The Beasts of Rainfall

Chapter 4- Song of the Sun

Clio let the last note of her song linger in the air for a moment before the birds twittering flowed into the space where it had been, filling the air with songs of their own.

She smiled. The birds always fell silent when she sang, and she liked to believe that when they started up their calls again, they were trying to copy her song, singing alongside her. Clio took a deep breath, beginning a new song.

 

Sand and sun

Sand and sun

The war is won

The war is won

Our foes have run

Our foes have run

Now it’s just us...

And the sand...

And the sun...

 

Clio sighed deeply as she finished the verse. There had been no Beasts waiting for her when she climbed down the tree in the morning, though she could tell that one had been there in the night, and was glad that she would be leaving. Sleeping alone, without other Banes to take shifts on watch, was dangerous enough, for the Beasts would some times wait outside of a Bane’s camp in the morning, and catch them when they came within grabbing distance. Sleeping on the ground would have been suicide.

But a Beast coming to her camp, and then leaving, a well covered but still distinguishable set of tracks left behind it? It was better than she could have hoped. Unless it was a trap, of course.

She had been struggling to track the Beast all morning, and had just stopped for a lunch break. But she did not let her guard down. Not once.

Clio noted curiously that the Beast’s tracks were leading directly towards one of the traps she had set only the day before. She had checked all the others as she had went, and noted curiously that the only one remaining was the one with the faded doll. Clio happened to actually be quite sentimental, and would never have let one of her old childhood dolls go, so she had borrowed one from the school house instead, promising to buy them a  new one if the doll didn’t make it through the hunt.

For a second, Clio thought of Yip the Small, the imaginary Beast’s large blue eyes and toothy smile looming out of her memories like one of the cute puppets her mother used to make her that would jump out of little boxes when she wound up the lever. The image made Clio shiver, and she decided that it was quite time for the next verse of the song.

 

No more tears

No more tears

For gone are our fears

For gone are our fears

After all these years

After all these years

Our Queen arose

And the sun... took our tears...

 

Sand and sun

Sand and sun

Is all we’ve won

Is all we’ve won

There is not one

There is not one

Drop of water

In this land

Of sand and sun...

 

Our Queen is brave

And our Queen is strong

Our Queen rose up to right what was wrong

For oh so long

For oh so long

We suffered in sand

and we suffered...

in sun

 

Rainfall, Rainfall, everywhere you look

In every river, every brook

The very sky, it shook

Because of what she took

For it told us in a book

Of an orb of faded gray

That would bring

back

the rain...

 

Clio took a deep breath, preparing for the final few verses, and paused dramatically in the spinning, leaping dance she had unconsciously begun, realizing that she had reached the top of the slope. At the bottom lay the last trap, the one with the old doll.

Clio let out a quick gasp.

Her eyes were glued to the trap with shock and amazement.

At the bottom, lay a beast.