Chapter 34: En Route

Deep within the forest, where the trees were closely knitted, around the treetops several shabby, crudely built treehouses hung around the trunks. The whole village, if it even could be called that, was full of loud, screeching voices as young chimpanzees were swinging around the trees, chasing each other or play-fighting. The females mostly just sat on the branches or in the “houses”, lazing around, watching the children while some young males were down on the ground, holding cubs, crude spears and whatnot, guarding the community. 

 

One of them almost fell asleep when a loud, banging noise shook up everything, scaring the younglings to flee in any direction they could, while even the lazy females screamingly rushed downwards as one of the shacks almost fell apart, releasing thick, black smoke.

 

“Cough, cough…” came out one, older looking, hunchbacked monkey, wearing a coat like clothing, made from some beast’s rough skin, that was now dripping with some kind of smelly, sticky fluids, stuck between the already graying fur of his “Damn it…” coughed again, wiping his face that was marked with scars all around. “Get up here you lazy bastards! Clean up this shit so you have some worth!” roared down to the scared chimps as he wobbled away, climbing upwards to another poorly built shack on the neighboring tree while the young males grumbled, going up to clean the “laboratory” of the old, strange, but feared shaman.

 

The females meanwhile tried to calm down the children, collecting them around themselves, feeding and making them silent as they knew when something goes wrong, the shaman has a bad temper and not once, he beat up anyone, young, male, female who disrupted his thinking yet never was punished by the tribe’s leader. 

 

“No, the liver was the problem… mhm… it should be sliced up more and add less to the concoction to avoid the same reaction…” 

 

Murmured under his breath in his shack, that was filled with many-many strange tools, made by himself or stolen from humans and repurposed, looking like a mad scientist laboratory from the fairy tales. Scribbles and rough sketches, written by charcoal on rough paper or animal skins, littered the floor or were nailed onto the walls, letting out crunching noises as he stepped on them, just like dried leaves would.

 

“Where did I put it?” threw another stack of “papers” onto the ground, sweeping it off from the shabby, almost collapsing shelf of his “No, not here… huh? What's this?” picked up one book that was old, yellowed and the glue holding it together long ago lost any adhesive properties as pages just fell out as he picked it up. “Oh, I remember, this is hers.” said flipping through of it “I should get a good price for this if I sell it to a human. Maybe I should. Now where are the missing pages?” looked around in the garbage field he stood in “I need to find them and when Niji comes back, task him to go and sell it. I need modern instruments, the old rusty shit from the ruins don’t cut it anymore. Not precise enough… mmm…. Maybe I should try remaking them from those idiot’s bones? They are good for nothing, screeching, autistic brainlets anyway. Not able to learn reading, what worth they have? They should be happy to be tools for science!” laughed maniacally as he searched for the missing pages, slowly putting the book back together. 

 

His loud, laughing voice, echoing through the forest instinctively struck fear to the other monkeys, shivering from top to the bottom, throwing any desire to complain out of the window, as even some females joined the young males with helping to clean up the shabby house around the tree.

 

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…..

 

“We will camp here.” said Niji as he stood next to a 3 or 4 meters wide river

 

“You sure? It’s still only early evening, we could advance more.” said Poli, arriving next to him as the others slowly catched up

 

“We need to cross this river, the nearest and narrowest part of it is up north, about half an hour of travel time… but it’s the territory of the owls. Going there by nightfall would not be a good idea.”

 

“Why?” asked Ren, curiously as Leinor and Zern just started clearing up the campsite, not arguing as they saw, Ren was fine with camping down early. 

 

“We have an agreement of passing through, you don’t. If I bring you to their territory when they are awake… Fighting them is a pain in the ass.”

 

“Are they though?” 

 

“Mmm… more like… tricky? They can see in the dark like we can now, and fly silently. They ambush you and harass you all the way until either you die or leave their territory. They aren’t big, the biggest one I saw is as tall as you Ren. Still. Annoying and their talons are sharp.  It’s best if we stay and move on tomorrow when they are asleep.”

 

“Why not cross here?” asked Isha, looking at the calmly flowing water 

 

“You can try.” grinned Niji

 

“The water is filled with… fish?” commented Feynor who was watching the slightly muddy river “I can sense a lot of different lifeforce in it.”

 

“Watch.” said Niji, as he threw a stone into it and soon splashing sounds resounded as fishes, about the size of a human feet, started to jump around, their jaws filled with grotesque rows of teeth. “They would eat you clean in minutes. You all may be strong, but they are numerous and they sap you of energy. The blood flowing out would also attract more from down the stream. I saw one of ours being thrown in, he was dead in five minutes. Give it ten more and not even bones remain.” 

 

“Damn… and here I thought I could take a bath…” sighed Isha 

 

“Relax. You will.” smiled Anya who just silently stood by, before going to the bank of the river and the water silently “flowed” out, condensing into a giant ball, floating in the air, soon held up by her one hand. “Make a place where I can put it, then we can have a bath. Don’t worry, the boys can have a go at it too.” smiled serenely 

When the night came and the girls had their bath, Ren relaxedly sat in Anya’s lap, enjoying the dinner as her mother hand feeded her.

 

“Look at you, you act like a spoiled brat.” poked fun at her Isha

 

“I am being spoiled. What, if you are jealous, you can sit in Zern’s lap, he would do the same I bet.”

 

“Khm.” scratched his throat, not saying anything or protesting, only taking a small side glance at her before going back to enjoy his roasted meat 

 

“I may just do that.” harrumphed Isha before standing up, then without reservation plopped down into Zern’s lap, leaning back to him while the young man instantly froze up. “Feed me~” moaned sweetly, blinking like a kitten, opening her mouth while Leinor just sighed 

 

“Acting like this doesn’t match you… you may fool others, but we know how you are, really.” 

 

“Yeah, sure you do boytoy.” added rolling her eyes, while stealing a bite off of a piece of Zern’s skewered, roasted meat.

 

“I need to get a girlfriend soon too. Man, I’m the only one who is left out!” whimpered Poli, munching on his portion while Anya just ignored any of them, enjoying the closeness with her daughter she missed so much. “Feynor, can you introduce me to one?”

 

“Mmm…” thought the soon to be Aerthus X “I may, but I can’t guarantee anything.”

 

“No problem! Man, you are the best! Being Master’s apprentice, honestly, comes with awesome perks!”

 

“Idiot.” commented Ren, Isha and Leinor at the same time but Poli only gave a cheeky laugh, now in a much better mood.

 

“Your group of humans are more open then the ones I grew up with.” said Niji, reminiscing about his childhood when he was still a little chimpanzee, not knowing anything about the world 

 

“Did they beat you?” asked Poli, throwing a new piece of wood into the fire 

 

“Sometimes.” nodded as the light from the flames danced around them, reflecting inside Niji’s black eyes as he watched it, as he almost heard the slave trader’s whips cracking in the distance in his own mind “Usually if I did something wrong. At first I was kept in a cage, then in my own little… room. Or cell if you will. I was fed, kept warm and examined week after week. The kids in our tribe… hard to tell them apart from normal chimpanzees it only shows in our ability to adapt, learn and comprehend. I quickly learned the human tongue, body language, basic communication then I was educated. I even had my own clothes.”

 

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“Oh? Then why are you naked now? Are you some kind of pervert?” giggled Ren, receiving a knock on her head by her mother “Ouch... Mom…”

 

“Heh, no. We don’t wear them because where could we make them? Mmm? Or should I wear leaves? There is nobody out here who knows how to make quality clothing… and I won’t wear coarse animal skin, I get full of rashes and other annoying reactions from my body. So I choose to adapt and as I said, we are good at it. I reverted back to accepting the comfort of my own body and fur. Believe it or not, it's a pretty good feeling being free like this.”

 

“So you ARE a nudist.” laughed Isha, receiving a calm gaze from Niji 

 

“And you ARE a pervert if you find a monkey arousing. But hey, the legend says we are somewhat cousins, no? I can see some of you may have weird kinks.”

 

“Who said I am aroused or have kinks?” snorted while Ren stifled a laugh, prompting her thumb towards Niji 

 

“Relax. Come, try this.” whispered Zern, immediately calming her down, stuffing another piece of meat into her mouth, silencing Isha 

 

“It wasn’t all that bad, I learnt a lot.” continued Niji “I spent 25 years with a noble family, I was the… Pet of the young Miss of the house, also her guard. More effective than anything, as it proved. That's when I learned how to fight. It was fun. When she became an adult she was kind enough to let me free.”

 

“You didn’t hesitate?” asked Ren, looking at him, searching for his eyes to look into them 

 

“I did. For a whole three years.” admitted Niji “But I left. It took me 10 years to find my way back and make contact with this tribe and it also took me another 20 hard years to be accepted into their ranks and rise to a somewhat trusted level after another 5 years. It was hard and I cursed myself that I left pretty often, but I had a dream, an ambition if you will.”

 

“Still have it?”

 

“Stronger than ever.” replied instantly, looking at Ren

 

“Good. You can trust me if nobody else, what I said to you back home, is true.”

 

“Hope so.” said while stretching and laying on his back, not talking to them anymore, just listening to the nightly opera, presented by the forest and it’s countless critters. 

 

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It was near dawn when Ren woke up and wobbled out to relieve herself in a nearby bush and as she came out, she saw Niji, sitting at the riverbank.

 

“You up?” 

 

“It’s almost morning. Usually I wake up early. You guys are really relaxed, sleeping like this out in the wild.”

 

“My Mom is here, she has superior perception. Also, she laid down alarms around the camp, we would be alerted if anything tried to sneak in.” stretched, accompanied by a big yawn. 

 

“And if I went wild?”

 

“Yeah, sure, stop with the act. You are more human than monkey, admit it. That's why you ran at the first sight of trouble. You are just as opportunistic as any ambitious human and in this case, it is to your advantage. That’s why I can guess what you would do and that is why we can work together.”

 

“The others were savage and unable to be educated. You are right, I am thinking like a human, but here, until now, it didn’t bring any advantage. It was the opposite. At least now the biggest hurdle was removed.”

 

“This is why your luck just turned, it will be your time to shine. What about the shaman back at the tribe? Will he be a problem?”

 

“No. He is old. More than a thousand years old.”

 

“What?” blinked Ren, surprised 

 

“I didn’t believe it at first either. Still don’t if I’m honest. But he has knowledge of old history, locations of ruins that nobody else has. Also he has a big collection of ancient artifacts. He concots a lot of medicine that the tribe uses.”

 

“Then why didn’t he lead the others?”

 

“Because he looks down on them I think… and the others think he is mad, but useful with his concoctions. Until you let him do his “science” he doesn’t bother what the tribe does or who leads, mates with the females, etc. He rarely interacts with others. Only I had permission to help him out most of the time and at least with me he was friendly. That’s why the tribe accepted me in, in the end, to be a connection. I always had a feeling he was raised or at least spent time with humans. You will see… it’s just…”

 

“Just?”

 

“Be prepared.”

 

“For what?”

 

“He is unpredictable… and don’t mess with his stuff. Once he killed six of us because one of the idiots used his notes as toilet paper.”

 

“Understandable.” nodded Ren, with a sympathetic expression “Now I really look forward to meeting him. Does he have a name?”

 

“We only call him Shaman and he is fine with that. I also don’t know if he has one.”

 

“I see. It will do. Hmmm, now I’m really glad that I came. I can’t wait to meet him!”

 

“I just hope you will keep the same opinion tomorrow....” sighed, shaking his head while slowly the others woke up too and they continued their journey.

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