Hamasa sat balanced on the fence around the Garsia homestead. Northern Mekshi was a rocky place, but the soil was good and rich among the stones, and the Garsias knew how to work the steep sides of the hills and mountains that made up part of their land with terraces and carefully dug ditches. The terraces cut into the hillside near their home barely cleared the top of the hut in height, and the largest and lowest area of the field lay around their little, pale tan adobe home. Across the field, which still looked distinctly bowl-like, Marya was cajoling and cursing at the single donkey dragging a small hand-plough that Marya directed. Dark, rich soil foamed around the dull blade like waves upon the beach. He frowned to himself at the memory of the sea.
“Ay, Hamasa! Don’t stop yet! You’ve still got more paces before Mamá says you gotta rest!” Marya called over cheerily.
Hamasa smiled a little crookedly, and waved towards her. “You don’t need to worry about m-me!” he shouted in reply.
The farmer began to whistle gaily and urge Idiot the donkey onward once more. Danto seemed to be a favorite word of Marya’s. Hamasa’s eyes followed the furrow and then past it. Most of their fence was gone, bits and pieces of charred wood jagged at the edges—what was left of the crater he had made when he fell onto their field almost three weeks ago. While he had been in and out of consciousness, and later spent days walking up and down the length of the hut and learning to spin thread, they had finished filling in his mess. Today, Marya was already beginning to sow gourds and barley for early winter harvest. A mixture of awe and guilt bubbled up in his throat as he watched his new friend work her land.
His jaw firmed and determination glinted in his brown eyes before he dropped to his feet and began to walk. Each step farther from the farm was stronger, steadier. He had made a promise to himself days ago. He would do his best to not be a burden on this kindhearted and generous family, and also to gift them with something they did not get easily nor often. Beef, or large livestock meat in general, was a luxury for these small northern villages, where wild grasses were tough and sparse and meadows practically nonexistent. Something Hamasa should have remembered before embarrassing the Garsias.
Sheep, goats, and alpacas were the most common livestock this far north and throughout most of Mekshi. But that was livestock. The mountain and forests were teeming with wildlife. Perhaps Hamasa was small, and his nails weak, and his eyes barely better than blind, but he was fast. A lot faster than anyone or anything would expect.
Unlike further south, or like the forests in the many, many books and scrolls he had read, the forests of the north were more scrub than anything. The scattered trees were tall, but the trunks were thin, boughs thinner. Dry yellow grasses and fallen twigs crackled under his feet. In autumn, the rainy days were fewer and far between even as it got cooler. As he got used to the way his body could move, how his arms swung for balance, and his feet leaned forward on his toes as he ran, his pace became faster, easier, more natural. It was almost as if he belonged in this diminutive form. His burns pulled and stretched and the wind whipped through his clothes and chilled his feverish skin. But he could ignore the discomfort and twinges of pain as he raced all but silently through the trees and around the low, spiny bushes.
Oddly, he saw it before he heard or smelled it, and he froze in the shade of a tree. Peering through the trunks, Hamasa watched a four-legged alpaca-like animal rip the greenest grasses out of the dirt. It was shaggier, with reddish-brown fur rather than white or grey, and its neck longer than the Garsias’ goats. It was closely reminiscent of the Harenese dromedaries he had seen in pictures, but he remembered enough to know it was a huanaco, a wilder cousin to the alpacas domesticated by most of Mekshi. Its long ears twitched towards him. Wind whistled over stone and bush, whisking past his raised nose and unmoving body. Unable to hear or smell him, the huanaco continued to graze.
The heat of the sun warmed him, each movement of his muscles slow and precise, his steps carefully chosen. Usually he had to care about the sun, where precisely it hovered in the sky, where his shadow fell, how swiftly would he need to snatch; but now it was just the sound and the smell of him that mattered.
A shadow passed overhead. His eyes told him it was a cloud, drifting by on the wind, but he couldn’t move. The shadow was darker and vast, so vast it had blotted the entire sky. The weather had been warm, even in the early morning hours when the ground had been shining with dew, but his dread had been icy and sudden. There hadn’t been a roar. Only searing pain and the weight of something so large he’d been crushed, bowing under the burden, then falling
Falling
Screaming
A twig cracked under his foot. There was a patter of hooves. Rocks and dirt skittered down an incline. Hamasa fell onto knobbly knees and unfamiliar hands; this flimsy, cumbersome body wrapped him too tightly, not tightly enough, too exposed, neck bare, scars burning. Hamasa gasped, eyes so wide tears grew on his lashes, his arms and legs shaking, his back twitching and flinching and tensing over and over. He was so bare.
When he had finally caught his breath, when the chill had left his chest and his limbs no longer shook, he looked up to see the huanaco long gone. All that remained was a bedraggled bit of weed lying on the dirt, half-eaten. He had to struggle back to his feet groaning, moving stiffly to brush dirt off his borrowed trousers and tunic.
“I m-made a p-promise,” he whispered to himself, clenching his teeth hard enough to hurt to stop his trembling lips. Perhaps stalking prey was not his forte these days. He would move fast, fast enough not to think. Not to remember.
It was a long while later, long enough Hamasa almost had to give up on his promise for another day and was trying to ignore the relief as he turned back towards the Garsias’. A shadow darted along roots and fallen leaves. The scramble of paws over dirt had him moving without thinking. Among the bracken and grey bark of the trees and dark brown of the dirt, the thing’s fur had made it nigh invisible. It was under his clawed fingers, the snap echoing under his palms like a tree branch under his foot. Empty eyes stared up at him, its mouth gaping. He dropped the small animal with a cry and threw himself backwards. His shoulder smacked into a tree and he spun around from the force of it, fingernails clutching as he doubled over and vomited, shoulder burns screaming with pain, throat rasping. And the snap echoed in his head. His eyes stung, and his stomach roiled, but Hamasa managed to straighten and press his forehead to the bark.
“M-maybe… m-maybe tom-morrow… I’ll just, uh, hoe the garden,” he whispered, his too-hot face heating the wood under his skin.
He made his way back to his kill and knelt beside it. The mara was still warm, its fur soft and body lax. With the right sight, he would have been able to see what was left of its last heart beat, the hues of red and orange that made up all life fading to blue. His fingers smoothed brown fur and traced the fragile long bones of its legs.
“Shōkra’rak,” he whispered, the words fitting in his mouth in a way Mekshan and Riyukezan did not. He cradled the small creature close to his torso the whole way to the farmstead. It took getting there, watching Marya’s eyes light up seeing what he held, to remind him of his own hunger and years of hunting and meat-eating. Marya’s cheers and excited anticipation for dinner had him trying not to smile or flush hotly.
“Wait ‘til you try Mamá’s grilled mara meat! She makes it the best! I can’t believe you hunted, how could you even catch it?” Marya exclaimed, wrapping a sweaty arm around his drawn-high shoulders and giving him a little shake. “You’re amazing, Hamito.”
“Thanks,” he muttered, head ducking and his whole body tensed to keep from flinching away. It wouldn’t be right to cringe away from her freely given kindness. To make her feel bad when he had been hoping to repay her and her mother’s goodness. He let Marya drag him inside, biting back a sigh of relief when her arm fell away and she took his catch within.
By the time Irmen’s specially grilled mara meat and vegetables with tortiyas were finished, his stomach was rumbling. The scents and tastes of those enticing herbs and fresh meat dimmed the worst of the afternoon’s horror. The sharp-smelling green sauce Marya gleefully covered the whole plate with was deceptively spicy. His nose and eyes stung, but he ate it all with gusto. It “all” being a small amount, but he had never tasted anything like it. He hadn’t ever been this hungry his entire life, either.
“We’ll make a real Mekshan boy of you yet, city boy,” Marya whooped, clapping his back proudly when he asked for more of the spicy salsa. Hamasa sputtered and choked and reached for the cup of milk Irmen scooted towards him.
“I hope you didn’t push yourself today,” Irmen said, although she was smiling as she spoke. He shook his head, grateful for his mouthful.
“He was walking upright and regular when he got back,” Marya said after a large and loud swallow.
“You’re going to choke, miha,” Irmen scolded. Marya piled more filling onto the next tortiya whispering ‘worth it’ under her breath to Hamasa. “You should drink more water and go to bed. You’re healing fast, but let’s not push too hard.”
Hamasa met Irmen’s eyes and guiltily looked away. He probably was healing faster than he should.
“Ya gonna go huntin’ ‘gain t’moorer?” Marya asked, bits of cilantro and salsa falling from her mouth. Irmen sighed, rolling her eyes skyward, her mouth moving silently to ‘Sovereign bless her’.
“Uh, no. I thought m-maybe… uh, I could help in the garden,” Hamasa murmured. His breath shuttered in his throat at the thought of hunting again.
“I’d ruther have more meat, but, yeah, you can help there, too,” Marya said.
“It’ll give me more time to make some winter clothes instead of being outside. Thank you, Hamito,” Irmen said.
He smiled wanly and buried his face in the next bite.