Song and Dance

I set my plots for revenge aside for the rest of the day, since the trio had taken themselves off out of reach. For now....

The rest of the afternoon was deliciously lazy. Nandi and I had a splash fight. I’m really starting to resent my lack of a tail. Not only does it give you an extra boost swimming, but it works as an excellent wave-maker. Nandi claimed a decided victory after half-drowning me in a home made tsunami.

I dragged my water-logged carcass to the shore where Nandi and I lounged in the fragrant plants that bordered the beach. It was a huge relief, after so many days of constant walking, to just sit and relax and feel the sun on my skin. I was just finally feeling completely dry (and thankfully I’d gotten past that weird sticky skin feeling you get after swimming in sea water), when Nandi announced that he was hungry. I wanted to applaud this announcement.

We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon and into the evening wandering the fields and foraging. Nandi introduced me to a fruit called koh. God DAMN is it good. It tastes a bit like strawberries, but it’s tart and a little sour, like a pineapple or something citrus. Nandi says the trees are relatively rare at the old clan site but that they are fairly plentiful here. I don’t know if that’s good or not. It’s like a dieter hearing Choco-topia has just set up on the nearest street corner, and they give away freebees every Tuesday. Nandi and I devoured an entire fruit on our own. I didn’t even stop to draw a halfway decent diagram. They’re pretty big, too; watermelon-sized.

I can quit any time, I swear!

When we were pleasantly full (and honestly starting to feel a little sick from ODing on koh) it was getting on toward full dark. So we headed back to the caves where the rest of the clan was gathering.

There were no normal cook fires built tonight. Instead there was only one very large bonfire that stood at the center of the little open common area near the cliff face. The entire clan had gathered and was talking excitedly. Apparently I was wrong about the whole no fanfare/greeting of the new clan site.

The Kan walked up to the fire and held his hand over it, holding a packet of something that dangled from a leather thong. I still have enough difficulty with the language that I couldn’t understand 100% of what he said. But I got the gist. He asked the land (their word includes a sense of consciousness, as if the land is a person) was generous in letting us live here, and that we were happy to see an old friend again. Then he said we would dance our gratitude until it was visible to both the land and the stars.

He threw the packet into the fire and it blazed blue-green for a moment. Then he began to dance. The clan began to sing in time to his steps, thumping tails on the ground, or stamping feet in a primal beat. The Kan’s dance seemed to be a series of poses that flowed into each other. He would slide into one pose, hold it for half a heartbeat, and then slip to the next one, all the while circling the fire.

Once he completed two cycles of the dance, the rest of the clan filed in behind to join him. Nandi dragged me along, even though I couldn’t do the dance properly. I can’t really do the quadruped steps, and I still don’t have a damn tail. But no one seemed to mind, and Nandi seemed to get a huge kick out of my attempts.



The celebration went on for a couple hours. There were more dances, singing, and lots more flaring colored fire. Eventually, though, the fire burnt down and we slowly made our way to our caves to go to sleep. I barely got my sleeping bag out of the pack before flopping into it.

But tired as I was, I couldn’t quite fall asleep. As comfortable as I feel with the Azu-nah, and as welcoming as they’ve been, tonight’s dancing really brought it home again how alien I am here. I simply will never be able to truly fit in with these people. Not that I’m ever going to go crazy and pull a Dances With Wolves. But the barrier between me and the Azu-nah made me feel like I would never be anything but an outsider, an alien.

It took me a while before I was able to quiet my thoughts enough to fall asleep.