Changes

The moon was nearly full, but its light barely penetrated the foliage.  This was real jungle, the primordial kind that has never heard of chainsaws.  Broad-leaved plants huddled together at the bases of taller trees, until the only visible ground was space that had been deliberately and forcibly cleared.
	Somewhere in the depths, a spark broke the uniform blackness as flint was struck against flint.  A small campfire slowly came to life, in spite of the dripping damp of its surroundings.  Shadows moved animatedly on the edge of its flickering light, then drifted, one by one, to rest beside it.  The glow from the fire gave a demonic appearance to already strange faces.  Here, the bovine visage of a water buffalo.  There, the soft, pointed muzzle of an antelope, her eyes constantly darting around.  Of the dozen conspirators, few were of the same species, but every face had one thing in common - the tension and fear expressed there.  They all knew a fire at night was suicide.  The same light that played fitfully over them was acting as a beacon to any predators nearby.  In this case, however, that was exactly what the herbivore group gathered there had in mind.  This time, they hoped, they were prepared.

Others moved through the darkness that night.  Their great-great-grandparents had been part of a large and successful pride before the Change and although their number had been greatly diminished over the years that followed, they had stayed together.  Now there were only four lions left, but they were not alone.  Most other feline species were loners by nature, but many of them had seen the advantages of allying themselves with other hunters.  Currently the pride contained a serval, a genet and a caracal, besides the lions.
	The hunters slid silently through the undergrowth towards the careless firelight.  As they drew close they could see the group clustered around the fire, easy prey.  All experienced hunters, they needed no conversation to know what to do.  They spread out, each homing in on a particular furred back.  It seemed that these foolish herbivores had no idea they were there...
	The people with their backs to the predators watched a flicker the eyes of those sitting opposite them.  None of them moved.  This was a time for great self-control.  For a moment it seemed that no one in or about the clearing was breathing.  Then one of the campfire huddlers nodded imperceptibly.  The person opposite her reached out, a stone knife in his hand, and slashed at a taught rope hidden in the shadows.
	The pride never saw it coming; they merely heard a whistling sound above them.  Then the sky fell in.
	The herbivores had spent all day weaving ropes together to create a net with which to hoist heavy boulders into the treetops, but their effort had paid off.  The hunters fell back in shock and confusion, leaving behind the genet and two of the lions, crushed.  Another lion was limping, with his foot shattered.  The campfire group leapt up and turned to face the rest of the predators, who recovered quickly and came snarling through the trees to avenge their dead comrades.  The two groups met in the clearing with shouts and screams, and the battle began.

The first light of the morning revealed a horrifying sight.  In the middle of the clearing, the campfire had burned down to a few smouldering embers.  Around it lay the dead.  The herbivores had had the advantage of numbers and had been armed with flint-head knives and spears, but the carnivores had their natural teeth and claws, and they were angry.  Now all of them lay still in the morning sun, their bodies turning cold.  A few of the herbies had survived to flee, but the rest were still there, mixing with the carnies in a way that would never have been possible when they were alive.
	As the light touched it, a single body stirred.  In the midst of the carnage, the caracal opened her eyes and slowly sat up.  With great effort, she staggered to her feet, leaning on a herbivore spear for support.
	Like everyone after the Change, she was a strange sight.  Her body was, in shape, that of a stocky but fit human woman; not that she would have known what a human was.  Her chocolate-brown skin was covered by short, tawny fur, shifting to white in front; but the features which most readily identified her origins were her short, thick tail and her face.  She had green eyes, slit-pupiled, above a short muzzle bearing long whiskers and the soft, dark pad of a feline nose.  Her ears, flicking cautiously this way and that, were long, tufted, black triangles.
	In the first light of the morning, she was a mess.  Aside from her many cuts and bruises, and the general aching of her muscles, she had a large gash across her ribs.  The blood had congealed, but now that she stood up it began to dribble out again.  This was an immediate concern.  She cast about for a moment, then lurched over to the nearest herbivore body.
	Unlike the pride, the group of herbies had been unable to ignore the alien instinct which compelled them to cover parts of their bodies.  Some had simply threaded a thin rope with large leaves, but the more ingenious, such as the one in front of the caracal, had woven a thick, coarse kind of material from plant stems and wrapped this around themselves.  The caracal sat down with a grunt and tugged sharply at the fabric until it came free.  She wrapped it around her middle, pulling it as tight as possible, and tied the ends in a clumsy knot.  Her hands looked almost human, the fur ending at her wrists and leaving bare skin, although her fingers were short and had retractable claws in the place of fingernails.
	The next issue to be dealt with was the hunger that had started to nag at her.  That problem, at least, was easy to handle.  The carcasses around her were a few hours old, but still fresh enough for a starving caracal.  Pulling the newly-stripped body towards her, she began to feed.

It was fifteen minutes since the caracal had woken up, although she had no means or inclination to measure time.  Her stomach was starting to be satisfied and her eating had slowed, when the near-silence of her feeding was broken by a most unexpected sound.  Somewhere behind her, someone was crying.
	Startled, she raised her head and looked around.  On the other side of the clearing, one of the herbivores was sitting up, cross-legged.  Another herbie lay in front of him, clearly dead, and he cradled her head in his lap and sobbed.  His species was immediately obvious from his long, almost triangular face, with stubby horns on top and large ears sticking out to the sides, and of course his metre-long neck.
	The caracal studied the giraffe, which seemed not to have noticed her.  With the bodies of the pride lying around her, it was plain that she was on her own again.  In the jungle, life for a lone hunter was never easy, but the caracal had survived alone before she joined the pride, and she would manage it again.  Even so, food would be scarce until she had regained her old skills.  Carefully she stood up, picking up the spear again.  This time, however, she did not need it for support.  The food in her belly had strengthened her, and she had no trouble padding silently across the space.  The herbie did not move, even when the carved point of the spearhead pricked his neck.  He just closed his eyes, silent tears still running down his cheeks.
	"Don't move," growled the caracal.
	Now the giraffe looked at her.  He had obviously been preparing to die with the last of his dignity, but being spoken to by a predator was unprecedented.  He stared at her as she pulled the leaf-strung rope from a nearby body and used it to tie his wrists behind his back.  This was a complicated procedure - his wrists, which would have been half-way up the legs of his un-Changed ancestors, were still over ten centimetres from his hands.  She bound them together all the way from joint to palm, then frowned down at her captive.  He looked in better shape after the fight than she was - if he decided to run, there would be little she could do about it.
	Her eyes moved around the clearing, and an idea struck her.
	"Stay, food."
	The clearing to one side was littered with remains of the trap that had decimated the pride.  The caracal selected a boulder and rolled it onto a section of unbroken netting, pulling this around it like a string bag.  She then dragged the whole lot, with some effort, back to the giraffe, and forced his head through some of the larger holes in the ends of the net.  The rock was light enough to let him walk, but heavy enough to seriously hamper any escape attempt.

As she slid the netting down the giraffe's neck, her hands brushed gently through his stiff fur.  Her face was inches from his...
	What are you doing?  This is wrong!  Don't touch it like that!  Kill it!  It is food!  Eat it now!
	Her face contorted in confusion and she jerked her hands away as if burned.  She nearly obeyed the urge to go for his throat right then and there, but checked herself as logic resurfaced.  The giraffe stared, eyes wide with bewildered fear, as his captor turned away with a painful grimace.
	The caracal's head hurt.  Feline instincts were still screaming at her to take her prey, but the part of her mind that came from the Change did not think like a feline, and it stood like a solid wall between instinct and action.
	You don't need more food now, you have had enough to keep you going.  But you are wounded, and out of practice at hunting alone - you will need an easy meal when you get hungry again.  Be smart, save your prey for later.
	She felt wrong, as if someone else was thinking for her, and she hated the feeling of being out of control.  But she could not argue with the sense of those alien thoughts.
	Had there been another feeling there, briefly?  If so, it had been completely obscured by the battle of instinct and intelligence, and the caracal dismissed it from her mind as she turned back to her prey. 

Defeated, bound and weighed down, the giraffe looked far too helpless to have caused all this confusion in her mind.  Angrily, she poked him hard with the spear and snarled, "Stand up!" 
	The giraffe stood.  He had been knocked out early in the fight, and had sustained very little injury.  Even without the impressive neck, he was tall and loose-limbed beside the short, stocky figure of the caracal.  His skin, like hers, was brown, but his was under a patchwork pelt of chestnut shapes with sandy borders.  A short mane ran down the back to his broad shoulders, and a tufted, rope-like tail emerged from a tear in his roughly woven loincloth.
	The boulder bounced against his chest, forcing a painful grunt out of him as he staggered, but he quickly steadied himself and made no other sound.  His eyes remained on the ground and his fallen friend.
	The caracal made an effort to clear her mind, and prodded him again.
	"Move."

They were still walking as the sun began to sink below the forest canopy.  The day's travel had been continuous and silent, the giraffe in front and the caracal behind with her spear at his back to keep him moving.  There was no real direction to their movements - the caracal's only goal had been to get away from the macabre battle site.  Having achieved that, she kept walking because it was easier than trying to think.  She had had enough of thoughts for one day.
	By now it was only grim determination that kept her going.  She had not eaten since the morning, and hunger was a dull, constant ache in her stomach.  Her captive had no such problem, she thought resentfully, watching through angry slits as he stretched his neck up to wrap his rubbery lips and prehensile tongue around a bundle of leaves on a passing tree.  He had been eating like this all day.  At first the boulder around his neck had threatened to overbalance him, but after a little awkward tottering on his hoofed feet, he had learned to compensate for its weight, and now barely seemed to notice it.  She hated him for it.
	Besides her hunger, the caracal was starting to worry about the wound on her side.  She had hoped the pain would fade as she got used to it, but instead it was increasing.  Now she had to grit her teeth as she walked, to keep from hissing in pain.  She refused to show that sort of weakness around anyone, even walking food.
	Abruptly she stopped, seizing the giraffe's shoulder with one clawed hand to bring him to a halt.  She ignored his muffled gasp of surprise and pain, distractedly pointing the spear at him with one hand while using the other hand to fumble with her bandages.  Stupid stuff, clinging to your wound, pulling on it when you walk, probably making it worse...  She finally got the knot undone, ripped the cloth away and nearly choked.
	The wound was not a pretty sight.  In the dying light of day, it was a slash of bloody red, black around the ragged edges and beginning to ooze clear, yellowy liquid.  It seemed to grow larger in her vision as her mind emptied of everything but those lurid colours.  Then there was only black.

When the caracal opened her eyes again, she was lying on her back.  It was now fully dark, but she was a creature of the night and her feline eyes needed only the faintest light of moon and stars to see.  Even so, she was more at home in open savannah than deep forest, and she had to squint.
	She was alone, which didn't surprise her.  The rest of the scene, however, was harder to explain.  Her wound was covered in small leaves of an unknown species, stuck in place with some kind of paste.  More of the paste sat in a dollop on a flat stone by her side.  There was no sign of her weapon.
	The pain of the gash had subsided, but as she tried to sit up it hit her again.  She gave up and lay still, unable to understand any of this and angry at her own confusion and fear.  Her sharp ears flicked towards a slight sound to her right and she turned her head quickly, in time to see the giraffe move gracefully out of the shadows, carrying a branch of medicine leaves.  Seeing her awake, he put it down and stood towering over her.
	The caracal was too astounded to do anything.  This herbivore should have been miles away by now!  What was it doing still here?
	For the first time all day, the giraffe spoke.  "I can help you, if you'll let me."
	This was too much - unable to speak, she uttered a hissing laugh of disbelief.
	He crouched beside her, eyeing her warily, and began to peel away the leaves on her side.  She hissed faintly as her wound began to sting, but she could see that it was already beginning to look better.  The giraffe nodded in satisfaction and applied fresh paste and leaves from the stock by her side.
	The prey animal, it's healing you!
	"...Why?"  She couldn't find the words for more, but he seemed to understand what she meant.
	He looked into her eyes.  "Because you didn't kill me.  Because enough people have died."
	She laughed again, harshly.  "I only kept you to eat!  Don't you see?  You're food!"
	His long face looked genuinely sad.  "I guessed that was why.  But you would have died if I hadn't seen to your wound.  You owe me your life now."
	She stared at him.  Owe it your life?  What is it talking about?  Obviously crazy...
	Her eyes narrowed suddenly, and she growled, remembering, "You knocked me out."
	"No, I didn't.  You fainted."
	"Lying!" she snarled - or tried to, hearing with dismay how weak she sounded.
	He eyed her calmly.  "You know I'm not."
	Annoyed and - to her horror - embarrassed, the caracal cast around for a distraction.  Her eyes fell on the giraffe's unbound hands, and it suddenly occurred to her that he might not be alone.  Unobtrusively searching the surrounding forest for lurking herbivores, she demanded, "How did you get free?"
	"Easily enough."  He demonstrated by putting his hands behind his back, then twisted his neck around and down, biting the air just above his wrists.  His teeth were large and blunt, perfectly capable of grinding the rope to pieces.  Looked back at her, he added, "I don't have anyone helping me, if that's what you're thinking."
	She scowled and fell silent - she had already exchanged too many words with this prey animal.  For a while he watched her, apparently waiting for her to do something, then nodded to himself and bent over her again.
	She hissed sharply.  "What are you doing?"
	"Relax," he advised her gently.  "I need to bandage you again, to keep the leaves and the ointment in place.  Just hold still."
	She obeyed, mind reeling, while he laid the bandage over the wound and began to wrap it around her torso.  To complete the job, he had to slip one arm under her back, while reaching across her with his other hand for the end of the cloth.  Caught in this awkward embrace, her muzzle was almost touching the fur of his chest.  She could hear his quiet heartbeat.  Once again, her animal side cried out to lunge forward and stop that heart, feed on the warmth inside him.  But this time, the voice of her instincts was softer that usual, and there was something else there, something unexpected and only vaguely familiar, but not at all frightening.  Indeed, she found herself strangely relaxed.  This was the feeling that had touched her so briefly before - a strange warmth growing in her chest, a sense of longing... for what?  It wasn't an unpleasant longing at all, she noted vaguely.
	Then the pain in her side brought her back to earth as the giraffe pulled the bandage tight and finished it off with a sturdy knot.
	"You'll live," he said with quiet satisfaction.
	She stared at him as he stood up again, and he turned his head away, seeming suddenly uncomfortable under her gaze.
	"What do you want?" she managed, at last.
	He was silent for a while, an odd, distant look in his eyes.  "I just want people to live in peace.  Together.  Why do we have to fight?"
	She hissed with laughter, her voice a mixture of scorn and bitterness.  "You are crazy.  Carnies eat herbies, remember?  That's life.  It's not going to change."
	He gave her an odd, sad smile.  "I'm going to sleep now.  Are you going to eat me?  You aren't tied up."
	Astonished, she realised it was true.  She sat up stiffly, and the giraffe made no move to stop her.
	"I could eat you."  She spoke more to test his reaction than out of any real intention.  After all, this animal had saved her life, she had spoken with him.  Prey or not, how could she hurt him now?  And then there was that strange feeling...
	He looked at her with haunted eyes.  "You could.  It doesn't really matter any more.  But I won't kill again."
	So saying, he lay down a few feet away and turned his back on her.
	For a long time, the night was silent.  The caracal stared through the darkness at her saviour's back.  Finally, she lay down again, trying to ignore her aching stomach, and waited for sleep to come to her.  The night was usually her time of wakefulness... but it had been a long day.

She awoke with the morning sun dappling her face and found herself, once again, alone.  For a few, surreal moments, she almost believed that she had dreamed the whole encounter.  Then she sat up and discovered that her torso was indeed bandaged, although her side barely hurt at all.  The giraffe had done his work well.
	There was an addition to the scene which definitely had not been there the night before - a pair of large, dead lizards lay near her.  Had he caught these for her as well?  Why was he taking so much care of her?  And where was he now?
	First things first - her stomach rumbled.  She turned her attention fully on the lizard carcasses.
	A little later, her hunger appeased once again, the caracal got awkwardly to her feet, taking care not to mess up her bandages.  The giraffe had not returned, and she suspected he was not going to.
	So, time to move on.  It was not safe to stay in one place for too long, after all.  And she had to start honing her lone hunting skills again.  And life would go on, as it always had.
	She thought about that for a while.  Instinct and intelligence were in accord for once, both telling her it was the right thing to do.  But there was a new factor now, a tiny thing, barely lifting its voice against the other two.  That warm, unfamiliar longing.  And this time, the caracal really listened to it, and although she did not fully understand it, she liked what it said.  And she made her decision.
	Moving to the spot where the giraffe had slept, she crouched and studied the ground for tracks, nose twitching as she scented him.  Standing up again, she began to follow him.

She followed her quarry for most of the day.  At first she spent a lot of time seeking his tracks, but soon it became apparent that he was heading back the way they had come.  Having realised this, she was able to speed up her pursuit, stopping only occasionally to make sure she could still find his scent.  However, it aroused in her a feeling which, until yesterday, she had had little use for - curiosity.
	Why go back to the battle site?  She could see its appeal to a carrion-eater, but not a herbivore.  For a very long time, she could think of no reason why he would want to be in that place, with all those dead herbies.  Finally a thought struck her, stopping her in her tracks.  His words last night...  It doesn't matter any more...  The concept of suicide was completely alien to his nature, as to hers - but then, so many of the thoughts in their heads were alien to their animal sides.  Could he be going back there to die?
	The idea filled her with an unexpected horror.  She broke into a run.

She sun was low in the sky when the caracal burst out of the jungle and into the clearing.  She skidded to a halt, taking in the scene.  For a moment she thought she had gotten lost.  The space before her was completely empty.
	No, not completely - the giraffe sat alone, spindly legs crossed, in the shadows to one side.  He was looking at her, surprise in his deep brown eyes.  Eyes that glistened with unshed tears.
	Her own eyes moved back to the clearing as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.  Where were the bodies?  Taking a closer look, she saw things she had missed in that first, frantic scan.  The soft, ruffled look of the ground, as if it had been turned over.  The earth-covered spear by the giraffe's side.
	"...You buried them?" she asked in a whisper.
	He nodded, turning his gaze back to the ground.  "I couldn't leave then here for the scavengers to pick at.  It wouldn't be right."
	This puzzled her.  "But they're dead."
	"They were my friends," he said softly.
	"And your enemies," she pointed out.
	"They were still people."
	She thought about that in silence for a while.  When she looked at him again, the giraffe was watching her.
	"Why did you follow me here?"
	"I... I'm not sure," she admitted.
	"Not to eat me?" he asked, and she thought she saw the hint of a smile on his muzzle as she shook her head.
	"You're the strangest herbie I've ever met," she said awkwardly.  "But I..."
	She caught herself, stunned.  Had she really been about to say I like you?  To a prey animal?
	"Do you have a name?"
	She blinked at him, startled.  Names were still a very new concept - pre-Change, identification had occurred through scent, or whatever method a species normally used.  Even now, names were only used in the same circumstances where scent or similar identification would previously have been used.  Thus the only people who needed your name were family and mates... and allies.
	"The lions called me Udole," she said slowly.
	He nodded.  "Udole.  I am called Shingo-refu."
	"Oh."

The sun was setting now, spreading orange fire across the canopy.  In the forest below, the light was already gone.  The giraffe had not moved, but now the caracal sat beside him, looking out into the darkness.  Neither of them had spoken for some time.
	At last, very quietly, Shingo spoke.  "So.  What happens now?"
	Udole sighed and closed her eyes.  "I'm not like you, I can't survive on plants.  I need meat.  Even if I didn't hurt you..."  Her throat felt strange, as if the words were catching in it.  "Do you understand?  I can't help what I am."
	"You don't have to kill to live.  Not people, anyway.  There's other meat - birds and lizards and fish."
	She grimaced.  "Most of them aren't very big - I would have to eat a great many to live off them.  And they're so small and fast, so hard to catch."
	The giraffe looked thoughtful.  "Maybe you need a different way of catching them, then - not just claws and teeth.  Some kind of device, like the rock-nets...  I could help you."
	"A trap for prey?"  She thought about it.  An easy way to catch prey... and an excuse to ally herself with Shingo.  Alliance with a herbivore?
	"It's never been done before," she murmured, meeting his eyes.
	"But I think it could work," he replied, and the warm feeling spread through her like fire.  He was not talking about the trap, either.
	He stood and reached down to help her up, and she found herself taking his hand with barely a thought.  Even after she was upright, their hands continued to touch.
	Together they left the clearing, for the last time.

(c) Copyright Hespa.
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