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 Posted: Tue May 30, 2023 11:04 pm
 Chizoba travels up and down the length of her estuary and finds someone new.
The day after the storm, the sky was still grey, and the wind still stirred the trees and grasses of the delta, but Chizoba could tell by the smell of the air that it would blow over by noon. The night before had been tempestuous, breaking branches, throwing waves over beaver dams and islets, flooding the homes of the animals who made their home here. Even Chizoba had had to move in the middle of the night as water seeped into her home. For a nixie, it wasn’t much of a big deal, but the water had gotten high enough that she would have had to keep her head held up the whole night, and that would have put a crick in it that would have made the next morning more unpleasant than Chizoba was willing to put up with. So she had nudged Oko awake and the two had retreated to a small hillock where she curled up with other displaced animals and tried to get some sleep.
But now the storm had mostly passed, and it was time to wake up and assess the damage to everyone’s homes.
“Couldn’t we get more sleep?” Oko mumbled. “Or let everyone else see if their homes are safe…?”
Chizoba shook her head. “I made an oath when I became the warden of this estuary. That means, when things get bad, I fix them.”
The dragon-otter sighed. “I guess I should get up, then.”
“You can always stay here,” Chizoba said with a shrug. “Get some more rest. You were a mess last night.”
He shook his head. “No, no. I’ll go with you. Just. Gimme a sec.” He clambered on top of her back and she set off upriver.
The birds that had had to evacuate were returning to their nests, and animals of all kinds were calling out to each other, trying to find each other and rebuild their homes. There would have to be a lot of nests rebuilt and burrows redug, and already the beavers were hard at work fixing their lodges and dams while the animals who lived in the beaver ponds helped out in any way they could. Chizoba called out to them, greeting them, asking them how they were, if they were alright. Oko watched from his position on her back. “Where are we going, anyway?” he asked at last.
“Upriver. Got to check on everyone, not just our neighbors.”
Chizoba could feel his feet shifting on her back, and knew that he was frowning in response to that news. “But…I thought we were just in charge of the delta. What are we going upriver for?”
“I am warden of the estuary. I’m not in charge of anything, I just make sure that people aren’t fighting each other, that they’re safe from outside predators that are killing too much or upsetting the balance…that kind of thing. And it’s not just the delta. I take care of the whole estuary.”
“Riiight…” Oko shifted again. “And the estuary is…”
“Anywhere that water from the ocean’s tide reaches every day. The delta is just the bit of the estuary where the river dumps all of its silt and mud and makes these islands.” She gestured to the small islands and hummocks dotting the wide river. “The whole delta is in the estuary, but there’s bits of the estuary further upstream that we don’t get to much. Too close to other Soquili,” she added.
Oko was silent for a while. They continued swimming further inland, watching as the islands slowly disappeared to be replaced by the banks of the river, silt replaced by sandy banks dotted by stones and pebbles. Oko got off occasionally, swam around, talked to other otters, to turtles and muskrats and Cailo, the old alligator who made the eastern-most edge of the delta his home. He’d been the warden of the estuary before he got too slow for the job and Chizoba had taken over. She exchanged a few insults with her old friend, made him laugh, and continued their journey.
Here the damage from the storm could still be seen on the river banks and even in the middle of the river itself, where branches and tree limbs had gotten stuck on boulders hidden by the top of the water. From the shapes of the splintered remains and the occasional body part—here a squirrel’s tail, here a sparrow’s wing—Chizoba could see that the storm had been every bit as fierce here, upriver, as it had closer to the ocean. She bit her lip and paddled closer, watching as Oko climbed on top of the pile of broken wood. He looked over at her. “Looks like we got lucky last night. This could’ve become a dam slam.”
Chizoba swam to where he stood. “What’s a dam slam?”
He blinked at her, then grinned. “You don’t know what a dam slam is? And you call yourself guardian of the estuary?”
She glared at him. “Are you going to tell me, or are you going to futz around and being a jerk?!”
Oko’s smirk turned sheepish. “Sorry. A dam slam is where a flood breaks a beaver dam and pushes all of the water behind the dam, plus the dam itself, downriver. Lots of destruction. Lots of homes destroyed. Lots of broken wood and floodwater. Bad business. Especially if it runs into another dam, breaks that one, and there’s even more wood in the mix…” He patted the wood gingerly. “Looks like we got lucky. No dam slam this time.”
“It looks…bad,” Chizoba replied, looking over the wide knot of broken wood in the middle of the river.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “It could’ve been worse, though. We got lucky. Guess not everyone else was, though.” He patted the wood again, this time more firmly. With a groan, branches and limbs shifted inside the mass, and he lept back, startled, as a groan sounded under the wood.
Not the groan of wood or the dead. But a living one. Something was alive inside the dam!
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Posted: Tue May 30, 2023 11:08 pm
The storm had been brewing over the mountains for days, but Katlego hadn’t paid much attention to the signs. It was just a storm. She’d seen them before. At this time of the year, she didn’t expect there to be much snow in it, so what was the point in getting upset about it? It’s not going to freeze me solid, so why care? So she’d ignored it, spent her attention on trying to get past the beaver dam. No amount of fighting with the stupid rodents would get them to let her go, and she would be carrion before she dragged herself on land like a worm. She was wrapped up in her usual argument—well, not argument, not really, more of a snorting, hoof-slashing confrontation—the storm hit.
She’d decided it wasn’t a threat, so she hadn’t paid attention to the warning signs. The rising wind, the drop in pressure, the way the fur on the beavers had stood on end. Thunder rumbled in the distance as the wind drove waves across the surface of the lake. The rain began to fall, first a gentle patter, then an insistent pouring, then a hammering as of an avalanche. Water turned into hail, pelting everyone. The beavers hid in their lodge, and Katlego tried to hide under the water. Lightning and thunder rang out together, and with a sharp crack and heavy groan, an enormous tree plummeted into the lake, forcing a bow wave like Katlego had never seen in the lake before over the dam, breaking apart the bows and branches and sending beavers and Seathi alike down the river.
She’d never been downriver this far before. She’d known there were rapids and a waterfall, but it was one thing to know about it, and another to experience it.
And besides, it didn’t prepare her for the next set of rapids. Or the waterfall after that. Or the waterfall after that.
It was funny, how you could dream about a journey your whole life only to find that the journey was, in fact, the most terrifying thing you could ever have imagined.
She lost consciousness at some point, unable to pull herself out of the current, battered by fallen trees, uprooted boulders, and bodies alike. It was a mercy by that point. She was so dizzy she hadn’t been able to keep her last meal down. She didn’t know where she was, and every part of her body hurt. She wanted to scream, but as always, nothing came out. Still mute, even as her world crashed and roared and slammed against her. When she closed her eyes, she would have welcomed it being the last time.
When she awoke, it was to an immense pressure all around her, trapping her body and her limbs, crushing her under its weight. She tried to struggle, felt her bones creak and her limbs and tail howl in agony. She fell still again, trying to make sense of her prison. It smelled like wood, and water, and algae, and dead bodies. It smelled like terror. But there were gaps here and there in the branches, and sunlight filtered through, playing against her face. She flinched and closed her eyes again as one of the beams of light hit her right in the eye. She turned her head, trying to get some sense of what side up she was—she couldn’t tell, she was still so dizzy. But she heard something other than the sound of the river: she heard voices, a pair of them. A smaller voice, some small creature she thought, and a larger one, of a Seathi, perhaps.
“We have to start from the top—”
“I’m trying, I don’t have anywhere to stand—”
“You’re going to crush whoever it is—!”
“I don’t have anywhere to brace, the river’s deep right here, and I’m short!”
“You’re not that short, you’re way bigger than me!”
“I’m short enough, you’re the one who’s standing on top of them!”
“I don’t weigh that much! Are you calling me fat?!”
“Of course not—!”
One by one, the branches moved until all of Katlego’s body was exposed to the light. She tried opening her eye again and this time saw her saviors—or at least, she saw their silhouettes. There was a small one with a horn, and a bigger one, either a Seathi or an Usdia, it was impossible to see which. She tried to move her head, tried to get them to go away, to get out of her face, to leave her alone, but it hurt too much to move. Instead, she let out another voiceless, breathless groan. She closed her eye; it was simply too much, it was just too bright, too bright to keep looking up at the sky, and everything hurt and there were strangers here, strangers she couldn’t fight back at…
“It’s a person!” the small creature gasped.
“It’s a Seathi,” the bigger one said, and her voice was laced with disappointment and annoyance. No, not quite annoyance. More like…anger? Or not quite anger. She wasn’t sure. All she knew was, this other person was not happy to see her.
Well, whatever they did with her, she hoped it would be quick. She was exhausted, and she couldn’t fight back. If they were going to kill her, there was nothing she could do to defend herself. She let sleep wash over her once again.
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Posted: Tue May 30, 2023 11:10 pm
First they had to make a raft. The Seathi was injured—from the looks of it, her legs were broken, and possibly her tail as well. She was so bruised and cut up, it was a miracle she was alive. With the help of a family of insomniac raccoons, they put the broken branches together in a raft bound with reeds, then gently eased the unconscious Seathi onto the raft. They set off down the river, Chizoba pulling the raft behind her by a twisted length of reed. Oko stayed on top to monitor the stranger, making sure her battered ribs were still rising and falling with breath.
They didn’t speak much. Chizoba wasn’t in the mood for it, and Oko picked up on that pretty quickly. She could tell that he wanted to ask her why she was so upset, but he knew better than to ask her. She was…really not in the mood for it.
It was still daylight, with the clouds receding before a blue sky. There was not a star to be seen, but that didn’t stop Chizoba from looking up at the sky. When I told you that my delta could be a safe place. When I told you you could send me anyone who needed a home, a safe place, I meant…I meant creatures like Oko! Otters and beavers and ferrets and raccoons and snakes and gators and things! I didn’t mean other soquili!
But just because she didn’t like having another soquili around didn’t mean she was just going to abandon her to her death. She would take the Seathi home, nurse her back to health as best she could, but she wasn’t going to be happy about it!
Thoughts like that consumed her as she traveled back down the river to the thicket where she and Oko made their home. It would just about hold the two of them and a Seathi…but it would be a tight fit. I’ll sleep outside, then. It’s warm enough, I’ll be fine.
“It’s not that warm at night, though,” Oko said.
“Huh?”
“You were talking to yourself. You said you would sleep outside. But it’s not that warm at night, even this time of the year. Won’t be until Buck Moon and Sturgeon Moon that it’ll be warm enough to be out at night, and that’s not for another month at least.” Oko slid into the water and swam alongside her. “What’s wrong, Chizoba, why won’t you say anything? You’ve been quiet ever since we found the Seathi.” For an otter who claimed not to know much, he could be annoyingly perceptive sometimes. “It’s because she’s a Seathi, isn’t it.”
Chizoba sighed in frustration and shook her head. “No. It’s not because she’s a Seathi. Or rather, it wouldn’t be better if she’d been a Nixie like me, or a Mer, or a Kalona or something. It’s because she’s another soquili. I don’t…I don’t like other soquili, okay?”
Oko frowned. “I thought you had friends who were soquili, though? Or…Usdia, rather. What about that cat guy who lives up in the mountains?”
“Al Pine? He’s…different.” She adjusted her grip on the towline. “Completely different.”
“Ohhhh.” Oko’s eyes grew wide and he looked back at the Seathi, then back to Chizoba. “It’s because she’s a mare!”
“What?! No!” Chizoba stopped, then almost instantly regretted it as the raft ran into the back of her head. “No, it’s not that! It’s, it’s…” She shook her head, trying to figure it out. Now that she thought about it…why was her friendship with Al Pine different from finding a random Seathi washed up in her estuary? Why would she not have minded Al Pine visiting her home after a storm? Was it because he was a stallion, and a mated one at that? No, no, that didn’t make any sense, that had nothing to do with it. So why was it? Why did she resent this newcomer, this stranger she’d never met, but the mentor who had convinced her to take leadership in her estuary was acceptable?
“It’s…” She sighed. “I think it’s because…because he doesn’t live here. If he was visiting here, it wouldn’t be to stay. But this one…” She jerked her head at the Seathi. “I don’t know how long she’s going to be here. She can’t swim like this, so she’ll have to stay with us for months, until at least...” She stopped and counted in her head. “Beaver Moon, and that’s the best-case scenario.”
Oko shrugged. “So we have a den-guest for a few months. What’s the harm in that?”
“I just…” Chizoba shook her head. “I’m not a social person,” she said, and even she could hear how lame it sounded. “I just don’t like spending time with other Usdia, or Seathi, for that matter, or any kind of Soquili. I like spending time with otters and beavers and gators, but I can’t stand spending time with my own kind. It’s kind of why I moved out here,” she added, quietly. “To get away from other soquili. They just…rub me the wrong way. Sorry,” she added.
“But aren’t soquili…like…social animals…? Always live with each other, get lonely away from each other?”
Chizoba shook her head. “Not me,” she said. “I’m different. I don’t know why. I can have friends with four hooves, but they can’t live near me.”
“Good thing this one has two hooves, then?” Oko said, with a weak attempt at a smile.
She glared at him, but didn’t reply. “Let’s just get her home. She’s going to need some healing.”
Oko sighed. “Yeah.” He looked back over their shoulders at the raft. “But you don’t like having other soquili around…?”
Chizoba looked back over her shoulder at the unconscious form of the Seathi, baking in the midday sun. “She needs help,” Chizoba said quietly. “That’s why we went upriver today. To find people who needed help. And we found her. She needs help. We’ll take care of her. I won’t like it, but we’ll take care of her.
“After all,” she said with a sigh. “I’m the warden of this estuary. That means I look out for everyone. Even lost Seathi.”
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