Mountain Pine

The wind swirled in an array of delightful patterns that danced through the spotless sky. She gazed lazily at the wind’s fun, a small purr of contentment tickling up her throat. The laughing breeze sidled over to her, ruffling the dense mane of hair along her back before skittering away. She shook her head in amusement. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back to enjoy the rare warmth from the autumn sun. It was enough.

A sound caught in the hollow of her ears, and they flicked back. The grinding noise of crumbling stone briefly drowned out what she had heard, forcing her to pause and listen. There it was again: a small warbling, like an injured pheasant.

Chaitah opened her eyes, stone falling from her body as she stirred. She paused over the rubble absentmindedly, wondering how long she had slept. Days? Weeks? The stone was too thin for it to have been any longer. The playful wind was still now, though she spied its restless cousin pushing thick clouds across the sky. The warbling came again, and she retreated into the woods.

Rusted pine needles cracked and rustled beneath each footfall, deadening her passing to a whisper. She swung her head low, keeping her crown away from the lowest branches. But the trees were still, unmoved in their somber sleep, and Chaitah furrowed her brow. Why should she have awoken when the great guardians slumbered? Bird or beast, if the sound were of significance, they would be the first to know.

Perplexed, more at their silence than her own wakefulness, she pressed on. The sound was near, its tone largely unchanged, though perhaps louder than she had thought at a distance. She paused at spring that trickled between small stones. The water danced down the gradual roll of the earth innocently. She peered at it affectionately until the sound roused her again. She continued.

A small way down the mountain, the sound led her towards a tiny clearing that she knew well. There, a boar had once rooted up all the shrubbery in a great show of strength. The sheer force of his pride and stubbornness had been stamped into the ground and little more than grasses had ever returned to fill the space, for the only thing more stubborn than a boar are the grasses that tickle his snout. And yet it was from this place that the sound seemed to be echoing. The strangeness of this settled warily in Chaitah’s mind, for very few creatures lingered in the boar’s clearing.

She eased herself between tree trunks, the clearing finally opening to her view, and the most delightful cloud of colors seized her attention. Deep and fragile blues mixed before her eyes, streaks of delicate pinks and sharp greens crossing it here and there like phantasmic lightning. She sat very still, holding her breath, as she watched the colors war with one another. The warble had stopped as she'd entered the clearing, but it was not long into her stillness that it resumed, reverberating from the cloud of colors.

Chaitah focused her gaze to peer through the miasma before her, but it was too thick to penetrate. She took a slow step forward and the sound stopped again, the colors pausing in their turbulence. Gently, she leaned her nose forward to smell what she could not see. The blues in the cloud rapidly flushed from purple to red, but the creature held its ground.

Smoke. Wood smoke and deerskin were the first scents she detected. Crushed berries, also, and excrement. Her nose found its face, its open mouth, small nose, and wide eyes. The smell of salt pricked curiously at her senses. There was a softness about this small creature, a vague helplessness, that endeared it to her. She nudged it gently, and a few pinks and yellows diminished the red of the cloud.

The creature dropped its small warble and began to twitter like a song bird. Something small and soft brushed against her cheek, gentler, almost, than the playful breeze. The shape of it reminded her of the hand of a macaque, only less dexterous. Perhaps this was a thing that had been lost by one of the small tribes in the area.

Leaning forward, Chaitah nosed carefully around the small thing, searching for a safe way to carry it. It had little fur to speak of, save a thick tuft on its head and a thick ruff of deerskin on its upper half. It was curious that it held a skin that did not belong to it. As gently as she could, she grabbed the extra skin with her lips and her front teeth. The creature shifted within the skin, but its weight held and it did not fall as she lifted it from the ground.

Carrying the creature to the lower climbs of the mountain was only occasionally interrupted when the cloud of colors shifted brightly right in front of Chaitah’s nose. A pair of serow paused to let them pass, and the cloud turned bright yellow as the creature began chirping excitedly. A family of grouse were startled by its cries and purple mingled in as they flew away. These, and other such events, slowed them, but the creature's enthusiasm for her mountain forestalled any irritation the delays might otherwise have inspired. If this creature, strange as it was, could express so much towards her domain, than it was a thing of no evil in her eyes.

A line of dancing bamboo interrupted Chaitah’s path, and she set the creature down. The long shafts trembled and shook with the energy of their unseen inhabitants, whose identities were only to be known by their cries. The chattering that echoed from within gradually died as she waited until, eventually, an elderly macaque leaned out from the fringes. His large brows pushed forward as he looked at the thing she had brought, before he emphatically gestured that it was not theirs.

Chaitah tilted her head in confusion, his vehemence making it difficult to understand his meaning. Finally, he took a careful look at the forest around them and descended to the ground. He wandered carefully towards her and the creature. He sniffed it warily, his head disappearing into the cloud that obscured her vision. He pulled back and bared his teeth slightly in distaste. With a single bound, he returned to the safety of the bamboo. Hand over hand, he climbed to the highest point and gestured towards the bottom of the mountain. Chaitah sighed; his directions would have to be enough.

With a nod to the elder, she picked up the creature once more and continued the way she had been directed. The trees grew more densely the further she went, forcing her to duck and weave more to not entangle herself in the branches. The turn of the day continued, the sky beginning to grow orange beneath the thick clouds. She stopped only once to drink from a streamlet that trickled by sleepily. The cool water cleansed her mouth of the taste of deerskin.

Turning to carry the creature again, she started. The colorful cloud had dropped and before her lay a small, apish creature, bundled in cut deerskin. The fur upon its head was thick and black but did not otherwise cover its delicate-looking flesh. She paced over to it worriedly, sniffing at it. Had it been hurt? What had become of the colors? The small thing stirred, eyes screwed shut and a puff of soft green emanated from it briefly before fading. Its breath was slow and even. She relaxed; it was asleep.

She carried the infant, for surely it had to be a babe of some sort, with as much tenderness as she could. Its sleeping emotions were still, and she was hesitant to wake it whilst they journeyed. Darkness fell and a chill began to creep into the air. The babe trembled in its sleep from the cold, and she was forced to stop.

Settling on a bed of pine needles, she nestled the creature on top of the long fringe the fell from her tail and curled tightly around it. Its trembling ceased as she focused on the warmth within her heart and shared it. It seemed wiser to her to do so and prevent sleep from coming to the rest of her body. Stone could hardly keep a babe warm. She fixed her eyes on the clouded sky, where it tore and revealed the mysteries of the stars. But they too had little to say this night. She waited.

Dawn came as it always did, the season’s frost glistening around them when the babe awoke. It warbled softly a few times, breaking her meditation and returning her to attentiveness. The cloud was already beginning to reform around it, obscuring it from view. She picked it up once more and continued down the mountain.

She had pondered the nature of the creature throughout the night. Awake or asleep, it was foreign to her, but clearly the macaques, and perhaps even some other beasts, knew what it was. Perhaps its kind lived away from the mountains and only rarely came to the foothills, or they had migrated to the mountains only recently. She had not descended this far for many seasons, so it was possible new creatures might have arrived here without her knowledge, but surely the wind and the waters would have told her of such a thing. She flicked her ears backward, her disquiet far more distracting than she would have liked.

She might have wandered on all day were it not for the scent of smoke that drifted across her nose. She stopped, breathing the scent in deeply. Warily, she turned to follow the new trail it laid out for her. The beasts in this part of the forest were quiet, but, before long, the trees began their urgent whispers.

Turn back, they called. Danger, they warned. Ware the wood hunters.

Chaitah paused, her body tense as a coiled snake. New sounds scattered towards her haphazardly. The chattering would be monkey-like, save for its range of tone. Loud thuds and cracks, followed by the sound of groaning wood. She would have to turn back, surely there was something dangerous ahead. But the babe stirred, letting out small bleats like a baby serow, a warm sunset orange enveloping the cloud. Cautiously, Chaitah pressed on.

The sight that rose before her was a new degree of unusual. Both shrub and loose pine needle had been cleared to reveal the hard earth beneath. Within this false clearing, a fire crackled in a pit surrounded by stones, and strange skin-covered hollows were affixed to a twisted framework of branches. A group of creatures stared at her as she appeared on the edge of their space, like the babe in form but taller, standing upright. Several reached for long branches at their sides, their tips sharpened to a point as fierce as a tiger’s fang. Like the babe, there were clouds of color around them, but not so thick that she could not see through them. Red and green streaked around the clearing as they gazed at her as warily as she gazed at them.

Not wishing to startle them, Chaitah slowly lowered the babe to the ground. Its bleats became more insistent as it immediately began to approach its fellows. After a moment of hesitation, one of the adults quickly stepped forward and seized upon it, holding it close to its body. The creature murmured soothingly to the babe, and many of the others relaxed. With a slow dip of her head, Chaitah retreated from their fierce gazes.

The return trip to her mountain perch was calm and quiet after the events of the last two days. The anxiety of the trees did not pursue her far from the strange clearing, and all of the great guardians high upon the mountain still slept soundly. Returning to her stony home, she gazed contentedly at the restless wind that pushed the clouds across the sky, and followed the trees’ example.

She woke slowly, thick chunks of stone falling from her body in loud cracks. The playful breeze laughed at her drowsiness and called for her to awake. The sky was deep in its summer warmth, but it was clear that she had slept for many more seasons than she had intended. The breeze twisted in front of her snout before directing her gaze downward.

A bundle of small twigs lay twisted into a curled shape on the ground in front of her. And another. And another. Then there was a chunk of wood that had been cut and reshaped by some unknown artifice. Its shape was clearer, legs jutting from the bottom of the snake-like body, an antlered crown sitting on its head. She purred at the cleverness of it. And beside that were more wooden figures, each one more beautiful and more detailed. Then came stone.

The first one made of rock was as rough as the twisted twigs. Its shape barely distinguishable, but its intent as strong as ever. The next one was more refined, and the next even more so. She marveled at the skill and growth shown in each, pride and pleasure welling up in her for the efforts of her mysterious visitor. The final stone figure was truly a thing of delight, almost looking like a small sleeping dragon had joined her on her outcrop.

There was a snap of twigs behind her, and the great guardians stirred approvingly.

The gift-bearer comes. Their welcome presence may pass, they declared regally.

Chaitah turned and saw a strange creature emerge from the forest, its figure like something she remembered from a distant dream. The two-legged thing stopped when she moved, a pleasant cloud of colors dancing about its head in pinks and purples and yellows. It approached slowly and lowered itself down on the ground before her. It carried a small bundle covered in soft animal skins, which it set between them.

She leaned forward to sniff the bundle but could not identify what it contained. Instead, she turned to smell the creature. The scent of wood smoke and deerskin pierced her memory like birdsong, and she knew this to be the babe she’d once returned home. She purred with joy at this recognition and gently bumped her nose against the now-grown creature.

A noise, much like the laughter spoken by the breeze, sounded from the creature. Carefully, it uncovered the bundle it had brought. There, between them, was a figure like the stone ones that had been left before, but, unlike the roughness of its predecessors, this one was carved from smooth, polished jade. The greenness of the stone seemed to have a life of its own in the warm summer air. The delicacy and love behind every carved detail filled her heart with a warmth that was not of her own making.

The creature looked at her, gaging her reaction, and pushed the jade figure towards her. In its own tongue it spoke, clearly and slowly, fervor in its voice.

“Liwu,” it said.

She looked between the jade figure and the many wood and stone ones that came before it. Carefully, she wrapped her tail around the latter and drew them close. She closed her eyes and seized upon the warmth in her heart, both her own and the warmth the creature’s gift had given her. In one long, slow breath, she exhaled upon the jade dragon.

A small crack, then a squeak, and she watched proudly as a young dragon emerged from the stone shell of its first sleep. It was alike her in form, but its mane and hide were a dozen beautiful shades of green. It took a stumbling first step, and her visitor quickly caught it before it could fall. The young dragon chirped contentedly in their hands, and Chaitah’s visitor held them close to their body.

“Liwu,” Chaitah repeated back to the grown babe, and they clutched the young dragon tighter. Silence passed like poem between the two before both nodded. Her visitor turned, still holding the gift that now lived, and departed through the trees, the great guardians hailing them as they departed. Chaitah sighed, knowing within herself that this would be their last meeting. She turned once more to gaze at the sky and the sun, to hear the laughing of the breeze and the whispers of the trees. And she slept.