Neema pushed her bronze blond forearm into the high waha grass to forge an opening into the wall of green stalks, ten feet tall, that ended in fluffy, yellow, elongated crowns. Shaking the crowns sent a light dusting of yellow pollen down. The little drizzle of dust filled her matted hair that was weaved into a wild braid. The sweat on her face and arms eagerly soaked up the pollen to make her a mess. She was running at a leisurely pace. Every step impacted the soft ground. She could feel her own strength in that leg that so assuredly held her and carried her onward to the next step. Every down step filled her with confidence into her ability to be steady. Every push off shot a sensation of strength and ease into her veins. Her blood was pumping happily through her body. The rush of running cleared her head and focused her on what lay ahead.
The Tareen Grassland was an expense the tribe rarely ventured into. The prehistoric grass was so gigantic that human beings were ant-sized. There was no way to see anything -- green everywhere -- or orient - except for the sun. There were stories of tribespeople who entered the Tareen and never left it. The dominant leg tends to step faster. Thus, people tend to go in circles. The only known safe passage is to enter it precisely at 5 pm and head exactly in the direction of the sun. That pass leads through the Tareen at the shortest width. Get lost into any other direction, and it may take days to exit it.
Safe passage is a misleading idea about crossing it. The land is immensely fertile. The earth is rich here. The grass dies, decomposes, and nourishes the next generation. A river enters the plain, goes underground, and spreads out over the whole area. The groundwater is low. Neema could feel the soft and cool earth under her feet. It felt delicious as it molded to her young feet. That fertility fed a lot of animals that grazed through the plain. Those plant-eaters attract predators like the huge sable tooth tiger that could lay an ambush anywhere. The big cat could be completely concealed a foot away to suddenly and lethally shoot its head up from the ground and take the whole belly with a big bite.
Only a special mission warranted braving such dangers. Neema had three white chalk circles on her forehead. There were white lines on her arms counting how many winters she had survived: 21. She was wearing a leather loin cloth and bra. The leather was brand new. Her mother had gifted it to her in the morning. Her breasts where firm coconut halves. The nipple was nearly in the middle because they were firm. A gentle ripple moved through the fatty tissue with each step. Her belly was lean. Two bands of abdominal muscles showed their definition. Her legs were strong and muscular. She was the fastest runner in the village. She had a dagger tied to her right thigh with two leather strings. The tribe had sent her out to her coming of age trial. She was to leave a girl and return a woman to claim the queenship of her tribe.
She liked getting away from the tribe. Her heart was heavy. Only the anticipation of something new and good kept her spirits up. Shamee had walked away from her without saying anything. They had been sitting at the village well all afternoon and not said anything. She had been able to feel that something was off. She had been too afraid to say anything. She hadn't wanted to upset him even more. While she felt his body leaning against her, she had listened to his breathing. It had been calming and comforting while she accepted that he'd break up with her. When he finally rose, she let him walk away while she kept the gloomy feeling and tear-laden pain inside. She had felt him pull away for days. She had felt herself limited to what she could do about it. Say something, and he would have gotten more upset and left earlier. Try something, and she would have been even more desperate. He would have left her in disgust for the lack of self-respect. Here she was on the path to becoming a woman and starting a new life.
The sunlight was turning yellow. That meant the sunset was looming in an hour or two. She had to reach her night's destination. She had been running for hours at a leisurely pace to sustain for a long distance. Thick rivers of sweat were running down the gully of her spinal muscles. There was no water in the Tareen Grassland, only moist soil. She had to weigh exerting herself more against the time. She picked up the pace. The softly caressing grass pressed against her body. Her heart was pounding harder. Sweat ran into her baby blue eyes and stung.
She had been looking at grass stems for hours. The creases and veins on the stalks had become familiar. She could recognize the gray dead spots on the stems that spread out slowly killing the stem. Palm sized snails left their slimy paths up the stems while they were eating the stem. They'd only eat on one side to allow the other side to survive. Ones, she saw a gangwee spider net, man-high, silky, translucent. gangwee spiders where hunting deer with their nets. A human could easily get trapped in a net. The key was to keep at least one arm unattached from the sticky net. Then, one had to very, very carefully cut away one strand after the next. If both hands touched the net, one would be hopelessly trapped and at the mercy of being found before the gangwee spider returned to check her net.
There was a deadfall in the grass. The grass was weaker, shorter, and more spaced out. She was going to make it. The sun was blinding as it hung low over the horizon. This was the hunting time of the sable tooth tiger. All day, they'd nap. In the twilight, they could hide themselves better. The animals would come out to the watering spots. The birds were singing harder as the daytime heat cooled down and the air turned moist. The random ruffles in the grass grew more frequent. Everything was steering to life. The day's worth of blood would be spilled in the Tareen Grassland. She seemed vulnerable, a young girl. Her body was in shape, yet also feminine and vulnerable. Her eyes dashed from one corner to the next to survey any subtle hint in the vegetation.
The grass forest broke open. The ground felt hard and strewn with pebbles. She could see the landscape -- a rocky, bushy light hill was up ahead. There was a big tree with a wide crown at the peak of the hill. The sun had lowered itself perfectly behind the tree to make the limbs of the tree appear pitch black. The sky above the horizon had spread out a fiery red as far left and right as one could see the sky. The heat haze made the red appear as if it were oscillating. She could feel her lips parched - little, dry flecks of skin that she broke off and swallowed. She was perfectly on time. Despite being the fastest runner, she was only on time. All the princesses in her past lineage had been exemplary runners as well.
A white bleached skull on a post marked the entrance to the ceremonial site under the gate tree. The back of the skull had a small hole. That's where the battle axe had struck the enemy villager. The head was quite small by today's standards. Neema was short as well with 4' 9", a tall warrior princess in her age. Too skinny to be attractive in her age, yet a magazine model cover skinny for our age. Perhaps, she appeared a little delicate for her rough times. Yet, she had trained her muscles to be strong and her mind to withstand hardy trials.
When the kids wrestled legamours, those reptile animals that stand on two legs like kangaroos, she had been knocked hard to the ground. She was dizzy with a throbbing head and blood running from her forehead down to her eyes. Those legamours lacked arms and teeth to fight back. Yet, they were packed with muscles and ferociously head butted. The elders let the kids wrestle them for training because the fights were fierce yet non-lethal. Everyone had told her to stay down. They looked worried at her because a warrior lost in raw anger is a play toy for the opponent. Yet, she didn't want to be the only girl who had given up. She had wiped the blood off with the back of her hand and charged right back at the legamour. When the legamour lowered its head, it hit her hard into the ribs. The wind got knocked out of her lungs. Yet, she wrapped her left arm around its neck to pull it even tighter into her place of pain. Then, she unleashed her right fist beating onto its body as hard as she could. The first blows seemed to effect nothing. The legamour dragged her all around the ground and smashed her into a tree. Yet, one blow eventually stuck something tender. The legamour slackened in its fight. The place the fist pounded became mushy. The legamour collapsed under her with a weak shriek. It was dead.
The gate tree had dry branches. The leaves were few and brittle. There were lots of dark purple flowers all over the tree. She found the three foot diameter turtle shell that the priestess had told her about under the tree. The turtle shell was made from keratin. Like a wilted old nail, the turtle shell had aged in the sun and become brittle and yellow. Under the shell was a small basin with spring water. There was a cup. Neema quenched her thirst and let fresh, cool water run over her head and drizzle down her body.
This was the time to take off her clothes. The priestess had instructed her that clothes in the Pink Caladron Valley were forbidden. The Pink Caladron Valleywas the proving ground. Beyond the tree, was a bowl shaped valley, the home of the droughtnoughtus. She'd have to find and ride a droughtnoughtus. They are giant dinosaurs that, larger than a city bus. They are trapped in the valley for they are too large to scale any of the sides to get out of it. While they are giant and dangerous because of their sheer dimensions, they are mellow and slow moving animals that meander the whole day to constantly eat plants to sustain their humongous size. Being stepped on would send one 6 feet underground in an instant, literally -- driven into the ground like a nail by a giant hammer. Yet, they were little perturbed by humans climbing around on them. Though, she wasn't to conventionally ride on its neck. She was to complete the fertility ceremony to bring fertility back with the blessings for many tribe babies next summer. So, clothes weren't allowed in the Pink Coladron Valley.
She folded her leather loin and bikini to be placed under the turtle shell. She took the sharp stone from next to the spring. She placed it at her groin and started shaving off her pubic hair. Her pussy lips were pink. Her nipples were rosy pink. Being from the princess line, hers were pink, while the regular tribe's folk had brown nipples and pussies. Whenever either was visible for a tribe ceremony, eager eyes always festooned on her nipples and pussy with awe and reverence. Slave hunters for the large kingdoms in the North and South paid large sums of money to catch princesses from the middle lands like her. For in every slave pen, she would stand out. With her snatch neatly bald, her regal pink shimmered open in the sun. She was an invitation for anyone not from her tribe to risk everything and hunt her down.
She shaved her armpits as well. The fertility ritual required her to walk into the Pink Calladron Valley without her like a girl and to come out a woman.
Stark naked, her butt was a bulbous bulge, full of strength and erotic allure. She walked to the other side of the ceremonial ground under the tree. There was another post with a sun bleached skull. She could recognize that it was a woman's skull. The right side was missing the temporal bone. A bat had probably smashed it in. A crack ran from the missing cranial bone to the orbit of her eye. The violence of the hit had probably killed her instantly.