Hunger

Wren sniffed the engorged black berries bunched like eight-leggers' eyes on an overgrown bush. Then Needle sniffed them, too. She looked to Wren, always watching, even when her back was turned. Wren gave her no signal. Needle would have to remember on her own, or face the consequences.

She tasted one. It made her lips pucker and her cheeks contract. They were her favorite. Her new favorite. The last ones she tasted, the little pink ones that tasted like morning dew, they were her favorite just moments ago, but no longer. She ate another. She cooed like a night bird and flapped about, excited by the sweetness.

Wren smiled at Needle and Needle finally collapsed in a fit of laughter. Wren had mushed a few black berries between her teeth, making her own smile purple. Wren acted like she didn't know what Needle was laughing at, which only caused Needle to laugh harder.

Wren crept along the forest floor, then rose up slowly behind a fallen, charred tree trunk. She revealed just to the tops of her eyes. Needle rose up slowly beside her. A little too high. Wren adjusted Needle. Needle shook her mother’s hand away with the flick of her tussled hair. Wren pushed through, as she’d been doing since even before the first moment Needle drew breath, and adjusted Needle again, turning her head slightly to follow the direction of Wren’s subtle nod.

Just ahead, a little furry thing. Wren raised her sling, its basket already loaded with a small stone. Needle became serious. Held her breath. But then she watched Wren. Wren hadn’t stopped breathing. Needle matched Wren’s measured inhales, but her lungs could not yet draw so much breath. Needle coughed as her lungs became too full. Just as Wren loosed the stone with the smooth twirl and fling of her wrist.

Wren’s stone flew wide and struck a nearby tree weakly. The furry thing had already disappeared. Wren exhaled. Still measured, but in a different way. A way with which Needle was increasingly familiar. Needle curled her lips into something like a smile. She still had black berry seeds in-between almost every one of her teeth.

A coo echoed through the forest and Needle revealed herself from behind an old oak where she was digging out the roots of a green sproutling at the base of the tree. Wren’s favorite. Needle’s face was smeared with soil, now, and mud had caked beneath her fingernails and between her teeth as she gnawed the smallest roots from the meaty bulb she was after deep below. Needle smiled at Wren, her teeth now as black as the seeds between, yet still sincerely unaware of their state.

Wren tossed a large berry to Needle who caught it in her mouth without hesitation. The purple juice exploded past her lips and hung on her chin like tree sap. Needle smiled again. Her teeth were now even darker than they had been before. Wren could not help but laugh. Needle shrugged and returned to her digging. All forgiven.

Wren continued to fill her thatched basket with the berries. They joined the greens of a sweet leaf tree, a few large dome mushrooms, and a handful of bush nuts that would need to be laboriously shelled and roasted before they could be eaten. They were River's favorite.

Night would be falling soon; Wren and Needle needed to return to their cave where River should be waiting. Would be waiting. Will be.

Wren cooed again for Needle, but, this time, no coo returned in response. Wren circled back to the tree under which Needle had been digging. The meaty bulb had been liberated from the dirt, but it now rested alone beneath the canopy. Needle was nowhere to be found. Wren spun and cooed, trying not to panic. Wren cooed again. Then she risked it and cried out. Still, only silence returned her call. Wren wouldn’t risk crying out again.

Then, Wren noticed her sling was gone, too.

Needle had seen the sliver of a shadow pass through the trees down the bluff below her and Wren. A little furry thing, she thought. If she’s lucky, a slightly-bigger-than-little furry thing. Needle followed it. She knew better, but her curiosity outpaced her responsibility. No, this is her responsibility, she convinced herself. Her need to prove herself, it ran far ahead of all else.

She was only just six cycles aged, but Needle had learned how to be stealthy like her father. She stepped on the exposed roots like rungs on a horizontal ladder so as to avoid the dry leaves and twigs that would give away her position. She circled the sliver of shadow through the trees so that she was downwind like she’d learned from Wren and River, both. She heard Wren's coos in the distance, her single cry, but she could not respond, lest she ruin her ploy. She was not in danger, which was the rule. She’d already broken so many, why break another? This would repair all, anyway, she convinced herself with less success.

Needle readied the sling as Wren had shown her. Then, the sliver of shadow revealed itself through the trees. Needle's berry-stained lips spread into a wily grin.

River dragged the sled full of mammoth meat up the incline toward his cave with all his might. The load was heavy and he was light with hunger and thirst. Every few paces, he stopped and listened for footsteps, but no one had followed him, he was quite sure of that. He had to be sure of that. Even if Wolf's hunters had followed for a time, River had wiped away the sled's tracks through the dirt to conceal his route.

A snow flurry began. River listened again for footsteps, but, again, heard nothing. He stared back at the fresh meat wrapped in the mammoth's own hide; blood had soaked the thatched sled and dripped a trail of crimson, blooming pink beneath the snow collecting behind him. Despite his best efforts to conceal his route visually, there's nothing he could do about the smell trail he had undoubtedly left. But the snow would help.

Just then, a twig snapped.

River brandished the small, obsidian dagger Wren had made him and squared himself toward the sound. Another twig. He waited. Then, he heard the husky warning of a fang-toothed cat.

He spun, it was now behind him. Closer.

The cat growled again, closer. Much closer.

Too close not to be seen. River squinted through the dark. He knew it was a risk to be away from the cave so late, but look at his reward. He would not let all of this work be for naught. The cat growled again, now right behind him. He could feel it watching him through the encroaching dark. He spun again, dagger at the ready, ready to slash and stab and kill. He ground his teeth. He tightened his ropy muscles. He readied himself to die.

But the fang-tooth didn’t pounce.

River closed his eyes and listened to the snow.

An acorn shell struck his butt and caused him to yelp.

River spun, suddenly embarrassed. Being toyed with.

The sound of laughter gave her away.

Needle could not contain herself any longer. She stepped from behind a boulder and fell to the ground in a fit of glee, sling in hand. River inhaled for the first time in heartbeats. Then, he, too, laughed despite his racing heart. River bellowed a great roar and pounced on Needle, tickling her into submission. She squealed like an ensnared fluff tail.

HRUMPH.

One, deep exhale is all River needed to hear to twist his head to attention. Needle continued to giggle, but River silenced her quickly with a coarse hand held over her mouth. The low rumble carried through the air like rolling thunder.

River stood. He picked Needle up and cradled her in his arms. A shard of rising moonlight revealed the glint of two gold eyes across from them. It was a fang-tooth. Its roar was real. It was real. River's mimicry didn't do it justice. The sound froze River's blood. Needle's breath disappeared from her chest.

The fang-tooth stalked around them in an ever-diminishing circle. The sled of mammoth meat sat at the circle's center between River and Needle and the cat. River circled with Needle in his arms, careful to keep the cat dead ahead. But, really, all River could stare at was the sled of meat. He knew the meat was no longer his. The cat had staked its claim. It was hopeless. River had lost his hard-won score. If he’d ever really had it, at all. Now it was only about survival. As it always was. His and his little one's. Hers, above all.

Needle began to ready the sling, but River stopped her.

The cat swiped its razored paw at River and Needle. It bared glistening teeth. River backed slowly away, continuing up the incline toward the family's cave. River's mouth watered as he watched the cat sink its teeth into the mammoth's still warm flesh. River walked backward for longer than he needed to, all the way to the cliff ridge that led to the secluded cave.

The fang-tooth didn't follow. Its cubs slunk from the underbrush as River and Needle retreated. At least one family would be fed to satisfaction, tonight.