by Taki Drake
Chipper had a few more words to say about the general orientation before he suggested that they might want to move another 10 to 15 yards away and listen to what a large snake was saying to another group of people. Dascha couldn’t control a shiver of deep-seated fear as she saw the size of the snake. Easily 16 feet long, the snake was covered with irregular splotches of color and possessed a thick, muscular body that was wider than her witch’s thigh.
Walking over to the snake’s area, Dascha realized that one of the other familiars that had listened to Chipper’s orientation was walking directly beside her. This familiar was about her size but was definitely not a cat. He moved with an odd gait, almost a gallop. She recognized him to be something her witch had called a “ferret.” His black button nose and dark eyes were friendly and welcoming. The swirl of broken lines that covered his body would make him difficult to spot in the woods or fields of her home territory, but on the cleared ground of the gathering area, just made him look exotic.
They walked a few more steps before he broke the silence, <
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The new attendees formed a semi-circle around the giant snake. He was easy to see, positioned on top of the pile of rocks and warming himself in the sun.
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Dascha heard more than one gulp from those around her as the shock of that statement echoed through her bones.
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The snake paused briefly to wait for any questions. When none surfaced, he continued, <
Pausing, the snake sat patiently, turning its head to stare at each of the listeners in turn. Only the flickering of his tongue as he tasted the air in front of him betrayed the presence of more information forthcoming. After a while, he continued, <
One of the canines that was sitting in the circle listening to Sandy spoke up, <
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Seeing no other outstanding questions, the snake continued, <
Once again, the canine that had asked questions before interrupted, <
Sandy raised his head higher and curved his body tightly. The questioning canine reared back as if fearing a strike. When the snake answered, his mental voice was precise and controlled. He said, <
A new voice entered the discussion. <
As the powerful, cold voice ceased its speech, there was a downdraft of air from massive and powerful wings as a giant raven landed on the rock pile next to Sandy. Tucking wings that could easily span 7 feet against his side, the iridescent black bird with the wicked looking talons and beak stared at each of the listening newcomers in consideration before turning back to look at Sandy.
The snake hissed in irritation, and responded, <>
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Without any further word, the raven launched himself into the air and departed for another area of the field leaving behind a swirling cloud of dirt in the air and shivers down the spine of the listeners.
Still hissing, Sandy continued at a very rapid speed, <
At the end of the rapid speech, the snake lowered its body and tucked its nose inside of its coils. Dascha jumped a little when she heard a voice directly next to her say, <>
Dascha turned her head to the right and saw that sometime during the snake’s presentation a snowy white bird with a long tail had landed next to her. She had never seen a bird like this and had no idea even how to address it. The bird must’ve realized her confusion since it continued talking after a brief glance at her. <
Much more slowly than the firebird had spoken, Dascha replied, <
A sharp poking into her side reminded her of her other companion, prompting her into additional speech, <
The small black cat listened only with half her attention as the cheerful whit
e firebird began to babble about every aspect of his life, his family history, and apparently the state of the universe. Trey and Stinky were soon holding an animated conversation, bouncing comments and ideas back and forth, all while happily interrupting each other.
Dascha simply couldn’t cope with anything else right at the second. She felt overwhelmed and underprepared. Faced with the cheerful, confident speech of the bird and ferret, she felt even more inadequate.
What if she couldn’t learn enough to help Zhanna? What if she couldn’t make an emotional connection? The thought that she would fail her witch was a sharp icy stab into the center of her chest. She wanted to hide, crawl under a bush, hide in the closet. Something, anything, to give her enough quiet time to think.
That was not an option. Dascha just needed to focus and keep going.
Chapter 5 - Exploration
Activity was going on everywhere. There was a sense of purpose to it and a definite direction. The strangeness of both the location and the situation kept Dascha unsure of herself and in the unfamiliar position of having to try to catch up with the thoughts of everyone around her. She was used to being the fastest to think, the smartest one around. That wasn't happening here.
Instead, she was playing catch up. Like the slowest runner in the race that was straining just to keep from being lapped. She trailed after Trey as he determinedly maneuvered his way around clusters of familiars, over or under obstacles, and from orientation group to orientation group. Along the way, the three of them acquired a few more lost and lonely newcomers.
Dascha was surprised when one of the wolf hybrids from the group that had posed questions during the snake’s presentation joined them. Huge for his kind and unusually calm, the wolf, who went by the name of Jack, seemed to be fascinated with Trey’s constant chatter and cheerful outlook.
Trey’s attractive personality also gathered up another cat. A battle-scarred, inarticulate tomcat had wandered over to the group behind Trey and introduced himself as Kevin and promptly shut his mouth. He was a bit of a mystery to everybody else, but they cheerfully accepted them into the group.
The five of them wandered from discussion to discussion, listening in on the orientation topics without much conversation. It was a different way of training than any that Dascha knew. In this case, it was a show then tell, rather than the reverse. While the alteration of everything she had been taught made her fur ruffle, after listening to various speakers, she could see why this might be a viable approach.
They rambled over the entire grounds, listening to full presentations or snatches of conversation. Eating when they felt hungry, listening and trying to absorb the rest of the time. Occasionally, their orbit touched the wandering of one of the few humans at the gathering. This person held a unique position according to the conversation she had overheard. He was the gathering’s storyteller. It was his responsibility to entertain and educate with the use of stories and occasionally short ditties.
As of yet, she hadn’t heard him really telling any stories, but she saw him often chatting with the other gathering participants, most often smiling but occasionally frowning. She became more curious as the day went on. It was an itch that wasn’t going to be able to be scratched since she hadn’t managed to be where he was talking at any one time.
It was late afternoon by the time they had made almost a whole circuit of the grounds. Dascha had been standing by one of the larger empty areas at the gathering site. She had noticed it from the flight overhead with Glenfrey. From the air, it looked like a round head with tentacles. A closer view showed a smooth-topped, translucent rock with a pinkish crystalline cast in the center. Radiating out from the rock were wide riblets that resembled the roots of a large tree. While the center stone was highly polished, the arms were a totally different story.
There was a peculiar texture and smell to the radiating arms. Looking down at one of them Dascha could see lots of little holes, almost as if someone had made stone foam. Even without bending over she could smell the scent of salt and an odor reminiscent of eggshell.
Trey came streaking through the air and plopped onto the ground right in front of her. <
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Shaking her head in amazed amusement, Dascha continued to examine the stone root. She had not found any danger to it, but a well-honed sense of survival kept her cautious. Getting more adventurous, she soon was tapping it with her paws, scratching it with her claws, to no conclusion. Finally, she laid down on it. At first, nothing happened. Then, the world changed.
The light was dappled, and she could smell the rich scent of growing vegetation. Cautiously she stalked, moving so skillfully that even the birds kept singing. Closer and closer she crept.
The feel of the ground in the moist and thick vegetation that grew around her seem perfectly normal. A small part of her brain was trapped away in the back of her mind, fleeing in fear from the sensory input about someplace she had never been.
Suddenly, a feral hog charged out of the underbrush to her right. Dascha was frightened, terrified in fact. The only experience she had with hogs of this size had been horrible. Much larger than she was, the porcine monster had an uncontrollable rage and insanity, that no one ever could address.
She glanced around herself frantically looking for a place to climb. She heard the hog crashing closer to her and a vast calm settled over her body. The sense of someone else’s emotions, someone else’s confidence was a subtle blanket, suddenly shielding her and protecting her from fear and providing direction.
She could tell that her paws weren’t shaking and she glanced at them just to make sure that they were hers. <
Dascha had expected to see her small black paws at the end of her legs. What she saw instead was enough to make her mind jibber in confusion and barely controlled terror. Her paws were huge! They must’ve been as big as her whole body!
What was going on? Dascha had no idea. The color alone was enough to make her mind stumble. Primarily white with black and orange striping on the legs and slashing over the top of the paw, it was like nothing she had ever seen.
Calm settled once more over her roiling emotions. She heard an undertone voice say calmly to her, <
Closing her eyes and drawing air deep into her chest and holding it for a few seconds before exhaling, Dascha arm wrestled her fear into submission. Only when she could feel the emotional knots start to loosen did she open her eyes. Opened her eyes into the huge, unblinking stare of a massive tiger.
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Dascha simply nodded her head yes. The tiger took that as an invitation to continue explaining and seated himself comfortably. Gazing at his audience of one for just a moment, the big cat made a strange chirping sound and lay down. Dascha could fee
l her muscles loosen up like water pouring out of a barrel. At least it didn’t look like he was going to attack her any second, so she sat down to listen. However, she carefully sat on the grass and avoided the stone tendril.
The tiger began, <
Dascha was now intrigued, and asked, <
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Once again, the larger cat rumbled his amused purr of laughter. Dascha gathered her dignity together and turned to walk away, holding her tail up high, the tiger called after her, <
Chapter 6 – Mingling
The others in her group had been busy while she was busy exploring the sharing circle. When she finally caught up with them, Trey chattered at her excitedly about what they had learned about the upcoming schedule and some of the other things that they could do while they were there. He showed her proudly that he had a clip-on badge now that said his name and classification, in this case, juvenile. It was marked with a plain circle. He was chattering so much and so rapidly that she almost couldn’t understand him.
