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I lurked just as I'd watched Ma and various other older relations and residents of the marsh and river do, waiting as patiently as could be and listening to the gossip underwater, with only my nose and eyes above. Many, many missed strikes filled the time, but I started getting good.
The reality that I'd be sharing with everyone else in the vicinity hit harder when I was the one who did the work. After the second success of mine, when I saw things from that angle: that's the moment I got tired of living in the slow-moving delta.
After the third successful bite and drag down into the river, the croc much bigger than me with a missing toe who smiled too much started trying to take a bite out of me as well as the prey. I was lucky that Ma was nearby and rushed in to put a stop to the trouble, but I knew better than to count on her forever--I was almost as big as she was, now. I survived but after being saved by her, it was tough to get any status amongst anyone older. Not everyone made it out of the delta, but I decided I had to try.
I told Ma I wanted to earn my keep but didn't want to start staking out a territory yet and that I was too small to defend a family of my own and I asked her what to do. She said, "There's other ways" and went out of the water to talk to some of the merchants, strange-looking fellows with spots and piercing eyes, who had a great aura of danger to them. Aside from being told not to bite them or anyone with them who wore clothes, I learned they were called jaguars and ruled a great kingdom that was far away, and they sent merchants far and wide.
One of them came along with Ma back to the river, and Ma called me up onto land. The cat told me to hold a rope against the tip of my snout and let it drop to the ground. "Stand up straight, as straight as you can," he added. I'd rarely tried to do this out of water, but it came easily so I did so. I wondered what the point of this was, as it looked like their servants only had to be strong, no special balance or use of strange strings. They were bigger than the jaguar cats and wore clothes but smelled more like prey should and had long ears.
"Big enough! We have a deal." He handed Ma a bag and something else in a water-tight jar. She opened it, and I couldn't stop drooling at the scent of delicious seasonings.
She saw my jaws leaking and she laughed. "I'll save some of this for something special when you're back after your first run," she said. "Save all the coins they give you and come back in one piece. Don't get into any fights! And you don't want to be too close to either the front or the end of the line! You'll get the hang of it, filha!"
I followed as best I could across the land, going longer than four times the span I knew I could stay submerged without breathing, but walking was hard and started to hurt my feet. One of the merchants' servants sighed and picked me up and slung me over his shoulder. "We don't have all day and you'll need your strength later." I found out he was called either a donk or a mule, and I never found out how to tell which was which. He smelled good, up close. He'd have been a mighty feast fit for ten more just like me, but I knew better than to play that way.
We broke away from the line of the merchants, and he put me down by a large pen where many crocs I recognized only by the scent were lounging in the sun or eating. I went inside, as that's obviously what he took me there for: I was going to be a canal porter.
All but one of them ignored me. That one was one of the most solidly built adults I'd ever seen. He sized me up said "You know, we sure enough might be kin." He gaped his jaws wide, then lowered his head to look me in the eyes. "Nice to see some more little ones springing up back from where I'm from. Are the twin ponds still flowing?"
I had no idea what he was talking about and stammered something like "I don't think we..."
"You say you don't think! Well now I know we're kin. You're here to haul the skiffs back home, a respectable and decent job for any caiman. Just keep your nose above water and you'll do just fine." He sniffed at me. "A young gal like you probably shouldn't be too close to the front of the line, you'd drive some of the fellows here wild. But don't let them put you at the end, you'll have to splash through the stinking wakes of all those morons gorging themselves over there. Eat after the job is done!"
Despite his friendliness, I didn't feel very talkative. I was still a little out of breath from having to walk across land, and being carried was more stressful than I would have believed; I hadn't been carried since the time I still fit into Ma's mouth. Everyone seemed to be very relaxed, which did start to calm me down. Feeling insecure amongst your larger, stronger, and ill-tempered elders wasn't an entirely new experience.
It wasn't long before one of the jaguars came and clapped his paws together. "Thirty skiffs, five have masonry! You, you, and you," he said as he jabbed a finger towards some of the biggest fellows, including my one possible kin. He scanned through the bask of us and added a large matron and one of who I assumed were her two daughters here, who were each much bigger than Ma. "You two on masonry as well. Everyone else is passengers or lumber." He counted out how many of us were in the waiting pen, and his eyes rested on me. There were thirty-five of us in the pen; I wondered what would happen if I didn't get picked to go. I was not quite the smallest, but I was the newest.
"She's a strong one, from two ponds! I'll lead the stones and you give her the end of the lumber; I'll go behind her and nip her tail if she's too slow," he told the jaguar.
"She's a girl? Is that...I don't know, it doesn't seem proper." The cat looked me over more carefully.
The old matron slapped the ground with her tail, and her daughters reared up. She grinned at the cat, who had jumped and puffed up his fur. "Proper! Proper! You're telling me, with such big fangs on such little jumping dancing feet and no tail to speak of, that you had no idea you were in the presence of a fine lady? You can tell your daddy about how proper you are, you little fuzzy squealing fool."
It was a relief in some ways to know that as strange as all this was for me, I wasn't the only one who was not able to sink my teeth into all the facts. I came to understand that for all their cleverness, mammals have always had trouble seeing things that are as obvious as the direction the current is moving.
We shuffled out in a line, and those hauling passengers went first. The ones hauling lumber went next, and the cats decided not to take the advice of my large kin; they put me at the head of the lumber line, in front of the other daughter of the matron.
"Oh sobrinha, what luck! Right behind the passengers. Keep your eyes open, you might get lucky! Sometimes they fall asleep and roll off the skiff." He opened his jaws and grinned at me, and suddenly snapped them shut.
My jaws only opened for a few seconds, but I couldn't help but grin back. "Really?"
"Don't even joke about that," said the other daughter. "There hasn't been an incident like that in... I don't even know how long. Before I started pulling here, for sure. Don't embarrass us! Double pond loafers."
This made my big uncle roar with laughter. "We'll loaf in the sun all the way back and teach you how to do it right. I'll teach you and your sister a thing or two later, and maybe even your dear old mama may be loosened up after this run."
Some of the donks came along and started trussing us up in thick harnesses made of something like woven reeds, but it smelled strange. I resisted the urge to bite and taste it. "I know better," I said to the other female. "I never took anyone wearing clothes, ever in my life."
That earned me an appraising stare from her, and she finally nodded. Not much else to say; she'd see for herself that I could work, she'd have a front-row seat.
"Go easy on her, boss!" Big uncle was becoming my guardian hoatzin bird. "She's new, better tie her in tight since she's gonna work off some of that adolescent chubbiness." The donk (or mule?) yanked and pulled at the harness until it felt like it would never come off. We trudged toward the canal, and I got my first good look at it.
I was imagining it would be like the river, but it was so perfectly straight and arranged, with no good spots for either lurking or basking. It wasn't as wide as the river, but it was wide enough to be impossible for even the nimble jaguar cats to leap across. The current was faster than the river, which I assumed was because it was so straight, and flowing south. We were going to be pulling the skiffs against that along with the passengers and goods. The water was surprisingly warm, not like the marsh water. It was much clearer; there were ugly and slow bottom feeding fish of types I'd tried once when I was young, and again when I was starving. I looked forward to finding out what we'd get to eat when this journey was done.
After some more latching and fastening of the harnesses, we began half swimming, half trudging through the canal lugging our burdens behind us. I could taste almost everyone in front of me, and all the advice about not being at the end of the line made a lot of sense.
Loud booming voices traveled through the water. "Just keep less than two body lengths between your snout and the skiff in front of you," said the matron from behind my uncle.
"And listen to the songs! Swing your tail along with us, sobrinha!" Apparently, he was surer than ever that we were related. I'd ask Ma about him when I got back.
Various local and small-time merchants crowded against the sides of the canal to wave at the passengers, who I could spot when they came to the end of their skiff. I ignored their chatter and started listening to the singing under the water, and joined in.
It was a good song for working, easy to learn and we invented verses as we went.
o/~
At night you can sleep
But we swim through the day
Follow the canal
You don't need to know the way
o/~
What's up on the skiff
I really can't say
Follow the canal
You don't need to know the way
o/~
Head for the city
Or head for the bay
Follow the canal
You don't need to know the way
o/~
I almost lost my breath when a head suddenly dunked itself under from the passenger skiff in front of me. I looked up and he looked down, upside-down, a little fellow with big ears. He stared right into my eyes, and I knew he had caught on that we were singing, singing through the low movements of the water where outsiders don't listen.
He surfaced and then came back down to look into my eyes again. I felt stubborn for some reason; I stopped singing and waited until I absolutely had to breathe before poking just my nostrils above the water, then back down. After a few seconds he reappeared.
I remembered the leopard measuring me with the string; it was to make sure I was tall enough to kick along the bottom of the canal to keep my head up if I wanted, so I did so. I would have grinned at the little one but that would have caught the canal water in my mouth, slowing me down. "Dunking your head to stay awake?"
"You were singing, weren't you?" He seemed excited, leaning over the back of the skiff. "I knew it, I could see the surface of the water undulating in time with a beat, in time with all of your thrashing tails. These rafts cover most of it up, but I could feel something shaking it in rhythm. Tell me, is it to help you keep together as you pull the rafts down the canal?" He had short fur and those big ears, and so small I thought he wouldn't have made more than three bites' worth of work. "I'm Remi Cornflower, a traveling musician, and I'd like-"
He was cut off by one of the jaguars yanking him back by the collar of his fancy jacket. "Please stay toward the center of the skiff. They're not balanced perfectly and having one of these go under wastes a lot of time, and that water is none too clean. Also, the caimans are working hard, he doesn't have time to talk to you about singing. He can sing you a song later during their chow break."
"She," said the musician. "She can sing for me later the song that they're all singing now."
I submerged, just in time to rumble out the chorus:
o/~
Follow the canal
You don't need to know the way
o/~
Did he call himself a cornflower? It didn't sound like a proper animal name. "The cats can teach you about how to ride a skiff, and you can teach them to know the difference between hes and shes. You may be smarter than the average piece of fuzz," I said to myself as I watched him get pulled back out of sight to the front of his skiff by the jaguar from under the surface.
-----------------------------------------
I lurked just as I'd watched Ma and various other older relations and residents of the marsh and river do, waiting as patiently as could be and listening to the gossip underwater, with only my nose and eyes above. Many, many missed strikes filled the time, but I started getting good.
The reality that I'd be sharing with everyone else in the vicinity hit harder when I was the one who did the work. After the second success of mine, when I saw things from that angle: that's the moment I got tired of living in the slow-moving delta.
After the third successful bite and drag down into the river, the croc much bigger than me with a missing toe who smiled too much started trying to take a bite out of me as well as the prey. I was lucky that Ma was nearby and rushed in to put a stop to the trouble, but I knew better than to count on her forever--I was almost as big as she was, now. I survived but after being saved by her, it was tough to get any status amongst anyone older. Not everyone made it out of the delta, but I decided I had to try.
I told Ma I wanted to earn my keep but didn't want to start staking out a territory yet and that I was too small to defend a family of my own and I asked her what to do. She said, "There's other ways" and went out of the water to talk to some of the merchants, strange-looking fellows with spots and piercing eyes, who had a great aura of danger to them. Aside from being told not to bite them or anyone with them who wore clothes, I learned they were called jaguars and ruled a great kingdom that was far away, and they sent merchants far and wide.
One of them came along with Ma back to the river, and Ma called me up onto land. The cat told me to hold a rope against the tip of my snout and let it drop to the ground. "Stand up straight, as straight as you can," he added. I'd rarely tried to do this out of water, but it came easily so I did so. I wondered what the point of this was, as it looked like their servants only had to be strong, no special balance or use of strange strings. They were bigger than the jaguar cats and wore clothes but smelled more like prey should and had long ears.
"Big enough! We have a deal." He handed Ma a bag and something else in a water-tight jar. She opened it, and I couldn't stop drooling at the scent of delicious seasonings.
She saw my jaws leaking and she laughed. "I'll save some of this for something special when you're back after your first run," she said. "Save all the coins they give you and come back in one piece. Don't get into any fights! And you don't want to be too close to either the front or the end of the line! You'll get the hang of it, filha!"
I followed as best I could across the land, going longer than four times the span I knew I could stay submerged without breathing, but walking was hard and started to hurt my feet. One of the merchants' servants sighed and picked me up and slung me over his shoulder. "We don't have all day and you'll need your strength later." I found out he was called either a donk or a mule, and I never found out how to tell which was which. He smelled good, up close. He'd have been a mighty feast fit for ten more just like me, but I knew better than to play that way.
We broke away from the line of the merchants, and he put me down by a large pen where many crocs I recognized only by the scent were lounging in the sun or eating. I went inside, as that's obviously what he took me there for: I was going to be a canal porter.
All but one of them ignored me. That one was one of the most solidly built adults I'd ever seen. He sized me up said "You know, we sure enough might be kin." He gaped his jaws wide, then lowered his head to look me in the eyes. "Nice to see some more little ones springing up back from where I'm from. Are the twin ponds still flowing?"
I had no idea what he was talking about and stammered something like "I don't think we..."
"You say you don't think! Well now I know we're kin. You're here to haul the skiffs back home, a respectable and decent job for any caiman. Just keep your nose above water and you'll do just fine." He sniffed at me. "A young gal like you probably shouldn't be too close to the front of the line, you'd drive some of the fellows here wild. But don't let them put you at the end, you'll have to splash through the stinking wakes of all those morons gorging themselves over there. Eat after the job is done!"
Despite his friendliness, I didn't feel very talkative. I was still a little out of breath from having to walk across land, and being carried was more stressful than I would have believed; I hadn't been carried since the time I still fit into Ma's mouth. Everyone seemed to be very relaxed, which did start to calm me down. Feeling insecure amongst your larger, stronger, and ill-tempered elders wasn't an entirely new experience.
It wasn't long before one of the jaguars came and clapped his paws together. "Thirty skiffs, five have masonry! You, you, and you," he said as he jabbed a finger towards some of the biggest fellows, including my one possible kin. He scanned through the bask of us and added a large matron and one of who I assumed were her two daughters here, who were each much bigger than Ma. "You two on masonry as well. Everyone else is passengers or lumber." He counted out how many of us were in the waiting pen, and his eyes rested on me. There were thirty-five of us in the pen; I wondered what would happen if I didn't get picked to go. I was not quite the smallest, but I was the newest.
"She's a strong one, from two ponds! I'll lead the stones and you give her the end of the lumber; I'll go behind her and nip her tail if she's too slow," he told the jaguar.
"She's a girl? Is that...I don't know, it doesn't seem proper." The cat looked me over more carefully.
The old matron slapped the ground with her tail, and her daughters reared up. She grinned at the cat, who had jumped and puffed up his fur. "Proper! Proper! You're telling me, with such big fangs on such little jumping dancing feet and no tail to speak of, that you had no idea you were in the presence of a fine lady? You can tell your daddy about how proper you are, you little fuzzy squealing fool."
It was a relief in some ways to know that as strange as all this was for me, I wasn't the only one who was not able to sink my teeth into all the facts. I came to understand that for all their cleverness, mammals have always had trouble seeing things that are as obvious as the direction the current is moving.
We shuffled out in a line, and those hauling passengers went first. The ones hauling lumber went next, and the cats decided not to take the advice of my large kin; they put me at the head of the lumber line, in front of the other daughter of the matron.
"Oh sobrinha, what luck! Right behind the passengers. Keep your eyes open, you might get lucky! Sometimes they fall asleep and roll off the skiff." He opened his jaws and grinned at me, and suddenly snapped them shut.
My jaws only opened for a few seconds, but I couldn't help but grin back. "Really?"
"Don't even joke about that," said the other daughter. "There hasn't been an incident like that in... I don't even know how long. Before I started pulling here, for sure. Don't embarrass us! Double pond loafers."
This made my big uncle roar with laughter. "We'll loaf in the sun all the way back and teach you how to do it right. I'll teach you and your sister a thing or two later, and maybe even your dear old mama may be loosened up after this run."
Some of the donks came along and started trussing us up in thick harnesses made of something like woven reeds, but it smelled strange. I resisted the urge to bite and taste it. "I know better," I said to the other female. "I never took anyone wearing clothes, ever in my life."
That earned me an appraising stare from her, and she finally nodded. Not much else to say; she'd see for herself that I could work, she'd have a front-row seat.
"Go easy on her, boss!" Big uncle was becoming my guardian hoatzin bird. "She's new, better tie her in tight since she's gonna work off some of that adolescent chubbiness." The donk (or mule?) yanked and pulled at the harness until it felt like it would never come off. We trudged toward the canal, and I got my first good look at it.
I was imagining it would be like the river, but it was so perfectly straight and arranged, with no good spots for either lurking or basking. It wasn't as wide as the river, but it was wide enough to be impossible for even the nimble jaguar cats to leap across. The current was faster than the river, which I assumed was because it was so straight, and flowing south. We were going to be pulling the skiffs against that along with the passengers and goods. The water was surprisingly warm, not like the marsh water. It was much clearer; there were ugly and slow bottom feeding fish of types I'd tried once when I was young, and again when I was starving. I looked forward to finding out what we'd get to eat when this journey was done.
After some more latching and fastening of the harnesses, we began half swimming, half trudging through the canal lugging our burdens behind us. I could taste almost everyone in front of me, and all the advice about not being at the end of the line made a lot of sense.
Loud booming voices traveled through the water. "Just keep less than two body lengths between your snout and the skiff in front of you," said the matron from behind my uncle.
"And listen to the songs! Swing your tail along with us, sobrinha!" Apparently, he was surer than ever that we were related. I'd ask Ma about him when I got back.
Various local and small-time merchants crowded against the sides of the canal to wave at the passengers, who I could spot when they came to the end of their skiff. I ignored their chatter and started listening to the singing under the water, and joined in.
It was a good song for working, easy to learn and we invented verses as we went.
o/~
At night you can sleep
But we swim through the day
Follow the canal
You don't need to know the way
o/~
What's up on the skiff
I really can't say
Follow the canal
You don't need to know the way
o/~
Head for the city
Or head for the bay
Follow the canal
You don't need to know the way
o/~
I almost lost my breath when a head suddenly dunked itself under from the passenger skiff in front of me. I looked up and he looked down, upside-down, a little fellow with big ears. He stared right into my eyes, and I knew he had caught on that we were singing, singing through the low movements of the water where outsiders don't listen.
He surfaced and then came back down to look into my eyes again. I felt stubborn for some reason; I stopped singing and waited until I absolutely had to breathe before poking just my nostrils above the water, then back down. After a few seconds he reappeared.
I remembered the leopard measuring me with the string; it was to make sure I was tall enough to kick along the bottom of the canal to keep my head up if I wanted, so I did so. I would have grinned at the little one but that would have caught the canal water in my mouth, slowing me down. "Dunking your head to stay awake?"
"You were singing, weren't you?" He seemed excited, leaning over the back of the skiff. "I knew it, I could see the surface of the water undulating in time with a beat, in time with all of your thrashing tails. These rafts cover most of it up, but I could feel something shaking it in rhythm. Tell me, is it to help you keep together as you pull the rafts down the canal?" He had short fur and those big ears, and so small I thought he wouldn't have made more than three bites' worth of work. "I'm Remi Cornflower, a traveling musician, and I'd like-"
He was cut off by one of the jaguars yanking him back by the collar of his fancy jacket. "Please stay toward the center of the skiff. They're not balanced perfectly and having one of these go under wastes a lot of time, and that water is none too clean. Also, the caimans are working hard, he doesn't have time to talk to you about singing. He can sing you a song later during their chow break."
"She," said the musician. "She can sing for me later the song that they're all singing now."
I submerged, just in time to rumble out the chorus:
o/~
Follow the canal
You don't need to know the way
o/~
Did he call himself a cornflower? It didn't sound like a proper animal name. "The cats can teach you about how to ride a skiff, and you can teach them to know the difference between hes and shes. You may be smarter than the average piece of fuzz," I said to myself as I watched him get pulled back out of sight to the front of his skiff by the jaguar from under the surface.
For the Thursday Prompt, about a certain young lady's first job away from family.
I'm playing pretty loosely with geography and language, I think, but for a prompt story I think it'll work out just fine.
If they're wearing clothes they are not food
Don't take a bite, that'd just be rude!
I'm playing pretty loosely with geography and language, I think, but for a prompt story I think it'll work out just fine.
If they're wearing clothes they are not food
Don't take a bite, that'd just be rude!
Category Story / All
Species Caiman
Gender Female
Size 120 x 105px
Listed in Folders
Not just good, but the loose geography and language merged into a wonderous world building time. And music too.
Take a bow.
Take a bow.
The music can be some of the most time-consuming parts. I'm glad I didn't have to worry about coming up with tunes as well.
You really have a mastery for blending animal behavior into your anthropomorphic characters and descriptions. I love this. Amazing work.
Without that blending it just doesn't seem "furry" to me.
Thank you very much!
Thank you very much!
Oh, Hauke, thank you for sharing this! This is the kind of story that sparks in my head (though in a much less refined form) when I learn about some factoid of animal behavior—the authoritarian regime of termite colonies or the fierce parenthood of prairie falcons. I mean, yeah, what a culture shock it would be for a marsh creature to enter a whole new part of the ecosystem! It seems an apt allegory for entering the workforce as a sheltered child (oh gosh, that's me, isn't it?).
Also, rainforests, caimans, jaguars, Portuguese... we must be in Brazil! It almost seems like there's some sort of colonial dynamic here too? Imperial mammals?
And, lastly, this is a funny coincidence. A professor I know just presented about crocodilians at a local fan convention this past Sunday. Is it a coincidence that caimans came to your mind around the same time?
Also, rainforests, caimans, jaguars, Portuguese... we must be in Brazil! It almost seems like there's some sort of colonial dynamic here too? Imperial mammals?
And, lastly, this is a funny coincidence. A professor I know just presented about crocodilians at a local fan convention this past Sunday. Is it a coincidence that caimans came to your mind around the same time?
That'd be a coincidence...I didn't make it to Fan Fusion (if that's the convention you're talking about).
And I was thinking of the Amazon, as a matter of fact! I'm impressed that you noticed it was Portuguese. That language choice was a little random, but after making it, I switched from alligators to caimans.
And I was thinking of the Amazon, as a matter of fact! I'm impressed that you noticed it was Portuguese. That language choice was a little random, but after making it, I switched from alligators to caimans.
Yes! That's it. I suspected something strange when I saw a basilisk sticker on the back of said professor's truck.
And nice trick! I think you've really created a world with such little details.
And nice trick! I think you've really created a world with such little details.
Basilisk bumper sticker would be kind of neat, I hadn't seen or heard of any before.
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