Mountain Child

Mountain Child
noun.
A mythical creature from Teotlanco lore. Spirits of orphaned children taken in by the mountains, and turned into half-human, half-animal creatures that never age.

The night air settled in softly, rustling against leaves and the distant murmur of mountain streams. Crepuscular birds began their gabbing, with chattering nighthawks only broken by loud crickets in frantic conversation.

Thin wicks of light snuck in from the moth-eaten holes in the room’s blinds, dotting the bedroom in a patchwork of light and shadow. Fabric bolts and sacks of non-perishables stuffed the corners, while still leaving ample room for something resembling the size of a big bird.

“C’mon down to eat!”

Kaelan tossed pencils and papers aside, cheerful for an excuse to abandon homework. He stretched his arms, his legs, and the huge limbs on his back, covered in feathers and more resembling a falcon's wings than any extremity a normal child should have. He put on his dark-tinted glasses, the oversized round lenses threatening to slide out of their frame. He scrambled to stand on fours, and with no adult to scold him, crossed the dusty attic in two leaps. The creaky stairs down were ridden with splinters and rusted nails. It hadn’t seen much use in years, and it wasn’t going to see use then as Kaelan descended in a lithe jump.

He dusted off while heading for the dinner table, its short legs carved in patterns that had faded to time and left only stained vines and leaves. Kaelan took a seat in his spot: a sack stuffed with straw that was already getting too small for his growing body.

The door was wide open, exposing the rugged terrain outside. The peaks of the Sembra mountains stretched high and wide, disappearing as the clouds swallowed them up. The sun cast long shadows over the ridges, setting the outside in a comfortable darkness. Sitting as he was he couldn’t see beyond the ledge of the farm, but the distant glow gave him the mental image of the village below, lit up in its nighttime charm.

Normally he could have smelled the oil of lanterns and matches as night set in, but all scents got obscured by a wall of woody smoke.

Isa was working the binde, a stove made of an upturned clay pot with an opening on its side for a fire. The woman was rough like the mountains she called home, with warm tanned skin like old leather, grey curly hair cropped short, and deep creases lining her perpetual frown. Unlike Kaelan, Isa was a normal person, devoid of extra limbs besides her two arms and legs.

He averted his eyes from the area, the meagre fire shooting a pang of pain despite the lenses. But he didn’t need to see to hear the woman’s order.

“Help me with the bread.”

Fetching the rag from a beam inside, he walked barefooted to the dusty ground. His step felt lighter there than against wood or stone. Long toes ended in talons sunk in the grass, his stance a little taller as he headed to the stove. Careful to cover his hand with the cloth, he dragged out a charred bundle from the burning wood. The brittle cover cracked, peeling off to reveal a dense flatbread.

The burly woman also stepped away from the iron pot over the binde, holding two smoking bowls. She walked into the little house, Kaelan in tow, and set down the food on the table.

They took their places on opposite sides, and the two voices recited in unison. “Blessed is the stream, that which breathes life into Her grounds and Her children. We are thankful for the lives given up to sustain ours, and may our gratitude return and nourish the stream.”

Kaelan handed half of the bread and braced himself for his favourite time of the day.

His bowl was painted with a flower garland on its rim, and it was brimming with a dense porridge. Kaelan practically inhaled the meal, scooping the soupy paste with pieces of bread. He barely tasted the onions and wild mushrooms in it, only stopping to chew when met with the boiled chicken chunks. However, by the time he could see the pale rose at the bottom of the bowl, his belly still rumbled with hunger.

He eyed the other bowl at the table. Isa always took her time eating, a torture as he awaited wide-eyed for scraps. Their latest growth season had left their meals rather modest, a fact Kaelan still struggled with. Impatient, he stood up and headed for the stove, bowl in hand.

“Where d’ya think you’re going?” Isa hollered, a bit too loudly considering the child was barely three steps away.

“Helping myself to seconds.” He had meant to say in a proud voice like the mayor of the village talked when recruiting for the harvest. Instead, he could only squeak an intelligible mutter.

“Speak up. I’m raising no wimp.”

“Seconds.” He managed to announce, though still giving his back to the old woman. For once, he felt lucky to have extra limbs to shield him from her vicious gaze.

“Do you think I cooked for seconds? Get back here, there’s no more food there.”

“But…” He still could have licked the pot clean, but he knew that suggestion wouldn't be well received.

The table rattled as a hand slammed down on it. “I gave you an order, Kaelan. Get back here.”

A whimper caught in his throat, but he complied. The hay sack felt like needles against him, almost as sharp as the temper of the woman still mid-meal. Lately, it felt like nothing he did was right in her eyes. She would get angry at how he tilled the ground, at leaving roots still tangled in the soil after weeding, or accidentally spooking the chickens while gathering eggs.

“Leave those alone.” Isa scolded, returning the kid to reality with a jolt.

He found in his hand a feather, a dull burn in his left limb telling of what he had done. Normally, he knew better than to start plucking with an adult nearby. But his…wings had been so itchy lately, little hard nubs appearing close to drab grey feathers. He made the effort to stay put.

Isa finished her meal without more incidents, seemingly too tired to call out the kid on his incessant squirming. At last, she stood up with a sigh and picked up the two empty bowls. No leftovers, then.

“Let me wash those!” Kaelan offered, jumping to a stand and following the old woman out. Normally he was in charge of cleaning up, as the cold water affected Isa’s joints.

“Bah. You've got places to go. Did you finish your homework?”

“Um…” Despite the dark glasses hiding his eyes, he tried not to look at the attic where papers upon papers of maths exercises laid unsolved. “I worked on it.”

He kept trailing Isa towards the beat-up water reservoir, a clay wash basin and lye soap awaiting at its side.

“Make sure you finish it up before bed. Also, grab your ruana.”

The heavy wool garment hung from a wooden board close to the basin. Kaelan gasped with glee, grabbing it with a jump. The last time he had seen it was days ago when peeling it off his head, after a messy accident while mucking a tercoro stall.

“Did you-”

“Yes, I washed it yesterday. Should be dry already.”

He stroked the rough wool, a clawed finger tracing the sunflowers embroidered around the collar. He pulled it on, buttoning the hole around his wings. The fabric almost reached his ankles, but he liked the bright leaves at the rim too much to hitch it up. Isa was at his back, leaning down as she quickly tidied his long brown hair into a messy braid. Finally, she gave him a pat on his back.

“Go on, then.”

“Okay! Thank you for washing it.” Kaelan turned around, quickly hugging the woman’s arm. She smelled like the smoke and wood from dinner, but behind those, there was a hint of grass that always reassured him. Before stepping away, he whispered a shy “I love you,” and ran off.

The farm grounds were connected to the village by a well-trodden path, lined on one side by a landscape of terraced farms cascading from the mountainside. The other side was thick with shrubbery and hanging tree branches, many broken from the passing of wagons and tercoros. The terrain shifted below Kaelan’s feet every few paces, alternating between plush soil and rocky outcrops. Wooden smoke faded as he put distance between himself and the farmhouse, replaced by the refreshing sigh of damp earth and vegetation.

A few weeks ago the air had been heavy with the sweetness of fruits, but today he only caught a dull whiff of the forest’s bounty. He stopped walking, staring at the hardy vegetation beside him. There were no adults nearby, not as far as he could hear. He couldn’t see any remaining berries from that spot in the path, even after taking off his glasses and squinting at the darkness of the forest. But if he stepped in, surely his nose would show him the way. His stomach grumbled at the thought of the sweet juice of the mountain berries. He regretted having swept clean all the bushes near to the path days before.

He inhaled deeply and took one step into the vegetation. One branch rustled, before exploding in a cacophony of feathers and shrill caws, an entire flock of bright green birds flying straight to his face. Kaelan screeched in turn, running away from the branch, the forest, and straight towards the village.

Ajahuana was a collection of old houses, clinging to the terrain by half-rotten wood, cracked clay, and the stubbornness of farmers. While humble, each building stood out by its intricately carved doors, the vines patching up holes in walls, and the vibrant textiles hanging from the wooden beams that supported the pitched grass roofs. Kaelan turned at the outermost path of the village, decorated in carved riverstones that were dotted with moss and weeds at every junction.

A few of the villagers greeted him as he walked past, sitting at their open doors with a steaming cup of coffee or disgusting-smelling pipes. There sat Mrs Margarita, the store owner with a fat cat purring on her lap. Don Ramiro, the shoemaker and leatherworker, oiling a pair of boots so fine that he doubted anyone in the village could afford them. There were the corn and peanuts farmers, Rodrigo the sawbones and town teacher, and the Galtin family of textile workers.

All of the townies greeted with comfortable familiarity, all of them perfectly normal people with no extra limbs.

While dinner time in the village was long gone, some of the ingredients and meals still lingered in the air. Kaelan upped his pace, his stomach churning at the thought of the gone food within the colourful houses, but he still returned every greeting with a cheery shout.

Skipping over a trickling creek, he smelled the livery long before seeing it. Wooden beams, wool wax, hay, worn ropes and leather. When he had first started working with the animals, the scents had felt like a gruelling obstacle. But with time he had grown to like it, just like the mud and rot that was characteristic of the forest.

The livery stood protected by a rickety gate, which normally would only be opened by the stable master. Kaelan climbed and jumped over the rusted metal easily, allowing his wings to catch the air and soften the landing. On the other side, he was met by two large pastures with about half a dozen paddocks around them.

One side was for the stallions, another for mares and geldings. The latter one housed a herd with a little under two dozen animals: a mixture of tercoros, mules, and leggy horses. They breathed out puffy clouds, many of the mounts already hanging their heads in sleep after a day of hard work. The long ears from the mules and tercoros flicked, noticing Kaelan’s presence with snorts.

The stablehouse was a construction just like the little houses from the town but in larger proportions. The wooden walls were decorated with discarded horseshoes, wool saddle blankets, and ropes. Edgar, the stable master, sat next to a charred brick grill at the back of the building, the coals still glowing with waning heat.

“Hullo, sir!” Kaelan hollered, running to meet the old man. Edgar was right ugly: short with a crooked jaw, patchy beard, and a scalp that was more leather than hair. But he had kind eyes and a steady hand with the beasts.

“Good evening to you, little colt,” the older man greeted in a normal voice, aware that shouting wasn’t necessary with the kid’s uncanny hearing.

Dinner scents assaulted Kaelan as he approached the man, even with the cloak of manure and horse sweat. Edgar was eating beans and rice cooked with chicken fat, sending his belly into a flip. The kid kept his distance, trying to hold his legs and wings still.

“Didn’t expect you this early,” Edgar began, leaving the half-full bowl on his lap. “How about you see to the grain for the indoors folk? I’ll be with you shortly.”

“Gotcha, on it!” Kaelan exclaimed, glad for an excuse to get away.

He ran inside, hanging up his ruana beside ropes and halters, and headed for the hayloft in the attic. Half of the space was dominated by bales and hay nets, with a side shelf holding grain, supplements and healing herbs. Using the stained cheat sheet pinned on the wall, Kaelan filled feed buckets. The outdoors folks were allowed to eat pasture all day and night, but the indoor animals would get served grain, as they were the sick or too elderly members of the herd.

The work was easy enough, and the hay smell, while comforting, wasn't much to mask the beans a floor below. He felt as if he had never eaten dinner, gut-wrenching hunger rumbling like incoming thunder. Filling a new grain bucket, he wondered where to get another meal. Thick in the dry season, insects were scarce and plants had long ago pushed out their fruits.

His hands were dusty with barley and oats, and he remembered seeing some workers eating a soupy meal with those. Cooked horsefeed wasn't the most dignified of foods. But in the face of struggle, the thirsty fox can't be picky of the stream it drinks, so his Ma said.

Kaelan licked an oat, expecting the bitterness that often followed plant matter. Instead, it tasted like…nothing. He ventured to try a piece, and it felt like eating paper. Plenty of wild creatures found nutrients in oats, didn't they? A product from the soil, not poisonous or bitter. He continued with a handful, the dusty flakes drying out his mouth. Still, it wasn't as terrible as expected. Maybe it made sense that ponies went crazy for the stuff.

He tried another helping, hoping to gauge better if it was edible or not. Soon enough, he was shovelling the feed into his mouth, no longer bothering to taste test.

“Kaelan! What are you doing!?”

The kid jumped, wings unfurling in a loud jolt that sent buckets and hay flying away.

“Nothing!” he meant to say, but with a mouthful of oats he only managed to make a spluttering sound. His eyes prickled wet, heart thumping hard with the expectation of a scolding to come.

“Buddy… did you eat before coming over here?” Edgar began, talking with a voice that was usually reserved for spooked yearlings. He walked softly, moving the grain container far from Kaelan.

The boy nodded energetically, gulping down the last of the oats. Edgar sighed, undoing the black kerchief on his neck and cleaning Kaelan’s face.

“Why are you eating the grain, then?”

Kaelan looked away, shrugging as if it had been a normal part of his nightly chores. The nonchalance couldn’t hide the tears streaming down his face.

“I can’t have you chowing down on the horsefeed.”

“Because it's wasteful, I know. I'm sorry.” Kaelan whined with an outburst, his shoulders tight as he tried to not cry anymore.

“No! No. It’s because you're gonna get sick! This is no food for little kids.” Edgar ran a hand through his mostly bald head, looking towards the village, thoughtful as he did when deciding whether to put down a sick mount or not. Kaelan was about to argue that he wasn’t little anymore, but the man resumed talking.

“Tell you what, I bet the butcher’s still open. How ‘bout you head there and see if they've got scraps they won't miss?”

He had a way with creatures, Edgar. It was like he had read Kaelan's mind.

“But tonight's chores…”

“Don't worry about that. The morning lads owe me, anyway. I'll make them do your share this time.”

Kaelan bit his lip, careful to not let his long fangs puncture skin.

“Can I go say hi to Aldi first?”

Edgar chuckled, patting the kid on his little head. “You go do that, but then head straight for the village.”

The winged boy nodded, still shaky, but he went for his ruana and found his way to the mare’s pen. The twitchier horses felt his presence and stormed off with grunts, offended at being woken from their sleep. The mules and tercoros stayed put, grazing on already clipped grass.

“Hi, buddies! Hi, Aldi!”

A few of the mounts snorted in return, one louder than the others. She was a tall tercoro, looking like a mix of a sheep and a draft horse: tall, dense with muscle and a light layer of wool. She was beige like fresh milk, legs and snout stained brown. Kaelan made his way around the herd, petting sides and pushing away muzzles that prodded against his head. Approaching her, the mare tercoro finally lifted her head, sniffing loudly as her long ears pointed straight ahead. She head-butted Kaelan’s chest, her lip lifted as she smelled.

“Yeah, yeah. Missed ya, too.” He scratched Aldi’s head vigorously, trying to pry her apart from his body.

He knew the truth: she hadn't so much missed him, but rather the treats he always brought. This time was no exception. He glanced back at the stablehouse, making sure that Edgar wouldn't be looking, and he dragged out a piece of the dinner bread from a pocket in his ruana.

“Be good, okay?”

Kaelan trailed around the tercoro. She was massive next to the kid, who barely reached the base of her neck. He laid a hand on her side, at which the animal tensed, bracing herself. With a big jump and gripping bunches of wool on her side, Kaelan took a seat on her back. The mare grunted and pinned her ears back, but didn’t react otherwise.

“Thank you, friend!” Kaelan beamed, happy to not have been tossed around. He leaned forward to scratch her neck, drying off his face against her wool, before jumping off. Immediately, Aldi relaxed, though kept an alert eye on him.

“Here, for you.” He presented the piece of bread, which Aldi took with a delighted twitch of her nubby tail. She licked Kaelan’s hand for crumbs, and satisfied, walked away. That was it for the tune that the boy and the mare played every evening. Tercoros were known for being as surefooted as they were stubborn, but Edgar had told him many times that it wasn’t laziness. It was a matter of intelligence: presenting his friend something worth doing the work.

Jumping over the pen fence, Kaelan wondered about the butcher. She might still be open as Edgar mentioned, for folks looking to do late dinner, and most store owners tended to keep some scraps and bits that they didn’t mind giving away. But going begging around the village like a lost pup would get him a stern scolding from Isa.

He looked back at the stablehouse. He wasn’t going to beg, not if he could offer something in return.

Halfway through walking back to the village, Kaelan had convinced himself that he wasn’t hungry anymore. But stepping into the butcher’s shop he immediately began salivating again, salted meats, cured cuts, and fragrant jerky filling his nose.

Behind a worn wooden counter stood the butcher of the town. Milena was a big woman, with a robust frame that reminded Kaelan of a potato. Her outfit was utilitarian: a simple stained apron and the head wrap of butchers, some stray curls sneaking out of it. She spoke curtly with another woman, Ms Ines, who asked again and again if there truly was no more pork left.

It was a few minutes of arguing before Ines left, walking past Kaelan without so much a greeting nod. She was a prickly woman, that one, with the green nun shawl from the smaller Celis church on the outskirts of the village.

“Kid, whatcha need?” Milena's voice boomed through the empty shop as she sharpened a blade. The noise made Kaelan squirm.

“Uhh…”

Isa had often brought Kaelan to the village whenever they needed to buy groceries, but she always insisted on him waiting outside when visiting the butcher. It felt almost fantastical to be inside, and he struggled to find his words. He felt bewildered by the noises, an incessant buzzing coming from a white metal box in a corner, accentuated by a distant rumbling.

“Out with it, I don't have all night.” Milena urged, finishing her knife and sheathing it in a leather pouch.

“Um, hi.”

They stared at each other, the butcher's brown eyes losing patience by the second. Before she could scold him, he rushed to ask.

“Do you have work that needs done? I can clean, and feed animals, and repair fences, and carry stu-”

“Wow, dam that creek, kid. Aren't you too young to be looking for work? Does your mum know you're here?”

She's not my mum, Kaelan ruminated until he realised a pressing issue.

“Please don't tell Isa! She's gonna get mad!”

Milena sighed heavily, the movement seeming to ripple through her body.

“Well, okay. But I've got no work for you, kid. I barely get enough cash to feed myself, and you should focus on school.”

Kaelan's feathers rattled, remembering the still pending homework in his attic bedroom. Rodrigo wouldn't be happy if he was late with assignments again. But his belly wasn't happy right then, and that's what primed on his mind.

“I don't need money! If you got scraps or, um, stuff that didn't sell, I can take it!”

“The stuff that doesn't sell is usually bones and organ meat, why would you want that?”

He gasped in delight, the prospect of real food so close he could taste it.

“I’ll take that! Just, let me work for you, please.”

“No. You tell me, why do you want meat? I won't have you feeding the mountain bears if that's what you're planning.”

“Nnnno.” He stuttered, looking down.

He didn't know Milena much, only having seen her a few times during the biweekly mass. Would she talk to Isa if he admitted he was hungry? He knew he could at least trust Edgar to not tell on eating horsefeed, it was far from the worst thing he had done in the stables. As big as the risk was, his body made the decision for him.

“I just want food. For me.” Kaelan gulped, his hands clinging to the long feathers at the tip of his wings. “Please. Don't tell Isa.”

Milena looked at him, finally seeing him as the thin boy that he was: covered in dust from head to toe, small hands calloused from hard work. She gazed with such softness, that it was as if the stream had taken the gruff butcher and replaced her for someone else.

“I see. C’mon here.”

She lifted a bend in the counter, leaving space for Kaelan to cross. He followed her to the back of the shop: a small room with a straw bed, a desk with papers, and a wall brimming with hanging herbs left to dry. He recognized the shapes of thyme and oregano, and the scent of wild onion and horseradish, but there were plenty more roots and leaves that he couldn’t put a name to. Long stalks with forked leaves, thick branches ended in little yellow flowers, something that resembled a mushroom.

Back there, the mysterious rumbling turned stronger, like a mighty thunder that had yet to pass. It made Kaelan's back feathers prickle, lifting his ruana almost to his stomach.

“So, you good with animals? Go outside, collar the dogs and try to calm ‘em down.” Milena pointed towards the three leather collars hanging close to the drying herbs and opened the back door of the room.

All homes in Ajahuana had small fenced pens behind, sometimes connected to the inside with little coops. Most folks kept their smaller livestock there, chickens or rabbits. He had even seen a few pony tercoros kept on their own, which brought him grief.

In Milena's case, she had three mutts. They began an endless stream of barking and joshing at seeing the back door open. The noise was such, that they almost completely hid the mysterious rumbling, which sourced from a smelly box connected with thick black rope to the inside of the house.

Ignoring the scary box and with collars in hand, Kaelan jumped over the pen in an easy leap. Immediately, the dogs changed their demeanour, hackles raised and teeth bared in a growl. The largest one, a half-bald mutt with a missing ear, snapped its jaws the moment Kaelan stepped close.

Animals often reacted fearfully to him, and aggression was just another flavour of that. Milena whistled, the shrill sound breaking the snarls into whines.

“Hey, what's gotten into you guys? That's no way to treat a guest.” She scolded them, shooting Kaelan an apologetic look.

With the barking noise gone, Kaelan stilled his quivering feathers and gingerly walked towards the dogs. His wings were closed flat against his sides, and while he was a small kid, he crouched to fours to meet them from below.

The animals were still jumpy, licking their nose and ears flattened at any loud step, but in time curiosity won and they approached the weird falcon kid with experimental sniffs. He allowed the treatment, sitting on the damp soil while wet noses prodded his feathered tail, his wings, and his face. He tried to pet one, a smaller black mutt with one white paw, but it recoiled with a loud bark that made him jump. It took a few minutes before the little pack decided to approach again, and this time he avoided initiating any contact at all.

At some point Milena had disappeared inside the house, the noise and stink of the scary box walling away her actions. By the time she returned, the dogs still continued their investigation and Kaelan had yanked all the grass and weeds around his perimeter.

“Kid, get back here.”

While Kaelan stayed put, his left ear rotated like a cat's at Milena's words. He slowly stood up, walking backwards without making eye contact with the dogs. He crouched below the fence, leaving the collars abandoned inside the pen.

“Um, I'm sorry, miss. I couldn't put the collars on.”

“Forget about those mutts. They aren't normally this rowdy.”

She led him to a log stool near a black table. On closer view, it wasn't quite black. The wood had been stained, veins turning darker at streaks and cuts of a knife. The rich scent of metal and spilt life told him that this was where the butcher cleaned up carcasses.

Sitting in the log, the woman wordlessly passed him a deep bowl. It had some type of fatty soup, pieces of minced meat and cartilage floating around the bone-scented broth. Kaelan squealed, his joy almost making him drop the cup.

“Is this for me?!”

“Well, yeah. I didn't hand’cha a bowl just to look at.”

He could almost cry, but he wouldn't. Tears had been shed already that night, and it was unseemly for him to do so again. He was a big boy now, he reminded himself while rushing through his gratitude muttering, and all his thoughts turned to mush as he gulped down the soup.

Despite the myriad of herbs within the house, he couldn't taste much, not even salt. But it didn't matter. It was food, and it was meat, and it was everything.

Wiping his face with his hand and licking it afterwards, he handed back the bowl with a happy sigh.

“Do you want more?”

“There's more?!” And in that moment, there wasn't a happier child in the world than Kaelan. A second serving and his belly felt full and his conscience light. He had acted so silly, and now he was ready to tackle the world.

“How can I repay you, miss?”

Milena nodded towards a water basin, picking up the pot from where she had refilled the bowl and brought it into the house. Catching her meaning, Kaelan washed the bowl and sneaked in a small drink for himself.

“Here's what we're gonna do,” the woman began, walking out with her butcher headwrap gone, carrying a canvas sack on her back, and a taré staff in hand. “I won't tell Isa about you being here, but in return I want you to stay quiet. I've got some traps set up in the forest, and I've got to go check on ‘em.”

“Traps?” Kaelan asked with a trembling voice.

Village folks weren't keen on touching the forest fauna. He had seen the nuns shooting ugly looks at Raul, the beekeeper, during mass. He couldn't imagine what tone would Ines’ voice take if she heard of Milena setting traps.

“Yes. You just ate wild hares, it's what I feed my pups. And if you want to repay me, then come along.”

He nodded, hesitant about what he got himself into. But his mom had taught him to be true. With night in full force, he took off his dark glasses and saved them away in his belt pocket.

Milena cooed at the dogs, which barked and pawed the fence.

“Sorry lads, no outies tonight.” She petted the three of them, calming them down. The bigger one went to sniff the discarded collar, looking at its owner with disconcerted eyes.

“Let's get going, I don't cherish being out at night.” The woman sighed, stepping away from the fence and heading for the village. Kaelan trailed behind like a little duckling.

“I thought we were going to the forest?”

“We are.”

At the eastern outskirts of Ajahuana stood a large stone arch, easily gracing above the trees. Carvings coiled around the columns, a flowy depiction of the hjave, the sense of belonging. Plants grew into the mouths of hares and deer, which themselves leapt into the claws and talons of predators. At the end, the highest predators, the mighty eagle and the bear, dissolved into dust, forming the grass and closing the arch.

The pilgrimage path itself began easy, with a stone road just like the ones in the village. But every step came with more frequent weeds and roots in the way. Loose rocks awaited unwary walkers, until at last they got replaced by a pure dirt path.

“What was your name again, kid?” Milena asked, keeping her eyes on the horizon.

“Kaelan, ma'am.”

“Ain't that Kerish?”

A foreign language from a faraway land. Isa had been the one to name him, allegedly a ‘fitting name’ that she had discovered from serving in the army beyond the ocean. She was trying to teach him the language, too. It was composed of brutish-sounding noises, leaving his tongue tired and his head swimming with meaningless words.

“I guess.”

Milena hummed, shrugging off her sack and holding the taré under her boot. While she rummaged inside, Kaelan eyed the staff.

All adults owned one, a tool and a charm for safe passage while far from home. Milena's was made of an ashy wood, its edges blunt from age and with a thick middle part. It reminded him of the woman herself, a good omen. A person who didn't resemble their taré wasn't to be trusted.

Kaelan often wondered what his taré would look like. But he still had to wait a few years to be granted one.

Milena took her staff back in hand, the other one with a metallic cylinder. She did something complicated with it, and a beam of light spilt from a flared tip.

“Wow!” Kaelan squeaked, equally amazed and startled. His eyes had adjusted well to the night, every leaf and rock clear in his vision. But the gush of light sent an explosion of pain, forcing his eyes shut and having him scrambling to get his glasses out.

“Ah. Sorry. I should have guessed you were nocturnal.”

She turned the light off, letting Kaelan put on his glasses before turning it on again.

“What is that?” He asked, a blocky afterimage still floating in his vision.

“Flashlight.” Milena took a turn from the path, wriggling her way into the forest through the low bushes.

“How does it work? I don't smell oil.”

They crept deeper into the wilderness. The forest was wet and silent, the ground dampening their steps with a layer of leaf litter and moss. Gnarled trunks were claimed by orchids and lichen, but besides that, everything was stained in green moss. It almost looked like someone had taken the landscape and dipped the base in duckweed, leaving some green curtains hanging from the lower branches.

“Works with batteries. Your mum has a radio, doesn't she?”

Not my mum. “Oh! The smelly cylinder things! I don't understand them, and Isa got angry when I tried to pry one open.”

“Batteries are expensive, kid.” Milena made her way over a huge downed trunk, beetles retreating below the rotting wood at their passing. “And toxic. And complicated. Just know that if it seems to be powered by magic, it's probably batteries.”

As far as Kaelan knew, it was indeed magic. All things he knew were run by either steam, oil, or fire. Those were simple systems he knew and understood, but he couldn't get how the same cylinder could turn into distorted voices from another town, and also mighty painful beams of light. The thought of that picked his curiosity.

“Can batteries also power other things? Are there, um, battery things that could wash my clothes?”

“Uhh, I'm afraid washing machines are a bit too big for batteries alone.”

He wasn't sure what that meant, but he wasn't listening anymore. Somewhere farther ahead, he could hear a distress call. A series of short high-pitched squeaks, and the thumping of paws.

“The traps were for wild hares, right?”

Milena hummed an affirmative.

“Is there one ahead? I think… I think it caught something.”

“How could you possibly tell?”

Kaelan's pointy ears pivoted around, gauging the exact location. There was the sound of a rope straining, branches and leaves creaking to a struggle.

“I can hear it.”

Kaelan shot ahead, beyond the light of the flashlight.

“Kid!”

He knew he wasn't hungry anymore, but a tug on his belly urged him forward. Crickets and night birds leapt away at his step, the forest turning quiet and still at the ruckus of the falcon child.

After a few minutes, he found it. A large brown hare with a silver back and black-tipped legs. A normal mud hare, with long front claws designed for digging roots. Its eyes snapped open in fear, and it moved wildly, one of its back legs angled wrong and stuck in a rope.

Kaelan's first instinct was to coo softly, whispering comforting words while slowly approaching the trapped leg. Milena was still far off, he could hear her brutish stomping through the woods, yelling for him. It wouldn't be long until she arrived, but he still had time to set the creature off.

Holding the rope in his hand, he knew it was the correct thing to do. Right? They were civilised folks. They didn't need to hunt. Hunting was for the poachers and the wild, not for village people. Not even if stuck in hard times. But his mom has taught him to be true, and he'd sooner sin than disappoint her memory.

“Kid! Shit, what were you thinking running off like that?!” Milena hollered, roots cracking under her boots. “What would I tell Isabel had you fucking disappeared?”

He heard her heart thumping and running just like the hare’s, chest heaving under the strain of running.

“Sorry. But I found the hare!”

“We would have found it eventually! It wasn't going anywhere! Don't do that again.”

“I'm sorry…” Kaelan whimpered, making himself small next to the hare, which stood very still at the huge feathered creature next to it.

Milena sighed, sounding more like a disappointed growl. “Whatever. Pay attention now.”

She set down the flashlight, propping it up with a rock and aiming it towards the hare. Kaelan stepped away, letting Milena approach the flailing creature. She held it firmly without being violent.

“Thank you, friend. I hope the stream is kind to you.” She whispered, holding it closely. A hand grabbed its head, the other its back legs. A firm yank and the hare stopped moving.

“Thank you, friend.” Kaelan echoed without a flinch. He had seen death before, whenever Isa took one of the egg hens for dinner, or when one of the mounts got too sick for the livery. But this felt different. He knew creatures that departed feeling comfortable and loved, but this hare had died alone and afraid. He'd have to be extra grateful for its life.

Milena set the carcass inside her pack and walked away with the flashlight in hand. “Let's move on, there's a few others to check on.”

They treaded through the bush in careful steps, this time Kaelan stuck close to Milena. Ajahuana’s paths weren't the cleanest, with their loose stones and weeds, but at least they were paths. Out in the forest, Kaelan's feet stumbled for a millionth time with roots and bramble. He cherished all children of Celis, but he wished he had Isa’s axe to open a clear way.

“Where did you learn about this hunting stuff?” He asked, trying to distract himself from the discomfort of mud caked on his toes.

“Mmmhhh, not hunting. This is trapping. Different skillset.” Milena grumbled, not quite mean-spirited. After several trips against small rocks and hitting his head twice with low branches, she answered.

“My family came from the páramo. The tundra weather is too harsh up there, so your crop options are limited. We couldn't really feed ourselves with harvest alone, even less if there were animals to take care of. So, my pa taught me how to grab my food from Celis’ hands instead of my own.”

“What happened to your pa?” Kaelan didn't know Milena had a family, she didn't seem too close with anyone in the village. More importantly, he wondered what it was like to have a father.

“Returned to the stream long ago. Can you hear any hare struggling from here?”

Kaelan hummed, looking around. The previous trap had been practically invisible until standing in front of it, so he didn't bother trying to spot it between the fallen leaves and glowing tracks of animal droppings. But he listened. Crickets buzzed brightly, branches creaked with the wind, owls hooted. Far away he noticed the snoring of big creatures, deep rumblings accompanied by heartbeats like a hummingbird’s flight. But there were no cries of hares.

“No, nothing.”

“Hm. The next trap is probably empty. Let’s move on.”

Milena took a turn and kept walking, a new tension in her brow.

“Empty? So the traps can fail?”

“Everything can fail, kid.”

Almost as if asking for it, Milena’s foot slid against a rock. She tried holding a branch for balance, which snapped and left her face-down on the dirt. Kaelan ran to her side, helping her up.

“Are you okay?!”

“Agh. Yeah.” Her stand was wobbly at best, but she waved Kaelan’s hands away, using the taré to support her weight. “Even with the flashlight, it’s hard to navigate at this hour.”

“You aren’t used to coming at this hour?”

Testing her footing and securing the pack better on her back, she kept walking. “I prefer early mornings when the fog is thick.”

At fog hour? It seemed even more inconvenient than the night’s darkness. The clouds were low and thick in the forest then, and even at the village, it turned hard to walk true when you could barely see ahead of you.

“Are you coming twice today, then?”

“No. Couldn’t come this morning, so gotta do it now.”

“Why couldn’t you?”

Milena sighed. “Do your questions ever end?”

Kaelan peeped, holding his wings close. He muttered an apology, while mentally chidding himself. He knew it wasn’t wise to badger adults too much with questions, most scoldings came that way. Living with Isa should have taken away his bad habit already.

But instead of a scolding, Milena tussled his hair, leaving his braid half-undone. “It’s fine. I was busy this morning, and it wouldn’t please Mother if I waited until tomorrow.”

“Wait…so, Celis is fine with the trapping?”

“Why wouldn’t She be?”

“The nuns get angry at me when I eat the moths at the church. That I shouldn’t harm her complex subjects.”

The woman chuckled with an exhaled breath. The nuns could be quite preachy, but you couldn't expect less from, well, nuns.

“That’s not what that teaching means. You shouldn’t harm any subject. Just like you wouldn’t overharvest crops, you have to be careful about how much you grab from the wild. And the way you take matters too, letting animals suffer too long turns into harmful behaviour. And that’s why we’re stuck here instead of in bed.”

“I wouldn’t be in bed. I’d be in the livery with Old Mule Edgar or looking over the chickens at home.”

“Right. Nocturnal. It must get lonely.”

Kaelan shrugged, though he doubted she could see him as he followed paces away from the beam of the flashlight. “It’s okay. Isa warned me that when I told her I preferred to be awake at night.”

The conversation waned, followed by comfortable silence. Despite how large and aloof Milena looked, she didn’t force her presence into something intimidating or deserving of respect. She just was, and it made Kaelan feel at ease to be just as he was, too.

With their silence, Kaelan noticed a distant rushing noise, barely perceptible at first but turning louder with every step they took. It was a creek, perhaps even a river. It cloaked all of the other sounds of the forest, and it came with new insects and toads marking their presence with their sounds.

There was the faint cry of a hare, too, but this one felt different to the previous one. Intermittent and dull, as if the creature was losing hope of its fate.

“There's a hare up ahead.”

“Thank the blessed world. Two out of three is not too bad, especially after having half my stock gone.”

Kaelan whined, lagging a few steps behind. “I’m sorry…”

Milena barked a laugh. “I’m just joking. You barely went through a quarter of that pot. It’s all fine.”

With his fluttering heart softening to a steady rhythm, he caught up again with the woman. At a regular pace instead of bolting through the bush, the trap still remained a far distance apart. Restless and avoiding thinking about the upcoming ordeal, he followed up with another question.

“Why do you come at fog hour? Isn’t it hard to see?”

“Kind of the point. Don’t want folks seeing me walk into the forest. And while there’s fog, I can at least see more than what this tiny light shows me.”

That made enough sense, considering Milena was a regular person. Kaelan had discovered quickly that he didn’t quite experience the world as everyone else did, in particular when it came to his eyes. Had it been his choice, he could have walked the whole way without mysterious battery lights, relying on the moons’ for clarity. And tonight was a good night for the twins: both Alderján and Taroján shone half full, bathing the landscape with their silver.

At sighting the incoming pair, the trapped hare began its ruckus with reignited fervour. Its trapped leg was paralysed, sticky with caked blood and mud. While its shrills were loud, it barely could scratch or squirm anymore.

“This one has been here a few hours, we're lucky a fox didn't take it,” Milena observed while setting down her pack and flashlight.

Kaelan only hummed in reluctant agreement. He didn't like seeing animals in pain, and he couldn't imagine the despair of being trapped for so long.

“Okay kid, time to win your fill. You saw me take care of the previous one, do you think you could handle this one?”

“Take care…as in…?”

“Yeah, kill it.”

“Um…” He fidgeted with his feathers, wings closed to his sides like a cloak. Short claws prodded messy barbs, and he struggled against the need to pluck them out.

Milena held the hare now, in the same way she did the previous one. One hand on its back legs, another on its head, clutched close to her body. It stopped struggling and screaming, but its eyes were wide, black pools of terror. He had seen death, but caused it? Never.

But that wasn’t true, was it? He ate larvae and termites from the rotting wood at home all the time, much to Isa’s dismay. He stepped over ants and beetles every day. He harvested crops, ripping their roots from the soil and bleeding them dry of their sap, their life. What difference did a hare make? It was a subject of Celis, as worthy of life as any ant or potato plant. It wouldn’t be fair to those lives he had claimed if he chickened out of this.

“Okay.” He said with a voice trembling like a falling leaf.

Milena guided his hands to hold the hare. The animal barely struggled, allowing itself to get handled like a rag doll. It was warm against Kaelan's chest, its fur smelling like grass, dandelions, and blood. Both their hearts raced, a running beat that the animal’s legs once followed.

“Alright, it's simple enough. Hold the body, twist and tug the neck. Don’t hesitate, you don't need a lot of strength to snap the spine. Twist and tug.”

Twist and tug.

Kaelan clutched the hare, trying to keep his claws from puncturing the hide.

“Thank you, friend. May the stream take you well.”

His eyes closed tight, and he twisted and tugged. There was a wet cracking sound and a warm spray on his hand.

“Oh…blessed world,” Milena muttered, but Kaelan didn’t dare to open his eyes. The back side of the hare struggled, kicking and flailing wildly, but the head on his other hand was still. Too still. He didn’t feel the body’s movement cascading down.

“It’s ssstill moving?!” He cried out, clutching the body closer, desperate to not cause it more harm than he already had.

“It’s okay child, it’s okay. Those are just residual kicks but I assure you, it’s…it’s very dead.”

He felt Milena embracing him, and softly tugging the now limp carcass off his hands. Emboldened, he opened his eyes.

His hands were sticky and black with blood, little fur pieces clinging to his fingers. Milena held the hare’s body in one of her hands, and in the other, its detached head.

“Oh, no. No, no, no.” He felt his eyes leaking, like the blood still dripping from the empty neck. “No! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

He wailed, hands in his face not realising how he smeared the foul liquid. His wings quivered with his bubbling sobs. He didn’t care about being seen crying, or the hunger, or anything else. He only wanted his mom.

“Kid, buddy, calm down. It’s alright. You took care of it and it was quick.”

The kid didn’t calm down. He still wailed and cried while muttering gibberish. Whatever Milena said fell on deaf ears, so instead she opted to herd him away from the trap. He wasn't sure where he was being led, but once Milena offered a large calloused hand he held onto it for dear life.

The rushing noise of the creek quieted his thoughts, and by the time they reached the edge of the water, Kaelan had reduced himself to wet little sniffles. Milena handled him as if he were the most antique of porcelain, carefully washing his hands and his face with a wet rag.

“There ya go. Why don’t you stick around here while I clean up our gone friends and then we can walk back to the village?”

“Nnnnoo. Please don’t go…”

Milena stood there, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

“Do you think you could handle me cleaning up the carcass here? It’s not going to take long, I pro-”

“Nooooo. I wanna go home!”

“We will go in a few minutes. Listen. Buddy. How about you help me out?” She pulled out a long leather pouch from her sack, and from within took a few knives of different sizes and shapes. “Can you wash these for me? The creek’s water is fine. And just dry them off with your sleeve. Can you do that?”

Kaelan whined, but he shyly nodded.

“That’s a good pup. You do that while I go…gather some stuff, okay? I won’t take long.”

Milena walked away slowly, disappearing behind a high bush along the creek’s edge. Kaelan sighed a long raspy breath. He could wash some knives, right? At home, Isa wouldn’t be satisfied until he had rubbed them with lye and whetted them sharp, but if Milena said just water was fine…

He carefully took off his ruana and hung it on a low branch. With the leather pouch in hand, he sat on a smooth rock bordering the water, dipping the tip of his feet in. The cold water chilled him to the bone, the night had sapped away any warmth that the sun could have lent. But feeling his toes free of the grass and mud calmed him a smidge, just enough to wash the knives.

Moistening his hand, he scrubbed the blades. They were the finest, most beautiful pieces of metal he had seen in his life. With Milena and her flashlight far away, he took off his lenses just so he could look at them more closely. Polished wood handles, and steel so bright it reflected the stars and one of the half moons from above. He saw himself, too. A ragged falcon boy, face wet from tears and the creek’s water. It almost felt like a sin trying to dry them off with his sleeve, his cotton shirt was mudded with tercoro wool, hare fur, and the forest’s dust

Instead, he brought the knives to his ruana and dried them off with the soft plush wool on its inside. Satisfied, he pulled on the garment again and sought Milena. In their time together he had gotten familiar with her scent, old blood accentuated with suet, dried herbs, and dog fur.

He found her fast, cleaning her hands on the creek. Even as she stepped away spotless, the air reeked of blood, organs, and manure. She had been cleaning those carcasses.

“Didn’t I tell you to stay put?” Milena asked with a tint of alarm.

Kaelan only shook his head, a knot present in his throat. She had only told him to clean the knives, nothing more. And for what? The task looked done and over with, no carcasses laid about, there was only a small pool of coagulated blood and a disturbed mound of dirt that held the stench of inedible hare bits.

He handed her the leather pouch, and croaked, “Can we go now?”

“Yeah. I suppose we can.”

She began walking back through the same path they had come. Kaelan stood still, confused. Would there be more traps that way? Was she missing anything? They had entered the forest towards the east and from there only headed north. It would be only a few minutes to the west to return to the pilgrimage path, where it was mostly clear of forest roots and rocks.

“What's the hold-up, kid?”

Without even thinking, Kaelan went to take Milena's hand.

“Can’t we just head back to the monastery road and walk home from there?”

“That's the idea. The road is back where we left it.”

“But, if we head upriver, we will reach the bridge at the first checkpoint of the pilgrimage!”

Milena lifted an eyebrow, her fingers beginning the tiniest of efforts to pull away. She wasn't convinced.

“Upriver it's east! I promise!” Kaelan raised his eyes to the stars. He recognized their patterns, nameless in his mind, but forming recognizable clusters and lines in different colours and brightness. And he knew the shape that pointed to the east, not to mention the slight movement of Taroján towards the west. He just had to go against it. Upriver.

“And how would you know that?”

“I promise you! If I'm wrong we can just head down again, right? It will be fine!”

Milena sighed, shrugging. She pointed her flashlight to the east and allowed Kaelan to drag her through the muddy rocks of the shore. The powerful light cast silver ripples over the water’s surface, its gentle bubbling accompanying the chirps of toads and distant owl hoots. Shadows danced upon the calmer banks of the creek, over carpets of duckweed and fallen leaves that rippled softly with the breeze. Upstream, the creek turned thinner but noisier. The terrain was much more steep, rocks giving way to large boulders that hid parts of the creek.

It turned out Kaelan was right, but it came with the cost of a climb. The terrain turned steep and treacherous with loose rocks, slippery clay dirt forcing them to slow down their pace.

Trying to help Milena was a no-go: the woman was easily three times the weight of the little kid. Both found purchase how they could, the taré and small claws soon caked in dirt.

In the end, any intention of returning fast was lost, but they did reach the bridge. It was made of stone, from the same type that surrounded the shores. It connected a stair-carved boulder with a steep cliff side, as the pilgrimage path itself continued on higher land.

Sweaty and exhausted, the pair was just concerned with where the path returned to. They walked back to Ajahuana in silence, as silent as Milena’s laboured breathing could be.

At the arch, the village received them with cosy silence. Kaelan could hear dozens of snores and calm heartbeats, with just a handful of artisans still hard at work. Artists were slaves of their labour, his Ma would say.

“Well, I’m heading to bed. If you ever need some more scraps, you’re welcome at my place.” Milena coughed with an air of finality.

She began walking away, but Kaelan stood in her path.

“Um, Mile?” Isa always called the butcher by that nickname, and he assumed being associated with the farmer meant he could use it too. If she felt any annoyance, she hid it well.

“Yeah?”

“Why did you bring me along? It didn’t really look like you needed help…I think I only managed to make things more difficult for you…”

“You were hungry, and meat feeds more than plants can. I want you to know what to do if you feel hungry again.”

He had to admit she was right. The hare soup had stilled his belly for the entire time they were out, whereas the grain had hardly made a dent. He had barely learned anything, though. But she did mention frequently coming back during early mornings.

“Can I join you again next time you go into the forest? I could come before heading home to bed.”

She smiled at that, a rather foreign expression in the otherwise gruff woman. “Of course. In three days.”

Kaelan beamed, grabbing Milena’s hand with heartfelt joy. “Okay! Have a nice evening, Mrs Milena!”

She hummed a farewell and went on her way. The child left too, headed for the livery. Old Mule Edgar must had gone to bed already, as Alderján was reaching the summit in the sky. But the herd was there, and it was between their soft breathing and strong heartbeats that he felt the most at ease. And he needed that space, for there was a lot of thinking he wanted to do, far from maths homework and Isa’s scent.