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Justice Goat! (sheepcakes' kin)
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Post 2 - Fish Bones (dream & legendary story)

Boldly he explored the waters in this part of the swamp. His tail fins propelling him swiftly through the water. Fins! I have no fins! But sure enough, as he looks back along his body, there are tail fins, as well as scales. I'm a fish? This thought confuses him, for generation upon generation of ancestral memory tells him he is a Kimeti.

His confusion is swiftly pushed aside as a crocodile glides past. With out thinking, he turns and darts away from the huge reptile. It makes no attempt to chase him. Unluckily though, he stumbles into the path of a large fish. This predator takes a snap at him, shredding the edge of his tail fin. Panicked, he flees from the larger fish. The predator, however, isn't about to give up. It chases after him. Through weeds and under rotted logs. Just when the little fish is ready to give in, he spies a hole too small for his pursuer.

In a flash he darts in, leaving the larger fish just out of reach. Breathing a sigh of relief, he looks around. The hole seems to be a tunnel, so he follows it. At it's end he finds what appears to be an isolated pond inside the larger pond. Still in the tunnel he looks around, not quite recognizing what is littering the pond floor. Cautiously he comes out, trying to get a better look around. Just then the mangrove above the water rustles, spilling sunlight through it's leaves.

The light catches something just under him, grabbing his attention. It takes him a moment to register what his eyes are seeing. When he does, though, he gasps. Slowly he swims out into the area, and everywhere he passes he looks down. The pond floor is littered with dull, off white, shards - Fish Bones.

Jumping and hopping,
from water to sandy bank
then back again, quick.

Skin glistens then dulls,
hop through sunshine and shadows,
just jump, jump and hop.

Skitter up the stalk, anchor a thread, jump to the next stalk, anchor the thread, on and on until the framework is complete. Now to the edge, attach the silk there, and go around, round and round fixing silk to each anchor thread. Working from the edge to center, until the anchor threads are all connected by the sticky silk. This is the mantra that runs through his head as he creates his web. As it has for every web he has ever woven.

Now, he sits in the center of his web, watching the world go by. Every now and then, when his web shakes, he'll stick out a golden leg, grasp an anchor thread, and shake back. If he gets an answering shake, he'll skitter down the lines, grab the insect, roll it up in silk, bite it, then move back to his center post while waiting for his venom to digest the morsel. This, too, repeats in an endless cycle, but it is a spiders life.

She lay in a patch of bright sunlight, watching the swamp and it's many forms of life. No matter how strong the sunlight, there are always shadows. Some creeping between the mangrove, others popping up under the water rats or marsh rabbits as they dart past. They come in all sizes, ranging from smaller then a blade of grass, to big enough to engulf her. Some are very dark, almost like night, and others just shades of gray.

After a while she stands, looking down at her own pitch black form, and the shadow she casts. It seems to stretch much further then it should, despite the sun shining from directly overhead. Tentatively she takes a step forward, then with a start she dashes into the shallow waters around the mangrove. Easily she slips between the trees, ever careful of their entwined roots. There she blends in perfectly with the darker shadows. Almost silently she picks her way deeper into the trees. Watching the shadows, and the shadows with-in shadows play with and against each other.

She walks through the mangrove, picking her way between the roots. Every now and then she stops to observe the shadows. One seems to be moving of it's own violation, always just a few steps ahead of her. At first she thought it to be her own shadow. Until she looked down, finding hers underneath herself. Looking up again, she continues to follow the shadow, wondering where - and why - it is leading her.

After what seems like hours, but could really only be minutes, she spots a small island among the mangrove. The shadow is moving up its banks. Cautiously she follows, unease warring with curiosity. She stops at the bank, watching the shadow. It too has stopped moving. She steps up onto the bank, slowly making her way toward the shadow. To her surprise it doesn't move. When she is nearly close enough to touch it, it vanishes. Startled she looks around, up in the trees, in the water, and at last at the ground. Giving a small squeak she jumps back, and there at her hooves the shadow follows. She stares down at the shadow, realization coming slowly. After some time she settles down on the island, watching the shadows move around her and contemplating her own.

He lay there, on a bank dappled with sunshine coming through the mangrove leaves, listening to the sounds of the swamp. Many shades of green are painted across his hide, being put there by sun and leaf.

As his body soaks in the warmth from the sun, his ears soak in the voices of the swamp. First comes the swishing of the kudzu, the purple blooms of the flower rattling. Followed by the buzzing of dragonflies, humming birds, and other small winged creatures. Toads and frogs add their part to the song, their croaks coming loud and low or sharp and high. At last the sky, too, joins in. Sending wind and rain to blend the swamp's many voices into one. Into Swamp Song.

-------------
[[original haiku]]
Listen to the song,
voices of the swamp blending
into harmony.

He lay under the stars, dark green body almost vanished in the night. Turning his eyes upward, he looks, watching a shower of shooting stars. Each passage brings streaks of silver and gold across the night sky. With a gasp, he watches two stars collide, a spectacular explosion sending their dust in all directions. Transfixed by the sight, it isn't until the last speck has fallen that he looks down. This is when he realizes the gold and silver stardust has covered him, leaving their mark on his hide.

Entombed in damp, slimy walls, her first conscious feelings are fear, anxiety, claustrophobia. Laying there, curled into a tight ball, her body trembles. Until, all at once, she hears it. A sweet melody, as old as the Motherfather. In fact, sung by the swamp itself, to sooth her children.

Now, resting peacefully, waiting to hatch, she absorbs the strands of music, as old as time, ancient song.

Plop! Drip! Plip! The sound of rain beating down on the swamp. Hitting leaf, bog, rock, everything under the clouds. One moment it is pouring in torrents. The next, it's just barely misting. For days it continues on like this. Just when the swamp seems about to overflow from the sky, it stops.

All around, Kimeti cheer, thinking themselves saved from flood. Forgetting, in their joy at sunshine and cloudless skies, that floods are not the only danger from rain. Not until later that day, are they reminded.

It starts, with one small spilling of mud down the bank. Just something tiny, nothing to worry about. In fact many young ones go out to play in the squishy, water logged soil. Not long after, the whole swamp seems to be filled with a rumble, and squeals of terror, as the whole bank comes down. Crushing and burying everyone and everything in it's path.

Spirals, perfect as only nature can make them, coiling ever outward. Should she pull her body inside, there, along the inner walls, a dull brown-pink, just slightly more pink then her body. Craning out her long neck, eye-stalks take in the rich mud brown and bird shell white striping the outside.

Ahh, how she loves her home, her snailshell.

Silently it glides through the water, only it's snout breaking the surface. In murky waters it is nearly invisible, only a ripple now and then to betray it. In clear water it's grace and colors provide beauty, dangerous though it is. It's not until it strikes that some see the danger. But by then they are in it's jaws, becoming fuel for the water snake.

They flutter above.
Below he moves, hooves shuffling,
their glow lights his steps.

Soft furred, long tailed, big eared and tiny. The mouse bounds across the ground, jumping puddles and scurrying up bushes. Now and again it stops, to look for predictors or to to munch on leaf and berry.

Dead, all dead. Everywhere he looks is death. Not just the Kimeti and animals, but plants as well. Even the water is full of death, choked with bloated bodies and rotten wood. The landscape of the swamp has been changed into a deathscape.

She sees a large rock, blue-gray in color, cracked down the middle. In the crack are redish crystals, spires of every shape and size reaching for the sun's light. When they catch it a brilliant fiery color washes the stone holding them.