WIP

The tiny mandrill beside her was so excited he was shaking. Deft hands struck in melodious rhythms on instruments made of hollowed logs, of animal skulls, and of emptied gourds. They pulled hides taut over the ends, then secured them with sticky sap or rocks and bones hanging from vines. These creations they called drums. "We learned from baboons many years ago," she'd been told by one of the elder mandrills. "They live to the east among the lions."

Sianna couldn't have said with certainty the difference between a baboon and a mandrill. Asaht had assured her they were the same, only different colors, same as lions. His breach of good manners nearly had them expelled from the festivities.

Looking at him now, she thought, That damn idiot. He held himself high and swayed back and forth with the beat. She was convinced that he lived off small animals, solecism, and obliviousness. I wish I could be so inanely obnoxious. The infant mandrill sprang forward and ran to join the circle of dancers. Sianna flicked her tongue out in an amused hiss as he stumbled halfway there.

Being surrounded by this group of primates was redolent of the celebrations thrown before a viking captain took his reavers away on a raid. The voices were different, but they were just as loud. Not a lion one among the scents, but they were just as prevalent. It's leopards that eat these, she recalled, though not who had told her or when. They were agile climbers, swift and precise in their movements. I'll bet Kondo couldn't catch a single one of these, even their cubs.

Was cubs the right word? She asked Asaht for all the nothing it was worth. If he'd had the shoulders for it, he would have shrugged. "I don't know. But it's hilarious how much smaller the females are."

That made her think of Uss D'mzil and Gepeto, mother and sire of her second favorite litter in the Myrsky Syntynyt lands. They matched each other in size, but dwarfed near anyone else Sianna had seen them with. I should focus on what's happening in front of me rather than being so homesick. Rika was counting on her to relay details when she returned. That's why she had left, to appease her dear cub friend, denied the right to see this world in all its splendor with her own two eyes.

"I might become a reaver one day, if they let females," Rika had said to her one morning. Sianna had reminded her they did once, before she was born, and they might again.

Rika had bobbed her head to acknowledge it but none the less kept staring longingly out at the sea. "I'd leave forever. Away from my dad and my mom and Chakora and her stupid sisters. The second they let me out of here, I would never come back if it looked better out there."

But Rika had no way of knowing what awaited her, if leaving her kith and kin was worth it. How was one to know if the grass was indeed greener on the other side if mountains and forests obstructed it from view?

"Can you go for me?" the cub had asked her in secrecy, late in the evening when her own mother, Fira, was away. "You could come back and tell me everything. I'll owe you. I'll owe you so big, like forever."

And here Sianna was.

The mandrills hosted their performances around a rocky basin, algae thick over the water, disturbed by an ominous set of sets eyes. Crocodiles were like snakes, but much longer and larger than Sianna had grown; rougher skin, abundant teeth, four legs and feet. They fed him birds snatched from the trees in exchange for protection on the ground. Rather than a name they called him "no threat to you, snake," to Sianna a feeble comfort that held no sway over his intimidating presence.

"Don't worry about that thing." Asaht must have seen her staring. "Not even a crocodile is stupid enough to make an enemy of us." Proving oneself venomous was the responsibility of the claimant with many snakes. For Sianna, this was not the case. She only need open her mouth to showcase her heritage as a black mamba.

"It looks like it wouldn't even do anything if I bit him," she murmured.

"The throat looks softer," Asaht observed. "You could get him there. But it doesn't matter, since he's not going to attack us to start with. Enjoy the gathering! These baboons know how to party."

"They're mandrills."

"Mandrills, baboons. Whatever the case, I'm glad we stopped here."