froze as he noticed me. After a brief search with his eyes, his jaw closed, and he dropped the bark.
I did not know him, but I crawled over, using my arms to support myself over the unkempt branches. I came to a stop about a metre from him, and noticed that he was roughly my age. His skin was a darker green all over and he had piercing red eyes which shone as if luminous in the light of the shone. His blades were well kept, and he owned a large, rather noticeable scar running down from the top of his belly and curving down over his front, ending beside his tail.
He looked to me, then down at his bark, thinking. Then he reached over, offering the whole chunk of the bark to me.
How could I refuse?
I crawled up to him, taking the bark in my claws.
"Thank you…" I did not know his name.
"My name Tal Ganat."
I stood and tried to regain my confidence. "My name is Toby Hamee."
His eyes widened, and he looked over me once again. "Toby Hamee." He finally said in agreement. "You are different."
I must have heard this a thousand times by now. "Yes. I suppose I am." The words came out sounding unusually meek.
He pointed to the chunk of bark that he had given me. "Gift. For Toby Hamee."
"Where did you get this bark?" I asked, rubbing my claws against the soft surface.
"Tree by river." He rubbed his belly. "Good bark. Tasty."
I nodded in agreement. "Are you from around here, Tal?"
"Tal live near. At edge of trees." He spread his arms to indicate the area around us.
"I have never seen you before. At least not from what I remember."
"Tal know Toby." He replied. "Toby know Tal brother."
"I do?"
I thought about this, but it was not long before he interrupted.
"Tal always want to meet Toby Hamee."
I was rather flattered. "Why would you want to meet me?"
"Toby save Hork-Bajir."
I looked away in embarrassment. I rarely got this sort of attention.
The Sun was high in the sky by now. Its beams shone past the leaves and into my eyes. I covered them with my arm and moved over to the shade of Tal's tree to stand beside him.
"It is bright out today." I told him.
"Yes. Humans loud when Sun is bright."
I paused. He had reminded me of Cassie.
"Tal, I have to go now." I turned and got ready to jump away.
He quickly reacted and grabbed my arm. "Why Toby go? Not stay with Tal?"
"I cannot stay. I need to find someone."
He stood up straight from the branch, looking perked. "Tal come too?"
I looked him in the eyes.
They appeared strange as they shot into me. There was something there, something I had never seen before. Something powerful. I could not even begin to describe it.
"Well…" I managed to say.
Perhaps taking him would not be so bad. No Hork-Bajir has been taken directly into the centre of the human habitat known as the after hearing where I and Cassie were going, he would want to stay home. Either way, he could not be allowed to come with us.
Why was I not saying no?
"OK." I continued. "You can follow, but you must stay with me."
He grinned. "Where we go?"
"Away from the park. Somewhere you have never been before."
He did not answer. I was already swinging back towards home before he could voice his confusion. I heard him swinging behind me as we flew through the trees, the bark lodged in my jaw to give me full mobility.
We raced back to my camp and jumped from the trees onto the open grassland. Tal decided to look around at the scenery and introduce himself to my group, while I looked around for Cassie.
She was not here. I squinted to look at the human clock barely visible in the distance. It was a tall building on the edge of the human habitat which I used to tell the time.
Five-to-One!
Maybe she had left without me. She may have thought that I did not want to go.
"Did you see a human here?" I asked a male, Temef, who happened to be walking by.
He seemed bemused by my question. After making my question clearer, he pointed over to a small, paved concrete path surrounded by a large fence where a group of humans stood holding cameras. They were tourists.
"No, not those humans. A human who came here. To our camp." I asked.
He thought for a moment. "Cassie come."
"She did? Where is she now?"
"She go. Wait for Toby. You go to Cassie. Go to…" He was stuck in thought, trying to remember the name of Cassie's Animal Rehabilitation Centre. That was where she would wait for me.
I smiled to him. "Thank you. The building is called Cassie's Animal Rehabilitation Centre."
He walked off, repeating the words to himself. Unnecessary to say that he was getting the words wrong, but I could help him with it when I got back.
He wandered off with the rest of the group to spend the day in the trees, just as Tal walked up beside me.
"We go now?"
"Yes Tal." I glanced over to the large, white building that stood not far from the park. The Rehabilitation Centre. "We are going there."
"Why go there?"
"Because that is where my friend is. We are going to see her, and she will take us on a little tour."
He cocked his head. "Human friend?"
"Yes. A Human friend."