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Ever since she was small, so small she couldn’t even remember it, Master Juvah had told Ochette that she was special. She was meant to save Toto’haha from a great evil, so she had to be the best hunter in the village, ever! She had to practice her bow, and practice her axe, and learn all the ways to track the beasts in the forest, and know how to take down any sort of monster no matter how big or scary.
Ochette had lived with Master Juvah ever since she stopped needing to drink her mother’s milk. Her ma and pops still came to visit her lots and lots, but she wasn’t really theirs, not in the same way other kids belonged with their parents. Ochette still played with the kids her age in the village, but sometimes she had to go away for lessons even when the others were still playing. This made her sad, but it was okay. Everybody knew that Ochette had to go away sometimes, because she was special, and she had to learn things the other kids didn't.
Master Juvah said that one day Ochette would have to travel far, far away from Toto’haha. She had to learn how to talk like humans did, or nobody would listen to her.
Humans were a type of people who didn't have tails, and couldn’t talk to beasts, and lived in other places that were far away from Toto’haha. Master Juvah said that to learn their language well, she had to speak it every day. When Ochette was ten, Master Juvah stopped talking to her in the beastling language at all! He would talk in the human language, and she would reply in the human language, even if she didn't really know what to say.
So Ochette learned how to speak like humans. They had so many words, and didn't use their tails or ears to speak at all! They had sounds that were tricky for Ochette to say, because the human language didn't have all the same sounds as her own language, and she wasn’t used to telling some of them apart.
Some of Ochette’s friends said she talked funny now. They said she used too many words, and made her sentences all weird. When Ochette tried to teach them a bit of human language, they would learn a few words, but then they’d run away and laugh that they didn't need to learn more, silly!
It was okay, though. Of course they didn't have to learn the human language like Ochette did. Ochette was special, and she was meant to protect the village, so she had to be the best hunter and the best speaker Toto’haha had ever seen!
And Ochette was good at it! She could hunt way faster than anyone else in the village. She knew how to listen to the sounds of the forest, and how to spot the places where her quarry often passed through. She could shoot an arrow well enough to hit her quarry right in the eye, and she knew just how to tangle and trap their legs so they couldn’t run. And when the humans came to Toto’haha, it was Ochette that had to speak with them.
Ochette wasn’t sure how she felt about the humans. She’d spent years and years learning their language, but they still talked about things she didn't understand, like “money” and “land values” and “borders”. No matter how many times Ochette told them that they could share Toto’haha’s meat and fruits and homes if they wanted to join their village, the humans kept arguing. They wanted land that only they could use, where they could cut down trees and grow new, strange plants. They wanted to build a new village, even though there was plenty of space for more houses at home.
Sometimes the humans would look at Ochette and laugh, or talk to her in the voices they used for their children. As if Ochette was stupid, for offering to share with them. For not understanding their strange new ways, that didn't seem to make any sense at all.
Ochette knew about killing monsters. She knew how to track down a sick or crazed beast, and how to kill it swiftly and cleanly before it hurt anybody in its frenzies. She knew that everything dies, eventually, and that some animals had to die so that her village could keep on living. She knew not to hunt the mother deer, and to put back the crabs that were laden with eggs, so that there would be more deer and more crabs in the years after.
But greed was an unfamiliar beast. Ochette didn't know how to protect her village from these humans, who kept taking and taking just for themselves, and never gave anything back. Who threatened her people when they tried to hunt along the paths that now, supposedly, were on the human’s land. There was some kind of sickness here, a rot of the heart instead of the body. Something too small and secret to hunt, yet so big it seemed to shadow the entire island.
Ochette wanted to protect her village. She wanted to protect the humans, too, if only they were willing to join them. To hunt together, and feast together, and share new stories from new places. Maybe, if she could just get them to sit down with her, they would understand. They could try her food, and she could try theirs, and she would show them that there was no need to keep drawing lines or claiming things for themselves. There was enough for everyone, as long as you knew how to preserve it.
Ochette was special. Ochette was meant to save the village. Ochette was the best hunter and the best speaker Toto’haha had ever seen, and she would find a way for everybody to be happy!
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Deep in the forest, something stirred. The twisted, monstrous corpse of a man, dragged here by forces it was no longer capable of understanding. A creeping shadow winding its way through cracked and broken hearts, promising an end that never leads to new beginnings.
Death without life. Night without dawn.
A rot at the heart of the world.