The Tooth Of The Na'qua Bear
Rating:
PG
Warnings: None.
Disclaimer: No profit is being made from this story. Lucas owns
Maul, the concept belongs to Dark Lady.
Summary: Young Khameir Sarin's father, who is also called Khameir, has
come home for a while...
Feedback to: dark-lady@blueyonder.co.uk
The child was tired and excited. His father had not been home for long. He was excited by his very presence, and the thought of the things they would do together. He slept a long dreamless sleep, his father's words at supper echoing again and again in his mind.
"We will go to the lake tomorrow, boy, and fish. What say you?"
'Oh yes!' thought the boy. 'Oh yes!'
The Zabrak warrior, newly home on leave from his posting, strolled the white sands at the edge of the lake, fishing line in hand and tunic thrown over his shoulder, while his young son darted from here to there, looking keenly for treasures thrown up onto the beach. Anything different, anything new, it would be picked up,
scrutinised, perhaps carried home for further examination. If there was anything strange he would ask searching and perceptive questions, wanting to know the 'why' of it, the 'how' of it, and the very reason for it's existence on this Southern Continent of Iridonia.
The boy was a strange child for a five year old. While physically small and lean, he was very wiry and strong, of an impatient nature, and most imaginative, inquisitive, curious about everything he came upon in his small universe. He was also quiet, brooding, introspective and with few friends, and with a serious demeanour about him.
At the moment his small universe included his home, the local town, the lake, the mountains surrounding the lake, and but few people. From all the things surrounding him, his quick and enquiring mind drew all the knowledge he could. He would scour the Iridonian net to find the names and species of the bugs that lived in his mother's small garden; the names and uses of the plants she grew, suggesting new ones. His father's old books stored on big silver disks - themselves a family treasure - were carefully searched for whatever he found of interest at the moment.
In the coming months the child's universe would grow again, as he must soon start his military training, being of the warrior caste, but for now, he was a child; absorbed with the things of a child, and with the pure uncluttered mind of a child.
The child squatted down on his heels, poking at something in the fine sand of the shore, using his slender red and black striped hand to brush the sand away from the object, the claws to prise whatever it was out of the sand. The small bag he used to carry his treasures home was clutched in his right hand. The bag was already full, and his father idly wondered whether in coming years, the size of the bag must increase so that it grew to the size of the boy. If it did, perhaps then it must be dragged home upon a repulsor-lift carriage after one of his regular forays to the lake. The thought amused him, and the corners of his mouth crinkled into a smile as he wandered over to the boy, enquiring as to what absorbed him so.
"So, what have you found, boy?" as he squatted down beside him.
The boy grinned broadly, showing his gappy pointed childhood fangs as he did so, and held up what appeared to be a curved piece of stone. Curious, the father took it, and held what
looked to be a smooth curved tusk, about the length of his smallest finger, but it was almost crystalline with age. The pointed end was not quite sharp, the thicker end was fibrous where the bone was not yet totally replaced by the stone. It looked very old, very old indeed.
The child looked from the stone, to his father, to the stone again. "What is it
papaw? It looks like a claw. Is it a claw?"
"More like a tooth, boy." The cautious warrior in him surfaced and the father quickly looked around him although he could smell nothing of bear and there was no spoor hereabouts. The Na'Qua bear, which was notoriously ferocious and a cold-blooded killer, normally spent the summer season in the foothills, catching the fish which swarmed in the streams above the lake. However, exceptions were known and it paid to be careful - for this reason he always carried a blaster and a communications unit with him when out by this lake.
The tooth was placed in the bag with the other pieces of flotsam and jetsam so carefully carried, and the pair fished at their favourite spot. The father gave the boy his own first line, and the child proudly cast the baited hook into the lake, just as his father did.
That evening, his mother, equally proudly, cooked the boys first catch of two fish for supper, and truly, their flavour was most wonderful.
After supper, the boy perched on his father's knee, they surfed the Iridonian net hunting for bear, the boy pointing at the screen, selecting links, searching, choosing, refining further under his father's guidance. Seeing they were engrossed, his mother brought them refreshing drinks made with the juices of tart fruits and herbs from her garden. As she placed his fathers' cup by the wide flat screen, she must lean over the man, and she touched him, and fleetingly brushed the back of his neck with her fingers. His father's skin shivered momentarily at this, and he smiled as he tugged the boy backward to be more secure on his lap.
Then they searched some more, and found the story of fossils, teeth, and bones of strange animals hidden in ancient rocks. "Like a book," his father told him, "a book of the world and its evolution, waiting for us to find it."
"Is the tooth very old, papaw?"
"I think so my boy," was his answer, "and it shows the bears are very ancient, because they have been here in their present form for very much longer than we men."
When time came for bed, the boy slept with the tooth clutched in his hand like a talisman. He was not afraid of anything, for his father was home, but he worried he may lose it…
At breakfast his father was still home. Bliss. After his lessons perhaps he would show him how to bait a hook with a different bait, look for more stories on the net about teeth and bears, perhaps other fierce creatures of their world… All these thoughts ran through his head as he quickly broke his fast, and ate the meat and fruit put out for him.
The tooth did not leave his sight, still he worried he may lose it. He took it with him everywhere. Even at his lessons the tooth was placed on top of the monitor, or carefully on the cushion beside him. When he read to his father, he was asked to spell the word, 'fossil', and tell him the scientific name of the bear. All the time, he was conscious of the tooth, and its crystalline glitter obsessed his mind. He studied how it looked in both sunlight and later, moonlight, turned it in his fingers and made it glint and spark a little… Lost his mind in it for a while…
Seeing his possessiveness and concern for the tooth, his mother asked whether it would become a family treasure like father's books. He thought seriously about this. He knew the books were very old and came from his father's father, thought perhaps the tooth was not quite so precious, but…
She smiled, and late that night, while he was asleep, made him a small and soft leather bag and strung it on a thin leather cord. After his lessons on the following day, she told him where he may find it.
Clutching the bag with the tooth in it, he ran to find his father and show him his treasure safely stowed within the bag his mother had made. Father was leaning by the open door to the garden, watching his mother plant some new seedlings and move the irrigation lines to suit them. There was a slight smile on his father's face as he gazed at the woman, his hands idly playing with a piece of irrigation tubing he had cut for
her earlier.
The woman worked as the man gazed on in silence. The child stopped, puzzled by the moment, and observed, not wanting to break the magic, whatever it was that held his parents. Only the sounds of the birds intruded, small twitterings and warbles from the sere grasses that hid them, and the small stunted trees that harboured them, as she planted, nurtured, watered, and his father watched with a smile.
His mother looked up and met his father's eyes, and the child felt a jolt of wild electricity, of heat, between them. Something beyond his capacity to understand. Then after a long timeless moment, the spell broke, and his mother looked and smiled at him, "So, show it to your father." and went on with her planting. He held out the bag with the cord for approval. His father squatted on his heels by him, asked if he may open the bag, and he nodded eagerly, watched his father retrieve the tooth, and see that he had carefully cleaned it, brushed it free of all the debris and dirt from the lake.
"What will you do with it now, boy?"
"I will wear it round my neck, papaw."
He saw his father was surprised at this. He was not normally possessive about the things he found, and was inclined to quickly dispose of anything once he had exhausted its possibilities, sucked dry every bit of knowledge he could find about it. But he felt this thing was different. He wanted to keep it, there was something about it, something strong and fierce, savage even. It appealed to something deep and dark within his own heart, something he could not name or understand for now.
"Why?"
"Then I will be like the bear." More surprise, but his father did not disallow him, only shook his head and wondered aloud where he found such thoughts.
"This is superstitious nonsense boy!" exclaimed his father as he fastened the bag around his son's neck. "We live in a scientific age, there is no need for this foolishness."
"But I want to be like the bear!" asserted the boy defiantly. His father stared at him, knowing the reputation of the bear as well as he; that it was a cold and efficient killer that struck swiftly without warning, and without mercy, did not tarry and play with its victims.
"Come my boy, we will help your mother." and he gently propelled the boy with him to the side of the woman patiently planting her herbs and fruits, then the warrior knelt to the earth in front of her, helped her plant her seedlings, his fingers intertwining with hers as they both pushed the plants into the warm soft earth.
During the next few days, the bag and its precious contents went everywhere with the boy. It lay against his heart as he slept with the bag clutched in his fingers; rested against him as he ate; and his mother found him sitting in the sun one day, holding the tooth in his hand, turning it slowly in the sun and watching the glints and sparks of sunlight reflected from it.
So absorbed was he, he did not hear her call him until she came behind him and put her hands gently on his shoulders, worried that she may alarm him if she spoke suddenly. He did jump - she wondered whether he was in a trance, had fallen under the spell of the tooth.
She asked what he was doing.
"Listening to it. I think..." His voice trailed off.
"And what does it say to you?"
"It wants to go back."
"Then perhaps it should."
She stroked his head, reminded him of the sun, thought that he was so like his father, whose ways were also sometimes strange.
He was pre-occupied during supper.
After supper he cleared away the few things they had used, watched his father sharpen a knife for his mother and asked many questions about the whetstone, went into the garden and played with a ball until sunset, vanished…
How far? How far could a small boy get before he was missed? He anxiously scanned the path ahead of him, and further on, to the shore of the lake. The child was just visible in the gathering dark, and ever cautious, he grabbed the blaster hidden over the lintel of the door, strapped it on, and started to run.
The boy sat motionless on the shore, the light from the twin moons dancing towards him across the water as they rose through the twin spires of rock at the other side of the lake. In the chill of the evening, he was clad in little but play breeches, yet he seemed not to feel the cold. So far away, his father saw he was sitting cross-legged, hands
on his lap, as if in meditation, and as he started running to him, he saw the bear.
His heart almost stopped with terror for the boy, as he saw there were no trees nearby, no refuge, no sanctuary where his child could hide or wait. The bear shambled closer to the boy, until it was but a few feet from him, and growled. He saw the bear's great jaws open, and in his imagination, he felt the heavy rumble of the growl rather than heard it. Fear and adrenaline lent wings to his feet as he ran for his son's life. He used the Force in his own way, tried to find the thoughts of the bear, turn it from it's intended purpose, but he could find nothing hostile or with killing intent.
As he ran, the bear moved closer to the boy, and sat on its haunches, waiting for something, perhaps for the boy to move. The boy was within reach of the wickedly sharp claws now, should it decide to casually swipe with one of its immense paws. The boy turned, slowly. 'Good,' he thought, 'No sudden movement, my son. No sudden movement, please." And he started to reach for the blaster holstered at his hip.
The boy said something to the bear, which growled a little, and the child removed the small bag holding the tooth from around his neck, slowly emptied it, and put the tooth on the sand between himself and the bear. The bear then moved between him and his child. A clear shot, but he greatly risked harming the boy if the bear moved, or he missed and the body of the injured animal fell onto the unprepared child. He was too far away to be certain of hitting the bear, but he stopped, raised the blaster, took careful aim, decided against it, walked stealthily onward…
The bear scrabbled at the sand, then bent to it, seemed to pick up the tooth in
the great jaws, and took it away from the boy to the edge of the lake. Once there it opened its jaws and dropped it again, stood and looked back at the boy.
He was still too far away to be sure of killing the beast with one clear shot, and the bear was not threatening, if it had been before. The bears behaviour was puzzling, out of character for a creature reckoned to be a wanton killer. He held his fire for the moment.
He could hear the clear high tones of the boy's voice now, as they came faintly to him over the rapidly diminishing space between them. The child got up from the sand, and looked fleetingly at his father. "I will be finished soon, papaw." he called, and he picked up the tooth, and threw it with all the strength he could muster, into the deeps of the lake. The bear looked at the man, looked at the child, and swiftly turned, running in a lumbering fashion along the beach at a speed surprising for one of its bulk.
The bear vanished into the gloom and he sheathed his blaster as he ran up to the boy, bent down resting his hands on his knees, as he regained his breath. "What were you doing boy?" he demanded, desperately trying to remain calm, and not vent his anger and concern upon the child.
"The bear wanted the tooth, papaw." The father knelt and held the child, quickly ran his hands over his slight body looking for injury or hurt. There was none.
"How can a bear want a fossilised tooth?" He hugged the child, held his son close to his heart, His own was thumping wildly, whereas the boy's was smooth, steady, the child was totally unperturbed by what he had experienced.
"It was an ancestor tooth papaw, and it had to go back into the lake with the others." The boy was hesitant, perhaps wondering why his father was so breathless, appeared so worried.
"And how did you know that?" And he kissed his son on his head as he picked him up to carry him home, giving grateful thanks to all the gods he had ever heard the names of, and to the nameless gods of the Na'Qua for that matter.
"It felt like it, papaw."
"You mean you talked to the bear?" He wondered whether the child needed more companionship of his own age.
"Bears can't talk!" The child scoffed at this thought of talking bears.
"Come. Would you like to ride on my shoulders? Then you will be a Prince among bears!"
The child whooped once for joy as his father lifted him upon his broad shoulders, and loped homewards. The boy regaled him with questions once more.
"Shall I be Prince Khameir of the Bears?"
"If you wish, my boy."
"Are Prince bears very big bears?"
"The biggest and fiercest bears of all."
"Have you seen a Prince bear, papaw?"
"Only one, ever, and it was an enormous bear, so big it was the height and a half of a man."
The child considered - for a height and a half of a man such as his father, who was almost a giant in his eyes - this must have been very big indeed; the boy himself was not yet half the height of a man. Then he started on another track.
"Why am I called Khameir?"
And the man who would snatch his child from the slavering jaws of hell bare-handed if it were necessary, laughed, and took him on to the safety of home and the arms of his mother who waited by the open door...
The warrior murmured to his woman as he unfastened the seam of her tunic. "Our boy will be going to school soon, had you thought of another child?" He remembered seeing his son for the first time, the dusky-red squirming infant, so diminutive and perfect, the early shadows of his pattern already darkening on his skin. He would like to see this miracle again.
She tugged at his belt, undid it, pulled it off. He stretched his body along hers, as she thought while reaching for his mouth and putting her hands on his chest, caressing the soft skin, following a pattern downwards with a hand.
"But he must not feel unwanted, he must not think we have got him a brother or sister and put him away from us." she murmured, tracing the pattern now with her long black tongue, smoothing his garments off as she did so. The man's eyes were closed and he sighed, murmured something, arched his back at the pleasure her lips were giving him. He ran his hands over her body, found her intimate places, touched and teased while he kissed her neck and her shoulder, then her throat as his need became urgent. Making a little sound in the back of his throat, he pulled her under him, covered her body with his, and entered her with a sigh.
She twined her legs round him, kissed him eagerly. "Boy or girl?" she whispered, as he started to move his body within her.
"It matters not, Tai Shan. Only that it is part of you… part of me..." his soft reply trailed off and he could say no more as the sweetness of her overcame his senses, started to gather his mind in an avalanche of pleasure and delight.
"So we will leave it to fate then." she murmured, opening her mind to his, receiving him in all the ways she found possible.
END