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I haven't looked in here in ages, not really wanting to after finding my work published freely without my knowledge and permission. But recently, I came to a realisation about why I wrote anything in the first place.
Mostly, it was out of a need to get what was inside of me ... well, out.
So if anybody might want to give this a try, this is a tale that really has two parts. A sense of history mandates that this part comes first. I used some historical facts to guide me along here and there, but beyond that, it should be remembered that this is a work of fiction.
There's no sex in this for a few chapters and if it bothers the reader, oh well ...
0_o
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1963 Eritrea
Her eyes opened and after a moment, she sat up in her bed. It wasn't a bed in the sense that most people in any sort of western culture might know. To likely anyone like that, it was little more than a rustic sort of mattress on a cleanly swept dirt floor, but then those same people didn't know any more about living here where she was than she knew of them and where they slept.
To her, it was her bed.
At first, she thought that it must have been her cramps which had caused her to awaken, but after a moment, she knew that it wasn't like that. Menstrual cramps were something rather new and very unpleasant to her, though it said that she was on the edge of her womanhood among her people.
She was thirteen and soon, her family would build her a house of her own where she would live her life, as it was done by her people for thousands of years. She wondered how she was to manage it, if she was to be afflicted with pain such as this at intervals her whole life long.
Hers cramps were awful, often confining her to this bed for a few days. She wondered how all of the women in the world that she was aware of could even cope at all. Most of the time, she wanted to weep though she never did somehow, at least not so anyone could hear her. A lot of the time, she forced herself to get up and do the things that living here demanded of everyone. You could only afford the luxury of lying in bed - no matter how much it hurt - when you had enough to eat.
Lying in bed in the agony of your period didn't get you the water that you need to drink or the food that you need to eat so that you can stay alive. For now, her family made some slight allowances for her. But soon she would live on her own and her survival was largely her own problem to a degree, not that she'd be allowed to perish, exactly, but still ...
She still didn't understand why she'd woken up, but she noticed that she wasn't feeling crampy at the moment, so that was a wonder all by itself which she wasn't about to question.
She looked around and saw that she was alone. None of her family were there and that was an odd thing, given the time of day. She couldn't say just how she knew, but she did know that it was evening. If nothing else, her mother at the very least ought to be here. But she wasn't. Where were her brothers and her sisters?
"Are you going to only sit there all evening?" she heard her mother's voice say from outside.
She got up and stepped to the door of their simple home and made to step out. "I wondered where you were, Mother," she said, "I am glad that you are he-"
She stared at the figure outside, sitting near to the outside cooking fire to warm herself.
Hearing the girl's voice, the creature turned and looked back for a moment.
This was not her mother, the girl thought.
This was a, ... a painted wolf, the largest of Africa's canids and though the girl didn't know it, they were second only to the gray wolf of North America in terms of size, which made them the second-largest naturally-occurring wild dogs of any sort on earth. Male and females typically went as heavy as 80 pounds or so and could stand as high as three feet at the shoulders on their very long legs.
They were tall and lean animals and bore little resemblance to any sort of wolf to a westerner's eyes. Their fur was short overall and they looked to be wearing a patchwork quilt, though the heads were usually all similar with their black faces and snouts under a very light tan-colored head with the ever-present dark stripe running down the middle of their heads to join the darkness over the nose.
Even their ears were substantially different. No long and narrow wolf's ears to these creatures. What was there looked much more like radar dishes than the ears of a wolf.
"You are not my mother," she said, "Why do you speak to me with her voice?"
To her amazement, the animal began to speak to her again, still in the same tone. It was startling to see.
"What sort of voice do you wish to hear from me? I chose this because I knew that you would listen to what I say to you then."
The shape began to shift a little as the creature stood up. Altogether it was rather humanlike, though the overall appearance was still very much that of an African Wild Dog. Now, however, she looked to have human traits and features all under the guise of the animal.
"Come Daughter," the thing said pleasantly, "My time here is short this night and I have things to tell."
"Are you a ghost or some sort of spirit?" she asked the thing, "Are you some sort of god?"
The creature smiled and shook her head, "No. I am one who troubles to come to you so that I might speak wisdom to you. Come," she said, slipping her long pawed arm over the girl's shoulders, "Sit with me and let us eat together."
Surprised at herself, the girl sat next to the animal and they shared some meat by the fire. When she asked, she was told that they were eating gazelle.
"I have chosen you as my learner. You do not see it yet, but it is plain to me that we are much alike."
"But you are not one of the ones which I am to know of and say prayers to," the girl said.
The beast nodded, "So if that is so, are you saying that you shun the teaching that I have for you alone?"
The young girl hesitated, "Well, no, ... but -"
"Good," the animal nodded, pleased, "It shows that I was right to come then. For our time together, you are to call me Mother - the same as you would say to the woman who gave you life. I am the one who will give you wisdom of a special kind."
They sat together after the meal and the girl looked over, "Where is my mother and my family? Where is everyone?"
The creature shrugged, "Not here."
She looked back at the girl and asked, "Have you ever seen one like me before? Like this? The way that I am here?"
The girl shook her head, "No. I have seen many of your kind, but none like you, who can look as a woman inside a painted wolf."
"That is because I am not there, where you live. I live here. Now let us begin."
She extended her long and thin arm, moving the pawed hand across the night horizon. "The reason that I have come is to say that this; ... all of this, which has been this way for both your kind and mine forever is beginning to change. That change will affect us both and all of everyone else besides.
I have seen you hunt, learning the ways of it from your father," the canine girl said to the human one, "I have seen as well that you try to learn the ways of the warrior when it is something not done by the women here. It is another reason why I have come.
You do it because you love your father and enjoy spending time with him. He loves you in return and shows you what you wish to know. It has turned into a young girl learning what some might say is not for the girl to know.
But you must know something else, Daughter. The warrior's way leads to one becoming a warrior. That is simple and clear. What is less clear is the way that you will be seen by the men of your own kind. They will not see you as a warrior at first. They will see a girl who does the things of a warrior and has no right to it.
Your people give much power to their women as it is. Men cannot be the sorceresses or the diviners, the healers and the soothsayers. That is a woman's place if it is seen that she has the power as a girl."
"I don't have that," the girl said.
"It remains to be seen in time," the animal smiled, "Not all with the power come into this world waving their tiny hands and watching the things around them move from it. In many, it comes later in childhood.
In some, it comes late, but when the gift comes, it comes almost all at once. It is my belief that you will be one like that.
It is true, you have little now, but you have other things; a sharp eye and a very strong arm for a girl; a quick mind and a hunger to know and make your place. If you continue along the warrior's path, you will become a warrior - no matter what the men say or think - and no matter what they say that you ought to do as a woman.
I am here to help you. All of this will change soon. At that time, you will be a warrior just when you are needed. But, ... "
She held up her paw, "It is a sad truth that one who is such a person and who helps her people will find that at the end of things, she is no longer one of the people who she did it all for.
The path changes the traveler.
You must know this, so I say it now - right here at the outset."
The young girl was trying to understand all of it, "What will happen?"
The creature shrugged, "What is the purpose of a warrior? Tell me this first."
The girl thought for a moment, "Well, to fight."
"Not so," her strange companion replied, "That is how the purpose is accomplished, girl. The purpose of a warrior is to make war in either direction, always to the front, whether advancing or withdrawing, but it is always the same.
I am here to meet my learner. You and I will speak like this often, and I will teach you what you need to know. My kind knows this way and we know of other ways which your kind has no knowledge of at all. My kind hunts without fear, males and females together.
Hyenas are larger and stronger than we are, and yet, my kind will battle hyenas if we must and with enough of us, we win often - because we have the wisdom to choose our fights.
Even prides of lions give way to us, yet one lion can kill many of us. How do we win then?"
"I, ... I do not know, "the girl answered honestly, "but I have heard of this."
"It is because a pride of lions is no match for one of our hunting packs. We speak to each other and work together. What are five or seven lions against twenty-five and more of us? I may hunt with three or four others and bring down my prey, and then lions come to steal what is mine.
