Lizardfolk of the Northern River Deltas

[brian 333]

She and her guardian made a nest beneath a large oak on the north side of the caged plants and she tried to catch the last of the setting sun's rays. By full dark she was asleep. Rarely did she dream and recall that she had dreamt. Even rarer were glimpses of those dreams remembered.

On waking, she remembered.

In almost-darkness she hatched from her soft-shelled egg and crawled down a mountain of logs and slick mud that was larger than the dam of the bark-eaters. The warm pool of muddy water at the bottom was relaxing, soothing, but she had to climb out on two feet and face a giant.

Grandmother looked down on her tiny hatchling, and Kaasaa recalled the journey she had undertaken with Eeahn. The cold river, the night in the forest, the pain that came from the cold, and the blood in the water. Every detail, as though drawn on the mud of the teaching room floor.

When she came to the memory of building the night's nest with Eeahn, Grandmother gently rumbled her approval.

"Grandmother, should I return and tell you all of this?" Kaasaa asked.

Grandmother shrank, then. Or did Kaassaa grow? She was huge, looking down on a tiny hatchling. Unseen behind her was Eeahn, similarly grown huge, with a bright red far speech bladder. He had become, somehow, Grandfather. And she?

"Perhaps," tiny Grandmother said. "If you both survive. There is yet much for you to learn."

Tiny Grandmother became a warm flame which grew brighter and warmer, until it's brightness hurt her eye.

She woke beneath the tree with a yellow beam of sunlight piercing the treetops to land on her face.

"Shall we return to your village?" Eeahn asked, wierdly echoing her own question.

"I think I have decided to stay and help the humans. I had a dream..."

After a silent moment he said, "I thought it was a sending."

"A what?"

"A spell. I heard you speak to Grandmother."

"In my dream I did."

"Ah. I thought it was a spell."

"I think we should help the humans who wish to go to the island now, and make a second trek for those who are not yet ready. Some of the human males should be taken to the place of death so they can bear witness. Time wasted in discussion is not productive."

"Yes, Elder." His far speech bladder puffed in amusement, and she threw a twig at him in mock indignation.

"I will inform Kennk."

The first group was ready before the sun was halfway up the sky. Twenty, all together. The six small, leaky boats of the village were loaded with far more gear than lizardfolk would have wanted. There was an abundance of cloth, which appeared strange at first, until the younglings were placed into the boats. They quickly made nests of the material. Kaasaa reasoned that, like other furred creatures, humans were warm-bloods that lacked fur on their bodies. They used the cloth as substitute fur. It did little to help the adults, who shivered as they walked the water-path in water that rose, at times, to their waists.

In the deeper water, or finally, when exhaustion finally defeated them, the adult humans joined the younglings and shivered in wet cloth nests as the lizardmen pushed and pulled the boats the rest of the way. Finally, as the sun lowered and the trees blocked it's beams, the humans staggered onto the dry land her kind knew as Turtle Island.

The largest young, or smallest adults, took charge, then, and began to erect a cloth village under the direction of their elders. Kaasaa was begining to comprehend their speech, and made another discovery: she was able to identify the females!

Unlike her kind, there was no creche overseen by elders. Human females each kept one or two particular younglings to themselves. Unlike most warm-bloods, the younglings were often of different sizes. Once she learned to see them as individuals, she began to see the patterns.

Each female oversaw some of the younglings, (her own eggs, perhaps?) Each male was overseen, with various degrees of contention, by a female. The males spoke freely among themselves, and were the hardiest on the trek through the swamp, but rarely spoke to any but the female that supervised him. The females spoke freely among themselves or to the younglings, and kept the very smallest under close watch. Some of the very smallest were tiny and weak, but could generate a great, squealing noise at random intervals. The first of these that she noticed she mistook for a cloth human replica until it began to make it's noise.

And she noticed that this group did not have enough males. Perhaps this was a similarity with her own kind: males would stay to defend while the younglings were taken to safety.

Humans were different. She could not allow casual similarities to influence her. She must know them for what they were.