The Smiling Child

[Ruriska]

(Story from a Festival of Plenty entry. Told by Fierce Love.)

It wasn’t often that Fierce Love chose to take part in storytelling. She was naturally reticent and preferred to let the wordier members of the tribe keep the limelight. So when one bitterly cold night, the aging Kiokote settled down beside Peep and said, ‘I have a story’, everyone immediately stopped talking and listened.

Fierce Love made a disgruntled sound when everyone focused their attention on her and let them wait for a few minutes while she watched the foals as they snuffled in a deep sleep. The adults had made a protective ring around them to keep out the cold and were wide-awake despite the late hour.

“Great story! I love the part where nothing happened,” Lionhearted joked as the minutes ticked past and laughed when Fierce Love gave her a look of fond annoyance.

“This is an old story from the plains,” Fierce Love began, “My grandmother told it to me and the matron of her herd told it to her and so on… so listen well…

Long ago, when our world was new, those known as Kiokote had just begun to properly explore the plains, roaming together in large herds, led by the strongest male. As they played and fought and challenged each other to feats of strength and speed, the MotherFather looked away, perhaps to check the mountains or the desert of the swamp. It was during this early time, as She turned aside, that the darkness took shape.

They called it The Smiling Child. It took the form of a playful foal and would appear within a herd, with no mother or father to speak of. Of course it was accepted because none could bear to turn away a sweet foal with no family. It would befriend the other children of the herd and one day would simply disappear, taking its new friends with it, never to be seen again.

This is the story of a young mother, who woke up one morning and found that her three foals were gone. The other females commiserated but their children were safe and all they wanted was to move on and forget. But of course the mother could not forget. They were her first and she loved them with every inch of her being.

The tribe moved on and she stayed behind.

The Smiling Child had left no trail that she could see or smell but she was determined. She circled the spot where she knew her children had been sleeping and cursed herself and the beast that had taken them.

‘I will search the plains,’ she vowed, ‘I will not stop searching until I find them.’

And so that was what she did.

Moving from one tribe to the next, warning them of The Smiling Child and studying each foal for that grinning face. She travelled across the plains, endlessly until she was worn down and her muscles ached and her body creaked. Dust and dirt had caked into her fur and she became so matted that grass seeds took root, so that she was almost the plains itself.

When she reached the next herd, they took one look and would not welcome her but she heard, as she lurked at the edges, that one moon past, foals had disappeared in the night.

This was the chance she had been waiting for. But she was so tired from her ceaseless travels and as her fellow Kiokote raced away in a pillar of dust, she fell to her knees.

‘I’m not strong enough,’ she cried.

There was a motion in the grass, something slinking and sly, the barely audible soft tread of paws in the earth. The cheetah appeared, and yawned lazily, pink tongue and sharp white fangs.

The mother struggled to stand but sank down again, this time to her side, her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths.

But when she expected the sharp pain of teeth in her neck, a soft cheek rubbed against hers. Your body is ruined, the great cat seemed to say, you should try mine instead. The words echoed strangely in her mind and let herself by carried away, deep down, no longer carried, now she was running, racing, pushing against the constraints of who she was. She would do anything, be anything, to find her children.

When she woke, she stood eye to eye with the cheetah and stretched her long feline body. She flexed her claws in the earth and felt closer to the plains than ever before. But there was also a smell, a scent of lingering decay, of rotted flesh and a killing smile. It was so faint the Kiokote nose could not discern it.

This was it. This was the way to her children.

With new speed and strength, she raced across the plains, following the scent, until it led her to a tumbling of rocks; it was if the earth had erupted from below, leaving behind a rotting wound. Within the rocks was a dark passage, snaking deep don into ominous darkness.

We do not speak of exactly what was found inside, though needless to say, the mother had found her quarry. The stink of death was enough to choke and The Smiling Child was waiting, bloated and strong. They fought, deep in the earth, a mother that was both cheetah and Kiokote, against a monster. For days it lasted. She struck with claw and hoof, with all the strength and speed she possessed, she bit and swiped, howled and roared.

In the end she triumphed but there was no killing blow.

The Smiling Child slithered away, into deeper, darker places, where none could follow.

When the mother emerged, she knew she would never see her children again. They had been gone a long time and many more foals before then. And she knew the creature she had battled would come back one day, to continue taking innocent lives. As long as there was breath in her body, she would not allow it.

The mother travelled from one herd to the next, she told her stories to the matrons, warning them and walking as a cheetah, sniffing the air for that hideous scent. But she couldn’t watch over all of them and she brought her new kin with her, the lithe and beautiful cats, which had let her use their form. It was through her that we first befriended the cheetah, learnt how to hunt together and share our lives.

But their original purpose, the reason we keep them in our herds and known only to the great mothers, is to keep the The Smiling Child at bay.”

The story came to a close and there was a long, uncomfortable silence.

“What if it’s here with us now?” Empty Nest finally squeaked. She’d moved even closer to the sleeping foals and was nearly crushing them in her protective eagerness, and giving them a few good sniffs while she was there.

“Stop that!” Fierce Love snapped at the frightened doe, “And it is an old story. Perhaps the monster lives only in the plains or perhaps it doesn’t exist at all. Perhaps there was a monster but it was a real kin and our story turned it into something else. But that is it, just a story.”

“I think it’s time we all went to sleep,” Peep told the group after some quiet discussion.

Eventually they did sleep (with a few nightmares), except for Fierce Love and Peep. The two sat side by side, watching over everyone.

“You are so brave,” Peep murmured, to which Fierce Love looked puzzled. “With each foal we bring to the tribe, you must think of that story but you love them all anyway and let us love them too.”

Fierce Love gave a heavy sigh. “I cannot let fear from an old story rule me… but I watch. I am always watching. That is the greatest gift I can give. If that thing ever tries to harm someone from my family, I will be there and I will finish it properly.”

Peep smiled and nuzzled her friend’s cheek. “I know you will.”

Then as they settled into drowsy slumber, Peep chuckled softly and said, “You must think Starburst is pretty fantastic.” She didn’t need to look to see that the older doe was blushing.