Act 1 Moving through the forest
In the morning where the warmth of summer fully gone, and replaced by the change of leaf. I opened my eyes to meet dawn, and I stood as I centred myself with my belief.
"Sage? Come sleep with us some more, it is still cold outside." It was Amber who spoke, in her human-like form. Her and many others made themselves more comfortable being less beastly, and now it was the norm.
"I decline my dear Amber, but I must start today early." And with that said and me giving her a kiss on the forehead and soothing her back to sleep I left the large temple-like house built mound.
The mound house was called the Sage house, capable of housing a few hundred guests or letting everyone in the clan sleep with me in the main-hall round. It was an odd culture that I let them keep, the beavers were different but we have yet to expand near the river so they slept in separate smaller mound homes.
The village was still sleeping, the only ones awake were the newly turned youths and older kids that sleep early in the night, or have random sleeping patterns. I tasked them to be the clan's watcher during the night, and they did well until came the light.
"Sage? Do you need something?" One of the rare male youths, looked away from the forest-old. As he spoke to me and I regarded him.
"Yes I do young one, please gather 5 more youths and help me pack for travel." He looked at me, smiled and nodded as he raced moving from one top of a mound house to another.
"I swear, we only needed maybe 6 or 10 houses. Why did those crafters build so many? Atleast they build them far apart or else congestion would have been a problem in the future. . . I need to teach them city planning." I said my thoughts out loud for the spirits and all others may hear them.
I did so to practice the language of the people around me as speaking and listening was the only way for my magic to refine its translations.
Still, hopefully I can have my clan start speaking Star federation common, after a generation or two, it would help in the transitions.
"Sage! I got my friends, what do you need us to do?" Six youths jumped infront of me as I walked towards our supply houses, it was 4 smaller mound houses near the crafters worksite.
"Alright, get me my bow and a bundle of arrows, a serrated warclub and two cutting axes. I'll meet you all at the gate." With that they left me as I entered a supply house, took three vine basket-weaved bags, a fiber snake-leather rug and then went to a smokehouse, and grabbed some smoked meats, and then left the smokehouse sealed.
At the gate the children were there with others, as the gate was one of the places the nightwatchers gathered near as they still had lit campfires around to warm them as they watched the village last night.
"Sage is here!" The children gathered around me, as those that I asked for me to get me weapons were the first to come forward, as they handed me what I needed as I felt the weapons might.
And then one of the cured Cassowary folks approached, she was the largest and strongest of her small herd. I was surprised she came as she was hesitant when I asked her days ago to come with me, I placed my hand on her head and then placed the rug on her feathered back.
"I'll be gone for a few days, you guys keep the clan safe at night while I'm gone alright?" And with that last goodbye I left in the early morning, and walked through a quiet forest where everything yet slept or sluggish.
The forest looked familiar but they weren't the woods, the ferns, the herbs I knew back home, they were not so muggish. The similarities were terrifyingly close, but I did enough forestry courses to know pine sap shouldn't be so sweet, thick and black.
"Hey Ferisha, what made you come with me? I thought you would rather stay with your herd and help the beavers with moving logs for the palisade." I wasn't sure why she would risk adventuring with me out of the forest, rather than help the home track.
"Gratitude." That's all she said, as I've learned the cassowary folks were not a people of talk, or thinking.
"I am thankful for your company Ferisha." I said as I brushed her neck feathers as she cooed in delight, as her steps kept sinking-
On the wet, heavily leafed covered forest ground. Still it was a quiet ride through it all, as with the speed of my companion while not making a sound.
We had made it to the river, as I remembered where to find the raft used by Welog's folks.
"There my friend, just beyonds those oaks." I said to my companion as she carried me towards a patch of oaks.
Atleast the trees looked like oaks, it had acorn nuts that Axelia loves, it's bark was black like the pines, but it's chips and sap where dark red.
At first I thought it meant the land where it was growing had high iron, but I haven't yet checked as I was too busy with other things and spread.
Organizing and teaching people of the stone age was harder than I was trained to expect, but I do nonetheless and hopefully accelerate their development enough that I can have them make me a Star federation beacon.
I believe the leviathan, that this was another galaxy entirely, but I still expected my civilization, if not in my lifetime or the lifetime of the civilization I'm building would be able to get here and add this star in the federation.
"Blood." Ferisha called as she stopped and dropped down to the ground crouching and making me fall from her back, landing on my feet.
"Ferisha? Where do you smell the blood?" I whispered to her ear, as I felt her softly peck my shoulder as she pointed towards the left of the oak patch, near a pile of wooden peat.
I saw nothing, heard nothing, smelled nothing. . . but I do feel the animal that Ferisha smells, as I feel its heat hidden among the peat, maybe it's asleep?
I wasn't gonna risk it as I looked for the raft, I closed my eyes and focused as I stood up pulling out my serrated warclub, it was large atleast than I was and it was strong as I felt it's breath, as I move at a creep.
I was close to it now, only a few metres from it, as I picked up a stick and then broke it. "Snap" the sound echoed, as I felt the heat of its breathing quicken, before stabilizing again. That was an odd reaction, was the smell of blood from a wound?
"Are you a folk?" It didn't spokeout, or roared or did anything, it just kept pretending that I wasn't there not making any sound.
"If you're wounded I can heal you, I am a healer of the flamesing clan." I moved closer but the only reaction it gave was silent as I felt the heat of their breath turning cold.
This made me run forward and my thoughts were right, It was wounded. . . but it wasn't a folk and I was being too bold.
I dodged a clawed strike aimed for my neck, it was greatly furred, with heavy mane and large maw with small rounded ears. . . it was a bear, much larger than I was, its fatty muscled arms scarred through battle over the years.
Now it bares new wounds, its chest carved in showing the bones of its rib, half its face gone, eye socket showing a missing eye and its white fatted skull.
That last strike must have sapped most of what they had, as they lay prone and still like the dead, this made what I did next simple as I sheathed my warclub and placed my hand on the bear's head doing what I will.
I shared my flame burning in me into her flesh, as it burned away her wounds and I looked upon her core, and it was a cursed thing, as I saw her savage memories, her violent emotions and the pitiful life she had lived.
"Another companion would be good, and I wanted to try something new." I said to myself as I worked on curing her cursed core, with Vivi I made her core match that of the rabbit folks echo, with the cassowaries I molded their core filling in what was deprived.
The first turned Vivi human like, much like the inherent magic of the rabbit folk, the second weakened and changed the cassowaries, with this though? I plan to do both.
Act 2 Rolling hills
It was night when I made camp at the riverbank outside the forest, there was enough dried reeds and driftwood to have made a campfire.
"What have you done to me?" A naked bear girl spoke as she was tied both hands and feet as I laid her near the fire that burned sapphire.
"I brought you back from near death, that's what I've done." I answered her as I prepared dinner, bringing out a cauldron of clay and adding river water, snake jerky, crushed nuts, and both fresh and dried clover tips.
She was quite at that as I cooked, when I was done I poured three bowls of the stew one I gave to a very happy Ferisha and then the other I placed on the side as I cut her bounds, simple fiber strips.
"Here, it'll warm your belly and give you strength." I said as I passed her the wooden bowl of stew, I drank from mine slowly, making sure she watched.
She clutched and rubbed at her wrists and ankle before taking the bowl and drank from it messily, I smiled as my plan started to hatched.
As they say friends are easily made with hot meals, I pray it was enough as we ate in silence, as she enjoyed her bowl, and I feel heat coming back into her flesh.
"You call yourself Lazir? And healer? You have two titles?" The bear girl asked as she finished her bowl, and I took it from her and filled it up fresh.
"Lazir is my name and I heal for my clan. A clan is a group of folk herds, and a name is what you get once you join one, it is used to distinguish yourself among your clanmates." I explained to her simply as I noticed sharp wisdom in her light brown gaze.
"This food is delicious and your magic is powerful. . .and you have saved me from death, even though the price is to be turned into this. . .I will serve you as I had once served my pack leader." The bear girl said as she bowed as her shoulder swaze.
I picked her up from her bow, and placed her on my thighs, from a giant twice or thrice my size, turned into a girl, barely reaching my hips, much like the children back at the clan.
"You are weak now, give it a few days, you'll have your back, I just need to keep healing you." With my last words I placed her to sleep as I worked on her core as I kept molding it bit by bit, changing memories, and tweaking her as plan.
"Hello Grass, it is a nice evening." I spoke to the air, making Ferisha look at me confused but I gave her a nod, and she went back to sleep.
"I see, your senses for spirits had not weakened since your time in the old Father Forest." The grass around swayed and sang like those of sheep.
"I missed you too, Grass." I told her as I touched the grass I sat upon, and felt her heat as I gently tapped at her core, as her spirit shuddered at my hot touch.
"And you can't keep your hands to yourself still. . .who are these? Where are your rabbit sisters?" As she spoke I saw something new as the grass shifted and glowed as a person dressed in fresh green grass sprouted from the earth, her outfit was a bit much.
"There my new. . . servants, I cured their curse and now they serve me and the clan I've made." Grass looked very human as her dark dirt skin was smooth with no fur, except for her head as it was full with long green hair, with two pairs of rabbit ears.
"I've heard of this new thing from the berry tree, she heard from the birds of a new thing called a clan, a collection of herds and packs." It seems the idea had already spread beyond the forest and it would take years.
"I knew only you would have made such a new thing. . .these 'servants' I feel in them the curse, but compared to those crazed meat eaters, this once are barely cursed." I didn't know Grass could feel the cursed in the folks.
"Can you cure them as I do?" I asked her as she shifted on her seat as I noticed she wasn't used to the action, if we were in the federation I would have laughed and made dirty jokes.
"I can't Lazir, you're the only one I know who could change the cursed folks." I nodded as my thoughts swirled, and we continued to speak, as she pressed me on the things I've done in the forest and I pinned her enough so she couldn't leave without telling me of the herds living in her rolling hills of grass.
Act 3 Clan life: Pov Vivi
It was early I felt the cold air of the outside, as the door was opened and the familiar heat of the clan hall left, but the hearths were still burning blue in each section of the hall.
"He left." I said to the quiet hall, to be heard by all.
Everyone pretended to sleep as I smelled them shifting slowly pretending to be awake, every rabbit folk was here except the older young, the cassowary folks, and beaver folks.
"We know child, sleep some more, we will start the day once the dawn is full, we must accept his decision." An elder voice spoke, as I heard one of the hearths was being tended, the extra wood giving the fire thicker smokes.
I agreed and dozed off. . . it was true morning as I came too, and left the clan hall, I walked and went to one of the cooking fires to eat, I sat next to the warriors as they planned to do a hunt by themselves near the village.
"We can't do what Lazir does, using himself as bait. We should try to do a passive hunt where we stand still until a predator goes inside our kill circle." Axelia suggested as she cut strips of serpent jerky into the stew pot, covered in her natural pelage.
Many nodded to her suggestion, I personally think it was a cowardly tactic but I know if I suggested we hunt like I used to do it, we would start losing many of our clan warriors.
"We have enough food for now, why not escort the gatherers as they collect wood and hunt what would try to eat them?" It was Ash who spoke as she and others grounded nuts and grain, to add to the stew her voice warm.
"I agree with Sister Ash, sister Tinder asked for more wood yesterday, if we keep going through our missiles, we wouldn't be able to hunt even if we wanted to." It was young Spark who spoke as she strummed her, 'Ukulele' Lazir said that every bard needs atleast one instrument.
The talk continued until we ate, planned and continued the day, in the end I opted out with the escort mission and went with those who wanted to patrol the wall.
"This work used to be the most terrifying one, but now with our new weapons and numbers this feels like the cursed should be the one afraid." An older rabbit sister spoke to us, she was a thorn native and must have done this before, and I agree with her, as I grabbed her to stop her fall.
"Thank you fox sister, I didn't see that root." I gave her a nod and smile and we continued on our work for the day.