The next morning I woke up feeling much less confused about my surroundings and with an actual complete collection of the memories I should have had present in my brain at all times, not just the new additions.
Some parts remain blurry due to my young age at the time, but I remember once being part of a prominent cat tribe with almost a thousand members and counting.
My birth family was never rich, but my parents were probably decent hunters. They often returned home with parts of prey and grew some crops in their free time, so starvation was never something I had to worry about.
They gave me a good childhood, at least to the best of their ability.
I was usually hungry, sure. But so was everyone else.
Our main source of food was hunting. Which wasn’t very sustainable for feeding a large population. Only the families of official equivalents actually ate till they were full.
And even then, they all knew to keep enough for their next meal since the time period in between a hunting session could be very long and our prey was never consistently bountiful.
Some nights the hunters returned to the tribe victorious and proud as they struggled not to buckle under the weight of their enormous and prolific harvest. Our leader would hold a clan-wide commendation ceremony and the families of the hunters being commended would all grin widely, flushed under the envy of their acquaintances with their tails vibrating behind them in unconcealed excitement. Those were the good nights.
On some less fortunate nights, the hunters would walk through the gates of our wooden walls shamefaced from their meager harvests and wearing downtrodden expressions. They felt guilty for failing the expectations of the tribe and often took it as a personal reflection of their incompetence.
I remember my parents returning home from a hunt multiple times with severe expressions and an aura of gloom engulfing their every step. My younger self would at first try to make conversation, but it would all eventually die off under the heavy atmosphere of our tent so I would go to sleep also feeling equally downcast.
I wouldn't say things were perfect, not by a long shot, but I liked my life in the tribe. It was carefree and the highlights of my days were finding something new in the wild or exploring the area around our tent.
Even after the council of shamans came to our door and my parents immediately volunteered me for child labor, life was fun.
In the morning I would have a piece of jerky before running off to the temple to begin my duties as an apprentice in training.
The shamans always held absurdly high expectations of what a five-year-old should be able to do.
I would help process common herbs in the morning, copy some fading old texts onto a sturdier piece of hide in the afternoon, and at night I'll join them in their prayer service at the temple.
I was already very patient for a kid.
But under their guardianship, I became even more patient.
Repeated corporal punishments for disrupting sacred ceremonies had gradually ingrained the importance of this virtue into my younger brain, and I’m proud to announce that I can now sit properly on uncomfortable furniture for hours at a time without fidgeting.
Not that I’d want to, but you get the idea.
My workload only increased as I older.
The shamans were very firm believers in evolving responsibilities. They believed since the gods had given me another year on this mortal plane, it was imperative that I spent as little time as possible on frivolities and instead on productive habits.
So I learned more common languages, translated scrolls from these languages into ours, participated in frequent rituals, studied basic runes, and completed every chore available in the temple to the best of my ability.
At first, I found it all very exhausting. And it was if I’m being honest. But gradually, I learned to find the good in everything and my chores became honorable duties while painful rituals became profound acts of care.
I even got a bunch of fancy tattoos out of the whole experience, it was all very educational.
If things hadn't changed when disaster struck a few years later, I would’ve probably grown into another member of the council not before long.
I still think it's just a string of bad luck, but our head shaman had adamantly believed it was all retribution from the gods for daring to offer fewer sacrifices at the last year's spring festival.
'The gods are angry!' He would scream at literally anyone willing to listen.
Or me.
I was always willing to listen. Not because he sounded crazy, no. But in admiration. He was usually so wise. He taught me how to make a sundial and keep track of time using the moon. Also because part of my daily duties involved preparing his morning cleansing items and I couldn't really tune him out.
And he might've been right too, I wouldn't know. The circumstances of the events were also a bit suspicious to me, even if I wouldn't exactly blame the gods for everything.
First, my parents in addition to over half of the tribe's able-bodied hunters perished as collateral damage in a heated battle between two berserks awakened beasts fighting over territory.
Then as if adding salt to injury the other beasts whose homes were also destroyed as collateral began taking frequent strolls down the mountain range in search of a new home. And food.
Probably only food, actually. Not that it mattered in the grand scheme of things. Their mere presence spelled a disaster for our tribe. Since as our name depicted, cats were neither the strongest nor the fastest in the feline ancestry. Those positions were firmly occupied by the tiger tribe and cheetah tribe respectively and I don't think they're going to lose it any time soon. We only had our long lifespans going for us, but long life was essentially useless when you don't have the strength to live long enough to appreciate the length of it.
The beasts overran our fields, ate our crops, attacked our hunting tribesmen at night, and made it generally impossible for us to leave the vicinity of our protection runes to forage or farm, they were incredibly malicious.
The remaining percentage of our hunters got quartered during these sporadic attacks, and the few left became disabled since the beasts didn't care if we hadn't had time to recover from their last attack, they just wanted to eat.
Those few months were truly a nightmare.
Cries rang aloud from our tents every night and morale quickly deteriorated.
Our leader sneaked out daily pleading for help from our allies, but the tribes around us were struggling from a similar affliction. We only bore the burnt due to our extremely close distance to the river valley. The location that had once been envied by all had become the cause of our demise. How could they offer us help when they couldn't even guarantee their own livelihood?
So despite his pleas, no help came.
After multiple divinations predicting destruction the shamans fasted themselves to the brink of exhaustion begging for forgiveness from the gods. They made numerous bountiful offerings with our dwindling supplies, 'cleansed' the outskirts of our village with concoctions to ward off evil, and chanted incantations from sunrise to sundown till their throat dried up from dehydration and their voice cracked. Nothing worked.
Our meager autumn harvest was probably the straw that broke the camel's back.
Relocation was finally placed on our agenda, but just the thought of moving with over half a thousand people was headache-inducing.
We didn't have enough food, our cattle were less than a hundred; and unlike the more advanced tribes, carriage-making was never a skill we had found necessary to learn.
We didn't have maps.
Our hunters were almost extinct.
And our potteries were of low quality, at best. Oftentimes porosity was an issue. So how would we even ensure we had enough water in the grasslands, a place famously known for being arid and dry?
At this rate, the chances that we'll die out from starvation and thirst were much higher than the feasibility of actually finding another suitable piece of habitable land.
So our tribe elders made a decision.
Relocation would only be possible if the gods the shamans often preached of decided to bless us.
Or we took only the least amount of people necessary and absolutely no one else to lessen the burden.
The question was a no-brainer.
Even the shamans didn't hesitate to choose the second option, they were rather pragmatic when it came to certain matters.
So after another sleepless night, our leader called a meeting first thing at sunrise that morning.
"The trials of the gods have no mercy on man." He began emotionally.
Then he told us the story of his journey to his current position in the tribe, the burden of responsibility he feels weighing down his shoulders at our situation, and the ache of guilt in his heart from hearing the cries of heartbroken families mourning their relatives daily.
He spoke of the trying times plaguing our tribe then he spoke about how even the gods sometimes had to make difficult sacrifices for the common good, earning cries of misery from the already mournful crowd of cats.
My younger self would've probably been less resentful if he hadn't taken out a parchment containing the names of 'sacrifices' immediately after his emotional speech.
It would've also given us enough time to make mental preparations for the possibility that we might be losing our homes very, very soon.
But he hadn't
He instead gave us some tents, wooden spares, and enough food to last the week and sent us on our merry way.
It all happened so fast. One moment I was attending a meeting with the shamans to begin preparations for another pointless ritual and before I knew it, I was being offered a silver coin as remuneration for my years of service and sent out of the tribe with all the luggage I could carry.
It felt as if my life was coming to an end. And I'm sure the others being exiled felt the same too.
Ironically, unlike our feline ancestors, cat tribes were not solitary creatures. At all. So during the first few months, we tried really hard to stick together and tide through the hard times.
We found comfort in large numbers and I think we took more from our human half than we normally think, since our minds also shared the illogical tendency to look at the loudest speaker in the room and automatically assign them the position of leader, even if we had no reasonable basis to believe so.
This would have been a non-issue if our group only had one loudspeaker willing to voice their ideas.
Unfortunately, we had a lot.
A bit too many, in my opinion.
Which you might take with a grain of salt since I was also coincidentally, a very loud speaker myself. And I had a lot of opinions I found absolutely necessary to share.
Crazy, I know.
Gradually, conflict began to appear and our relationships fractured.
We argued about where to camp, what to hunt, when to eat, what to forage, and even on the topic of what to call ourselves, we argued.
The realization that we all had very different ideals and could probably never work together was the last push for us to disperse into our own smaller groups and go our own ways.
My supporters, as few as they might have been, didn't care that I was ten years old. They might have been thought of as crazy, but being able to treat a common cold was a valuable skill to have in the grasslands. And I think the fact that I could somewhat identify edible plants made them feel safer than wandering through the land with a layman and potentially dying from diarrhea.
We've survived four winters so far and even multiplied, that has to count for something, right?
From a small group of 15 teenage orphans and 13 children to a small group of 13 adults, 12 teenage orphans, and 20 toddlers. That's an exponential increase right there.
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In toddlers, I know.
But in like, only sixteen years that's a lot of potential manpower waiting to be used.
And I'm not exactly sure what to do about it.
They…they mate like cats.
And I can't ban sex. They have no other source of entertainment and considering how busy we usually were, I think it's admirable they even find the free time to mess around.
I just wished I could get less involved in the resulting pregnancies.
I'm not sure what they thought being a shaman apprentice ensued but delivering a baby was definitely not one of them, and neither was healing. I'm supposed to talk to the gods, divinate the future, and maybe draw some basic protection runes or something. Not get my hands bloody from afterbirth or even animal blood. I'm a glorified scholar. A scholar.
Sadly, survival has forced my occupation into something less and less like a shaman(glorified scholar) each year.
I can now draw maps, fish, cook, sew, bargain, tan hides, make furniture, predict rain, treat illnesses, prescribe birth control, draw runes, weave baskets, commit fraud, heal wounds, hunt, make rope, pull out teeth, keep a ledger, perform funerals, read the stars, and so many more obscure life skills I never thought I would ever need to learn.
My first year bearing witness to the miracle of life was traumatic. For both me, the mother, and the baby. Mom was a teenage mom—Hah, pun—and I knew nothing about childbirth.
I didn't know where to cut the umbilical cord, I had no idea I could cut the vagina to make it wider. I didn't even know what a placenta was and the entire tribe watched in horror as I held up our new baby sister, wondering why she had an elongated head.
The entire event was mildly horrific.
But mom was fine!
...eventually.
She hasn't had a baby ever since, and I’m still unsure if it’s a result of the trauma, but I don't blame her.
I wish others in the tribe could actually follow her example and stop multiplying like they’re trying to repopulate the planet. Having half of our population be unable to walk has not made traveling any easier.
I've found some herbs to substitute contraception but they’re not very effective. I’m not even sure they work, since after every winter we usually have almost half of our population wobbling about pitifully with big bellies and puking their guts out in the melting snow.
And you'd think since babies are so small they probably won't eat so much.
But no. No. The cubs eat a lot. Even before they leave the stomach their mere presence increases the appetites of their mothers, not to mention past the breastfeeding stage where they can each down a mid-sized bowl of porridge for breakfast.
Some members of the tribe suggested reducing their food intake, believing we might've made a mistake with the portions, but I'd rather have the cubs chubby and fat than emaciated. At least in one condition, they have a higher chance of surviving past winter.
Our food supply is a bit stretched as a result but we make do with foraged plants and hunting.
And sleeping draughts. A whole lot of sleeping draughts. In their breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It’s the only reason we're able to leave the tents ungraded during the day to complete our chores.
We haven't had the time to build a fence yet so I'm scared they'll wander off into the forest and become some wild animal's lucky meal for the day, an incident we've had the misfortune to witness multiple times in all our previous failed camps.
Poor Tabby was only three years old. The batshit raccoon we found feasting on her corpse still sometimes hunted my dreams till today; it’s never a good experience to witness someone you cared for end so tragically.
Nevertheless, during the day we forage and hunt.....with varying degrees of success.
We’re not bad hunters, to say the least. Our species gives us many advantages. But so does the world to wild animals so our advantages were not as prominent as they should be. An average bunny shouldn’t be able to run that fast. Or kick that high. Yet here they were running at least forty miles per hour.
Some evenings the hunters returned home with a few deer, elks, or any of the numerous carnivores populating the grasslands in bulk. We skin the carcass, marinate the meat with aromatic herbs and hang them on our drying racks for preservation. This process usually takes about four to six hours, depending on the weather and the intensity of sunlight on that day. It’s a very simple solution since salt is expensive and we can’t afford anything else at the moment.
On the other nights, they hunted enough smaller prey like rabbits or wild pheasants to meet our quota and focused on foraging instead.
After preservation, I add the meat to our winter rations and keep a part of it for daily consumption. Then we flesh the hide for tanning, but that's an activity for later in the day.
Last night was not most nights. The group returned with a small flock of seven emus they found wandering gallantly around in the plains. I mentioned keeping an eye out for them in the past, but even with my new memories I still know nothing about emus other than their relation to ostriches. But I thought raising some would be a feasible idea as a long-term source of meat since eventually, the easy prey in our vicinity would reduce and we'll have to travel further for our future hunts.
Emus were bipedal and had feathers. They were basically mutated chickens, right?
Chickens can’t be that hard to raise.
They also laid eggs. That's another source of potential protein if it all works out well. Winters in the grasslands were cold and harsh. We needed more salt to preserve our food, we needed some seeds to plant next spring, and more weapons, cotton, wool, farm tools, and tents would be nice. Alas, these were items requiring something of equal value to trade.
Eggs, whether pickled or fresh, were considered minor luxuries in the grasslands. Low
If we can domesticate the emus, maybe we'll finally have a sustainable source of income to improve our living conditions. These were all under ideal conditions, of course.
Two passed away before I work up this morning so we're already off to an awful start.
And that was fine. Emus were rather delicious, a lot like beef but more tender.
Last night's dinner left a bitter taste in my mouth and I was too disoriented to remember the location of my cleaning supplies so I went to bed in this condition.
I usually found the taste of our medicinal dinners disagreeable but I knew they were a necessary evil.
All the plants that were cooked had medicinal properties meant to bolster our immune system and ward off common illnesses; an old recipe I saw the healer frequently prescribe to those suspected of being ill during winter. I couldn't find all the right herbs so I made some readjustments with the plants I thought would have similar effects and called it a day.
And the new recipe was medicinal and filling, killing two birds with one stone. Sure the taste was--
My train of thought is cut off as I notice a rather sizable bass wander closer to my location, almost at attack range.
The everpresent green glow and buzz of life that had seemed so jarring yesterday had become significantly less so today.
For as long as I could remember they had always been a permanent fixture in my life. So much that I would be significantly more affected if they suddenly disappeared one day than in reverse. I can't imagine not being constantly aware of my surroundings and the mere thought of true silence is frightening.
Like I’m losing my eyesight or sense of smell. Sure I would survive, but life would never be the same. It was almost the same thing.
My stone harpoon plunges into the stream with precise aim, piercing through the head of the bass meandering through the current aimlessly. I pull it off the shaft and throw it into the basket on the bank.
Then I regain my balance on the rock and remain squatting till the next one swims along my path. Which might take some time, but I can wait. I'm used to waiting.
Our settlement is at most a three minutes walk from the stream, so most mornings I try for some fish.
Trout, bass, bluegill, you name it. I fish them all. Even catfish is bearable after some extensive sun drying.
I'm not a big fan of the smell (or taste) myself, but it's reliable a source of food. And what the heck, it's fun.
The fishes swim fast enought that I can practice my reaction speed and aim while having a good time. Both of which were already ver decent, but there’s always room for improvement in anything. I usually repeat this process till the sun begins to rise on the horizon and the symphony of wildlife from the woodlands slowly increases. or I get bored. Anything, really.
This was just one of my numerous ‘fun-functional’ hobbies I use to pass the time.
I try not to let it eat up my morning since I have a tendency to lose track of the day. And most times I succeed.
Other times, I don’t. Which is fine. It just meant that I’d have to try harder next time so I made sure to remember.
I take my bottle gourd off its sling on my back and lower into the lake gently against the current.
So far, this has been our only viable way to transport water from a long distance. Pottery glaze has remained unattainable, and we haven't had the chance to settle down and search for alternatives so…
Bottle gourds are a pretty great substitute.
They’re a bit fragile but whatever it was amping up the genetics of the animals on the grasslands, it's doing the same for some plants.
I don't think they got this big in my last life? Not that I'd know. I'm still not even sure what area of the world we're in. Sometimes I think it's somewhere like Asia or Africa, then I pass by a human settlement distinctly reminiscent of medieval Europe and that guess quickly dies down.
They grew almost everywhere during the summer months and after some processing, we use them as plates, bowls, flasks, and even for storage. It's almost as useful as soapweed yucca.
The gourd fills to the top and I heft it up from the lake.
Some parts spill on my tail as I jump from the rock to the shore to pick up my basket. Which I quickly shook off before pacing around the tallest tree in the vicinity, attempting to find and angle I could jump that would place me on a branch large enough to hold my weight and cargo.
I visualize my next step, bouncing on the balls of my feet to build inertia. Then I jump--
--and wonder why there's a thicket of trees in the middle of temperate grassland.
Seriously,
Where do the trees get the water to grow? This wasn't a river valley. I doubt a stream could sustain so much vegetation, meaning there has to be another form of moisture for the soil or they’d all be malnourished.
I leap over to another tree, barely making it onto a large branch with the help of my arms. It shakes precariously from my added weight but eventually stabilizes, and I grin at my success.
?
Then my smile wanes and I think back to my last train of thought.
I know it hasn't rained in a while.
The plants in our vicinity are all dried up and dying.
So it doesn't make sense. The other notable source of moisture for trees in the grasslands was snow, and It'll need to snow a lot to grow a thicket in such an arid climate.
Like, snow a lot.
A lot a lot. A whole lot lot.
I look down at the tree I'm standing on, almost fifty feet in height with its leaves dancing gently to the calm melody of the wind.
….
Fuck.