This month I've been working madly on Overpowered-related stories, including a sequel ("Revealer of Hidden Things," a Snow Queen/East of the Moon West of the Sun fairy tale) and several short pieces giving backstory for my favorite characters.
This snippet is from the backstory of Fig, one of my favorite "dwarves." Additional parts will appear as I write them.
Pruner-of-Vines sat under the
bramble and looked at the creature. It
was not very big for one of the dmutot-el, though it was bigger than the
cubs he sometimes found crying alone in the bushes. Its skin was pale and bare, not like the skin
of a Proper Person, and the fur on its head was black and straight. It wore a cloth around its waist. Pruner didn’t know why. Most of the dmutot-el seemed to wear
them; perhaps they were ashamed because they hadn’t any tails.
Pruner
thought that the dmutot-el were quite interesting to watch, although the
lone cubs worried him. He always went
and fetched Digger-of-Side-Passages when he found a cub; she knew what to do
about them. He was afraid that if he went
up to one he would find that it was dead; that had happened to him once when he
was young.
This
one was much larger and obviously not dead, but it was crying, though
its cries were little nearly-silent sobs rather than the angry wails of some of
the cubs-in-the-bushes. It crouched
among the fragments of its large water-carrying thing and trembled like a
long-tailed mouse. Pruner could see a
red mark on its bare back where something had hurt it.
Dirt
and mist, Pruner thought. He couldn’t
just sit here and watch it crying.
He
crept out from under the bramble, leaving only a few strands of brown hair
behind. He waddled toward the creature, and plopped down beside it. He chirred at it soothingly. “Fine weather we’re having, thus? Of course it is Dry, but it’s supposed to be
Dry at this time of the year.”
It
opened its eyes wide at him and wrapped its arms tightly around its knees, but
didn’t run away. That’s a meat-eating
species for you, thought Pruner. No
fear. “Soon it will be Wet,” he went
on. “I don’t like the Wet. Things grow in my fur.”
It
chirred back at him, a meaningless trill of sound. Then it spoke in the language of the dmutot-el. “Shapan tob—shapan kheleb. Lamah lo bekhorka?”
Pruner
squinted at it. He knew a little of the
creatures’ language. Something
about a hole… It wanted to know why he
wasn’t in his hole.
“Yesh
leka ra? Ha’ata kholeh?” Are you hurt? Are you sick?
Pruner chirped softly to himself, then assembled a
sentence in the language of the dmutot-el. “No, I not sick!”
The
creature’s eyes got even wider.
“You
sad! Why?” asked Pruner, the strange
sounds making his throat ache.
It
looked down at the smashed water-carrying thing again.
“I broke it, and now my master will yipqod me,” it explained.
Pruner
wasn’t sure about that word yipqod.
Visit? That didn’t seem
right. Clearly it was something bad. “Poor small thing,” he crooned, patting its
leg with his paw. He kept his digging
claws away from its bare skin. He
thought for a moment. When
Digger-of-Side-Passages came to collect the little cubs, she always brought
them back to the Burrows, where they would be warm and safe. “Come live in hole?”
The
creature stroked the fur on his back. It
felt nice, and it seemed to comfort the creature to do it. “I’m too big for your hole.”
Pruner
huffed. He wasn’t so very small himself;
he was fatter than almost all of his brothers and sisters.
He
stuck out his stomach proudly. He was certainly
fatter than the creature was! He was
sure that it would fit. “Come! Big hole!”
It
looked hopeful for a moment, then gave a little shiver. “But Master Zichri would come looking for me,
and then he might hurt you, shapan.”
Shapan. Hyrax?
Pruner puffed up indignantly.
“I not hyrax!” he squeaked. “I pazir! I not afraid of dmutot-el. They do not come in dirt. They do not come in mist.”
“Pazir?” The small creature seemed to find that very
interesting. “Like in the stories?”
“Thus,
thus,” Pruner agreed. “Many stories
about pazir. Come to hole?”
“Thus.” It chortled a little under its breath. Pruner was glad it was not crying anymore.
“Come, then! Come!” He rolled to his feet and scurried toward the brambles, with the creature following obediently behind him.
