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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 97: Takano 115
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Cooper 31
The woodlands cloaked themselves in fragile stems of waving light green. Robins chirped, and small but tasty bunnies hopped out with quivering noses. Only in the most shaded spots did patches of white snow linger. Spring had finally come and, except for Boronir, the Tribe had survived.
She led a service of thankfulness for their survival after which Davey told her with a straight face that ‘the Filgrins had a hard winter too if not for the Injuns.’ She stared at him, and then summoned up her reserves of politeness to hold in the wild, wailing laughter that threatened to cackle out in a wide spreading flood that she feared would presage insanity. Escaping, she found a tree to hide behind, and kneeling on the new green grass which was still damp, she let out the gusts of laughter trapped inside. It was not that funny, but the strain was getting to her.
A week later, Varlax came to visit. The two reminisced for a while, enjoying the moment, until Varlax decided to explain the purpose of the visit.
“Davey wants to take me and the children to see his family.”
“Oh.” Tommy had been expecting this, but yet somehow it had snuck up on her. After all, taking the girl home to meet the parents was a thing. A stab of grief came at the thought that she would never do this. Home was impossibly far away, if that even made sense as a way to describe something on the other side of Reality, in another Universe. Blinking back tears, she came around the small campfire just enough to ward off the chill, and gave Varlax her hug and blessing all in one. The quintet did not leave immediately, but four days later the whole tribe turned out to wish them well as they set out after breakfast.
A half dozen others walked with them for the first few miles, but Tommy knew she did not need any more exercise. If the winter had gone on another month, she feared the death toll would have risen. She could count most of the ribs in her rib cage. Before this winter, she had been thin. Now she had passed scrawny, and was verging on skeletal.
Part of the problem was that all the animals they ate were themselves worn down and thinned by the winter. A buck that might have been a good meal for half of the tribe was now three fourths to two thirds the weight it was in the autumn with much of that loss coming out of the edible part rather than the bones. On the plus side, the archers who had been fair or good in midwinter were now good or excellent with a few superb archers who had taken to calling themselves The Lincoln Green Club after a story Davey mentioned from one of the fabled Nineteen Books. Taking a buck with the first arrow and the buck dropping before it could flee out of sight was no longer an uncommon feat. Davey was the best archer because of experience and his compound bow, but there were several who he thought might pass him if they could get a ‘good bow’ as he called his weapon instead of a ‘poor bow’ as he called theirs.
He did not offer to share his, however. A custom had grown up that an archer’s bow was sacred, and only the archer, or those with specific one-occasion-only permission from him, could touch it. She could see it growing stronger because it was founded in a deep reality. The bow was life--not just for the archer, or his or her family, but for the Tribe. She only hoped it did not reach the ridiculous level of the samurai who were allowed to slay a peasant who stepped over the shadow of their sword.
During this time, she ‘house sat’ for Davey and Varlax in their log cabin. It was good to have a fireplace inside the living area, even if the whole structure required more work to keep heated than her nest did. Perhaps she’d get a cabin this summer. The extra space would be nice.
She had eventually got her ‘blooding’, she reflected by the fireplace, and had over time become a decent archer. The number of bucks she had taken over the winter was still fewer than ten, but she had lost count of how many rabbits or other small furred creatures, and even birds, she had taken. She could confirm from personal experience that Water Moccasin snake and Great Horned Owl both tasted pretty much like chicken. The owl had been far easier to hit even if it had hurt her heart a bit whereas killing the snake had felt like killing a rat, an endeavor justified by the creature’s odiousness.
Over the next month, the Tribe pulled out of its dive to destruction. They had been like a high flying airplane that had its engine fail, and they had fallen in a poorly controlled dive. Before they could crash nose first the engine had come back and the pilot had begun pulling back on the yoke in the cockpit. For the first week of the last month they had been just above the trees, flying level, and then they had started to climb.
About a month into her house-sitting for Davey and Varlax, she fried some young ferns along with a small fish which was her first fish in, she was not sure, but it was a lot of months. Her arms were no longer more closely resembling chopsticks than arms, even if she was still too thin. More variety returned to her diet, and she began to put on a few more pounds. No longer did her stomach growl at the first sign of food.
Coming back to her camp and her nest to do a quick check and clean up to keep her own property in good condition, her nose twitched. What was that delightful but strange smell? Why was her campfire lit when she was using Davey’s cabin? She supposed it did not matter if someone else wanted to use her camp, but it felt rude. It took her nearly thirty seconds to place the scent, as it had been so long since she had had some. But when she did, she ran, lightly, almost dancing. Running into the campsite, she saw Davey, Varlax, and the three children sitting by her fire, dressed in finer clothes, and Davey, her blessed little brother, was cooking a thick slice of ham in her cookware. A few others were there as well, but she had no eyes for them.
“I love you all. I am so glad to see you. But--”
“Give her the ham slice, Davey,” Varlax said affectionately. “She won’t be able to think until she’s eaten it.” He nodded at his wife, and scooped out the slice with his knife point to put on a bark plate for Tommy.
There were others there, and her friends looked her way, but she just focused on the wonderful salty delicious ham slice. Oh, she had died and gone to Heaven, or at least the suburbs of Heaven. Her stomach burbled, wondering what this strange thing was, but then settled down recognizing it as good and familiar. Now she could look up.
Beside Davey was his older brother, or at least she thought so. He had a slight beard, and much of the same look although with more presence about him. Also, he was eyeing her with a very speculative glance that she quickly interpreted to mean ‘hmmm, should I marry this girl?’ It was a very straightforward look, and she found herself blushing badly. Davey laughed, and punched his brother in the arm.
“You’ve embarrassed her, brother. Besides, Tommy is not for the likes of us. She’s magic from beyond the worlds. Unless you want to do like those men who visited Faeries, you need to look elsewhere. Sorry, sister, my brother is a bit not used to all this.” She smiled at Davey. She could tell he was rather enjoying being the knowledgeable one to his domineering older brother.
“It's okay,” she said, and he apologized at the same moment. Tommy might have liked him but he had the same limited mental horizon as everyone else, and three fourths of her jokes he would not understand. Sooner than she had expected, her campfire was surrounded by dozens of people. About half of them were young girls, and Dan’l, the brother, looked shocked, dazed, and very, very pleased.
Over the next month, seven marriages were consummated, including Dan’l’s. Better yet, Varlax confessed to Tommy one night that she was pregnant. The women rejoiced, and considered names. Davey for his father was one idea. Another was Boronir, to honor the brave dead. Despite Tommy’s protests, Varlax was fixed on Tommy if the baby was a girl. One thing that Varlax pointed out was that they were forming customs now. If she chose Davey, it might become common to name the firstborn son after the father. If instead she chose Boronir, then naming the son after fallen Tribesmen might well become a thing. As to Tommy, Varlax assured her that even if she herself had a son, some mother would have a girl, and that girl would be named Tommy. It was not a name the Tribe had used before, but now it was part of the pool of names. Tommy shook her head as she thought about how generations from now some little girl might ask her father ‘why’d you pick Tommy for me, da?’ and he’d say ‘well, daughter of mine, way back when the Tribe was first founded, before the first Town was built, there was a strange magic girl from beyond the worlds, and her name was Tommy.’
Tommy had gained back her healthy weight, as had everyone else around her. Spring was well underway, and she finally felt fit enough to go back to her training with her kawanaga.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #511: Characters Change. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
