Smith’s valedictory address: As we leave high school we need to make our voices heard. I was going to get up here and talk to you about TV and content and media because those are things that are very important to me. However, in light of recent events, it feels wrong to talk about anything but what is currently affecting me and millions of other women in this state. Recently the heartbeat bill was passed in Texas. Starting in September, there will be a ban on abortions that take place after 6 weeks of pregnancy, regardless of whether the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest. 6 weeks. Most women don’t even realize they’re pregnant by then. And so, before they have the time to decide if they are emotionally, physically, and financially stable enough to carry out a full-term pregnancy, before they have the chance to decide if they can take on the responsibility of bringing another human into the world, the decision has been made for them by a stranger. A decision that will affect the rest of their lives. I have dreams, hopes, and ambitions. Every girl here does. We have spent our whole lives working towards our futures, and without our consent or input, our control over our futures has been stripped away from us. I am terrified that if my contraceptives fail me, that if I’m raped, then my hopes and efforts and dreams for myself will no longer be relevant. I hope you can feel how gut-wrenching it is, how dehumanizing it is, to have the autonomy over your own body taken from you. And I’m talking about this today, on a day as important as this, on a day honoring the students’ efforts in twelve years of schooling, on a day where we’re all brought together, on a day where you will be the most inclined to hear a voice like mine, a woman’s voice, to tell you that this is a problem. A problem that can’t wait. I refuse to give up this platform to promote complacency and peace, when there is a war on my body and a war on my rights. A war on the rights of your sisters, a war on the rights of your mothers, a war on the rights of your daughters. We cannot stay silent.
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About the Author: Carol Toler
Blogger CAROL TOLER and her husband, Toby, are the parents of four LHHS graduates. She has an MBA from SMU and a passion for writing good-news stories about fascinating people. Email ctoler@advocatemag.com.
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How Ratha's Island Originated
Beginning on March 14, 2009, a new experiment in Y/A fantasy fiction appeared on Twitter. “Ratha's Island”, a novelette designed specifically for the micro-blogging service's 140 character format, ran twice daily in blocks of 6-10 sequential “tweets” or short posts (Twitter's logo is a little bluebird, so it's messages are called “tweets”). Twitter's designers imposed the 140 character limit to enable cellphones and other wireless devices to receive the messages.) Ratha's Island ran faithfully every day, with the exception of a one-weekend break, and drew over 1000 followers to my @rathacat Twitter stream.
Ratha Attacking the Condor-Eagle, art and photo 2009 by Clare Bell
The main intent was to entertain people on Twitter, get them interested in the Ratha series, publicize the the new short story, "Bonechewer's Legacy" in Firebirds Soaring anthology, edited by Sharyn November, and to celebrate the newest novel, Ratha's Courage, published by Sheila Ruth of Imaginator Press.
The Ratha's Island project started when Sheila noted Twitter's early explosive growth. She began to use the site and suggested that I experiment with it to publicize the Ratha series. At first, like many new Twitter users, I wasn't sure why I was there, or what the service was really for. I noticed other authors trying out various types of fiction, ranging from compressed and punchy “micro-fiction” to complete novels, tweeted line-by-line. Reaction to these was mixed.
Ratha's Island 01 At the time I joined Twitter, I found one Y/A author tweeting comments from three characters in her recently published book. She had set up three different user-names and had the three tweet back and forth to each other. I liked that idea, but for some reason I couldn't figure out how to set up different usernames, so I used the single @rathacat account I had established. How then to distinguish the character tweets from my personal posts? I began by simply adding a short, attention-getting preface. First I tried “RathaTweets” , then “ClanCatTweets”, but neither had the unique quality I wanted. Everyone else tweeted. I wanted my cat characters to do something different. Chirping Cats? Cats, both large and small, make many other sounds other than the traditional meow, purr, growl, or hiss. Cheetahs, on which which the Named are partially based, make a chirping sound to call their young. Well, chirping is like tweeting, so my preface word became “ClanCatChirps”,which then got shortened to “ClanChirps”. Not perfect, but good enough to start with. The first Chirp appeared at 12:39 AM, August 26, 2008. Sheila was tweeting about raising monarch butterfly caterpillars and how to deal with their excreta. Ratha made a typical feline suggestion, which was to her caterpillars to use a litterbox. After that, the Chirps tumbled out. ClanChirps - Fessran says "I'll bet getting Courage to the printer was more work than herding three-horns!" 06:57 PM August 26, 2008 from TwitBin ClanChirps - Bira says "Yes, cats can chirp. Ask any cheetah." 07:02 PM August 26, 2008 from TwitBin The early ClanChirps varied a bit, but finally I settled into a format using the preface, a dash, the character's name followed by a colon, and then the speaker's dialog, indicated by quotes. This was an variation on screenplay format, but it worked. Example: ClanChirps – Ratha: “Yarrrr! Chirp!” It quickly became evident that the Named weren't going to confine their remarks to their own world or their own experiences. Here's Ratha's opinion of her biological classification in the human world. ClanChirps - Ratha says "Nimravid? Yarrr, I look like a cat, I walk like a cat, I smell like a cat, I sound like a cat, so I am a cat!" 09:49 PM August 26, 2008 from TwitBin Here's a brief and abortive experiment in Twit-dapting an early chapter of Ratha's Courage. ClanChirps - Ashon (from Ratha's Courage). "Ok, you face-tailed thing. You ARE going to back up. Quit throwing mud at me!" Splat... 10:41 AM August 31, 2008 from web ClanChirps - Ratha, watching Ashon and the face-tail, thinking, "If he gets scared and backs down, we may lose a good herding student." 11:32 AM August 31, 2008 from web Maybe I should have continued in that way, but the Named got distracted by a human event, the 2008 Labor Day weekend. Discussion began about the exchange of virtual food (cookies), and moved to speculation about the clan's ability to hold a celebratory barbecue. Thakur provided a suggestion for barbecue sauce, but Fessran quickly took the lead. ClanChirps - Fessran and the Firekeepers are digging a barbecue pit. They'll put green twigs over it, and hot coals underneath. 01:56 PM August 31, 2008 from web ClanChirps - Fessran: "Fireekeepers, bring more wood to the pit and be careful you don't fall in. We don't want to bbq you!" 03:51 PM September 01, 2008 from web As blogged in the Scratching Log, the Named clan cats began chirping about anything and everything, even venturing into the human world of holidays and politics. ( see “ClanChirps – Ratha on Twitter” - http://www.rathascourage.com/2008/10/clanchirps-ratha-on-twitter_07.html). From random snacky comments to Sheila Ruth and other Twitter users, and more snarky remarks to each other, the clan set out exploring the strange world of Twitter. I wondered how far I should let the clan cats wander from the established “cannon” of the printed Ratha books and stories, but the Named gang had already made their decision. They wanted to interact with the human world. Ratha made that clear with the first Chirp about Sheila's butterflies. I could only follow where she and the others led. Encouraged by the fact that people on Twitter enjoyed these exchanges, I decided to do something more elaborate. To publicize Ratha's Courage, I began a little prequel to the book in dialog. In order to make more sense, I blocked the chirps in sequences. Sometimes as few as two appeared together, sometimes six or even eight. Ratha's Island 02 Here's a description of the first Twitter story from The Scratching Log blog's“ClanChirps – Ratha on Twitter” posts The Chirps also include a little ongoing tale, done in dialog, which is a prequel to Ratha's Courage. Featuring Bundi, from Clan Ground, and Mishanti, from Ratha and Thistle-Chaser, this little Twitter-playlet relates how the rumblers (indrotheres) Grunt and Belch came to be among the clan's herdbeasts and how they got their names. Composed directly on Twitter, this Named Twit-improv (Twitprov?) is coming directly from the kitty's mouth, so to speak, and not even the author knows what the Named will do or say next.” This time, since this Twitter play introduced Ratha's Courage, the Miocene mob stayed within their setting and time. In order to help orient readers who were unfamiliar with the series, (and encourage them to actually read the books!) some Chirps included links, especially at the beginning. For example, this first story tweet named the character and linked to the book where he first appeared. ClanChirps-Bundi (Clan Ground, http://tinyurl.com/5t4y2l ):"Those poor rumbler babies are starving." 10:51 AM September 03, 2008 from web. Here is Mishanti, warning Bundi to be careful while getting a threehorn milch-doe from the herd to provide milk for the rumbler babies: ClanChirps- Mishanti: "Not get kicked in head, else you talk like me and Thistle. Kicked in furry butt, maybe OK." 10:18 PM September 04, 2008 from web The tale got interrupted by several very “non-canon” escapades where the cats assumed the ability to teleport through time and peer into human activities, including the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, and, of course, the 2008 Presidential election. See The Scratching Log post, “The Named Are Being Twits Again” http://www.rathascourage.com/2008/11/the-named-are-being-twits-again.html The tale did not so much end as wobble to a finish, but this Chirp helped bring it to a close. ClanChirps - Thakur: "You can keep Grunt and Belch, and the milch-doe. You do have to take proper care of the deer, and I will check on that."12:13 PM Dec 11th, 2008 from web So, the Named had gotten their paws wet in the Twitter stream. Both they and their fans on Twitter wanted more. Ratha's Island 03 Then, this email started me thinking. It contained an idea from Jaqueline Simmonds, of Beagle Bay, the distributor for Imaginator Press. From Sheila Ruth, 1/21/2009 "I also wanted to pass along a suggestion from Jacqueline for you to think about. She loves the idea of the ClanChirps, but was wondering if it would be possible for you to come up with a story with a little more "hook" - something that would draw people in who haven't read the series and get them interested." Another phenomenon that impelled me was the growing popularity of cellphone novels, which were hot in Japan I began thinking about this. First, decisions. Continue in the ClanChirps format, which was dialog only, or blend the Chirps in with some description? Should I try straight narration? I noticed that some authors who were using narrative chose first person (the “I”) seemed to have more Twitter followers and that those who worked in other modes weren't quite as successful. Seeing comments that indicated that readers were getting confused and dropping out of twitted tales made me look for reasons and I found them. Readers said that multiple characters and multiple viewpoints made it difficult to follow what was going on, especially when they got one or two tweets per day. They lost track of who was saying what, and which events and description applied to which people. By using the screenplay-like format, grouping Tweets in blocks, and keeping to a regular timed twice-a-day schedule (12 noon and 6 PM), I had avoided many pitfalls. However, much of the richness in the Ratha books comes from narrative and description, which the ClanChirps couldn't easily sustain. The idea of a longer piece was to provide a taste of the series, encouraging more people to read the books. It had to be narrative. For some reason I did not even consider using first person. Perhaps it was because the series uses standard third-person limited viewpoint for clarity, venturing only into a “pseudo first-person” to give a glimpse into a mind that was very different than that of the conscious Named. I had done that with Quiet Hunter in Ratha's Challenge, and Night-who-eats-Stars in Ratha's Courage, but it was a very intense mode, to be used sparingly. So the pieces began falling into place. The Twitter fiction would read like the books, or as close as possible, given the 140 character limitation. The number of main players would have to be severely limited, to make events clear. I decided to go with one clan-cat viewpoint character and concentrate on that individual's experiences and reactions. That choice imposed some story restrictions. I could not have a complex plot, with a lot of antagonist-protagonist and subsidiary character interactions, without risking confusion. The story would have to be simpler, involving one Named cat off by themselves, trying to explore or do something that would intrigue a reader's interest. What would that something be? Ratha's Island 04 Several ideas and themes came into play. One involved flight. I have been a student pilot and greatly enjoyed it until I ran out of time and money. I had used that background to invent a type of ride-able flying animal, the “aronans” of my novel People of the Sky. I was playing with the concept of a society of bat-winged cheetah-like big cats in a book proposal for a new series. A flying animal the size of a big cat would have to attain a high take-off speed, and cheetahs can hit 70 mph, which is faster than the take-off speed of some light aircraft. Cheetahs are also lightly built and have deep chests. A cheetah-like creature could develop a keel-bone to anchor flight muscles I had great fun developing the creature's structure, lifestyle, society, etc. and building its world, but, unfortunately, the proposal itself didn't fly. The “Ratha's Creatures” posts in my Scratching Log blog (link) described various Miocene animals the clan either used or encountered. All had been mammals. Because my stepson was raising poultry, and a young friend of mine was taking a class on hawks, I decided to explore Miocene birds, specifically the birds of prey. Did hawks and eagles exist 20 million years ago? I researched the subject, and found that indeed their ancestors did. Raptors also include vultures and other carrior-eaters. I knew about the giant vultures (Teratornis) found in the LaBrea Tarpits. I was also peripherally aware of a new discovery called Agentavis magnifens, vulture-like bird approaching the size of a Cessna 152 (link). It also belonged to the teratorn family. I became more intrigued with Argentavis,especially when I discovered that it had ancestors in the Miocene, and some fossil evidence showed that the ancestors may have been even larger than Argentavis itself. Argentavis compared in size to a human Thistle-chaser Airlines? OK, I wanted to use this bird in the Named Twitter fiction. An idea bit me and I followed it. What if one of the clan-cats, say, for instance, Thistle-chaser, encountered a young giant teratorn that was abandoned and starving. What if she took care of the bird, raised it, and learned that it was so big that should could ride on it as it flew? Perhaps she could even figure out how to direct it. Thistle-chaser Airlines! It would be a large and unexpected jump in the biological technology of the Named, and great fun to work with. Ratha's Island 05 Before I could run with that concept, however, another idea pounced on me, demanding attention. This involved evolution; more specifically, alternate evolution. By creating the Named and their society I had already begun exploring a what-if, which was, "What if conscious awareness and sapience arose in a big cat?" Now I began to investigate another what-if, which was, "What if there was a place on earth where creatures had arisen from six-legged rather than four-legged forms (i.e.hexapod ancestors rather than quadripedal ones) "? What if one of the Named got there and encountered these animals? Still another idea ambushed me. One of my readers is a visually-challenged fan who offered to help me if I ever wanted to do a Ratha story about a clan cub who was born blind. She has actually role-played a limited-vision character on the Ratha forum, and has done a wonderful job, using her own experience and perceptions. (link) It would be a fun opportunity, and could offer a very unique perspective. I decided to run some ideas by Sheila Ruth, so I sent her an email describing both the Thistle-tames-giant-bird idea and the blind-clan-cub idea. Sheila gave me some good feedback. She wasn't all that fond of the Thistle-tames-giant-bird concept. To her it seemed far-fetched, even for Thistle-chaser. As presented, it didn't offer that much of a story opportunity. She liked the blind-cub concept better, but pointed out that Erin Hunter's Warrior Cat series had introduced a blind clan-cat character, and we risked being accused of stealing their idea if we went with it. She did say that my enthusiasm for flying would enliven whatever I wrote and that she encouraged me to include it. None of her comments actually excluded the previous ideas, but prompted me to re-evaluate them. I still had the Named-clan-cat-on-hexapod-animal-island concept, and decided to explore that before settling on either one of the others, or coming up with an entirely new idea. I decided that the clan cat had to be Ratha herself. Much as I enjoy writing about Thistle-chaser, Ratha is the star of the series, the best known, and the one I knew best. Since I like to be as accurate as I can in depicting the animals of the Named world, based on fossils, and there was absolutely no fossil evidence to suggest that a hexapodal evolutionary line ever existed on earth, I had a bit of a quandry. Was this concept even feasible. I thought for awhile and decided that even if there was no evidence that it actually happened, there was nothing to say it couldn't have. There were no fossils indicating that any of earth's mammals had been hexapodal, but it sure worked well for insects, who are in numbers, the dominant species on the planet. I also ran across an article suggesting that a prehistoric fish might have walked on the ocean bottom using three pairs of fins. So the concept wasn't impossible. Suppose such creatures had existed in a place where their fossils were wiped out by a natural disaster, so that we couldn't discover them? Suppose their homeland suffered volcanic eruption and earthquake, sinking so deeply beneath the sea that we know nothing about it? Such a scenario suggested a large island. Isolated habitats such as islands often send evolution in strange and wonderful directions. Perhaps some unknown hexapodal ancestors reached a large island and gave rise to a very different branch of evolution, the way the marsupials did in South America and Australia. Having a line with six-limbed ancestors is great fun for creature-building. In a hexapod evolutionary sequence, one or more pairs of walking limbs can transform into other appendages, such as arms or wings. Hexapod ancestors can generate centauroids (two arms, four legs) winged tetrapods (winged mammals and four-legged birds) winged bipeds (arms, legs and wings), and many other combinations. Of course, one of the winged tetrapods could be cheetah-like cat. So here were the ingredients for a nifty tale: 1) A Named clan cat flying on the back of a giant vulture or condor-like bird. 2) Being taken by the bird to an island where evolution generated a hexapod-based fauna. 3) Discovering the various island creatures through the clan-cat's perceptions. That, however, couldn't be all. Yes, it would be great fun finding all these strange creatures, but there had to be something more to the story. Well, one could make it an "individual against nature" tale, with the clan cat having to cope with an earthquake and volcanic eruption, as well as everyday survival. I decided to go with that until something better suggested itself. For three and a half days in mid-February, I sat on my bed with a writing-pad. I began with notes. What if this happened? What if that happened? Snatches of description and dialog. Sequences of events. Critically, how would Ratha get aboard the giant teratorn and fly to the island? I did more research to make the idea plausible. Some teratorn features suggested that the giant birds weren't just scavengers; they may have hunted, and snatched prey off the ground as hawks and eagles do. Indeed, some reconstructions of Argentavis showed it with an eagle-like fully feathered head instead of bare skin, like that of a vulture. Experiments with wind-tunneling an Argentavis model, and observations of soaring birds suggested that, with a headwind and an elevated launching site, the giant teratorn could lift off from the ground, perhaps even while clutching prey. The first scene laid itself out. The Named herding their beasts in a meadow as a storm approaches. A great teratorn circles beneath the clouds, making the clan cats nervous. The cubs help to get the restive creatures to shelter under the trees. A three-horn fawn breaks away from the herd and a clan-cub chases it.The bird swoops to grab the cub and Ratha attacks to defend it. In the fight, Ratha frees the cub, but the bird grabs her and flies away. Other scenes in "note narrative" followed, answering questions such as how could Ratha escape from the bird's claws up to its back, where she could control its flight? How much control would she really have? And so on. The first draft was largely in "note-narrative" form, and finished in a day. The next draft, taking on more pure narrative form, took another two days. A bit cross-eyed at this point, I typed the first part it into my word processor, saved it, and took a break, letting it cool off before re-reading it. Later, I looked it over, liked it, and decided to email it to Sheila. Her response encouraged me to continue. Since the story looked promising, we began emailing each other about more practical aspects, such as when would the tale start on Twitter, so that we could announce and generate publicity for it. I continued to write the story and send it to Sheila. Ratha's Island 06 Now came the challenging part, which was “Twitterizing” the tale. The first step was to take what I had written so far and cast each sentence into the 140-character format. We also decided to make use of Twitter's search tag function. These “hashtags” as they are known, mark tweets so that a search will list all tweets with the tag. Putting a “#” before any word or phrase turns it into a hashtag. I first noticed these during the 2008 US Presidential election, when #obama and #mcain became prominent tags. Sheila and I decided to use “#rathafic” to mark the story posts. Since the tag eats up some of the 140 character allotment, we tried to make it as short as possible. Even with the short tag, the characters available for story posts shrank to 130, making the task harder. The posts would look like this: “#rathafic_First sentence of the story.” The editing process was a bit different from that used in tightening up a draft manuscript. Instead of a limiting word-count on the overall piece, each sentence had to be tightened and tuned. There were no strict limits on the number of sentences, although neither I nor the audience wanted the tale to drag out. So I scrutinized each sentence for excess baggage, sloppy construction, passive voice, and other unnecessary verbiage. Long sentences divided into two or three small ones. Sometimes two short sentences became one, which was re-divided so that part went on the next line. Here's an example: Original sentence: "Bristlemanes and night-howlers might tear into the the belly of their prey while it was still standing, but the Named stuck to kill and waited until death stilled struggle and suffering." Sheila, who was helping me edit, flagged this sentence as way too long. And it had a misspelled word. "Stuck" should have been "struck". We used large colored type and comments bracketed in asterisks to tell each other about the changes we were suggesting. Here's the sentence as it appeared in a very late draft (we went through drafts 4a to 4m, so there were quite a few). Bristlemanes and night-howlers might tear into the the belly of their prey while it was still standing. The Named ***struck***to kill and waited until death stilled struggle and suffering.***I took out “but” and split this into two sentences.*** However, if each sentence was an individual tweet, the narrative became too choppy. It needed variable length sentences to make it read more easily, and convey a sense of style. Ratha's Island 07 Another example: From this early version (posts weren't in blocks): "From a distance Ratha recognized the little female. She was one of the best of Thakur's cub students. Her boldness and dedication reminded Ratha of herself, when she trained under Thakur. Boldness, however, wasn't the best idea right now. "Leave the creature!" Ratha yowled. "Follow Ashon!" The cub, however, was too focused on the three-horn fawn. Ratha knew that instinct had locked the youngster on her quarry. Nothing would make the cub break away unless someone knocked her down. The really good Named herders had that one vulnerability." To this: "Block 14 #rathafic From a distance Ratha recognized the little female. She was one of the best of Thakur's cub students. #rathafic Her boldness and dedication reminded Ratha of herself, when she had trained under Thakur. #rathafic Boldness, however, wasn't the best idea right now. "Leave the creature!" Ratha yowled. "Follow Ashon!" Block 15 #rathafic The cub, however, was too focused on the three-horn fawn. Ratha knew that instinct had locked the youngster on her quarry. #rathafic Nothing would make the cub break away unless someone knocked her down. The really good Named herders had that one vulnerability." These examples show how one can work within a 130 character limit to create an exciting, easy to read tale. Since Twitter allowed clickable links in posts, I decided to give readers some of the research background on the tale by adding links to webpages describing various prehistoric animals or other items in the story. Another hashtag, “#rathalink”, announced those. Noticing that Twittered fiction posts tended to get lost in the Twitstream, I decided to make them more prominent by 1. scheduling them at set times twice a day, 2. announcing the upcoming posts starting a half-hour before they appeared, 3 arranging the posts in blocks of 3-5 per set (later 6-10 per set at reader request), and appending one or more #rathalink posts. The number of posts were limited to a maximum of 10-12, and often less to avoid clogging the Twitter tubes. We also decided to create a story accumulation page, so that readers who came late could orient themselves and enjoy the story. This wasn't new – many other authors had done it. Now all I had to do was make sure the posts appeared on schedule and were duly logged on the Ratha's Island story compilation page. For a month! But we did it, and I hope you enjoyed this peek into the workings of a writer's (and publisher's ) minds when challenged by the new medium of Twitter. "Tweet! Yarrrrrr....."
Ratha's Island (#4)
8/16/09
From close above Ratha came a terrific crack.
She wondered dimly if a chunk of the cliff had come loose and would fall on her.
Something or someone hit Ratha, knocking her sideways, spinning her.
It grabbed her hindquarters, making a sling around her lower belly, halting her descent.
Jaws grabbed her nape, pulling her up and away from the frothing, steaming sea. She heard flapping, hard and heavy.
A second set of wing-beats joined the first; slower, but stronger.
Another set of jaws tried to take Click from her, but her own teeth were clenched on the cub and wouldn't loosen.
The pull ceased. Ratha then felt a gentle tongue licking her forehead.
A trilling purr sounded in her ear.
The scent around Ratha, although dulled by smoke and her own draining awareness, was
exotic, but cat-like, and female.
A slight tinge of milkiness in the odor told her that her rescuer was a nursing mother.
No, not just any nursing female of this flying creature's species. Click's mother.
The tongue-lick seemed to say, "Thank you for rescuing my baby."
Something slipped around her shoulders and added to the upward pull, helping to lift Ratha higher.
Were those long cat-like forelegs similar to her own?
She tried to see her rescuers, but couldn't raise her head.
She felt her ears brush what felt like a furred chest as a neck reached out over her head and jaws again tried to take Click.
The cub mewed eagerly.
Ratha unlocked her jaws and let the cub loose.
Did Ratha imagine it, or did Click give her a soft pat on the cheek as the cub's mother took her?
Another trilling purr came from further back, this one deeper and male.
It seemed to say, relax, trust us, we will take care of you now. Let it all go. Let it all...
The last things Ratha heard before she slipped under were the increasing speed of wing-beats and the rush of wind.
When she woke again, this time with soft grass under her paws and belly, she wasn't alone. She lay beside someone.
The someone had fur that brushed and mingled with her own; whose ribs rose and fell, pushing gently against her side.
She blinked, but lay still. Still exhausted by the struggle, she felt so comfortable that she could just drift off again.
Curiosity nipped at her, refusing to let her sleep. She sighed, pushing back the lingering weariness to reclaim her senses.
Something covered Ratha, comforting and warming her. It was wide and flat, with spars that spread it over her.
She could feel them resting gently on her back. She cracked one eyelid open, saw filtered sunlight passing through...
...velvet-furred skin.
Ratha rolled her head slightly, wanting to see more of this covering, but afraid of disturbing the sleeper.
In some areas where the velvet fur thinned on the underside, she saw fine veining in the membrane and along the nearest spar.
She realized that she lay under a wing, just like the ones Click would have when she grew up.
It belonged to Click's mother, lying alongside.
Though the wing first appeared to be a much larger version of a bat's wing, Ratha saw differences.
Support spars emerged from various places along the main wing-arm. They didn't just originate from one “hand” joint, as in a bat.
Turning her head to glance over her shoulder, she saw that one spar emerged from the “elbow” joint of the wing-arm.
Another forked from the main limb at the “hand” position, helping to support the wing.
Ratha held her breath for an instant, wondering how this beautiful, fragile-looking structure had helped lift her from the boiling sea.
Her paw moved out to touch, to stroke, but the wing-spar shook slightly and she heard a cat-yawn. She snatched her paw back.
The wing-bearer was waking up. Instinct made Ratha tense, as if to flee, but she made herself relax. This creature had saved her.
Why now would it harm her? Above her, the wing lifted. It began to fold, in a manner much different than a bat's.
Did the main wing-arm actually grow shorter as the wing folded? Ratha wanted to shake her head, unsure what she saw.
These island dwellers had an endless series of surprises.
Trilling softly, Click's mother turned her head to Ratha. Her eyes were a silvery blue, with the slanted pupils.
The female's nose looked as if a dark brown leaf had flown against it and had stuck there, point up.
The ears resembled Click's, except that a fleshy stem rose up from the interior of each ear at the center.
Ratha had seen similar noses and ears on small night-flying bats.
The female's muzzle was a dark sepia, shading to golden brown on forehead and cheeks. The color intensified her silver-blue eyes.
Something touched Ratha between the shoulders. Fingers. They felt like a treeling's fingers, though larger.
Ratha controlled her impulse to flinch, telling herself that these creatures hadn't harmed her.
The touch moved down along her spine, inquisitive, yet gentle. The fingers sifted through her fur.
It felt oddly pleasant and Ratha found herself arching to meet it, like a cub enjoying the licks of a parent's tongue.
Glancing down, she saw that all the the winged female's feet were on the ground. How then was the other touching her?
Ratha looked back over her shoulder. Click's mother was using a wing shaft to stroke her, but more than just the shaft itself.
Two long fingers and a shorter one that resembled a thumb emerged from the joint where the wing-arm bent backwards.
The wing-hand resembled that of a treeling, but larger, and with fewer fingers. It had claw-like nails that caressed her fur.
The hand stilled, closed and lifted as the wing itself settled against the creature's body.
Still tingling from the wing-cat's touch, Ratha walked a few paces away, then sat, sorting out her feelings and trying not to stare.
It felt strange being stroked by these creatures, as if she were a pet.
Now Ratha could see that Click's mother was a golden cream, with a slightly darker streak down her back.
Her color shaded down to sepia on all her limbs, including wings and tail.
Her mate's fur was also white, but with a blue cast, shading to dark gray, then black in the same places. His eyes shone dark blue.
Click resembled her mother, except that her coat was lighter, with only a hint of the adult's darker points.
Ratha listened as the couple trilled, clicked and whistled to each other.
The interchange had the intensity, variety and complexity of an intelligent conversation.
One that she could neither understand nor join, she realized, hearing the female make high and low trills at the same time.
Ratha felt her ears sag slightly. Her Named cat-speech probably sounded like animal noises to these elegant fliers.
She suspected that their communication was as far above her level as she was above that of her pet treeling.
Was that how they saw her? As a clever, precocious, and even sympathetic animal,...
... but still no more than... a pet?
Ratha felt her fur rise with indignation before the thought was complete.
Ratha quickly sat and licked her ruffled fur down. No. Would a mere “pet” have endured so much to save Click?
The wing-cat couple's expressions and actions showed that they respected her, even if they couldn't talk to her.
Both came to her and nose-touched. The feel of their odd leaf-shaped noses made Ratha want to wrinkle her own, but she didn't
Click's mother lay down to nurse her cub while the male groomed himself with his tongue and his wing-hands.
Ratha realized that she stood in another cliff-top meadow overlooking the sea, this one even higher.
The sun rose, gilding the horizon, then gathering all the brilliance into itself and spreading light across the sky.
She turned to the sunrise, trembling, knowing that she was facing east toward Clan Ground.
A soft cry escaped before she could smother it. Would she ever see her home and her people again?.
Ratha turned to the wing-cats, one sitting on each side of her, and couldn't help speaking aloud.
“Home,” she said, in a choked voice. “Can you understand? Can you take me?”
The only responses were concerned looks. Yes they wanted to help her, but they didn't know how.
Ratha lifted a paw and clawed in the direction of the rising sun. Click left her mother and scampered to Ratha's side.
The cub waved a back-spar. Ratha saw now that the spar had the beginnings of the adult wing and the wing-hand.
Click pointed the longest part of her developing wing-hand in the sunward direction, chirping excitedly to her parents.
The male and female looked at each other again. This time they understood.
Ratha watched, her hope lifting.
The male left, winging inland. When he returned, he had meat to fill their bellies. Gratefully, Ratha ate her share.
When everyone was done, they rested, preparing for the journey. At last the male stood up and called to the female.
Click's mother lifted her cub up, placing her on the male's neck, where she clung tightly. The pair flanked Ratha.
They walked with her to the cliff edge. Ratha knew that the only way they could launch with her was to plunge from this height.
Her trembling turned to shaking. If they couldn't recover before they hit the sea, or if they dropped her...
She stilled her fear, looking ahead, not down, as the wing-cats took their positions and put their paws around her.
The female took Ratha behind the forelegs. The male clasped her rear legs and tail.
Click peeked at her from her father's nape.
Ratha couldn't help clenching her teeth as she heard the swish of wings and felt the push moving her toward and...
... over the cliff edge.
The cliff-face streaked past Ratha in an upward-moving blur that sped up alarmingly. She stiffened with terror.
No, she was too heavy, they were falling too fast, they'd never recover before they smashed on the rocks...
The paws held her tightly. A terrific double crack resounded above her as two sets of wings spread and fought the air.
The abrupt jerk and lift left her breathless, then the fliers tipped over into a short glide while they recovered their strength.
Ratha dared not look down to see how close they had come to the rocks and wave-tops.
Her courage had its limits. She didn't need to test it further.
She went limp with relief, letting the flying pair cradle her as they climbed out over the sea toward the rising sun.
The wing-cats didn't rise as high as the condor-eagle had flown. Ratha gazed up, feeling her old desire stir again.
She wanted to run the trails of the upper sky once more, to experience the intoxication, but now she knew the danger.
Her fore-paw itched to point upward and the fliers would understand, but she held the paw still.
Ratha would not ask the wing-cat couple to risk such an ascent especially since they had the cub, Click, with them.
If she ever sought the sky's far reaches again, she would do it on her own, without endangering anyone else's life.
Unless they chose to experience it with her.
Ratha grimaced at her own audacity. For such a ground-bound creature as herself to dream of flight was nearly insanity.
Yet it had happened twice. Once when the condor eagle had seized her and brought her to the island.
Now, with the wing-cats, flying her home. Who knew what possibilities might lie ahead?
And who might chose to experience them with her. She though of her mate, with a warm feeling in her breast. “Thakur”, she purred.
Ratha knew she would never forget either journey. The outbound flight might have been more exciting, but she'd been fighting for her life.
This time she could just enjoy the wingcats' gift. No clouds interrupted the sweep of crystal blue above.
The incredibly clear air let Ratha see distances and beauty she could scarcely have imagined and would never forget.
The sun heated her fur, but the headwind from the wing-cats' flight kept her comfortable.
Sometimes the wing-cats changed positions, the male taking Ratha at the front, the female taking her hindquarters.
The couple did the exchange so skillfully that, after some nervousness during the first time, she trusted them completely.
When Click's father came to the front, Click could lean down from his neck and gently paw Ratha.
“You won't forget me, will you, Click.” Ratha said softly to the cub. Click cocked her head to one side and double-trilled back at her.
The cub must be starting to learn more of her parents' complex language, Ratha thought. Could I ever understand it?
She wondered if the wing-cats had names. There was Click, of course, but she had improvised that.
The couple had to have names. How else could they speak intelligently to each other? She was sure they did.
Such a wide variety and mix of sounds had to carry meaning.
Ratha listened carefully to the flow of whistles, chirps, tweets, trills and clicks back and forth.
However, she couldn't find anything that even resembled a clan word, let alone a name.
Sighing, she wondered if it was she who needed the idea of names and she was trying to find it in the wing-cats.
Intelligence had many forms in her world, Ratha thought. From the light in the eyes of her own clan and their names and speech...
...to the dream-stalking ways of True-of-Voice and his tribe of face-tail hunters.
Now she could add these flying felines from the strange island she had just left.
How many different kinds of this sapient gift existed in her world?
Probably more than she could ever find in her lifetime, even if she spent it searching.
She yawned. So much hard thinking drained her, and she was still exhausted from her trials on the island.
Against her will, she felt herself drifting into a doze.
The rocking sensation as the wing-cats carried Ratha only made her sleepier.
During the day she fought sleep, not wanting to waste an instant of the wonder around her.
At last, at dusk, she gave in, falling into slumber while the couple bore her on into the night.
Another sunrise warmed and woke her. She blinked, lifted her muzzle and peered ahead.
Clouds hung below the sunrise on the horizon, but beneath lay a strip of brown and green. Her heart leaped. She was almost home.
Her rescuers changed their course, angling to the left of the dawn sun. Their wingbeats slowed and they began a downward glide.
A fresh headwind blew in her face, alive with the scents of the world she knew. The strip of land ahead enlarged, showing details.
She welcomed the sights of beaches, headlands, cliff-faces, bays, coves, rocky jetties; even small offshore...islands.
She grinned wryly to herself. Hopefully her recent experience hadn't given her a permanent aversion to all islands.
Not all of the experiences had been bad. She might even want to go back for a visit,if possible, but not too soon.
The fliers flattened their glide. Now Ratha could recognize the places where she had prowled along this coast.
Behind the beaches lay windy dunes, and beyond, forests and plains.
Through those lands lay the trail that would lead her back to Clan Ground.
The fliers headed toward a cove where a river, flowing down from the forest, ended in a lagoon. It was Thistle-chaser's beach!
She couldn't guess how the wing-cats had known, but she felt sure that this was Thistle-chaser's refuge.
Here her once-crippled and abandoned daughter had struggled to survive before Thakur found Thistle and returned her to the Named.
The wing-cats skimmed low, passing over the surf. Ratha felt unsure about how they would land while carrying her.
They flew to the back-beach, where the sand rolled in softer dunes, back-winged, sank, and loosed her hindquarters.
Her feet dragged in warm soft sand.
She felt the male wing-cat's grip on her chest slacken and she slid through his paws and tumbled into the crest of the dune.
Ratha slid downhill slightly in the sand, then scrambled up to the dune's crest again, fearing that her rescuers would fly away.
Instead the wing-cats settled on the sand dune, one on each side of her.
She wished again that she could talk to them, but could only rub foreheads with each one, trying to show her gratitude.
Click squirmed on her father's shoulder. He helped the cub down and she ran to Ratha.
Without thinking, Ratha caught the wing-cub up in her paws, cradled her and caressed her.
“I will see you again,” Ratha said fiercely. “I don't know how, but I will.”
She held Click close, enjoying all the cub's strange little noises, even the ghost-clicks that pinged in her face.
With a last lingering touch, she reared up and replaced Click on the male's neck.
Out of impulse, she slid alongside him, flopping a friendly tail over his back .
To her delight, he responded in kind, lifting his wings out of the way. His dark blue eyes lit with affection.
The female wing-cat also lifted her wings, inviting Ratha to slide-rub alongside her.
Ratha slid, rubbed, and tail-flopped until her fur tingled and her head spun with joy. She sat back to catch her breath.
Now that she wasn't just hanging from the wing-cats' paws and could actually see them, she noticed how deep their chests were.
If they were built like birds, their breastbone would be a keel-bone, and would anchor huge muscles that powered the wings.
She decided that it probably was, and wondered if some of the wing-cats' bones were hollow, to make them lighter.
While she was exploring that question, the time came at last for her new friends to leave.
She thought that they would spring up off the dune, but instead, they paced down to the hard damp sand of the fore-beach.
Facing into the wind, they closed their wings and launched into a gallop. Sand flew from their feet; their legs blurred; their backs arched and bowed.
They ran exactly as she did, but even faster, wings starting to open.
Now Ratha understood why Click's parents had those long legs, slender, muscular bodies, and lean, powerful backs.
They might fling themselves into the sky from high cliffs, but on the flat they had to reach a speed high enough to take off.
Even though the couple had fully spread their wings, they ran even faster than she thought possible.
She saw them swing their long tails to keep their balance at such high speed.
As they flashed past, she saw the great muscles in their chests driving the wings.
Did a gap appear between the sand and the flying feet? Yes, and it grew larger as both wing-cats left the ground.
As a last surprise, stiff fur at the base of each tail flared out into a fan resembling that of a bird.
Ratha saw how the fliers used the tail-fan to balance and steer. The rest of their cat-tail streamed behind the fan.
Did the wing-spars actually lengthen, making the wings larger? Ratha couldn't tell.
The wind caught the wing-cats and swept them up into the sky.
Circling above Ratha, the wing-cats passed directly over her, as if stroking her with their shadows.
The female climbed into a loop and then did a roll. The male, carrying the cub,could only dip his wings.
Ratha lifted a paw in farewell. “May you eat of the haunch and sleep in the driest den,” she said, using the Named salutation.
Her ears and whiskers lifted. The couple were not heading back out over the sea. Instead they turned to fly northward up the coast.
Maybe they were seeking a new home here, to escape the fire-rock that had poured from the mountain on the large island.
Or perhaps a group of the fliers had already established a colony on the mainland.
She watched them until they became two tiny dots in the blue, then faded. They never wavered from their north-bound path.
She hoped they would stay nearby, so that she could see them again.
She half-paced, half-slid down the dune, her head still spinning with wonder.
Making herself a nest in the warm sand, Ratha lay down. Next, she would journey back to Clan Ground, but she wasn't ready yet.
She needed to eat before setting out. She knew she could find or catch something on the beach or the nearby tide-pools.
That, however, wasn't what made her linger in her sandy hollow.
How could she tell the other clan members where she had been, seen, felt, and experienced? It would sound like a crazy dream.
Lying here in the sand, with the gulls calling and the wind hissing past her ears, she could nearly believe that it was.
The underside of her tail stung. She curled around to examine it.
Singed fur at the end reminded her that her tail had dipped dangerously close to the molten fire-rock river.
Then, close to her tail, she noticed paw-prints that weren't hers. Two sets, one larger; one smaller.
Nearby, some fur lay, softer and shorter than her own, shed from wind-worn wings...
Ratha gave herself a small purr and cat-smile, then settled down in her hollow to rest before seeking food.
She heard an odd honking that sounded familiar, and knew it came from a seamare.
Seamares were the lumbering web-footed dappleback creatures that her daughter Thistle-chaser had tamed and then defended.
Ratha really was home. Shed felt so tired, so aching, so hungry, but so glad...
She was drifting from the thought into a doze when a sudden honk blasted her fully awake.
She wrinkled her nose at a strong smell that was part horse, part seal and a lot of fish and clams.
Her eyelids sprang open, giving her a blurry view of a sleek rounded belly, awkward stumpy legs, and webbed feet.
Something, however, seemed to be missing.
Two pairs of legs. Four feet. Ratha looked up, searching for more limbs. She saw only the creature's neck and horse-like head.
Then she realized that she expected to see the six-limbed form of the animals on the island.
Ratha lolled her tongue, grimacing at herself.
You're not on that island anymore, she told her muddled brain. The creatures here have the right number of legs. The same as you do.
Then she asked herself another question. Why was this seamare coming right up to her and peering at her?
Seamares didn't usually do that.
Why did its markings look familiar as if she had seen it before, and... why was it trying to prod her with its tusks?
"Splayfoot! No! No poke!" cried a sharp yowling voice. "Leave alone!" Ratha's ears cocked. Could it be?
The little figure came over the dune in a spray of sand. Rust and black fur. A slightly irregular gallop, favoring one leg.
Thistle-chaser, her daughter. It couldn't be anyone else.
Ratha tried to stand, but could only manage a shaking sit. At her motion, Splayfoot grunted and retreated.
Thistle was nearly on top of her and Ratha braced for the usual boisterous welcome...
... but her daughter slowed and approached gently, nose-touching and forehead-rubbing.
"Missed you, missed you, missed you!. Everyone did. Hunted everywhere. Chased nasty bird, no good. Thought...thought..."
Thistle faltered, voice starting to break. "Thistle, don't. All that matters is I'm back," Ratha interrupted.
“Fliers. They brought you. Not birds,” Thistle said, excitement making her words choppy. “Saw them,but not close. Who? Why?”
“They lost their young one,” Ratha answered. “I helped them find it, or at least I tried. They understood.”
“Can't help rescuing cubs,” her daughter said, a wry tone in her voice. “Is Ratha-mother's fate.”
Thistle-chaser brightened, side-stepping and doing her Thistle-dance. Ratha saw that it was excitement, not impatience.
“Maybe. Rescuing the youngster got me home. Are any of the others here?” Ratha asked.
"Thakur," Thistle jerked her head back toward the high dunes. "Came with me. Here now. Get him?"
In her joy, Thistle trampled on the prints and the soft fur, but Ratha had already set the image into her mind.
"Yes", she said softly, "get Thakur.” Thistle took off in another spray of sand.
Soon she was back with another figure whose copper fur and concern-filled gaze stopped Ratha's shaking.
Thakur, her mate, stood there, strong and real and loving.
She shed the last vestiges of a loneliness so deep and heavy she hadn't realized how it had been weighing her down.
Her mate spread himself atop her, comforting, warming, caring without words.
Thakur breathed her name. "Ratha, my Ratha..."
He turned her on her side and clasped her against him, his ribs heaving, his voice choked with joy.
Curiously, Thakur didn't ask where she had been. Perhaps he sensed that she wasn't ready yet to tell the story.
When Ratha felt stronger, he helped her stand, Thistle propping her up on the other side.
They took her to Thistle's old cave den at the back of the beach.
It took a while to make the trip, with many rests along the way. At last she stumbled into the soft sand in the den.
Her nose twitched, smelling meat.
She fell on it eagerly, fiercely, not asking how or where.
When she was only partially sated, she made herself stop, not wanting to get sick and lose what she had eaten.
"When you've rested and eaten some more, Thistle and I will take you back to clan ground. I'll ask the others..."
"...not to overwhelm you, since..." Thakur continued, said, licking Ratha
gently between her closing eyes.
Thakur's voice had taken on a slightly wry tone. It sounded a bit squeaky as if he hadn't spoken that way in days.
It told her how grief had flooded away his usual sense of humor.
How difficult it had been to go on, to help lead the clan, to protect the herd, to mind the cubs, while holding off despair.
Suddenly it was extraordinarily difficult to stay awake.
"You don't need to be buried under a panther-pile," Thakur ended.
"It's a very strange story," Ratha made herself say, her tongue leaden. "You may not believe it.”
“I'm not sure if I do myself,” she added.
"In time, Ratha," Thakur said, his purr low and rumbling.”When you are ready.”
The image of the wing-cats' footprints stayed in Ratha's mind as she snuggled against Thakur.
Thistle had accidentally obliterated the marks, so she had no evidence of her rescuers to show him.
She wondered if he'd seen them from a distance, as Thistle-chaser had. It didn't matter. He would believe her.
With his help, she would find the flying couple and their kind again. She would offer Named friendship and alliance.
And maybe see Click again...
By then, the wing-cub might be fully grown.
Would Click remember the strange beast with only four limbs who saved her?
Ratha hoped she would. Maybe Click could somehow teach her to understand the wing-cats' language.
She sighed, enveloped in her mate's warmth, and at last let happiness claim her.
The End
* * *
Story archives http://www.rathascourage.com/2009/03/rathas-island-archive.html
http://forum.rathascourage.com/index.php?showtopic=156
For more about: (new links added from the top)
(New Twitter hashtag or search tag created for these links. Use #rathalink)
Just for fun, my attempt at 3-D animation of the big kitty. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWr_JjlymAY
Why are the clan cats called "The Named"? Because they value conscious identity and express it through individual names.
Preliminary sketch for Ratha's Island illustration: Attacking the Condor-Eagle: http://digg.com/u112zm
It shows Ratha attacking the condor eagle to free a captured Named youngster. Comments appreciated.
Various speculations about alternative evolution: http://tinyurl.com/cqn8wk
Ears like a rumbler? What's a rumbler? Meet Grunt and Belch! http://tinyurl.com/clyv35
Tahitian trees with “root dikes”
http://picasaweb.google.com/mjlandarl/Christmas06TripTahitiLACTNYME#5166031585068144194
Paleogeography of Miocene California. http://www2.nau.edu/~rcb7/MidTertpalgeo.jpg
Ratha's Island would have been about 200 miles west of the coastline.
The world of the clan cats: Palegography of Tertiary California http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/terpaleo.html
Six-legged walking by a bottom-dwelling fish: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=53701
So what are the bristlemanes? Any guesses? Look here. http://tinyurl.com/cqh78o
Some early amphicyonid "bear-dogs" were the size of a small wolf. http://dotsindeeptime.blogspot.com/2009/02/paleoart-2.html
That was Temnocyonine ferox, from the John Day Formation in Oregon, the same place where Dinaelurus crassus turned up.
Argentavis had 5 foot flight feathers. http://tinyurl.com/d22vlp
Weight distribution is important for birds as well as aircraft. I leaned how to fly in a Cessna 152.
Argentavis existed 6 million years ago. Even larger teratorns may have existed earlier, say in Ratha's time, 20 million years ago.
How to control a hang-glider: http://tinyurl.com/dxhrod
She's using the teratorn just like a human would use a hang-glider, except that she's on top rather than underneath.
And the hang-glider is alive and tries to stabilize itself, which is why this works. Comments?
Cheetah dewclaw: http://www.predatorconservation.com/cheetah.htm
Cheetah dewclaw function: http://tinyurl.com/ca6558
The condor-eagle is based on the fossil giant teratorn Argentavis: http://www.avph.com.br/jpg/argentavis2.jpg
The giant teratorn, Argentavis, was huge. Photo compared to a man: http://ping.fm/YzIG8
Giant teratorn compared to a Cessna 152 aircraft. This is amazing: http://ping.fm/pHuDP
Many images show teratorns with vulture-like bare heads. They had eagle-like beaks, however, and probably fully feathered eagle-like heads.
Argentavis frightening sabertooth cats away from prey. http://ping.fm/ri6xK
Giant 30 million-year old teratorn fossil: http://tinyurl.com/cvnt25
Ratha, Thakur and Thistle pic: http://fit.deviantart.com/art/The-Gang-s-all-Here-105916668
A young Named cub – artist's idea http://tinyurl.com/daxgkv
Ratha tames the Red Tongue. Animation! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gHXF_RYOXM&feature=channel_page
Based on book #1 of the Named series, Ratha's Creature: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/827902.Ratha_s_Creature
Three-horn “deer” were based on protoceratids http://tinyurl.com/cuwzak
Even more about horse evolution http://tinyurl.com/74tdf
Facts and speculations about evolution and prehistoric beasties. Great blog! http://eobasileus.blogspot.com/
Original conception of dappleback; Hyracotherium or Eohippus http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Hyracotherium_Eohippus_hharder.jpg
Striper (hipparion) picture - art by Mauricio Anton http://tinyurl.com/cgezm8
Skull and leg of Dinaelurus' cousin, Nimravus http://tinyurl.com/cf6mob
The "condor-eagle" is based on Argentavis magnificens http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6262740.stm
Argentavis magnificens (giant prehistoric bird) compared to a Cessna 152 aircraft: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6262740.stm#map
Fessran is the leader of the Firekeepers, who carry torches and tend fires. - artist's conception
http://giverofthenewlaw.deviantart.com/art/Firekeeper-63132441
Ratha and her people are extrapolated from the nimravid fossil, Dinaelurus crassus: http://www.rathascourage.com/research.htm
Cheetah face with black tearlines http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/ZooAnimalWallpaper/images/cheetah.jpg
Thakur the herding teacher http://blytzkrieg.deviantart.com/art/Thakur-and-the-Red-Tongue-100599656
Me (Clare Bell) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clare_Bell
Ratha http://rathacat.deviantart.com/art/Dinaelurus-illumina-finish-63702213
Inspiration for Ratha http://www.rathascourage.com/2008/08/rathas-creatures-named-clan-cats.html
Dapplebacks and three-horned deer http://wandsandworlds.com/community/node/1847
Dapplebacks - When Birds Ate Horses http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1651601.stm
Dapplebacks - The Bush of Horse Evolution http://laelaps.wordpress.com/2007/09/17/beating-fossil-horses-creationists-take-on-an-icon-of-evolution/
Three-horn deer - Wiki article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetoceras
Three-horn deer - Image on a postage stamp http://www.geo.uw.edu.pl/HOBBY/STAMP/ANIMAL/afg.htm
Miocene birds of prey (Warning: Ratha's Courage spoilers) http://wandsandworlds.com/community/node/6634
Teratorn - Giant prehistoric bird of prey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teratornithidae
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SheilaRuth's picture
The story is being posted
Submitted by SheilaRuth on Sun, 2009-03-15 00:08.
The story is being posted live on Twitter every day. I'll be updating this with each new batch of tweets, so that those of you who aren't on Twitter can read it.
Sheila Ruth
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
— Thomas Edison
—
"You named your daughter...after your daughter"
--Doctor Who
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coalfang's picture
Sweetness ^.^
Submitted by coalfang on Sun, 2009-03-15 02:23.
Sweetness ^.^
Photobucket
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SheilaRuth's picture
Updated 3/15/09. Installment
Submitted by SheilaRuth on Sun, 2009-03-15 17:54.
Updated 3/15/09. Installment #3 added!
Sheila Ruth
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
— Thomas Edison
—
"You named your daughter...after your daughter"
--Doctor Who
»
SheilaRuth's picture
Installment #4 added! Sheila
Submitted by SheilaRuth on Sun, 2009-03-15 23:55.
Installment #4 added!
Sheila Ruth
Opportunity is missed by most peoShe was overwhelmed, drowning in strangeness. She had to get away or go mad...
4/13/09
Ratha scrambled over a hillock entwined with roots, spied an opening, thrust her foot in. At last, a cave!
She peered in to check for cave inhabitants or other threats. Everything was clear.
She dived into the refuge, crawled into the damp darkness and curled up, burying her tail in her nose.
Soon her breathing slowed and she fell asleep.
Ratha woke, slowly, drowsily. She felt a furry body curled up against her.
“Ratharee,” she mumbled, expecting to hear an answering chirp. None came.
Must be a clan cub that crawled in beside me, she thought, and started to drift off again.
What a crazy dream she had about many-legged animals and oozing rocks.
She drew in a long satisfied breath, then realized that what she smelled was not the soil of her home den.
Her fur stiffened; her tail flared. Her ears flattened.
If this wasn't her home den, then what was this creature curled up beside her? Not Ratharee or a clan cub.
Dimness outside darkened the cave even more. Ratha struggled to see, even with her night vision.
Carefully she withdrew from the slumbering fur-ball and peered at it.
The ears, however were an odd mix of cat and bat.
They had a cat-ear shape and fur on the back, but the insides were completely bare.
The neck, chest and forelegs looked familiar, but behind the shoulders, Ratha found more than just the ridge of back.
She discovered another set of shoulder blades...
...but they lay along the back like a bird's instead of sloping forward. From these, two fur-covered spars poked up.
Each of their ends had a joint that bent, and ...
...what looked like three misshapen toes, one much longer than the others.
4/14/09
The rest of Ratha's little discovery; belly, rear legs and tail; resembled those of a Named infant.
She also found that the cub was female.
At first, Ratha thought that the spars were a deformity, since the rest of the creature matched what she considered normal.
She didn't want to give up the idea that it resembled her own kind.
The sleeping cub, if that's really what it was, moved the back-spars as easily as it flexed its legs.
Ratha decided that the projections were not abnormal.
The creature had most of her own parts. Why should she mind a few small extras?
The cub yawned, showing infant fangs and a pink, rough tongue.
It stretched, extending the two back spars and all its legs.
She noticed that a flap of furred skin extended from the cub's hip region to the tip of the shoulder spar.
Ratha's ears swiveled in puzzlement. What was this funny flap on the cub's back-spar?
It almost looked like a wing, though far too small to bear the little creature in flight.
The flap wasn't a unique characteristic either, for the cub had one on each side.
Again, two more limbs, not necessarily legs.
Well, it is consistent, she thought, remembering the multi-finned eel-trout and the snaky salamander.
The basic shape of these island animals was a long body, a leg at each corner, like her own, but an extra pair or limbs between.
If this was true, she thought, her head spinning, then I, with only two sets of legs, am the strange one.
Ratha sat in the dark, asking herself an unsettling question. Am I at a disadvantage in this place?
4/15/09
I certainly was when I tried to take down that chunky multi-legged dappleback beast, Ratha thought.
Do all the animals here run faster, fight harder, and fly faster than those at home. Am I...
...the crippled one? Am I like my daughter Thistle-chaser, who once limped on only three paws?
For an instant, her throat tightened, then she growled, banishing the thought.
She had planned to sneak out of the den, leaving the odd little cub behind...
...but the unsettling thoughts made her reach out a paw and gather it against her.
The cub stirred and its eyes opened.
They fixed on her with an unexpected intensity, seeking her gaze as a Named cub would do.
Ratha saw that the cub's eyes were larger and more elongated than those of a clan youngster.
The huge irises showed a smoky color that she couldn't make out in the dim cave.
To her surprise, the cub's pupils were elongated at a slant, rather than up and down.
Alien eyes, yet with an intentness and knowing quality that convinced her that this was not just another strange animal.
She saw no fear in the cub's gaze, just curiosity, and a strange shifting brilliance like the Red Tongue glowing through smoke.
The same light of awareness that gave her clan their names.
Her voice felt rough as she said, “Little one, how can you have this gift of my people in your eyes?”
The cub blinked and drew back its whiskers, as if she had blown in its face. But she hadn't.
Was it just her voice that disturbed the little creature?
The cub made odd chirps that rose in pitch. They became clicks, then faded to ghostly whispers too high for her to hear.
4/16/09
Ratha felt little pings all over her nose and muzzle, as if someone had kicked fine-grained sand at her face.
Blinking, she drew back her whiskers, realizing that she was reacting the same way to the cub's emanations as it did to her voice.
“Is this your way of telling me not to talk so loudly?” she asked it, softening her voice.
The pings faded back into clicks, then slid down into trills and tweets.
“You funny little chirping thing. I can do that too,” Ratha said, feeling an upsurge of affection for the cub.
She trilled back at it. The odd ears swiveled; the eyes widened.
The cub repeated her noises back to her. She tried more sounds and the cub imitated them exactly.
It paused, then tweeted a complex pattern and waited for her to reply.
Ratha tried, but many of the sounds were high-pitched, rapid trains of clicks that she couldn't reproduce.
She felt as though she were in a conversation of some sort, but she had no idea what either one was saying.
She also sensed that she wasn't holding up her end of the discussion as the cub expected.
It wrinkled its nose, canted back its odd ears and subsided into more feline sounds...
...such as little “yows” and trilling purrs.
She decided to name the cub, at least temporarily, after the clicking sounds it made. To her, it would be “Click”.
Click whined in alarm and clung to her, mixing clicking with whimpering.
Ratha had planned to leave alone, but now she knew she couldn't. It would be like abandoning a Named cub.
She glanced toward the cave's entrance. Outside she saw a strange flashing glow that didn't look like lightning.
She smelled smoke. The ground shook beneath and around her, spilling earth down on her and the cub.
4/17/09
Click's whimper turned to shrilling. Seizing the cub by the scruff, Ratha darted out of the cave.
Ratha nearly ran back in again when she saw the pink-orange flare and shower of sparks that filled the air with choking heat.
Click bounced in her jaws, the cub's little shoulder-shafts hitting her chin.
She didn't want to remember that rescuing a Named youngster was what originally got her into this mess.
The crackle of burning brush nearby joined the low rumbling. The ground continued to shake, throwing Ratha off-stride.
The cub's weight pulled painfully at her mouth every time she stumbled and fought to recover.
From the corner of her eye, she saw a mass of the blobby oozing rocks, some black, some glowing.
The nearby stream had gone beyond boiling to frothing. She leaped it and dashed away down-slope.
The rocks seemed alive, malevolent, purposeful.
The mass moved faster than she imagined it could.
It devoured grass and shrubs, felled small trees, sending up rushes of smoke, ash and steam.
The molten flow surrounded the cave Ratha had just left, rolling into the entrance.
If she had stayed... She shuddered. Sparks fell around her, making her flatten her ears and jump.
Rags of fire fluttered around her. For an instant she wanted to grab a branch and light it in the flames.
Surely the Red Tongue, her creature, would save her from this threat, as it had saved her and her clan from so many others.
She nearly dropped Click to find and light a torch when she realized how mad the idea was.
If the glowing mass could create the Red Tongue, how could her creature fight against itself ?
She felt more sweat ooze from her paw-pads and panting dried her throat.
Ratha heaved Click up for a firmer grip and ran downhill.
Following her old knowledge and instinct would have ended both of their lives in a horrible way.
She had already delayed too long. Smoke made her breath acrid, stinging nose and throat.
Eyes tearing, she fought not to cough or she might drop Click, who was already hacking and flailing. She launched into a gallop.
4/18/09
Wind blew the smoke back and Ratha slowed, thinking she had escaped the fiery ooze, but another wall of the stuff loomed ahead.
This mass was a thick, rough, black blanket, covered in what looked like charcoal.
It rolled forward more rapidly than the blobby mass, shedding clinkers.
The relentless flow consumed everything in its way, driving out small creatures and hordes of insects.
It cracked, broke open, and unleashed a red-gold stream that spilled like water across her path.
Blocked, Ratha turned, swinging Click around.
She headed off in a new direction, dashing through the forest, ducking falling, flaming branches.
She passed what looked like a bare, lumpy hill, spewing molten globs.
Some of the globs fell on the sides of the cone, visibly building it higher. Some showered towards her.
She dodged them, showing her teeth at the thing through Click's fur, and fled.
Ratha didn't know how many walls or dikes she had dodged or skirted.
Each time she chose a new direction, the enemy cut her off, driving her toward the sea and the cliffs.
Her legs shook with weariness and fright.
She saw an opening between two merging walls of charcoal-covered red ooze, slipped through it.
Ahead lay another black mass that had eaten the brush. She approached it, saw that it wasn't moving, and put a foot on it.
She found it warm, even hot, but not enough to scorch her feet, at least not immediately.
Grateful for the callouses on her pads formed by running, she leaped up and started trotting across the cooling field.
Once she got off this stuff, she might be clear of the threat. She picked up her pace, only to be halted by a new danger.
An open channel, yellow-white at the center of flow, rushed through the blobs and clinkers.
Confused, she tried to go parallel to it, but repeatedly encountered slower flows and dikes.
4/19/09
The obstructions forced Ratha back to the molten river. The only path ahead lay across it.
She couldn't help crying aloud at the demand of survival. How could she leap so far with shuddering legs and Click in her jaws?
Better to huddle here and let the fumes suffocate them than to try, and fall in.
She couldn't imagine what it would be like. Would the shock kill her instantly or would she feel her legs burning off ?
If she did sacrifice herself, could she toss Click to the other bank?
Even if she did, what would the cub do? An infant in the middle of this... No, she and Click had to stay together.
Even as she watched, the glowing river widened, melting its banks to swell the channel. She couldn't delay any longer.
The rocks under her feet were getting hotter, too. The slick sweat from her pads began to dry and then to sizzle...
Her fur bristled all over. Her heart felt as though it would batter itself through her ribs.
Backing up, she chose the longest run-up path available.
4/20/09
The walls of oozing fire-rock narrowed Ratha's choice to a shallow arc. She ran to the end of her chosen path.
Click hung in her jaws, curled up tight, all limbs folded.
Ratha crouched, then exploded into the fastest launch she had ever made. She knew she was running for her life and Click's.
Her breath hissed past her teeth, now clamped hard on the cub's nape, but Click held still, not crying out or struggling.
She knows, Ratha thought. She understands.
Ratha flew forward, driven by powerful hind-leg strokes that swung her rear feet close to her ears, then back to her flying tail.
She fixed her gaze on the far bank of the white-hot river, brought her hind-legs up and slammed them back...
...flinging herself out, her back bowed so strongly that front and rear legs rose above her belly...
... and her whirling tail hit between her shoulders.
An uprush of heat seared her underside and then became a wall in front of her.
Ears flattened, whiskers back, eyes narrowed and brimming, she punched through the barrier.
4/21/09
The searing air around Ratha made everything waver and shimmer.
It all seemed to slow during her flight,and she remembered briefly what it was like to soar on the condor-eagle's back.
Then she was descending, Click swinging up, nearly floating in her grip.
Her hind-legs drew up, her back curling in a downward arc, her front legs stiffening for the landing.
Her fore-claws struck; she felt her weight and Click's come onto her fore-legs...
... bending first the wrist joints above her fore-paws, then bowing the front legs themselves until she felt a shot of fear...
...that they might break. Instead, her fore-paws propelled her up in a strong rebound, clearing room for her rear paws.
Ratha swept her front legs back under her chest, claws nearly touching her belly. Her rear paws came down for another kick-off.
One rear foot struck hot rock, the other only burning air, turning her bound into a frantic scrabble.
Her rear paw, slippery from the sweating paw-pad, slid back on the rock. She lunged out, baring her long front dewclaws.
Ratha slapped frantically for a hold, but the rock was too smooth. She wasn't going to make it. Again, so close...
She swung Click as far forward as she could, trying to give the cub some sort of chance, then released the little creature.
Shutting her eyes, she whispered, “Go. Get away. Find your parents and tell them, I tried...”
She heard a little scrabbling sound, and thought it was Click fleeing. Instead, she felt small, sharp claws dig into her fore-paw.
She felt a surprisingly strong pull that stopped her from sliding. Startled, she opened her eyes.
Click lay belly-down along the rock, front claws deep in Ratha's front paw, rear legs extended back.
The cub's rear paws were wrapped around a low spire beyond Ratha's reach.
Ratha blinked with astonishment. None of the Named could turn their rear feet so far inward to cling as Click did.
She felt the cub shuddering with determination and pain. Click's belly fur was starting to burn, but the cub wouldn't let go.
4/22/09
Ratha struck out again with the other front paw. She hit a slight ridge in the the rock,and dug her dewclaw in behind it.
Her tail swung so close to the river's surface that she felt the fur on the underside singe and the skin blister.
She saw Click tighten her grip around the rock-spire. The cub rolled to one side, so that she also could use a back-spar to push.
Ratha stopped sliding. Incredibly, the cub's pull increased. Ratha's tenuous dew-claw hold didn't break.
She began to creep forward, faster and faster, until she could get her rear paws on the hot rock underneath her.
Pushing herself up on her forepaws, Ratha got her hocks and the full length of her rear feet under her for stability.
She seized Click's nape securely, yet tenderly.
The quivering muscles in her hips, back and upper thighs convulsed, throwing her forward into another bound.
A wave of delayed fright mixed with determination and a deep sense of gratitude swept through her.
Several more shaky leaps and her feet struck grass. Ratha broke into a gallop.
This was the longest and most dangerous jump she had ever made. She scarcely could believe she had done it.
No, she corrected herself. She and Click had done it. Without the cub's help...
She slowed to a bouncing trot to regain some of her breath, and then headed toward the cliff-tops, hoping she could find a beach.
The best she could do was a small hanging valley that opened with a drop to the sea.
Sh
Ratha's Island (#3)
The water and rock blobs warmed steadily until the water boiled and heat shimmer rose from them. Had one of those rocks...moved?
Her fur prickled. She stared at another. Yes, they were moving. Very slowly. Not rolling.
Oozing forward like huge slugs.
A hot wind made Ratha's eyes water and drifting steam stung her nose.
Every hair bristling, Ratha retreated, showing her teeth. This was too much.
Extra-legged animals and oozing red-cored rocks. She spun around, heading downslope, seeking a place to hide.
She was overwhelmed, drowning in strangeness. She had to get away or go mad...
4/13/09
Ratha scrambled over a hillock entwined with roots, spied an opening, thrust her foot in. At last, a cave!
She peered in to check for cave inhabitants or other threats. Everything was clear.
She dived into the refuge, crawled into the damp darkness and curled up, burying her tail in her nose.
Soon her breathing slowed and she fell asleep.
Ratha woke, slowly, drowsily. She felt a furry body curled up against her.
“Ratharee,” she mumbled, expecting to hear an answering chirp. None came.
Must be a clan cub that crawled in beside me, she thought, and started to drift off again.
What a crazy dream she had about many-legged animals and oozing rocks.
She drew in a long satisfied breath, then realized that what she smelled was not the soil of her home den.
Her fur stiffened; her tail flared. Her ears flattened.
If this wasn't her home den, then what was this creature curled up beside her? Not Ratharee or a clan cub.
Dimness outside darkened the cave even more. Ratha struggled to see, even with her night vision.
Carefully she withdrew from the slumbering fur-ball and peered at it.
The ears, however were an odd mix of cat and bat.
They had a cat-ear shape and fur on the back, but the insides were completely bare.
The neck, chest and forelegs looked familiar, but behind the shoulders, Ratha found more than just the ridge of back.
She discovered another set of shoulder blades...
...but they lay along the back like a bird's instead of sloping forward. From these, two fur-covered spars poked up.
Each of their ends had a joint that bent, and ...
...what looked like three misshapen toes, one much longer than the others.
4/14/09
The rest of Ratha's little discovery; belly, rear legs and tail; resembled those of a Named infant.
She also found that the cub was female.
At first, Ratha thought that the spars were a deformity, since the rest of the creature matched what she considered normal.
She didn't want to give up the idea that it resembled her own kind.
The sleeping cub, if that's really what it was, moved the back-spars as easily as it flexed its legs.
Ratha decided that the projections were not abnormal.
The creature had most of her own parts. Why should she mind a few small extras?
The cub yawned, showing infant fangs and a pink, rough tongue.
It stretched, extending the two back spars and all its legs.
She noticed that a flap of furred skin extended from the cub's hip region to the tip of the shoulder spar.
Ratha's ears swiveled in puzzlement. What was this funny flap on the cub's back-spar?
It almost looked like a wing, though far too small to bear the little creature in flight.
The flap wasn't a unique characteristic either, for the cub had one on each side.
Again, two more limbs, not necessarily legs.
Well, it is consistent, she thought, remembering the multi-finned eel-trout and the snaky salamander.
The basic shape of these island animals was a long body, a leg at each corner, like her own, but an extra pair or limbs between.
If this was true, she thought, her head spinning, then I, with only two sets of legs, am the strange one.
Ratha sat in the dark, asking herself an unsettling question. Am I at a disadvantage in this place?
4/15/09
I certainly was when I tried to take down that chunky multi-legged dappleback beast, Ratha thought.
Do all the animals here run faster, fight harder, and fly faster than those at home. Am I...
...the crippled one? Am I like my daughter Thistle-chaser, who once limped on only three paws?
For an instant, her throat tightened, then she growled, banishing the thought.
She had planned to sneak out of the den, leaving the odd little cub behind...
...but the unsettling thoughts made her reach out a paw and gather it against her.
The cub stirred and its eyes opened.
They fixed on her with an unexpected intensity, seeking her gaze as a Named cub would do.
Ratha saw that the cub's eyes were larger and more elongated than those of a clan youngster.
The huge irises showed a smoky color that she couldn't make out in the dim cave.
To her surprise, the cub's pupils were elongated at a slant, rather than up and down.
Alien eyes, yet with an intentness and knowing quality that convinced her that this was not just another strange animal.
She saw no fear in the cub's gaze, just curiosity, and a strange shifting brilliance like the Red Tongue glowing through smoke.
The same light of awareness that gave her clan their names.
Her voice felt rough as she said, “Little one, how can you have this gift of my people in your eyes?”
The cub blinked and drew back its whiskers, as if she had blown in its face. But she hadn't.
Was it just her voice that disturbed the little creature?
The cub made odd chirps that rose in pitch. They became clicks, then faded to ghostly whispers too high for her to hear.
4/16/09
Ratha felt little pings all over her nose and muzzle, as if someone had kicked fine-grained sand at her face.
Blinking, she drew back her whiskers, realizing that she was reacting the same way to the cub's emanations as it did to her voice.
“Is this your way of telling me not to talk so loudly?” she asked it, softening her voice.
The pings faded back into clicks, then slid down into trills and tweets.
“You funny little chirping thing. I can do that too,” Ratha said, feeling an upsurge of affection for the cub.
She trilled back at it. The odd ears swiveled; the eyes widened.
The cub repeated her noises back to her. She tried more sounds and the cub imitated them exactly.
It paused, then tweeted a complex pattern and waited for her to reply.
Ratha tried, but many of the sounds were high-pitched, rapid trains of clicks that she couldn't reproduce.
She felt as though she were in a conversation of some sort, but she had no idea what either one was saying.
She also sensed that she wasn't holding up her end of the discussion as the cub expected.
It wrinkled its nose, canted back its odd ears and subsided into more feline sounds...
...such as little “yows” and trilling purrs.
She decided to name the cub, at least temporarily, after the clicking sounds it made. To her, it would be “Click”.
Click whined in alarm and clung to her, mixing clicking with whimpering.
Ratha had planned to leave alone, but now she knew she couldn't. It would be like abandoning a Named cub.
She glanced toward the cave's entrance. Outside she saw a strange flashing glow that didn't look like lightning.
She smelled smoke. The ground shook beneath and around her, spilling earth down on her and the cub.
4/17/09
Click's whimper turned to shrilling. Seizing the cub by the scruff, Ratha darted out of the cave.
Ratha nearly ran back in again when she saw the pink-orange flare and shower of sparks that filled the air with choking heat.
Click bounced in her jaws, the cub's little shoulder-shafts hitting her chin.
She didn't want to remember that rescuing a Named youngster was what originally got her into this mess.
The crackle of burning brush nearby joined the low rumbling. The ground continued to shake, throwing Ratha off-stride.
The cub's weight pulled painfully at her mouth every time she stumbled and fought to recover.
From the corner of her eye, she saw a mass of the blobby oozing rocks, some black, some glowing.
The nearby stream had gone beyond boiling to frothing. She leaped it and dashed away down-slope.
The rocks seemed alive, malevolent, purposeful.
The mass moved faster than she imagined it could.
It devoured grass and shrubs, felled small trees, sending up rushes of smoke, ash and steam.
The molten flow surrounded the cave Ratha had just left, rolling into the entrance.
If she had stayed... She shuddered. Sparks fell around her, making her flatten her ears and jump.
Rags of fire fluttered around her. For an instant she wanted to grab a branch and light it in the flames.
Surely the Red Tongue, her creature, would save her from this threat, as it had saved her and her clan from so many others.
She nearly dropped Click to find and light a torch when she realized how mad the idea was.
If the glowing mass could create the Red Tongue, how could her creature fight against itself ?
She felt more sweat ooze from her paw-pads and panting dried her throat.
Ratha heaved Click up for a firmer grip and ran downhill.
Following her old knowledge and instinct would have ended both of their lives in a horrible way.
She had already delayed too long. Smoke made her breath acrid, stinging nose and throat.
Eyes tearing, she fought not to cough or she might drop Click, who was already hacking and flailing. She launched into a gallop.
4/18/09
Wind blew the smoke back and Ratha slowed, thinking she had escaped the fiery ooze, but another wall of the stuff loomed ahead.
This mass was a thick, rough, black blanket, covered in what looked like charcoal.
It rolled forward more rapidly than the blobby mass, shedding clinkers.
The relentless flow consumed everything in its way, driving out small creatures and hordes of insects.
It cracked, broke open, and unleashed a red-gold stream that spilled like water across her path.
Blocked, Ratha turned, swinging Click around.
She headed off in a new direction, dashing through the forest, ducking falling, flaming branches.
She passed what looked like a bare, lumpy hill, spewing molten globs.
Some of the globs fell on the sides of the cone, visibly building it higher. Some showered towards her.
She dodged them, showing her teeth at the thing through Click's fur, and fled.
Ratha didn't know how many walls or dikes she had dodged or skirted.
Each time she chose a new direction, the enemy cut her off, driving her toward the sea and the cliffs.
Her legs shook with weariness and fright.
She saw an opening between two merging walls of charcoal-covered red ooze, slipped through it.
Ahead lay another black mass that had eaten the brush. She approached it, saw that it wasn't moving, and put a foot on it.
She found it warm, even hot, but not enough to scorch her feet, at least not immediately.
Grateful for the callouses on her pads formed by running, she leaped up and started trotting across the cooling field.
Once she got off this stuff, she might be clear of the threat. She picked up her pace, only to be halted by a new danger.
An open channel, yellow-white at the center of flow, rushed through the blobs and clinkers.
Confused, she tried to go parallel to it, but repeatedly encountered slower flows and dikes.
4/19/09
The obstructions forced Ratha back to the molten river. The only path ahead lay across it.
She couldn't help crying aloud at the demand of survival. How could she leap so far with shuddering legs and Click in her jaws?
Better to huddle here and let the fumes suffocate them than to try, and fall in.
She couldn't imagine what it would be like. Would the shock kill her instantly or would she feel her legs burning off ?
If she did sacrifice herself, could she toss Click to the other bank?
Even if she did, what would the cub do? An infant in the middle of this... No, she and Click had to stay together.
Even as she watched, the glowing river widened, melting its banks to swell the channel. She couldn't delay any longer.
The rocks under her feet were getting hotter, too. The slick sweat from her pads began to dry and then to sizzle...
Her fur bristled all over. Her heart felt as though it would batter itself through her ribs.
Backing up, she chose the longest run-up path available.
4/20/09
The walls of oozing fire-rock narrowed Ratha's choice to a shallow arc. She ran to the end of her chosen path.
Click hung in her jaws, curled up tight, all limbs folded.
Ratha crouched, then exploded into the fastest launch she had ever made. She knew she was running for her life and Click's.
Her breath hissed past her teeth, now clamped hard on the cub's nape, but Click held still, not crying out or struggling.
She knows, Ratha thought. She understands.
Ratha flew forward, driven by powerful hind-leg strokes that swung her rear feet close to her ears, then back to her flying tail.
She fixed her gaze on the far bank of the white-hot river, brought her hind-legs up and slammed them back...
...flinging herself out, her back bowed so strongly that front and rear legs rose above her belly...
... and her whirling tail hit between her shoulders.
An uprush of heat seared her underside and then became a wall in front of her.
Ears flattened, whiskers back, eyes narrowed and brimming, she punched through the barrier.
4/21/09
The searing air around Ratha made everything waver and shimmer.
It all seemed to slow during her flight,and she remembered briefly what it was like to soar on the condor-eagle's back.
Then she was descending, Click swinging up, nearly floating in her grip.
Her hind-legs drew up, her back curling in a downward arc, her front legs stiffening for the landing.
Her fore-claws struck; she felt her weight and Click's come onto her fore-legs...
... bending first the wrist joints above her fore-paws, then bowing the front legs themselves until she felt a shot of fear...
...that they might break. Instead, her fore-paws propelled her up in a strong rebound, clearing room for her rear paws.
Ratha swept her front legs back under her chest, claws nearly touching her belly. Her rear paws came down for another kick-off.
One rear foot struck hot rock, the other only burning air, turning her bound into a frantic scrabble.
Her rear paw, slippery from the sweating paw-pad, slid back on the rock. She lunged out, baring her long front dewclaws.
Ratha slapped frantically for a hold, but the rock was too smooth. She wasn't going to make it. Again, so close...
She swung Click as far forward as she could, trying to give the cub some sort of chance, then released the little creature.
Shutting her eyes, she whispered, “Go. Get away. Find your parents and tell them, I tried...”
She heard a little scrabbling sound, and thought it was Click fleeing. Instead, she felt small, sharp claws dig into her fore-paw.
She felt a surprisingly strong pull that stopped her from sliding. Startled, she opened her eyes.
Click lay belly-down along the rock, front claws deep in Ratha's front paw, rear legs extended back.
The cub's rear paws were wrapped around a low spire beyond Ratha's reach.
Ratha blinked with astonishment. None of the Named could turn their rear feet so far inward to cling as Click did.
She felt the cub shuddering with determination and pain. Click's belly fur was starting to burn, but the cub wouldn't let go.
4/22/09
Ratha struck out again with the other front paw. She hit a slight ridge in the the rock,and dug her dewclaw in behind it.
Her tail swung so close to the river's surface that she felt the fur on the underside singe and the skin blister.
She saw Click tighten her grip around the rock-spire. The cub rolled to one side, so that she also could use a back-spar to push.
Ratha stopped sliding. Incredibly, the cub's pull increased. Ratha's tenuous dew-claw hold didn't break.
She began to creep forward, faster and faster, until she could get her rear paws on the hot rock underneath her.
Pushing herself up on her forepaws, Ratha got her hocks and the full length of her rear feet under her for stability.
She seized Click's nape securely, yet tenderly.
The quivering muscles in her hips, back and upper thighs convulsed, throwing her forward into another bound.
A wave of delayed fright mixed with determination and a deep sense of gratitude swept through her.
Several more shaky leaps and her feet struck grass. Ratha broke into a gallop.
This was the longest and most dangerous jump she had ever made. She scarcely could believe she had done it.
No, she corrected herself. She and Click had done it. Without the cub's help...
She slowed to a bouncing trot to regain some of her breath, and then headed toward the cliff-tops, hoping she could find a beach.
The best she could do was a small hanging valley that opened with a drop to the sea.
Sh
Ratha's Island (#2)
The stabbing in her own chest eased and the dizziness faded. She looked up, still tempted and terrified.
She knew that she would risk death again in an attempt to climb the sky. The thought frightened her deeply.
3/31/09
Ratha swatted the fear away, concentrating on steering the bird back to its original path, and hoping that land lay ahead.
However, she knew that she would never forget the experience, nor be free of its temptation.
Again the condor-eagle increased speed until it was soaring faster than before. The wind-roar through its wings deafened Ratha.
The hunger for food that had been eclipsed and overwhelmed by excitement began to burn in her throat and ache in her belly.
Weakness brought paroxysms of shaking. Her mind threatened to drift and her claw-hold to loosen.
Her head fell and her nose brushed the bird's feathers near one forepaw. Blood welling from beneath her claws stained them.
Hunger seized Ratha with a talon-grip. She licked frantically at the feathers and the skin beneath.
Her rough tongue began to tear away fragments of skin.
Her mouth flooded, her belly cramped and she bared her teeth to sink into the bird's back...
...but a wave of repugnance stopped Ratha. Despite her hunger, she couldn't eat a creature that was still alive.
Bristlemanes and night-howlers might tear into the the belly of their prey while it was still standing.
The Named struck to kill and waited until death stilled struggle and suffering.
Only then would they eat, and would do so with respect for the life that had fled.
Hunger also warred with Ratha's sense of survival.
Trying to eat the bird while it was still flying might bring it down before they reached land.
The pain could send the creature into a convulsive struggle that could break her weakening hold.
With difficulty, she limited herself to licking the blood on the feathers only. She grimaced at the strong taste of feather-oil.
She would take only what the creature was losing anyway, barely enough to keep her alive and awake enough to cling on.
4/1/09
She forged the experience into her memory, not only so that she could tell her clan, but so that she could hold and treasure it.
Ratha started to lose herself in the thought, her grip relaxing.
With a start, she awoke from a near-doze and immediately tightened her claws.
She looked ahead into a sunset and felt her ears and whiskers droop.
The condor-eagle tilted its wings into shallow turn that she hadn't commanded. As it wheeled, she sighted a cloud mass below.
Forcing her bleary eyes to focus, she made out masses of black and green thrusting up though the cloud-bank. Her hopes leaped up.
For an instant she thought it was an illusion. She had now flown over many such clouds.
As Ratha's hope sagged again, she felt the condor-eagle fall into a downward glide. It too, had sensed land.
A wind blowing from the landmass ahead brought her strange scents of lush plants, rich soils, and tantalizing, exotic animals.
The wind slowed and hindered the bird's approach. Again the condor-eagle labored, breath hissing.
The great wings could scarcely rise for each flap and the flesh beneath Ratha's claws shuddered.
Silently, desperately, the bird beat on against the wind.
When Ratha could muster enough strength, she caught glimpses of a high mountain chain.
At the foot of the range lay high plains, visible through the clouds below.
This was no dot of island in a vast sea, but a whole new land, stretching north and south along the horizon.
4/2/09
Despite the wind that cut into her eyes, making them water, Ratha peered down.
The highlands did not slope down to beaches, but ended abruptly in cliffs, beaten by the sea.
he highest and blackest peaks belched plumes the color of the Red Tongue.
Craters spewed glowing globs that arched through smoke as they plunged down the mountainsides.
The sun fell behind the mountain range, turning it to silhouette, then sank abruptly with a flash of green...
...leaving behind a glow and the brilliance of the erupting plumes.
Ratha knew that she and the condor-eagle were exhausting their last reserves. The bird had sunk below the level of the cliff-tops.
It flew so low now that sea-spray wet its underside, and Ratha's rear feet. “So close, “ she whispered.
Ratha felt her weight driving the bird down into the crashing sea. So long a struggle, and it would end here.
She thought about jumping off, but with no beaches and the rocky cliff base below, she had no chance.
Was she becoming delirious? From the darkness above, in the wind rushing overhead, she heard high-pitched whistles and chirps.
The trilling wavered up and down, running so high that it went beyond her hearing. She seemed to hear only the ghost of it.
Her claw-hold slackened and she couldn't regain it. Everything slipped in and out of focus.
The darkness outside was joined by an inner dark that crept up and attacked her awareness, as she would take down a herdbeast.
Other sounds came from above.
Now chirps and whistles mixed with wing-beats that were faster than her condor-eagle's heavy flaps.
4/3/09
To Ratha's ears,the wing-beats had a different quality than the whoosh of feathers.
he sounds were hard and flat, reminding her of a dappleback-hide flapping in a high wind.
No, she had to be hearing things. That often happened...at the end.
Ratha felt herself sliding from the condor-eagle's back, her eyes closing, her awareness draining.
Dimly she felt a touch on one side, then the other, which strengthened into a hold and then a clasp.
The unknown wings beat hard with a cracking sound that deafened her, yet she could still hear the piercing calls.
There were two sets of whistling trills; one very close, one distant.
Had another bird caught her, she wondered, her exhaustion-fogged mind barely able to think.
No. She felt the clutch of long bony forelegs, not scaled feet with talons. Did the legs have....fur?
Ratha's unknown helper tightened its grip, drawing her off the faltering condor-eagle and lifting her away.
She hung limply, accepting the unexpected rescue, too spent to wonder who, what, or why.
For a groggy instant she thought it had plunged into the sea...
...but she caught a last glimpse of the bird stroking upward, freed from her weight.
She felt a strange empathy with her former captor and silently wished that it, too, would find refuge.
The condor-eagle had suffered in the struggle, yet the bird had battled its way to the island.
Her consciousness fled in the hard flap of her unknown savior's wings, bearing her up and away from the sea.
4/4/09
Ratha woke with the trickle of water in her ears, the lush green of foliage in her nose and the softness of moss under her paws.
She lay and listened to the queer noises around her. There was no trace of her rescuer.
Ratha felt grateful for the warm sun and still air. She'd had enough of wind.
Catching the scent of water, she turned her head towards a nearby stream, shaded by huge ferns.
Still too tired to walk, she crawled on her belly to reach the bank, dipping her head to drink.
The water was deliciously cold and fresh, with a stony flavor, as if it had emerged from a spring.
It gave her enough strength to gain her legs and stagger downstream to a sun-dappled pool.
Here, as she hoped, she found fish. The languid swimmers were large, lazy and surprisingly easy to swat out of the water.
Her daughter Thistle-chaser, and her mate, Thakur, might be better at fishing than she, but her skill served well enough.
She caught and ate several. Once sated, though, she noticed something odd about the fish.
At first Ratha thought the fish were trout, with the familiar trout head and eyes.
However, the body was longer, throwing itself into eel-like curves.
Trout also had two pairs of fins. These fish had three or four. The sight of these eel-trout made her uneasy; her stomach rolled.
However, they tasted like the fish she had eaten on clan ground. She decided that she hadn't accidentally poisoned herself.
Ratha's stomach calmed. Yawning hugely, she stumbled off to have a healing snooze beneath the ferns.
A sharp pull at her whiskers startled her out of sleep. Her eyes slitted open to see a scrub-jay-sized bird pecking at her.
It sidled around her looking for something else to pull or poke and she noticed that its body was longer than that of a scrub jay.
Her paw itched to slap the bird, but curiosity stopped her. Its wings, half-extended, seemed much broader than the jays she knew.
4/5/09
Each wing also appeared to have two tips. Ratha squeezed her eyes shut; opened them again.
First the fish, now this. Was she still so tired that she was seeing things?
The bird wagged its head, turning black, beady eyes on her. It squawked, crouched, and flitted away.
As she followed its flight, she thought she saw each broad wing...
...split down its length so that the bird had two single-tipped wings on each side.
She saw that these wings, like the fish fins, were in front and rear pairs. It had a pair of legs too.
The wings beat in counterpoint, the front set rising while the rear set fell, with long glides between.
Ratha shook her head until her ears flapped. This was a very strange place, she thought.
Every creature except the condor-eagle seemed to have...more...of everything.
What sort of beast was the flying animal who had helped her, Ratha wondered. A great bat that whistled and chirped?
It didn't smell like a bat, at least not like the little ones she had caught as a cub. And bats didn't have long, furred forelimbs
Getting up, she wobbled only a little. As expected, she hurt, and the talon wounds where the condor-eagle dug in pulled and stung.
Hoping the stiffness in her body would ease, she took a few steps and felt her stride grow more fluid.
Looking around, she swiveled her ears, unsure what to do next.
When in doubt, wash, as her mother had often said. Ratha sat and cleaned the dried blood and dirt out of her fur.
When she finished, she shook her pelt, smelling the breeze.
Catching the tang of salt, she found herself in a little valley that opened seaward into a meadow, but no beach lay beyond.
Instead the meadow perched atop the high cliffs she had seen from the air.
4/6/09
Ratha paced to the cliff edge and gazed at the sun sparkling on the water.
Somewhere out there lay clan ground. Would she ever return?
A shake in the ground under her feet interrupted her thoughts.
The tremor continued, making her drive her claws into the soil, awakening the cramped ache in her feet.
The air itself seemed to shake and rumble and the tremor grew stronger, bucking and jolting her.
Ratha decided that the cliff-top was not a good place to be.
She made herself unclench her claws from the soil, lunged around, and bounded inland.
The shaking made her path jagged and her strides uneven. A strange roaring echoed through the trees.
Panic drove Ratha deep into the forest before the ground settled and stilled.
Here the trees were massive, with huge root-dikes at their bases separating muddy hollows between.
She had to jump, scramble, and climb over the root dikes and snarls. She showed her teeth at the trees for impeding her way.
Not only were the trees frightening, but she felt as though eyes watched her.
Ratha used her rage to fight off a growing desolation and loneliness. She felt hungry again.
Fish could sustain her, but she really needed meat.
Tail still bottle-brushed and nape ridged, Ratha began prowling, threading in and out of the trees.
Hoots and shrieks overhead told her that other tree-dwelling creatures lived in the branches.
4/7/09
Ratha thought briefly and painfully about her treeling companion, Ratharee. The treeling was safe at home.
Ratha had given the small lemur-like creature to her friend Bira to look after while she directed the herders and Firekeepers.
Though she missed Ratharee, she felt glad that the treeling wasn't here. This place was too threatening for a gentle treeling.
She hoped that whatever she did catch didn't look like Ratharee. Even if it did have an extra set of arms or legs.
Weren't there any normal animals here?
Ratha recognized the presence of hoofed creatures from tracks in the soil.
The patterns, however, seemed a bit different than the ones she saw at home. She couldn't put a claw on it.
More of the hoof-prints were overlaid by others, as if their makers walked in a strange way...
...that made them trample more of their own tracks.
This brought another wave of uncertainty, but Ratha snarled it away and continued hunting.
A rustle in the bushes alerted her to ground-dwelling prey. It had a horsey scent, mixed in with something muddy or swampy.
Following the sound and scent, Ratha circled downwind of the beast.
She glimpsed a gray and black coarse-furred rump among the leaves.
The swishing tail looked a bit like a dappleback's. Curious as well as hungry, she came closer, choosing her steps with care.
She stilled even before a pair of elongated horse-like ears poked up through the foliage.
A short wrinkled trunk uncurled and extended to strip leaves from a branch.
Her tail-tip switched in puzzlement.
From the rear, her prey looked like a fat dappleback, had ears like a rumbler, yet also a short trunk.
What other surprises would it reveal?
4/8/09
ven before Ratha made the conscious decision to attack, she was belly-down, creeping silently.
She coiled and launched, knifing through the brush and landing on the creature's back.
The beast lunged, startled, honking in fear.
Clinging to the prey's shoulders, Ratha twisted her head around to bite the arch of the neck...
...but she didn't find it.
To her dismay, she couldn't get her jaws open wide enough to bite the mass of flesh above the creature's forequarters.
The beast didn't seem to have a neck, just more body, hidden by the leaves, but definitely there.
Confused, Ratha swung a forepaw up to strike the head, but she only hit what felt like another limb.
She lunged up, seeking the head. The thing had ears and a trunk, so it had to have a head.
Ratha's chest slammed into a furry, upraised portion of her prey's back.
Although her rear feet clasped the barrel of chest, her forepaws found more ribs. What was this thing?
Losing patience with both herself and her prey, she clawed her way up the slope of the raised part of the back.
She slapped frantically, trying to get her claws into the beast's head or neck. The creature bellowed.
She felt the upper body twist sharply, then something pointed and hard, like an elbow, rammed into her side, knocking her askew.
Her claws tore free and she tumbled into the branches.
As the would-be prey leaped away, Ratha caught a blurred impression of four running legs.
Was that a raised fore-portion of the body with another set of limbs (arms?), shoulders, a neck, and a head?
Then it was gone, leaving only swaying boughs. Ratha lay blinking, not sure what she had seen, or if she had really seen it.
4/9/09
Bruised but otherwise undamaged, Ratha crept away in defeat.
Thirsty, she sought out a stream. Again she caught and ate the eel-trout, then lay down, trying to make sense of her experience.
She tried to fit the animal together in her mind, but...
...there were too many parts.
The long ears, the wrinkled trunk, the fat rump, the hoofed feet, the lower belly and ribs she could identify, but the rest...
When Ratha's belly was reasonably full, she crept downstream.
On a mud-bank, she pounced on something that looked like a cross between a salamander and a snake.
Watching it squirm under her paws, she noticed that it looked like the newts on clan ground...
The salamander threw its body into curves to drive the legs, just like the salamanders and newts at home.
This creature, however,swung its body into double curves, combining walking with snake-like slithering.
Thinking that it might be deformed, Ratha caught another. It too showed the same extra limbs and manner of movement.
Thakur should be here, she thought. He would love to explore this place and its odd animals.
Raucous cries overhead made her eye the higher branches suspiciously.
She wondered if the fluttering creatures above really were birds. Certainly not the ones she knew.
Spying one on a dead limb, she paced toward it. Ah, that was better. Only one pair of wings.
Then she saw that it held to its perch not just with one set of bird-legs, but with two.
In addition to the expected pair of legs behind the wings, another pair descended from the chest in front.
The thing had the same number of legs as she, plus the wings. She snorted in disgust, whirled and trotted away.
The forest opened as she made her way upslope, letting her see more of the sky. Blue near the seacoast, it now looked ash-gray.
She wrinkled her nose at the sulfurous smell.
4/10/09
Ratha knew she was approaching the foot of the mountain range she had seen from the air.
More groans and rumbles from beneath her feet made her hesitate. Only the sea lay behind her, blocking her way home.
If she wanted to explore further, she had to cross these mountains.
The trees thinned, letting her onto open ground.
She walked across rocks with strange blobby shapes, like dappleback manure piles when the horses had eaten too much grass.
These, however, were solid and night-black.
When she stepped on one that felt strangely hot, she retreated, but when she found herself unhurt, she went on.
She soon encountered another stream, flowing across more of the blobby hot rocks. It steamed.
At first she thought the rising fumes were mist, but they felt hot.
With care, she walked upstream.