You.

What are you?

You, with your jelly orbs of sight and cellular structures? What of your electrically powered meat computer? How does it interpret the info from those blobs of gelatin set into your topmost limb?

What is a ‘human’?

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The ball of heat in the skies set as I watched, perched on my favorite tree. I had stopped counting the days once I ran out of black-rock to mark the rock with. No matter how many days passed, nothing changed for me. My strength never fled me like it did those who resembled me, neither did I become rough and weathered like the treated skins worn by the hunters. I was... removed from them, somehow, different in ways I did not understand.

So I fled, fearing what they might do if they learned of the difference.

I knew what I would do. I felt the same itch in the back of my mind - a fear of the similar but wrong in ways that bothered the mouth-bones. They would kill me like the boars or deer, likely crushing and burning me in fear of my potential return to life.

A good call, given my ability to survive injury.

I had been gored, once. The massive thing had tusks the size of my arms, growling and roaring as we desperately backed away. The hunting party had survived thanks to my ‘death’, the hole clean through me eventually swirling and shutting like I was made of water, life-water burbling and sloshing as it sealed the hole. I had decided to not return then, fearing Aketa or Ferrun recognizing me after my death. They had been the only two to remain behind long enough to see me perish, their hesitation showing them to be caring people.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I snorted, the last rays of light fading as I looked out over the woods. I had reached the edge of the wooded lands after a long journey, my gaze now meeting the harsh sands of the Lifeless Lands. The stories of it easily explained the name - where water could not live, neither could life-water. Their resemblance made them kin, meaning this waterless land was a place of death and suffering.

Perfect. After all, what purpose was fear when death escaped me? I could walk this land for tens of tens of moons, never once perishing as my once-kin might. That perspective - of kin and once-kin - made me wonder.

The waters and life-waters were said to be kin. Yet could they too be false kin, as I am to my fellow man?

I hopped down from the tree, legs flexing as I took in my left footfalls of dirt and soil. My foreseeable future would be dunes and rock, so I must make farewells.

“May warmth bless your blue skies and coolness bless your black.”

A simple blessing, one I removed all mentions of the Allmother from. I bless this dirt not in the name of its creator, but in the name of all that is - an important distinction, to me atleast. I had wandered further and further from the teachings of the Allmother over my journey, accepting that bigger things moved in ways I did not fathom.

The ball of heat rose, as did the silver balls that denoted black skies, more pinpricks across the black showing unrivaled beauty. Yet the heat gave life, as life was heat. To be born in cold was to be born in death - I had seen it myself in my first seasons long ago. Such were the teachings of the Allmother. Yet things were not that simple - the Lifeless Lands showed that. If heat was life, why did such a hot place bear no life? The waters vanished when enough heat was around, even the life-water vanishing in the face of a raging fire.

What did it all mean?

I strode onto the sands, my mind a whirl of questions.