The swamp was different.Years ago, it had been flooded and been forced to welcome an influx of thundering hooves as the kiokote fled the plains. One of them had been her. And she'd never known what to make of it all, this new world and kimeti. She missed the plains but more like she missed a warm and pleasant dream.
Acha had come from the desert. Totoma had come from the mountains. Zikwa had come from the caves. It was almost too much, the additions and the changes that the flood had toppled time into producing. She couldn't always reconcile the beginning with the now, somehow it seemed to worsen as she aged.
She'd seen the flood in her dreams. She'd known it was coming. It was her name. And then it happened and it left her. What was she without the flood? She didn't know; she'd run, instead.
But she was tired. Every friend she made, she eventually left behind. She had had children and left them behind, too. Nothing was quite enough to keep her still. The flood had broken her open, somehow, and spread the pieces of her soul out. She didn't know how to find them. She wasn't sure if she wanted to, until now.
Fatigue had settled into her bones like a disease. It hurt to run. It hurt to stay. A strange quandary, to hurt no matter her state. She'd picked her way through the swamp throughout her life, but it always came back to the fact that the flood had birthed her, deserted her, and nowhere could feel like home. Perhaps that would have been a better name for her, homeless. It shouldn't have bothered her, but she was tired like a hole filled with endless water that it could never drink. The opportunities, the world, was endless and she was not. She was soaked from the river water and she could never be dry. And no one could understand it. She didn't understand it.
“She's different now,” an acha whispered, “ever since she came back. She used to be soft and delicate. Now, she's all dark colors and sharp lines.”
The implication doesn't land. She thinks of paint and dirt, of mud smeared across fur. There's no real change in that.
“That totoma, you remember the one,” a kimeti giggles, all flirtation, “he's an acha now!”
An entirely different species, that piques her interest. She carefully inserts herself into the conversation. The kimeti is besotted and all too eager to spill every piece of knowledge he has ever learned. He dips his head low and starts to tell her about the rumors of kin who leave and return changed. About the kin he has seen change.
The heartbeat within her chest starts to thunder against her ribs and she hears the woosh settle into her ears. She needs to know more. She needs to know how.
“How?” she asks, voice soft as a breeze.
The kimeti hums, tells her that he's heard of crystals. She tries to listen, but the urge is undeniable. There is only the image in her mind of a crystal and a voice in her blood calling out. This is the answer she didn't even know she was looking for; this is how she can stop running. This is a chance to find a home.
⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅
It's taken eleven days. She is stumbling and bleary eyed as she stares at the crystal she has been looking for. It's small and she almost missed it, curled in the snaking roots of a dead tree. She collapses beside it, inhales in relief, and crashing into sleep like a comet fallen from the sky.⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅
The dream is a void of darkness. A blanket of silence litters the cavern. Encircling her, soft lit shards rise from the cave floor. mist coalescening within them.The dream is a void of darkness within a cavern. A blanket of silence adds to the eeriness and makes a mere breath sound like thunder. Soft lit shards rise from the cave floor, encircling her as far as her eyes can see. An ever shifting mist coalescences within the crystals and curiosity draws her closer.
In the first crystal shard, a kiokote of gray stares back at her. It mimics her movements and she cannot help but drop her eyes to the angry red scar that travels along the doe's neck. Who is this, she wonders, looking up and staring into the familiar brown eyes that sit in her own face. It's not until the doe bolts backwards, a flood of water crashing down that she can make the connection. It's her. Or, at least, a version of her.
She watches the scarred version of her run; how did she receive such a fresh but healing wound? It doesn't seem real. It doesn't seem right. When Waters Recede turns away and moves towards another glistening crystal.
There is no kiokote in this reflection—or is it a vision—and she almost chokes on the surprise that lodges in her throat. A totoma scowls back at her. A male totoma and she backs away, wondering where or how she became so filled with hate. She trembles at the thought and darts to the side and then beyond.
Each shard is different. Acha and kimeti, totoma and zikwa. Male and female. Anger and sadness and joy. It's like she's been cut into pieces and each version slides left or right to form a new image. She doesn't like them. They feel wrong and odd and she begins to think this whole journey was a trap. But if it is supposed to make her appreciate what and who she is, she finds that it does the opposite. She starts to run.
Flashes of kin surround her as she thunders through the dark cavern. A shivering zikwa surrounded by snow. A kiokote slumped, exhausted, in the desert. A kimeti unaware of a crocodile's jaws behind them.
She can't outrun it. The cavern is endless and crystals multiply. There's nothing—a crash of waves splashes down around a gray kiokote in the shard reflection to her left. It calms her, somehow, and she stills. When Waters Recede walks cautiously towards this shard.
Within it, she sees herself as she is now. A gray and unassuming kiokote that is little different from cracked, drying mud. The waves ebb and flow, the tide crashing against her hide over and over. It feels real. And as she watches the skin cracks and flakes, peels. The fissures of her skin reveal a pearlescent shimmer. She gasps, enthralled. And soothed.
Time is endless here, but eventually she watches as the kiokote within the shard breaks entirely. The mud slides from her hide and she is revealed. A pearl made tough by hardship. A shimmer of softness that belies her strength. And it all clicks.
She is strong. She is beautiful. She is the result of the waters from her dream, from the flood. She has been made by her experiences. She is a pearl made by the relentless crashing of waves. And, finally, the ache in her chest stops and the urge to run ebbs. She knows where she is meant to go. She knows where home is.
The gray kiokote sighs, lying down before the crystal where she is a pearl, and presses her cheek against the cool surface. She breathes, in and out. Relief and comfort seeping from the shard. She sleeps. A gray kiokote for one last time.