Children of the First

We were almost running by the time we caught up to Jarn at the scram table. We had been laughing on the way over, but fell silent when we saw the look on Jarn’s face—the shut up shut up shut up look.

Standing next to him was one of the most intimidating women I’ve ever met. She couldn’t have been much more than five feet tall and 110 pounds, but she looked like she could drop an Orc with one paw. Jarn’s comparison to Lora Lena hadn’t been far off; she had the same burnt-orange fur and black stripes as Lora did; but, unlike Lora, the undersides of her arms were white, as was the fur under her chin. Her chest was probably white too, but I didn’t want to risk looking down her cleavage. Okay, I wanted to risk it, but couldn’t because of the tight leather vest she wore.

“This is my brother, Roo, and our friends Shawn and Retis,” Jarn said.

“Good to meet you, Roo, Jarn’s told me all about you. I’m Fera Ignus; my friends call me Feral, my enemies do too. You can put your name down on the sheet there and one of the other scramblers will fill you in on tryout details.”

“Hi,” I said, “I’m Shawn.”

“So you’re the Nedrak who wants to scramble, huh? I get it, too small to brawl so you figure you’ll come over here and be the big drake, that right?”

“No, I—”

“Well listen up, scaly; I take scramble seriously. This is no knitting circle for kittens, you follow me? If you’re serious about scram, you’ll get the same shot as everyone else. I’m warning you though, if I get the slightest impression that you’re dicking around or giving my team a hard time, you won’t be able to claw your way up to my shit list, you follow? So, scaly, you still interested?”

I forced myself to look her in the eye, “I’m a scrambler,” I said. “Not a jilted brawler.”

“Great then!” Her scowl broke into a smile so quickly it was a bit unsettling. “Put your name on the sheet and we’ll see what you can do. I’ve got no problem with you unless you become a problem, you follow me?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Yes what?” she said

“Yes… Feral?”

“There ya go,” she said, and then looked at Retis. “I suppose he can’t be too bad if a Saurian’s hanging out with him. Retis, was it? Put your name down and we’ll see you at tryouts.”

“Oh, I’m just here with my friends,” he said.

“You don’t like scram?” she asked, hand on her hip.

“I’d never heard of it before today, I wouldn’t be any good.”

“Is that right? Hmm… if you’ve never heard of it, I’d bet you’re from a real tiny-ass town, huh? Maybe somewhere in The Vale?”

“Uh, yeah… Stillbrook, why?” Retis asked.

“Probably Mudgar fishers then, huh?”

Retis looked puzzled, but I was starting to see where she was going with this—if he could catch Mudgar, he could probably catch a person.

“Yeah, mostly Mudgar. We hunt Screech Otter too, but what’s that got to do—“

“I hear those things can be tough to put down, and that’s if you’re even quick enough to catch ‘em before they scream, you follow me?”

“No—I mean, yeah, they’re nasty, but—“ Retis stopped mid-sentence; it looked like he finally understood what she was driving at. Catching Mudgar isn’t easy; their scales are as hard as plate armor, their bite is vicious, and they’re fast as hell.

Mudgar are still just fish though, and I wasn’t surprised that Retis’ family fished for them. What did surprise me was that they hunted Screech Otters; we had learned about them in high school, before a field trip to the Ikan River Delta.

Basically, our teacher told us that if we ever even saw a Screech Otter, we were to cover our ears with our hands and run away as fast as we could. From what I remember, they look like normal otters, except six feet long (tail included), and they have pink fins behind their jaws that fan out when they’re angry. The real difference is in their temperament and the way they defend themselves; Screech Otters will attack without provocation, and when they do, it’s bad.

They take a deep breath, puffing up to nearly twice their size, and then they scream. To call it ear-splitting would be an understatement; the smallest otters only cause intense pain and disorientation, but the real giants can knock you unconscious—or worse.

So, I think it’s fair to say that if Retis actually hunted these monsters, he could handle himself in a scram match.

“But I don’t even know how to play,” Retis protested as I wrote my name on the sign-up sheet.

“I’ll teach you,” I said, handing him the pen. “Don’t worry about it, just wait to see how the try-outs go. You never know, you might like it.”
“This is really going to cut into my bubble club time,” he sighed, and signed the form.

“Where’s Pebbles?” Feral asked the human guy sitting behind the table. The guy just shrugged.

“Damnit, I hate it when she disappears like this,” she said, and then shouted, “Pebbles!”

“I’m right here, coach, no need to shout,” said a voice behind us. We turned around and were shocked to find “Pebbles” standing right behind us. She was… well, to tell the truth, I had no idea what she was, other than close to seven feet tall and thin as a rail—her thighs were probably as big around as my forearm.

Her skin looked like granite, both in color and texture, and she only had two fingers and a thumb on each hand. Her long neck supported her smallish head with two large black eyes and a cross-shaped mouth.

“Damnit, Pebbles, don’t do that,” Feral said, feigning annoyance.

“Sorry, coach. What do you need?” Her voice sounded a bit like rocks clacking together, and her four lips—more like fleshy mandibles, really—moved slightly when she spoke.

“I want you to go over the details for tryouts with these two,” Feral said, meaning Retis and me. “Guys, this is Pebbles, the team captain, she’ll tell you where to go and what to do—keep you out of my fur, you follow me?”

“Sure,” we said, still looking up at Pebbles. “Uh,” I fumbled for words. “This is Retis and I’m Shawn. Is… is Pebbles your real name?”

She laughed, though it sounded more like a bag of gravel being poured out than actual laughter. “No, that’s just what people call me because they can’t pronounce my real name. At home, my name is actually the sound of quartz crushing shale, but Pebbles is fine.”

“What are you?” Retis asked. I probably would have told him not to be so insensitive, but I honestly had no idea how else to ask, and I wanted to know as badly as he did.

“Well, again, there isn’t really a good translation, especially since we don’t really have a name for ourselves, but most of the other races would call me an Oread or a Glimpse,” She said. “You know when you’re hiking in the mountains and you could swear you just saw a rock move? That was probably a Glimpse.”

“I’ve never been to the mountains,” I said.

“Me either,” added Retis. “Are you a shape-shifter? Is that why we didn’t know you were there and how you can look like rocks?”

“No, but that would be cool, wouldn’t it?” Pebbles twisted her mouth in a way that I guess was supposed to be a smile. “I can only adjust the color of my skin to fit my surroundings. Plus, we fold up pretty tiny.”

I could believe that; from the way she moved, it looked like all her joints could bend both ways. When she reached to scratch her back, it was pretty obvious that at least her elbows were reversible. It was pretty obvious how she got to be captain; she must have been one hell of a scrambler, even without camouflage.

Pebbles filled us in on how tryouts were going to go: they would be held on Thursday, and we would get a scrawl the next day to let us know if we made the cut. Making the cut meant we could come to practice, but it didn’t necessarily mean we were on the team yet. Other than that, Pebbles said all she could tell us was to come dressed to get dirty. That gave us four days for me to teach Retis about scramble; not a lot of time, but definitely enough for him to learn the rules and at least get an idea of how the game was played.

Roo and Jarn were talking to Feral when we rejoined them. Well, Roo was talking, but Jarn was mostly just drooling.

Before we could join in the conversation, Retis tapped my arm and pointed across the quad. “Hey, isn’t that your dad?” he asked.

“Shit," I muttered, "I’ll see you guys back at the dorm.”

“Alright,” Retis gave me a sympathetic smile. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” I said, and headed off towards my father. He did not look so sympathetic, and he wasn’t smiling.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 8:01 pm and is filed under Chapters, CotF Main Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.