Swiftcurrent Creek you disgust me [read-only, m]

Exploring Bazi's anti-religious back-story in a dream. 'M' for a bit of swearing, just in case! I'll send this to be archived shortly.

Three pups lay side by side in the fresh spring grass, letting the sun warm their round, white bellies. Bazi was in the middle, with Mari and her right and their mother's namesake - everyone just called her Two, and the original Shar-Kali begrudgingly accepted it - on her left. The pack had been blessed with good hunting and fair weather, and the entire family had feasted that morning. The pups of the alpha pair had been left in a nest of grass at the center of the snoozing family to watch fat cumulus clouds drift by.

"Do you think there's something up there?" Mari asked his sisters, watching a curiously shaped tower of cotton candy float into view.

"Up there?", Two replied, making a face. "Like a cloud wolf?"

"Yeah! What if they've got a pack, too? And the fluffiest wolf gets to be alpha."

The pair of them laughed, elbowing the silent sister in the middle - who, by a significant margin, bore the strongest resemblance to a puffy cotton bud.

"Do you think they can hear us?"

"I d'no. They're far away."

"Yes, but... maybe if we send them a message."

"How?"

"Um, um.. oh! You know that plant with the fluffy buds? We can take them, and whisper the message.. and throw them into the wind?"

"Just throw them? I d'no.. maybe that's not spespectful."

"Respectful."

"Whatever. Maybe we should do something - you know, like Auntie does."

Bazi stirred nervously between her chattering siblings, eyes closed against the glare of the sun but ears on full alert.

"Like a one of those..a sacrifice? But she does rabbits.. can you catch a rabbit, Two?"

"Yes! No.. I d'no, probably. But.. but maybe crickets. I know how to catch those for sure."

"Ok. Later?"

"Yeah, later."

The pups on either side of Bazi lapsed into silence, and it wasn't long before the pair of them were snoring. Their hitherto quiet sibling opened her eyes, and stared up at the procession of clouds. Her sweet little faced curled into a sneer. They looked nothing like wolves.

-

That night, the siblings gathered around their aunt. Nura slept as close to the core of the pack as she dared, but Shar-Kali only allowed her close on the coldest nights - tonight was far from it, and the burden of estrangement was not so heavy.

"How many has got to be sacrificed?" Two asked of their aunt, counting her mixed pile of insects. Mari gave her catch a jealous look; his was far less impressive, but that was because he had grown bored of this cloud wolf game and disappeared to play-fight with Bazi after less than an hour. Two had spent the entire afternoon fervently searching for bugs, and her efforts had produced results.

"That'll do, sweetness," their aunt murmured, combining the two piles and scraping the tiny bodies into a pyramid. At the base, she crossed two long sticks, ensuring that the sacrificial offering was in the 'V' that pointed east. Two watched with interest, but Mari was getting tired - Bazi, ever wary of their peculiar aunt, watched from some distance away. "Now we say a few words to Anu."

"Is that the cloud wolf alpha?" The little girl's eagerness was palpable.

"Yes - exactly, darling," her aunt replied, chest inflating with pride. "Exactly that."

By this point, Mari had skulked back to his other sister, and the two sat quietly together.

"This isn't right," Bazi whispered. Her brother wiggled uncomfortably next to her. "I d'no..it's only a game.."

But the look of their aunt's face wasn't the bemused look of someone indulging a child's imagination. It was one of reverence. She believed every word, and Nura was nearly six.

"What isn't right?"

Shar-Kali stepped up to nuzzle her pups' fuzzy heads affectionately, but grew suddenly still when she followed their line of sight to Nura and Two bowed over a towering pile of insects.

Then she saw the crossed sticks, and everything happened very quickly.

-

Ea quietly ushered Bazi and Mari aside, but not far enough away to prevent them from hearing or seeing. Later, Bazi would wonder if that had been on purpose. Shar-Kali bore down on Nura like hell-fire.

"I warned you to stop this farce. I warned you, and now you have shamed your family."

"If you come near my children again, I will rip your spine out of your asshole. Do you understand that? You disgust me."

"You are spit to me. You are nothing. Take this ridiculous bullshit you subscribe to and burn. Just burn."

"Never have I been so wholly ashamed of a child. My child."

"Look at me when I'm talking to you, or so help me I will drown you in the sea."

Nura's beating was so severe that she remained where Shar-Kali had slammed her into the ground for well over two days. By the time she finally returned, limping and bloody, it was within 100 paces of the pack and as something lower than Omega. Two did not escape a beating either, but her less severe bruises were nothing compared to disappointed looks of her elders. Sin, Ea, Zimri - even Zambiya - looked on her with a mixture of pity and embarrassment.

Months later, Amon laid the pups down to watch the sky whilst the older pack members convened to discuss Nura's fate. It was a bright, early summer day, and the sky was filled with clouds that looked like fat, elaborate swirls of icing.

"That one looks like a flower," Mari murmured.

"I think it looks like two birds fighting, and those are their wings," Bazi suggested from the middle.

"They look like clouds," said Shar-Kali II, staring blankly into the sky. "Just clouds."

-

Bazi opened her eyes. It was dark, unseasonably clear, and very chilly - Ferdie was somewhere else for the night, leaving her alone with the blanket of rabbit skins that lined their earthen bowl. She remained where she was, but turned her eyes to the east. A dark, roiling mass was gathering there, alive with movement and the distant rumble of thunder, preparing to sweep west across the Teekon Wilds. Bazi dropped her head back down. They were only clouds.