06 Kin

Yagbur found his way through the dark to the agreed meeting place. He had no thought, only motion. There was didn’t feel the gore that clung to him. Didn’t notice the branches or the biting birds. Yagbur’s expression more resembled that of a vacant domi than that of the Kin.

Brambling haktet patches ripped hunks of fur, and mud matted his back. Streaks dribbled from the countless bites and barbs. He was filthy and drained of all thought. Staggering the Yagbur found his way to the camp.

First his ears twitched and picked up rattles and sloshing. The sounds didn't belong to the ambiance that had followed his body here. Next his nose scented smells of curing fats and oils. His feet felt the rough nets of rope as they held down the grasses. Eyes saw the skins of water and dried bladders full of grains hanging from the trees rattling whenever the netting was agitated.

But, suppressing the smells of the forest most, was the fetid stench of the domi. In their dreaming state, they stood bound. Each with makeshift ropes of stripped haktet. Their hands tied to hands and those tied to the domi in front.

A kesit saw Yagbur, eyes dead and vacant, fur thick and filthy. With his face obscure they mistook him for one of the soft ones. Hands grabbed his wrist and dragged him to join the rest of the dazed.

A memory flickered but then dimmed. It was part of their indoctrination for their name. A hand slathered oil over their eyes. A chant began as the 4 rows were pulled. He followed and staggering with the bound.

“Blood in each step,

soles made quiet,

Coats full burs and mites,

Our skins thick,

Ragtag and weary,

Our minds become one.

We freeze in the ice,

We bake in the sun,

We drown in the sea,

The Kin are home."

* * *

Day came and Yagbur walked. His eyes remained dead. The entranced were dosed with the anointing oil again. Yagbur saw nothing, just each step in front of the next.

A smaller male tied next to him began dragging. He only kept moving with the rest. There were primal groans and cries for water. Yagbur did not notice his thirst, he did not flag. On the third rotation, small feeling emerged in him, it was annoyance, at the younger male stumbling.

“Keep going”, Yagbur attempted. Instead, a coarse rasping came out. The boy was still immersed in the herb and wouldn't have understood. Later that night the body was cut from its bonds. Yagbur took no notice and kept walking with the rest.

His faculties didn’t fully come back to him till the next morning. The chanting stopped as they came up to a brook. Their saviors, their captors stopped and began scooping water with hands and leaves. Several of them came around to each of the domi. First tilted the domi's head back and then they poured.

One familiar came around to the still dazed Yagbur. Hands grabbed his chin and stopped. Water washed over his face. Caked dirt and blood came loose and freed his deformed left side of his face.

Yagbur stood; he was still mostly coated in the mud despite the rough cleansing. His dark near-black blue stripes peaked from beneath the mud. His left eye slanted and twisted down to be stay open permanently. Exposed, it could not hide the small round milky, blue eye instead of the natural purple slits all Kesit were born with. The slack left side of his face was emotionless, his nose deformed and expressionless.

A palm knocked his fangs together rattling his head. Blunt pain drove into his abdomen. He doubled over and his bonds pulled the soft minded domi down with him.

“Freak. What are you doing here? If you're here where’s Havlek?”, the familiar one said followed with another kick. Yagbur didn't answer, but memories began to crawl out. Another kick to his face let them free when he didn't answer.

"A swarm..." he wheezed after a moment, "a swarm, of hunters"

Yagbur attempted to finish his answer but the furious kesit kicked him yet again.

"What swarm?" he was screaming at this point reaching towards the corded band on his waist.

Yagbur opened his mouth to answer, but Ving continued "How are you here, and my eldest is not?"

A *shhhik* sounded, he felt a coolness against his throat. Yagbur felt the fur near his throat fall scattering to the ground. Sharpened carapace tightly pressed his neck.

Another voice, this one an impatient low flint, called, “Ving, what’s going on? More of these ones will drop if you don’t hurry with the water.”

"Here, brother,” Ving replied pulling Yagbur up by the scruff, “he is lower than a domi. This is a coward hiding among the uncleansed."

"Explain”, Havelek's blood kin demanded.

Ving slung Yagbur by the scruff, jerking his spine, facing and shoving him into Murkie's face.

“Look," he proclaimed "It's the freak, Yagbur." The edge now drew a slow steady stream. "Coward left our blood to die."

Still wheezing, Yagbur tried to reply. ‘I didn’t. It was the sentinels. I played the tymbals.’ Instead, all that came out as a wheeze.

Murkie's eyes were more blood than indigo; They stared, both orbs filled with a deep malice and violence. Cool words countered and said, “Probably, but kin does not kill kin without a blessing. Cut him loose and make him drink.”

Ving nodded, withdrew the fang from Yagbur’s throat, and used it to loose Yagbur from his bonds. Still holding his scruff, the brother dragged him to the brook, shoving him in.

Yagbur tumbled, staggered down into the numbing cold water. He panicked, spluttering, as if he were drowning. He heard a muffled voice before he was pulled up. Murkie had him under his arms and whispered. “Drink fool. Drink then drag the soft chela.”

So he drank, gulping down water, dirt, and slush.

Some time passed and Ving and the others checked the bonds. Murkie dropped 3 large sacks of provisions down in front of him. He struggled to rise 2 on one shoulder and one on the other, but he eventually did so. Ving tied the bonds from the females to him. A yipping laugh to himself "Softer than the females."

Chanting resumed. Ving blessed the domi, dosing them again and the trek too continued.

"We thirst,

Nothing to quench us,

Hunger,

Nothing to fill us,

We breath,

We become storm.

Our dead pass,

Weakness gone.

Brothers collapse,

We live on.

We are Kin,

We are strong.”

Three more days and more of the freed had failed their transcendence. The remainder arrived in that time at Falle. During the remainder of the journey both Havlek's blood-kin had mocked and further abused him.

It was not that Havelk died. It was that the hunter was of great prowess; his death had been waste. It was wasted on him, a twisted runt. Perhaps they were right, he was weak, and the weak were a burden.

* * *

At Falle, he smelled the cold dung and earth of home. He saw the orderly rows of mud huts and wigwams, each a radial from the large hut covered in painted shells and claws. The herded domi were handed off to the shaman of mind and foot. Both males and females would be taught to speak. Males would be chela until they earned their names; they would be molded to be Kin, or they would be broken. The females would be coupled to the worthy.

Yagbur found himself dragged through Falle. Each step Murkie and Ving took their time and sang his failings and his weakness. They were blood-kin of a strong hunter and sought judgment. He was less than a mewling pup. He was Yagbur the bait, twisted and half-blind, and of a weak name. Even females were of more value than the lowly singer.

The sun sank and the sky greened. Black hide showed itself through bald patches of Yagbur’s fur. His eyes saw a male's callused feet in front of him; from the male's feet he saw full winter white running up legs. Teal and white patterned spots and stripes patterned the body up to the dour face. The male's white slit pupils stared down. Recognition set in Yagbur's mind.

The First Dreamer stood, disapproval emanating from his body. He bore no weapon, but size stature and bearing showed him dominant. Despite his age his body had not diminished. Even the white slip, which coated the hut served his appearance. It enlarged his visage and intimidated the three who stood before him.

“Have you wasted enough time with this?" he said. The words of the white furred kesit were placid, but gave the three the scent of a storm.

They stood quiet in their caution for a moment, but his nostrils expressed further displeasure. "We seek judgment," the blood-kin started at once. Murkie continued as Ving spluttered out "this coward abandoned his du..."

“Leave him here. I’ll deal with him." The Dreamer cut the explanation off..

Murkie's speech stopped at the interruption. This was the Great Sire, their liberator. He was the only judgment who could grant mercy to The Kin and end this unnatural runt.

The First Dreamer looked at them both with his hazy eyes. “Well?” He asked.

Ving found boldness and spoke, "Yagbur failed, we seek judgment for Havlek"

He looked at the two again, "I sired three of you." They looked confused.

“I put you in your mother and she spawned three, I'm sure. Yet no, I am wrong.” the elder's voice still held the calm from before, and his presence had not lessened.

“What?” they responded confused by the change in subject.

He continued with his reproach, “I couldn’t have. I only see two whimpering whelps. I'd have dropped you down into a vent at your first cry if I had known this is how you'd turn out."

Ving stepped forward to protest and bared his fangs while flaring his nostrils. The Great Father ignored the youth and spoke, “I gave instruction,”

The elder’s eyes met Ving’s and did not turn away. Not missing the insult, Ving growled and lunged. Ving's eyes bulged, and cerulean spittle frothed from his mouth. The elder had stepped crouching forward, fingers gripping the upstart's neck. "I gave instruction. Must I repeat it?" Cartilage crumpled, bone cracked.

White slit pupils stared down at the remaining two and he spoke, “Well?” He straightened, and released his hand from the throat. The once rebellious body dropped to the dirt.

Murkie looked down and smoothed his nose, but Yagbur did not miss the flare and glance he received. The kesit lifted him up the body and began to drag it around and outside Falle.

"Follow", the elder said. It was the one word, only followed by him turning into his hut.

Yagbur pressed hands down and stood. Fear happened during the raid. Drawing near death would elicit such a response. Why should this not too, Yagbur thought.

* * *

Inside was dim, thick steam rose from the small vent deep in the dirt floor. Skins and herbs dried and cooked over it, filling the room with a sweet pungent smell.

“Are you weak?”, the gruff voice came.

He was soft. He knew, but this male held sole judgment over any burden of The Kin, save the shaman's personal discretions.

“Well,” The voice rose, and face flared with more ire than before, “are you?”

“Yes, I let Havlek die” came his own voice, timid and soft.

“People die, even the promising ones.", came the resigned words. "He died because of his failings. They are his own."

Yagbur saw the scorn on him. Why did this male hate him so much? More words scattered through the steam, "How did a weak rotten hunk of meat like you live when a prodigy died?”

The pause did not expect an answer. The Sire continued this time with an expectation, “Did you kill him? Did you slit his throat?”

“N no”, the frightened boy responded.

“Did you break his neck? Poison him? Smother him?”, came the sussinct follow up.

“No Dreamer”, he responed. Yagbur tried to put on a braver face, but this failed.

“Shame. I hoped maybe there was something to you than more than your soft singing."

“I failed as being bait.”

The old man laughed. “Yagbur, bait. That's your name, not your gift, That’s not why I needed you there, and that shouldn't have been what happened. I heard their story, didn't realize the shame they would cause themselves."

Yagbur stared. He was unsure of what to say. The voice repeated, "Explain" Yagbur thought it was an echo.

“Havlek wanted me to be bait. I would distract the hive, and they...", yagbur tried to continue his explanation.

"I know", words came through the thickening mist, "I heard them drag you through Falle. They said you have the soft teeth of prey. They called you unnatural. Perhaps its all true, but if you were useless I'd be rid of you."

“That's not what I need. No one sees what I need them to see." They see the Colors dripped out of the kesits mouth. Green lines of light glimmered from the hole in the ceiling.

"You don't understand your gift, why I brought you here. So I will look, I'll listen and see everything every moment of what happened" the Dreamer's words slithered into his skin, itching, and digging.

The First Dreamer's words reverberated, repeated, their colors changing. Hands held spectrums of light. They cast the light into the sun.

“You were lucky. I would have smothered your ugly, malformed half-melted face as a pup, but something stayed my hand, I needed you." they melted into short fanned ears. "I told them all you were a blessing. I told them you had a purpose."

The room hazed over more. The old man continued “I see you and your small gift, I was right. I see everything now, and I see a use for you"

The room faded to black and Yagbur dreamed.