Loss

Telfan was just ahead of me, corded muscles tight in anticipation of capturing spore.  This was how we did it, for centuries, as the Mage tells it.  Spore were large bacterium, mutated and evolved in the depths of space.  Because of Essentia's low gravity well, spore were always finding their way here; a ready food source for us.  The Mage tells stories about bacterium being small enough to invade our bodies and in many cases, kill its host.  This seemed impossible to me, as did most of her stories.  Telfan ducked behind the edge of the roller, then launched himself out into the void.  Telfan was fearless when it came to food.  It would make him a good provider.  It was my hope, he would provide for me.  The spore have no locomotion in the void, relying upon the solar winds as we do.  Telfan twisted in mid air and cast his mythrene net.  There he floated, waiting for the spore to foul within.  The spore floated into the undulating cloud of mythrene and Telfan pulled on the cord that closed their escape.  It was a good haul for such a short hunt.  I was thinking about our catch when I heard Telfan trying to get my attention.  He would be lost to the void if not pulled back to the safety of the roller.  That job fell to me.  I looked to the coil of cord in my hands, remembering the day he entrusted me with his life.  The other end was tied around his ankle.  I started to reel him in but from somewhere behind  me, I heard someone say, "Wait." Wait?  There was no rush.  We had screened the area  for rollers and fast movers, with none close enough to matter.  I continued to pull him in, more intent on our friendship than a voice in the crowd.  Now the voice was next to me, "Wait child," the Mage said.  She put her gnarled hand upon mine to stop my twinning.  I looked up at her, wondering if this was not just another prelude to a story or wild rumination.  "Its coming," she said.  I listened, cocking my head to the wind.  Nothing.  I turned down wind, listened and heard the baffling of a large void, a hole in the wind.  Fastmover!  Telfan was relaxing at the end of my cord and hadn't heard the onrush of wind.  "Telfan!  Down wind," I yelled!  Telfan looked up just in time to see it come around a large roller.  Telfan looked ashen and started pulling himself to me, hand over hand.  I did the same.  The fast mover undulated through the air.  It was long and segmented, each with a skirt of fin that furled and unfurled, thrusting itself forward.  It had a wide mouth with rows of uneven teeth, sharp as any sliver, the sharpened ore tools used for harvesting.  It was sightless and relied on sense of smell to find its prey.  Approaching from down wind was how it hunted.  Telfan was in its path but the fast mover smelled us all.  Eight plus the Mage would soon be in peril.  Hand over hand,  he came, but not as quickly as the fast mover.  A split micron before the fastmover closed its teeth on Telfan, I gripped his wrist and pulled him over the edge of the roller to safety.  We scattered, making multiple targets for the beast, creating a cloud of scent.  This usually befuddled them, but it was locked on Telfan.  He had reached his change to adulthood and was in his own cloud of pheromones.  I could smell them too.  We moved from roller to roller, jumping then pulling the other to safety.  Each roller was its own little planet, some so small they could fit in your hand, others were the size of a small moon.  Essentia was a collection of asteroids and broken up planets or moons that found their way into the gravity well of the waining star.  If we were lucking, one with a cave would be near.  We marked these with blood died flags when ever we found one.  I could see one coming up, "There" I shouted!  We did the final leap into the cave mouth.  Telfan and I scrambled across the sharp edges of the interior, making our way into the deepest part of the cave.  These caves were usually created from some kind of volcanic effect or the orifice of a long dead comet.  The walls were not smooth, not a comet.  Even if the cave were wide,a fast movers relied on its momentum to turn, and can't back up.  Telfan was breathing hard.  I pulled a cylume out of my ruck and illuminated the interior of the cave.  Sweat beaded his brow, more from fear than exertion.  We trained for these moments and the limits of our fitness were good, but fear has a way of robbing strength from even the most capable.  The Mage would laugh about these moments and tell of an old saying, "When running from danger, you only have to be faster than your friend."  I never understood the humor in it, especially since we were paired and tethered to another from an early age.  Later, when adults, the two would couple and  become pair bonded till the end of their season.  Mage would say that each season of our lives would be meaningful only if we strove to commune with another.  I looked at Telfan pondering this and then wondering why the Mage had told me to wait before pulling Telfan in to me.  No matter, he knew he could count on me.  The fast mover glided past the entrance of the cave and circled the roller, hoping we would emerge.  They were typically not patient hunters and soon lost interest, but this one was fixated.  It would glide by the entrance every 6 turns, orbiting the roller like an elongated, molten moon.  We could wait.  I had water and food in my ruck. Telfan had the same findings I had, so we were fine for days if need be.  I noticed Telfan looking at me.  I had not reached the time of change in my season.  I was tall and gangley, flaming red hair that I twisted into thin ropes, pulled up and held by a band of dry welty.  Welty was the skin of a long worm that joined rollers like rope or vine.  It had many uses but tasted awful.  "You don't look much like a girl," he said, knowing I was self conscious.  "oh really? Cause you do," I spat back.  This was another part of the change; boys got mean and sometimes were cruel.  Telfan had taken to funning me because I hadn't started mt change yet.  He laughed and said, "you almost got me killed, maybe I should ask the Mage for a new partner."  This was another problem, men didn't seem to know when it wasn't funny anymore.  "Stop it Telfan, you're being mean," I said.  Telfan laughed again and untethered as a mock gesture.  Telfan started to bounced to the opening of the cave.  He was smiling and wanted me to give chase.  "Telfan, the fast mover," I reminded him.  "It hasn't been past in a while, besides, you will save again, at your leisure," he said.  He did a pirouette and moved closer to the cave opening.  "Better hurry, I'm not lucking today, dropped those spore and chased by a fast mover.  Then, abandoned by my waif of a partner," he mused.  Fast movers usually left.  Can mostly count on it, but sometimes you run across a smart one and you'd better hope you're lucking.  The fast mover had changed his orbit of the roller, allowing it to pass either side of the cave opening without being seen.  With each pass it would get a bearing on our smell.  Telfan was to close.  I leaped up and said,"stop this, your are funning to far!"  I bounced to him and nealed to reclip his tether.  As I was doing this, a rush of air buffeted me, then I was showered with a warm deluge.  It was like standing under the falls of the ice moons.  But not red.  I looked up as the fast mover looked down at me.  Black lifeless eyes.  On its last pass it had jut his head into the cave mouth hoping to find some morsel.  It had taken Telfan from the top, down to the middle.  As it drew away, a cascade of blood washed over me.  With the weight of half his body missing, Telfan lifted from the ground and floated out of the cave.  I realized that it wasn't Telfan anymore, his bottom half bearing no resemblance to the young man that I loved, fought, fed, cared for...  As if this knowledge was not enough to bear, the fast mover came back into view and took the rest of Telfan as an insult.  I was left holding the untied end of our tether, in shock, unable to move, sitting in a wash of congealing gore.  I tried to push it away, down into the depth of my soul, but it persisted.  I don't know how long I was there before they found me.  They would have missed me entirely if not for the splash of blood on the outside of the roller.  Before long, I was cleaned, wrapped in blankets and fed a vegetable broth.  As my stomach filled, a switch came on in my brain and I started to cry, just tears at first, then full on hysteria.  Whoever had been feeding me broth put their arms around me and squeezed, clamping my arms to my sides and restricting the flailing I had begun.  Again, I don't remember when it ended.  I was being fed broth again.  I look at the person attached to the other end of the spoon.  Mage.  "I told you to wait," she said in a quiet voice.  I couldn't think, hear the words and process them.  Wait," I said?  "Yes, wait.  Your loss would have been less to let him go then.  Think of all that transpired after that moment."  I tried to put the chain of events into some semblance cohesive enough to analyze.  The broth helped.  "How could you know Mage?  What could you have given to justify letting him be eaten without at least trying," I said?  "The signs are there for all to see, but many don't bother to look.  Such is the way with the young," she said.  "Today's outcome is the same, whether you acted or not, his fate was sealed, you are not to blame for the skein of fate.  Your part in this was simply to be an observer to the end of his life."  "No," I said vehemently!  I don't believe that!  Their could have been many outcomes:  I could have chosen another roller, persuaded him to stay away from the cave mouth, never let him untie his tether..."  "He untied his tether," Mage said?  "We who survive are strengthened by his loss.  It will remind of why we pair and tether.  Telfan has given all of us a great lesson in his death," said Mage.  Sadly, I could not accept this lesson.  I could still feel the tug on our tether.  I looked down at my ankle, no tether.  "I still feel the tether Mage," I said.  "But of course girl, why should you not," she said?  "Because he is gone, no longer there," I said.  "No, child, he is not gone.  His body is eaten and nourishing the fast mover, who by her health will create new life.  That part of Telfan that you loved, we admired, still abounds in the universe and is tethered to us all by an invisible line.  This is how he is able to teach us in death and how we are able to remember him.  He will be with you always child."  I felt that there was truth in what she said.  But, I still had terrible feelings of loss.  She must have sensed this, because she said, "It is OK to mourn your loss child and it is OK to be selfish in your grief.  She stroked my hair, set down the empty bowl and said, "Come child, let us find the other end of your tether.  Fate has given you an opportunity for change, a very rare thing in this life because so few are able to see it when Fate offers."