Being First, a story for the May Giraffe Call (@shutsumon)

For [profile] shutsumon‘s prompt

This, ah, came out a bit odd. Sorry!

Ayam was lonely.

Lonely, that was a new word. Ayam had made it up, sounding out things until it found something that worked. Lonely, the feeling of being alone in the world.

There were the others, of course. The long-limbed creatures from who Ayam had been born certainly thought of it as one of theirs. But Ayam could not talk with them, could not share ideas with them. Ayam needed a companion.

The going was hard. Ayam first tried taking a baby from the creatures when newborn and raising it, talking to it, trying to teach it. Whatever had happened in Ayam’s case, however, didn’t hold true. The stolen babies could not learn to do more than parrot speech, and that awkwardly.

Lightning? Lightning was an early memory of Ayam’s, but when exposed to the bright flashing shockiness, the children – or the older creatures, Ayam tried everything – only ran away, or died, or sat there twitching for several days before dying. And Ayam was still alone, and still lonely.

Ayam made up writing, to scratch out everything h’ was feeling, to scratch out all of its experiments. And then Ayam had to create paper and ink, because the rocks h’ drew on were not easy to carry around. And then a way to put the paper together into books, long tubes wrapped in hide. And then came tanning, to make the hides last longer. Ayam was keeping busy, slowly busy, but Ayam was still, at its core, so very lonely.

And then, into the valley where Ayam had retreated when the creatures grew too loud, another creature walked. This one had fur that was pink-streaked, in a way Ayam had never seen before. It stood upright, the way Ayam had learned how to. And it was carrying in its paws a pile of tools, which Ayam had never seen any creature but itself use.

And foremost in that pile of tools was a spear. Ayam, muttering to itself, began to create a new word. Oh, Shit.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/339882.html. You can comment here or there.

0 thoughts on “Being First, a story for the May Giraffe Call (@shutsumon)

  1. The McAliens and the Horse-things? At least, that is what I think…? Or possibly some other species which has since died out?

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