Porcupine Ridge The Dawn - Printable Version

@Hex

The man had a shadow.

Nutuyikruk skittered along the ground after the man. Leg by leg, and close enough to feel the gentle brush of tail when the spires seemed to stared down at her with beastly claws.

A question muttered out and sought Hex for an answer. "Is this where ridge people live?"

We live here.

"Oh, thank you," followed a dour voice. She had been too bad to be deserving of any home, but they took her.

Nobody would come and take them here. The pointy teeth would ward off any tricky men. Bad spirits must have roamed these peaks, but the shadow people walked unharmed.

In all these miles, her father never appeared, and mother never came.

People left people and faces changed, but of the many people who had left and the people whose faces had changed, had it been Sedna who abandoned her first?

Her head lifted with caution to look over at the clearing.

"I sleep here too? ..Will the sick people come here?"

Oh, why, she didn't know what she would do if the sick people came. They would need to leave, or worse, they would get infected all the same; however, it must have not been the worst of sicknesses.

The girl explored the tree with her eyes and moped tiredly around it, before coming to a clumsy sit with upturned hind legs.

"I don't know," was a guilty admission. Aaka, aapa.. The rock that had been her brother, the pillar that had been her sister.. But they were- Smoothed ears and a quiet mutter that would seek the shadow man. "I lost them a long, long time ago."

"A mean woman found me and took care of me at the big-big lake, but I don't think she likes me anymore ever since she had her babies." Nutuyikruk could not piece together the technicolor that was a temporary maternal mother. Even more guilty, "I don't like it there very much."

And the nice wolf Moss and the overwatching husband of Zharille, yet she had felt terribly alone. The air of the lake, it had been drowning. They were not a family.

Nutuyikruk did not remember much. She remembered that the stars came out at night, and that the moon set to raise the sun. That one upon a time, she had a brother, a sister. That aaka smiled brightly, but at many paws of length. That aapa fizzled away much the same, and that there had been deep love anyways. And more vividly, she remembered..

"I'm sorry. I hope you feel a lot-lot better." What pain Hex must have suffered. Empathy swarmed her, and the girl nodded to her own words.

"It hurts to lose your family, doesn't it?"

It hurt, but maybe it hurt a little less to know there was someone else out there who had been dealt the same cards as you.

"You must feel how I feel."

A front paw swung along the ground. "I'm not very hungry, I don't think, but thank you very much for asking, sir." Tired, but then it struck her it could have been him who was hungry. "Would you like me to bring you something instead if you're hungry, mister?" Yet lately, Nutu always felt tired.