This story was to be my entry for September Grab Bag, 2015. It rapidly got carried away, so it's by itself and not cluttering up that thread.
As I will probably be away from writing for a few weeks (or months) with a newborn, I went ahead and got a little creative with this (and long winded, apparently)
Keep in mind that this is written from Pike's point of view, using what I interpret as what he would understand. I might come back and refine it later, but as time is running short I needed to get this posted now, or in a few weeks. I opted for now.Elements for September 2015 Grab Bag:
Blue
A bee
A healing (subject to interpretation)
A surprising bond
A nutA dreamberry was a wondrous thing.
Pike set back against a tree, tossing them into his mouth one after another with the methodical ease of one who had munched on the things for centuries, watching the clouds drift by. For some, dreamberries could pull one farther into the ‘Now’ of wolf-thought, helping to block out the things that bothered them. For others, it might make them feel like flying, or laughing, or any number of other delightful sensations.
A dreamberry could also release a Wolfrider from the Now of Wolfthought, and allow them to remember things in a sort of lucid vision. Pike had been munching the fruit since the sun went down, and with the full moons out to light up the sky, his visions interpreted the movement of the clouds as a backdrop for the recounted tales he recalled.
Visions of wolves and elves taking down great stags, an elf-cub stalking their first squirrel, a howl for Chiefs of old around the Father Tree… the swirling mists danced before him as he recounted each tale. Tonight, however, he was not telling stories to the others, nor was he worrying about who he would share the tree with in the morning. He was in search of a particular tale that was hardly retold, something odd and scary, something that had happened to him on a night just like this.
There was a reason storytellers called them ‘dreamberries’, in that such memories washed over them much like a normal dream, and one could not assertively grasp the tale as it played out without it dissolving like the fog under a hot sun. A storyteller’s talent was more than to just gulp ripe dreamberries and remember, but to allow the story to flow through them without hanging on to it. Pike was a master at letting his mind wander where it may. Even now, his personal quest for that particular memory from his youth was as far from his mind as possible, the focus of such a thought able to shatter the recollections rippling before him in the clouds.
The wispy clouds shimmered, a double circle forming in the gossamer around the moons, nearly like a rainbow. In his mind, old Pike remembered….
---
The sound had started ever so subtle, surging louder and louder, causing the rest of the forest to hush. Pike had been half asleep in a different berry patch, face and fingers stained with juice. The sound was almost pleasant, reminding him then of… what? At the time, he had not experienced anything quite like it, yet it was hauntingly familiar.
Unalarmed, he had propped himself up on one elbow to look around for its source. Blades of long grass poked him in the eye and stuck to juice drying on his cheek. He blinked at the grass a few times before giving in and using his other, limp, hand to brush the grass from his eyelashes. He couldn’t be sure what he was seeing!
A light flashed against the dark woods, floating in the air. It would wink away from vision as if nothing was there, then fade back brighter than before. Moments later, a shape he had never seen accompanied the light, reflecting both the light atop it and the light of the moons. Straight lines connecting with others in a strange pattern he could not describe. It was as unlike anything he could remember seeing, aside from the straight lines of the poles of the human dwellings, but those poles leaned up against themselves, whereas this… ‘thing’s lines were either aligned with the ground or straight up from the ground towards the sky. In any case, the oddest thing was that Pike felt safe, whether it was the dreamberries calming him or the sound calling to him he couldn’t say, but he simply laid there, watching as this unnatural object appeared in front of him.
The sound went away, and for a while, nothing happened. Pike blinked, wondering if this was just another dreamberry-vision. Unknowable symbols marked blocks here and there, lines and curves tracing zones of light and dark colors. Pike discovered that, while one hand continued to hold his head up, he had once again filled his free hand with berries from the tree he had been laying under, and without pulling his eyes from this oddity, shoved the handful in his mouth.
A portion of the thing moved, creating an opening with a rather loud creak.
A five-fingered… well, human as far as Pike could tell, stumbled through the opening, chuckling while he spoke.
“…and I’ll have to warn you, just don’t mention the tremendous mole under his right eye, he’s a little… well… self conscious about it, but for now just enjoy the courtyard of…” As the human took as step out of the thing, he looked around confused, his voice trailed off. “…Leeds Castle…”
A human female followed the male. Pike noted the strange coverings the two wore were unlike anything he could relate to. Somehow, even though these were five-fingered humans, he didn’t feel the visceral fear that even a scenting usually evoked. It might be the dreamberries keeping him calm, but, he realized, the dreamberries could be causing this vision as well. This must be something caused by one too many dreamberries… they were speaking in his own language!
“Two full moons! How cool, …I’m guessing NOT the courtyard of Leeds Castle?” the male’s companion commented, smiling as though this wasn’t all that unusual.
The male replied while looking casually around, “Definitely not… in fact, I’m not quite sure where this is, and that’s unusual of itself.”
“Trouble?” the female asked.
“No, no, no, of course not! …Well, maybe… …possibly…. We do seem to end up in the thick of it just when we could do the most good, right?” the male replied. “Let’s find out!” he added, to which the female giggled and the pair took a few steps away from the ‘thing with an opening’.
Up until that moment, it didn’t seem as though the humans noticed Pike, nor that they were in the middle of a dark forest at night with all sorts of creatures that could easily outrun a human for a nice mid-night snack. For Pike, this was hardly a concern. Even in a dreamberry-induced haze, he could scent a bear or boar well before they became a threat, and bounce off into the trees before they even came close. A human, on the other hand, wouldn’t stand a chance.
The male nonchalantly strolled through the clearing in a random direction near Pike, who figured the berry bush must obscure him enough (or that indeed, this was just a vision). The male eventually did, however, turn and look straight at Pike with a friendly look on his face and say “Well, hello there! Could you be so kind as to tell us where we are?”
Pike blinked, then swallowed the mouthful of berries he had been slowly sucking the juice out of. His visions never talked to him! Perhaps the human (no wait, the wind changed… there was something not quite human about this creature’s scent, beyond the fact he didn’t smell like anything that had lived anywhere near a forest) was talking to the bush? Stay still? Bolt into a dead run? They had no rocks or spears… he could outrun them easily as long as they didn’t get a hand on him….
“I’m not going to hurt you. We’re from… far away…” he started.
“…the Forest Elders…” the female added, trying to help. Somehow, this seemed like it didn’t come out as intended.
“…eh.. yeah, anyway, so, again, whereabouts are we?” the male resumed. After another moment of Pike’s silence, he extended his hand and added, “Oh, by the way, I’m The Healer. And this is Thornflower.”
Both of their eyes were on Pike, there was no doubt they knew he was there. He now had two humans within arm’s length in front of him, and a rather large dreamberry bush at his back. Still feeling energized by the dreamberries, he rapidly became more or less sobered by the realization that he was trapped by humans! Still, they weren’t trying to hurt him… yet.
He decided to try and talk his way out. For now, they were only asking questions, it seemed, however strange that was. He cleared his sticky throat. “The large dreamberry patch, a day’s walk towards ‘sun goes down’ from the… human camp…?” He found it odd to have to refer to the human camp to tell humans where they were.
“Good, good. Just checking… Would you mind if I also asked ‘when’ it is? Or what ‘planet’ we are on?
He also found it odd that these humans had a greater mastery over his own language than he did, speaking words, in his own language, which he had never heard of. Whatever could be a ‘planet’? It also seemed strange to be asked ‘when’ it was, especially since the female already commented on the moons overhead. Perhaps they meant what season it was? It still seemed foolish. Perhaps these humans were too stupid or odd to be with the others, and they were cast out. Humans were known to banish their own for strange reasons.
Still, these humans hadn’t done anything more threatening than stand there and talk. When was the last time any human just… talked? “Uh… its two moons after the Newgreen… I have no idea what a ‘planet’ is.” Pike’s eyes darted around him. His weapon was too far away to reach and, in the other direction, the closest tree was just as far away. ‘The Healer’, as he referred to himself, noticed Pike’s nervousness and backed away a bit.
This actually did calm Pike a little, but added the questions he had about these beings. ‘Thornflower’ definitely smelled human, but The Healer definitely had a different smell… Not terrifically different, but different nonetheless. The pair murmured to each other, as though as to keep Pike from hearing, but his sense of hearing was far better than that.
“Is he a child? He looks like an Elf!” Thornflower inquired.
The Healer chuckled slightly at this. “He does at that, if ever I saw one, but keep those comments to yourself. In the 23rd century, humans meet another race with pointed ears and the term ‘elf’ becomes derogatory across the galaxy. We have no idea where or when we are, or how he might react to the term. In any case, I doubt he’s a child. He somehow seems… ”
Pike sat up as he listened in. A hand absentmindedly plucked another dreamberry from a branch that brushed his head. Casually, he had swept a foot under his rump as he moved, placed so he could leap to his spear easier. He tried to wipe some of the juice from his face, as it kind of felt silly to have a smudged face in the presence of these strangers, but between the sticky dried juice, the sudden movement after laying for so long, and the half a bush of berries he’d eaten that night, his arm seemed very clumsy, jerking as he moved it. The humans seemed to forget he was there for the moment while they were chatting away, so he continued to readjust his stance, moving out from the bush, closer to his spear. He felt more and more confident he could reach it before they could grab him.
It had been such a good evening too. The hunt the night before had been good, plenty of meat to spare for days to come. The dreamberries were so ripe, the human tribe had been content… nothing to disturb his tasty treat…
The Healer turned back to Pike, was still talking to Thornflower (who, in Pike’s opinion, didn’t look anything like a flower, though she was a bit better to look at than most of the humans Pike had seen.) “…primitive, in a way, but I have a feeling we are actually seeing quite an example of a quite advanced race…” He addressed Pike now. “May I ask what your name is, good fellow?” he asked.
Though it was good to meet a human that didn’t immediately try to kill him, capture him, or refer to him as ‘Demon’, humans
always attacked wolfriders! He chose a creative way to punctuate his answer.
“Pike!” he exclaimed as he leaped for his spear, grabbed it on the roll and returned to his feet crouching, holding his spear defensively as he backed away from them.
The Healer sighed and put his hands up in surrender, trying to seem less intimidating. The hard part was that he appeared human, and this alone was intimidating, even if he was a little on the small side for a human. Thornflower appeared to use The Healer as a shield, backing behind him, but raising her hands as well. “Now look,” said The Healer. “We don’t want to hurt you, have we done something to frighten you?”
Pike was almost a leap away from the underbrush of the forest that surrounded this clearing. A step or two more and he would decide if he’d leave them far behind or stay and try to puzzle out why the strange couple were here or what they were trying to do. “You’re humans. That’s enough to be scared of.” The look on their faces was almost enough to make Pike regret being so gruff with them. Almost. He had been having a good evening before they showed up.
The Healer’s eye twitched, as though he took slight offense and slight complement to being called ‘human’, somehow at the same time. He paused, seeming to think about how he could say something to calm Pike.
Finally he said, “I don’t know if this helps, but we are from quite a long ways away. What have humans here done to you to make you fear them so?” For the moment, Pike decided he wouldn’t make that final leap out of the clearing. The Healer appeared to truly wish to understand, as though he really wasn’t from nearby.
For now, Pike tried to generalize and not blame these two in front of him. “For as long as any wolfrider can remember, humans have hunted us, tortured us, and have tried to kill us all. They leave the woods from time to time, but they always come back and try to kill us.”
The Healer’s eyes got big, and blew out a deep breath in a silent whistle. One of his hands rubbed his temple and stretched his skin as it slid down his jaw. A tear seemed to be welling up in his eyes. “Thornflower, it appears we have indeed landed in the thick of it once again. It would probably be a good time to leave this good fellow in peace and find our way to a location closer to home, shall we?”
Pike didn’t try to stop them, but Cutter and several other hunters on wolf-back did. As The Healer turned to make his way back to the ‘thing with an opening’, he found his way blocked by half of Pike’s tribe. <You’re safe, Pike> Cutter sent to Pike. <Did he harm you?>
“And you must be the rest of the ‘Wolf Riders’!” commented The Healer. “Apt name, that. You actually do ride wolves! How delightful!” Cutter’s New Moon shimmered in the moonlight as he motioned with it. “All right, all right, we’ll come along. No need to get rough.”
Cutter led them to another clearing, seemingly begrudgingly. These humans were already so close to the Holt it was likely they knew where it was anyway, even when Pike sent his caution that these humans were unlike any they had met before, and were perhaps ‘safe’. Nevertheless, at this point it was nearly morning and none of the tribe needed to be away from the Holt in the daylight.
The Healer’s eyes widened again as he saw the Father Tree. The Wolfriders made no efforts to keep the pair away from the massive tree, so he took the opportunity to study it. The boles of dens, the warped grain of the wood… he seemed amazed at the work the Treeshapers had done.
Thornflower sat down at the base of the Father Tree as The Healer looked it over. He took a small stick out of a pouch in his clothes and pointed it at the tree. It glowed blue when he turned it on, and this seemed harmless enough, but the ear-piercing scream it emitted caused several tribes-mates to collapse, trying to jam their hands in their ears. The Healer stopped immediately after noticing its effect on them, and put his hands up once again in surrender. Cutter dashed out, sword drawn, and retrieved the object.
“I am so, so sorry! I had no idea your ears were so sensitive. My apologies!” He remained completely compliant as Strongbow pushed him down next to Thornflower.
Thornflower whispered to him, “Anything?” to which The Healer whispered back, “Nope, ‘noisy twister’ doesn’t do wood. Still, I thought maybe there was a chance. By the way, I think they can hear us whispering. Their hearing is exceptional.”
Cutter looked the object over. It looked a bit like what the Trolls might create: brightmetal and gems, smooth lines and minor protrusions throughout. In a way, it seemed even more ornate than what a Troll might produce. Cutter sheathed his sword and carefully held the object as he saw The Healer hold it, and slowly moved his fingers as he had noted. A portion of the device slid, and a low warble started to chirp from it. He quickly slid the device back to where it wouldn’t make a sound, and tucked it into his belt next to New Moon.
<What did he call himself again?> he sent to Pike.
<’The Healer’> Pike replied.
<A human that can heal? Another name for a Shaman, more like.> Strongbow commented. Even in the Now of Wolfthought, Crescent’s death was still fresh to him, and he itched to release an arrow into this ‘Healer’s’ chest.
<I’m not sure that he is actually fully human.> Pike noted, sending a memory of The Healer’s scent along with the thought. <She is, but he doesn’t smell… right.>
Cutter walked back up to The Healer and got a sniff for himself. “What are you? It seems you aren’t as human as you appear.” His hand remained on the hilt of New Moon, but this creature in front of him didn’t make any kind of threatening move.
“I’m what is called a ‘Time Lord’, and I came here in a TARDIS, to explore and help out if I can.” Replied The Healer. “This is Thornflower, and she came here with me. She isn’t from this planet, and doesn’t mean you any harm either.”
<There’s that word again, ‘planet’. How can he speak our language better than we can?> sent Pike.
<Good question. Skywise, you have any idea what he means?> Cutter asked.
<I’m not sure. I get a sense that he means a kind of place, that we live on a ‘planet’ and she comes from another ‘planet’, but it could mean any kind of place: holts, forests, or something bigger or farther away. We don’t know how far the forest and plains go beyond what we have seen.> Skywise was really stretching at this. It was so much jabber to those like Strongbow.
<So what do we do with them> Dewshine inquired. <Other than the noise, they haven’t done anything to us.>
<We can’t do much right now with the sun up. Let them sit there for now. I’ll speak with them and think about it with Pike and Skywise, the rest of you get some sleep.> Cutter then had Pike relate to him everything he saw, and what he was doing alone in the berry patch, even though this hardly needed an explaination.
He pulled the device he had taken from The Healer and held it up in front of its owner. “What is this, what does it do, other than hurt ears?”
The Healer had been watching the tribesmates stand, respond and move in silence, and had mentioned to Thornflower the single word ‘telepathy’, to which she had nodded. Now, he replied to Cutter’s question. “It’s a ‘Noisy Twister’, and is usually harmless. Well, mostly harmless. Well, sort of. Anyway, normally, I can use it as a tool for doing all sorts of things, but as there is little machinery around here it’s about worthless, really. It doesn’t do wood.”
Cutter felt he could believe him, but put the ‘noisy twister’ back into his belt. “I can see why you call it ‘noisy’, but what does it ‘twist’?”
<Other than one’s ears!> snarked Skywise.
The Healer made a face, confused for a moment. Thornflower covered a smile, almost laughing. The Healer recovered, though, and replied, “I’m guessing the TARDIS’s translation isn’t working quite right. A ‘twister’ is a tool that can do… well, nothing you’d really need to do in a forest like this, I guess. Unless your sword’s handle had a nut come loose or something.” He seemed to get lost in thought, trying to convey an idea that had no reference.
“You call yourself The Healer. Can you heal injuries?” Cutter asked.
“I’m not sure what you mean. I have a rather novel method of healing if I get hurt too badly, but I don’t think that is what you mean.” He replied, seeing Cutter squint at him.
Cutter set back from the pair, sitting under the Father Tree in front of them on the ground, hugging his knees while he thought about things. A stinger drifted by in the sunlight, and he recalled a lesson he learned as a youth. After being chased by a bear following the retrieval of a stinger nest, he was sent on a digger hunt by his mother and Treestump. You had to look through the surface of words to get to the meaning, sometimes. <Perhaps he doesn’t truly speak our language, but has some form of magic changing the words between them and us, and it’s not working right> he sent to the other two.
Pike agreed. <I think that thing he came out of is what he calls ‘TARDIS’, and it must have something to do with his magic, if he has any.>
Skywise had a thought. <So he calls himself a ‘Healer’ and isn’t human… perhaps he’s another elf, shape-changed to look like a human?>
Pike liked this idea, but Cutter wasn’t sure. <Why wouldn’t he tell us if he was?>
<Perhaps he doesn’t want the human to know> observed Skywise.
Cutter eyed The Healer. Carefully, he directed a sending at the figure in front of him. <Can you send?>
Apparently Cutter sent a little loudly. As The Healer flinched and made a face like he had been punched in the face, Nightfall’s voice carried over from the far side of the Father Tree, “Of course, silly!”
The Healer blinked, and tried. <…like this?>
<He is an elf!> exclaimed Pike, relaxing quite a bit more than he thought he might.
Cutter still wasn’t convinced. <Why not tell us who you really are?>
The sending from The Healer fluttered. He was still not accustomed to it. Accidentally, he ended up lock-sending with Cutter, and a massive amount of information poured into Cutter’s head. Cutter quickly found himself regretting he had asked ‘Healer Who?’ Images of fighting metal creatures of all kinds, trying in vain to help others at times, a swirling windstorm that wasn’t wind, loneliness, fear, reason, doubt and more poured forth. The closest thing Cutter had to compare it with was when he had Recognized Skywise and suddenly understood all that he had been, but at that time they had both been young. This creature was old… at least close to the same age as Cutter’s sire had been, but he had seen and done so much! The strangeness of the sights and smells, the memories pouring through the link… Cutter was overwhelmed, and closed his mind against it.
Pike gasped, “A… High One?”
The Healer seemed to be reeling from the lock-sending as well. He looked back at Cutter, then at Skywise and Pike, struggling to make sense of what he had seen. Apparently, in his attempt to send a reply with Cutter, he had tried to conceal part of himself in the process, not knowing that among Elves, there is only truth in sending. His inexperience had caused him to locksend with the whole tribe, and the link worked both ways: He had seen into each Wolfrider’s mind just as they had seen his.
Heads poked out from around the tree. Questions were sent at Cutter from most of the tribe, and he had to cut through it all. <For now, everyone stop sending, we don’t know what’s going on.>
Thornflower looked back and forth between The Healer and Cutter. Whatever had just happened, she had not been exposed to it. Her concern for The Healer was plain on her face. He urged, “I’m ok! Their telepathy is just a whole different level than anything I’ve experienced. It’s taking a moment to sort through it all.
Cutter decided to take no more chances with sending. “Are you a High One?” he asked.
The Healer sorted through all those things he had seen from within the Wolfrider’s minds, trying to be clear about what Cutter was asking and what a true answer was. “That isn’t an easy answer. No, I am not one of your High-Ones, but to a degree I fit the definition of one, it would seem.”
Chatter rolled through the Holt as a dozen elfin voices discussed this. No one would be getting back to sleep. The Healer paused, still thinking, before stating “You really are amazing creatures aren’t you? An advanced race, thrown back into a primitive way of living, with just a touch of wolf…” he shook his head, still amazed at what he had experienced. “I think…” He cut himself off, his own memory settling down hard on his jubilation at this discovery of creatures nearly as complex as he was, but living such a clean, simple life. He began again. “I think, though, that I cannot be any relation to your High-Ones, as good as that might be.” His sadness came on sudden, without any apparent cause.
Skywise blurted out, “PLANETS! I get it!” His eyes got wide as slivers of what he had seen clicked in with the mysteries of his beloved stars.
Cutter’s head whipped over at his soul’s brother, who looked sheepish, having been lost in his own thoughts. Pike was reviewing The Healer’s images and memories with the talent of a storyteller, the Dreamberries almost worn off, but enough left for him to work his magic.
He threaded the pieces together, linking the jittery pieces together one by one. This ‘Healer’ existed, wherever and whenever he was, in worlds beyond comprehension, and Pike’s goal was not to try and make sense of precisely
what happened, but why. Who was this ‘Healer’, and what did he mean to the tribe?
Cutter, on the other hand, would have loved to ponder what all this meant, but he had the pressing issue of keeping the Tribe safe. This person possibly held a part of each Wolfrider’s soul-name! The threat from humans was simple and clear: they hated elves, pure and simple, and they had simple tools to effect their hatred at them. They had no magic, no way to harm them, other than to throw a rock, or swing a stick. This ‘Time Lord’ knew such a vast array of things that could harm or kill other creatures, and now had part of a handle on Cutter’s innermost self! This was far more terrifying that getting treed by a bear… and it was debatable as to whether Madcoil had been better or worse.
The Healer came to his own realization. “Uh, Thornflower? We need to go. Now.”
“How?” She asked simply, knowing that there was no simple answer to the question.
Cutter drew New Moon. He did not know how to defend against one who could possibly control him through his soul name, but a drawn sword was easier to defend himself with than a sheathed one. “What will you do? You say you are a friend, but we have seen how much harm you have caused. How can we be safe from you?”
The sadness on The Healer’s face deepened, as though this was a question he asked himself time and time again. He took a deep breath and resolved himself. Thinking for a moment, at sword-point, a spark showed in his eyes. “I think I might have a solution. You will have to let me go back to my TARDIS, though. The very same translation circuit that has been causing some minor confusion might help me set things right—give you your privacy back.”
Cutter squinted his eyes at him. “And how do we know this is what you will do?”
“To be honest, I want my privacy back as well. There are many things ‘The Healer’ is and is not, and it is not something that needs to be floating around somewhere in time and space… I’m enough of that already!” he joked with himself. Skywise appeared to chuckle along with him, but Cutter was not amused.
Cutter grunted. “Ok, then. I’d suggest you get some sleep. The day is long in this season, and we will take you back to your ‘TARDIS’ at nightfall.
Pike took up his spear and shook off the last of his dreamberry-daze, prepared to stand guard. It didn’t help that he had so many questions to ask, the mystery of the story unsolved, but at the same time because the core of that mystery was not obvious (and one of them
was a human, however much more attractive she was growing the more he saw her), his was fully on his guard.
The morning passed in silence, The Healer and Thornflower whispering quietly back and forth to each other. This was not out of the desire to not be overheard by the elves, but rather to respect their desire to remain hidden from the other humans. Occasionally, they could hear the pack moving around inside the Father Tree through the wood, and once or twice, they thought they heard the repetitious knocking of a pair in lovemaking.
This made the female blush a small bit, but she still quietly asked Pike, “Is it normal for your… er… wolfriders to carry on like this all day?”
Pike had been following the conversation between the two of them, and understood what she meant. “Treeing with each other? Absolutely. With Strongbow and I on watch, there is little reason they should deny themselves if they feel like it.” Pike acted like it was a silly question, like asking why the sky was blue or why the stingers made hives, but he had watched the human village before, and noticed that the humans treated such joining as though they needed to be kept in secret. He didn’t understand it, but he did get some humor in making Thornflower as uncomfortable about it as possible. “Why, were you wanting to join in?”
The Healer bit his lip, trying not to laugh. Thornflower’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Now Thornflower, he is quite a bit older than you, quit flirting!” The Healer verbally jabbed at her.
She hauled back and punched him in the shoulder. “I am NOT flirting with him… and it not like you’re so young yourself!”
“Exactly! I know how you are with older men!” The Healer helped Pike tag-team Thornflower in jest.
<SILENCE down there!> Cutter’s sending cut through the humor much like his sword sliced through fresh meat. <I don’t really care what’s so funny, but we do not want to bring the humans here… any more humans that we already have, that is.>
The Healer had to nudge Thornflower to get her to stop. She still thought he was flirting back with her, so she pushed back. He held his finger up to his mouth in an odd gesture, then pointed at his head, then at the tree, where Cutter had disappeared. She finally understood.
The rest of the day was so still, a deer wandered through the Holt. Strongbow sent to Cutter, asking if he thought they could handle the kill in silence without jeopardizing the Tribe with The Healer and Thornflower escaping. Cutter sent to Pike, who was fully alert and ready to cut them off if they tried anything.
Strongbow’s bolt flew through the air and dropped the deer as silently and quickly as hundreds of seasons of hunting would imply. Cutter and Treestump were down and out of the tree almost as quickly, working quickly to skin and cut the animal up. Instead of inviting the rest of the tribe down to expose them in the daylight, they took turns carrying meat to each tribes-mate. What little was left of the deer after they were done with it was cleaned up by Nightrunner.
The Healer watched all this with keen interest, even though he had ‘seen’ the same scenario in the memories of each Elf. He had felt an impression of ‘the Now of Wolfthought’ and allowed himself to now feel what the others were feeling: the joy of a successful hunt, even if this particular hunt came to them. There was no brutality, or meanness, but a sense of honor towards the prey animal: it died so the tribe could live.
Thornflower, on the other hand, slept though the whole thing, cuddled up against The Healer with his arm around her. She slept until Nightrunner had had his fill and decided to plop down next to her, his great bloody muzzle resting in her lap, mildly staining her jeans.
She awoke startled, and nearly screamed. Pike chuckled at the whole thing and hissed “Bad wolf, Nightrunner… Bad wolf!” The look on the Healer’s face was hard to read.
After that, the day went by quickly. Annoyingly, the insect life changed to more parasitic varieties and the color left the flowers and other scenery. It was time for The Healer to get to work. As the moons started to rise, one by one, the wolfriders dropped down out of the tree.
Cutter asked Pike, “Are you still on your feet? Want to sleep off the day?”
“Naw, I’m good. I want to see the end of this story,” replied the storyteller.
Cutter, Pike, Skywise, and Strongbow led The Healer and Thornflower back to the dreamberry patch. Cutter had been thinking about the scenario all day. Realizing that The Healer intended to, at some time, disappear the same way he had arrived, there was a good chance the pair would simply leave if he allowed them to go back into their ‘TARDIS’ together alone. While this would mean they would be rid of them for now, this Healer had part of his tribe’s soul names, and could come back just as easily to cause more havoc. He hated to do it, but there was a solution to the problem.
When they arrived at the berry patch, he stood between the pair to stop them. “I don’t like doing this, but I want to be sure my tribe is free. Thornflower will stay with us until you have fixed this… whatever it is that has happened.
The Healer looked at Thornflower and asked her if she would be ok with this, and she nodded. She didn’t seem to fear that these short but deadly creatures would betray them at all, that she was in any danger.
Pike piped up, though. “Cutter, may I go with The Healer? To watch what he’s doing?” He had already snuck a few berries as they had walked by a bush, and Cutter half wondered if it was an excuse to eat them out of sight of the others.
“Go ahead, I guess” Cutter replied, rolling his eyes. <but don’t become a hostage in the process!>
Pike tossed the berries in his mouth and started sucking on them as he followed The Healer into the TARDIS.
He instantly regretted it. The dreamberries were messing with his head again, because there was no way a den of this size was inside the blue thing called a ‘TARDIS’. He went ahead and looked around, figuring he looked silly, but he kept his mouth shut to keep from drawing attention to his impaired vision.
The Healer was grinning near a oversized glowing mushroom. “Go ahead, say it!”
Pike wasn’t sure what he should say; the dreamberries were mixing with exhaustion, and he couldn’t be quite sure what he was seeing. Leafless trees seemed to hold up a cave ceiling, a large mushroom glittered with lights and unrecognizable things, and the lot of it was too big to fit in such a small thing such as that he had entered. Trusting that the lights were real, and sensing that The Healer was proud of something here, he tried answering “Pretty lights?”
The Healer almost deflated, disappointed that some particular thing had gone unnoticed. He shrugged it off, though, and began making laps around the mushroom, poking and prodding it here and there, mumbling to himself such things as “…the mid-stage Wordshaper circuit, cross-fed into the final-stage Color-Lizard circuit, manipulated by the When-matrix…” and “…now, if I’m clever enough, I should now be able to use this ‘Now of Wolf-Thought’ combined with my telepathy to reverse the lock-send…”
Pike felt slow. The lack of sleep was surely aiding the dreamberries. It sure seemed as though The Healer acted like he should know what he meant, but it was too much to follow. He just hoped he wasn’t going to end up with some part of a ‘lizard’ as some part of him.
The Healer joyfully moved braches that seemed to be growing out of the top of the mushroom, twisted oversize glowing beetles, and pounded on bits of misshapen brightmetal. At one point, skyfire danced between two snaky vines he tried to push end to end (apparently the snakes or vines didn’t like each other), and a cloud rose above the mushroom. The Healer seemed to shrug this off and grab a different set of vines and push them together. The vines lit up and he smiled satisfactorily before continuing on with some more nonsense.
He finally finished talking to himself and turned, grinning as he tugged on one more branch. “And now…!” he told Pike as he snapped the branch down and over. Pike raised an eyebrow in question, just before slumping over unconscious.
---
Pike tossed another berry into his mouth, the rough tree bark somehow felt comforting in his current dreamberry daze. That was it, the story he had been trying to remember for so long. They had all forgotten that time of his youth. But why? Obviously, the human female and the Healer hadn’t harmed them. Pike would have thought that a pair of humans, or near-humans, that were not cruel or hateful to Elves would have been something worth remembering! What could have kept the memory so far from their minds?
He knew dreams, and stories, and memories. He knew how to use his gift so much better than when he was younger. He grabbed another handful of berries and crushed five of them in his mouth. He continued to stare at the moons and the clouds, and let them dance for him. There was more to this story, and he would find out what it was.
Storytellers had a gift as magical as healing or rockshaping, and that was the ability to pull stories of what happened in the past into the now, keeping the detail as rich and full as when it had happened. Pike had come to realize that this was not because the storyteller was actually recalling the story from memory, but from time itself! A sliver of the past could be opened up and read, without the storyteller having ever been there. This is how he could recount tales of Goodtree or Two-Spear, Finder or Tanner, without a detail missed, and without ever having witnessed the tale himself: he could watch it happen in the forest around him, in the glow-flies drifting through the air, the leaves shaking in the breeze, and in the clouds dancing in the sky….
---
The Healer’s smile turned to shock and dismay as Pike slumped over.
He raced over to the unconscious figure, fearing the worst. He checked for a pulse, then brushed Pike’s forehead as his mind brushed the elf’s. He sighed in of relief, then gathered up the diminutive wolfrider and his weapon, and carried him out of the TARDIS. He kicked open the doors and walked outside, expecting to see the other’s reaction to a non-responsive tribes-mate.
To his surprise, the other three wolfriders were also out cold, and Thornflower stood looking at him, worried.
He smiled at her and told her, “They’re fine, just fine. A little better than fine, actually. Slight power fluctuation ended up erasing the whole last day’s memories.”
“That’s horrible! I know I’d hate to have a whole day of my life erased!” she balked.
“No, no. You should see things from their perspective: These little, dear wolfriders are nearly immortal. Their chief’s father” he motioned to Cutter. “was possibly older than me when he met his death defending his tribe, and in his position I wouldn’t have done any different!” Looking at the wolfrider chief reminded him to retrieve his ‘noisy twister’.
He set Pike down carefully, and made sure the others were safe while he mused about setting them in some humorous arrangement, giving them something to talk about when they awaken. “But they think like the wolves they ride: each day, each moment, is sharp and clear, vibrant and exciting, but yesterday, the past, is a faded dream. They will no more miss a day erased from their memory than any other day they might remember, because they don’t!”
Thornflower had a quizzical look on her face, and started making her way back to the TARDIS as she said, “That’s sad, is there something we could do for them, to fix this forgetfulness?”
“They wouldn’t want it fixed. It’s part of who they are, part of what they are. Think of it this way: remember when you were little, and a day went on forever? Five minutes might as well have been an eternity, and nearly every experience was fresh and new?” he asked her.
“Yeah, a bit, I think I can remember that, and I wouldn’t give that memory up.” She replied.
“I’m not saying they don’t remember their youth, or don’t remember lessons learned, but all the mundane stuff, all the daily grind stuff that bores you, that makes the day seem so short at the end of it… they don’t have that. They see the world as a 5 year old does: everything is new and fresh at all times! Each tree is like a new friend you meet at the playground for the first time, and even though that tree will be there tomorrow, it will be a new friend tomorrow too.” The Healer was excited, as these wolfriders came as close to experiencing what he did on a daily basis. He understood them as though they were family.
“Is this what you saw when you did the mind thing with them today?”
He replied, “It was that and more. So much more. When these beings reproduce, they become each-other for a moment. They bond more completely than any human, or Time Lord, or mechanical monster could ever comprehend, and that bond stays with them forever. I saw a glimpse of that bond today.”
She looked at him and asked him directly what was bothering her. “And that is what they wanted you to reverse, that bond between you and them?”
After they had both entered the TARDIS, she shut the door, and The Healer started reversing the modifications he had made earlier, while setting in the new destination.
“They have much to fear from these bonds.” He explained, “Their soul’s mate that they eventually recognize as part of themselves become as completely part of them as their hand, or their head, or their heart… and just as one could bind them to a tree by their foot, someone who had control of their innermost self, call it their soul’s name, could bind a wolfrider to whatever torment they wished, should they be so unkind.”
He finished repairs and activated the TARDIS. “I had been hoping that removing the partial bond to me from their minds, using their ‘Now of Wolf Thought’, would also release me from them, that I would forget what I had seen of them. It seems a Time-Lord must be a bit more careful though, as it seems we can’t forget even an accidental trespassing into another’s soul. It would be grand if I never return, so I can never harm them again.”
The TARDIS then faded from view, and left the Elves in peace.
---
The daughter moon’s image was broken by tree branches, and in a way it looked like that caged light atop the TARDIS. Old Pike smiled once more, and popped another berry into his mouth and laughed a little.
If only that Healer knew the rest of the story. he thought.
If only he knew…. 
Sounds intriguing - I'll need more time to read. Much more time than I have right now. I suggest to link to this story from the grab-bag thread ... those free loating spirits tend to get lost without a leach. ^^
Cutter totally acts as chief and all the other characters arre well put - especially Skywise's "scientific" interest. 
