The Crowe


Day 6, Week 6, Cycle 1


The Great Storms had come, and the rains poured down without end as the sky roared greatly throughout it all. The forest howled too like a great and ferocious predator, or perhaps akin to a lone bear was crying from the skies above in turn. The animals had all finally hidden...the rare few still moving about ran great risk otherwise. On occasion they had witnessed the bodies of those who succumbed to the might of the skies, half-stuck out of the flowing mud or washed up on the side of a mud flow. These had been scavenged for what little they had, if scavengers or the rare braver roaming predators had already eaten before having to flee the shifting land. It was as if all creation was in a tumult...

But they, they were surviving....no, thriving! They would go out and hold their bowls made of skulls to the skies, roaring along with it in glorious ferocity and drinking of the driving waters that came down upon them. They would purify themselves as the land itself was being purified, cleansed of filth and burying that which did not survive in the mud flows provided by the earth below it. Lights from the skies crashed down, smiting the ground and the trees with the might of the skies. Indeed, this was a special time of what might be called...'reverence', perhaps even 'worship'. They had to care for their own lives, but was this not a test of their strength from the skies? Was it not a test to see if this people it had awakened would rise and survive where others did not. It seemed this reverence of theirs, from preparations to survive and thrive to roaring along with the skies, had been rewarded.

Strange food grew from the ground within their stone buildings now, these earthy things that grew wherever they could like the ones the males had gathered near trees. They tasted good after being near or somewhat in the fire, albeit not for to long (much like the meat). In fact, these earthy things and meat kinda were both good together at times, almost tasting similar. Of course one or two kinda of those that grew in their fitted stone buildings had been...interesting, to say the least. The young huntress had eaten one first, when others were nervous about the strange looking new thing, and had felt like she was one with the clouds and the skies for a time...before all returned to normal. She had showed and told others of its wonders, using what sounds and meanings and gestures they were familiar with or making up as time went along.

In fact, certain sounds they made meant certain things now among all of them. "Ga" distinctly meant to leave and move to another place when said to another. "Eaf" was the earth below them, the dirt that coated them only to be washed off by rain. The light that struck forth down from the skies became called "lir", for that was came before the "kraak" (or thunder). "Vir", a noise that had become fully tied to the water of the skies and earth around them...which had in turn given way to the "Ba-Vir" that came out of their bodies and that of the animals they had slain. Water yet not water.

The gray or white water that floated up in the skies (depending on their mood) were "VirVir" (as it was water, but more so water than the normal). Other specific sounds meaning different things too existed, and more of this had been conjured forth as the storming had finally hit. Many had sat about by the fires or in stone buildings mimicking noises, using them to 'describe' things using those noises or others associated with them. It had been much fun, a way to pass the time as things had gone on around them.

There were more notable example of what they had begun to fiddle with as well. Mud had eventually become called "Eaf-Vir" or "Eafvir", as it was a meeting of the earth and the skies as one in a dangerous yet also potentially useful union. Storms had become dubbed "Vir-Kra-Bö", putting together parts of the sounds they had made. Then most importantly...the voice of the sky itself was in need to be given a sound, like all other things. What they called it, however, was as the matriarch had one day sounded out of it as she had mimicked its noises: "Kraak-Böm". The great Kraak-Böm that ushered forth like a great animal, speaking to them in sounds similar to their own and calling out to them to awaken and survive. It had brought their minds a magnificent lir that had never been given to their kind by anything else, which had allowed them to thrive and grow since its call had rung true within them.

They had then cried the given sound of the skies back to it as they had worshiped it aloud and with celebration. This sound had begun to become special, specific to the voice of the skies that had brought them up from being just animals. One could say this sound was the "name" it had received. The first name. The only name, which sung and roared and cried louder than any other thing in this world. Indeed, they wished to become like that too. They wished to be just as strong as the skies, to cry aloud with a great kraak like it did. They desired to send down the blinding and dangerous lir upon others as it did, to evaporate that which ever sought to harm them. They would cross over the seemingly infinite Eaf and be the mightiest among all, drink of the Kraak-Böm's Ba-Vir as it came down from the VirVir to take in its might and immense strength into themselves.

But then what of the young huntress who had been the first too heed and understand the great voice of the skies? That had been the next order of business after the sounds had been assigned to the skies and their great voice. To her had been assigned that noise she had cried aloud as the skies had echoed her cry, the cry which had awoken the rest of them from their deep slumber of mind. Roa, she who was favored by Kraak-Böm. Then to the matriarch, who was closest to her and mightiest among them, who had found the stones and recalled the kraak-like noises they made when they were dropped on each other, "Krai". Beyond that, the others had begun to make noises for themselves with all the added time they had to sit about the fires as Kraak-Böm wrought its work upon the land.

Of course in all of this, the huntresses still sought what they could when it was safe enough and the woods were the safest areas to go since the mountain's other parts were still dangerous. When their former traps had of course filled with water and mud, they had begun to improvise. Yet seeing what happens when rocks fell or slid about from their places during storms, not from their buildings that is, they had gained another idea eventually. Placing rocks and sticks and bait, where prey would make the stick fall and the rock fall on them with a great kraak upon them. It worked better with the rain and mud, aat least, even more so in the forest where animals most desperately sought food. In fact, throwing the far smaller smoother stones from the river, some of which they had formerly collected in putting buildings together, had some effect when the spears were too light or large to be thrown as well in the wind.

But what they had acquired of food before all of this had been...stretched, once they had realized hunting would be much more scarce and eaten a single feast after celebration. Though when a male had left meat by the fire and its smoke for too long, as they had been rushing to repair a leak in one building that day and had forgotten, something interesting too had happened. The meat had dried out, like the soil when the rains did not come for a long time, and it hadn't stunk when they had put it to the side for a time. It was harder to eat after, but...it had worked? Krai had demanded the group do more of this, once she and the young huntress had tasted of it. Even doing this with mushrooms was something they had also begun to try this with as well. Whatever would maybe help them survive better, perhaps, to see things through the end of Kraak-Böm's great time of activity.

The pelts too were useful, when kept far more whole and dried by the fire a little (a thing found when a wet one was placed near the fire) and draped about the shoulders of the Crowe. They too kept out the water when it came down upon their bodies, made them less wet when they did not want to be and made the wind not be too cold. This was good, and all had quickly begun donning the whole pelts to protect them from the wind at least.