“Laid Bare—Warriors in their own words” Issue #1: Great Father Daar
Author and photographer: Ava Magdalena Ríos
“I am Daar. Brother, Father, Champion Emeritus of the most ancient and honorable Clan Stoneback, Great Father of the Gao… and I am the bloodiest known mass murderer in galactic history.”
Few leaders of any stripe would ever describe themselves in such stark, inescapable terms, and yet these were the words that Great Father Daar specifically requested should open this article.
This is the first of what I hope will be a series exploring the sacrifices and struggles made by our serving men and women from all branches of the military, both human and otherwise. I have always believed in the power of the nude body as an artistic message, as a vehicle for personal freedom and as a metaphor for honesty, and it has been my ambition to run a series allowing our servicepersons to lay themselves bare in both body and soul.
This first entry in the series, however, came as a surprise. I never imagined that Daar, the Great Father of the Gao, would be my first model.
[Image: Daar standing tall on two paws, semi-relaxed and staring levelly into the camera]
“The thing about us Stonebacks is, we never lie. Except honestly that’s probably a lie too. People lie to themselves all the time and don’t notice.”
This “warts and all” honesty is present from the instant we first meet in Folctha’s old town hall. He arrives with his fur clipped so short that he’s almost shorn bald. Gaoians prize their fur and the Great Father in particular is more than a little vain, making this a true gesture of exposure. After all, nakedness is not a natural Gaoian concept: without their clothing, a Gaoian still has their fur, and therefore their modesty. By shaving to the skin, Daar is deliberately baring himself to the world.
This becomes a common theme during our time together.
But first we must consider the eight foot tall, vaguely ursine beast looming over me in the room, because we cannot discuss the Great Father without inevitably addressing the sheer menace he radiates merely standing there. He is the very definition of a heroic brute, and his short fur does nothing at all to soften the impact of his physique. His hips and torso are as wide as most door frames, his shoulders and rear quarters go beyond that. He has paws so large, their palms could completely cover my face and his claws could wrap halfway around my head, as he demonstrated later on in one of the more intense moments of our interview.
The naked threat he presents is inescapable and is something he is keenly aware of. My support dog, Hannah, was completely terrified of him until he somehow folded himself right down to the floor and sniffed noses with her—Gaoians in general have extremely flexible spines and the Great Father is no exception. He uses that mobility in all his body language, often to quite disarming effect.
His massive head is level with mine as he slinks around, sniffing my equipment and pressing a brief but effective charm offensive. Our pleasantries and small-talk don’t last long, and when our session begins it does so with a role-reversal: Rather than me interviewing him, he interrogates me. The reason why quickly becomes apparent: he has a message, and he is fiercely concerned that it must be communicated properly. As we talk, his nose never stops twitching, testing my scent and my honesty. Anybody who spends time around Gaoians quickly learns how good their sense of smell can be, but Daar’s nose is quite literally legendary. He’s said to be able to smell lies.
Many of the questions he had for me are too personal and painful to share here, and in any case this article is not about me. But his questions revealed much about him.
[Image: Daar with his back to the camera, showcasing the long cable-like muscles on either side of his spine]
“I am a Great Father. Do you know what that means?”
The term, as with many things involving the Great Father, is far more complex than it initially appears. It is in fact an ancient rite and one the Gao themselves view with great wariness.
“I’m only the second Great Father in recorded history. […] we Great Fathers, we have only ever been created. Great Father Fyu, he was deemed a Great Father by the unanimous chorus of his entire assembled forces, while he stood on the bloody corpses of some the worst monsters we’ve ever made. Fyu died that day.”
Great Fathers are, he explains, not a good thing. They’re very much necessary, but in rather the same way that invasive surgery might be necessary to handle an aggressive tumor. They only come along at moments of great turmoil for the Gao, and can even be thought of as avatars of that turmoil.
Once he is satisfied that I have grasped this idea, our relationship returns to that of an interviewer and her interviewee. He turns out to be a natural in front of the camera.
[Image: Daar flexing outrageously and baring his fangs]
You’ve done this before.
“Yup. Simpler times. Mostly I was in it for the tail then.”
He is a being of mercurial moods, and this stretch of the interview is jovial and upbeat. He even flirts with me a little as I query him about his early life, where he grew up and how he became the Champion of Clan Stoneback in the first place. His life tale is a long and twisty thing but it would not be well-told here. Instead, I focus on his impact in the world.
You are, or were, your Clan’s Stud-Prime. How many cubs would you say you’ve sired?
“Still am, and many hundreds!”
It is important to note for the unaware that the Gaoians have a natural and severe gender imbalance, which radically affects how their society is organized and makes nuclear families effectively impossible. That imbalance has been rendered much worse by Hierarchy targeting of Gaoian females during the War for Gao, and as a result the Gao’s population will drop by many billions in the next twenty years or so.
Despite—or perhaps because of—this pressure, the Gao of the modern era consider breeding success to be a key part of their male-dominated meritocracy, and this belief extends even into the most disenfranchised Clanless, whose prospects post-war are effectively zero. Arguably, their Grand Army and the closely related species-wide sense of mission has reinforced this belief, and the Clan of Females in particular has gone so far as to build an isolated island fortress on Cimbrean in furtherance of their own part of the mission.
For one reason or another, this imbalance has been the center of all their great conflicts. In previous centuries that imbalance led directly to the greatest conflict of their earlier history, and the formation of the Clan of Females. That in turn resulted in a radical concept: communal mothering.
“The Gao way isn’t like the Human way, we males can’t stay involved in our cubs’ lives. I’ve met a few of my adult offspring, grandcubs and even great-grandcubs but the only one I have what you’d call a relationship with is one of my two daughters.”
This surprises me, so I decide to sidetrack for a moment.
All those cubs, and only two females?
“That’s Gaoian genetics for you. I’m what we call a hypermale.”
He describes what that means in cheery detail and seems to delight in conforming to hyper-masculine stereotypes as he does so. I find it difficult to retain a neutral expression in light of his silliness, and he takes special pleasure in attempting to break my composure.
[Image: mosaic of the Great Father prancing, laughing, and mugging for the camera]
He throws in a “Keeda tale” to illustrate the point, which could perhaps best be described as a nursery tale lacking any caution about mature themes. Most of them are violently silly. I will admit he may have drawn a grin or two from me, and perhaps a brief chuckle; he is a good storyteller. I do my best to remain neutral and he does, in his way, respect that boundary. He decides to wrap up his exposition with a more sober summary.
“[…] So yeah, our sexual genetics are pretty messed up, and now we’re pretty sure that was done to us by the Hierarchy way back when. But the gist of it is that usually, only about one in six cubs are female and males come in degrees. Males in the second degree make up most of the population these days. Supermales in the third degree aren’t common, fourth degree are rarer than females, and if they’re fifth or sixth degree we call them hypermales.”
Presumably each degree is rarer, then?
“Yup! Each is usually way less common than the previous.”
And which degree are you?
He pant-grins smugly, a uniquely Gaoian expression that is both unmistakably canine and clearly the gesture of a sapient mind.
“I’m sixth degree! That’s as high as it goes. That’s why I’m so stupid fast and strong, and it’s why I grew so quickly in the SOR, too! I was born with the most biggest [sic] magnum dose of all the things that make a male, male. The downside is that is for males like me, siring a female cub is about as rare as being a hypermale in the first place. That I’ve had any at all is a blessing!”
You say you’re in the sixth degree. Just how rare is that?
Daar doesn’t answer with words. He simply chitters deeply, repositions himself under the light, hunkers down and flexes an upper arm as thick as my chest.
[Image: Side profile of Daar snarling at camera, showcasing his tensed arm, neck, and chest]
His service in the SOR was remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least of which has been the eventual political ramifications. My repeated attempts to question him about it are mostly rebuffed, politely but forcefully.
“No, sorry. I made promises about secrecy and I ain’t been told I can talk about most of it just yet.”
Did you expect any of what happened next?
The Great Father’s English is impeccable when he wants it to be. When he’s excited, however, his natural idiom has some idiosyncratic complexities related to Stoneback’s Clan language that sometimes shine through.
“Balls no! You know what the most worstest [sic] part was? Seeing just how much the Hierarchy suppressed and manipulated us! I was doing stuff in my personal training that’s obviously stupid once you stand back and think for a second. Look at me, look at my Whitecrest Brothers. We practically exploded in capability once the HEAT had a hold of us, and it was all so [fucking obvious!] How did they manage to keep such basic knowledge repressed among us?! How did you Humans expose it so easily?”
(As informative as his ensuing tirade was, I have regrettably been forced to omit much of it from this article. The full recording is available via ESNN’s internet and infosphere pages.)
“Clan Highmountain has evidence of their meddling that goes all the way back to Great Father Fyu, and even earlier. Right back to our foundational mythology. I wasn’t prepared for how deep it ran.”
He quickly shifts the conversation to reconstruction and the general excellence of the Grand Army, with enthusiastic praise for the allied contributions to its foundation, especially from the 82nd Airborne Division. I attempt twice to return to the mythology of his people and Clan, but he defers to Champion Gyotin on the former and flat-out refuses on the latter. As a reporter, it is an odd sensation not being fully in control of a conversation, but the Great Father is a force of nature and intensely charismatic. It is obvious why many are wary of him.
[Image: A closeup of Daar’s flank, obliquely lit to throw his physique into sharp relief]
Still, it is impossible to ignore his jocular playfulness. He is understandably quite proud of himself, his singular body, and of the many hairline scars that criss-cross it. Several of them provoke impressive stories, others decidedly more humorous. At the end of each story he inevitably launches into an even longer yarn about whoever gave it to him; Daar’s love and respect for the Gao runs very deep and extends especially to his friendly rivals. Above all, he prefers talking up his offspring and his Clan.
“Almost all my cubs have been at least third degree, too! You know what the funnest [sic] part is? A lot of my brownie cubs strike for Highmountain instead of Stoneback.”
I find this a bit surprising despite myself, and enquire further.
How do you feel about that?
“Good! We need thinkers and professors! Some of them are super successful, too!”
Clan Highmountain is Stoneback’s ancient brother-clan and take rather a different approach to life than their boisterously active cousins. Though they’re both “brownie” clans with martial traditions and have deep, complex, ongoing ties both social and genetic, the Highmountains are a cerebral clan and concern themselves principally with academia and the sciences.
Does it surprise you to have sired so many who are so unlike you?
He answers directly, without a hint of smugness.
“No, not really. I am both extremely intelligent and extremely aggressive. Those are useful things for thinkers, too. I just ended up more interested in sports as a cub, so here I am.”
[Image: Profile of the Great Father’s head, looking into the distance]
Isn’t that a little egotistical?
“False modesty is just as dangerous a lie as any other.”
With most people, a statement like that could be taken as the height of arrogance. With Daar, one can’t help but accept it as one of earnest, blunt honesty. His purpose is not to brag. As Great Father and former Champion of Stoneback, an explorer, adventurer, and member of the Hazardous Environment Assault Team, Daar is a man that has nothing left to prove to anyone of any species. He simply tells the direct, simple truth as he sees it.
You and your clan both prize aggression. Is hypermale status a universal Stoneback trait?
“No, but it’s common for us. Hypermales are bigger, stronger, and yeah, way more aggressive. The higher the degree, the more all of that’s true…and we look for that in Clan candidates. ‘Muscles are required’ as your Marines would say. We also value brains and talent, don’t misunderstand. ‘Backs can’t afford to be stupid, but a supergenius is useless to us without strength, honesty, and personal bravery.”
[Image: Daar’s flexed core and legs, twisted at the waist to showcase his heavy musculature]
I note that he has a habit of circling back and elaborating, because he goes on to add:
“…Actually, Fiin [the current Champion of Stoneback] is only third degree himself, so he’s proof that we ain’t set this stuff in stone. He’s a damn good ‘Back. Smart as shit, too. But even he wouldn’t have made the cut if he couldn’t be a warrior and a breeder and a worker with the best of them, and he definitely wouldn’t be Champion if he wasn’t all those things.”
Loyal praise seems to be another habit of his.
Isn’t it unusual for you to have surrendered the title?
“Yeah, but there’s precedent. Fiin just needed to prove to me and the Clan that he could handle it, and there ain’t any better way to do that than a good tussle! He held up, I stepped down and became Champion Emeritus. Stoneback’s in the right paws for what’s coming.”
The next part of the interview shifted to decidedly darker topics.
A warrior’s paws.
He looks down and considers his brutish mitts for a long moment.
[Image: Daar’s claws, extended.]
“Yeah, a warrior’s paws. But a builder’s and digger’s paws too: Stonebacks are both. I’m a farmer and a heavy construction foreman in my ‘real’ job. Fiin’s a cabinetmaker and carpenter. Both of us are Brothers of the Rites. Often, we don’t get to choose if our paws create or destroy.”
Are those roles ever in conflict?
“Always. But the thing is that Stonebacks don’t destroy just for the joy of destruction… though don’t think there ain’t great joy in that. But that ain’t why we do it. We destroy to protect what we built, and to secure what we provided for others.”
What do you mean, by ‘great joy in destruction?’
He freezes in a particularly striking pose. By now, the strain of the shoot is beginning to show.
[Image: The Great Father on all fours, body under tension as if for a show ring]
“Here’s something folks don’t like to admit. It’s true for Gao and it’s true for humans: Killing is fun. We’re predators, we hunt meat to survive. Nature rewards that in us and it translates. Anybody who ever hunted their own food will tell you, there’s a sense of triumph in it.”
Hunting for your food isn’t the same thing as war, is it?
“It’s much the same reward in your brain. There’s an old Human movie, Conan the Barbarian. You ever seen it?”
I shake my head to indicate that I have not, and he quotes it.
“‘What is best in life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.’ True words, those. Balls, they’re more true than modern civilized folks of any species like to admit, and that’s dangerous.”
How so?
“You should interview Champion Gyotin, he’s thought long and hard on this. But for me, it’s always there in the back of my mind, just knowing how good it would feel to kill my rivals and take what I wanted. Or to just…knock heads together. Every time some bureaucratic idiot makes things hard, I imagine how easy it’d be to solve the problem with my claws or my army… But the cost would be my people, and I can never allow that.”
[Image: Daar in an agitated state, gesturing and snarling with his claws out.]
He gets vocally angry as he speaks, but subsides just as abruptly. After a deep breath he adds:
“Civilization makes folks squeamish, makes us shy away from what we really are deep down. And the only way to control that kind of a beast is to make peace with it: fight it, and it’ll win. But we must be in control of it, because that’s what makes the difference between us and real monsters like the Hunters and their Hierarchy masters.”
This prompts the topic I’ve been most eager to cover, so I segue into harder questions.
Speaking of which, how long do you plan to wage your war against them?
He answers simply. “Until it’s done.”
What does that mean, exactly?
“Exactly what I said. Until it’s done, and they can never threaten anyone ever again.”
Does that mean killing all of them?
“Most likely. I don’t think a gentle treaty option will come up.”
That’s going to take a long time. And you’re well into your middle age by now.
He chitters somewhere below the baritone, then looks wistfully at the grey fur developing along the outside of his brutish forearms.
“That’s true! I’m over fifty now and for Gaoian males, especially brownies, and most especiallyest [sic] for hypermales like me, that’s pretty damn old. But my doctors tell me I’m in perfect health and that I probably got super lucky with my sire and dam. If I get too weak I’ll step down, but honestly…That ain’t going to be any time soon, probably.”
I can believe it.
Even so, seeing a war like that to its conclusion will take a long time.
“Yup. It’s been weighing on me. I’ll do whatever I can and whatever it takes. Keeda’s balls, I already have.”
There is a certain unsettling finality in his tone, and I feel the need to move on.
Are you familiar with the so-called ‘Alien Protection Army?’
His entire demeanor changes: now he’s cagey, rather than confident, jovial or brutally honest. For the first time during the interview, my heart freezes.
[Image: That moment captured. Daar has three paws on the ground and the fourth raised as he eyes the camera warily.]
“…I am. I will need to be very careful here, Miss Ríos.”
I just wanted your opinion of them, whatever it might be.
He produces the Gaoian equivalent of a sigh and relaxes. So do I.
“Yeah. My opinion is that they’re not a group I understand.”
They’ve named you as, and I quote: ‘A vehicle for learned xenophobia’ and claim that your association with humans has…again, quoting: ‘catastrophically derailed the course of Gaoian civilization.’
This provokes waves of chittering mirth which take some time for him to bring under control.
“That’s an extra stupid thing of them to say! And insulting in the most dumbest, pointlessest [sic] way! What do they think I am? Powerless? And if so, how did I do this thing they accuse me of? Or who do they think is holding my puppet strings? Did I, oh, orchestrate the biodroning of billions and then nuke all those cities because… I don’t know, because AEC was yanking on my leash? Or maybe they think tough little Sartori has me by the balls? He’s a wily President, but no.”
He pauses, then chitters again.
“Also…I’m pretty fucking well-read, but I have no damn idea what ‘vehicle for learned xenophobia’ means. Do you?”
I attempt to explain, and find myself growing uncomfortable as I do so. My attempts—and my embarrassment—seem to amuse him, and he rescues me from my own folly after a few minutes.
“Stop! Stop! Any idea you can’t summarize in a single sentence is a bad one, or at least not very well thought out. Complexity is for math, not ideas.”
I query him extensively about this philosophy, and again he produces an outpouring of thought that, sadly, didn’t make the cut into this article. In the end, he finishes with this comment:
“It’s a stupid idea, and it doesn’t account for personal agency or…nuts, any of the things people do. If somebody uses that phrase, they’re basically saying they think we’re all just little balls bouncing around in a giant pachinko machine with no control over where we go, and that’s just as insulting as it is dehumanizing. Or degaoianizing, or whatever. Desapientizing.”
[Image: Daar posing on his haunches, talking animatedly, the fur around his nape matted]
Alas we don’t have time to explore exactly how the Great Father knows of pachinko machines.
Nevertheless, some of the accusations they level are more concrete. You have been described as a ‘genocidal dictator’ and a ‘Gaoian supremacist.’
Modelling is often strenuous work in ways the unfamiliar rarely appreciate, and the strain of holding himself under tension is beginning to tire Daar: His chittering is more weary.
“How can I be a Gaoian supremacist when some of my most favoritest [sic] people are aliens? I seem to recall a wild ride caught up in the tail of the most biggest [sic] monkey ever, all so we could save his people from laser-wielding death robots! Yan Given-man is my friend. And that ain’t even getting into my Human cousins, nor the other ETs I respect. So you tell me how I’m any kind of a supremacist.”
And the other accusation? That you’re a genocidal dictator?
“Oh, they’re right about that. I absolutely am a genocidal dictator. It is my ambition that the Hierarchy and their Hunter pets will be destroyed as a threat forever. But they get to decide what that means. I will act accordingly, and if they choose to die…”
He growls fiercely and I take a picture reflexively without thinking about it. The result is candid, and I consider it to be the single most impressive and intimidating shot of our session.
[Image: Daar in three-quarter profile from the front on all fours, snarling, muscles at maximum tension, claws extended, eyes glowing from the shadows]
“…I will oblige them.”
This moment turns out to be our last. An alarm beeps and just like that, my unexpected interview with the Great Father of the Gao is over. He is as unfailingly polite as he was at the beginning, prowls over to thank me, and spares a few moments to reassure Hannah. He produces a treat from his bag and they part on amicable terms.
[Image: Daar standing four-pawed next to Hannah, relaxed candid, in profile from the rear, dwarfing and panting down at her while examining his claws]
And without further ceremony he is gone, leaving me to my thoughts. It occurs to me that this interview was very much driven by the sheer force of his will; he has an influential power that’s difficult to describe, and it sweeps most everyone up in it. I am not inexperienced with strong personalities, either personally or professionally, but the Great Father is a singular creature and difficult to define.
It further occurs to me why he had shorn down. Although the theme of our shoot was to be effectively a nude session, and shaving is realistically the only way a Gaoian can achieve the same state of exposure, his final remark explained to me why he even agreed to this.
It wasn’t out of vanity, at least not entirely. While showing off his peerless physicality was undoubtedly on his mind, and he is a self-admitted exhibitionist, I suspect the real reason is much deeper.
He was sending a message.
Not to us, not to the Gao. Not to the galaxy writ large, at least not primarily. The message was in the penultimate photo of this piece, where he showed himself at his most powerful, most savage, most dangerous. It was a message to his enemies, to our enemies.
The Great Father is coming. And he is death.
Date Point: 15y6m2w5d AV
Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba, Canada, Earth
Yan Given-Man, Chief of the Lodge
It turned out that ‘Canada’ was a land of water: Yan could hardly throw a spear without it ending up in a lake. The air was cool, the water cold, and the trees mostly slim and straight. He could taste beasts on the wind, but the bushes and leaves were so thick that actually seeing any of them was something else.
Getting there had been tiring. They spent a very long time in the back of the ‘Suburban’ thing Heff seemed far too pleased about, idly talking about women and hunts while they watched the land fly by through the ‘windows.’ Yan didn’t mind once they’d pulled out the long strange benches and replaced them with nice, soft blankets. Cozy! Jooyun and Vemik would laze about in the back and tell tall tales, Heff would chip in from the front while he commanded the metal-beast ‘Suburban’ down the concrete path, and outside…
Outside had been like watching village after village fly past faster than the wind. Hands of hands of hands of hands of hands of sprawling stone huts, many with another metal beast in front of it. Humans of every kind—tiny children running on feet they barely knew they had so that they looked an inch from falling over; gangs of men in orange clothes, working hard; people with skin in every shade of brown from that pale almost-pink, through shades of wood and leather, to dark like Boss; a grey-haired woman so unbelievably fat that she rode on a smaller metal beast rather than walk.
And everywhere, steel poles with what Yan thought of as a tribe-blanket at the top, fluttering in the wind. Yan knew that sign, those red and white stripes and the blue field full of pointy white seeds: He’d first seen it on one of Awisun’s shirts.
He’d first seen the Canada tribe-blanket on one of Shyow’s shirts, worn to tease Awisun or perhaps the other way around. Red and white, with a leaf in the middle. He saw it again when they passed through what Jooyun called a “border crossing” and Heff spent some time talking with some men and women who all wore the same dark blue clothes.
That bit was dull. But eventually they were waved through and there were no other interruptions until they finally reached their home for the next two nights, long after the sun had gone down.
“Riding Mountain,” Jooyun called it. The cabin was made of whole tree trunks, and the inside had a kind of steel pot for lighting a fire inside where it would be safe and wouldn’t burn the hut down around them. Yan, who knew how hard it was to make steel, had stopped shaking his head over how everywhere it was with humans but he still noticed.
The cabin was cozy and peaceful, and the fire crackling gently in the corner reminded Yan of home. He slept comfortably and well, waking to the smell of bacon in the morning.
Today’s hunt was another moose, their last chance to get one before going home. Apparently the bears here were a different kind: smaller, more timid.
Again he couldn’t climb very high in most of the trees. The ‘aspen’ and ‘pine’ were tall but thin for their size, much like in Yellow Stone. ‘Oak’ was very sturdy and hard, but they had so many thick branches it was tricky to move quickly through the canopy. He liked the ‘elm’ the most. It wasn’t as hard as ‘oak’ and the bark wasn’t as thick as he’d like, but the branches were well-spaced and sturdy, and they started high enough in the big old forest fathers that he’d be able to flee anything dangerous and jump down on prey.
…If he didn’t land in a pond, anyway.
But they were very good for cover, too. He’d managed to lose both Vemik and Jooyun in them!
This hunt went much better. The prize wasn’t as impressive as the one the Bear had cheated them of back in Yellow Stone, but that was not fair: It was big, strong, powerful. Good prey by any reckoning.
In the end, they hunted it just as Jooyun had suggested: He and Heff circled around upwind, made plenty of noise. The moose moved away from them… right between Yan and Vemik.
It made more of a surprised noise than a fearful one when the two of them jumped up from the bushes and drove their spears into its heart. To be sure of a quick, honorable kill, Vemik jumped up on its strong neck and broke it while Yan jumped as high as he could and fell on its back; there was a loud crunch and the moose was down and dead very quickly, having hardly suffered at all. Hopefully the gods of Earth would be pleased.
The two humans were with them not long after, just as Vemik and Yan finished honouring its spirit. Jooyun simply knelt and laid a hand on its nose, muttered “Real sorry, fella…” and that seemed to be enough for him. Heff didn’t even do that, just bowed his head.
Maybe that was enough. Who knew? Earth was a very different land, a land of many lands. Yan had seen enough to know that he’d seen nothing of it. Apparently all these many places he’d seen and learned were the lands of just one tribe, and there were hands of hands of hands of other tribes out there. If Jooyun and Heff thought the Gods needed only a small gesture, they would know better.
Yan quickly gutted the moose like Jooyun taught, then threw it over his shoulder and pointed toward tonight’s ‘cabin.’ “We smoke this moose, too?”
“Yup. Your tribe will eat well when we get it back to them.”
“So long as we eat well,” Vemik muttered. His stomach had been growling so loud Yan wondered how the moose hadn’t heard it. Vemik ate a lot more than Yan remembered eating at his age. A strange god-blessing, that. It had made him much stronger than his years.
“We’ll eat, Vemik,” Jooyun promised. “I’ll do one of Xiù’s stir-fries! It’s got green peppers and broccoli in it…”
That would be a meal worth carrying the moose back home for. Yan had lifted many heavier beasts under stronger ‘gravity,’ but that didn’t mean the moose was a small burden. He liked it anyway, found his legs nicely warmed by the work, and ended up bouncing down the path despite himself. Something about exploring seemed to bring out the young man in him!
It was good to end their time on Earth with a prize. He found he was going to miss this strange planet, with its soft but happy people. There was so much to see! It made him feel… not small, but…
He gave up. No doubt humans had a word for what he felt. Eager to go home, but sad to leave when there was still so much and knowing that he would most likely never come back.
But tonight, they would eat well, smoke the meat, make ready to travel. Tomorrow, they would journey far in the ‘Suburban’ and then the day after he would be back where he belonged, with his tribe. That was a good feeling too. Earth had been good.
But Yan was ready to go home.