Chapter Two
The History of Yura
"Now you see what you've done? The boar is severely overcooked, even for the taste of most people. Waste of good meat." Yura paced around the fire, gently fuming, trying to salvage what good meat he could. Meanwhile, Clare and Raki sat on two of the stumps a short ways away, weapons at hand. They watched him carefully for any hint of malicious intent.
Clare was somewhat disturbed by his presence, or rather the lack thereof. Even the most elusive Yoma left some sense of its Yoki behind, but this creature that called itself Yura left no trace of its presence beyond what was to be expected of a normal human.
They had gone on this way for the better part of an hour. Yura had gone about his business. He wiped off the large carving knife that he cast aside earlier, and pulled a few small leather sacks from his big bag, presumably herbs of some sort. He then proceeded to carve up the boar. He sprinkled it with a few herbs and spices, and set it on a few pieces on a rock near the fire to warm it.
The sun had set, and the fire went out with it. A new one was started to give light and warmth. Raki felt slightly angry at the fact that the forest creatures went on about life as usual, unconcerned with the beast in their midst.
"Damn and double damn. Oh well. Couldn't be helped, I suppose. The shirt you wrecked is a small loss. It wasn't very good quality anyway." Yura, having replaced the shredded white shirt with a silk one, such a light blue as to seem almost white, handed a small portion of pork to Clare, and a larger one to Raki. These portions made up most of the good meat salvaged from the boar. The burnt part was disposed of in the bush, and the badly overdone but not burnt part was destined to become dried travel rations. "Don't worry. I didn't poison it or anything like that. It would be very counter productive after working so hard to end our struggle."
Clare cautiously took a bite of the meat. Though it was overdone, it was still excellent. Raki followed her lead, finding he preferred it no the rare piece he'd begun to eat earlier. In an awkward attempt to converse, Raki asked Yura, in a rather nervous voice "what do you call this, again?" gesturing at the meat.
"At this point, Pork a la Victim." Yura proceeded to pick up his small chunk of boar flesh. "I appreciate the attempt to break the awkward silence, by the way." Yura took a bite of his own piece, nodding in approval. "Hm. Still passable, I'd say. Well, now that the proverbial ice has been broken, we had a few things to discuss did we not?"
"We did," Clare said, staring intently into the eyes of the creature across from her, searching for any hint of deception. "To begin with, how can we possibly trust your word about not eating humans?"
"Technically you can't." Yura's reply was sharp, but tinged slightly with regret. "I have no distinct physical proof of my dietary preferences. Perhaps the lack of a human blood scent on my person. But honestly, if I can hide my Yoki as well as I do, you would have to assume that I could conceal that as well. All you can do is trust my word."
"Unlikely. Yoma need to eat human flesh to survive. You couldn't live without having killed."
"If you were so sure of that, one of us would be dead by now. By the way, Yoma don't need to feed on human flesh. Just flesh. Pig, cow, deer or even rabbit meat will sustain us. Unfortunately, most of my kind don't share my discretion."
"What exactly makes you so special? Why shouldn't Clare just chop off your head like any other Yoma?" Raki, who was silent until now, was furious. How could one of those monsters sit there and pretend to be good, to be human.
Yura looked into his eyes then. The compassion therein only made Raki more angry. "They hurt you didn't they? That tends to happen a lot. All you need to know right now is that I am not like them. If you want to know why, be prepared for a long story. Perhaps it should wait until morning?"
"No. I do not plan on sleeping tonight, not with you around." Clare shot Yura a glance colder than the icy peaks of the nearby mountains. "And if I find I no longer have a reason to keep you in my presence, then I will end your life."
"Very well. Find a comfortable seat, and settle in. It will be a long night." Yura stared off into the sky eyes losing focus in his remembrance. "It began when I was young, only a few years old. And that is farther back than the existence of the two of you put together."
Even as Yura spoke, telling the tale of his life, the images of that time began to spin through his mind. He was born in the mountains of the north, far from the large cities, but still close enough to civilization to sustain the diets of the less pleasant locals. It was also a region where the mountains dotted with caves for these beings to live in.
These beings, of course, are the Yoma.
The Yoma of the mountains are very different from those that most know. Most travel the land, living as nomads. They would feed as they moved, staying in one place only for a few weeks at a time. The ones who live like this are the Yoma that most people know and despise. With only very rare exception, these are the men of the species.
The women live in the mountains, feeding off of the sparse residence, who have neither the money nor the means to contact the organization that tries to control the Yoma. The women look little different from their male counterparts, except for being far smaller. They weigh little more than a human, and have proportionally thinner waists and wider hips than their men, as well as most of them can fly, where few males can. This makes the inaccessible mountains an easy journey for them.
As a result of being smaller, they eat far less, so draw little attention from the outside world.
Every so often, an instinct overtakes the men. Not all of them, and very infrequently, but when it does take, it consumes their thoughts more strongly than the need to eat. If it happened more often, there would soon be too many Yoma to be sustained by the human population. Their not being old enough to breed within their first century also helps keep the numbers under control.
But to those in whom this instinct does take, they find themselves inexplicably drawn to the mountains of the north. Other Yoma men find there way there also, but by wilful steps. Either way, the Yoma breed, and mere weeks later, a slimy little wretch is born, looking like nothing so much as a partially digested rat.
The father leaves, back to a life of killing and eating, leaving the mother to care for the child alone. The first two decades of the young ones' lives are spent living in the dank, wet, slimy cavern system that riddled those forsaken mountains.
The mothers lived communally in this network. Not that they lived as a society so much as they just happened to share the same space. Each hunted a different ground and brought human flesh back to their young, the innards being the most nutritious.
"I never said that I hadn't fed on humans, just that I hadn't killed any. Honestly, for my money I prefer animal flesh. For some senseless reason, my kind seem to think only human flesh is truly sanitary."
"Do you know why that is?" Almost unconsciously, Raki leaned forward with interest, almost relaxing in the Yoma's presence.
"No, but I have done some research and I have a theory. About two millennia ago, long before even my time, a plague swept through the populations of most animals. They became sickly and weak, but did not die, and humans continued to feed on them. This plague lasted for the better part of a century. I have seen proof of this in ancient human documents. Believe it or not, Yoma are rather sensitive to disease when it is taken in through the stomach." Yura patted his belly to accentuate the point.
"Humans seemed to be utterly unaffected by it. If this disease began to affect the Yoma, weakening or killing them, it could explain why Yoma began to feed singularly on humans, an untainted food source."
Clare found herself having to resist the urge to become engaged in this. She was angry at herself, and at the Yoma, who she still refused to think of by name, for drawing her interest so thoroughly. After killing Yoma for so many years, it seemed only right that she learn why she needed to. "How could such a thing last so long? In my experience among human societies, most traditions tend to fade away after a few years once the need has been removed"
"Tradition is different among the Yoma then among humans. We have a Blood Memory, some of the knowledge and experience of the past generation is given to the next as a part of their very birth. Not much of this is passed, but the most powerful memories and behaviours of the parents are received by the children. A horrid illness from eating animal flesh, and a severe aversion to it, might be one of those things that was passed down."
"If these memories are so powerful, then how do you get around them?" Raki said, thinking that it was odd that a Yoma trying to pass itself off as harmless was stating reasons why Yoma were so dangerous to humans.
"A very good question, my boy. I only know of the Blood Memories from what I was told as I was being raised. I have never experienced them for myself. I believe that is why I was always so different…"
Once more, Yura slipped into his past.
His childhood had been a hard one. No Yoma had an easy youth, but his was especially difficult. Most Yoma knew from birth that to survive, they had to fight and steal from the young of other families. Once a Yoma parent gave them what food they saved from a hunt, they were on their own.
The mothers had an understanding with each other. Each cared for their own children, to use the term loosely, and left each other alone. All that the parents really did was bring their children food, and look after their basic safety. Their other parental duties were limited. Mostly they just aided their young in making full use of their blood memories, and left them to their own devices.
Siblings tended to stick together, and perhaps pick up a few other allies, so Yura wasn't truly alone, but his lack of Blood Memory made learning the Yoma lifestyle a slow process.
His twin brother was probably the only reason he survived those early years. While most Yoma could instantly walk, and fight only shortly after, Yura had taken weeks to learn these most basic skills. He was viewed as weak, scowled upon with disdain by the other Yoma. His brother shared his food, protected him and was a light to him in those dark times.
The language of the Yoma would sound vulgar to human ears, though it is rarely spoken outside of the mountain nests. It is made up of screeches, howls bellows and what sounds like hacking coughs. Even the moat vile animal has a more pleasing voice than the one that Yoma use with each other, but Yura never much minded.
No Yoma truly has a name. They are simply recognized by one another by the presence of their Yoki, as they all look nearly identical (like scrawny little humans with pasty grey skin, sharp teeth and claws) until they are in their fifties, and the intended recipient of a conversation is demonstrated by eye contact. All of this took Yura a little while to learn also.
He did eventually get the hang of both. By the time he was five years old, he became exceptionally good at fighting. He learned to do what no other Yoma his age could even begin to conceive, strategize.
Though far from puny by the standards of Yoma, he was still not nearly the largest there. He found himself many a time outnumbered, and on occasion, he found himself in contention with the larger of the Yoma children, those of the year before or even older.
He struck for weak points, such as elbows, knees and throat, putting down assailants in a single punch what others his age couldn't do with a dozen. He hid in the shadows, and waited for the moment to strike, stealing meat without ever having to land a blow, and disappearing before the victim had a chance to see the thief .
Though slower to learn skills beyond what he was born with, Yura's brother soon learned to plan his battles, rather than just lash out on instinct, and in the limited youth community of Yoma, they were unbeatable.
"Unfortunately, my brother took this concept a little too far. He got it in his head that eliminating other young Yoma would mean more resources for him. Before I knew what he had in mind, he had already snapped the necks of two of our kin." Yura sighed loudly. "It was such a stupid idea. First of, the females were in a murderous uproar. If he had been caught, he would have been killed. Also, fewer young means fewer beings to pilfer from. We had no chance of success against the adults yet. Not to mention the moral implications of such an action."
"Let me guess," Raki said. "Morals didn't get through to him."
"No it didn't, to my unending displeasure. And it took me three attempts to explain it to him for him to see the error of his ways from a logical perspective."
"You really are different from other Yoma, aren't you?"
"Took you long enough to see it, young Raki. When you don't have raw power, or a killer instinct to drive you, there is very little else to rely upon than intelligence. Maybe the lack of the Blood Memories left more room in my mind for thought, or it was a result of whatever process that left me without those memories. I don't know."
"Even at the point where I started believing that you were a…good Yoma…I never expected a philosopher."
"Ah, she speaks! Glad to know that I have your seal of approval."
"For the moment," Clare still couldn't believe that she actually believed the Yura's story, and yet believe it she did. And that she had thought of it by name.
"Well, don't count me out just yet. I wasn't always such a nice guy. There was a brief time when all I wanted was to be like the rest of my kind." Yura let out a massive yawn. "Can we finish this in the morning though? It's long past midnight, judging by the position of the stars, and I haven't slept in days."
"Very well. You may sleep, I will not. Raki, however appears to be exhausted." And as Clare observed, Raki was getting ready to fall from his seat, leaning on his arm and yawning profusely.
"Can I trust that you won't chop me up in my sleep?" It was said more in jest than as a serious question.
"I will not. I gave you a chance to prove your intentions, and you have not betrayed that agreement, and until you do, you will not come to harm by my hand."
"Good." Yura pulled a blanket from his seemingly bottomless bag (in looting it for his herbs, he had laid aside everything from advanced cooking utensils to bolts of fine cloth, presumably to trade), and Raki unrolled a similar one from his bags, and in respective ends of the clearing, with Clare seated between the two, fell fast asleep.