Curiosity's Gift

Elm trees are best for shade, and spruce trees for hiding, but yew trees are best for climbing. The old yew’s rough bark felt good under our claws. Our eyes were not as clear as they once were, but the sharp winds of spring brought the smell of prey from further out along the branch.

‘Go?’ I asked. A hubbub of memories. Loud at first, but quickly coming to an agreement. ‘Wait.’ I waited. I had seen all four seasons, outlived each of my siblings, and with the coming of a second spring, proven myself older than any recent ancestor.

‘Better to die young,’ grumbled the memory of Soaring Leap, one of the few to have reached a similar age. I added my own mental voice to the chorus of good-natured abuse other memories flung at them. Our aching joints agreed with Soaring Leap, though, and for Leap’s part, they took the abuse stoically. We all knew they were probably right.

The branch I clung to shook as a squirrel pranced in our direction. The rodent was full grown; half our size. It came up short, ears twitching as it finally realized something was wrong. Far too late for that. Old I may be, but I am not slow.

‘Now,’ the ancestors said in unison.

I leapt. The squirrel died. Our outspread wings let us glide to the forest floor beneath us. I took my time with the meal, absently listening to my memories discussing what my name would be when I died. I personally liked Bright Snow’s suggestion of Razor Claw, or even Patient Eye’s idea of Still Water. Soaring Leap’s contribution of Napping Lizard…less so.

After a while, I began making my way across the forest floor back towards the nest. We did not like being away for too long these days. Not when my time was so nearly up. I froze atop a fallen log. Memories rose up in a confused murmur, but not even I could tell them why it was I had felt the need to stop. Only that I had, and it was important.

There it was again. A strange cry, muffled by distance. What was that? ‘A bear cub?’ I asked. We had a quick discussion. More said ‘no’ than ‘yes’, but not by many. It was unusual for the ancestors to be so uncertain. Another cry echoed throughout the woods. I clambered halfway up a tree trunk, swollen joints temporarily forgotten. ‘Perhaps a coyote, or a fox?’ More confusion in my memories. Voices all talking over one another, each certain it was not a coyote or a fox, but few able to agree on what it was.

Then, in a gap between thoughts, a voice I barely recognized: ‘Run.’

The ancestors stilled. It had been many, many lives since Broken Meadow had spoken. In their time, language was still new, and they found our words to be difficult. My curiosity was greater than their fear. I remained where I was, straining to catch a smell on the wind that might give a clue. ‘Why?’

Broken Meadow sent only impressions. Grassland aflame, fear a sick ball of acid in our throat. Loud voices. Pain. The tip of our tail twitched as we examined the thoughts. Patient Eye got it before I did. ‘We stand in the same meadow.’ I looked at our surroundings with new awareness. They were right. The lay of the land was identical. Even the trickling brook to our left was the same. Amber grass had been replaced by trees so tall and broad most of us had thought them as old as the mountains in the distance. I had known Broken Meadow was ancient, but this was beyond what any had thought.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘Man,’ said Broken Meadow. ‘Run.’

‘Run,’ agreed a growing chorus in my mind. ‘Run.’

The cry came again, high-pitched and warbling.

I ran, our feet digging into forest loam and wings giving our leaps the power to clear rotting logs and moss-covered stones. The ancestors grew panicked. They would have us run away, but I could not. I ran towards the cries. The ancestors were wise, but for all their wisdom, they had missed one important fact: if this was man, it was afraid. That was as unmistakable as a thunderclap. Its cries reeked of fear.

The ancestors began to quiet as they belatedly came to the same conclusion. If the man was afraid—a creature that could burn the world—what could possibly have caused that fear? We needed to know. Needed to know if the nest had to be moved. Our home was not far, and I had little time left to move our eggs, but I would try. If there was something here that could threaten man, it would be a threat to us as well.

‘Be cautious,' Soaring Leap said as I wriggled under a thick patch of ferns. I sent them an image of our wing smacking their forehead. Of course, I’d be cautious.

The cries had become less forceful, but no less afraid as I made our approach. I took our time climbing a steep ridge that led to a deadfall of old trees near the edge of a clearing. I could smell it now, but our eyes were not good enough to make things out. As slow as I could, I crept out onto one of the bleached logs, careful to stay in the confusing stripes of overlapping shadow cast by old, dead branches. The ancestors were silent, their attention as focused as mine as the figure in the clearing came into focus.

It was large. As big as a fox, at least. If I used my tail to stand on my hind legs, we would be eye to eye. A tuft of brown fur grew on the top of its head, but the rest of its body was smooth pale skin. Its torso and legs were strange. I could not tell if they were covered in some kind of scale, hair, or something else entirely. Whatever it was did not move as if it were attached to the man. I queried the ancestors, but none had ever seen anything like it.

Most importantly, there was not another monster nearby that I could see, hear, or smell that might be the cause of this thing’s fear. It also was not setting fire to the clearing, so I settled in to wait. I heard some grumbles from a few ancestors more inclined to immediate action, but I had always been willing to wait if I thought it might get me an answer. Perhaps whatever creature had scared the man so much would come back.

Patient Eye spoke in the back of my mind. ‘You see? Still Water. I’m telling you. Perfect name.’ Hundreds of others immediately voiced their opinions, but out of consideration for my focus, they did so quietly. I found them easy to ignore. The man was not making sense, and I did not like things that did not make sense.

The sun had moved most of a quarter arc in the sky before the man stopped wailing and sat down. Its face was wet, though I had seen no rain fall. Several mice and even a squirrel darted past it in the meadow during this time. It passed up each of the potential meals. A breeze more reminiscent of winter than spring blew through the clearing, but the man made no move to shift to an area with better sunlight. They sat there, and they shivered.

‘Why?’ I asked. General confusion. Most were unclear as to why I had chosen to remain here as long as I had now that it was obvious there was no threat other than man, and even that seemed to be minimal. It had not set fire to so much as a single bush in the time we had watched.

‘It does not make sense,’ I insisted. ‘Why sit there—’

‘—unless it does not know what to do,’ Soaring Leap finished. Grumpy, they may be, but Leap was never stupid.

‘How could it not know what to do?’ Patient Eye asked, incredulous. ‘Its ancestors must be telling it to find shelter, find food, find…anything!’

‘Maybe it is like a plant, and only needs the sun for food,’ Bright Snow suggested. I thought that was silly, and said so. We spent some time arguing back and forth. The man began pulling up some of the small flowers that grew all around.

‘I am going to ask it,’ I finally said. This threw the ancestors into generalized panic, but I did not care. I could not leave without knowing why man had decided to come here, and upon arriving, decide that the best course of action was to sit there and scream.

I reached out with our mind as subtly as I could. ‘Hello?’

The man froze. ‘Why are you here?’ I asked. Silence in the clearing. Without warning, a cacophony of sounds overwhelmed our mind, so loud and so many all on top of one another that it was all I could do to hold on to the log as the ancestors and I both trembled from the strength of the man’s mental voice. Many of the words the man used were repeated over and over, but I did not understand a single one.

This had been a bad idea. The ancestors had been right. But I was still curious. The flood of words stopped, and I risked a look back up into the clearing.

Our eyes met from across the glade. It should not have been possible for it to see us, hidden in the shadows as we were, but it had. I shifted back and forth experimentally. The man’s eyes followed us unerringly. Another blast of words assaulted our mind, just as unintelligible as the first. The man reared back onto its hind legs and took a lumbering step in our direction.

‘Oh, good. We’re dead,’ Soaring Leap said.

I prepared to flee. Broken Meadow sent an image of myself into my mind, followed by an intense desire to know answers, and finally an image of the man making its way towards us. I understood immediately.

The man had somehow started a stumbling run at this point using only two of its four legs. It would be on us in moments. Wincing in anticipation, I reached out again—for what might be the last time—and instead of asking why it was here, I spoke as Broken Meadow preferred. I used impressions. I projected curiosity, and the image of the man as I saw it. Curiosity again, and the glade we stood in. I poured my curiosity out, and the man stopped running. I slowly let ourselves down from the deadfall of trees and moved until we were a few feet away. The man didn’t look all that dangerous. It had no claws, and its teeth were comically small.

Less of a flood this time, I felt the man reach back out. Its mind was like a sunset. Far more nuanced than anything we had before encountered. We felt anger, and pain, and confusion, and fear, and shades of everything in between. Then images started to come. Each quicker than the last. A mountain made of cut stone and tamed trees. Other men, so many of them, literally beyond counting, and all of them giants. I had thought this man large, but the men it showed us were many times its size. They were as large as bears. Maybe larger, and none of the ancestors had ever heard of any creature larger than a bear.

Some of the men had longer fur on their heads, some had shorter. Some had bright silver scales covering most of their bodies, but others had the same confusing mixture of hair or discolored scale that this man displayed. The impressions continued to come, faster and faster. The men grew claws until each had a single long talon made of the same silver as their scales. I shook with fear. They attacked one another and began hacking their peers to pieces.

The man’s anger and distress grew stronger as these memories played out. It could not be, but the man’s mental voice was so clear. Even without words, I knew what we saw.

‘Those are its ancestors,’ Bright Snow said, awe clear in their voice.

‘Impossible,’ I responded automatically, though I had come to the same conclusion. Images of battle continued to pour out of the man. ‘How could they live at the same time?’

‘They are man,’ Patient Eye said. ‘Maybe they are different.’

The man’s ancestors had claws as well, but there were fewer of them, and the outcome was inevitable. We watched as the man’s living ancestors, their living memories were slaughtered one by one, until only the man remained. I understood its fear now, its fury and horror. The hundreds of voices within me thrummed in outrage at the atrocity, and the single voice that came from the man now made a great deal more sense.

We watched as the giants carried the man away. Impressions of a long journey, and then abandonment here, in this glade.

‘It is alone,’ I said. I could feel the ancestors, even Broken Meadow, struggling with the idea. We had never been alone. So far as we could remember, none of us had ever been alone. Our memories had always been there to guide us, to give us answers and council, to provide the wisdom of countless seasons. This man had nothing. No thinking creature should be so alone.

‘Come’, I thought at the man, sending it an image of us walking together.

‘Is this wise?’ Bright Snow asked.

‘It is right,’ I responded. There was more argument, but I considered the matter settled. And I was so very, very tired. We stopped several times, though each was because of my own weakness, not the man’s. The energy I had possessed during my mad rush to the glade had left me, and I felt every inch as old as Broken Meadow. I had to guide the man several times to berries or mushrooms that were safe to eat. It truly was without anyone to help it.

It was nearing dark as we reached the nest. The man was able to fit into the hollow under the elm’s roots without too much trouble. They looked with wide eyes at the two eggs nestled in a large heap of dead grass and leaves. I could feel my body slowing, but there was time. I curled up around the eggs—both so close to hatching—and sent a mental invitation to sleep next to us. The man did so without complaint. I felt its mind there, and the minds of my two children as they all drifted into dreams.

‘It is time,’ Soaring Leap said, clearly torn between not wanting to disturb me, and worry that I would forget the most important of duties.

‘I know.’

‘What will you do?’

‘No one should be alone. Not even man.’

I closed our eyes for the last time, and breathed my ancestors out into the minds of the three sleepers before me. I felt myself enter each of their minds last, even as my own went dark.

‘Oh, I know. Curiosity’s Gift,’ someone said in that strange moment which was both an end and a beginning.

Curiosity’s Gift. It was a good name.