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September 27th, 2015

9/27/2015

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Riotori do not talk much.  Especially the men.  Those wonderful tusks, so useful in personal combat and even in hunting, and so admired by the females of the species, make talking difficult.  The females' tusks are much smaller, and only four instead of eight, so their speech is not affected quite as much.  Conversations between male and female tend to be one-sided. 
As it happens, though, this is not as much of a handicap as one might suppose.  So much of the population consists of identical twins, and such twins share a certain mental bond.  Not telepathy, exactly.  They can't read each other's thoughts but they can communicate accurately and in detail with non-verbal communication along with a guttural utterance here and there, mostly for emphasis.
So when Feldspar and Gypsum finally emerged from their tents to break camp, the toil was mostly done in silence.  Feldspar had greater affinity for profanity.  He grumbled and cursed, growling invective at the mud and dirty water that had soiled his possessions.
Gypsum, of a calmer spirit, simply dealt with the situation in silence.  He was always amused by his brother's ventures into profane complaining over things that could not be helped.  He was careful not to allow his amusement to be too obvious.  His brother was too often lacking in a sense of humor until the source of his displeasure was resolved.
When both had assembled their supplies and bundled them neatly into their backpacks, they continued the journey.  Feldspar's grumbling helped break up the monotony of the hike.  By this time he was over his aggravation but he was aware of his brother's amusement.  He kept up the diatribe purely for the sake of humor even at his own expense.
They had days yet of travel to cross the Plains, but the mountains were finally visible on the horizon.  The going would not get easier.  

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Nature Can Be Unfriendly

9/19/2015

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On the third night, it rained. This was not a gentle shower, falling softly like silk curtains upon the earth, comforting and refreshing the creatures of the desert. No. This was a storm, striking with unrestrained violence like a temper tantrum. Lightning and thunder shook the skies and the earth. It rained like a sonofabitch and the furious wind hurled the rain almost horizontally as the nature of the sky attacked the nature of the land.  The hard-packed rocky dirt of the desert could not absorb the water in the volume it fell, and sudden rivulets became rushing streams which grew quickly to angry rushing rivers.

The twins each slept in his own small tent.  The tents were separated by ten long paces.  If any kind of natural disaster struck, the separation might mitigate any loss.

Each awoke as the rain began, already alert when the ferocity of the storm struck them like a thrown anvil.  Before the wind could whip their tents away and drench their belongings, they had taken down the poles and the tents became tarps that sheltered their possessions.  As the wind's fury increased the twins lay upon the tents to keep them from being blown away.  They were drenched, but that was merely temporarily unpleasant.  They would dry more quickly and easily than the supplies they sheltered.

As a general rule Riotori do not wear sleep clothes.  The naked young men lay on their stomachs, spread-eagled upon the collapsed tents, protecting their supplies.  The wind and rain hammered them while the lightning illuminated the sky with angry bursts of jagged white and the thunder answered with ear-shattering blasts. 

Feldspar and Gypsum ignored it all.  This was not their first storm.  A sudden river rushed upon them. Not by accident, they had pitched their tents on both sides of a slight depression and the muddy torrent charged between them.  They had not expected the storm. Preparations like that were routine every time they made camp. 

With grumbling patience they took all that the desert storm could crash upon them.  They even dozed a little once it was clear no rushing water would threaten them.

The rain abated after an hour and the flash flooding diminished soon after.  The clouds dispersed, revealing smug starlight and an observant half-moon.

The twins stood and shook themselves, water flying off their fur.  With a cautious look at the sky and a quick conference they re-erected the poles in the tents and crawled back in.  They would sleep until the sun awoke them.  They had passed another test.  Their father's advice that circumstances they did not expect were the ones they must prepare for was an intrinsic part of their awareness.

That would serve them again and again in their adventure.    

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The Journey Begins

9/12/2015

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The journey would take them two weeks...or so they planned.  But as one of their ancient philosophers once observed, the plans of hoporils and Riotori go often askew.

The first two days, though, gave no clue of the problems awaiting them.  The map of their proposed journey proved accurate.  They tented on the lee side of huge rock formations that dotted the sand and hardpan of the Deth Plains.  They were able to refill their water canisters from clear springs that the map promised.  Desert hoporils were abundant near these springs and the twins caught several.  Each rodent was a bit longer than a Riotori foot and weighed the same as a man's well-muscled forearm.  Years before Gypsum had demonstrated a natural knack for delicate knife use that Feldspar could not quite match.  So the older brother did the cooking while the younger did the preparing, skinning and butchering them for eating as they had been taught.  The skins, of course, were saved for future use.  The skulls also were useful.  Once the brains (delicious!) had been removed the skulls were excellent for carrying fire coals.  That gave them fire without having to use their limited supply of fire sticks.

The third night, however, brought the unexpected...      




 





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The Young Men

9/3/2015

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When our young heroes came of age, they were given the choice: Choose to court one of the girls from their village of Groakpod, or venture out of their territory to find girls in one of the neighboring territories.  But that journey leads through the Deth Plains, over the Ironcut Mountains, and through the Serging River.
But the journey can be made.  Over the years young men from those other villages have visited Groakpod, successfully courting the most beautiful young women and winning, through trial of deeds, the right to take up residence in their new home.  So it was in all villages.
The choice was easy.  The most attractive young women were already married.  Feldspar was gifted with the steel armor and burgundy cloak of his father.  Gypsum, the younger by almost an hour, received the nearly identical armor and cloak from his father's twin brother, who had given his wife only the seeds for daughters.
The young men were confident in their abilities to survive the journey and then win the approval of the loveliest maidens in those other villages.  Both were blessed with classic good looks.
Each sported eight tusks of deadly sharp ivory, with the lower tusks protruding just past the shiny black nose at the end of the short hard muzzle.  The upper tusks were shorter, not quite reaching the bottom of the lower jaw and the thick soft fur there.
The horns, too, were of classic mold, showing a slight spiral as they curved upward with a vicious grace that would worry any opponent and enchant any woman.
If that wasn't enough, the young men were larger than the average by about two inches in height and twenty pounds of hard muscle in weight. Their father and uncle had trained them with loving mercilessness from the day each could hold a weapon.  They would prevail.  Neither they nor their family nor their friends had the slightest doubt. 
With the joyous confidence of the young, they hugged their mother, exchanged staggering back slaps with their father and friends, and set out. 
They would never see Groakpod again.
    


 

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    The story: This serial is about the "mascot" shown at the top of these pages. There are actually two of them, identical twins, Feldspar and Gypsum.
    The people call themselves Riotori, and their planet is Kylrock. The twins have been journeying for hundreds of miles, across many hazards, in search of mates. Please visit the archives to read their whole story.



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