Tnari's Story

You are Tnari, the Eldest. You're not the chief of the Pminari, the largest of the independent Pmonian communes, but you are the chief's great-aunt.
That comes in handy days like today - it's Moving Day!
The fungal walls are soft, the surface is once again hospitable to human life, and the tribe is working to move all your collective possessions out of the burrow that you have called home this season. This is how it has always been, and how it must always be. To do differently is to die.
Yet, something is different this particular Moving Day. It is your hundredth, and the omens you cast this morning portended greatness; there can be no doubt about that. You are filled with elation - your joints are less stiff and your back less bent, and the air smells sweet.
You hear the not-so-distant Great River roaring in the distance, a couple of cliffracers are circling high overhead in a courting ritual (you can tell by their pattern of squawks and croaks), and the quiet rushing sound of inert spores blown by the gentle wind. Well, besides the loud hustle and bustle of an entire commune on Moving Day!
The sweet smell reminds you of something from long ago. Many, many years... what was it?
You start singing softly to yourself:
Great River goes
Wide and Sweet
Northerly blows
Mild and Sweet
Both twist and turn
Both twist and turn
What was that about?
Qualtsic fungi smell sweet in early Running. You remember - just a few seasons after you had joined with the Pminari (a virgin girl once, too, remember long ago!), and you had joined a running party upstream along the Great River. Eventually you passed some sort of boundary, beyond which were fungi of a kind you'd never seen before. The air smelled overwhelmingly sweet, and very foreboding, and the party had turned back at once.
---
Moving Day! The first day of fresh air and fully stretched limbs, of sun and sky. Later on, new mothers will introduce their babies to the world above, but for now babes are strapped to backs or left below where they won't get swept up in the chaos. We move in lines like ants, the fastest and strongest doing their heavy lifting while the rest of us gather up what gets dropped or left behind. I walk with the children, telling them scandalous stories to shock their parents.
The smell of the breeze is light and fresh and fragrant, pleasant, and something starts tickling my memory. The third time I reach the surface, I realize that my mind keeps wanting to concentrate the scent until it gets cloying, and everything snaps together. I set down the basket of sewing supplies I was carrying on a conveniently-shaped mound. (Every season they try to tell me that I don't need to carry anything, that I only need to make one trip, shouldn't tire myself. The same people wonder how I'm still so spry at my great age - fah!)
"Hey!" I catch a boy by the shoulder as he runs by. "Go find my nephew, eh? Tell him to meet me here, I've got a question for him."
---
The boy, whose name is Knit, goes running and comes back soon.
"He says you need to go over there," Knit says breathlessly and shakes his head. "I think he's sprained his ankle."
---
"He's sprained his ankle." I shake my head. "He's sprained his ankle? All right, thank you Knit. Go be useful, now."
I let myself smile when the boy is out of sight. So earnest! And what's a bit of a walk on a day like this? I pull a roll of thin cloth from my sewing basket and tuck it into my pouch. He's sprained his ankle.
Too much attention paid to taking care of everyone else, not enough attention left for looking where he puts his feet.
I make my way to the center of activity in search of my wounded (hah!) nephew.
---
You walk for a few minutes, round a large grove of bulbous purple endostark, and arrive at the campsite. The second warehouse tent was already up and the men were busy anchoring the taut lines while some women busied themselves fashioning new tent framing by stripping the foamy exterior from the endostarkand extracting the flexible and strong core. Other women were setting up shelving inside.
You find your nephew Har-Knelli, the chief, in a neighboring tent with two members of the Pminari Council, and Knutrist, the Elder. Though he is two decades younger than you, and not half as clever, Knutrist is the official medicine man and spiritual guide to the people, and the chief's right-hand man.
Of course, the fact he surreptitiously comes to you for advice, for repetitions of the song-stories he is responsible for passing on, and for help with both medicine and magic escapes few, but this is the Pminari way: Knutrist gets respect and you don't. But you don't mind - not really, but you used to! - because you enjoy a freedom of thought and action he will never know.
---
Oh, pride. It can help a man do great things, but for a woman ... sometimes she has to let go of pride if she wants to come into her power.
In fact, there are certain things you can get away with when people see you as a part of the background, as an eccentric accessory that no 'respectable' person would be allowed to do.
"Good morning." I nod my head to the Councilors and to Knutrist as I approach Har-Knelli. "I heard you hurt an ankle; which one is it?" I sink down onto a soft, foamy mat beside him with an impressive cracking of knees and lower back.
---
Har-Knelli is in a foul mood. He doesn't even say a word in response, just nods at his right foot and gingerly shifts to place it in front of you.
The swelling is severe. Har-Knelli remains quiet when you asked how long ago it happened, but Knutrist speaks up and tells you it happened just a half-hour ago. In response to your questioning glance, he goes on to explain the chief lost his footing while carrying a very heavy satchel, and his foot slipped in a crack when he tried to catch himself.
You sense his agony as you gently examine the ankle. Har-Knelli's face becomes pale and sweaty, but not a sound escapes him.
A hard man, you think to yourself, but with soft ankles. This is broken.
You think he needs a deflammatory poultice, a splint and very tight bandaging to immobilize the foot and ankle, and then two weeks of bedrest and a full month of crutches.
---
If we were alone, I would have words to say to Har-Knelli - there's no sense in trying to take care of your people if you can't take care of yourself. He works hard ... too hard, in my opinion, but that's the way of men.
But we're not alone, so instead I just open up my pouch and get to work. Years of past experiences have taught me to keep a container of simple anti-inflammatory balm with me on Moving Day; the number of people who injure ankles, knees, shoulders, and wrists in their enthusiasm seems to grow every year. My hands know the work, and I could probably do this without thinking, but I focus my attention on the balm and the ankle, murmuring under my breath.
"Remember where you come from." Quick-growing fungus to repair damage, mixed with water kept in a cold clear pool to soothe, a dozen other ingredients ground together to dull pain, minimize swelling. The ointment feels warm under my fingers, then cools as I apply it liberally.
A splint isn't hard to come by - a word to a young woman passing by the tent, and a minute later I have several sturdy pieces of the endostark to choose from. I set them along each side of Har-Knelli's ankle, then bind the entire thing with the length of cloth I'd grabbed; slightly rough, made from a blend of fibers drawn from rapidly-growing plants.
"Remember where you come from."
When the bandage is firmly wrapped, I seal the end with a daub of sticky gel and settle back on my heels, re-organizing my pouch.
"Has anyone smelled the air yet?" I ask, directing the question to the room in general.
---
"Fresh and sweet as hobfruit nectar!" the councilman named Knipmit bursts out with a smile. He's been fidgeting all the while you were busy with Har-Knelli, frequently losing track of the knotstrand accounts he was checking with Knenko, the other councilman.
Their task is to tally the bundles of knotted string that the women had brought in, which were tied to count up all the edible and spoiled foodstuffs that remained in the burrow storage at the end of Burrowing season. Armed with this knowledge, they can optimize gathering strategies in the new Running season in order to ensure a safe and comfortable Burrowing start with ample food when the cycle repeats in six months time.
Knenko nods gleefully and agrees with Knipmit's joyous fervor: "beats the pants out of the stale stanky burrow air, by the Cycles!"
Sensing you weren't making small talk, En-Knutrist lifts an eyebrow in apparent sympathy, but it could also be an inquisitive gesture. "Have you finally lost your sense of smell, poor old Tnari?"
---
I sniff the air ostentatiously, and give En-Knutrist a wicked grin.
"Can you get away without a bath, you mean? You wish." The banter is automatic, and welcome; our relationship could easily have been bitterly adversarial, but the Elder and I found our rhythm quickly. We have a lot to offer each other ... one of us more than the other, perhaps ... and if I'm not paying attention I often find myself thinking of him as another nephew.
I sober quickly, though, turning to point one long finger at Knipmit.
"Sweet, yes." I nod, the pleased acknowledgment of a tutor, before returning my attention to the group. "It's likehobfruit, but it's not hobfruit. Or sorva." The early-blooming flower with its virulent yellow and purple petals grows almost everywhere in the first weeks of the Running, but for all that its colors are dramatic, it doesn't have a particularly impressive scent. "I haven't smelled anything quite like it in a long time."
---
"Lilygrowth? Floating ivy? Blooming thunderweir?" En-Knutrist recites the short list of sweet-smelling species commonly used to perfume soap, smelling-oils, and incense.
"It could be anything that's sweet when it rots," Knipmit points out, and Knenko nods. "Breadcap, hooded breadcap, honeygill, radiant bolete, ..."
Before Knenko can continue, Har-Knelli waves his hand and gestures for you to continue.
---
"It's the wrong time of year for half of those to be in the breeze," I point out. Just because something is fragrant doesn't mean it's in season. "And the day I can't identify the smell of blooming thunderweir is the day after I die."
So much for hoping that someone else was already taking care of things.
"You said it yourself, Knipmit. It smells fresh, not sick and cloying." I sigh, turning to face Har-Knelli more directly. "There's something strange in the air. Maybe the Council members are right, and it's just something unusual caught in the wind, but I don't think so. This smells ... Qualtsic. Have many scouts come back?"
---
Har-Knelli shakes his head. "Let's be reasonable. We are two or three days away from the southern shore, so Qualtso is half a Landscape away. The Qualtso-Pmonian divide may shift north or south a bit every cycle, and sometimes there's an island of qualtsic habitat in the pmonian wilderness, but that is never very far from the divide - the spores simply don't spread that far."
He looked at En-Knutrist, "what do you think?"
En-Knutrist thought pensively for a moment. "Well, I've certainly never heard of it happening, but I suppose it's not impossible. I must admit that it does smell a lot like some types qualtsic bloom, but I've only been to Qualtso two times before."
Har-Knelli turns to you and says, "the scouts haven't come back yet; they will start to trickle in toward sundown. What do you suggest?"
---
I consider for a moment and then give him an eloquent shrug.
"Find out." Simple enough. "Send a couple of strong backs and a keen mind out to follow the wind for a day or two. Two men who aren't very efficient at whatever they're doing now, and a woman who's better with her brain than her hands. Tnil! She's useless. No one will miss her, and she's not really all that annoying. I'll go along with them to make sure that nobody does anything stupid, and we'll see if it's just something rotting out there, or if there's something going on that the Council needs to plan for."
---
Har-Knelli replies, "no, we'll first wait for the scouts to return. I need as many as possible here, minus the scouts who can tell me where we can set up our permanent camp for this Running season. If you want to stick around to hear what the scouts have found, that's fine."
"In my opinion," En-Knutrist says, adressing the chief, "we should definitely investigate the smell. It is odd. But not urgent. And it might be better to send a scout, assuming you want Tnari to look into it - and I think that you do - than to take some others who have responsibilities here. Trill is nanny to a half-dozen kids; if she left on some adventure with unspecified destination, then all those parents would be half as effective at moving out of the burrow, setting up the moving camp, and then moving to the permanent camp once we know where that will be."
Har-Knelli nods. "Alright, Tnari. You get your adventure, but I need everybody here until tomorrow morning, and you can take one scout to help. Maybe Tnoumi, I know she tolerates you pretty well. There's no sense in sending you at all if you don't get to where you're going, so if the scouts have found a guar herd and brought some back, you can take a packguar to carry supplies. Happy now?"
---
I take my time thinking about it, although really the answer is simple. En-Knutrist's plan makes sense - and since it came from him, there's no reason for Har-Knelli or the counselors to get tied up in knots about it.
In the end, it all comes down to pride. Demand what you want, and people turn you down. Ask for a bit too much, look humble and appreciative when they talk you down, everyone comes out happier - if you've swallowed your pride.
Me? I left that kind of pride behind long ago, back with flirting games and tits that stayed in one place.
Finally, I grunt.
"No." I turn and point a finger at Har-Knelli again. "You need to be off of that ankle for the next month if you want it to heal right. But since you're not going to do that, you need to use crutches or you'll end up with a limp worse than your grandfather's. If you're lucky. Yes?"
I start to stand without giving him a chance to reply. Knees ache, but not as badly as they do most days. The same can be said about everything else. It's a strange day ...
"Good! Now I'm happy."
---
You're not used to sitting idle - nobody in Quipmen is - and you busy yourself sorting and repacking the medicinal and other special-use fungi from the past season, so the eventual move to the permanent base will go smoothly and the rare and valuable commodities are kept in good condition.
One by one, the twelve scouts arrive to the chief's tent, each adding a sector to Har-Knelli's mental map of the surroundings. The landscape changes dramatically at the turn of every cycle, and the whole land must be rediscovered at the start of every Running. The scouts have explored out to a distance of a half-day's flat run, or about two days of brisk hiking, and the location of the village for the entirety of the season will be chosen from within this range. In this way, the village migrates geographically over the years. A generation ago, it was much further inland - now, you are nearly at the sea. Only Time knows where the tribe will homestead a generation from now.
None of the scouts report qualtsic flora or fauna, although three of them mentioned a stronger sweet scent from the north or north-east.
In addition to the geographic layout (which includes the course of the Great River) and the distribution of the various edible, inedible, useful, and hazardous fungi species, the scouts also report sightings of salient animal species. This season seems to be very calm - almost suspiciously so. There are no reports of any of the great predators that roam in Pmonia, only the ever-present cliff-racers and buzzbats. These can certainly be hazardous to solitary travelers when they are caught unprepared, but inhabitants of Quipmen rarely are.
Luckily, one scout came across a guar herd and brought two of the beasts back for use as pack animals this season. One of the two scaly bipedal creatures walks with a slight limp, and you can see a scar trace a line down its right leg, ending in a missing toe. Even so, it has the heavy-set frame and long, thick tail typical of guars, so it is evidently not terribly hindered by this old injury. The other guar is a smaller female and appears to be young and energetic.
---
It's not hard to keep myself busy as the day wears on; nothing stays organized for very long when you move as much as we do, and the steady migration means that some fungi aren't as easy to replace as they used to be. It's not a particularly interesting task, but it keeps my hands and my eyes busy, while my ears are free to take in what they will.
Eventually the scouts begin to return, bringing with them the picture of what our lives will look like for the next six months. It's a strange picture, this Running, like the world is taking a deep breath in preparation for something. No one likes having to fend off predators, but one also has to wonder what it is that's keeping them away. Somtimes, the unknown is worse.
Still, we have found guar, which isn't a guarantee.
When the last of the scouts has returned I pull myself up from my organizing, and make my way down to greet the new arivals - both human, and not. Some of the scouts smelled my sweet scent, and I'm curious to find out if Tnoumi is one of them.
---
Night has fallen, and the tribe in its entirety is gathered around a circle of five stacked bonfires. Moving Night is an important festival. It's not nearly as lavish as Stampedence, obviously, since the only food available is the final remains from the Burrow stores, but as a result, the songs and dances are all the more captivating and intricate. The fires are vibrantly colored, incense is lit all around, and drums are resonating the air in your lungs. The music is almost tangible, and the atmosphere is thick with magic.
The Moving Night celebration is cleverly orchestrated, and you've had not a small role in shaping its current form. What was only a minor feast forty years ago, intended to use up whatever edible food was left, is now structured to get the whole Pminari population up and moving after the long Burrow. Strain injuries in the first few days of Running used to be much more common before the dances became popular. At the same time, participation shifts from subgroup to subgroup as the night progresses - first the children's play and dance, then the young unmarried adults perform to entertain the children, then the parents, then the elders with the unmarrieds, and finally the elders with the parents. Each phase allows different groups to mingle, and eventually retire to bed, and the placement of the fires, the low eating tables, and the high serving tables encourages task groups (running teams, wet nurses and nannies, scouts, elders with leadership roles, etc.) to split off and plan for the coming days.
That is the scene you enter; you find ten of the scouts kneeling with Har-Knelli around an eating table. The remaining two scouts are unmarried and are currently involved in performing the traditional Prayer for Closed Circles. The central aspect of this prayer is the holding of a double harmonic on a ploum (a large didgeridoo-like instrument) while the secondary aspects sing a hopeful melody in canon, symbolizing the transformation of the past into the future.
You are pleased to find Tnoumi - being married - among the scouts at the table. She sees you while you approach, and excitedly waves you closer.
"Tnari! So good of you to come," she shouts as she stands to give you a hug. There is room for you to join her at the table, so you creakily sit yourself down next to the sprightly young lady. Before you finish the arduous process, a cup has been filled with crembule, a semi-distilled drink of fermented cremini mushrooms. You take a sip to take the edge off the ache in your knees and lower back.
"Har-Knelli has been asking all of us about this sweet smell, says En-Knutrist thinks we should investigate."
"Yes, that's what En-Knutrist thinks," you say with a wry smile.
Tnoumi throws her head back and cackles, "I knew it was you!"
Then she looks at you and says, "I went straight north - 12 o'clock - but had to deviate toward the east because I couldn't find a good place to ford the Great River. I ended up in the north-north-east, sighted Kneir, who was assigned one o'clock, before finally crossing and doubling back westward." She pointed at a young man with a very muscular build and legs that were almost impossibly long. He was standing at the ploum and his face was contorted and purple from the effort.
"The air was definitely sweeter further east, as I followed the riverbank."
You're momentarily distracted by the sight of Kneir, but quickly return your attention to Tnoumi. "I want you to take me to where the smell is the strongest so that we can find its source. It could be important - at the very least, it will be some kind of fungus that is rare here and perhaps it has some uses."
"Sure," she says. "Just me?"
"Maybe we should ask Kneir over there, as well. And we'll take one of the guars."
"Is old Har-grumpy going to let us?" Tnoumi looks skeptical.
"Don't worry about him. He's sprained his ankle. He hasn't been standing on it, has he?"
"No, I guess he's been following your orders," she says.
"He's given his blessing for the use of a guar for this trip. Which one do you think we should take?"
Tnoumi considers for a bit, takes a bite from a hypha cracker, washes it down with a sip of crembule, and responds, "I think we should take the big male. We'll be moving slowly, no offense, and I think he'll be more dependable."
"None taken. I think that is a good assessment, Tnoumi." You drain your cup.
---
Ten years ago, even five, I would have stayed out by the fires until dawn. It's been a long time since anybody's praised my dancing, but that was never why I did it, and I've always enjoyed watching the tribe weave in and out of the ceremony, watching group after group after group celebrate and then settle themselves down in well-deserved rest. I was always one of the last to withdraw, and some of the most interesting conversations I've had were with the other people who stayed to wait for the sun.
Or maybe I just thought they were; magic and crembule can be a potent combination.
Tonight, though, I can already feel the ache in my knees and my back, my knuckles. So instead of drinking in any more of the celebration, I retire to bed with an ointment from my personal stores and spend the next two hours meticulously massaging it into my joints.
'How do you stay so spry?'
I take care of my damn self, that's how.
As it turns out, I still manage to see dawn. I've never needed much sleep, and now that my body's breaking itself down instead of building itself up, it doesn't need nearly as much energy to run. I take time packing a traveling medical kit - bandages, needles and gut, ointments to ease pain, fight infection, neutralize poison, sooth inflammation, powers to pack wounds, purify water, encourage sleep. And a handful of other odds and ends: a talon, a length of cord, two tiny pots of intensely colored pigment, a dozen trinkets that mean nothing on their own until I tell them what their purpose is.
The sun has risen by the time I make my way to where our stately guar is waiting. I look him over while I wait for Tnoumi to arrive.
---
Tnoumi arrives shortly, and she is positively glowing after the festivities. She is carrying a thin bedroll, a hatchet, a spear or harpoon, two heavy lengths of rope, and a small satchel containing trapping, fishing, and field dressing equipment, and cooking implements.
"Ready?" she asks gleefully.
Her mood is contagious. "Ready," you exclaim!
You hand her your kit to pack on the guar, along with the food you've prepared for the first leg of the trip, and she ties it expertly to the friendly beast.
"He should have a name, " Tnoumi says conversationally, as you leave camp.
"Knuar?" you suggest.
Tnoumi laughs and agrees. "Alright, 'Knuar' it is. Since we don't know how far we're going or when we will arrive, you will set the pace. Move at whatever speed you think you can manage to match tomorrow. You'll hold Knuar's lead, and I'll move along the heights to navigate us around difficult terrain and to chase off any beasties that want to have us for dinner."
"You're the boss, Tnoumi," you say with a smile, happy she is feeling confident and optimistic. Had there been any sightings of the dangerous game that usually prowl this area of Pmonia, they would have had to bring along Kneir, and preferably somebody else as well. With just the two of you, though, you will have to be very careful not to draw unwanted attention. On the plus side, your guar will be able to carry more of whatever you find on the voyage, and you can move more quickly without additional mouths to feed and opinions to accommodate.
Tnoumi follows a path north-west to the Great River, then follows the eastern bank northwards. After an hour of slow movement across broken terrain, which was very taxing, you ask her why she chose this route.
"Hang on to that question until just around the bend up ahead," she says. She is also breathing heavily from the exertion, most of which seems to be going to forcing Knuar to stay on the riverbank instead of diving in for a swim.
As you scramble over a giant bulbous mushroom, making use of a shaggy, scaly layer to gain traction, you catch sight of what is up ahead and involuntarily moan. A massive cliff splits the landscape, perhaps 30 or 60 meters high, and the river is tumbling down in a great cascade. You notice the river's eroding forces have cut the cliff deeply, creating an unstable slope of till, which could allow an intrepid climber to ascend the height of the cliff without needing to traverse open rock-face. Of course, the cliff-face is not composed of solid inorganic crystalline materials, but is a massive fungal mat - pitons, cams, and other hardware that would enable a safe climb in other Landscapes find no uses here. The only way up is that slope of fungal rubble, along the edge of the white, foaming, roaring torrent that the Great River of Quipmen has become.
---
== Source ==
https://www.reddit.com/r/MyWorldYourStory/comments/6bv2nc/fantasyexisting_settingyour_erwt_story/Category:Story