Category: Hatuga

Don Pigeón

The forest of Hatuga sees death and rebirth on a daily basis. Fires burn down forests so that new trees may grow; floods wash away old sediment to make clear what was once buried; predators eat prey so that the new generation made be heard. Each time this occurs, it is taking what has come before, and improving on it with something new or refreshed. Nothing of consequence is lost, only refocused into a natural working order. Civilization is founded on this fundamental cycle of life and death. It never ends, but is perpetually feeding into itself; expanding outwards, never changing direction.

Only once, in all of Hatuga’s history, did this cycle actually reset.

It began, as most stories do, with a tragedy in the most widespread flock in the forest. Don Pigeón was a bird of no ambition, in the most normal way possible. He took for granted the seed that was given to him, and was comfortable in his day-to-day flocking from bath to perch to town to perch again. There was routine to his life, there was community to his life, there was no reason to change what he did and how he did it whatsoever. He was a family fowl.

One Winter, as his flock was preparing to migrate South to more tepid climates, it was determined that his beloved Grán Pigeón was now too old to make the journey. All the best arrangements were made for her, to remain warm and well-supplied while the rest of the casa was away. This was not an abnormal occurrence, and the protocols had been reliably compiled over the years by expert pigeons who were also deemed too weak to escape the clutches of Winter. So Don Pigeón gave his dear sweet nonna a peck on the cheeks, that bird who had done nothing short of provide emotional encouragement throughout his entire life so that an existence without ambitions was digestible, and bid her farewell.

The next time Don Pigeón saw his nonna, she was laid out before him on a bed of birdseed, but far away in the realm of Death. While the flock was gone, there were complications with supplies – a disease that not only rotted the food they had stocked up, but also the inside of Grán Pigeón’s feeble stomach. He perched before her, furious at fate that had decreed him powerless in the face of natural cycles.

That event was the catalyst for the first ever stroke of ambition to enter Don Pigeón’s brain. His question: Must we remain so powerless? His answer: no. He did not have a solution in mind quite yet, but he wouldn’t stand for this unfair, illogical, depressing reality. The unknown did not hinder his determination, but had, in fact, given him a hint in Grán Pigeón’s passing. No more taking for granted what could be snatched away in a second – No more strutting about in aimless abandon – No more lounging in baths, cooing with neighbors, ruffling feathers without a care in the world.

This was his world. And, for the first time since he was cursed with ambition, he cared.

The hint Death had given Don Pigeón as to his first step was to find a solution that might have prevented Grán Pigeón’s expiration. Disease was nothing new. But it wasn’t so much the disease that was problem as was the fact that nobody knew what she was going through. There was no way to check up on her, to make sure she was doing all right, and no way to send her what she needed. Food, medicine, anything that could keep her alive, there was no way to get it to her. Therein was the first answer to Don Pigeón’s question revealed.

In less than a month, the first Pigeon Parcel Service Center was constructed. It was a rudimentary setup in a cramped nest that Don Pigeón founded with a few of the cousins who were also hit hardest by Grán Pigeón’s passing. For another month, the only thing that was leaving the center was hope – no one had any mail they wanted to deliver clear across Hatuga. The cousins left, one by one, until only Don Pigeón remained. But he remained steadfast, for he knew, if he had the possibility of feeling this hopeless, so at least one other Hatugan out there must feel the same as he.

And there was. Weasel had seen one of his daughters run off with a Stoat, when he had been openly explicitly averse to the arrangement. Now, he resented his actions, and wanted desperately to be part of whatever family his daughter made. Don Pigeón, pledging his devotion to delivering this sentiment, took Weasel’s letter and set off immediately where he was directed. For two full days he traveled nonstop, until he landed on the doorstep of their makeshift burrow. The multitude of reactions that slowly spread across the features of the Weasel’s daughter as she read the letter touched him – it was a reward he had not expected. As was the gift she offered out of the goodness of her heart for his kind deed: a basket of nuts that grew only in that isolated part of the forest, deep underground at that. With his heart and belly full, and a positive reply for the Weasel in his claws, Don Pigeón finally felt like his dream was on its way to fruition.

And it was, for word of mouth spread among the large and the small, amongst all species, that Don Pigeón was the bird to ask for if one wanted to get in touch with any other part of Hatuga. He would fly miles and miles for you, so that you could reach out to loved ones beyond reach. It was amazing how many in that forest had drifted apart – or were just curious about their neighbors, penning no one in particular just so they could learn more about their home.

Gradually, to Don Pigeón’s delight, his family began to return to the roost. Not to congratulate him, or to join him as employees, but to help him take control of the delivery machine he was building. Don Pigeón was taking minimal fees, fees that did not justify the time and lengths for which he was flying all over Kingdom Come. Now, with a rate in place, there were more than sentimental reasons to make the trip; the Pigeón family began accumulating all sorts of rare materials and resources, normally isolated to one region or another, gradually gathered at the Pigeon Parcel Service Center (or PPSC for short).

As he accumulated goods and goodwill, so did Don Pigeón gather the nature of nature. He became the confidant of rumors all around the jungle – not by choice at first, mind you, for some people will spill their guts to just about any random stranger who would listen. And Don Pigeón and his family were very good listeners. With the Don, it began from a place of empathy. Slowly, steadily, empathy changed to interest. And interest in truth, like in finance, compounds in the knowledge bank of Pigeón. The Don knew this as a useful tool right away…But for what? He did not have the answer, for his heart had yet to reach that level of corruption.

What it informed firstly, was Don Pigeón’s sympathy for what made life difficult for certain Hatugans. Whether they were lacking in defenses against the natural elements, or a certain confidence in the natural evolution of their species, or a shortage of natural resources, Don Pigeón employed a number of his brightest minds to brainstorm and blueprint what could be done about the problems plaguing their ecosystem. 

But the other pigeons did not have the giving heart their Don was gifted with. They became cognizant of dormant dreams of their own, things that would never come to fruition if they remained employed in the PPSC. This was Hatuga, however – there was no reason for any Hatugan to be employed! But they could not resist the exotic imports dropped on their doorstep, and the traveling that took them to lands they’d only imagined but now had a reason to experience. The easy solution for them, would be to pressure Don Pigeón for concessions. He was the generous sort, and they knew he could never deny his family.

In order to afford such concessions, Don Pigeón expanded his outfit. Other birds had been pining to get their knock-knees through the doorway, but Don Pigeón had kept them at bay through reputation, for the sake of reputation. Monopolizing the delivery service industry ensured that everything remained under his control, for the sake of the customer, but it was becoming harder and harder to control what he could not see.

So he made concessions. To his family, his own employees, he assured raises all around. To independent delivery outfits, he allowed the opportunity to stake a claim in the industry, with one caveat: their new businesses would operate as extended branches of his own. In this diplomatic way, Don Pigeón satisfied both his allies and his opponents, while also expanding the reach of his services.

But there was one very subtle advantage that only Don Pigeón was immediately conscious of. In order to afford raises to his workers, Don Pigeón knew it was necessary for competing brands to exist. He did not put his name on these new branches, the 1-Day Shipping from Falcons, the Heavy Cargo Shipping from Condors, the Penguin’s Aquatic Shipping. Instead, he encouraged healthy competition, the illusion that all of these outfits were not owned and controlled by him (they were, of course). And, where there is competition, there is competitive pricing; already addicted to widespread interconnection, the residents of Hatuga were all too happy to pay more and more, over the course of months, to retain the new boundaries that Don Pigeón had pushed back for them. And, with the loyalties of these “rival companies,” Don Pigeón ensured that any new aspiring entrepreneurs could be quashed before they even got started.

Progress moved swiftly. Don Pigeón now had his toes all over the North, West, South, and East of Hatuga, while the central branch controlled everything discreetly. Confident he had garnered enough influence and importance in the lives of his fellow Hatugans, the Don began the next step in his goal to diminish the struggles of his fellow countrymen: the implementation of industry.

Crippled in a hunting accident? We can supply you a leg, or a rudimentary vehicle that runs on the wind. Elements too strong for your natural defenses? We can build you a house. Got an allergy, a sickness, a wound? We have chemicals to put an end to that. Any aspect of life that brought fear or insecurity to a Hatugan, Don Pigeón sought to eliminate it – to control it. It was for the benefit of all of Hatuga that he would make life more liveable, and less fearful. To do that, he would need to bring together specialists, those who had only pursued certain fields for hobby or evolutionary inclination, and put them on his ever-expanding payroll. And Hatugans, welcome to any change that made their lives convenient, only saw this carefully regulated industrialization as Nature in action. After all, growth is in the trees, in the waters, in their very genes; so what is so unnatural about growing civilization like this?

But for all his benevolence towards those investing in the bright new Hatuga of his dreams, there was still one citizen he could not bring himself to tolerate: Sloths. The Sloths partook of industry as much as any other Hatugan, no greater and no less, but their slow speed and general laziness dictated that they only consume, and not contribute. Dictated? No, Don Pigeón would not be dictated to by a bunch of ungrateful Sloths. If they wished to be part of his brave new world of technological and sociological innovation, they would need to give up some part of themselves, as all Hatugans had – time, money, or expertise, it did not matter. What would be required to encourage them?

The parcel service had become so overburdened, that some of Don Pigeón’s Octopus scientists had been working on a way to relieve the burden when it came to written mail or messages. They had created a device that would broadcast soundwaves, but it relied on tether points to extend their scope. Don Pigeón did not need a second explanation. Gathering the full might of his construction crews from all directions, radio towers were erected almost overnight, and enough devices were manufactured to be sold the next week. There were two frequencies with thousands of channels: one that allowed private calls for personal messages between Hatugans, and another for broadcasting entertaining discussions on life, philosophy, and current events. So, not only was the burden on his work forces lightened, but he now had a way to bring those pesky Sloths to see the light – whether by encouraging participation in community and culture, defining what it is to be a good Hatugan, or just flat-out insulting Sloths as a species in general. He let the intellectuals have their fun, their experiments, sure – but these were his radio waves, and he would ensure that only what was best for Hatuga was given credence as truth. Such was his responsibility as head of the family.

But the Don could not have foreseen how his messaging took a life of its own beyond the radiowaves. Some Hatugans sympathized with the sloths. They didn’t mind contributing to enjoy conveniences, but the sheer volume of sacrifices they made did not equal what they were receiving in return. Ths was especially true of the primates, whose opposable thumbs were invaluable for low-reward, low-prestige, purely physical technical roles, especially when building machines.

Others became increasingly aware of how, no matter where they turned, the philosophies of whoever owned these radio channels (for Don Pigeón was too humble to attribute all the societal changes to himself alone) were being forced down into their ears relentlessly, and with very aggressive language. Not only that, but a new type of building was on the rise, literally – skyscrapers, stuffed to the brim with either low-import, high-reward communication experts in the case of the business districts, or with families and herds of varying species in the residential districts (many of which did not naturally get along). And the trees! The number of trees that had to be removed to make space, especially as more and more species migrated to territories not their own, convoluting food chains and complicating ecosystems. 

Whoever was making all these changes couldn’t see the trees for the forest, so focused on the big picture that they overlooked all the little threads coming undone across their canvas. But it was painted nonetheless, and the thousand words had come home to nest – specifically those decrying, denouncing, and demonizing Sloths.

Language on the radiowaves had shifted from a subtle reinforcement of “Hatugan values” to calling out Sloths directly by Genus. Some Hatugans, whether they were pro or anti progress, began to lash out at Sloths as an easy and slow-moving target for venting their frustrations. The Sloths continued whatever they had been doing, calling out their oppression, but otherwise so set in their ways that they knew they could not adapt. Hatugans began demanding action, and, for the first time in the forest’s collective history, they elected a democratic council to help guide their newfound nation towards a better state of being.

Not long after the election, a disease broke out among the Sloths. No scientist could truly nail down the source with factual evidence, but it was widely determined to be the result of a fruit that was not native to their territory, suddenly introduced and producing spores that the Sloth immunity was not adapted to. Those that were not killed off by this contagion were administered a drug meant to reduce the inflammation caused – sadly it only saved a fraction. A fraction which, through policy enforcing a quarantine on the Sloths and those who retained close connections or fraternization to their species, crowding them into absolutely horrendous and sickly living conditions, reduced the total population of Sloths in Hatuga to one-hundred percent extinct.

The tragedy was touted as “not wholly undeserved, and a necessary sacrifice for the betterment and optimization of Hatugan society.” Such was the exact phrase with identical wording touted on every audible radio channel. Some Hatugans bought into it; others did not. They no longer trusted the radio, or their makeshift government, or their collective culture rapidly dissolving their individual identities, or even their very neighbor. Heck, the recent disease that erased the Sloths even made them question if all this progress was even a good idea to begin with! The climate, so fired up with electricity and polarity, finally burst into a hundred sparks of individual rebellions, revolutions, acts of dissent. Sparks that erupted with an all-out war.

It was the first, and only, Civil War Hatuga would ever see.

Carnage knew no bounds. From North to South, East to West, sea to sky, and even underground – Hatuga was evenly split between those who were Hell-bent on tearing down these monuments of progress and idols of civilization, and those who would kill to protect them. Both sides were evenly matched, not in numbers, but in power – for a majority of the primates, skilled in building machines, manufactured terrible contraptions that dealt destruction enough for the forces they lacked. The land was rendered infertile, collapsing skyscrapers wiped out whole communities, and months of progress were deleted in a few days. Knowing that it was do-or-die, that neither side could withstand such unrestrained conflict for long, the main forces parlayed for a treaty – they would meet for a great battle on Mount Gula, and the winner would determine the fate of Hatuga.

It was all a farce. No matter which side reigned victorious, there was only one true winner, and determiner of Hatuga’s fate. His name: Don Pigeón.

 Don Pigeón knew that this war was inevitable. The greed of his cousins all those years ago proved to him that only he had the goodness of heart to put Hatuga’s needs before his own. He had already determined a solution for every outcome, each one with the forest’s best interests at heart. And, as he soared above the opposing sides as they marched off to battle, scaling both sides of the ridged crests across Mount Gula’s back, he felt a feeling he had never acknowledged before – but had felt many times in the past. It was a feeling of fullness. Every aspect of Hatugan life, from identity to mobility to communicability to malleability, was actively and currently being controlled by him. He was a force of Nature, one that had brought Nature’s order to heel. That feeling of fullness…It was because he had accomplished this, and only he. He had fought against Death, the same Death that had robbed him of his nonna. While he hadn’t yet defeated Death, he had indeed conquered life. Don Pigeón, Master of Life! He was a god.

Don Pigeón circled overhead as the first wave clashed, a buzzard to the dreams and futures of so many Hatugans. Given the voracity of the bloodshed and the spirit of the fighters, he calculated that the side opposing his regime would be victorious within the next hour. But it was no matter – he had his talons in their ways of living, so modernized and civilized they had become, that the next generation would surely forget the atrocities of their ancestors and turn a blind eye to suspicion. He had monitored their private calls, owning their methods of communication, and so knew how to get inside their heads or blackmail the members of whatever new government might from the bloodshed. He would win their trust, with a delicate touch and deliberate messaging, and create an even better way of life for Hatuga.

Don Pigeón was right about one thing: how easy it is for a single generation to forget the objective circumstances recorded about their history. Since the state of Hatuga controlled the radiowaves, advocating for one culture under Pigeon, many fables had been lost to public knowledge. If they had not been, perhaps the factions raging against one another might have done so more quietly, or chosen a different location altogether. Mount Gula was named specifically for an old legend, one that had been told to scare little Hatugans into not biting off more than they ought to chew – which the current society certainly had. A Hatugan herself, one that had grown so large that, like Don Pigeón with his totalitarian grip on the whole forest, she had become a force of Nature. A force of Nature that Hatuga had rendered dormant so that she did not devour everything, but now called forth to defend its lands and reset the cycle – to undo the damage Don Pigeón had done to all of Hatugakind.

The Hatugans in the midst of battle believed that they were being subjected to an earthquake, or that their instruments of war were so powerful that the very earth was caving in. Only Don Pigeón, high above the doomed combatants, could realize with fear that they had awoken a monster, longer and taller than the range feeding into Mount Gula. It rolled over on its spiked back, crushing both sides with falling rocks or its body shaking off the dregs of slumber as it shook off Hatugans to their deaths hundreds of feet below. In five minutes, the war was over. 

Don Pigeón, last survivor on that battlefield, was staring straight into the molten eyes of Puripu – The Gator of Impressive Girth.

But it was not Puripu who stared back, for her mind had long gone into the depths of dreamscapes. Her body, too, had become one with stone, dirt, trees, with a belly full of magma and teeth of steel. What Don Pigeón now beheld was the physical conjuration of Death, a Death Hatuga had summoned to reset the cycle and cleanse the forest. If devouring Don Pigeón was the solution, it was an easy fix. But that would accomplish nothing – he was the root of an infectious disease, one that had spread and darkened all corners of the map. So, turning its head, the Gator of Impressive Girth set about the task Hatuga had given it free reign to do: kill and eat.

For three whole days of nationwide terror, the Gator steamrolled through Hatuga without stopping. Entire cities were leveled, all skyscrapers toppled, all factories on fire. Radio towers crumpled into ruin and thousands of Hatugans were reduced to nothing by the Gator’s rampage. In the final hours of her nonstop destruction, she thrashed violently, shaking her body apart. The stone that formed her powerful body cracked, sending pieces flying into the last remnants of Don Pigeón’s short-lived world order, until all that was left were the reminders of his folly. Puripu finally collapsed into a landslide of rubble and igneous rock, a natural disaster that put both her and Don Pigeón’s tyranny to rest.

Don Pigeón’s extended family had remained in the PPSC to protect their assets and profits, and so were eliminated with all traces of that once humble and harmless delivery service. As for Don Pigeón, he lived on. Somewhere, beyond the mists of Western Hatuga, the once proud force of Nature had fled to escape the scrutiny of the survivors, the innocent and the guilty who would have to repair the damage he had done. No one could tell you the state of his heart in that moment, whether or not that well-meaning bird still existed within him and he removed himself for the good of Hatuga once again, or if the humiliation and inability to control any longer was too much for him to coexist alongside them all. But he had lost the war to conquer Hatuga herself – exile to the Unknown seemed appropriate.

There were many losses – but Hatuga knows what is best for itself. There was no other way to remove poisoned minds, a polluted culture, a corrupted character, than to reset the way of life and undo the progress and conveniences that Hatugans had accumulated for themselves. It was a period of great mourning, certainly, but the next generation were no longer destined to become Don Pigeón’s puppets, pets, or laborers. They would prioritize the family, doing what was best for their local communities as a whole instead of the whole of Hatuga, seek progress where it was necessary instead of for its own sake, and give up on all pretensions of conquering death and other sorrows that were beyond their power. Hatuga was Hatuga, once again and forevermore. As was natural – all things as they should be.

How the Panther Lost Her Poise

In the land of Hatuga, there are Haves, and there are Have-Yours. Have-Nots are nonexistent, for the forest is so overabundantly fruitful that one cannot live their life without declaring at least one thing to be solely their own. There are many, however, who are never happy unless they possess the one thing treasured by someone else. These are the Have-Yours, and ravenous beasts who will cease at nothing until they have seized that which they covet most from their neighbor. And, even after that, their dissatisfaction persists.

Once, not too long ago, the most feared predator in the forest was neither the wolf, the lion, the snake, the polar bear, or the caterpillar, none of these which you might normally guess. No, for in those days the Panther was the supreme hunting machine. She was not just the agilest of cats, but hunted in enormous packs that could number as large as forty – forty human-sized cats, pitched as the night, leaping soundlessly through the canopy before pouncing without warning on their prey three stories below. They were lean, lithe, and could grip limbs with even less effort than your average gibbon – whether those limbs were the tree branches they bounded across, or the limbs of unaware feasts devoured in seconds as that swarm of treetop piranhas descended in a swirling tornado of fur and claw.

Panthers used to be a well-oiled machine, a pack of hunters even more singular in their collective mind than wolves. The wolves of Hatuga, in fact, learned their techniques from the Panther, only to replicate their system with the flaws that come only naturally to an imperfect translation. Guttural growls in their muscular chests, short like a morse code trapped in their lungs, would vibrate through the trees and coordinate every attack – the obstacles in the brush, the map of the trees, the status of the prey, and, most importantly, their method of approach. For each Panther trusted her sister with her own fulfillment, and therefore her life. No, there was not one greater example of efficient communication than the Panther – most feared of jungle predators by the tight-knitted nature of their community.

But an efficient machine is not immune from the chance accident that sends a spring popping off into the void, the destiny of one panther who chanced to land on a rotting branch during a scouting expedition. She fell all the way to the floor, unperturbed as her plummet was softened by the pads on her feet, executing the pack’s prepared protocol and thereby landing safely thanks to the teachings of her sisters.

Now, in the panthers’ territory, there lived many other Hatugans both predator and prey alike. The least of these, a predator by nature but treating himself like prey, was Watersnake. Watersnake lamented his lot, a venomless reptile with drab markings, unseen and passed on by all. His scales were not eye-catching, so he concealed himself in the dirt. His bite was not dangerous, so, from the safety of his hiding places, he hurled insults. And his tail, though he could mimic the much more infamous Rattlesnake by vibrating it at high speeds, he kept still. He did not want to attract fearful attention that he could not back up with devastating action.

Today, though, was a desperate day in the life of Watersnake. He was feeling particularly self-destructive, tired of the flecks of dirt always in his eyes and hateful of his fellow Hatugan. So, when the panther plummeted ad landed safely next to him, he seethed with righteous injustice.

“Why would this creature,” he slithered through his despondent thoughts, “blessed with a beautiful coat, a graceful tail, powerful claws, and a fearsome roar, also be blessed with the utilities to fall thirty feet out of the sky and land as if it had never left the ground? It’s not fair! Not fair, no!”

That was his last thought, before the natural fuel of frustration and pessimistic comparisons propelled Watersnake to lash out. He knew it would be his last lash, but at least all in Hatuga would finally know him, either for his bravery, his stupidity, or the mark left by his action, as the worm who dared challenge the apex predator.

When the Panther felt a sting on the end of her tail, she was worried she might have shredded it back up among the branches. But then – the rattling. The familiar death rattles of a Rattlesnake, poison dangerous enough to paralyze a Panther in under a minute, and kill her in three. The Panther hardly glanced at Watersnake – his mouth full of her tail, his eyes blazing with the fires of finality, and his own tail vibrating like a bee’s wings to keep up the facade – before she shredded that sorry snake to chunks between her claws and fangs.

But the damage was done. The Panther had been convinced by the display that her tail, her source of pride and balance, was now poisoned. And her training in these situations was very clear: her tail had to go. With tears in her eyes from the forthcoming loss and not just the present pain, she clamped her teeth at the base of her tail and gnawed until she was able to pull it free, separating the toxin she feared was working its way up from doing further harm.

The Panther did her best to try and make it back to the pack. The longer she searched, the longer her vision stretched, until it was obvious to her that the loss of blood from her posterior was just a much a danger as the venom had been. She was not so familiar with her surroundings from the forest floor, wasting the meager supply of consciousness left in her possession on trying to spot the branch that failed her in the treetop as a starting point. Her head was still upraised when she finally collapsed from the self-inflicted wound.

As the Panther’s vision blurred back to life, her first waking thought simply being shock that she was still alive, it came to her attention that she had been moved inside a canvased shelter. Gaudily decorated, earthy and warm, a smorgasbord of furs and metallurgically tailored art pieces.

“You’re awake! For a second there, I was worried you wouldn’t, but here you are.”

The curtains partitioning the inside from the out parted, and a young man came waltzing in on the smoke of a blacksmith’s fire outside. The Panther was still woozy, but that did not hinder her first instinct: to snarl at the intruder in this strange tent, though it probably belonged to him. She did not care about learning his intentions, for he was strange to her.

The young man, still more boy than man, laughed at her. His good-natured cheeriness calmed her down instead of steeling her defenses.

“I’ve always heard you Panthers were fearsome creatures, and it’s amazing to see how true that is in person! Oh, there’s no shame in how I found you passed out in a bush, nearly dead. There was so much blood that I never would have found you if it hadn’t trickled its way down to me.”

The Panther tried to rise. Her legs were weak, and she wobbled about until she collapsed again in a pile of furs. The young man reached out to comfort her, but quickly retracted his offer when her jaws snapped at his outreached digits. Turning her attention cautiously from him, she began to lick the stump where her tail used to be. She could still feel the ghostly presence of that severed limb, flicking about in a reality where it still existed. Her licks were small, pitifully half-hearted.

“Look,” whispered the boy meekly. “I could make you a new tail. Nothing that would replace what you had, of course…but something is better than nothing. I happen to be a skilled metalsmith, and, I promise: it will be the best work I’ve ever made. Because I’ll make it specifically for you.”

The Panther was too drained of energy to reason whether she should trust the boy or not. Instead, the warmth of good intentions emanated from him relaxed her suspicions, and the skill displayed by the sculptures littered about the tent reassured her as a testament to his dedication. Besides, he had tended to her well enough while she was asleep, bandaged the stump where her tail had been. What threat did a clawless, fangless, furless little beast pose while she was awake? 

Confident in her power when matched up against her host, even in her anemic state, the Panther consented to a test run for whatever machination he had in mind. The metalsmith’s excitement was palpable, for his talents had never actually been used for something practical before. 

“Thank you, thank you, thank you! Give me two weeks, and I’ll have the perfect new tail for you. I promise, you will not regret it.” 

For two weeks, the Panther was tended to as an esteemed and valued guest by the metalsmith. He would work on her tail in the misty hours of the morning, hammering and molding solid gold into rings, then linking them together with complicated gears and wires. In the afternoon, he would go out hunting, returning with some wild fowl just as the sun began to set. And, at night, he would sleep outside under the stars, allowing the Panther free reign of his own personal territory inside the tent. The metalsmith was also persistently friendly with her, carrying on pleasant conversation through just about any subject they could think of. If she wanted to talk about it, he had something to contribute, and she almost made a game out of finding some topic that might eventually leave him speechless. 

Eventually, she did. The night before the makeshift tail was to be completed, as they were watching the stars together, the Panther asked the metalsmith why he only made statues for the longest time. Pretty things, she admitted, having grown fond of staring at their intricate shiny coats all day, but still quite useless in the grand scheme of the forest. Silence was never the boy’s first response, so she almost wondered if he had wandered off somewhere when no answer came.

But he was deep in thought, having never really explored that part of his motivation before. 

“You know how,” he explained, “you were once so very good at hunting? But you would only hunt for what you knew you could catch, and what you knew you would eat? And that you never had to guess why or how you knew you would catch and eat, but you knew by the fact you could that it was worth the pursuit? It’s kind of like that.” 

The Panther didn’t quite understand, but what she did notice was a somber tone had overtaken his demeanor, a shade she had not seen before. She wanted to know, get more out of him – but she felt she should not. That was his territory, and the least she could do was leave that part of the encampment to him. But the most she could do was gently tug his shirt with her teeth, not tearing it, and offer him a place back inside his tent for the first time in weeks. So she did. And the sleep she had that night, curled up next to the metalsmith’s side, was the night the phantom pain of her tail finally evaporated into a vague memory.

The next morning the Panther awoke to see the metalsmith sitting next to her. Bright-eyed, smiling, almost glowing with confident radiance, legs crisscrossed at the base of her resting place. And there, in front of his folded knees, lay the new tail in all its splendor. 

The tail was a work of mechanical genius. Several golden rings, inlayed with crushed Amethyst, Sapphire, and Onyx to harden the exterior and give it a blackened sheen. Within each ring was a complex array of gears and regulators, harnessed to piano-thick wires that ran through each interior. These wires and wheels kept the golden rings bound together as they swayed back and forth, up and down, all around,  with every bit the fluid movement of a Panther’s tail mimicked as was the style.  

The Panther would have been skeptical to accept something so quickly, but she had grown to appreciate the metalsmith’s art. To wear one of his original pieces excited her in a way she had never felt before. She first considered it might just be the highs of receiving special attention and gifts from someone she had grown to care about. What she would discover, much much later, was that this was her first experience as being considered an individual, and not part of a larger whole – even by herself. 

Panthers exist within the pack; outside the pack, panthers do not exist. This is how the species has stockpiled infamy, branding themselves as predators not to be trifled with. And now, for the first time, a panther considered itself the Panther, distinguished among its kind by her enviable replacement tail. 

The Panther, therefore, felt an explicit need to show off her tail to the rest of her pack. To reassure them that she was still alive and capable of hunting, of course. But also to make the most out of her good fortune and generous friend by showing them both off. The metalsmith was not keen to the idea of waltzing into a den of panthers, but he wished to monitor his friend closely. If he observed any pain or discomfort where the concealed harness held his masterwork in place, he would want to adjust it immediately lest her wound break open again. 

The panthers’ den was carved into the side of a mountain, home to abandoned ruins built by some human Hatugan tribe long forgotten. No one quite knew why the ruins were abandoned, or who built them in the first place, but the panthers deemed this a worthy spot and chased out all other signs of life within a five-mile radius. The silence was eerie to the metalsmith as they entered that territory. To the Panther, she felt the relief of returning home. 

The interior of the cave was several stories tall and deep, with countless ledges (due to the dark) staggered about the cave walls. The glittering reflection of a thousand eyes alerted the Panther that her entire pack was home. The glittering shine of the Panther’s tail alerted her pack that something was amiss. And then they saw their sister’s companion, and they were up in arms. 

The Panther had to strike five of her sisters across the snout before they would stop lunging at the metalsmith with salivating maws. She explained to them why she had gone missing, which they seemed not to have taken notice of. She told them the story of how she came to lose her tail, which they didn’t much care about. And then she told them of what this metalsmith came to do for her. That piqued their attention, for they had noticed the beauty of the twitching artificial tail reflecting moonlight on the stalagmites behind her. They demanded to know this bold architect, the one who dared believe he could replicate the sacred image of a Panther’s tail.  

Truth be told, to a cat, the jeweled tail was absolutely mesmerizing. And it was no secret from her body language that the Panther took pride in the gift – not merely because of its value as a priceless work of art, but also because of the caring feelings behind the person who gave it to her. He had made her stand out as an individual, with this gift making her unique against the standard black coats of the panthers around her, and by his very devotion to tending to her at her worst. 

All the panthers smiled, licking their sister as a sign of welcome and comfort for her loss. They even licked the metalsmith as thanks for taking care of one of their own. But each and every one of those wildcats harbored in their heart a secret – that they coveted what their sister had brought home. Not the tail, not the man, but the happiness that these things seemed to afford her. Needing more time to sort through this new rising feeling of jealousy, the pack invited the metalsmith to spend the night in their den and share their latest catch of Wildebeest. They celebrated with warm milk harvested from dolphins living in the caverns underground, not rejoicing for the return of the wayward panther, but as a routine booster injected into the morale and connection of the pack. But the seeds had been planted; the metalsmith enjoyed the festivities, his good Samaritanship a badge of honor. The panthers watched him closely, fake Cheshire grins reassuring him, seething and plotting all the while to themselves. 

The first casualty came that very morning, before the sun had even stretched its fingers beyond the cover of the horizon. A larger panther, one of the oldest hunters in the pack and the least satisfied with her place in society, was found dead behind a tree. It was evident she had tried to gnaw her tail off, for, rather than bleed to death from the self-inflicted wound, she had choked to death when the tail got lodged in her throat. 

This tragic accident caused a rumble throughout the pack. Not because the death impacted them emotionally, or the sight of a dead sister spurned them, no. It was because they realized that they were now all after the same thing: to be as content and happy as the prodigal Panther.  

Their hair bristling as they passed each other, eyes locked and teeth bared, the panthers spread out through the forest, each finding a secluded spot to begin the delicate removal of their organic tails in favor of artificial ones. Surely, such a sparkly treasure was the secret to their sister’s happiness?  

When the Panther stretched herself awake and yawned in the heat of the afternoon, she noticed that the metalsmith was no longer sleeping next to her. A far-off clanking caught her ears, the sound of metal on metal, that warmed her heart and bid her to come. She trotted off deeper into the cave, searching for her talented artisan. 

The rest of the pack, careful not to disturb their sister with that coveted golden tail, softly kneaded their paws on the pack of the metalsmith until his eyes fluttered open. How surprised he was, to see an entire line of panthers with nubs for tails, bleeding and begging for a tail like she who still slept so soundly. 

Quite the bleeding heart, the metalsmith gathered his tools and followed the pack into the back of the den. After spending hours quickly dressing their wounds, he proceeded to craft them makeshift tails with the abundant gold they brought him from deeper in the caverns. But each tail he made didn’t quite look right, or move in a realistic way, for he had not the two weeks to craft the mechanical parts necessary for a true work of art. What he was making were simple counterbalances – still pretty to look at and moderately functional, but nothing compared to his friend’s specially crafted tail. 

At first, the metalsmith tried desperately to hold on to that good feeling of being useful, and the panthers tried their best to be grateful with what they received. But as the pain in their backsides mounted, and the tails got sloppier and sloppier as the metalsmith’s hands tired from unrewarded charity, and the happiness they saw in their sister remain unreflected in themselves, the more they hated this metalsmith for their tailless state. Finally, one of the younger ones refused what was being offered. 

“Make me a tail like your first, please,” she spat back in his face, keeping her stump away until she received what she believed she truly deserved. 

“That would take two weeks!” spluttered the metalsmith. 

“I can wait,” came her reply. Same was the reply from the next panther, and the next, and the next, until a hundred panthers were reasonable enough to each wait two weeks for their own amazingly wonderful joy-granting tails.  Two weeks for them…years for him.

The whines were deafening. The metalsmith covered his ears, looking panicked all around him, daunted by the task of pushing what he loved too far to extremes for panthers he barely knew. The first tail was made with the love of a bent-up passion, and the joy at being useful to one in dire need. But now he was being used as a tool by a society of ravenous predators, who took no chances in being satisfied. And so the first meek thought in his generous, charitable heart muttered the unavoidable truth: 

“I can’t.”

The Panther trotted to the edge of the open space just in time to see her sisters descending from the walls, swarming all around her beloved metalsmith, before he was enveloped by the pitch-black eye of that storm of fur. There was a surprised inhalation from the center, which echoed for a while over the sound of tearing and chewing, before it faded away under the chaotic soft padding of paws. When the panthers peeled off, each to their private nook, all that remained of the metalsmith was a pile of bones – stripped clean, nothing to distinguish them from the stones strewn about the cave, save their distinctive shape and the deep cuts of tooth and claw. 

The Panther sat, her tail lying still in the dust. She bent her head down over the bones at her feet, sniffing them, trying to pick up the faintest scent left behind by the craftsman…Nothing. There was truly not one trace left of him.  

There was a sorrowful rip of fabric, a clank, and the sound of only one pair of padded paws stumbling clumsily out of the cave. In her departure, the Panther left behind the golden, jewel-encrusted tail and its harness, the last remain of the man who had saved her life – abandoned, discarded among the bones of its creator. It was by no fault of her own that he was now gone, for what can one panther do against the whole of her society? Nothing, for its work is done in the shadows, and the consequences arrive and depart like the death of will.

The rest of the pack hardly noticed the Panther leave; their eyes were captured by the makeshift tail she left behind. Those eyes gradually became aware of the other eyes around them, hungry and isolating, Only a few minutes of bated breath passed before the pack swarmed again, this time at each other, snapping and batting their ears and whiskers, blood flying, competing for the right to possess that unnatural prosthetic. 

Eventually, the pack came to a very reasonable compromise. Instead of any singular panther donning the tail permanently, they studied its intricate contraptions until each was able to replicate it for themselves. None was as well-crafted as their model, for no cat had the passion, the skill, or the opposable thumbs to rival that original inventor. Instead, each panther compared their tail to the tails of their neighbor, and found those surrounding them severely wanting. And where one believes they are surrounded by uninspired beggars, one tends to grow suspicious, and close off from the rest of society. 

And so the pack, each member safeguarding the posterity of her own posterior, dispersed – each panther sought out her own way, alone, guarding her back against the jealous, coveting paws of her own kind. Having given up seizing the happiness they had seen in the Panther by deciding that it was a façade and did not actually exist, the panthers found solace in security. Their existence became wrapped up in keeping what they already possessed, so long as what they possessed looked better than what they thought others possessed. The tail spoke for the panther, despite not being part of the panther in the first place. 

A panther was still quite capable of hunting on its own, but these were now less-than panthers. They may have replicated the tail successfully, but no one knew how to maintain its synchronicity with an organic body. Metals rusted, surgical connections newly pioneered beyond the original’s designs harbored infections, and every single panther was weighed down by the heavy burden until their joints ached and their bodies bloated and slugged. Slowly but surely, health slipping away as easily as the prey they starved over, the panther population died out. Even in their dying throes, they clung tightly to the tail they thought enhanced their being with the hope that they might one day find joy delivered unto them. But that joy never came, and the only day they ever found was their final. 

As for the Panther, after she threw off her tail, she never quite regained her poise. She could barely hunt, for she was no longer limber, and the jungle grew to adapt in ways that left her hunting methods in the dust. And yet she persevered, spurred on by a need to survive and the pride, not in her tail, but in the individuality born through her tragic experiences. She began to craft weapons, pounce from the undergrowth and water instead of from the canopy, and lay traps and ambushes that better served her diminished speed and agility. She may not have had a tail, or a pack, but she had herself. And she worked hard every day to make sure that would be enough. 

Some Hatugans believe that she began to walk upright to counteract her balance, forage and seek softer foods due to the difficulty of relying on meat every day, and evolve her thumbs into the opposable kind to craft better tools. Some say that these human tendencies overtook her whole form, until you could only tell she was once a Panther by the pointed ears folded away under her jet-black hair. And I would tell you, this theory is highly unlikely. 

Yet… I believe it. For the Panther was still a Have-Not. True, she no longer needed a pack, but she did need a friend like the one she once had. Indeed, we Hatugans believe she would naturally do whatever was necessary to be among those who were like the metalsmith – the one friend who helped her in her time of need, helping her build enough strength to define herself. And no amount of gold, no quality of tail, no solidarity with society, can replace that kind of bond.  She refused to settle for substitutions, ever again. 

The World According to a Mole

The forest of Hatuga is beautiful. All of its terrors, all of its awe, all of its filthy ponds and its pristine lakes mesh together to create something that is naturally imperfect. And, by flourishing in its imperfections, makes it all the more wondrous to explore and behold. For what is beautiful that can be understood by a single glance?

Alas, the mole did not find Hatuga beautiful. He found Hatuga to be downright revolting, absolutely abysmal – a distressing place where one could only be worried sick over its pitfalls and harbor disgust for its predators than appreciate its provisions.

“Woe is me,” bemoaned the mole melodramatically, “to have been born in a time and place that is teeming to the brim with the most unsavory beasts!” He stressed the word “beasts” so that any animals nearby might feel the shame that ought to come naturally to them. The mole was blind, after all; most of his suppositions were just that, since he couldn’t very well observe empirically. Being both blind and under the ground tends to prevent one from making rational judgments, but his sturdy tunnels would cave in before the mole ceased his belligerent pointing of fingers in every which-way and off-angle.

The mole had never been above ground before. He could hear the noisy comings and goings, the loud calls of the other animals that never seemed to cease, and their stomping about that caused dirt to chink away from his preciously crafted ceilings. Indeed, mole built his tunnels so that he would never have to go above ground, lest he go blinder than he already was from the hideosity above.

There were other Hatugans dwelling underground who tried their best to convince the mole of the benefits of going topside.

“For one,” reasoned Bilby, “the sun is sooooo warm. I don’t how you do it, staying down here where it’s cold and damp and dark all the time. Gives me a jolt of energy every time I feel those rays shine down my face, all the way to my tail, it’s just-“

“Miserable,” countered the mole. “Underground, there are no schedules. I do what I want, when I want, and time means nothing to me. Plus, I’ve heard how hot it really gets up there, and I do not plan on frying like an egg on a boulder! I do not!”

“Then how about this,” posed Mongoose. “Up there, you can meet all sorts of interesting individuals. I know you think you know what they’re like, hearing their muffled voices from down here, but you really have to go see them face-to-face before judging them like you do! It’s unfair, and, honestly, you’re doing yourself a disservice not getting to know Hatugans that have experienced more than just the underground.”

“Are you implying,” chastised the mole, “that my knowledge is somehow limited by living down here? I do not need to know what other Hatugans are like, for only crude, selfish, ugly beasts could pound the ground as they do, causing all sorts of damage to my beautiful tunnels.”

“You keep calling them ugly,” murmured Vole, “but have you looked at yourself in the watering hole lately?”

The mole lost all patience with his impudent neighbors and shooed them out.

Being blind meant that the mole derived a heightened comfort in perfecting the structure of his prized tunnels. Day in and day out he dug, sculpting his underground patterns that would never see the light of day and therefore would never be seen by anyone. What he was not aware of is where precisely he had built them. For, to him, underground was everywhere except above, which means that he would not know whose territory he had tunneled beneath until it was too late. Luckily, most Hatugans are forgiving, and would not mind a burrow or two beneath their feet if said burrows were sturdy and would not cave in at the slightest step. Elements, however, do not always subscribe to the Hatugan way.

The mole had spent decades burrowing all around beneath the surface level of Hatuga; it was not his custom to dive very deep. And, eventually, he ran out of room. Where one might normally take a few steps back, reassess their limits, and adjust, the headstrong mole plowed straight ahead. Alas, one cannot plow through a lake, a lesson that mole learned after the water had washed him away, destroyed the tunnels, nearly drowned him, and deposited his pseudo-lifeless body in the midst of a large gathering of animals. The entire lake had drained itself into the mole’s tunnels, and the remorseful architect was sloshed this way and that until finally he came to rest for all to see.

“Is that the little idiot who caused this mess?” roared a lion.

“Come now, give the poor thing some space. Even you must admit, it’s impressive such a small hideous creature could dry up the lake like that,” tsk-tsked a Boar. “And the water is now flowing through the whole forest, no longer still. I’d say he did us a favor.”

“Favor?” laughed a Pelican. “That hole, formerly a lake, kept everything where it should be! And you think this chaos is now somehow a convenience? You are absolutely-“

“Please!” shouted an Iguana. “Give the ugly little beast some space or it will suffocate!”

The mole had come to at the very beginning of this conversation. What it had gleaned was that these beasts did not think much differently than himself. Worse yet, some had even forgiven his displacement of their water supply. Getting past their own anger, he had clearly misjudged them as the crowd of twenty or so Hatugans crowded around the mole, concerned for his life.

Worse than his humiliation at having drained their lake, worse still than having judged them so harshly without knowing them, far worser yet: they had called the mole an ugly little beast.

Hatuga, you see, had never been graced by the mole topside before. This was his first appearance up there, therefore it was their first time seeing a mole before. I ask you, then, please, do not judge them too harshly for having stated their first impressions in the heat of high emotions. But what this accomplished was to finally convince the mole to be introspective. To look at himself for once in his life – both inside and out.

And so the mole, realizing he was only blind because of the dirt in his eyes that had now been washed away, flipped over on his heavy claws and spat water onto the boulder he had been laid on to dry out. And, in that reflection, he got his first good look at himself.

What stared back sent shivers down his spine. A disease-ridden shaggy beast with a squealing jagged mouth, no eyes to speak of, and a disgusting multi-armed appendage at the end of his snout that wriggled and writhed about. Squealing in abhorred shock at his own reflection, the mole dove right back into the canals he created, swimming to the bottom in one breath. He buried himself deeper than he ever had buried before into the ground, forever fleeing, clawing ever forward to escape that beastly sight.

And I do mean forever, for the mole was never spotted in Hatuga again. Maybe one day he will come to terms with his actions, his feelings, himself, and join Hatugan society ready to receive both the benefits and consequences that come with it. But, until that day, the world according to a mole ought to be one without him in it.

A Cow By Any Other Name

In the forest of Hatuga, each is called to their own lot. The lot of a Tree Frog is not the lot of the Whale, and the Whale likewise can never hope to take on the burden belonging to the Spider. Each has a role, each has a purpose, each has a thing it does for which the forest itself is grateful. For Hatuga revolves on the axis of deeds. What can be done if nothing is actually done? Nothing at all. Nothing for all.

In Hatuga, there lived two types of cows. The first was a land cow. She was heavily built, rather slow, confined to wherever her sure-hooved legs would carry her. They would not carry her very far, for she had no reason to go very far anyways. But they were strong, and much was entrusted to her because she could handle it.

The second cow was a sea cow. Specifically, a Dugong, who was a free-swimmer and prided herself on no attachments for whom she would need to actually take stock in pride. No, pride meant nothing to her, for lazing about all day and eating as much seagrass as she desired was all that mattered, and the number of tricks she could pull underwater. The better the trick, the better the thrill, and the Dugong was simply pleased in that regard.

The Dugong heard about this so-called land cow which lived much further inland, plodding about with its embarrassing udders and slaving away for the good of its community. It chortled and jeered at the idea of this helpless creature leading such a masochistic life, and made up songs that would shame the poor beast should it ever wander into the ocean where she had all the fun she could handle with nary a care.

When word of this sea-cow and its mean little songs reached the ears of the land cow, she swished her tail a few times irritably and then forgot about it. For what use was this musical lard in the sea foam to one with responsibilities? Her deeds spoke against the lies the Dugong made up about her, and the land cow was comforted by those who relied on her as they spurned the spiteful ditty and soon all word of this sea-cow was forgotten.

Decades passed, and both the land cow and the sea cow died. For some stories are unceremonious, two disputes clashing on the voice of the breeze, only to fade away shortly thereafter. Indeed, most stories are like this – and for that they are rarely told.

When the land cow passed away, she was buried with revered circumstance. Many had benefited from her milk, her sure hoof, her motherly lowing. And so the loss heavily impacted her community. But not in the way of misery, no, for they celebrated her life and how she touched them all. She was loved, and everyone knew it.

When the sea cow perished, her bloated body floated to the surface for a week before built-up gas escaped from the carcass and she sunk beneath the waves. No one would remember her, her tricks, or her song. Heck, no one would even know she died, save the scavengers who came to feed before even they snubbed their noses at her putrid blubber. For the Dugong lived for no one and nothing for her own pleasure, and pleasure is not the sort of thing that lives longer than the present moment. One might even say, having left no impact on Hatuga, that the Dugong hardly existed at all.

Partnershipping with Parasites

If you have ever visited the forest of Hatuga, you know what a miraculous place it is – a place where the bird speaks lyric and the human twitters in the trees, a place where waterfalls flow upstream and apes lend books to man and beast alike. There is an order to the forest to the tune of mutual existence; the beings that live here rely on each other. They do so, not with the animalistic instinct calling them to be herds or flocks, but with complete conscious compliance with their own need for community, for fellowship. However, just because a relationship between beasts might be necessary, does not always make it a good match. There are some relationships that clearly favor one side over the other. This usually happens because one side would rather allow itself to be taken advantage of, than be deprived of the company.

In the heat of the jungle near the bank of the Euphrates shuffled about a complacent Capybara. Now, our Capybara was not complacent when it came to her meals, no; only the finest juiciest melons for this rodent. Nor was she complacent when it came to her resting spots, no; sleep came to her only in patches of grass from which sprouted a certain balance of coolness and warmth. In all of these, the Capybara was extremely selective, never settling.

Our Capybara was only complacent by vice of the friend she kept. That so-called “friend” was Buffalo Leech, an enormous worm who remained joined to Capybara’s hip through thick and thin. Quite literally, whether its host liked it or not.

She tended to like it.

“How am I so lucky,” the Capybara gushed to the Leech, “to have a friend as loyal as you?”

“Stop your squirming already,” muttered the Leech with its mouth full of hip, “or you’ll make me lose my grip. What good would that do either of us?”

For the Capybara, this Buffalo Leech constantly showered her with attention and words of encouragement. She did consider it her Leech, since the worm never seemed to take stock in anyone else. But by drinking her blood, it seemed to know exactly what he was feeling.

“You need to chill out, and don’t have such high expectations,” the Leech would say, when its rodent would start to stress over the mess in her territory or the flavor of her water. “It’s not like you can do much about it, anyway. But you can make your blood taste better by relaxing, so why don’t you do that for me, huh?”

The Capybara never felt alone with the Leech, and was grateful to her companion for its good advice and constructive critique.

Such as, when she was feeling sad for no reason:

“There’s no need to feel depressed. It’s all in your head! Depression is just the disappointment you feel when you wake up and remember that all you are is just a really big rat.”

Or, when she couldn’t quite nail the steps for a new dance she was practicing:

“Oh, wow, you’re doing great. It’s never too late to learn a groovy dance. So it won’t really hurt if you put it off, try it again tomorrow or something, right? Spend some time with me instead…I’m feeling pretty hungry.”

Or, if she had eaten one too many melons for lunch:

“Whoa, there, large Marge. Let’s not get too excited and eat the whole forest, m’kay? What will folks think if they see me hanging around a fat rat who has no self-control? They’ll think I have no self control, either.”

All the while, never ceasing its perpetual slurp.

One morning, however, the Capybara felt…off. She felt like something was weighing her down, breaking her back, sinking her steps. And there was! The Buffalo Leech had grown more than a foot long, weighing thirty pounds full of its host’s blood. The Capybara could live with that, for she was still physically solid on the outside. But on the inside, the Leech’s words had worn her down.

“Man, aren’t you a late riser,” yawned the Leech. “Not like you’ve got anyone waiting for you, or any big plans, though…so I guess it’s all right. Why don’t you hang with me again today?”

The Capybara nodded, used to the routine. But, as the Leech was taking its morning swim in the murky river, she suddenly had an enlightening thought: to run away, and leave the Leech on its own! How foolish it would feel, to look around, and not see its friend anywhere in sight? That would teach the squirmy wormy to weigh me down, thought the Capybara. Worse, teach it to enjoy weighing me down, if it insists on treating me like a pack mule.

The Capybara rose to her feet to follow through with the threats running across her brain. She turned, poised to run…and buckled. Before her was the vast expanse of Hatuga, the steamy jungle that promised only the uncomfortable humidity of loneliness in its tangled brush.

The Capybara felt absolutely awful. She was the worst! How could she ever treat a true friend like that?

“Well, are you going?”

Her heart skipped a beat as he whirled back to the river. Did the Leech bear witness to her traitorous turn? Was she about to get chastised, or, worse, lose a friend?

“Hoo-wee! Aren’t you the jumpy kind? I like that, means we got something in common!”

The Capybara felt something infinitesimally small leap across her ribs, up her back, around her neck, and DINK! Right on the end of her nose!

“You and I will get along just fine,” said a good-natured Flea. “I LOoOoOVE to jump! Don’t stop on account of me, new bounce-buddy! Lessgo!”

So, off they went. It was relief to the Capybara, knowing she could leave the Leech behind, yet still have a friend whispering encouragement in her ear. And what a stark difference in language between the Leech and the Flea! The Flea was full of pep, full of optimism, always wanting to hop along and do the next fun thing. He constantly prodded the Capybara along, never allowing her to stop for a moment, to rest and get mired in worries over what Buffalo Leech was up to.

After a short while, though, Capybara began to realize that the Flea was full of more energy than she had the energy to dream she could have. But she pretended like she wasn’t worn down, sluggish, unable to scratch that persistent itch that demanded she get up and follow the Flea anywhere he wanted. For, at the end of the day, the Capybara would sacrifice her comfort to ensure she at least had one animal there right beside her against the wilds of Hatuga.

It was the Flea’s patience that snapped first.

“Hey, what gives?” barked the Flea. “I thought you were this fun girl who liked to do fun things, not some sad sack of a sorry squirrel! I think I’ll have to hop along and find some friends who can keep up with my company. Call me again when you decide to pull your sticks out of the mud, m’kay?”

And, with one last jeer, the Flea abandoned friendship in the lifeboat of a passing wallaby.

“Oh, no…” moaned Capybara, already feeling the daunting emptiness well up inside her. “What am I going to do without Buffalo Leech or the Flea? I’ll have no one to talk to, no one who relies on me. I’m all alone!”

“I can help you out,” replied a slinky voice in the mud beneath her feet. Tapeworm rose up on its paper-thin body until it was eye-level with Capybara. “But I don’t trust just anyone. I’m very vulnerable, you see, and I need to make sure a friend of mine has a strong constitution.”

That sounded reasonable to the Capybara. The rest of her afternoon was shared with a swapping of secrets, trying to find the next story that they could both relate to. By the time the moon shone through Tapeworm’s translucent body, both had decided that they could trust each other completely as friends. Capybara was content, and they curled up together in a perfectly chosen patch of grass to commemorate the new companionship.

When morning came, Tapeworm was nowhere to be found. Capybara searched and searched, but it was like Tapeworm had vanished into some dark recess somewhere it could never be found. All Capybara had left was a sinking pit in the depths of her stomach, as if the potential of this new friend had created an abscess in its absence that ate away at her last sliver of strength. Capybara was certain that she and Tapeworm were compatible. After all, they had shared so much together in just one night! Why would it just up and disappear like that? There was nothing Capybara could do, now, except wallow in pain and loneliness, wishing on a star that Buffalo Leech would find its way back to her.

A carefree twitter floated down in response to her sobs. Starling landed on her back with the lightest skip, hardly noticed at all until he came to perch near Capybara’s ear.

“No need to squeak around all sorrowful-like, buddy. Tell me what ails ya, and lemme see if I can’t do something about it.”

After listening to her sob-story, Starling had nothing but the realest of sympathies.

“That’s what happens when you surround yourself with parasites. A bunch of little creepy crawlies whose only purpose in life is to suck the energy out of yours. But don’t you worry, naw-ah! Starling’ll keep you company for a little bit. But then, buddy, you gotta learn how to live on your own. Think ya can handle that?”

Capybara sniffled and felt like protesting, but deep down she knew that whatever protests came out were just leftover manipulations from Buffalo Leech, the Flea, and Tapeworm. Starling sang agreeably as she nodded, and she felt his song lift a little the burden of her heart.

Over the next week, Capybara slowly but surely recovered the life sucked from her by those nasty parasites. First the blood drawn by Buffalo Leech returned to her, then the itching to move prompted by Flea vanished, and finally the deep feeling of longing caused by Tapeworm passed through her. Starling was a pleasant and well-rounded conversationalist, never dominating, and always interested in hearing about Capybara’s current state of thinking or feeling. He was, for a season, a good friend.

But he was not hers, having a family to provide for, and she was okay with that. When they parted on good terms, Capybara felt refreshed, confident she could now stand on her own four legs. She still was worried about being alone, but that was natural – Friends made or lost, they were not made forever. Neither were they made to be exclusively hers. But at least she now knew that any friend who felt like a bloodsucking parasite was no friend of hers. She would feel no remorse in cutting it off, even if it meant her search would continue.

Such a selective Capybara has never looked healthier.

The Lonely Scavenger

The forest of Hatuga sometimes acts outside its nature. It is not unusual to get a sunburn in the middle of Winter, or be buried under snow six feet deep in the high time of Summer. But, if a thing occurs without interference from circling elements, is it not anything else but natural? True, that thing might first strike us as bizarre or strange, but this does not discount it from being a natural thing at its root. Nature can be quite contradictory, after all; the only excuse is when a thing tries to become that which it flat-out cannot be. Then, it becomes truly unnatural.

High above the munros of western Hatuga soared a thing that many called “unnatural.” That thing was a bird of prey, a magnificent Bearded Vulture, who went by the name of “Ivan.” It was a name he had to remind himself of multiple times a day, since there was no one around to call him by it. Yes, Ivan was quite the friendless flier, as Bearded Vultures are a species whose sentence is solitude. He tried his talon at chumming it with the rest of the animal kingdom, but never did it dawn on him how frightened they were by his ostentatious display. Not even Ivan’s naïve entreaties could break that natural bond between his visage and terror itself. But he assumed they had somewhere to be, and refused to hold it against them.

Bearded Vultures take great pride in how they decorate themselves; Ivan was no exception, rubbing his ruffles with rust from the soil. He took pride in preening, a laborious effort until his naturally white feathers burned a sunset orange. Plucking up a few choice bones from the ossuary he called nest, Ivan flung on the rib-cage of a chicken as a mask and the skulls of mice as rings, then set off to once again to impress the neighbors in vain with his gaudy attempt at compensating for those secret flaws that no one would educate him on.

Alas, what did the poor bird expect? The same result, no matter how many months he tried to achieve a different result. Off would bolt the neighbors, bird and mammal and reptile, scared to death of his rattling across the skies – lest they end up the next decoration, some sort of bracelet or crown! After five hours of searching for new friends (or even acquaintances) in vain, Ivan landed in a valley for drink. His imposing stature, bright makeup, and sharp beak shone on the surface. The more he stared at his reflection, the more frustrated he grew. These animals didn’t flee before him in a hurry to meet prior arrangements! No…he knew the real reason now. He was disgusting.

The more Ivan though about how disgusting he was to his neighbors, the more disgusted he found himself. The more disgusted he was with himself, the more he felt like…no, he truly did begin to cry. Why wouldn’t he? He was so alone – an unnatural existence staining Hatuga’s munros. The thought frightened him: was to be spurned by all truly the natural order for a Bearded Vulture like Ivan? There was no way a lonely, disgusting creature like himself was strong enough to defy nature.

Stripping off his heavy bone jewelry, washing away his heavy iron stains, Ivan quietly cried to himself until he passed out from weariness at the bank of the pond.

Ivan slept almost peacefully through the morning. When it had almost entirely passed, he awoke with a start to find himself in the midst of a heard of mountain goats. They grazed about him, completely unafraid of the scarlet eyed raptor in their midst. Not wanting to break the peaceful spell, Ivan just sat.

“Excuse me?” Ivan’s eyes refocused down below his enormous wings, where a small, dewey-eyed goat whispered to him. “Are you going to eat that patch of grass?”

“So that’s what it is,” Ivan realized in his head, keeping the revelation to himself. “These goats don’t realize what I am! They think I’m a goat, too, which means…”

Ivan smiled, bent his preened and polished neck towards the dirt, and began to munch on the grass. The small goat smiled back, and stripped a root nearby. Ivan almost cried again – this time for joy.

A week went by, and Ivan did his best to blend in with the herd of mountain goats. He continued to eat the same grass they did, and felt his strength fading fast. Of course, he was beyond himself with happiness at finally being accepted, so the growlings in his gizzard could be stomached if it meant being a part of community. But that wasn’t the only discomfort. The mountain goats, insisting that his painted scarlet feathers were absolutely atrocious, forced him to scrub out all the fashion he prided himself on until he was his natural state of blank. This meant that the filth acquired by wallowing on the ground instead of flying through the sky was all the more apparent.

When mating season commenced, the male goats invited Ivan to join them in their annual ritual. This ritual involved fierce duels, for which Ivan was not equipped unless he absolved his guilt in gouging them with his talons. But he was worried he would be exiled if it came to that, and so was gouged himself, his feathers turning purple and blue as the rival goats stomped him with their hooves and battered him with their horns. He also failed to climb mountains as the other goats did, his awkward knees not built for crawling up a cliff face as their powerful legs and seasoned hooves. Ivan’s talons scritched and scratched, losing their edge, and with nothing to show as he struggled to find purchase that would carry him to the heights of the rest of the herd. But he was one of the goats now, and could not bring himself to use his wings against their kindness, for the sake of his own inclusion.

Ivan also came to terms with the fact that, although the community had accepted him, the individual goats did not. The little goat that grazed with him first never got past her meager greetings. The others, though treating him tolerably well, did not attempt to know him better or closer than if he was just a visitor. Maybe they did see that he was a vulture, and didn’t think it worth pursuing a relationship with him because his presence was of no use to the future of mountain goats? Worry compounded Ivan’s weakness, day-by-day, until he could hardly flap his wings to get off the ground anymore. His heart was just as grounded – and yet still it lied to itself, that this was better than being alone.

One morning, Ivan was roused by the feared bleating of the herd. A shadow flashed across the ground, a fierce shriek, the announcement of a Harpy Eagle as she terrorized the mountain goats with gleeful dive-bombings.

“Ivan,” shouted the herd, almost in unison, “You’re one of us, Ivan! Save us from that bully Harpy!”

van, his heart suddenly alighted by the opportunity to become useful, ignored all his prior fears and weighted wings and took to the skies. He would prove himself, and maybe they would finally accept him as a fellow mountain goat!

The Harpy Eagle didn’t know what hit her at first; she was not expecting an assault from below. Even less so from a fellow raptor, since she was the largest of predatory birds behind Ivan, whose size was closer to an albatross than to his own species. Truly a battle of griffons, talon-locked, crashing into cliff faces and shredding trees. Ivan gouged as best he could, but his claws just didn’t grasp like they used to, pared down to ensure he did not fatally wound his herd. His beak was also blunted, having been close to caving in after one too many collisions with the bony crowns of his bleating brethren. It was still a struggle for her, but Harpy finally slammed Ivan onto his back against a Munro Top. Panting and bleeding, they rested there, gentle winds ruffling their crooked feathers.

“I am surprised,” Harpy gasped, “That a big bird like you could barely put up a fight. There’s plenty to share, though, and I’m willing to cut you in if you can pull your own weight in a hunt better than you can in a duel.”

“I won’t let you hurt them,” wheezed Ivan. “That’s my herd down there. They’re counting on me to protect them.”

Harpy was dumbstruck until laughter struck her even harder. She croaked and cawed at Ivan as he lay on his back. He felt very small, and became aware of his weak wings and growling gizzard again.

“They’ve taken you for a fool, scavenger,” Harpy plainly stated, her expression now serious and unwavering. “Those goats, jealous of your power and your beauty, have pulled you down into the mud with them. They’ve tried to make you a goat, not only to use you, but also to make that which they envy look absolutely ridiculous.”

“They have not! They accepted me-“

“Have they?” Harpy extended her claw, helping Ivan back onto his feet. He towered over her, still, but in this moment she seemed much more empowered than he. What was it, Ivan wondered, that filled this solitary raptor with such conviction?

“I’m glad, even if we butted heads for a moment, that we ran into each other. I’m sure you know the feeling of loneliness that I do, and maybe it’s because you’ve felt it longer that you caved in and settled with sheep. But I ask again, have they really accepted you? Do you feel that it’s right, natural, even, for you to be grazing about down there? Or do you belong up here in the clouds, with me?”

Ivan was torn, and Harpy could read it in his dulled, scarlet eyes. It wasn’t just loneliness – he did not want to betray his friends.

“In three days,” she said, “I will return to hunt. Watch your so-called ‘herd,’ and let me know if they truly see you as a part of them as much as you think they do.” With that, Harpy leapt into the sky and soared, higher and higher on her unapologetically grey wings.

When Ivan returned to the goats, he was met with appreciative bleating and the stomping of hooves. But something new in their interactions with him became clear, some deep-seated resentment towards him. He had never noticed how they talked down to him and isolated him at the same time that they included him in their activities. He was there, but he was not really a part of them. Even their gratitude for chasing away Harpy was backhanded, questioning his ability and wondering why it took him so long to do what should have been natural to him.

The three days didn’t even need to fully pass for Ivan to finally see the mountain goats for what they were. They were miserable creatures, constantly fighting to prove superiority over each other, and eating nonstop to fill some sort of hole in their hearts. They envied Ivan, the individuality of his fashion, his ability to scale the Munro Tops by wing rather than by hoof, and even his sonorous voice. Every activity they included him in, though out of the spirit of community, was meant to break him down into just another miserable goat in the mountains.

Ivan flew to a Munro Top for the first time in a long time, to be alone with his thoughts like he used to be. And it was no surprise that all the thoughts waiting for him were terribly depressing first. Not only was his part in the herd built on lies, but the lies were multifaceted. The herd had lied to Ivan, for he was never really one of them and they had no intention of accepting him as one of them in the first place. Ivan had lied to the herd, for which he physically and mentally weakened himself in order to be accepted by them. And, worst of all, Ivan had lied to himself, and now must go through the withdrawal of separating himself from the goats he thought he had grown close to over the past month.

There was a flutter of wings, deceptively light, which Ivan craned his neck to see Harpy perched next to him. Harpy Eagles are patient, and she made no further attempts to reason with him while his wounds were this deep. He was nursing scars both self-afflicted and society-afflicted, and she knew she would not be able to find words that evenly healed both types of infections. He would need to sort through it himself. For now, she would hunt.

When the Mountain Goats had first found Ivan at the watering hole, observing his lonely shadow for some time, they thought bringing him into their herd was an ingenious way to both eliminate a potential foe and wield him as a weapon to keep their herd safe. They pleasured in how ridiculous he looked while trying to please them, laughing at his pathetic attempts to seek approval and even how he spurned his own natural gifts to adopt theirs.

They no longer laughed as Harpy tugged one of them straight off the face of a munro, sending them bleating until they were dashed on the rocks below. Not of fear, but pure jealousy of the natural talents of an eagle, and all those gifts that made her such an adept predator. They would be predators, too, if they could help it. But they couldn’t even help themselves as they scrambled to safety while Harpy was busy with her freshly fallen dinner.

The Mountain Goats conspired to punish Ivan for sitting out and refusing to sacrifice his dignity for the herd. How dare he, when they had done so much to include him in their mating rituals and mountain climbing! If he felt outcast before, they promised to double their efforts in making him feel both a part of and apart from the herd, and eagerly anticipated how despondent that mighty wyvern would feel in beholding himself to sheep.

Just when they were patting themselves on the back for their clever cruelty, a terrified baaa-ing sounded out from the outer fringe of their circle, carried up, up, and away into the night sky, then plummeting to a halt in the valley below. The sheep were struck with fear – had Harpy finished her feast already, and was back for more? They counted amongst themselves, but even the mountain goats as a herd could not keep track of their own, for the individual mattered very little when they all thought alike.

They realized their mistake as an enormous flap of wings alerted them to the dragon hovering above them – the vulture ready to scavenge the decay of their community. So excited and self-righteous was the mountain goats’ persecution of Ivan, that their vocalization had carried through the Munro Tops up to where he had been lost in thought. Now aware of the obvious truth, Ivan painted his feathers to their former glory, sharpened his talons and beak on a whetstone, decorated his magnificent frame with all his hard-earned jewelry, and filled his gizzard with the fulness of conviction and righteousness that he had been sacrificing at the altar of companionship. Freed from those chains that bound him to the ground, he took to the skies and returned to the herd. Not to join them, but to put them in their natural place.

For the rest of their days, the jangling of bones and the steady beat of wind thrust downwards filled the Mountain Goats with fear. They gnashed their teeth and stamped their hooves in rage and jealousy, but their horns did them little good as they were plucked up by the raptors preying on their insecurities. Ivan felt no joy or vengeance from his hunts – he had realized that to sometimes be alone was the natural state of things. And if there was one thing his time as a goat taught him, it was to not be ashamed of his gifts. There will always be a Harpy out there to complement them, if one searches the skies and not the ground.

The Sacking of Old Gyro

The forest of Hatuga is not just a static land, but a living, breathing organism. Every vine, every rock, every waterfall draws breath and participates in the cycle of life and death. Some parts, however, are more alive than others. These are vibrant communities that depend on conduits plugged directly into nature itself, creatures serving as the foundation of a small ecosystem, one housing hundreds of inhabitants much smaller than them. They exist in harmony, each providing for and living off the other, not in a parasitic relationship, but for the sake of keeping their little patch of Hatuga alive.

Most of these communities were built on the back of giant tortoises, by far the most reliable and stable of conduits, able to power through almost any external environment. Giant armadillos were also popular, but could only be appreciated by a certain niche group of animals, as their shells were segmented and not always comfortable when the creature habitually rolled into a ball. Giant crabs appealed solely to the coastline, and outdid the giant clams when it came to underwater ability. But, above all of these, the most impressive isolated ecosystem could be found on top of an enormous Glyptodon, dubbed affectionately by its three-thousand and six passengers as Old Gyro.

Old Gyro was a magnificent beast with a peculiarly curved shell, one that sharply arched over his back, sloping down half a mile on either side before curving upwards, gathering ponds in the rim. Deciduous trees sprung up all over his back, rooted deeply in his spine and flowering all through the winter as they drew their power from his endless supply of blood. The birds fought for a place in those trees, which sprouted the most invigorating fruit and the tastiest nuts. Their flowers lured bugs by the millions each month with their rich perfumes, proving a haven for amphibians, reptiles, and arachnids, who simply had to open their mouths to find their stomachs full in an instant. There were no big cats, scavenging dogs, or birds of prey, for Old Gyro would let nothing that would upset his prized ecosystem come near enough to threaten it. All those predators could do was jeer from afar, awaiting the moment that Old Gyro finally collapsed from the weight of his burden. But it was no burden to him; it was his life’s work. These creatures, great and small, were his charges, and his purpose was to protect and nurture them with his life.

It was a day like any other day on the back of Old Gyro when a magpie looked around and decided he was not satisfied with his surroundings. Of the creatures who lived atop that Glyptodon, the magpie certainly contributed the absolute least. His sole interest was for his own little nest, which didn’t even house eggs but worthless materials that gleamed prettily in the sunlight. He puzzled and puzzled over why he was so deep in the dregs, and eventually decided it was no fault of his, but Old Gyro’s. After all, their world was limited by the scope of that magnificent shell. Were these not representative of the limits he felt encumbered him?

The magpie called a meeting of minds to figure out how their community could improve. These minds dubbed themselves “The Council of Deciding What is the Right Thing to Do.” It was comprised of a koala, who served as head of the board, a hognose snake, who offered up tactical defense strategies, a sloth, who analyzed modes and methods of transport, and a cane toad, who was versed in the act of educating the young. The magpie was in charge of finances, but also self-appointed primary speaker of the council. So he opened the meeting, having first called it, as was his right.

“Fellow citizens of the Shell,” trilled the magpie in his alluring digitized warble, “my name is Zit. I, like you, have enjoyed the life we have been living on the back of Old Gyro…to a point. Only recently have I realized that our life here is not perfect – far from it, actually! And as I meditated on the reasons for why our life here is not perfect, day and night and night and day, I was inspired to form this meeting of minds so that I may ask you the question that troubles me. So, I put this question forth to you: what, precisely, makes our life here not perfect?”

The other animals lowered their heads and debated the magpie Zit’s existential crisis. After a few moments, the Koala poked her head out with an answer.

“Just the other day, as I was enjoying some fresh berries, I noticed a few flightless birds below begging for the juicy remnants that dripped from the corners of my cheeks. Then, all of a sudden, Old Gyro tripped over his own clumsy feet and shook me out of the tree! The flightless birds retreated with the rest of my snack, and I’ve had a splitting headache ever since…”

Zit squawked with delight. Of course! It was all Old Gyro’s fault, for he was the foundation on which their home stood. Corrections were planned immediately within the council, and, with enough signatures from unwitting animals who did not quite understand what all the buzz was about, Zit flew to the ancient glyptodon’s ear and voiced their complaints.

“Listen here, you clumsy oaf. Don’t you realize what you’ve done? All your lumbering about has put animals in a panic, so we’re going to cripple you at the legs. Who needs walking, anyhow, when they’re basically one peak short of a mountain? You must do comply, it’s for the benefit of all involved.”

Old Gyro nodded with gentile complicity. After all, he did not live on his back, so surely those who relied upon him knew what was best for their own living conditions. Accepting his fate, the gentle giant wandered onwards until he reached a lake, settled down comfortably, and didn’t even feel a thing as his nerves were severed at the ankles. With his mouth near the water, Old Gyro was now rendered immobile, but still self-sufficient.

Zit could not explain why he felt even worse than before. They had done good for all animals of the Shell, so why did he feel like small beans had been accomplished in the grand scheme of things?

Within the next week, another meeting of the minds was called. After much careful deliberation, the Koala poked her head forth with a new solution.

“The other day, I was coiled inside my burrow, dreaming lovely dreams of the progress we would make for our fellow creatures and a throat full of rodents, when I felt parched for a sip of cool water. I slithered to the rims of Old Gyro’s shell, only to discover that they were dry as a rhino’s buttookis. Yet, when I made the journey all the way to the front of this land, what do I see? Old Gyro, slurping up an entire lake to his heart’s content!”

Zit squawked, aghast. Of course! It was all Old Gyro’s fault, for the rainclouds could see how full he was with their blessing, which prevented them from dropping further rain for the other creatures. Adjustments were decided upon immediately within the council, and, with enough support bought with leaflets full of water from animals who did not feel safe leaving their home and walking two feet to sip from the lake, Zit flapped to the ancient glyptodon’s ear and croaked their complaints.

“Can you hear me, you ignorant beast? You’ve done it again! As you lay there, your fat face filling itself up with as much water as you want, the rest of us aren’t spared a drop. So, to help you do the right thing, we’re going to tie your gaping jewels shut, for all our sakes. You must do comply, for what good are you if you can’t provide your citizens their basic needs?”

Old Gyro nodded with hesitant complicity. After all, he could drink as much as he desired from those boundless waters, so he trusted those who relied upon him knew how to manage their part of the ecosystem. Accepting his fate, the generous giant grit his teeth harshly together, and begrudgingly allowed vines to be wrung around and around until his mouth was clamped shut for good.

Now, the other animals on the back of Old Gyro’s shell were starting to realize that maybe this self-appointed council didn’t really know what they were doing. Their true troubles only seemed to become evident once Old Gyro was crippled, and then compounded once he was deprived of water. They stopped aging, as if the glyptodon’s movement were like the rotation of a planet, whereas the foliage around them showed its age by decaying rapidly, for it relied on the healthiness of Old Gyro’s blood to flower and bloom. All of a sudden, it came back to them that a similar disaster had befallen Ankylosaur, considered the utopia of shelled communities, who which had met its end mysteriously from within. Was history to repeat itself? It mustn’t! It couldn’t! Not when they had played some part in it, no!

Hundreds of creatures, from mammal to the insect, beseeched “The Council of Deciding What is the Right Thing to Do,” but all the members had taken up residence in the heights of the tallest Camphor tree sprouting from the peak of the shell, too high up to hear these widespread complaints.

That is, all except the cane toad, who secretly vacated the shell from time to time to moisten her skin in the lake outside. She had passed by some of the protests and organized efforts to overturn the damage done by their well-meaning efforts, and swiftly reported back to the president of the council. Who, in turn, explained the experience to everyone else.

“Not even an hour ago,” explained the Koala, “I was hopping about our beautiful forest, looking for some young who might need gentle guidance from all-too-eager lips, when the sting of ungrateful discontent burned my ears. Down there, below us, at the foot of our tree, our fellow citizens of the shell are voicing complaints and miseries to us. But we are not the problem, of course! Everything we have done was for their benefit and interest, I’m not seeing where this spirit of outrage has sprouted from.”

Zit knew. Oh, he knew, for every problem they had dealt with, every blockade in their path to progress, was erected by that crafty Old Gyro! He flew at once to the glyptodon’s wheezing nostrils, perched irritatedly upon them, and looked brazenly into his sad eyes.

“How dare you, you selfish thing! Can you hear the voices razing against progress on your behalf? And what for? You should feel purposeful in providing for them, and for us, but for some reason your discomfort is worth jeopardizing all that. Cease spreading lies about our goodwill at once! Do you want everyone to leave your shell for somewhere else?”

But, as Zit tried to figure out some way to make Old Gyro comply, he remembered that he had already tied his mouth shut. So, then, how were complaints of his situation getting out? He studied, and pondered, and it dawned on him, looking into his glassy, innocent eyes…his eyes. Old Gyro was conveying so much emotion through those depressive eyes alone, surely those were what made all the other citizens of the shell depressed! Before Old Gyro could understand his critic’s intentions, the magpie dove straight for one of his eyes and popped it with his beak.

Old Gyro roared, louder than any roar heard since the sleeping gator upon whose back all Hatuga now prospered. His life on the line, Old Gyro finally decided to fight back. He tried to stand up to the magpie – but his ankles were clipped, and he could not rise. He growled and tried to devour the magpie in one bite – but his jaws were tied shut, he could not open them. Besides, he was so deprived of water, he hadn’t the energy to move his massive frame even if he did have control of all his faculties.

With one eye remaining, Old Gyro couldn’t tell where the magpie would come from next. His heart pounded, sending tremors throughout the land on his back. To think, a beast as magnificent as he, reduced to fear of a puny tittering bird! Yet that’s where he was at, for he had given the Magpie such power on his own. And he could do nothing else but regret as Zit flapped up from below and jabbed his remaining eye, blinding him permanently.

Old Gyro didn’t roar this time – he sighed. He heaved such a monumental sigh, laying his head at the shore of the lake, and was still forevermore. The other citizens of the shell had no idea what happened, but they all felt rocked to their core by the impromptu silence; they could feel that life had left all the plants and rocks around them, even if they couldn’t see it. It weighed heavily upon their hearts, and they couldn’t explain why – they just knew there was no use trying to make things better now.

“The Council of Deciding What is the Right Thing to Do” also felt something like that, but they were more concerned as to where their leader flew off to. They felt aimless without him, and waited worrisomely for his return. They waited, even as a crack split Old Gyro’s shell straight down the middle. They stood fast in the heights of the Camphor tree, even as the shell caved in and the ground beneath them crashed like dust into a yawning fissure. And, still, they did not budge – even as the Camphor tree tipped over into the depths, taking them all crashing down into the barren grave of Old Gyro’s ribcage.

The survivors made their way carefully down the ruins of their home’s imploded foundation. They were sad, downcast – but it would be a lie to say they had not been expecting this outcome, sooner or later. And so they knew exactly their response as the shadow of Zit the Magpie covered them all, offering to sell them his cheap comfort.

“My fellow citizens of the shell,” clucked Zit, “What a tremendously traumatic experience we have all endured. But do not worry! Once we have elected a few of you to oversee the creation of our new home, we can begin-“

“That’s enough!” erupted a Kiwi, who had grown especially weary of the magpie’s posturing. “We all had a hand in this travesty, but let’s not forget it’s you who led the charge! Maybe we deserve this for our complicity, or for taking for granted what Old Gyro gifted all of us, but one thing is for certain: we all learned a valuable lesson. And that lesson was, whatever second rate ecosystem we build as basically a shell of what we once had, you, my friend, will not be a part of it.”

A rallying cry rose up from the ranks of the former citizens of the shell, who started off to join other communities, or were spirited enough to build themselves a new one that would rival what they once had. Their home might be beyond recovery, but they would rise up from the dirt and reclaim what idle complicity had taken from them; it was a setback, and setbacks are never permanent. Only defeat is final.

Zit was left behind, hurt and bewildered by their abandonment. Didn’t they know the pains he had taken in forming the council, in making the hard decisions – all for them and a better way of life? All he cared about was improving their community, and they cruelly abandoned him! He wondered where he had gone wrong, and could not find the answer to that question, so he wondered what gave him such unselfish visions of grandeur in the first place, when he recalled his nest of pretty shinies. His shinies! Had they survived the collapse? Zit flew frantically into the rubble, searching and clawing among the dust and bone for his collection. As long as he could reclaim what he possessed before he threw it so carelessly away for others, he might be partly whole again. Oh, if only they had brought him happiness back then, maybe none of this would have happened! He didn’t deserve defeat, but here it was all around him, and he could account it so as the Treasurer of a broken bank.

Zit dug and dug with more passion than he ever had leading the council. He dug and dug with more single-mindedness, more inspiration to recover his belongings, that he willfully ignored the jeering of scavengers as their predatory circle tightened around him.

The Reluctant Erlking

The forest of Hatuga is a land of stories. Our tribe, being forest-dwellers of that land, are consequently a people of stories. I might even go so far to say that, without stories, we wouldn’t exist – the concept itself is that important to us. Culture, experiences and values, all of these are passed down in the form of fables; weaned from childbirth on the oral text, we age with the faint voices of legendary ancestors always in our ears. True, some of those ancestors might have lost their human form for the sake of the fable, but what actually defines them as human? Is it the form – or the spirit? I like to think it is the latter…that, no matter the truth, no matter the experience, everything recorded in story is part of the history of Hatuga. Likewise, the tales of Hatuga are an ongoing history of our people; they are one and the same.

When I was younger, this sort of thinking brought me relief; it was nice to think that I was part of a larger plot than my own. Now that I’m older, I cannot lie – the concept frightens me! In ways more than any story can convey, it chills me to my bones. But to help you understand why that is, I will have to tell a story. Yes, I will have to tell you a Hatugan Forest-People Fable. But don’t you worry. This isn’t just any old fable.

This is a true story. And I was there to watch it become a fable.

Most of you are familiar with Hatugan seasons. Each doesn’t strike the forest all at once, but moves from the north to the south. Like a wave, moving inland. Some say it is because of the ancient magic in the extreme North, but that’s up for debate amongst scholars. All I know is what I have seen, staying up all night to watch the leaves decay, the snow fall, the flowers bloom, the fireflies glow: it happens overnight.

That’s what any uninspired person would tell you. I however, have stayed awake to witness the change, and will tell you the truth in case you haven’t yet sought it out for yourselves.

Yes, the seasons change overnight. But, no, it does not happen all at once.

You see, the transition is technically instantaneous – you cannot mark the effects on the forest over a period of days. The effects are, in actuality, gradual – though rapid, you can mark the seasonal transition in the course of a single night. That night, no matter the season, is a hallowed night.

We call this night, “Tabidmas Eve.” It is a celebration of Hatuga’s maturity! Each season does not act as a cycle in our eyes, upon which the forest dies and is reborn with new life. That’s not what we believe in at all. We believe instead that Hatuga is stretched before us on a finite line, and every season (no matter its characteristics) is one step closer to the end of that line. Hatuga is always moving once step closer to an utter death, rather than moving endlessly in circles.

You might find it a morbid perspective, but consider this: if Hatugans are made of stories, would not an endless cycle of mistakes prove all of our efforts pointless? For the sins of the previous year, told so splendidly in the colors of spring, only to be buried beneath the snow of forgetfulness, and then bloom again as fresh naivety? No, ‘tis better that Hatuga is decaying. That is why each Tabidmas Eve is a testament to our fables, and how they encompass the maturity and experience that comes as the forest draws ever nearer to death. Our fables are the richness of an almost-whole existence.

Now you know why it is in our nature to treasure fables so much. Without history, how exactly can you expect anything from the future? Without context, how can you derive true content?

Yet, I tell you this: the fable exists so we can derive truth in a word-isolated context, outside of reality. The stories themselves – or, rather, the events themselves, before they are translated into a story – are distressing. As I said before, I never would have come to this conclusion…had I not found myself in the center of events that would eventually become just another fable of tradition. But it was more than just a fable to me; it was a chance occurrence that would shake my faith in the fable, down to the core. In the fable, and in the very nature of the forest itself.

That Tabidmas Eve so many years ago, as the leaves turned brown-orange and brittle, I met a demon from another world. A demon, indeed…one destined to haunt me forever.

This is the true account.

The celebration of Tabidmas Eve was more traditional back then. We had herb and drink as we do now, spiced for jubilee. I suppose you could say, well, that there was a ritual to the practice, one that is no longer kept.

As dusk seemed to prevail more than any other time of day, its rusty, musky hues more stark than any blue or black, my neighbors and I gathered a harvest for the forthcoming winter. The Tabidmas Eve that was to come in the autumn before the storm was an occasion to fill oneself with ciders, roasted squashes, and sweet meats; the idea was, the more steam you ingested, the warmer you would be when snow covered the land. A baseless pseudo-diet, you might laugh at the idea – we knew it was baseless as we ate – but we still found comfort in the idea that one could have some autonomy over one’s good health. The crowded festival probably kept us warmer than the food, honestly.

Oh, there were mountains of it – Roasted gourds of all sorts, and roasted hinds of all kinds! We still lived in trees then, a level web of lofts joined together by rope bridges, with a community plaza wrapped around the thickest sequoia across all Hatuga. We built our houses in trees because of a vicious…, hmm…well, there are a hundred fables that could explain our tree-bound situation. I’m not going to use my story to explain.

Anyways, the tricky thing about the meals was preparing them. My loft planned a nutty array, with shaved pork, red kuri squash, and candied pecans. My parents, siblings, and myself worked hard to gather, chop, season, and bake; the end result was something we could be proud of, as a family. It was worth the labor, to ogle the artistic array and sniff its harvest smells. As soon as it was finished cooking, we loaded it in the wagon and set off for the center of the web.

It was always frightening to me, walking the bridges at night. The autumnal Tabidmas Eve, however, was a special kind of frightening. On that Tabidmas Eve, even before the sun had set, you couldn’t see the forest floor. A cold front would come through to signal the change in season, and a thick sea of bluish-grey mist would flow between the trees. They were so thick that, if ever one fell, they would feel a false security that the fog would catch them before hitting the ground. But we never learned if it was thick enough to catch us – fear of the bridges’ strength was always unfounded.
There was something else…maybe. I’m not sure. But…back then, I couldn’t be certain of it, or I just discounted it as our wagon’s wheels across the wooden slats. I was young, but I knew what fear could do. Now I’m certain of what I heard.

Down, down beneath us, echoing across the forest floor – it was the thunder of hooves. They struck the ground like a pair of stones colliding, two after the others – a mad dash in steady, hollow rhythm. Far off in the distance, far off in the mists somewhere, I heard them gallop recklessly.

But I was young then; I could only guess the source of the sound. What was out there in the forest tonight? Was it a beast? A spirit? A rockslide? Drums, or hooves, or thunder? It could have been anything and everything, on Tabidmas Eve…But no one else in my family seemed to hear, so I convinced myself to wonder why our wagon was as noisy as a horse.

As I was just starting to break into a nervous sweat, we finally saw the lantern, dimly blowing in the wind, long before we reached the community center. The lantern was an enormous girded cage attached to a simple conveyer belt, a single metal band encircling the sequoia beyond the octagonal reach of the plaza that held the lantern aloft. The whole tribe would contribute, each of us, by tugging it around a full circle. The adults were responsible for two revolutions each, and the children for one, the idea being to greet all members of the tribe, no matter where they were or how long it had been since you’d last seen them, and to keep everyone awake to watch the transitions of Tabidmas Eve.

No one ever stayed awake to watch the lantern burn out.

The center was decorated with all our effects of the season, from scarecrows to cornucopias – their last hurrah before being burned as fuel for the lantern. It saddened me to watch them go, considering the effort and joy of the season put into crafting them; but that same joy would return next year with the arrival of new projects. It was worth it, to feel the dual warmth of community and our treasured fables as we sat near the lantern. The wind blows hard in the canopy, so the heat was soothing as it licked us, bundled up as we were.

As the feast gradually disappeared, and the lantern slowed its orbit to a halt, we huddled together and told stories. These stories, they tended to focus on the qualities of family, of tradition, of goodwill and generosity – we heard the same comforting tales every year, and never grew tired of them. The harvest had been especially good this year, with much to be thankful for, and so I ate up the grateful atmosphere, as did every one of the listeners.

But then you had the few stories, mostly told by young adults who had yet to establish a tradition or a family, who had grown weary of tradition. They made their own stories, told from the mind over the heart, with the intentions of conveying warnings, or criticisms. I firmly believe each of those stories was so well-crafted that they deserved to be fables in their own right – they just had a tendency to read the wrong mood, and the greatest numbers gathered round would fall asleep during the arrival of a new tale.

I was about to fall asleep myself, when another of those young adults commanded our attention. I cannot recall her name, but I remember every bit of her face: energetic, full of life, yet completely and utterly blank. Her story contradicted her face.

One Autumnal Tabidmas of her youth, she told us, she woke when all the adults and children still huddled together in slumber. The girl tried in vain to return to her dreams, but the chill of the wind and the dim light of the moon kept her awake. What was she to do, but listen to cicadas? Their irritating chirp droned on and on, rising and falling, that she felt herself on the verge of going back to sleep – until all the cicadas silenced at once. She wasn’t expecting it, but the buzz cut short as if they had all just vanished in thin air. She rose up, as if seeing her might comfort them and start the drone again. She admitted that the silence frightened her.

Then came the drums. At least, they sounded like drums at first to her – low, steady, hollow beating. But that’s when they were far away to the North. They drew closer and closer, until the source of the sound became clear to her.

It was the mad gallop of hooves.

The girl rushed to the side of the plaza and peered down over the railing, into the dark and swirling mists. Even the firm sequoia shook as the galloping drew nearer and nearer – she gripped on for dear life! And then…it passed.

Her eyes accustomed to the darkness, the girl saw two jagged antlers break through the mists. A single glowing eye, staring dead ahead, lighted the muscular figure of a steed, upon which the owner of the antlers and the eye rode, bound in a mossy cloak. Every Hatugan knew this figure as that ancient elf, harvester of souls, guardian of the forest – the Erlking. Our narrator’s heart stopped, she said, as his dark flowing figure tore through the mists at a breakneck speed, unhindered by the darkness, and disappeared between the trees.

His undead steed’s gallop died down as he gained distance from the tribe, until only the stir of the mists gave any indication he was there. But then they, too, eventually settled and covered the Erlking’s tracks. Our orator concluded her tale by saying she has never woken up in the middle of a Tabidmas Eve since that night. But, just before she goes to bed every year, she is certain she hears the hooves of the Erlking on his ride through the waking hours. He is looking for to find a soul awake and wandering about on the forest floor to drag along with him, back to his kingdom of the dead underground.

As a child, that sort of hokey legend did little to faze me. Erlking? Rubbish! To explain away a possible natural disaster as a figure from nightmares and not reality, was the very definition of irresponsible. What if the sequoia was in danger, from whatever is the source of this constant sound as it narrowly misses the base of the tree? What if it is a predator, who might someday climb and finish us off in our sleep if we leave it alone? The probability of a real problem was being minimized by this girl’s fable, and most were just content to bask in the entertainment rather than confront the implications.

I kept criticism to myself. All words and no action was a flaw I chose to avoid, being a man and a capable warrior, so I decided to stay awake and bring some fact to the fable. I determined to witness the dangers of this so-called “Erlking” phenomena, and put a stop to it.

You must keep in mind, though, that staying awake through Tabidmas Eve is a difficult prospect. As the air thins quickly, most lose consciousness a mere stroke into midnight. I didn’t want to disturb them moving about to keep myself awake, so I contorted into the most uncomfortable position I could think of to remain restless. A lack of comfort could override any of nature’s temptations, surely! With my spear nearby, propped against the trunk of the tree, I steeled myself and strained my ears for that haunting gallop. I think it took a mere twenty minutes of struggling before I finally caved in to sleep.

When I awoke, drowsiness kept me from thinking clearly. A few seconds passed as I was absorbed in the drone of the cicadas, before I started with a jolt, my first worry being that the “Erlking” might have already passed. I lightly yet hastily crept towards the railing and peered over.

Still. The mists, hundreds of yards below, lay undisturbed.

Relief washed over me. Relief soon gave way to doubt. Was the sound I heard actually just our old wagon? Was the girl just trying to scare us with a scary story? Was I a sucker, deserving of the headache I would likely wake with in the morning. I stared blankly below, feeling just a little annoyed that there was no problem to solve after all.

Then the cicadas stopped.

Mimicking the young girl’s story before, their buzzing ceased all at once. My breath, stopped, too, because I could hear, ever faintly, the sound of hooves far off in the distance. Gradually getting louder.

I was late! With excitement, a leap over my friends and family, and spear in hand, I scrambled across one of the bridges. Looping my foot in the first pulley I could find, I lowered myself to the forest floor, spooking the horses tied in at their post. I luckily quieted them with some leftover carrots stuffed in a pack – meant for that failed task of keeping myself awake – and hid between their ranks. The first priority was keeping our means of transportation and labor safe, and I would be crushed underfoot before this Tabidmas turns out to be their last.

We waited with bated breath, the horses and I. They stirred as the hooffalls stampeded in our direction, but I reassured with whispers and pats that they would be all right. The moon was a husky reddish-orange that tainted even the mists through the canopy, and I could tell that the Erlking, or whatever it was, would be upon us soon; the ground rumbled, and the rusted mist blew in and out as steam from a horse’s nostrils. My palms were slicked with sweat, but I gripped my spear and crouched with poised anticipation.

His silhouette only darkened the mists for a moment before he burst out of the mist atop his hulking beast – the fabled Erlking himself! I couldn’t believe my eyes at first, but I could believe my ears heard the horses whinnying and struggling at their reins as that towering abomination came straight at us. He wasn’t even slowing down; he’d run us right over, the crazed demon! Coming to terms with the truth of the myth, and worried that it was me he was after, I unhooked the smallest horse and posted off a ways. Why should the rest of our stallions suffer because of me, was the thought.

The Erlking drew closer and closer, and I became conscious of his enormous antlers, like arms reached towards the sky, and the hulking beast he rode on. I never saw his singular glowing eye, but I was certain that he saw us, dead ahead. Yet…I couldn’t understand why he was so tall, and yet so small, as he ran us down. Then I realized; the Erlking himself was small. Or, he was leaning forward so far that he could have been sleeping on his ride. It was his ride that was so huge – the biggest horse I’d ever seen, towering nearly eight feet at the shoulder! It could bowl right through me and my small horse with ease.

Regardless, I stood my ground. Whatever this reckless beast and its foolish rider intended, I refused to let the risk of their rampage threaten Hatuga. With spear in hand, drawn and aimed before me, I accosted the Erlking.

“Stop,” I shouted with a quiver in my voice, “Or will you force me to stop you?”

The Erlking did not slow down or respond.

“This is your final warning! Stop, or prepare yourself for my spear!”

The Erlking did not slow down or respond. Instead, his steed veered in a wide curve to my left, meeting me almost adjacently as he adjusted his course. I was flushed with relief for almost a second; it left me as quickly when I saw the Erlking turn his head towards me. His mouth gaped open, and I heard the faint voice of that ancient spirit:
“h…help me…please…”

The undead steed thundered away into the mists, dragging with it those faint pleas on its back. I did not think twice, but spurred my horse after it.

Once the mists are kicked up, it becomes almost impossible to see. We lagged behind for a while, my horse and I, before the Erlking suddenly appeared on our right; I wasn’t aware until we saw him parallel to us through the trees. By the light of the orangeish moon, I could make him out clearly. And what I saw was no Erlking.

The being that begged for my help was none but a man. He was gaunt and shriveled, gangly with barely a pound of flesh on his bones. He grasped tight to his horse’s mane for dear life, but seemed to do so with his last drop of life, for his eyes were so sunken that I could not be sure he wasn’t a skeleton already. His long beard rustled in the wind, and, atop his head, tangled in a ragged mess of crusty hair, were enormous branches that stuck out like antlers.

The gaunt man’s eyes creaked open, imbued with brightness when he registered me riding astride him.

“You…you’re not a ghost?”

“I’m not. Are you?”

“Not the last time I checked. You got any water on you, or food?”

“I do. Stop your horse, and you can have some.”

“Give it to me now…I’m starving.

More curious than controlling, I agreed to his demands without hesitation. Who knows how long my tiny horse can keep up with his gargantuan steed? On second look, I must ask, is that really a steed he’s riding on? I’ve never seen one quite like it, with an enormous hunch and threatening horns.

I steered right next to him, rustled out a slab of beef and a flask of water, and handed them over. He ravenously finished both in a heartbeat.

“Thank you, thank you so much! God, I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve had any food or drink. Where am I, exactly?”

“You are in the forest of Hatuga.”

“H-Hatuga? Where the heck is Hatuga?”

“It is –“

The gaunt man coughed and wheezed, then wiped his nose on his horse’s mane. His eyes darted about, confused by his surroundings.

“Wha…Why is the sky this color? What’s with the fog?”

“Have you not seen a Tabidmas Eve cold front come in before? It’s my first time, too.”

“Tabidmas Eve?”

There was a brief pause, as if the season was sinking in on him. The gaunt man abruptly laughed, in an almost fake boisterous manner, as if he was trying to unnerve me and assuage his own nerves. He calmed down just as abruptly, though I’m sure that was just an act, too.

“I get it, I get it. I’m trapped in a nightmare! Probably that hotel food, gave me gut rot or something. Dang, and I dropped my phone a while back, too.”

He splashed the remainder of the water in his face and gave his cheek a pinch.

“Hotel?…Pho–”

“Yeah, hotel! You know the one, um…that’s right! Glacier Park Lodge! Almost had five stars, so I expected it to be great. Didn’t expect them to try and poison me with undercooked food, the idiots. I bet it was the spinach, probably had pesticides in them.”

“Sir! I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I received a glare of scrutiny from the gaunt man. He seemed to soften after reminding himself that he was talking to a child.

“I’m Hewie. Hewie Chase. You might have heard of me? I contribute to current events columns for the AJC, but I’m more popular for being a travel vlogger. Ever seen one of my videos?”

“I must admit, sir, I’ve never seen a vlogger before.”

“Really? What, you live under a rock or something? Oh,” Hewie held up his hands as if he could stop me from thinking something. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it that way. I mean, not everyone can afford a computer.”

I had long gone past a state of curiosity and into one of pure confusion. Rather than continue the misunderstandings and mismeanings between us, why not cut straight to the point? The gargled breathing of his strange horse was starting to unnerve me.

“Do you have any way of stopping your horse, Mr. Chase?”

“Mr. Chase? I’m not that old! Call me Hewie. Here, I’ll tell you how it is, kid,” Hewie went on as though he hadn’t even heard me. “The world’s going to Hell in a handbasket! That’s all there is to it. No matter how much you try to warn folks, they still refuse to see how they’re contributing to the state of things. They’re lost in their pathetic little Instagram accounts, with their silly little followers…I mean, don’t get me wrong, I have one, too. They’re muy, muy important.”

I nodded, somewhat understanding what he was getting at. My horse’s labored breathing was starting to worry me, and I thought some reassurances would get the gaunt man to listen to me.

“Ah, yeah! You get me,” he perked up, but not in the way I had hoped. His eyes got wilder, and some drool was starting to glisten on his chin. “So, anyway, I said to myself, I said, ‘Hey! Hewie! Why not take your travel blog on the road again, educate people on how they’re really living? How they’re infecting the environment, and each other?’ So, what did I do?”

…

…

“I don’t–“

“I listened to myself, of course! I loaded up my stuff and headed to the most beautiful place in America: Montana! The most refreshing place I’ve ever been…helped me reconnect with my inner humanity. I felt like I was doing some good just by…by being there, you know? As if, to tell nature, ‘Don’t worry. I remember you. I won’t let you be forgotten, no matter how much we trample over you, abuse you, eat you…’”

Tears welled up in Hewie’s eyes. He caressed his horse’s hump lovingly.

“That’s why it’s been a privilege for this little guy to let me ride with him. I knew we connected when I saw him in the clearing. He saw me, and he was like, ‘Hewie. Hewie,’” Hewie was doing a different voice now, that made him sound kind of foolish. “’I feel your pain, buddy. No one listens to your columns. People criticize your blogs. Climb on my back, Hewie, and feel how humans were suppose to feel. Feel the power you deserve.’”

Hewie laughed like a child and embraced his horse.

“Man, could this guy run! The wind in your hair, the ground so far below…I’ve never felt so alive! I feel like I’m a part of him now. I don’t even mind that I’ve been stuck on his back for…hey, how many days has it been?”

…

…

“I…I don’t know, Mr. Hewie.”

“Way-way-way-way-wait. Weren’t you looking for me?”

“No? I mean, not you in particular, I was-“

“Let me stop you right there, okay? Work with me here. They didn’t send a search party out to find me? It’s got to have at least been a week!”

“I did not expect to find you out here, Mr. Hewie.”

The poor pitiful man atop his enormous steed seemed offended, and deeply hurt.

“Well, how do you like that. Who were you waiting for, then? And why the spear?”

“Um…” it felt stupid now, hearing it come out of my mouth. “I was waiting for the Erlking.”

“…The Erlking? You mean, like,” Hewie burst out singing in a deep voice, some song in a language I had never heard before. It tickled him, and his tune turned to laughter before he could go very far. “You’ve got to be kidding! Aren’t you a hero, huh? The Erlking’s a legend! A very old one, too. What made you think I was the Erlking?”

My eyes instinctively wandered up to the branches entwined with Hewie’s hair. He reached up, felt them, and his laughter only got louder.

“That’s great! Ooooh, I love it. But, c’mon, I mean, the Erlking rides a horse! You ever heard of an Erlking riding a moose?”

“A…a moose?”

“Obviously. Man, you are a strange kid.”

Something was bothering Hewie as he said those words. He no longer found amusement in my ignorance.

“Hey, kid…You say you’ve never seen a vlogger before?”

I repeated it for him.

“You’ve never seen them, or…Are you saying you don’t know what a vlogger is?”

I don’t.

“Have you ever heard of video before?”

I had not. And, to this day, I never heard of it again.

My answers did not please Hewie. His tongue rolled back and forth in his mouth for a moment, as if restructuring his thoughts before they spilled out.

“Hey kid…” his voice was raspy and serious. “Get me off this moose, will you?”

I nodded, fished out some rope, and tossed it to him. He fumbled with it, fingers crusted stiff with what looked like dried mucus, and leaned forward to tie it around the moose’s neck.

He shrieked and fell back.

“What the HELL is going ON?”

I pulled my horse right up to the moose, to see if I could take hold of its antlers and slow it down myself. With one of its antlers stretching out in front of me, I grabbed for it.

My palms sunk in, squeezing through fibrous goop that is definitely not the makeup for antlers. My hands were covered in the stuff, grey, rank and pulsating. I sat back down and spurred my horse ahead, wanting to see the face of this creature.

What I saw put the rest of it into clearer perspective. While the moose had fur around the area where Hewie sat, specifically its hump, the rest of the body was a loosely formed, grey mass. The head was the worst. I could make out a rounded nose and small jaw, but the particulars had melted away like mud, leaving no clearly defined eyes or ears. Its breathing was muffled and wet, perhaps because even its windpipe and lungs were liquidated. The monster’s hooves and legs were strong but sleek, leaving a trail of grey mucous dripping off behind as it stampeded mindlessly onward with Hewie trapped on its back.

If this abomination was once what Hewie called a “moose,” I found it hard to believe it was one any longer. Now, it was as if God had put spirit into an unfinished clay puppet.

When I slowed down to speak with Hewie, his visage was different. He glared forward, thinking, with a bitter twitch to his smile, then rested his head in his hands.

“Kid, will you be honest with me? Am I dead?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t think so.”

“Don’t know a lot, do you? Do you at least know where the police are around here?”

“Um…”

“Let me guess! Never seen one of those, either?”

He threw up his hands before I could even shake my head. Hewie opened his mouth to say something else, then stopped. A gleam returned to his eye, almost a spark of fire. I tried not to think about this contradiction, this man and this beast that don’t belong in Hatuga, who broke reality somehow to come here; I was focused on rescuing a man in need. But I knew he was only thinking about those things, and was nearing some sort of absurd conclusion. It was possible he would crack, or it already happened a long time ago and he was becoming recognizant of it.

I held out my hand. Hewie eyed it suspiciously.

“You’ll have to jump onto my horse. I don’t think it can take both of us, but –“

“No.”

“…What?

“You heard me,” he sneered contemptuously and smacked my hand away. “I’m not getting down from this moose.”

“Please, sir. I think you know this is not the moose you thought it was.”

“No, you’re right about that. Because now I see clearly…”

Fresh sweat was collecting along his hairline. He grinned to reassure me, but I’m certain at that point everything was calculated to reassure himself.

“Yes, it has become a sign from Nature itself! What was once a moose, king of the hooved beasts, is now melting away because of what we, humans, are doing to his rightful kingdom! Taking and taking, gluttonous for what is not rightfully ours…well, now I can finally do something! I can make them hear.”

Hewie extended a leg while he spoke…and gently pressed his boot into my chest.

“You tell your Hatuga that the eternal Erlking rides at night, upon his faceless moose, ready to snatch up any kiddo or careless adult who raises their hand to this beautiful forest. Was it created for us? No, we don’t deserve to take anything from it. As for me, I shall do my part. I will educate our species in a way that I couldn’t do before. Now, people will listen to me! They will have no choice, and they will hear me loud and clear!”

The gaunt man tried to push me off my horse with his foot, but he was weak. The struggle irritated him, especially since I was a kid, and he grew angrier and angrier when I would not give way. With a final effort, recovering strength he had lost with the motivating power of humiliation, he shouted one last thing in that tongue I had never heard before:

“Verbeuge dich vor den Erlkönig!”

Hewie Chase dashed madly onwards atop his deformed beast, while I was dashed against the forest floor with a broken nose where his heel had met my face, and lost consciousness.

When I awoke, the air was new – it bit with the chill of winter. My horse was long gone, so I feebly walked the long miles of bright, human-less forest back to my tribe. The sun was gentle, muted, almost as if quietly showing me that there was nothing to fear. All the way, I could not help but notice the beauty of a Hatugan morning, full of life and sounds and…ah, but not smells, for my nose had been broken and all I could smell was blood. I knew I had not dreamed, for I was alone all the way out in the northern region of the forest, with plenty of hoofprints for a trail back. But the moose did not leave footprints, and I doubted what I saw that night, in the orange mists, all the way back to the sequoia.

Reaching home, dazed and confused with a knot in my skull, I told anyone I could of the adventure. They told their friends, their friends told their children, and, next autumnal Tabidmas, the myth of the Erlking only grew deeper, with varying interpretations as to where he came from and why, and what a moose actually looked like.

Can you imagine how distressed I was? To relate this disastrous omen, clear proof to me that the very fabric of our space may not be whole, only for those who “listened” to spin their own deviations of the event into fables. Fables, I might add, that did not address a singular problem, but were tailor-made to enforce whatever lesson the storyteller desired!

I was aghast. The only solution I could think to do next was gather a group of impressionable minds, and await the return of Hewie Chase atop his dissolving moose next cycle. We numbered about seven in total, and anticipated their arrival by the horse posts. If this wasn’t a true story, he would never have shown up again, and there would have been some lesson to learn about wishing for an event to break tradition or something – but he came! Stampeding along the exact path he had the year before, Hewie and the moose passed us, clear as day to my companions.

“Verbeuge dich vor den Erlkönig!” Hewie cried, even more overwrought with foliage now than when I last saw him, as he disappeared back into the mists.

And, would you believe it? The more eyewitnesses there were, year after year, the more fables were created! He became a new tradition, a staple of our harvest folklore. Over the years, I have witnessed that Erlking take all sorts of forms, all but one: that of Hewie Chase, the unfortunate vlogger from the hotel of Montana.

Soon, the fables were all that existed. Hatugans stopped staying awake to witness that eldritch banshee gallop across the forest, and for good reason. As the years passed…well, I’m not sure exactly what happened. That is, I don’t know what happened, because I don’t know how it happened. But, whatever it was, I watched it happen. Until the very end.

As the years passed, Hewie began to lose his form. I thought he was shrinking, growing more gaunt by the day, and I never would have realized his transformation if it had not been for the change in his beloved gibberish. I used to be able to tell it was a foreign tongue, but, one Tabidmas, it wasn’t. It was actual gibberish. He was spluttering, and his tongue wasn’t forming any letters. Noises were made, but no sense was made of them.

The next year, all I heard was muffled screaming. It chilled me to my bones, and I struck apace with him again, this time to force him from his mad ride. When I caught up with Hewie…God. Nothing I had seen or believed could have prepared me for what I saw. I fell off my horse in sheer terror and lost my harvest feast over a bed of mushrooms. The mists swallowed them whole, and I tried no more to follow.

I would feel disappointed in myself, but what point is the point in that? There was nothing I could do to save Hewie; the moose’s unfinished fibrous form had merged with him. He was reduced to a beating tumor on its back, squirming against what was now his own skin – a part of the moose, a part of him. Only his eyes were free, but that was just to the open air; the veins were dry, irises and pupils washed white. I don’t think he saw me, I don’t think he could see me…but I’m not sure. I’m not sure.

I avoided staying awake through Tabidmas Eve from then on out. I did not stop searching for Hewie’s strange land of Montana, or scouring the forest of Hatuga for more vloggers like him, or experimenting with herbs and the properties of the mist to explain what metamorphosis was overcoming that moose. And, no matter how high or low I looked, I never saw another moose again – whole or not.

I’m telling this true story again, after decades of silence, because I finally gathered the courage to see Hewie again, last night. Four decades have passed, so I don’t know what I was expecting…but what I saw was more than I would ever expect in eight decades.

Hewie and the moose, still joined together as one, had now merged with the mists. The wind now moved with them, like a gelatinous phantom – though you could still see the shape of that foolish Erlking atop his undead steed. The only hoofbeats that sounded now were like echoes from the past as the pair soared across Hatuga, going who-knows-where, for reasons that only the God of the forest knows.

I had worried for years, what tidings this phenomenon brought. What was I supposed to learn from Hewie and the moose, that I could warn my fellow Hatugans so we could prepare for the worst? Nothing, apparently – nothing came of it. Whether virus, or chemical, or magical, I also never understood what happened to Hewie, and why he and that malformed moose ended up in Hatuga from wherever they came. My first, and most outlandish, concern, was that their arrival harkened a spatial tear, one that might join our forest of Hatuga with that of a foreign, alien sphere. But our science is only so far along, that, even if that were the case, there is nothing we could do about it. The only mark I’ve got that shows I tried to do anything, is the grey mucous from when I tried to take hold of the moose by its horns. Whatever it was made of, it dried to my nails, weighing them down like stone, and I’ve never managed to peel it off.

Seeing Hewie like that last night, no more than a fleetingly solid figment of the mists, I can only presume he and his moose were an anomaly. They accidentally came to our forest by forbidden means, and now reality is snubbing them out. That is the only explanation I can think of, and it’s…disappointing. All these years, steeling myself for a world-shattering event, and I am only privy to a natural, albeit ethereal, occurrence that the forest is handling on its own. What were my years of fear for, then? Why did I disregard the importance of the fable, in addressing what we can, in fact, control? It wasn’t in an effort to help Hewie, that’s for sure – even as he refused help.

No, I can only help him in one way now. I can craft my own fable around these true events – one that speaks for him personally, for what he wanted to do, and keeps the spirit of that fading Erlking ever tangible. None of us would exist without stories, after all. Not one bit of us.

The Traveling Minstrel

Across time, over Earth, through the sea – I have seen existence.
In search of hope, of truth, of a new song, I traverse the wildness of foreign lands.
A journey alongside the mists of the unknown
Seeping between hills, a stampede of galloping stallions
with manes tangled among the stars, plunging over waterfalls into rocky rapids.
Flowing through the Amazon, a web of black and green –
slithering undergrowth, writhing and grasping for life.
Downstream, towers of sunny scales, higher than buildings,
the heat of a billion grains blowing one o’er the other.
A small village at the foot of the Swiss Alps,
cozy under a blanket of snow, tucked in by its rocky father.
I sing my tales to the strum of my lute, and my hat is filled.
Those towns are warm, even in Winter, with thatched roofs and crowded squares.
A peaceful lake collects at the foot of a family of earthen humps,
fed in plenty by the eternal flowing brook through lush evergreens.
Cloudlike sand absorbs my footmarks at the ocean’s edge, and
i gaze onto that vast expanse of life.
A sea breeze unfurls my hair in a crimson cape,
a salty spray drenches my face as the waters make my travels buoyant.
My music pales in comparison to the chorus of seagulls and the humpback’s hum.
Atop a waveworn precipice, I observe
the melting of cerulean sky into the depths of yawning sea –
a candle somewhere on the horizon extinguished with a cold, wet pinch.
Yes, my journey has led me across the Earth’s beautiful broken skin –
And yet again I find myself
back in the forest of Hatuga
as if I’d never left at all.
Did I ever?
No matter how far I go,
no matter how long I wander,
no matter if I seek to escape its borders
or hope to melt away into that sweet wilderness,
I make my way back here again –
or it makes its way to me.
Is it not curious?
Is it not Divine?
It Is.

Nesting Place

The Great Horned Owl, that regal bird,
Builds a nest to please his wife,
One of mutual hopes and dreams
But of sticks and bones most of all.

And when his hoots of love are heard
His nest is ready for the strife
That comes with lowly lurking schemes
Of mice who curse and plan its fall.

Blessed hatchlings further spur
This knothole home to prove not rife
With harmless-seeming secret seams
That slip between before they wrawl.

What comes before is mere foreword
To the order of a purposed life;
A nest is built on selfless themes
And in a tree, though bent, still tall.