I would like to adopt!Number: 5
Picture:
Name:Trodaire -Irish for "Fighter"
Species: Smili
Personality: He has a fiery spirit, and his peers respect him for that. Few can match his skill and daring; he shows little fear, and will not hesitate to attack those stronger than him, although he prefers not to. He is fearless and bold and makes up for his size in courage; few enemies care to tangle with him due to this. He is Intelligent-looking, alert, and watchful. He is surprisingly compassionate, but tends not to show it, and can be very playful and feisty at times. He protects his loved ones fiercely, and will fight to the death to protect them if it comes to that.
Likes: Quiet, waterfalls, fall, family, romance, friendship, and loyalty. He also enjoys being alone when he has to think or make a serious decision.
Dislikes: Other who portray themselves to be something they are not, liars, backstabbers, fighting. He especially hates being abandoned.
Background (Optional, but it gives you a better shot. 2500 words maximum, 100 words minimum. We value quality over quantity; you can have five pages and still say absolutely nothing.)It was my first hunt with my tribe and we were going after a large herd of deer. My tribe and I had not eaten in several moons. Our stomachs hungered for just a bit of meat, anything to stop the pain that we had felt for so long. We were at the ready.
My father turned to me and smiled, “This is your test of adulthood, Trodaire. If you successfully take down a deer, the Spirits will be pleased.”
I turned to my father and saw the pride in his eyes. I wanted so badly to be an adult. I had survived 14 winters, which all but one of my siblings had failed to do. I had only one other sibling that had survived that long, my brother. He had gone out on a hunt alone, and had never returned. My mother had suffered and had fallen ill and perished. I missed her dearly, as I did my brother.
My father turned to the other hunters, one of which was also 14 winters old. He was also trying to achieve adulthood. He was my friend, Gretu. “Attention please! We are to ONLY assist the young ones in the kill. Understand?”
“Yes, Ceannaire.”
The elder hunters began their advance on the herd, staying hidden in the trees. Gretu and I were to wait until they had two animals cornered, than we were to come in for the kill. I had already chosen the animal I wished to kill. He was a huge buck, obviously the leader of the herd.
As soon as I saw my father give the signal to attack, I heard a strange whooshing sound, and a deer fell to its knees, dead. My father pulled back, frightened. Soon after the first deer fell, three others were brought to their knees, dead, including the large buck I had picked out. All the hunters began to run, including my father.
But I did not run. I stayed behind to see what had beaten me to my adulthood.
“What are you doing, Trodaire?” Gretu asked.
“I want to see what killed that buck,” I said, fear obvious in my voice.
“Whatever it was, it’s probably going to come back for it. Leave it, Trodaire. Your father couldn’t take it if you died, too.”
He knew that would work; his smug grin gave him away. But he was right; I couldn’t do that to my father. I got up to go home, but this time, it was Gretu who stopped to watch the dead deer. I turned to see strange new animals, studying the carcasses. They looked strange, and were much different than any animal I had ever encountered. They were slim things, but not like they were starving. They were lanky, and stood on two feet, like a bird, but they had no hair or feather accept on the top of their heads. Their legs and arms were long and gangly.
They knelt beside the dead deer, tearing off large chunks. They had all but cleaned the bones of two of the deer of meat when stood and left, arms heaped with meat.
Gretu and I waited until we were sure they would not come back, than emerged from the trees.
“Get one of the deer, I’ll get the other. We can take them back to the tribe, and claim our adulthood status,” Gretu said, but I wasn’t listening.
I was kneeling by the carcass of the buck, which had not been stripped of meat. Next to it lay a long stick with a pointy tip. It was an odd looking thing, not like anything I had ever come upon, on a tree or other wise. It was a slim, long stick that would bend without breaking. It had a sharp head made of deer antler. It was sharp and light, easy to carry in my jaws.
“What are you looking at?” Gretu asked, walking over to me. “Those weird looking things could come back any minute for the rest of their meat. We don’t want them to see us taking it.”
“Alright, I’m coming,” I hollered at him. “But I’m bringing their stick thing with me. Maybe I can make one like it.”
“Okay, whatever, let’s go!”
I picked up the buck by his hind feet, jabbing the stick into its neck for safe keeping. Gretu was already disappearing into the forest. I jogged forward to catch up with him. I couldn’t wait to show my father what I had found.
*~*~*~*
My father was pleased with our success with the deer. Even though we hadn’t killed the deer, he thought that the Spirits were so pleased with our courage that they had left the carcasses for us to bring back for meat. Gretu and I both gained our adulthood.
Along with our adulthood, we also gained mates. We were to choose our mates from a select group of females. Gretu choose his mate first. He chose Zimacha, a girl he had always admired. He sang his song to her, and she walked nonchalantly after him. When it was my turn to choose, the girls immediately perked up. They knew whoever I chose would be the most powerful female in the tribe. I was the chief’s son, which would make me chief one day.
I looked all of them over, but I knew who I wanted when I left for the hunt. Her name was Ailleacht. She and I had been friends since childhood and had made a pact to get married when I reached adulthood. She was a winter younger than me, but neither of us cared. I sang to her as I took her tail and gently pulled her from the line of girls. The others looked at their feet, sad that they had not been chosen as the future chief’s wife. Ailleacht smiled broadly at me, as we followed Gretu and Zimacha to the wedding ceremony.
*~*~*~*
Ailleacht and I sighed, content. Hopefully, we would soon have a cub of our own. As Ailleacht fell asleep beside me, I looked to the strange creature’s stick propped against the wall.
Are those strange creatures a danger to us? I thought.
If they could kill deer that swiftly, I wondered,
how much of a chance I had against them.Footsteps brought me out of my thoughts. “Trodaire, you up?” Gretu asked.
“Yea. Why?”
“I was just thinking about those weird looking animals. You know the ones that killed the deer?”
“Yea, I was thinking about them too.”
“Well, I was wondering, what if they come looking for us because we took their meat.”
“I don’t know what would happen, Gretu. I really couldn’t tell you. But one thing is for sure, I will make sure that Ailleacht is safe.”
“I will do the same for Zimacha. I don’t want her to get hurt because of me.”
“Me niether, Gretu.”
*~*~*~*
It was two seasons after my adulthood ceremony and wedding, and Gretu and I were about to set off to help Ailleacht and Zimacha find suitable burrows for young. I had made two of the odd looking stick things, which worked well in killing deer. My father was proud of me.
We had just come back from a hunt and were eating the meat when the strange creatures arrived.
Ailleacht was next to me, snuggling close to me as I ate our share of meat. Gretu and Zimacha were on my other side, also eating. I was the first one to hear the voices. As they got closer, others heard them too. They appeared at the edge of our clearing. There were six of them; menacing looks were painted on their faces.
My father stood. “Why have you come here?” He said, trying to sound brave. “You are not welcome here." The strange creature in the front sneered. He turned to his comrades, saying something none of us could understand. As it finished speaking, the largest one jumped on my father, and began beating him with his fists. The other four advanced, grabbing our largest hunters and throwing them to the ground, beating them. We fought as hard as we could, but no one was a match for these creatures strange weaponry. The first one advanced on Zimacha, who was the most attractive female by far. He grabbed her roughly, snarling something as he began to drag her away by her mane. She clawed at him, attempting to get free.
Gretu pounced on the thing. The creature fell, stunned. Gretu grabbed Zimacha by the tail helping her up and running for the treeline. “We have to get out of here!” he cried over the commotion as they raced out of the clearing.
“Come on, Trodaire! We have to go!” Ailleacht screamed, grabbing my tail roughly in her jaws.
“I have to help my father,” I said, turning to where they were beating him. “I’m all he has left.”
The strange beast who had tried to take Zimacha stood and looked me in the eye, babbling something incoherent and fierce. He jumped at me, sending me flying. “Come on, get up! Do you want to get killed?” Ailleacht said, dragging me out of the clearing. I didn’t fight her. I was in so much of a daze; it was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other.
Ailleacht and I had travelled a little over a mile when we caught up to Gretu and Zimacha. They were seated on the ground, panting. Ailleacht took a seat next to Zimacha and I sat next to Gretu.
“What are we going to do?” Zimacha said to Gretu.
“I don’t know. We’ll figure something out.”
“I’m tired,” Ailleacht sighed, lying down on the ground.
“I think we should all rest for the night. We can go back to the clearing in the morning and see how much damage was done,” I said, falling back into the light, fluffy snow.
*~*~*~*
We were stunned to see our home in the morning. All of the hunters had been killed, their body’s had been stripped of their fur. The younger girls, those fewer than 5 winters, were also dead. All of the women fewer than 20 winters old were gone. Ailleacht knelt by her mother, who lay beaten to death on the floor of the clearing, and began weeping. Zimacha found her brother, also dead.
Gretu and I wandered to the back of the clearing. We were shocked at what we found. We found seven more of our tribe dead. But what shocked us was the three that we found alive. One of them was Gretu’s sister. He knelt beside her, nuzzling her, until she finally went limp. He wept softly.
Another one of them was my father’s sister. She, too, was near death. She died shortly after we found her.
The last one was my father. He was battered and beaten. He lay on the floor, vomiting and coughing, as had the other two. He was so ill. I knew immediately that he would die soon, as had the others.
I knelt by my father.
“I’m glad you were able to escape unharmed,” my father said, smiling weakly.
“Father, don’t talk. You’re very sick. Talking will make it worse.”
“I don’t care. I know I’m dying,” he scoffed, which sent him into a coughing fit.
“Father, please.”
“Get away from here, before you catch this too. You have to live on to carry on our way of life.”
“I will Father. You can trust me.”
“Good. You know I love you more than anything, don’t you?”
“Yes, Father. I do.”
He smiled at me. Then, went limp. He was dead.
*~*~*~*
We had just finished burying the last of the tribe when Gretu got sick. He started coughing and vomiting. He fell to the ground in pain. Zimacha gasped and ran to him.
“He will die, like the others,” I said to her. “And if you touch him, you will die too.”
“We won’t die. We were stronger than them. We can make it,” Zimacha cried.
“You and I both know what will happen. You and I both watched the strongest man in our tribe, my father, your chief, die of this sickness. You can’t possibly think that you, a pregnant female, and Gretu, a young, foolish hunter, will live if my father could not.”
“I won’t leave him!” she screamed at me. “I won’t!”
“Well, I’m not going to stick around and wait to die,” I said to her. I saw the pain in her eyes as I turned to leave. “Come on Ailleacht, let’s go.” I buried my face in her shoulder fur, and we walked into the frozen forest.
*~*~*~*
A moon after we had left Gretu and Zimacha to die, we returned to bury their bodies. We vowed that this would be the last time we set foot near this place. For a while, we had searched for another tribe to join, but had found none. It felt like we were the only Smilis left.
In the end, we decided to stop looking and settle down. It was high time we had done it anyway. We were able to kill a couple of deer with the stick things I had made. They worked well when you were hunting alone, hiding in a tree and falling down on to it, piercing it through with the stick.
We had been scared for our future, but as long as we were together as a family, that’s all that would matter to us.
*~*~*~*
Our son was born four moons later, in a burrow about three miles away from where our entire family was murdered. Ailleacht died after she had him, and I could not care for him on my own. I left after burying them together. I shed more tears that day than I had in all my years. I missed my family more than ever now, but I knew I had done the right thing.
I didn't know what to do. Alone I wander now, searching for others like me.
Yes! exactly 2,500 words!!!