Hero Mother, page 1
March 1, 2011 Vol 1 No 5
Hero Mother
by Vylar Kaftan
Keloc nuzzled his mate’s throat, licking the sweet oil mixed with her sweat. Underneath the honey masking-scent, she tasted like fear. Duv whimpered, her black fur rough beneath his tongue. She lay across the bedding, on her spine, bent slightly backwards to expose the weak place where her pelvic and ventral bone plates met. She wore a red-orange cloth tied around her right top-leg–a new decoration she’d made just for tonight with tanyan-root dye. On the wall above her head she had scratched a spiral–a fertility symbol, for good luck.
Neither of them had done this before. Keloc was just as frightened as she was, but he hid it. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. In his mind he saw Duv bleeding to death, clutching her belly as her lifeblood streamed out between her paws. The image had haunted him all day. His eyes flew open and he glanced next to the bedding. The clay medicine pot sat there, in easy reach, next to Duv’s dye-pots and weaving projects. Keloc ran his tongue against the back of his fangs and looked at Duv.
“Are you ready?” he asked her.
Below him, his mate nuzzled his top-leg and stretched her mouth. She spoke no words, but he sensed that she was willing.
He exposed his drill from its sheath. The organ was gray-white bone, extending from his right top-leg about the length of three paws. Its narrow tip widened gradually to the base against his skin. The Sacred Spiral’s groove circled its length. His blood rushed through his body and warmed him. Blood-chemicals, Griz had told him, although he had forgotten the exact word the older male had used. Keloc had seen his organ during adolescence, but had never used it to inspire life in a female. At the sight of it, Duv’s eyelids flared, but she said nothing.
His mate had no opening to her womb–he must create it. He placed the tip against her abdomen, on the weak point where bone plates had fused during her cubhood. Duv’s legs shook at his touch. Extra sweat welled up from the pores near her bottom-legs, giving her belly a slippery sheen under its thin fur. Keloc paused, his drill against her skin. She breathed against him, in and out, shallowly and quickly. In the old days males would inspire without caution, and many females died. Keloc pushed the thought from his mind.
“It’s all right,” he whispered. He bent down and lovingly licked her sweat where her bottom-legs met her belly. Duv squirmed as his tongue rasped against her glands. Her tail twitched on the bedding, its bony tip thumping against the surrounding rocks. Keloc smoothed his mate’s breast, where the downy belly-fluff gave way to heavier fur. He used his left top-leg to reach for her tail, intending to catch it. Duv froze, then curled her tail into a ball. She tried to stretch her mouth into laughter, but she only managed a half-yowl.
All this time, the drill had been poised over her womb–a reminder of what would come. Keloc pulled his right top-leg away. “We don’t have to do this, little fish.”
“We do,” insisted Duv. “I want to do this. I want a cub.”
Keloc studied his mate. Her yellow eyes were dull, and her tail thumped again. “I worry that I’ll hurt you.”
“We don’t know until we try. Maybe I’m garooin, like my cousin.”
A Hero-Mother. Keloc loved his mate with all the warmth in his blood, but sometimes he saw ambition seize her, like a fish leaping out of water. Duv wanted so much from her life. It was a place he couldn’t follow her–a place where he couldn’t breathe. He said, “It would be an honor indeed, but–not likely.”
“It runs in clans,” she insisted–more with hope than belief, Keloc felt.
“Sometimes,” he said. He was having trouble focusing on the conversation. Just above her belly, his bone rotated with desire. He tapped the drill’s end with his left paw. It broke the skin. He licked his injured paw and tasted blood. “Little fish, you’re sure? You will want to raise the cub, not just experience the ecstasy of birth?”
“Shrah. What do you think?” she asked, baring her fangs. Her tail lashed against the wall. “This was my idea.”
Duv rarely used such language. Keloc tilted his head in apology. “I just wanted to be sure. If you turn out to be garooin, you will need to mate all the time. You will be constantly impregnated by a variety of males.” His bone stopped spinning at the thought. It retracted and hid in its sheath.
“Including you,” she reminded him. “You would be my primary coupling.” She grabbed his top-leg near the upper joint. Her paws were stained purple and orange from her work. Her long top-leg scars held the deep blue dyes. The marks vanished against her black fur like they belonged there. “Keloc, my sunpuddle. Mate with me.”
“Little fish,” he whispered. He wanted to wait, to tell the Council they weren’t ready yet. But his bone emerged again, spiraling rapidly. Keloc paused while Duv slowed her breathing. She relaxed beneath him. He tried to calm himself.
He had spent days questioning older males, planning his entry. “There’s a mark there,” his father told him. “A dark spot on the skin, underneath the fur. Aim for that. She’ll tell you if it hurts too much–she won’t even have to tell you. No female can hide it. If she feels too much pain, she shouldn’t be a mother.”
“Stop if she tells you to,” said his older brother. “She’s your lifemate. You don’t want to kill her.”
His friend Griz knew the most, or at least sounded like he did. Griz had inspired life in twenty different females and had hundreds of cubs. He heard news that most of the villagers never did. He was particularly interested in the Council’s sexual studies. “Aim upwards at an angle,” he said. “Otherwise you’ll strike her veins and she’ll die of blood poisoning. Also, coat yourself with the medicine. It’ll get some inside her, which helps her heal. And stop if she feels too much pain, but you know that.”
Keloc had almost forgotten. He leaned over to the table and dipped his drill into the medicine. It was slimy and thick, like jellied seaweed. His rotation splattered gunk against the wall. He felt nothing on the bone, but it tingled where it sprayed his arm. With his left paw, he inspected Duv’s skin beneath her fur. He didn’t see the mark his father had mentioned. His bottom-legs sweated.
She yowled. “I’m ready, my love.”
Keloc’s blood warmed at the sight of her, sleek against the bedding. Griz had told him to put Duv on her back during penetration, because it was a more natural position. Keloc had been willing to do anything to ease her pain. All females experienced some pain during the sexual act, of course. Even Talasee–Duv’s cousin, the famous Hero-Mother–felt some discomfort. But she said the joy of live birth made it all worth it. Griz said it had to do with the Kurish evolution from treecats to their upright forms, with more complex nerve systems and protective bone structures–that was why treecats had sex so easily and frequently, while Kurish had such troubles.
Keloc placed his bone against Duv’s hard belly. Her yellow eyes slitted at him. She whispered, “Pierce me.”
Carefully he pushed forward and broke the skin. Duv gasped but stretched her mouth as if delighted. Keloc’s organ spiraled in its socket. His bone forced its way through delicate veins and drilled through her body’s weakness. Separating her flesh was like parting a curtain. Delight heated his blood, despite his concern for his lifemate. Duv was breathing quickly but evenly, and she had not protested yet.
Keloc’s drill struck bone. Duv shrieked. The sound of bone grating against bone filled the lair. Shrapnel sprayed across her belly as he broke through her ventral plate. She yowled and bit her tongue so hard it bled out the side of her mouth. Keloc tried to withdraw, but she begged, “Keep going–I’m fine–we’re so close–”
Keloc spiraled deeper, into her body’s most sensitive parts. He licked her throat feverishly, wishing his tongue could convey his empathy. She writhed beneath him as he pushed past nerves, the same ones that would speak such ecstasy when their cub was born. It helped to imagine Duv in cub-birth, moaning with pleasure. Pain now, but such joy later–such unimaginable joy, that he with his shriveled vestigial womb would never feel. “Hold still,” he whispered, fearing that she would injure herself. She froze and held her breath.
Keloc found what he sought–the core of his mate. He buried his bone in her womb. His drill’s center opened like a hollow reed. Around him, Duv’s womb built a flesh-and-blood blanket to accept the cub he would inspire. It took only minutes, but nothing hurt like the final spiral, females said–worse than drilling through flesh or bone. Duv yowled–a long, drawn-out sound that faded into hoarseness.
“My love,” Keloc whispered, as his rotation sped up. “Little fish, little fish. We are almost done. Now is the time to say–is it too much?” Her flesh surrounded him. Her bone plates trapped his male organ. He would do anything for this female, anything she asked–even kill himself, if that was her desire. Somewhere he knew this was blood-chemicals speaking, but nothing had ever felt more real. He belonged to her. “Duv. I can stop. Is this too much? You must tell me.”
Duv didn’t answer. She foamed at the mouth. Flecks of yellow spittle bubbled past her fangs. She moaned, and bloody foam sprayed out. “Shrah, shrah, frriffit shrah–”
Keloc’s blood burned. He could barely resist his body’s urge, but his concern for Duv overrode instinct. He began his outward spiral, but she shrieked, “No! Keep it there–frrrrrrrrrrr–”
Keloc could not deny her. His bone opened fully. Hot liquid streamed into Duv’s womb. He thought of nothing else as he inspired, not even the cub she would create. All that mattered was the moment–the ecstatic hot-blood rush, like flight above the tre
Duv trembled beneath him. Blood-streaked foam soaked her lips and dripped on the bedding. Keloc separated as quickly as he could. His bone unscrewed from her hole and retracted. Brown liquid dripped from him onto her belly. Keloc reached for the medicine, and in his haste he knocked the jar over. It shattered on the ground. Horrified, he pawed out some jelly and smoothed it over her belly wound. The medicine mixed with blood and bone fragments to make a clear seal. The gummy cover was strong enough to keep out infections, but weak enough that the emerging cub could rip through it when the bone plates separated for its birth.
Duv shook on the bed. Keloc wiped her mouth gently with the back of his paw. He licked the sour-tasting foam off her face. He sung her name a dozen times, on a musical note reserved for his lifemate. He curled his body around hers and hummed her birth-song. She had changed. She did not taste like Duv.
“Duv,” he said, “I am worried about you.”
“I’m fine,” she said after a moment. She spit on the ground and rubbed her mouth with a blanket. “It was a little painful but not unbearable.”
“And I fear for this cub.”
Duv’s face hardened. “I handled it. I know the Council will approve the pregnancy.”
“But the pain–”
“All females feel some pain.”
“Duv–”
“Shrah! I’m fine. It hurt less than when I got my scars. Aisf will be here later tonight to confirm our cub for the Council. We will have a cub, sunpuddle. It’s growing inside me, right now. Think of it–how small it is, but how strong it will become!”
Keloc’s tail curled. Aisf would test Duv’s blood, and blood did not lie. He said, “Little fish, I hope you are right.”
“I feel sure that this will be a son.”
He said nothing. Eight females were born for every male. In primitive times, this was needed, as so many females bled to death while mating. Now it meant there were too many females to find their proper mates–many had to share. The whole Council was made of females who either hadn’t tried to mate or had felt too much pain. The idea to breed only females with high pain tolerance had been theirs. Keloc stroked the scars on Duv’s top-legs, where she’d slashed herself last year to earn a sexual license–a feat none of her sisters had accomplished. Duv had desired a cub since she was very small. He licked her bottom-leg and tasted blood.
“Duv!” he exclaimed. “You’re still bleeding.”
She looked at her belly. Red-orange blood seeped from the seal’s edges. “It happens. More medicine.”
He obeyed, scooping medicine off the dirt floor and spreading it across her wound. “Little fish, I will consult Griz. He will know what to do.”
“You will not!” she hissed. “Don’t tell Griz anything.”
“But–”
Duv wrapped her top-legs around her belly. “Don’t talk to Griz. If you tell him I had some pain, he will tell Aisf. Tell him that everything went wonderfully. I felt very little.”
“And what will you do when Aisf comes?” asked Keloc, his blood still hot from inspiration. His tail thumped against the wall. “She will test your blood and know how much pain you had. We shouldn’t have finished.”
“It was not so much pain. I have fought for this my whole life, Keloc. We will have a son.”
“Aisf will abort him.”
She snarled and raked claws towards his face. Keloc leaped away into a fighting stance. He wanted to attack–to shred the tender spot on her throat. He forced himself back to his senses. They stared at each other without blinking. The female before him was hardly his lifemate. They were animals, like a pair of their ancestral treecats, who met for mating and then were strangers to each other.
Duv slowed her breathing and tilted her head. Keloc did the same, accepting her apology. “I want to be alone,” she whispered. “I want to pray for our son’s quick mind and shiny coat.”
“Your sisters will be here soon–to sing for you before the blood test.”
“I will send them away. I am tired.”
Keloc had seen this mood before. She sometimes resisted female rituals–to Duv, her sisters were competition rather than comfort. He wanted to stay with her, to smooth her fur and soothe her thumping tail–and to be sure her injury didn’t worsen. But he deferred to her wishes. Once she decided something, there was no way to stop her.
“Tonight smells pleasant. I will go out,” he said, stretching. “Perhaps to the grove or the waterfall. I will return by daybreak, after Aisf has been here.” And I will ask Griz what to do, he thought, knowing Duv would be angry if she found out–but he needed help for her.
Duv stretched her mouth and licked the remaining foam with a long salmon-colored tongue. “When you return I will be calmer.”
“If the bleeding worsens, you will call someone?”
“Yes.”
“Little fish.” They touched noses. Hers was cold–understandably, given her mood. He wondered if his own nose gave away his deception. She curled on the bedding, staring at her belly. Keloc sang her name quietly and left the lair.
Outside was nightfall and light rain. The baked-mud huts glistened in the moist air. Tall walls shielded the settlement from the wind and from the predatorial dyaki. The greens smelled fresh tonight, and a trace of blossom scented the air. Nearby he smelled other Kurish–their sweat, their firewood, the contents of their kitchens. Keloc looked up at the moons. Three were visible tonight, which was a good sign. A female treecat screeched somewhere. She was in heat.
Keloc remembered Duv’s face against the bedding, her eyes dull, his hot blood as he pierced her. He dropped to three legs, imagining his ancestral males taking females at their pleasure. He bent his right top-leg at an angle underneath him, as if he had a female there. His sheath opened slightly and the drill-tip poked out. Keloc paused, disgusted with himself, and stood up again.
Griz lived on the settlement’s edge, where the walls met the treeline. He heard news from other clans and from the Council. As a male, he couldn’t be on the Council, but he still knew a great deal of their discussions. Only Aisf knew more, and that was because she was the local Council representative.
Keloc had admired Griz for as long as he could remember. His first memory of Griz was visiting his rich lair, with its decorated rocks and soft bedding. Keloc had exclaimed, “You sleep on beautiful things!” and not understood why the adult had stretched his mouth with amusement. The older male took a liking to Keloc, and treated him like a son. Later of course Keloc understood that the beautiful bedding was meant to please females, of which Griz had a great many. Griz had a reputation for meticulous care and precise penetration. He had never lost a mate, although he turned many away. He would not mate with any female he suspected to be weak.
When Keloc arrived, Griz was reading a leaf-mat with a fine weave–something from the city, most likely. Griz set it aside and sniffed him. “Keloc,” he greeted him, on an appropriate note between friends. “You smell upset. What’s wrong?”
Keloc sniffed him too. Griz smelled like he’d been thinking about something difficult. It was a familiar scent for him–a particular sharpness to his natural aroma. “Griz,” Keloc began, and stopped. He saw Duv’s point–he couldn’t tell the truth about what had happened. Griz would just say that a weak female must not be allowed to bear cubs. He twitched his tail thoughtfully. Perhaps he could get Griz to tell him what he needed without revealing Duv’s weakness. There must be a way to fool the blood test. Griz would know if there were.
Griz sniffed again. “Ah! You smell of female. Tonight was your scheduled mating, wasn’t it? How far were you able to go? How is Duv?”
“We completed it.”
Griz’s green eyes slitted at him. “You’re sure? She didn’t tell you to stop?”
“She was brave throughout,” said Keloc, with cheery confidence. “I’m sure that Aisf will validate her pregnancy.”
Griz yowled and thumped him on the back. “Priashya, cub, priashya! You’ve inspired your first cub. I can’t believe it. Duv is a wonderful female. She’s a rare type. Beautiful fur.”
