Ki-yu, the wild child.

Date [standardised human time]: September 14th, 2117

(18 years, 11 months before the invasion of the radji Cradle).

The crash of water filled Ki-yu’s ears, the moist air her nose. The wind held notes that promised rain, along with the subtler musty tones of a herd of brynn somewhere upriver. The forest was close here, great sappy sentinels that reached high above her. But overwhelming was the diffuse scent of tullipet. Ki-yu had been tracking this one for almost an hour. The amphibians lived in shallow pools and rivers, and the water clouded their scent. The faint smell reminded Ki-yu of the gloves Mama would sometimes wear whilst cleaning; that rubbery, powdery odour.

The most she had seen of tullipets were the four eyes that were each placed on the tip of a short brown stalk. The eyes would sit above the water, occasionally gaining or losing one of their number as they dipped below the surface. Ki-yu had never caught one, those eyes were ever watchful.

She had found a spot overlooking a shallow bend in the river, arching against a rocky, crooked elbow in the land. The cool water was filled with soft mossy stones and sharp little crevices, the perfect hiding places for a tullipet. Ki-yu sat perfectly still between the rocks at the point of the elbow, her body flattened against the ground. Her eyes scanned every trickle, every crest of water waiting for one of those eyestalks to break the surface. Here, she told herself, smell strong.

As if by providence, a stalk cautiously broke the surface before dipping back down again a moment later. It was in a slow part of the stream, just outside of her reach. Closer. Ki-yu slowly inched towards the edge of the bank. The eye appeared again, and she froze. Another appeared, then a third. The trio scanned the banks slowly, and she pressed herself against the rocks, hoping not to be spotted. The amphibians alien gaze passed over where she sheltered, before dipping below the surface once more. Carefully, she raised herself up, she was closer now, but still not close enough. Holding herself low, and ready to pounce, she outstretched a long, lithe arm over the water. She slowly brought her hand to the right of her target, low to the surface lest it sense her shadow and flee. Her weight was precariously balanced over the stream, her body contorted to its full stretch. Closer… Closer…

A stalk broke the surface, and Ki-yu snatched for the tullipet. She caught it wet and wriggling about its middle and let out a barking laugh.

“Hhsss- Hhsst!” Her catch was decidedly furious to have been dragged out of its home.

“Hush, toolie,” she told it as she brought it to the shore. “Hush.”

The tullipet was larger, chunkier than she would have thought. The rough stippled hide was wet, with a strange, ragged outline, as though its time in the rivers were slowly turning it into brown moss. It’s four stumpy limbs flailed about uselessly, whilst a strong tail slapped against her arm. The wide mouth was filled with rows of small backwards facing teeth, and it desperately flung that maw to either side to try and bite at her. It’s two pairs of eyestalks telescoped out in and out a bizarre display, constantly trying to look about at her. Freaky toolie, Ki-yu thought. She held it in front of her with one hand beneath each of its arms. All four eyes looked at her dimly, and it let out a hiss. She giggled and gave it a sniff. Mama’s gloves. The amphibian gurgled at her.

“Hush, buddy,” she told it gently, and she set it down on the riverbank. “Go home.” The animal sat there for a moment, seemingly surprised by this turn of events, before vanishing into the water. Giggling to herself, Ki-yu sat back on her haunches and shut her eyes contentedly. The forest air was cool, and the trickle of the stream was a calming infinity. Where water come from? she wondered. Ask Baba. She could hear fiirits chirping to one another in some branches nearby. The wind changed and told her that the brynn had moved further upstream. The smell of burning wood called to her. Mama cook. Following her nose, she loped back south towards the lodge. Eyes on stalks watched her go.

The tall trees formed an immense canopy above her, the dappled light warmly cutting through the shade. The ground was rich with the odour of the rip-wood sap. The sticky smell would get all over her paws, but Mama and Baba did not seem to notice. The scent of charring vegetables reached her nose. It was an odd aroma, as though it did not make sense to Ki-yu. It was as though someone had found a way to make stone soft or had built a fireplace that burned cold. It simply smelt wrong. Nevertheless, Mama and Baba seemed to like the vegetables, and Ki-yu was curious enough to want to try it.

She caught sight of home and stopped at the treeline. Looking to the kitchen window, she saw that nothing was sitting in the sill. Safe, come home, she knew it to mean.

The girl found Baba cutting wood in the yard, his big strong arms swinging a mighty axe with a sharp thwak! Setting it down, he wiped his brow and looked up.

“Aha!” he called out with a grin. “There you are little miss! Running off again?” Ki-yu grinned wolfishly as she reached him, whining up at the radji.

“Sorry Baba,” she said. He smiled down at her before picking her up. His big strong arms smelled of rip-wood and sweat, but she did not mind.

“Well?” he asked as he headed towards the lodge. “What did you find today?” Ki-yu leant against his chest, thinking.

“Hmmm… bryyn… near river. Bugs in big… hmmm.” She gestured with her paws, trying to approximate the large conical structure the invertebrates lived in.

“An irruta mound?” Baba said as they entered the lodge. “Hmm, that’s worth keeping an eye on.” Ki-yu nodded happily.

“Bugs bite!” she announced proudly showing off the rash on her paws. Baba grumbled at that.

“Careful little one, always respect the wildlife.” Ki-yu nodded against him. Walking into the living room, Ki-yu saw Mama working the fireplace. Wrong smell strong, she noted as Baba set her on the couch. He headed down the hall.

“Hi Mama!” Ki-yu called out. She smiled over her shoulder as she stoked the coals.

“Hello sweetheart. You’ve been playing in the woods again, huh?” Mama said, standing and coming over to look at her. “Oh, what happened to your paws?!”

“She found an irruta colony,” Baba told her, returning with the healing bag.

“Oh dear,” Mama said, taking the bag from him and extracting some cream. “And what did we learn?” The cream was cool and had a repulsive odourlessness to it as she rubbed it into Ki-yu’s bitten paws.

“Respect the wildlife,” Ki-yu echoed, carefully enunciating each word.

“Good girl.” Mama gave her a pat and a smile. “Did you find anything else?”

“Oh!” Ki-yu bounced giddily on the couch. “I caught toolie!” Both Baba and Mama went still and looked at her. Mama smiled stiffly at her, still rubbing her paws.

“Oh? Whereabouts?”

“River,” she told them. “He was angry. Freaky. Happy to go home.”

“You put him back?” Baba asked.

“Yep!” Ki-yu replied. They both seemed to relax at that.

“Ki-yu,” Mama asked gently, “why did you want to catch the toolie?”

“Hmmm… he’s sneaky,” she said. “Always hiding. Wanted to see.”

“Really?” Mama smiled. “What’d you think of him?”

“Freaky!” Ki-yu said, waggling her fingers next to her eyes and screwing her nose up. “Smelled funny.” Mama giggled at that.

“C’mon. Dinners ready.”

They sat together at the table and enjoyed their meals. Ki-yu was not sure why Mama and Baba both did not have any crunchy kibble, it was very tasty. But they seemed to enjoy their odd vegetables, even if when Ki-yu tried some she found them as bad-tasting as they smelled. It was only when she tried to wash her meal down with some water that she remembered her earlier question.

“Oh! Where water from Baba?” she announced. He placed a singed root in his mouth, chewing slowly as he processed the question.

“The tap,” he decided. Silly Baba.

“Nooo… river water,” she said, gesturing widely with her arms. “All water.”

“Glad she asked you that one,” Mama laughed.

“You always give me the hard ones, don’t you?” Baba smiled at her. Ki-yu giggled. “It comes from the rain, sweetheart,” he said, standing and picking both her and her glass of water up. He brought them to the window and opened it. The cool evening air brushed against Ki-yu’s face.

“The water falls from the sky,” Baba told her holding the glass up above them, “from the clouds. You see the clouds are water, just very far away, and very very light, so they float. When there’s enough water in the cloud that it gets heavy, it falls,” he tipped a small amount of water onto the windowsill, “and we call that rain.”

“Woah…” Ki-yu whispered. Baba smiled.

“Now when the sun comes up and it gets warm, that water flies up into the sky to return to the clouds–” he said, gesturing upwards with his paw.

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“Cloud get heavy.” Ki-yu said nodding. Baba seemed surprised, and she saw him look at Mama.

“…and it falls again. Clever girl.” He tickled her under the chin. “If we put some water here during the day tomorrow, and then look at it in the afternoon, there’ll be less water because it will have joined the clouds in the sky. Make sense?”

“Why things fall?” Ki-yu asked.

“That,” Baba said turning away from the window, “is a question for your mother.”

~*~

That evening Ki-yu watched a glass of water by the windowsill, Spike sitting between her paws. She was waiting to see if the water would fly up into the sky. Mama was curled up on the couch reading as Baba sat in his seat by the fire. Sitting across his lap as he cleaned it was his sonophone. The instrument was a long hollow tube, about half his height that widened from a mouth sized opening at the top to one the size of a dinner plate at the other. The top end had a tube attached to it, and midway along its length, there was a large fabric bag. At the bottom, the end was capped off with the same fabric. The body of the instrument was made of a lovely, varnished wood banded with brass, stops and buttons covering its length. Ki-yu always watched Baba play with interest but could not understand what they both seemed to get out of it. Too quiet, she thought.

Satisfied with his work, Baba placed the bag under one arm and the tube in his mouth. He carefully placed the end of the instrument on the ground so that it stood vertically. Taking in a deep breath Baba began to play. Mama smiled and slid her feet onto the floor. They both shut their eyes and took in the wispy sound.

Ki-yu thought she might hear it clearer if she closed her eyes to focus too.

“Beh-buh-buh-buh-buhh…bubaa…” she mouthed, something on the edge of her hearing. Opening her eyes, she saw they were both enraptured in the faint sound, but Ki-yu found she had lost it and heard only silence. Disappointed, she looked out the window again. It was then that she noticed that her water was rippling.

“Woah…” she whispered. She watched as the waves and troughs would change with each of Baba’s notes. Ki-yu thought it beautiful.

“Buh-buh-buh-buuuuh…buuuuh… bubaa-bubbaa…” she mouthed. When Baba finished his piece, the ripples stopped, and Mama clapped.

“Shake!” Ki-yu said, jumping up and down. “Baba play, water shake!” Mama stopped her clapping and laughed.

“That’s right little one,” Mama said, “Braq played music through the ground.”

“Ground…” Ki-yu tilted her head to one side. “No. Baba shake water.” She pointed to the glass. Experimentally, Baba blew into the sonophone. It made no sound, but the water rippled again.

“See!” Ki-yu said pointing excitedly. Mama and Baba looked at each other.

“Ki-yu, can you not hear the music?” Baba asked. Music?

“What music?” Ki-yu asked.

“The sound the sonophone makes, you cannot hear it?” The shocked look on Mama’s face disturbed her and sent her chest into a flurry.

“S-should?” Am wrong? Tears began welling up in Ki-yu’s eyes. “A-am b-broken?”

“No sweetheart, no!” Mama was on her feet, and Ki-yu in her arms before she knew it. “It’s okay…” She shushed and rocked her till her tears dried. Am broken…

Baba returned the instrument to the shelf and came and played with her for the rest of the night, but Ki-yu’s heart was not in it.

When Mama put her to bed, she patted her gently and cooed a song to her. It was her favourite, the one of the two tunnellers, who, each trying to carve a new home, accidentally met in the middle. But the song only reminded her of the music she could not hear and left her sad.

“Am broken…” Ki-yu mumbled when Mama finished.

“No, you’re not,” Mama told her, kissing her forehead. “You’re just different. Okay?” Ki-yu nodded glumly. Mama hesitated for a moment, before standing.

“Good night, Ki-yu.”

“Good night, Mama,” Ki-yu replied. Don’t want different, she thought as Mama left.

~*~

The following morning Ki-yu was excited to leave her glass of water by the window, and watch it fly up into the sky. But instead, Baba asked her to show him where she found the irruta mound and the tullipet. Ki-yu was always happy to have one of them with her in the forest, but they were both often so busy. Giddily, Ki-yu bounded away in the direction of the bugs. Baba had to call her back, his satchel bouncing against him as he tried to keep up.

The mound was where she had left it, half built into a great tree. Dark soil was caked together about a third of Baba’s height up the wooden sentinel, overladen with a lighter coating of wood flakes. The tiny irruta moved in regular patterns in and out of a half dozen openings in the mound. Their long, segmented bodies rolling over each other as their eight limbs worked furiously. Baba whistled when he saw it.

“A big one. Must’ve been here for a while. See the shavings?” he asked her, pointing to the flakes covering the mound. “They burrow into the tree, eat its wood.” He took out a long metal device, and with some force pushed it into the colony’s interior. The bugs wriggled about at the probe’s intrusion, desperate to expel the instrument. “10 degrees warmer than ambient… good, that’s good.” Removing it, he took out a test tube and snatched up an unfortunate irruta. “We’ll want to find out the species,” he told her.

“Hurt bug?” she asked. Baba tilted his head to one side, looking at her.

“You’d rather we didn’t?” Silly Baba. She nodded adamantly. “Okay then, we’ll be careful with him. Show me the river,” he said. “The one with the tullipet.”

When they arrived at the riverbank, Ki-yu found that it was much calmer than the day before and her toolie had gained neighbours. Between almost every crooked rock and water-lapped stone there was an eyestalk or three, a few dipping away at their approach. Ki-yu sat on a rock and took in the rubbery smell.

“Wow…” Baba breathed. “I’ve never seen so many in one place before. Must be good prey…” That was a new word for Ki-yu.

“What prey?” she asked. Baba froze. “Hard question?” she giggled, and Baba breathed out a laugh.

“Yes… a prey animal is… an animal that is eaten by another animal, which is called a predator.”

“Toolie predator?” she asked, and he nodded. Baba pointed to the stalks watching warily from the river.

“He’ll sit and wait for some littler thing to come along, and then he’ll grab it, and swallow it.” Baba sat down next to her on the rock and regarded her, an intensity in his eyes.

“Ki-yu,” he asked, “what did you feel when you caught the toolie?”

“Hmmm… happy…” she said.

“Why?”

“Was fun.”

“Fun in what way? Fun to catch? Fun to hunt?”

“Hunt?”

“To… sneak up on him?” he asked, his nose right in front of hers.

“Was fun,” she shrugged. Baba pursed his lips and nodded to himself. Ki-yu tilted her head, suddenly nervous.

“Predator… hurt prey?” Baba nodded again. A thought occurred to her, and her anxiety increased. “Prey… f-food?” Baba opened his mouth, but no words came out. “Ki-yu… hurt?”

“No,” he said adamantly. “No. What you eat isn’t an animal, you don’t hurt darling. But… one day…” He stalled and sighed. “One day you may have to.”

“No,” she said, pouting and stomping her foot. “No hurt. Don’t want.” Baba stood placing a paw on his chin.

“Sweetheart… you are a predator, one day you’ll have to hurt. It doesn’t make you evil, just different.” Different bad. Different means can’t hear music. Different means must hurt.

“Don’t want different!” Ki-yu cried, tears welling in her eyes as her brow pinched together. “Don’t want hurt! Don’t want hunt! Can’t be daughter?!” Father wobbled where he stood, his expression intense. He wrapped his great warm furry frame around her, and his voice waivered ever so slightly.

“You are my daughter,” he told her. She keened into him, and he held her close. The trickle of the river was still a quiet infinity. Water fall, get hot, fly. Get heavy, fall again.

“Ki-yu,” he said after a time, kneeling and pulling her chin up to look into her dark eyes. “We love you. Not despite your differences, but because of them. Those differences mean that you will face challenges, that others may not see you for who you are. But those differences will make you, you!”

“Don’t want different,” Ki-yu repeated, her lip wobbling.

“Nobody wants to be different, Ki-yu. In that way we are all the same.” He took her paws in his. “Close your eyes.”

“But–”

“Please darling, for me?” Pouting, Ki-yu closed her eyes.

“Focus on your nose,” Baba said. “What do you smell?” Dejectedly, Ki-yu focused and took a sniff.

“Baba,” she mumbled. “Mama.”

“Turin’s not here…”

“Mama on fur.”

“Oh… what else?” Ki-yu sniffed again.

“Fruit breakfast. Tea,” she said.

“Really?!” he asked. “You can smell that?” Ki-yu nodded.

“Tree sap, on paws. Fiirits and… others in trees.” She inhaled deeply as a breeze rippled through the forest. “Brynn, new baby. Toolie…” she giggled. “Freaky toolie…” Ki-yu opened her eyes, and saw that Baba was smiling at her, his own eyes filled with something she could not name.

“You can smell all that? Truly?” he asked. She nodded and smiled sheepishly. “You cannot hear or feel my music,” he said, patting her hands. “But I cannot smell what you can. Cannot see what you see.” He put a paw on the side of her head, and she leaned against it. “Your differences don’t define you daughter. Only what you do with them.” Ki-yu sniffled against his paw.

“Love Baba,” she whispered.

“I love you too. Now, c’mere,” he said, pulling her into another deep hug. The wind blew hard, and the smells of the valley that only she knew danced around them.

Ki-yu sniffed against her wet eyes. Then again. Then again in smelling. There were many smells that were unfamiliar to her, young and inexperienced as she was. This smell was one such, but it held a note that she remembered well. Death. What’s more, it was close. Pulling away from Baba, she sampled the wind again. It blew favourably and left a trail.

“Ki-yu?” Baba asked. She began padding away, eyes closed to follow the scent.

“Dead thing. Odd thing,” she said. “Follow.” And with that, she began bounding through the woods, following the wind.

The scent led her southeast, a direction she was yet to survey. Baba called after her, and she had to wait once or twice so that she did not lose him. As the wind changed direction she had to zig-zag her way towards her target, but eventually the tree line broke into a circular clearing before a large rocky outcrop. Solid moss-touched boulders littered the area like playthings dropped by giant children. Baba stood breathing heavily beside her. They scanned the area, but nothing was obvious. Baba wandered towards the outcrop. Ki-yu put her nose to the ground and found that everywhere was the smell of death. But in taking a deeper scent of the clearing, found something more familiar. Baba? Mama? No, not right…

“Smell… like Mama and you. But… not Mama, not you,” she told him. Baba stopped at the outcrop and gasped. Ki-yu bounded over, and the smell focused on its source. At the base of the bluff there was a hollow under which an animal had once taken shelter. It was now dead. Ki-yu had never seen anything like it. It was brown and furry like a radji, but with a long fluffy tail. Its four short limbs were capped with long raking claws that were held stiffly and unnaturally around the body. Its short muzzle had its lips pulled back in a ferocious deathly snarl, displaying its sharp pointed teeth. It was also tiny, clearly a baby. Ki-yu keened beside Baba, who placed an arm around her.

“Its… a roht. A cub.” He seemed in disbelief.

“What roht?” she asked, and Baba shook his head.

“A nightmare,” he said sucking air between his teeth. “An old predator… we wiped them out, they’re meant to be extinct in the wild. There’s a few in collections in the northern hemisphere, and you hear rumours but…” He gestured at it, before bending down to get a closer look. The creature was pressed hard against the rock, curled up as if in an agonising sleep. “Must be some kind of mummy… died long ago from the cold.”

“No,” Ki-yu said shakily. Baba looked at her. “Smell old, but not old old.” Baba thought for a moment.

“You said there’s another smell. Like Turin and I, but not?” Ki-yu nodded and fidgeted with her paws. Baba looked quite concerned and tilted his head to one side. “Mighty strange… I thought it was too cold for them here…”

“Where roht Mama?” Ki-yu asked. Baba’s quills flexed and he looked around nervously.

“Excellent question.” He stood and walked around the clearing again but found nothing new. “Mighty strange…” he repeated. “We’ll have to come back, set up a camera trap and see if anything else is wandering about.” He looked at her again. “You’re shaking.” Ki-yu’s lip wobbled.

“Dead smell strong,” she said as he knelt in front of her.

“We’ll go home now,” Baba told her, his paw on her shoulder a comfort.

“Can bury baby?” Ki-yu asked, still feeling uneasy. Baba smiled.

“Yes, sweetheart. I think we will.” He patted her head, and they turned away from the clearing, leaving behind the dead cub. “Mama and I would never have found this. You’re very brave to follow such a smell.”

“Not brave,” Ki-yu said, the scent still cloying in her nose. “Still scared.”

“That is bravery darling,” he told her. “Let’s go tell Mama what you found.”

“We are the music makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

And sitting by desolate streams;–

World-losers and world-forsakers,

On whom the pale moon gleams;

Yet we are the movers and the shakers

Of the world for ever it seems.”

– Ode, Arthur O’Shaughnessy, 1874.