Shadow glanced up at Big Boss’s nest. One foot dangled in the air, toes clenching and unclenching. Until a new leader emerged, the ladder of rank was broken into chaos. The days to come would be stressful and trying for everyone.
As the last light seeped from the sky, the men returned. They swarmed around the bases of the trees. They were still squabbling, screeching and fighting. Some of them clambered up into the trees and began to harass the women and children, smashing open their nests and chasing them across the branches; the women fought back grimly.
Now two of the men started climbing into Shadow’s own tree, peering up at her, whispering and showing their white teeth. Shadow could smell the blood on their fur.
Forces worked in Shadow’s mind: a fear of the dark unknown, a fear of further punishment at the hands of the people, a chill urge to cradle the thing in her womb. At last the forces reached a new equilibrium.
She slid out of her nest. As silently as she could, enduring the feeble kicking of the child in her womb, she clambered from the branches of her tree into the next, and then the next.
She slipped, alone, into the arboreal dark. Soon the sounds of the squabbling, roosting people were far behind her.
Fire:
Here is Fire. Here are his legs walking. Here he is, keeping his hands closed together, cupping the hot embers and the ash.
The sun is hot. The light is in his eyes. His eyes hurt him. His head hurts him.
He remembers why. He is lying on the ground. His eyes see bits of light. Stone’s feet swinging at his head and belly and chest. Once again Stone has driven him away from Dig.
Fire wants not to be here. But it is Fire who holds the embers, not his hands. Fire must be here to make his hands hold the hot embers.
The sky grows dark. The air grows cold. Fire looks up. The sky is covered over by cloud.
Something falls before Fire. It is a flake. It is white and soft. There are many flakes, falling slowly, all around him.
A flake settles on his chest. Another on his shoulders. His skin cannot feel them. More flakes settle around him, on the floor. His feet make footprints in the thickening grey cover. He stops. He looks back at the prints. He laughs. He steps backwards into the prints he has made. He steps forward into the prints.
The ground is growing grey. The people are grey. The trees are grey. Some of the people are afraid. Their fingers wipe grey from their eyes and scalps. The children with no names whimper. Their faces hide in their mothers” bellies.
Fire is not afraid. The grey is ash. Fire sees himself in the morning light. He sees his hands sweeping through ash, gathering embers. Now everything is ash. His head tips back. Ash falls into his mouth. His tongue tastes it. Fire is happy in this ash world. His legs run, and his mouth gibbers and hoots.
But now his head is wet.
His legs stop running. He lifts his head. He sees big fat raindrops fall from the sky, slowly sliding towards his face. They hit his mouth and his cheeks and his nose and his eyes. His eyes sting.
The rain makes little pits in the ash. His toes explore the pits. The wet ash turns to grey mud.
The other people trudge around him. Their hair is flat. The mud sticks to their feet in great heavy cakes. The rain turns the ash on their bodies to grey streaks.
The people reach a bank of trees. They stand there, baffled.
Stone steps forward. His great nostrils flare. “River river river!” he cries. His legs march him into the trees. His arms push aside the foliage with great cracks and snaps.
Fire’s legs carry him hurrying after Stone, into the forest.
The forest is green and dark and moist. Leaves and twigs clutch at Fire. His eyes look around fearfully, for Elf-folk, or worse. He sees nothing but people, like muddy shadows sliding through the bank of trees. He hears nothing but the crush of foliage by feet and hands, the soft breathing of the people.
Fire pushes out of the other side of the bank of trees.
The ground slopes down. There is rock here, purple-red, sticking out of the grass. Fire’s feet carry him carefully over the slippery rocks.
He reaches water. The water is brown, and slides slowly past his feet. It is the river.
The people come down to the bank. Their hands splash water on their faces, washing away mud.
Fire does not touch the water. Fire’s hands still hold the embers. Fire stands tall, and his eyes watch the river. To his left the river has scooped holes out from under the bank. A great lip of grass dangles towards the water. Fire sees that there is a gravel beach below the undercut, and deep dark openings behind it, caves.
“Fire Fire!” he cries. “Fire Fire!”
Fire walks towards the caves, cupping the embers. Grass and Wood, the women, follow him. They build a pile of the branches they have carried. They find the driest moss they can.
Inside the cave, Fire lowers his embers reverently into the moss. It smokes, but soon a flame is there, licking at the moss. Fire blows on it carefully.
When the fire is rising, Emma and Sally and Maxie come into the cave. Things cling to their backs, things of blue skin. Emma and Sally make the clinging things slide to the floor. They come to the fire and hold up their hands to its warmth. Sally rubs Maxie’s wet hair.
Fire grins. Emma grins back.
The flames are bright. Fire has a shadow. It stretches into the back of the cave, across a bumpy, mottled floor of rock. Fire follows his shadow. It grows longer, leading deeper into the dark.
There are animals at the back of the cave. Fire’s eyes open wide. Fire’s legs prepare to run.
His nose cannot smell animals. His nose smells people. He makes his legs walk forward.
The animals are sprawled flat against the wall. He makes his hand touch an animal. The fur is ragged and loose. He grabs it and pulls. The skin of the animal comes away from the wall.
There is no animal. There is only the skin of the animal. It was stretched out over branches. He pushes. The whole frame falls over with a clatter.
Behind the fallen frame he sees spears. He picks up a spear. Its tip is a different colour from the wood. His finger touches the tip. The tip is stone. It is an axe. No matter how hard he pulls, the stone wants to cling to its spear.
He drops the spear. He walks back along the cave, towards the light of the fire, the grey daylight.
People are gathered around the fire. Some children are sleeping. One woman sits in another’s lap, gently cupping her breasts. A man and a woman are coupling noisily.
Emma and Sally and Maxie sit against a wall. Their eyes gaze at the fire, or out into the greyness beyond.
The people are not here, though their bodies are here. Emma and Sally and Maxie are here. They are always here.
Fire’s body, warm and dry, wants to couple with Dig. His member stiffens quickly. He looks for Dig.
Dig is lying under Stone, on the floor. His hips thrust at her. Her eyes are closed.
Fire finds a rock on the floor. His fist closes around the rock and raises it, over Stone’s head.
Fire thinks of Stone’s anger, his fists and feet.
He drops the rock.
He walks out of the cave, to the river.
The rain is less now. It makes little grey pits on the surface of the water that come and go, come and go. He watches the pits.
For a time he is not there. There is only his body, only the water at his toes, the rain on his head, the pits on the water.
He squats down. The water is a cloudy, muddy brown. A fine grey scum floats on its surface. His eyes cannot see fish. But the water pools here, quietly. And he sees bubbles, bursting on the water.