Vathýs Gérontas limped around, her wooden staff carrying most of her diminishing weight. Her tarnished bones, transparent through her fading purple, and ever more gray skin, groaned and whined as her knees clicked against each other in protest. All her joints were in agony, rubbing each other skin with each slight movement. Quite a bit of walking was done, the past week, in order to scout the surrounding terrain in further detail.
She took quick wasps of breath through broken chipped and rot infested gums, stopping for a small break.
Little Vathiá scuttled around on the hard stone, horsing and tossing each other in tiny shows of strength and speed, a few paces away from her. It helped them to survive. Practice for the harsh world, as futile as it might be. I used to be like them, full of energy and hunger once. Long, long ago, when I could stand on my own two legs.
Seeing their Vathýs Gérontas standing near, one of the Vathiá barked at the others, and then all of them sprung up, bowing their heads in shame. “K’uka kish!” one of the older ones said, apologizing for their insolence. The small boys and girls, the tallest no more than three feet, all shuddered in fear.
“Loda, tisluka,” the Vathýs Gérontas said, nodding her head towards them. Poor things, so afraid. That’s what keeps them alive, but miserable. That’s all they do. They either fear or kill. That’s all we know how to do. She shook her head. She had no time for such despairing thoughts; too much complaining, not enough doing. “Kiaka shesha, tus roso,” she said. Use their strength against them.
The children nodded, not truly understanding. No matter, the Vathýs Gérontas knew. It was to get them thinking. For now, all of them were simple. Eventually, they would evolve into something that would understand. Eventually.
She nodded and trekked forward, constantly taking a break to converse with her children, and some of the others which she took under her banner. Forced, a primitive part of her reminded her. Bugbears, Trows, and Forest Kith Goblins. Insurrection was not an issue, surprisingly. Only some would want to lead the herd, but anyone intelligent enough to want to lead the herd is intelligent enough to realize that they were better off under her lead.
After all, could any of them create what she created? Before her, a hundred small huts were raised to block out the night’s chill. Even under the haven of the cave, the winters cut their numbers in great degrees. Their bodies have not yet adapted to the weather above the ground. It's only been a few short and painstaking deathly years.
Even good change, however, brought about undesirable change. Because fewer and fewer of her children died, and more were able to evolve into higher species, food supply became an issue. Not for lack of hunters, but for the lack of land to hunt. Against her best efforts, the population was rapidly increasing, and soon this cave would no longer be hospitable to their presence. But where would they go? Pressed against the Desolation Land’s deadly beasts and the ever-expanding humans, land to hunt was lessening by the years. Chaos was brewing on both ends, and the underground was closed off. The Desolation’ Land’s outskirts was no longer a welcome for the lesser creatures to populate it, as more and more deadly beasts were migrating out from the Desolation. Hunting anything beyond the river, where most of the prey and plants resided, would insue the wrath of humans. Soon, they might be forced to hunt there, and wage war on the humans, but that would bring about losses to both, and would wipe out her children before the humans.
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They would hunt them, chase them until the end of the Desolations if they chose to fight against them.
Insurrection might be an issue if she does not. When hunger comes, Gérontas doubted whether they will heed her call. They would attack the humans and most likely perish because of it. Like all others to have existed. We never learn, ts ts. Not unless I can get this business of growing food sorted. So much to know, some much to do.
She sighed heavily, the accumulating issues for her sons and daughters wearing her down quicker than her age should have been. A year, at most, before she would drop dead. What will happen when she is gone?
“Nada lei,” one of the Vathiá said to her in greetings, bowing before her. Vathýs Gérontas bowed back and said her greetings, cursing inwardly. He was of the more aware ones, which made him the harbinger of bad news. “Kal los, les lee,” he said.
“Lesa? Klo lo?
“Nos ar. Ako’ir, De’llnor, Van’tu.”
She shook her head. More infighting within the differing species. Food was stolen from the Vathiá again, now by the Trows. At first, it was only the Bugbears causing her trouble, but soon enough, the behavior spread to all higher species. The Vathiá were suffering for it, as well as the Snotlings. It was difficult, as is, to maintain peace within one species. But to combine multiple in one cave? She waved him off and resumed her journey. A problem for another day. Though dawn would not break for a few more hours, her head was begging her for sleep.
She almost made it too, if not for a few more hunger complaints, deaths reported, and bickering she had to set off for tomorrow night. By the end of it all, Vathýs Gérontas began to regret building her hut in the back of the cave. It was not purely for her safety, but rather the back of the cave had some wind openings that brought in the fresh air, and removed the horrid smell of feces. That’s what her children lived in; their own feces glue together with twigs, stones, and dirt. It kept them alive, but to each their price.
Never a break, never a pleasant moment, she thought with bitterness as she entered her hut. She had the privilege of spreading the walls further, as to not suffer under the odor too much. It was even up six feet, which took considerable time to construct. Her bed, consisting of giant leaves, dirt, and dried flowers was in the center. How privileged, am! I only have a slightly shitter hut than the rest of them! She thought, cackling wildly until her back stifled her. She bent down with a grimace, her cheeks twitching with the effort, towards her bed. After she got on her knees, she laid the staff next to her, and then lead the rest of her descent towards her bed.
“Which do despise more, getting out of bed, or getting back into it?” a voice from her side said. She did not understand the sounds made, and turned her head to see K'akko walking in into the hut.
“Tus Nondi Clu, tomorrow du,” she said. Leave it to tomorrow, whatever it is. She looked at him closely. There was something odd about him. He seemed to have lost quite a bit of weight since the last time she'd seen him, and the color of his eyes was-
His lips spread and widened. His teeth showed. It was a smile, but it was so fiendish and wicked that it reeked of brutish intent. It was a smile which said that it knew all, that everything was within the palm of its hand. That all was below it. It was that type of smile. But most of it all, within that disposition of callousness and sadism, was a childish energy not much unlike the ones her children have as they toss their brothers about, or as they run around, or as they relish in the first rabbit they caught.
The sight sent a tremor within Vathýs Gérontas mind, snapping her awake and up, momentarily forgetting about her rusting bones. If that smile wasn’t proof, then his flat teeth were. She gasped and prepared her lungs for a cry, but the moment her lips parted the human’s left hand, now glowing dark, went into her throat. She gulped for a breath that she could not find.
The human said something, but she could not comprehend his words. She did, however, comprehend its meaning. A jest. I have failed. I have made a grave error, at some point. Something tragic, something ironic. How cruel humans are, how cruel all of us are. Then, something began to expand within her, threatening her body to explode. Her tired mind soon gave out to the pressure mounting up, and fell limp.