It was hot and muggy -- the kind of weather that pressed down on them like a shroud. The gathered kin of the Shadow Stalkers lay on a flat riverbank, bellies pressed to the cool mud and noses to the waterline. The air was thick and still, filled with the sound of lapping water and whining mosquitoes, and occasionally the low rumbling of a caiman in the deepest part of the river. In the dead of night, at least in these nights, there was nothing to do but wait for sleep to come. Moving made one sweat. There was no other place any more comfortable. Someone had mentioned retreating to the deep hole, but that had been quickly overruled. Spending the night wallowing in the muggy air was better than being consumed by ants, snakes, and bats.
The night had calmed to a lull and even the clouds had ceased their nighttime jaunt across the sky when someone spoke. "Tell me a story," they said. Where it might have sounded petulant at one time or another, now it sounded supremely, desperately, bored.
A chorus of sleepy assent rose from the group. The budgie in Albatross's hair chirped in agreement.
No Escape felt stirred to speak. Her quiet voice cut through the silence.
"It had been raining for some time and a certain kimeti doe was very tired of being wet," she started, and the words came slowly at first and then more quickly, as she stepped into the flow of the story. "Her pelt hung heavy on her bones, her ears were cold, and she could not step ten feet without becoming stuck in mud. White light, like giant snakes, slithered from cloud to cloud above her head, and a rumbling followed, like large boulders rolling through the sky.
Above her, the clouds were gathered thickly overhead, laughing and talking to one another. Speaking in the language of the clouds, they giggled and tittered.
"This is fun!" one said, puffing up and then blowing another cold burst of air onto everything below, stirring up the leaves and making a mess of things.
"You think that's something? Watch this!" Another cloud turned a somersault, his insides rumbling and tumbling, and squeezed out a torrent of rain. The downpour crashed through the trees, soaking the swamp and sending everything -- including the kimeti doe -- running for cover.
Thunder echoed and lightning flashed, and the wind picked up so that the sky seemed fit to burst open. The kimeti doe took shelter under the roots of a mangrove, but that was little comfort. The mud was cold and the water was rising around her ankles.
She could not last here forever. All around her swirled plants and bark, rocks and insects. Overhead the rain kept pelting down through the leaves.
She raised her head, peering up into the clouds, and cried, "Stop! You must stop! I will drown if you do not!"
There was no break in the rain and the doe felt hopeless. She sighed, trying to wedge herself in and among the roots so that she wouldn't float away, and attempted to get some rest. During the night, small animals and insects climbed her legs, curling up on top of her back to find some warmth and shelter. Mongoose, foxbuns, and even a giant wasp had found refuge under the mangrove tree with her.
The next morning she again cried out to the sky, "Please, do something! You must stop raining!"
This time, however, the rising Sun heard her, as he had only just poked his head above the horizon. He soared high into the sky above the clouds and cast his blazing eye on the clouds below.
"Oh! Oh my," he said, panting. "I am so thirsty! It is so hot in all of this heat, and I am fair parched! I may go out if I do not quench my thirst!"
The clouds, obliging, showered the sun with rain -- which promptly evaporated into a hissing cloud of steam which then disappeared into thin air.
Again and again he asked the clouds for water, claiming that he simply could not get enough. He was so hot, you see, that most of it dried up. Very little of it made it into his throat.
Before they knew it, the clouds spent all of their rain. Exhausted, they turned from their deep grey into a puffy white, and then to normal clouds, as fine as foxbun hair. The light breeze broke them up into smaller clouds which began to drift across the blue sky.
"But we are rain clouds!" they moaned, looking accusingly at the sun.
"There is a time for everything," intoned the sun. "You cannot rain all the time. There is a time for rain, and a time for sunshine. Look below," it added, "at the swamp. You are driving the creatures out of it."
The clouds peered down at the grateful kimeti doe, and the hundreds of other creatures, who were just now climbing out of their dens and shelters and beginning to dry off. Many danced in thanks, calling up praises to the sky and the sun.
Now, whenever it rains for too long, the sun always turns up, in search of a drink of water."
Silence stretched out behind No Escape's story, and the riverbank was silent except for the soft breaths of her tribe members and the lap of water.
Then, one quiet voice from the fringe asked, in a longsuffering sort of way, "Did you have to tell a story about heat?"