Chapter Text
“Go on, you won’t hurt my feelings,” Lia prodded, laughter coloring her warm, husky voice. “I know you have some juicy human jokes. Telling jokes about people different from you is a universal trait - goes across all species with language. It’s a fact of life.” She tore her gaze from the crackling stone-ringed campfire to the figure seated on the log next to her, the fire casting his alien features in a warm glow. She bumped her elbow against his, eliciting a smirk from his distinctive visage that was somewhere between a human face and a deer’s snout in appearance. The faun—Kepmuu, in his own tongue—opened his broad mouth as if to interject, then closed it in hesitation.
Sensing his continued apprehension, she acquiesced somewhat, raising her callused palms toward him in a disarming gesture. “Okay, fine, fine. Would you feel better if I told you a faun joke first? You can think of the human joke as payback.”
He turned his head, literally bending his long, floppy ear to her. “Ugh. Fine. But only if you go first.” His baritone grunt mostly feigned irritation, as his smirk deepened to a sincere half-smile. The caribou-like extraterrestrial shifted the weight of his broad, barrel-chested frame on the log and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Just be mindful of the little ones.” He gave a glance across the campfire to the two young fauns staring at them, squirming on the log across the fire, eager to hear the jokes so they could parrot them to the others in their little village.
Lia suppressed a devilish grin, knowing that her most rancid faun jokes were not safe for young ears. She would have to save those for when she had Ke’eba all to herself. “Okay, deal. Well, here’s one for you: what’s the difference between a faun and a coat rack?”
The Kepmuu artisan next to her stared at the campfire in silence, blinking slowly. One of the burning logs popped as a pocket of resin ignited, bearing a cinder aloft in the smoke, interrupting the chorus of nocturnal creatures singing their haunting mating calls. The human-faun duo watched in silent unison as the cinder hovered like a red-hot glowbug before settling on some damp moss near Ke’eba’s umber fur-fringed hooves. “Go on then. What is the difference between a faun and a coat rack?”
“A coat rack doesn’t burst into song when you hang a scarf on it,” Lia retorted, poorly suppressing her laughter at her own joke. After a pregnant pause, Lia turned her head back to the faun, gauging his expression. “Get it?”
He furrowed his brow, his half-smile turning into a frown. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Come on, don’t make me explain the joke, now.”
The faun turned to the two kids sitting across the campfire. “What do you think, you two? Do you get it?”
The elder of the two children, a pubescent girl nearing her season of growing her spike-antlers, shrugged. The younger, who likely still had a couple years yet, shook her head. “Coat… rack? I’ve never heard of that. Is that a human thing?”
Lia sighed. It was no wonder she had such a tough crowd. “I suppose it is. It’s like… a stand with hooks that you can hang a bunch of coats on. Or hats. Or scarves. You know.” Lia felt the breeze emptying from her sails as she realized she was going to have to explain the joke to the three fauns. “Look, the joke is that fauns hang stuff from their antlers and sing all the time. That’s it.”
The two kids met her with blank stares. She turned to her left to see Ke’eba giving her a cocked eyebrow. “Do all you Amonuunkep have such a terrible sense of humor?” He concealed a smug smile, as if her pitiable attempt at telling a joke fell so flat it wrapped around to being slightly funny.
Lia gave the faun a playful slap on his burly shoulder. “Okay, Mister Comedic Genius, let’s hear your human jokes then, if they’re so much better.”
“Well, now that I know how low the bar is, maybe I don’t have to be so apprehensive about it.” Ke’eba closed his eyes and sat in silence, as if to draw out the anticipation.
“A man, young among the Amonuunkep and just past his first rut, sought a bride. He heard that a wise woman lived in the nearby Kepmuu village, and that she could help him find the right mate for him.
“The man, upon hearing this rumor, wasted no time. He packed his traveler’ss gear and made the journey to the faun village, requesting an audience with the wise woman. ‘I am searching for a bride worthy of one of my stature,’ he proclaimed, upon finding her weaving outside her hut.
“The wise woman looked the human up and down, sizing him up. ‘Very well,’ she said, setting aside her skeins of yarn. ‘I will help you find a mate who suits you. I will ask you three questions and you must answer them truthfully. Are you ready?’
“’Yes, of course,’ said the human, ‘Let’s hurry it up. I cannot spare a moment longer without knowing who I will marry.’
“The wise woman replied, ‘First, what trait do you admire most in yourself?’”
“The human pounded a fist to his chest and stated ‘I love many things about myself, but what I love most of all is that I am never satisfied.’
“The wise woman nodded and continued. ‘And what trait do you admire most in others?’
“The human shook his same fist in the air and replied, ‘I love it when others obey my fleeting whims.’
“The wise woman nodded once again, deep in thought. ‘And finally, what do you seek in this life?’
“The human thought for a moment, then another moment, then another. The wise woman waited patiently while he considered her question. ‘I seek to be respected by all the other humans around me!’ he proudly proclaimed.
“At this, the wise woman herself took a moment to consider the man’s responses to her questions. ‘I think I have the perfect bride for you,’ she stated. ‘A bride only a human like yourself could appreciate. In fact, I can introduce you right now.’
“The young man was overjoyed. ‘Is that so? Well, don’t delay! I wish to meet her immediately and take her for my own!’
‘Of course,’ the wise woman replied. ‘She is right here.’ The wise woman reached into a small wooden box and pulled out a silver coin, handing it to the man. The man held the coin up to see the face of a human woman embossed on it. At the sight of her beauty, the human began to weep. ‘She’s beautiful,’ he exclaimed. ‘Truly, this is the only woman meant for me!’
“The two were promptly married in the human village, but their relationship went sour when he realized he was not satisfied with only one woman.”
Lia waited to ensure that Ke’eba didn’t have anything else to add, but the giggling of the two girls across the fire signaled that he had probably delivered the punchline. “Okay, not bad, not bad, I guess. I see what you’re getting at—‘humans are greedy and pushy, and whatever’,” she pouted.
“Does this not entertain you?” Ke’eba brought his head mere centimeters from that of the human woodsman. “Is this not quite literally what you asked for?”
“She’s just mad that Uncle Ke’eba is the better joke-teller!” taunted Uya, the elder of the two girls.
“Quiet, you!” Teased Lia, “Or I’ll tell this big oaf to ground you two.”
“Uncle Ke’eba would never do that, would you, Uncle Ke’eba?” Uya’s younger sister Niabo jumped up from her seat on the log and began to run around the campfire toward him.
Ke’eba himself stood up to intercept the young girl. “Careful, careful! Uncle might not ground you for telling the truth,” he said, scooping up the child as if she were but a house cat, “but he will ground you if you fall in the fire and burn to a crisp.”
“Mmm, roast faun!” the hunter replied, leaning into another stereotype held by some of the fauns she had interacted with. As Ke’eba sat back in his seat with the child still in his arms, Lia held her hands out menacingly and inched closer to Niabo. “Don’t mind if I do!”
Niabo squealed in a mixture of terror and delight as Lia laughed menacingly, moving in to tickle the young faun’s vulnerable ribs. “I’m going to enjoy devouring some tasty faun flesh!” Lia boomed. Before she could apprehend Niabo, however, Uya piped up. “No playing around the campfire!” She crossed her arms authoritatively, her frown casting a hard shadow in the firelight.
Uya was right, of course: playing around the fire was one of the non-negotiable campfire safety rules, right up there with “too hot to touch, too hot to leave.” “Oh fine,” Lia conceded. “You win this one, ya bunch of horn-heads.”
The two kids cheered, especially Niabo, who Lia had learned was at an age where she needed to pit herself against someone else at all times. Usually her longsuffering sister played the role of rival, but whenever a certain human stopped by on one of her hunting trips, interspecific competition ruled the day.
“You know, humans may not eat us, but that’s not to say that there weren’t people out there who did, in our history,” Ke’eba stated, interrupting the girls’ celebration.
Uya snapped to attention. “Oh, are you talking about the, um, oh what are they called again? Yuyu… Yuyu something?” she interjected, her enthusiasm slightly outstripping her vocabulary.
Ke’eba shifted little Niabo around so he cradled her like an infant, getting more comfortable on the log as his niece settled down. He nodded to Uya’s response. “The Yuuyapit’ta, we called them—very good. You remembered!”
“Of course I remembered,” Uya retorted. She turned to Lia. “In case you didn’t know, Uncle Ke’eba is the best storyteller in all of U’snuk and Pinuntuu!”
Lia flashed Ke’eba a knowing glance, but she feigned ignorance. “Is that so? Are you sure he’s the best around?”
Niabo sat up in Ke’eba’s arms to stare down Lia, bracing herself against her uncle’s chest with one arm and against his forearm with the other. “Uh, yeah! Everyone goes to him when they want to hear stories. How could you not know this?”
“Hmm… I’m not so sure. Besides, what’s the point of telling stories anyway. Seems like a waste of time, especially around a campfire on a beautiful summer evening!” Playful sarcasm practically dripped from Lia’s voice as she goaded the faun fawns into bragging about their uncle.
“Ooh, you gotta show her, Uncle Ke’eba,” the competitive Niabo challenged, kicking her legs in the air. “Prove it to her that you’re the best storyteller that there ever was!”
“Yeah, Uncle Ke’eba, tell us all a story!” Her elder sibling echoed.
Lia watched as Ke’eba gave a smile that could only come from the kind of heartwarming sincerity embodied by a child’s enthusiasm. Though he hid his storytelling expertise behind a curtain of modesty, Lia was well aware that not only did he have a burning passion for the oral history of his people, but also something between a reputation and an unofficial position as the lorekeeper of U’snuk-Pinuntuu. Trapping the faun in front of an evening fire was a surefire way to get him to recount a legend or two.
“Oh, very well,” Ke’eba responded mid-sigh, sounding more put upon than he assuredly felt. “It’s true that we honor those who came before by sharing stories around the fire, just as they did about those who came before them. The act of communing through storytelling around a fire - whether it is the hearth-fire or campfire - is sacred. It is a part of what it means to exist as Akepmuu. We do this so that we can remember how to live with respect for one another and the earth.”
As Ke’eba spoke, Lia turned her gaze to the stars, the faun’s rich voice lulling her into something of a trance. The fire provided enough of a glow to where she could see a trail of smoke lick between the gap in the trees and then vanish under the deep indigo of the night sky. The moons had not risen over the canopy of the narrow forest clearing in which they had stopped for the night, meaning that the tapestry of stars provided the only other source of light besides the fire. How fitting it would be for Ke’eba’s voice and the light of the campfire mingle to join this tapestry in the sky.
“Long ago,” Ke’eba began, “long before the warm-lands-people came from the beyond the world where sky touches star, a village of our people suffered through a long, bitterly cold winter. And in this village lived the Daydreamer, who shunned helping her family forage for the village’s food in the short, freezing days. Instead, the Daydreamer preferred to while away all hours thinking about all the places in the world she longed to see. Each day, as she halfheartedly scouted for a tender shoot or still-green cluster of leaves deep-frozen beneath the snow, she planned her escape from the village to find her own way, away from the migratory route her village had traveled for innumerable generations, to places she had heard tales of: a land of towers made of black sand at the shore of a vast sea, or a forest so rich that the tree trunks themselves grew a green fur coat of moss and the animals resembled polished gemstones in a rainbow of colors. Each night she would concoct her plan of escape, until one night, much like tonight, the moons were dim and the stars were bright. Tonight, the Daydreamer resolved. Tonight would be the night that she seized her destiny.”