Who am I? What am I? Once I thought I knew. For eight long turns of the seasons as counted from the time I recognized myself as an individual, I believed myself truly a member of the tribe.. I looked like them, I acted like them, I even flew like them. The only difference I could discern was that my mind was more powerful than theirs. No, I don’t mean I was more intelligent; at least, I don’t think so. What I mean is that my first flight occurred when I was barely two turns of seasons in age and I could fly as well as my mothers by the time I turned three, a full turn before any of my sisters. More, where they could lift themselves and maybe two others in flight, I could lift ten of them, or prevent them from rising no matter how hard they tried. But outside of that, I didn’t feel any differently.
Still, for some reason I also sensed animosity from some of the younger mothers, though Illiana, my True Mother, or so I believed, fought to shield me from their displeasure. I was maybe five turns or so before one of them speared me with her hate, accusing me of killing the Eldest priestess at my birth and of being the ‘darling’ of the Goddess. She hinted at something else, something dire that was supposed to happen because of me, but Illiana interrupted her and drove her out of the camp before she could send more. But she wasn’t alone and from that day forward I realized that I could sense both hope and fear from the rest of the tribe.
Other than my True Mother, only the tribe’s eldest Priestess offered me any sense of equality, teaching me not only the history of my People, who called themselves Sa’uk, but also of the reason we lived as we did, migrating from the deep river valley far to the south during the hot seasons to the cooler, but more dangerous mountainous regions to the north and back again as the weather cooled. Early on I was taught how the Par’du effectively destroyed the world we knew, my People once living in permanent camps counting hundreds of hundreds of our four-fingered hands in number where now our camps numbered maybe four plus ten hands in all plus a single male verging on Elder status himself. The Priestess also taught me of the Goddess and later even how to call upon the Goddess’ power under the light of the silvery-blue moon that so dominated our night sky.
Most of my young life I spent learning to survive. As soon as I could fly with the raptors that herded our birds, I was given the task of guarding the flocks, guiding them with staves tipped with precious metal balls, each containing a single, hard seed that made them jingle when I flicked the staff. The noise supposedly warned the ground-bound predators away who might be large enough to kill a bird for her meal while offering a sense of security to the birds themselves that their herders protected them. When the sound of the balls wasn’t enough, the older herder would send a raptor down to drive away the beast or kill it, if necessary. Of course, being meat eaters themselves, the raptors would more often kill the intruder and carry it up to her perch than she would drive it away.
But sometimes not even the raptors were enough to drive away a predator, though we always flew with at least one hand for that purpose. Long-faced hunters that ran in packs would charge into a grounded flock, using their speed to sweep in and grab a bird between their jaws, using their rudimentary arms like hooks to clutch and entangle their wings as they ran off again on their four legs. Other hunters, solitary and stealthy, would use their six clawed paws to climb a tree near a stray bird and drop from an overhead limb, splaying all six legs out like a net to enfold the bird until it could get a grip with its jaws and break its neck. And yet others, even larger, that usually subsisted on the fruits of the trees and the roots underground, insects and rodents, if hungry enough would charge the flock, or if it happened to espy a herder on the ground, one of us. Never in my knowledge has one of these beasts caught a Sauk unawares, but the tale is told of a foolish young vixen who broke her wing while flying through an unknown section of forest and was caught by one before she could lift back into the air. The tale merely emphasized how dangerous our world could be.
Still, to my knowledge none of my tribe was killed by misadventure, but rather by the cancers of old age; when the mind tired of fighting the almost-uncontrollable growths every adult developed by middle age. Usually when the growth became visible either beneath the fur or distending the body unnaturally, that individual was deemed Elder and was cared for by the rest of the tribe. She would use the wisdom she had garnered through her many long turns to teach and govern the tribe, acting as judge in disputes and determining the placement the next campsite as we traveled. As long as she could fly without assistance, she led the tribe during migration and chose the place to settle as we established our summer or winter village.
I am a Sa’uk. I bear the wings of a Sa’uk, the features of a Sa’uk and the body of a Sa’uk. I am a Sa’uk. Yet, why am I different? Why can I do the things I do to the power and detail that I can? Is it true that I am the darling of the Goddess? Am I somehow singled out by the Goddess to be more than my sisters? According to the Priestess, I am. My True Mother concurred, once I grew old enough to recognize my differences on my own. But at the time I believed that my differences were due to my True Mother’s difference. Where her sisters all bear russet fur, Illiana bore a lighter shade, pale by comparison and only barely darker than the white we all bore on our breast from neck to loin and below. Her wings, too, shone pale in the sunlight, the bright, sunny shade of the dayflower rather than the dark, earthy shade of nest-tree bark. She also stood taller, her sisters coming only up to her breast in height while her wings spanned half again as long as theirs.
I, on the other hand, more closely matched my sisters, though I still stood out in many ways. I stood no taller than they, and my wings, if anything, measured slightly less in span, though deeper of chord, my flight feathers longer by a hand, allowing me to catch more air as I flew. Their color more closely matched that of my fur–the color of red rock, though banded with black where my pelt’s coloring was smooth. This deeper color made the white down my breast seem brighter by comparison.
I was given the name, Rhiann. I am a Priestess of the Web. Once I was Human.
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Nicely done piece of introspection.