Chapter One - Accidental Child Acquisition
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"Back away now, children." Whose voice was that? Why do I smell smoke? What is that stench, like old gym socks, and why is it so dark?
"But mama's hurting..." A small, quiet voice said, a little girl. Is that my niece? No, sounds younger. Whose little girl, then?
"Your mother has a fever. Crowding her isn't going to help her." The first voice again, shaking and raspy, as if of a great age and poor health. Poor child, their parent is sick... Why is it so cold?
"Mama! Mama!" A different voice cried, still small and not really forming the words correctly, small hands grabbing at Victoria's shoulder. They shook her, and she frowned. Splitting pain raged through her head, leaving her gasping.
Images flashed before Victoria's eyes - a life - one that was not her own. Instead of being born in a hospital, bundled in warm cloth and held by a laughing mother and a crying father, she was born in darkness, under the stars. She was bundled into furs, rough and slick with fluid, held on the heaving belly of a woman Victoria'd never seen before, a woman with huge grey-white wings spread underneath her. The woman who named her Belbet and called her daughter.
Victoria grew as Belbet grew, from a rambunctious toddler held mostly to her mother's front or back by reed fiber rope into a young child, curious about the world. Victoria was astounded to realize that the life she was observing was a positively prehistoric one; lacking any of the modern conveniences she’d enjoyed her whole life. A nomadic tribe, using stone hand-axes, weaving dry grass baskets and roaming the wilds after herds of giant creatures. Belbet was taught what plants were edible, what stones to overturn to find edible insects, how to make rope from grasses and weave baskets from reeds. Victoria gleefully recognized some of these skills, ones she’d honed with an interest in her own world. The plants looked different from what she knew if slightly, but the uses were similar.
The most terrifying thing she’d come to realize was about the animals. While they were similar, the differences from what she knew made them terrifying. Everything was bigger, here in this world. The insects were huge, a dragonfly the size of a small child, for instance. Giant deer and furry rhinos, creatures that looked familiar to her but so very, very different. The tribe hunted them and often succeeded in bringing them down, stone-tipped spears their greatest weapon. Very few of these hunts succeeded without someone being injured, and Victoria worried.
Upon being able to walk, Belbet’s mother left her with the elderly of the tribe, who did most of the child-rearing. It stung, to be unable to see her mom for more than the fleeting seconds the woman took to walk by on her way to scavenging. A distant mother was nothing new, so she was at least glad that Belbet’s older sister Deenat was there for her. Victoria’d been good friends with her own older brothers and sister, so much so that she was the go-to babysitter for her lovely nieces and nephews. Deenat was four years older than Belbet, and shared when she had enough to eat. Belbet adored her, and Victoria couldn’t help the warmth she felt when the two curled together before a fire.
During her time with the elders, she learned that the strange animalistic traits everyone had were called Spirits, gifted to them by the ancestors. Belbet’s mother was goose-spirited, thus her wings. Deenat had soft, sleek white hair and sharp claws that resisted cutting. Ermine-spirited, the elders said, tenacious and beautiful. She learned that she herself was what was known as "otter-spirited". She could hold her breath for 8 whole minutes by Victoria’s count and cold water was as easy to tolerate as warm to her. Her own hair, long and brown, was sleek like her elder sister’s. Everyone in the tribe had such a spirit, gifted to them at birth.
Belbet’s childhood passed by in flashes, catching frogs when they passed water, greeting larger tribes when they stopped for the summer. In between bouts of foraging, Victoria was overjoyed that, though sickly and small, the children were at least allowed playtime. Stories told around a campfire in the dark, rites of passage for young hunters, and so many more interesting things happened that Victoria had never experienced in her modern world. Stories of how the moons came into the sky, why one of them turned slow and the other as fast as the sun, stories of how the sky growls and opens with rains, and the cold flowers fall from the sky were told to the children, and with them, Victoria.
Belbet grew, and eventually bled as all with a uterus do. That marked her as an 'adult' in the eyes of their nomadic tribe, which meant she was open-season. Boys her age, and men, older men, began talking to her more, bringing her gifts. Belbet was told by one of the older women in the tribe what it meant, that it meant they wanted her to birth their children. Despite Victoria’s fervent hope, she fell pregnant within a few months, the elders telling her what the vomiting, the listlessness, the weight around her belly meant. The child didn't last to term, and came out in blood. Every few months, she would become pregnant, and miscarry again. Victoria, an educated modern woman, knew that a child that young just didn’t have the proper growth to support a baby, and so miscarriages were to be expected. Not only that, but with the malnourishment and the strenuous work, Belbet’s not-quite-babies were doomed to miscarriage. It didn’t stop each miscarriage from being quietly devestating for them both.
Until, at 17 years old, marked by the winters she’d survived, Belbet’s first child finally made it to term. It took two days of exhausting screaming pain, but she held the wailing, bloody infant in her arms and uttered her name. Dahnei. She didn't know who the child's father was, and didn't care. Seeing the sweet upturned nose, her blinking eyes, and the long, swaying tail, Victoria loved her instantly. She’d never had the chance to have children, but if she had, she’d have wanted them to look as sweet as Dahnei. The Elder who assisted in the birth said she was a "Mouse-Spirit '', meaning she would be a shy, scared child, and she would be quick to notice danger.
More flashes of memory: Belbet carrying Dahnei in a sling on her back as the tribe moved along their routes. Another flash, Dahnei taking her first hesitant steps. When she could walk properly, Belbet followed her mother’s example, and left the child with the elders, breaking Victoria’s heart. A flash of Belbet's flirtations once again. Belbet grew pregnant and didn't miscarry, before Dahnei was even two years old. Victoria fell in love again, at the sight of bright, dark eyes and long, drooping ears. Victoria counted the little fingers, and saw how his nose wiggled and ached whenever he wasn’t in her arms. A Rabbit-Spirit, a little boy, whom Belbet named Mohniit.
Another flash that Victoria felt contained nearly two years, and Belbet carried Mohniit with her on her back, as she had Dahnei, as they walked through the plains and forests scavenging for food. Another flash, and she passed the child off to the same elderly men and women who were caring for the other babies of the tribe, those skinny, sickly babies that Victoria feared for. Belbet moved on to gathering and preparing food -- the daily grind of living on the road -- which Victoria felt in flashes, but knew instinctively. The only breaks in monotony were the sex (now renewed because she'd finally stopped raising a child), and the occasional oddity. A large hunt, the crossing of paths with another tribe, the occasional rogue male who petitioned to join their tribe.
A few months later, and Belbet was pregnant again. Victoria was already grieving the child who would be put into the hands of the neglectful elders and the tribespeople who had no regard for whether the children hurt, so long as they lived. Not three months into the pregnancy, Belbet fell ill. Victoria knew it was probably some sort of cold, but whatever it was, it was slowly killing Belbet, choking her breathing and flash-frying her with fever. The elders cared for her as much as they could, keeping her wrapped in warm furs and fed broths made of animal fat, and Belbet passed the fever-ridden moments in the company of Dahnei. The girl stared down at her with wide, scared eyes, and her little boy, her little Mohniit, who didn't understand what was happening, cried. Victoria wished desperately that she could reach out and comfort the children, heal their sick mother, keep them safe, do anything for them at all.
Belbet's eyes closed, opened, and then closed for the final time. Victoria woke up. The world was hazy with fever around her, but she could see the lick of firelight on the children's faces, and the tears in them glitter. She closed her eyes, absently tried to wake up back in the modern world, and only opened her eyes to those poor children once again. Victoria tried to remember what happened, how she got from the cushy chair at her desk to laying on the ground. Had the pain in her chest finally gotten bad enough to kill her?
Her own lifestyle in the modern world wasn’t healthy, necessarily. She was too sedentary, too prone to eating more than she needed and not exercising it out. She often felt short of breath just walking, and her chest ached whenever she strained herself. She’d always intended to go to a doctor, but… well, between work demanding so much overtime and her stints as a babysitter, she just hadn’t had time.
Now she never would.
‘What happened,’ She thought, the world swimming around her, stars bright pinpricks in the sky. ‘Am- Am I Belbet now? Did she die?’ She wracked her brain, ‘Was this like that thing Victoria had heard about? Those novels, online, where the mind of someone from modern times was used to replace the mind of someone somewhere else when they died? What were those called again?’
Victoria succumbed to exhaustion, and closed her eyes. Sleep came quickly after that, and she was allowed to recover, laid out on furs and surrounded in the warmth of her children. It warmed her heart, to feel them so close and sniffly in worry for her.
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The doubled crescent moons sank and then rose again, and her aching head cleared along with the wheeze in her chest. The old woman tending to her breathed out a sigh of relief, packing away her noxious potions and salves in a small bag cobbled together from hides and grass-rope. "It looks as though the fever has broken. Belbet will survive."
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
"Where..." Victoria groaned, feeling very much like she had the morning after her 21st birthday. Somehow, despite the language being different, Victoria could speak it. Perhaps thanks to all of Belbet’s memories leftover in her head. Victoria pushed herself to her side, aching and groaning, which put her within eye-line of the main campfire.
Around the fire sat the adults of the tribe, for the most part. In the shimmering light and shadow of the campfire, Victoria thought she saw animal tails and ears for each person. Her eyes quickly confirmed what she’d learned in the dream; some people had wings, and others, tails like lizards. The groups were chatting, or making things together, or dancing. A voice, singing some song Victorica could barely pay attention to, soared over the chatter, adding to the cacophony of night-time forest noises.
"In camp," The old woman provided, gently pushing back Dahnei and Mohniit so that they wouldn't crowd their mother and overtax her. "Do not try to sit up. You are still very weak."
She didn’t, aware of how weak she was from how much turning over had taxed her. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, feeling how heavy they were, only to have them open as something wiggled its way between her arm and the furs underneath her. A little head popped out, black eyes staring at her face with wet, red rims. Ah, Mohniit. She sighed softly and used what little strength she had to pull him closer, to press him to her chest. His warmth chased away the night chill. Another heavier body pressed against her back, and Victoria thought it must be Dahnei.
So began the slow road to recovery. Twice daily, Belbet was fed broths that made Victoria squeamish, full of greasy, odd-tasting meat and whole nuts. She gathered from the old woman grumbling that the portions of food saved aside for the sick, the old, and the young were all the same, and so Belbet’s being there thinned the food for all of the rest of them. The broths tasted awful, and she tried to avoid them by sleeping as much as she could.
However, remembering Victoria's soft bed, the furs under her were too rough and ticklish, while the stones underneath the furs poked her in the side painfully. How do they sleep like this? No wonder people only lived till 30 in the stone ages. She’d asked if anyone else had thought to use grass under the furs, and was told that gathering that much grass was a lot of work, and that if she wanted it done, she could do it herself.
The only good thing about Victoria’s convalescence was that Dahnei and Mohniit were constant companions. Dahnei was five years old now, old enough to speak and share her thoughts, and old enough to gather little handfuls of grass for Victoria to shove under the furs. When Victoria thanked her, the girl lit up and her tail was sent swaying rhythmically. It was so adorable, and Victoria felt that same maternal spike she felt whenever one of her little nieces brought her a trowel or took their dishes in for washing.
Being so close to the little ones, she inevitably learned little things about them, like how Dahnei preferred nuts to actual meat, and how Mohniit liked to roll around on the furs, luxuriating in how they felt. She learned what Mohniit’s whines sounded like when one of the elders who could still walk would take Dahnei into the woods surrounding the camp for foraging. She learned what Dahnei’s measure of ‘this is enough’ was; as she watched the little girl come back with huge armfuls of fire-tinder, and then head back out with baskets strapped to her shoulders with rough rope.
The children reminded Victoria so much of the little ones she’d left behind, and her heart ached even as it swelled with care for them both. Seeing their gaunt little faces look at her with such joy over something as simple as a berry, she couldn’t understand how Belbet had not kept them with her at all times, teaching, loving, and helping them grow. Part of her tried to distance herself, tried to remind her that these were not her children. But that part was beaten into submission by the part of her heart that asked her, then whose? If not yours, who is caring for those babies?
All day, the elders buzzed, children coming back and forth from the woods around them with baskets of leafy vegetables and berries. The Elders sat and wove rope and baskets from dried grass brought to them by the children. Once a day, one of the hunters would come over and deliver a leaf-wrapped satchel of raw meat, which the mostly-spry elderly used to cook a big meal for everyone. Since the village would die out if the children starved, they were given large portions of whatever the adult foragers found, but the meat was minimal at best.
Of course, there was never enough meat, and since these were prehistoric people, their cooking mainly consisted of putting something on a sharp stick, or a flat rock and cooking it till it sizzled.
The food was gritty and coarse and unseasoned entirely, and Victoria had to keep herself from choking on it. But, with Dahnei and Mohniit so close by, she knew she had to give a good example of how to eat. She would have offered them part of her own (if only so she wouldn't have to eat it) but they refused, saying she needed to get better. It was so sweet, even if it left Victoria internally crying over the horrid texture.
Three days later, Belbet was feeling much better, able to stand and walk around lightly. During her rest, she’d been able to weave some baskets with the elders. Spending time there, with these people who have lived in this time, working so hard to survive, Victoria found it hard to converse, to pay attention to the elder’s little problems. She felt distant. Even from this new body of hers, sometimes she would look at the hands moving and think, ‘whose hands are these?’.
Honestly, if she didn't have Belbet's memories of going through it many times already, Victoria wouldn't have known she was pregnant, couldn’t feel anything like the books said. No quickening in her stomach, and she wouldn’t know if this body had gained weight. But Belbet had seen the signs, the fatigue, the loss of appetite, the drag at the pit of her stomach. A trepidation that was foreign to Belbet pressed her hand to the slight curve of her belly, and she knew that it was Victoria's worry. She'd seen a world where babies didn't die suddenly for no reason. A world where everyone had warm clothes and food. And now, she was terrified for these three little ones that she'd come to love.
The feeling stuck with her all day, as she went through the tasks Belbet did every day. As she crouched between bushes and tree trunks, picking mushrooms and berries she knew from reading articles and studying books that didn’t exist in this world, she considered how the tribe functioned. The hunters went out and brought back food, which the Chief split up between the hunters and the able-bodied gatherers. The gatherers brought back their spoils too, which were also divided up. The Chief kept back a portion to be given to the elderly and the children, but everyone knew that the able-bodied who worked got more and better portions. When she came back and delivered her finds, she received her portion. She took this back to the area the elderly were in, where the children gathered as well, and shared it.
The food was simple, tubers that cooked soft when boiled with meat. It wasn't tasty, honestly, compared to what Victoria had eaten, but Belbet managed to choke it down. After the meal was eaten, the children gathered, hers at the front, and begged for her to talk to them, to tell them stories.
Looking at the tiny bodies crowding around her for stories and attention made the Victoria part of her sick at the neglect Belbet and the other adults had handed out. The children were fed, certainly, but they barely got any meat, and instead were mostly given a share of the vegetables and roots that the foragers brought back. The only attention they got was from the old men and women who had managed not to die off yet, and even then the attention was not always pleasant. The elderly, angry at hurting and being so sick, would strike the children if they got too close or were too clumsy.
Perhaps it was dwelling on these worrisome thoughts, as well as the lack of experience with her new instincts that caused her to lash out. Victoria had never been a violent person, and Belbet had only ever fought when absolutely necessary. So it was out of character for them both when, upon seeing another tribes-woman yank Dahnei away from her side, pulling so hard that Dahnei cried out in pain, she’d responded with a growl. Memory so visceral that Victoria could feel it struck her, of her own mother yanking Victoria through a store so hard that they had to take her to a doctor, her arm dislocated. As this woman lifted her hand high to strike Dahnei for crying out, Belbet launched herself at the offender.
Her lunge sent the woman crashing to the earth, and her skull into a rock, the bright copper scent of blood exploding into Belbet’s nose. In that moment, Victoria and Belbet were one, and they wanted this woman away from her babies. Away, and not causing pain. Belbet tore their fingernails down the woman's body, barely registering that they were sharp claws or that her victim’s motor function was reduced to reflexive convulsions.
Another body ripped her off of the twitching woman, and Belbet fought, kicking and screaming as the body held her up off the ground. Her arms pinned to her sides, and she couldn't do much but scratch at this other person (a man, her nose told her, someone she knew), as others rushed to help the now-bloody-headed woman. A cacophony of sounds rose up now, people scrambling forward to see what had happened, their feet pounding on the hard dirt, the scent of their fear swimming in the air.
"Enough! That's enough!" the voice behind her called, squeezing her ribs so that she had to fight to breathe.
"She's not breathing!" One of the elders who crouched down next to Belbet's victim cried. His hands were covered in blood as he cradled the woman’s head.
"She's dead! She's dead!" Another cried, and all the children began to cry, startled by the loud voices and Dahnei's ceaseless sobs. The pronouncement brought Belbet up cold. She stopped struggling, eyes wide.
"Dead?" She croaked, looking at the pool of blood eking out onto the ground around this woman's head. "I... did I..."
"You killed her!" A woman shrieked, pointing to Belbet. She would have rushed forward, if a young man with feline ears hadn't darted forward and grabbed her up the same way the person behind Belbet was holding her.
"Get the chief!" The boy with cat ears cried, and soon enough, a large man with thick, grey-brown skin and wrinkles at the corners of his eyes came forward. He smelled like a fur Victoria had once found in her dead grandmother’s yard sale. He was dressed in richer pelts than the rest of the people around them, and Belbet's memories told her this was Chief Gyos. He was in charge of the whole tribe, and was in charge of who received what food.
After receiving a report of what happened, including several sniffling children's accounts and the account of the old woman who'd been sitting with Belbet at the time, he nodded as if he understood it all. He took in the sight of Belbet, loose in the young man with the antler's grasp, and the sight of her mother and sister standing behind her, both faces mutinous with fear. Taking this into consideration, he made his ruling.
He gestured and both women were put on their feet. "As Belbet has killed Ayneah, she will be banished from the tribe. Belbet will no longer be a part of the tribe, and shall be stoned should she step within tribal lands. You have until dawn to be gone from our sight."
Lightning ran through Belbet, her heart racing in fear. Banishment? Wasn’t that a death sentence? She had no idea how to survive in the wilderness like this, and yet… a part of her felt as if she would be fine. As if she could find food and shelter and protect herself, even alone. Hadn’t Victoria spent years studying to start a homestead? Hadn’t Victoria read everything she could get her hands on, in order to be able to do just that?
How was she supposed to protect her babies? They were clearly neglected and mistreated here, and she couldn't stand the thought of leaving them here with these people, to suffer that alone. "Wait!" She cried, "Please. Let me take my children with me. I'll leave, but let me take Dahnei and Mohniit with me."
The Chief’s jaw dropped as he squinted at her, the crowd murmuring around them, and Belbet knew why. Who would strap themselves with two children when they were going friendless, kinless, into the wilds, shunned by anyone who might help. "...That will be up to the children."
Mohniit answered simply by clinging to Belbet's leg. Belbet smiled, kneeling down and gathering the little boy up into her arms. He buried his face into her throat and she took a deep breath to keep from crying. She squeezed him gently, and then looked to Dahnei. "It's up to you, Dahnei. Do you want to stay here? Or come with mama?"
She held out a hand, and watched the little girl hesitate. Some of the tribesmen were still surrounding them, and her little mouse ears twitched, her little tail swaying nervously back and forth. It took a few moments, before that tiny hand slipped into Belbet's, and she pulled Dahnei into a hug right alongside her brother. The warmth of their skin lit a fire in her heart, and she couldn’t help but promise.
"We'll be okay." She whispered to her babies. "Mama will make sure of it."
She couldn't pick up Dahnei, so she whispered to the girl to gather her and her little brother’s things. Then, using Belbet's memories from before the fever as a guide, she gathered her own things as well. Pitiful belongings, really: a hand-axe made of some dark black stone that the Victoria part of her said is probably obsidian, a bone needle, a small net bag, and the furs she slept in, warm and thick. Rolling all these up, she tied them to her back, along with Mohniit, and took Dahnei's hand.
They headed away from the tribe, away from the sun, and towards the lengthening shadows of the trees around them. A wind picked up, blowing gently in their faces and laced with the scent of pine and growing, green things. She would lead them away from Tribal lands, away from these people who refused to see that children were to be nurtured rather than neglected. She would lead them away, and then, she would make them a home. The kind of home this backwoods prehistoric world had never seen before.
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