CHAPTER 24: HEADING SWAMPWARD
I notice Mataalii frowning and looking at everyone wearing equipment, getting ready to boisterously sing while we journey, and I can't help but feel bad for making him feel like an outsider in his own family. His choices are his own to make, but what if he regrets them and is too proud to ask? I suppose it’s okay if he thinks I’m an idiot for offering again, so I don’t really lose anything, and it could help Mata save face if I offer again.
“Mata, are you sure you don’t want any of the equipment? The clothes don’t seem to feel bad on fur from what the others are saying. You don’t have to of course, but I just figured I’d offer the last set, rather than have it sit around in my inventory.”
“Hmf, I suppose if it’s the last set, and it’s going to waste, I may as well put it on. No sense being wasteful.” As I expected, Mata responds somewhat pridefully, barely begrudgingly accepting the gear. I really do hope we can come to terms some day, but at least I’m not driving a wedge between him and the rest of the family right now.
I gaze wistfully back at the haphazardly constructed open-faced cube of a log-raft that I made for the family as a last resort to break the limit I was trapped in on the night of high water. Everyone seems to be meandering for the moment. I take a little while to catch on and realize they’re waiting on me. Embarassedly I scratch the back of my head and avoid eye contact for a bit as I start heading northward with the others. Even though we agreed to sing, there’s an awkward silence in the air.
We haven’t done anything remotely like this as a family yet since I became a part of it. Now I realize how much of an outsider I really am. Lil seems more naturally calm and in-tune enough with Lu, such that that they don’t notice any awkwardness about being around everyone.
As I try to think of some way to break the ice, without simultaneously making myself even more different and outsider, I’m saved by Luni, who begins playing her harp for the first time in earnest. It’s a beautiful sound, but I swear it seems like there’s more than one instrument playing when she strums, not a full orchestra perhaps, but like she has command over the sounds of several different types of instruments just by plucking its strings.
Her meter and cadence are a bit awkward as she announces, “So, I’m still working on it, but this one’s a little piece to say hello to our trip through the swamp.”
“Oh the path goes ever on and on,
We travel hither thither and yon,
When the brightest lights will fill the skies,
Then our home we will have realized,
We journey past e’en the great beyond,
Hoping years ‘fore our last breath is drawn,”
The beat and the rhythm of her harp changes,
“Fleeing the serpent,
Is so important,
Rules that can be bent,
Are tools, savior sent,
Without which we fools,
Would all lose our cools,
We can orient,
On the story-vent,
Ourselves we will re-invent,
Sea otters no longer,
We will grow stronger,
Our bonds become bonder,
Of each other we’re fonder,
As we travel o’er yonder,
Without home that is promised,
Forever we’d wander,
Sea that will be missed,
Our feelings we’ll ponder,
Til in our midst
We finally find a new hooooome.”
The meter was a bit weird in a few places, I think that’s the term, where like the syllabic timing is supposed to match from place to place in a written or lyrical work, but she’s doing this all in her head, by hand, with no training, no teaching, no one to guide her. Luni is pretty remarkable, I definitely understand how Lil can spend hours in their shared thinkspace, which is like days in real time, and never tire of her. Not that I’d tire of anyone of our family either, being as lonely a world as ours is.
Caught up in thought, I don’t realize we’ve already marched so far that looking back, I can’t even see the raft, nor did I notice that Te had grabbed one of my arms and is leaning her head on my shoulder as we travel. I sigh contentedly as I gaze around at those I love.
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Luni scratches her head perplexedly, I think she’s trying to think of something she can sing repeatedly without tiring, because as she guessed, we somehow covered a lot of ground while she was singing, I don’t know how, since I was lost in thought, analyzing her song for some reason.
“Zero, One, Two, Three, Four!
Get up and out the door!
Zero, One, Two, Three, Four!
March til our legs are sore!
Zero, One, Two, Three, Four!
Keep on then march some more!
Zero, One, Two, Three, Four!
Forget not, days of yore!
Zero, One, Two, Three, Four!
Show us what, legs are for!”
Huh, does that last one count? It’s a homophone. I swear there’s a drum beat coming from her harp. Hm, listening closely, yes, somehow it’s like she has, I don’t know, pre-recorded samples of other instruments, that she’s able to loop, live, in real time, just using her harp. Live looping, why does that term sound familiar?
While we march, I find myself leaning ever so slightly to scoop mud once in a while, I barely notice I’m doing it, as I siphon it directly into my inventory. With hours of hearing “Zero, one, two, three, four!” accompanied by different rhymes, I sort of zone out, letting Luni’s words drone out and pass right through me. I can tell some of the others have joined in, at least on the zero, one, two, three, four, bits, since they can’t be sure what her next rhyme will be. I’m surprised none of us are tripping on, uh, cypress roots, or mangrove roots, whatever they are, like not even my clumsy self. The slight standing water of the swamp barely even seems to splash with our footsteps. I never really noticed that the ground of the swamp has a kind of very thin moss, like some sort of astro turf. Whatever that is.
While trying to be more observant, I catch myself staring at either Luni or Teuila, just smiling like a fool. Lil spends time bounding between my hood, and Luni’s head, and I also smile foolishly at that. I can’t imagine life without them. Or rather, I don’t want to. We’re so different, all of us, but, somehow we communicate virtually the same way, and we all share the trauma of this world, but more than that, somehow, we’re just really there for each other, none of us even has to ask. They’re all so precious to me, I only wish we hadn’t lost any of them, the night of high water. I’d have loved to get to know Oli more, or Penina. Even that strikes me at how different they all are, even in their various stages of evolution, Oli was like an actual childish animal, chewing on everything curiously and playfully. Penina was a demure young lady, bashful and distant. Teuila was an adventuresome soul who saw a new adventuring companion and seized them, well, me. Not just their personalities, but physically, even though some look slightly more like otters in my memories, or more like spheres, or more like humans, they’re all at various obvious stages of metamorphosis or uh, morphology, or evolution.
The interesting thing is, despite our various size differences, different gaits, strides, and whatnot, we’re all keeping up easily with one another at this advanced travel speed, thanks to Luni’s magic I suppose. Or maybe it’s psychosomatic, the faster ones are pacing themselves to let us slower ones keep up subconsciously. Eh, I’ll just assume it’s Luni’s magic, it makes the world a little brighter to think magic is the reason behind certain things. I’m not sure why that is, but ever since Lil told me it exists in no plainer words than that, well, ever since then, I’ve felt better about the world we’re in. As a baseline I mean, I’ve still had confusion and ups and downs about my place in our world, but the minimum feeling still has this hint of a sense of wonderment. Trees that rarely seem to shed anything, creatures that spawn that seem almost solely to exist for harvesting, as they respawn shortly after, actual magical music, celestial lighting that doesn’t pay attention to any laws I can recall, magical equipment that enhances or changes shape to fit its wearer. I almost think I’d be disheartened to learn of some kind of science behind it all.
I feel like my head hurts for some reason, and as I go to rub the spot, I catch Te’s knuckles lightly rapping my skull, apparently she’s been trying to get my attention for some time now. I really, really do get lost in thought, don’t I? I definitely need to keep better spatial awareness, or keep my perception at least somewhat tied to reality. Ow, oh right, Te wants my attention.
“Ow, heh, hey Te, what’s up?”
“Does anything feel or sound weird to you?” She asks suspiciously.
I jokingly surmise, “Well, the lump on my head feels pretty weird, and the fact that a harp can create the sound of a drum and flute is pretty weird.”
“Not that, you booger, I mean, look around at how fast we’re going. Don’t you have a kind of danger sense or something?” Her endearing meanness shows up in her mild derision, but Teuila is right.
“Hm, now that you mention it, my senses feel the land around us passing by way quicker than I can march, probably even a bit faster than I can run. We’re making incredible time. I think we’re going maybe triple what I expected us to be able to travel at, maybe more.”
“And that doesn’t seem odd to you? Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for Lu to get magic all of a sudden, but doesn’t it seem too good, too powerful to be true?”
“Teuila, what are you saying, are you jealous that Luni got magic from evolving?”
“No! Well, okay yes sure, a little bit of that, but that’s not why I’m perplexed. It’s unprecedented. First you, you wielded magics like we’ve never seen, insanely powerful, now one of us, the first one to evolve since we met you, has incredibly powerful magic. And when you helped me evolve temporarily, I was everything I’ve ever wanted to be. That’s too good to be true, right?”
“Well, what if just, um, I guess I can’t deny it’s remarkable. I know that my, well, I guess spawning maybe, if I spawned back then, was a bit glitchy. Are you hinting that you think I glitched your family, our family, somehow?” I start to sweat nervously and my heart rate races at the prospect of my own existence somehow endangering or dooming or changing the destiny of this family I’ve come to love, my eyes wet with tears and my vision narrows as my breath sticks in my throat.
“What? No, no, and even if it was connected to that, it’s not your fault, shh, it’s not your fault, it’s okay.” I realize Te can probably feel my pulse as my heart races, and seeing the tears in my eyes she strokes my face, and coos calmingly in my ear, holding me tightly. Even if we don’t have the same mental wavelength communication that Lil, Luni, and I share, Teuila can read everything about me like a book. Well, she can also literally do that if she wants to check my memory log, but she doesn’t seem to need to. I gulp back a sobbing breath I’d accidentally held, then suck down a ragged breath for a second.
“Sorry, I just, for a second I thought you maybe meant that I did something to you, to all of you, to us.”
“No, no no, shh, it’s alright, that’s not what I meant, I only meant, ugh, I don’t even know what I meant, I was just hoping you might know some magic that could tell us if this was really happening, if Luni really suddenly became so powerful. It feels like a dream that my little Lu could wield so much magic that she might not need my protection.” Teuila almost looks dejected, or forlorn at the prospect of Luni not needing her. I think that’s what it was really about, about possibly losing Lu if Lu didn’t need her. I pinch Teuila’s cheek somewhat playfully hard in response.
“Ow, what the heck?”
“Did that feel like it really happened?”
“Yes you big jerk. Jeeze, I said magic, not a pinch in the face. Heh, what a couple of dorks we are. Right?” Teuila rubs her cheek a bit before grabbing my arm again and snuggling my shoulder as we march. Somehow magically in rhythm.
“Yeah, a couple of big dorks, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”