My first contact with a human was many months after I began wandering around after leaving the cave behind. I was resigned to believe that there were no other people around when I went into the forest looking for some berries or other food to eat when I stumbled upon a tall woman in a animal hide top and skirt collecting honey from a beehive. As I moved in closer to try to communicate with her I must have startled her by my sudden appearance because she leapt at my attempt to get her attention by waving my hands. Her sudden movement and grip on the beehive caused her to tear it from the tree and drive the bees into a frenzy and they began attacking her with a vengeance.
I had no idea what was happening having never seen bees before and ran to try and help her as she tried to swat them away and let out grunts of pain. I panicked and began to try to kill every bee I could catch. I started moving faster and faster, increasing to a blurring speed and knocking the bees out of the air like a bug zapper flying through a swarm of gnats. Within seconds I had killed every bee from the hive that had been stinging her and I looked down at the woman and saw she was covered in bright red swollen welts. She started to breath heavy labored breaths and I thought she was going to die as i knelt down and pressed my hand to her head.
I could feel her life force was strong but also that there was something causing her a lot of pain and making it hard for her to breath properly. I closed my eyes and tried to reach for the power in my core to see if it would do anything for her pain and when I did it filled me with the normal heady powerful feeling. I tried to push that feeling into her by focusing on making her pain stop and after a few seconds her breathing began to go back to normal and she turned her face towards me and I saw her eyes begin to focus on my face.
I spent about an hour trying to communicate with her in impromptu non verbal gestures until I managed to figure out that her name was Dasdan and she was out scavenging honey. I did my best to try to impress upon her that I knew nothing of who I was or of her language or anything about where I was. Once we had established as much as we could about each other she motioned for me to follow her and I decided to do so.
For the next few hours she led me through the landscape pointing out various landmarks and speaking in her strange language that was slowly beginning to sound more and more normal. We passed by hills and patches of forest and saw various forms of wildlife either running away or standing off in the distance. Eventually it was beginning to dim in the sky and I saw some lights in the distance and she pointed at them excitedly babbling at me again and I assumed we had reached our destination.
We walked into the small village filled with grass covered huts and people of all shapes and sizes running around and preparing the evening meal or finishing up their chores for the night. She led me to the center where there was a large bonfire burning with several elderly people sitting around. As we walked up to the group all of their eyes landed on me and they stopped talking and went completely still.
The silence lasted for a long minute and then the oldest man sitting in the center of the group spoke rapidly to Dasdan who responded. There was a long heated conversation and the others who I assumed were some sort of elders all joined in and were all furious with Dasdan for some reason. This continued on for several minutes and began drawing the attention of the rest of the village.
A group of large muscular men came up the the group looking menacing with long handled spears made of wood with bone tips tied tightly with string to the tip. The one leading them stepped forward and started talking to Dasdan after hearing the argument and began raising his voice to her too. I decided I wasn’t going to allow her to be harmed on my behalf when all she had been doing was try to help me find a place to be with people and I stepped slowly closer to her closing the gap between us. The warrior leader noticed my movement and started towards me only to have Dasdan step between us. The hunter backhanded her, knocking her to the ground and blood shot from her lips.
The rage was back. No hesitation just full on rage at this pathetic man attacking my new friend. I blurred forward faster than anyone could see and grabbed him by the throat and lightly pierced his skin with my talons. I am very short and he was about 5’10 or taller so I only lifted him to his toes but he knew he would not survive if I didn’t allow it and I glared up at his face with pure rage and menace.
One of the other hunters danced in towards me and stabbed out with his spear aiming for my heart. I slapped it out of the air with contemptuous ease shattering the bone and wood alike as if they were made of glass and knocking the hunter back onto the ground. Then there were more coming at me and I grabbed their leader by the thigh gripping his quadriceps with my fingers and claws turning him sideways as a shield and spinning around smacking the other hunters away using my human battering ram.
By this point Dasdan managed to get back to her feet and was coming to me grabbing my attention and making calming motions with her hands and then turning the yelling at her people which seemed to work as they fell back several steps. She came up to me and gently placed her hand on my wrist and the hunters chest who at this point was barely clinging to consciousness and pushed them apart. I let him fall to the ground and he groaned in obvious pain.
Dasdan looked down at him in anger then in despair and back at me. She began to look panicked but resigned to her fate. I put my hand to her face and let my power wash through her wounds, healing her instantly and removing all her discomfort. Her eyes went from sad to amazed in a flash and she started frantically pointing at my hands and then her mouth then at the man on the ground. I tilted my head to the side in confusion and she grabbed my wrists and put my hands on her face then pulled them away and pulled them down to the man bleeding out on the ground. I got it then, she wanted me to heal him. I hesitated thinking this man would just attack her again but then realized if he did I would just kill him before he succeeded and put my hand on him.
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I pulled deep on my core and allowed my power to flow up through my body and into my hands and down into the hunter. As everyone watched his blood stopped flowing and his wounds started closing. The claw marks I left on his throat closed first followed by the bruises from battering his hunters and finally the mangled leg I had nearly destroyed utterly.
When I was done I looked up and was confused by what I saw. The elders were on the ground with their foreheads in the dirt. When I looked around the whole village was prostrate around me. There were hunters who looked like they were begging my forgiveness and women nearby sobbing into the dirt. I looked over at Dasdan only to find her too on the ground with her face in the dirt.
I squatted down in front of Dasdan and pulled her shoulders up and smiled at her. She looked at me in awe and I continued to pull her to her feet. I looked around again and gestured to her as if to ask what was going on and she said “Ka'Tariku” and put her hand on my chest. I touched my chest and asked “Ka'Tariku?” and she nodded erratically as if I had just confirmed something amazing she completely believed in. I gestured around us to everyone else and moved my hands up and down for her to tell them to get up.
Dasdan began chattering to everyone in the crowd and I thought I was starting to understand more and more of what she was saying. It was as if her language was soaking into my mind faster and faster with every time I heard someone speaking it.
Dasdan, the hunter, and the elders all had a long conversation spending over an hour discussing what I meant for them as a people. They only stopped when food was brought and offered to all of them and even me. The people seemed terrified and in awe of me at the same time. When they brought my food it was a huge platter of meat vegetables and other things covered in honey. I was immersed in many conversations from all over the village and with my hearing I could make out all of them. By the time everyone was done eating and ready to get back to the conversation I thought I had a pretty solid grasp on their language.
The oldest elder turned to Dasdan and said “We need to find out what we can about her as soon as we can. I don’t understand why a god doesn’t speak our language but she has already shown her power and it is undeniable.”
Dasdan began to speak but I interrupted her. “It is ok. I have learned much of your language already. Soon I will not have any trouble speaking it at all.” They all looked at me in shock. Dasdan looked confused and uncertain. “Dasdan, I thank you for helping me find people and teaching me many things on the trip here. You are my… I do not have a word for someone who is close like family.”
Dasdan looked at me and smiled and said “I can be your sister in name if not in truth or I can be your friend”
“Ahh friend I see. I would like to be your sister if you would have me as a sister. I feel like I should be a sister.” I said with a strange pang of loss I didn’t understand. I looked over at the elders and asked “What would you like to know? I do not know much of myself. I awoke in a barren area buried in rock with nothing and nobody around. I had no memory of before and I was very broken. My body was unwell and it took a few hours to get back to my body now.”
The oldest elder looked me over and said “You look very healthy. What did you do after you woke from the rock and became well again? Did you travel straight here?”
I thought back to the first night I was awake and began telling of the wolf and how it attacked me and then turned to a man after I killed it. At this news the whole village became silent and looked terrified. The elders shared looks of fear.
Dasdan was the first to speak after the silence. “You killed one of the beast men? They are impossible to kill! We live in fear of them every night when we hear the howls and know that we might be the next village to get attacked. They come and take some of our people every few weeks and no matter what we do we can not fight them off or hide from them. How did you kill the beast man?”
I had to think of how to describe it to them. I began slowly “You know how I made your lip better and fixed the hunters body?” Dasdan nodded and said “Yes you healed us with your god magic.” I just continued on “Well instead of healing the beast I pulled healing away from him. I don’t really even know how I did it. The beast had its mouth around my head and I lost myself to anger and allowed the power in me to take over and it drained everything from him.”
“That will not be enough to stop the beast men. We will still be their prey and have no way to fight back. The Ka'Tariku can only fight one at a time and doesn’t know how to use her power to even do that.” The hunter said.
“I do not know what it is you are asking but if you will allow me to live among you and learn my way through the world I will do whatever I can to help you with the beast men. The one I fought was no challenge and I had just woken with no knowledge of what was happening to me or who I was. I still do not know anything about myself or much of anything but I do know that I am a fighter. I can feel myself aching for another chance to defeat one of these beast men and test myself against all they have to attack me with.” I said feeling my power surging below the surface at the thought of another chance to fight a real opponent.
The elders and everyone seemed to be mollified by that statement and the lead elder said “It is late and much has happened this night. Dasdan would you please take the Ka'Tariku to your home and share your fire with her.” Dasdan agreed and led me away towards a small hut. About halfway there a small boy of maybe 10 years ran up to us and jumped on Dasdan saying “Mama is the Ka'Tariku really going to stay with us?”
She looked down and said “Yes dear one.” looking at me she said “Ka'Tariku this is Braman my son. His father is with the stars so it is just the two of us in our home.”
“Nice to meet you Braman.” I smiled at the young boy and he blushed and let go of his mom and jumped at me wrapping his arms around me. I was taken aback at this because I had never felt affection but it was pleasant and i put my arms around his shoulders and said “You are a sweet boy Braman”
Braman looked up into my eyes and smiled and said “Thank you Ka'Tariku” then darted off into the hut. Dasdan glanced over at me and said “Sorry he is very affectionate and he seems to really like you.”
“I like him too. This will be a lot for me to get used to but without knowing anything else it should not be too difficult. Thank you Dasdan” I followed her into the hut and my first home for the next several years.