The next time she woke, it was after sunrise. The Newcomer was up, and moving around the nest-place. She watched it narrowly for a time, but its attention was not on her. The animal was nowhere to be seen. There was a fire burning, and some objects beside it.
Sunlight-Dances propped herself up, and tested her leg. She winced as it stabbed pain, but moved it a little to ease the stiffness in her knee and ankle.
She jerked her head in startlement, as the Newcomer appeared abruptly beside her. It stood there a moment, out of her reach, then stepped forward, and crouched. She closed her eyes, and waited.
For a long moment nothing happened. Sunlight-Dances swallowed, then remembered her resolve. She could bear this. Slowly she opened her eyes, and looked up at it.
It held the bowl in one hand, and a small bundle in the other. As she watched, it set the bowl down beside her, and lowered itself still further, to its knees. The position looked uncomfortable, but it settled down as if it were used to such a strange way to sit. It set the bundle down, also, then displayed its hands open and empty. She noticed for the first time that it had not claws, but short, stubby nails. No wonder it used metal claws. It could never fight with its own.
She glanced at the bowl. It held meat cut into small chunks. The meat smelled odd, but not unpleasant. There was no blood-scent. She looked back at the Newcomer. It pointed at her leg, and reached slowly forward.
Sunlight-Dances pulled away unthinkingly as it touched her. It stopped immediately, and withdrew its hands.
It sat there for a moment, making quiet noise-words, again displaying open hands. Was it trying to reassure her? It removed and unfolded a thin narrow cloth from the small bundle. It held it up to show her and pointed at her leg again. The Newcomer reached forward slowly, not taking its eyes from hers, and this time she forced herself to stay still. If it was helping her, for whatever its reasons were, she would heal faster, and be able to get away.
She broke the eye contact, and instead concentrated on its hands, trembling with the effort to not pull away from its touch. Once it had its hands on her, it worked quickly, unwrapping the cloth bandage from her leg.
The bandage had several layers, she saw, and the Newcomer removed them all, revealing the damaged leg.
Sunlight-Dances swallowed again, a new and different fear rising inside her. Such a huge tear! She could see the shape of the jaws of the six-leg in the flesh of her thigh. Would she ever heal from this to walk again? If not, would the Newcomer give her the quick, clean ending that The People would?
She darted a glance at the Newcomer, but it was absorbed in its work. Why would it waste its time - and its cloth - if it didn’t think she would get well? She forced herself to look back at the tear.
It wasn’t hanging open. She tilted her head to get a good look at it. It was held together with little ties! Many, many little, tiny ties, all along the length of the tear held the two sides together. It wasn’t bleeding, but a little fluid seeped from several places. The Newcomer cleaned this away, before smearing the whole thing with a line of pale-coloured goo, right over top of the ties. It folded pieces of cloth to lay over this, then slowly rebound the leg with still more cloth. So much of it! So much work for someone to make it, just so that it could be used to bind her leg. The old bandage was set aside. The layer that had been up against the wound itself was thrown into the fire. Why did it do that? What a waste!
She didn’t understand the Newcomer. How strange it was. And yet...
The People probably wouldn’t have even tried to heal such a terrible injury. Why was it doing this? What could it hope to gain?
She relaxed, finally, when the Newcomer packed away the small bundle that held the cloth and the goo - and other things she couldn’t identify - and got back to its feet. It bent down to reach for the old bandage, but she picked it up herself, and held it. The Newcomer snorted, made several odd gestures and noise-words, and turned away, leaving her with the outermost strip of cloth that had bound her leg.
Her stomach growled, reminding her that the Newcomer had brought food, as well. She drew the bowl closer, and sniffed the meat. It still smelled odd, but it did smell like meat. She picked one piece up, and ate it.
It tasted like six-leg. And yet, it didn’t taste like six-leg. She ate another piece, trying to figure it out. A look in the direction of the Newcomer, who was bent over the fire, gave her the knowledge.
The meat had been in the fire. This was meat that the Newcomer had burned. Well, perhaps not burned. But it had been changed by the fire in some way. She wasn’t sure if she liked it or not, but it still was edible. She had had worse - the remains of kills so old that they should have been buried. That was what happened when one was the lowest in status.
Status! The thought reminded her, and she propped herself up again, to reach for her arm wrap. She unwrapped it carefully, set the feather to one side, and laid the bark-cloth out beside the Newcomer’s cloth to compare them.
Sunlight-Dances soon discerned the woven nature of the bandage, and she wondered where they had found fibres so fine and how they managed to weave them. She had only seen vines woven in such a fashion. The People made their cloth from the inner bark of some of the great trees. They pounded it with smooth stones until the bark was thin, and fine, and clung to itself in mats. It was a position of high status in the tribe, the maker-of-cloth. Cloth took a lot of time, and was precious. It was never wasted. Torn arm wraps were returned to the cloth maker, to be incorporated into new mats of bark cloth. The very best cloth makers could make patterns in the bark cloth with different colours of bark. Tribemothers and Elders wore such cloth. This piece of the Newcomer’s cloth was of finer make than even that, and it had been torn from something else. She touched the ravelling edge.
Anything she could learn from the Newcomer, to take back to the tribe was useful.
Take back?
Anger rose up inside her. She would never crawl back to the Blue Waters! They had driven her away! They deserved nothing she learned! She snatched up the feather and flung it as far away as she could. It didn’t go far. Just out of her reach. One feather. One tattered feather for her status. The lowest ranked in the tribe. If it weren’t for them, she wouldn’t be here, in this predicament.
The shadow of the Newcomer fell across her again, and she flinched. It was right there! How did it move so quietly?
It crouched for a moment beside her, then tapped the bowl with one finger. She held herself still. She didn’t need to be told to eat.
The Newcomer picked up the feather, and turned it slowly between its fingers. It grunted - was it a word? - and offered the feather back to her. She turned her face from it. A ‘no’ it should understand.
The Newcomer grunted again, stood, and left her, taking the feather with it.
____________ more to follow
Last edited by Amaura on Sun Dec 12, 2010 12:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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