[Mkguild] Nunly's Lutins - part 9

[Mythril Vulpes]

                          Nunly's Lutins

                         by Mythril Vulpes


------------ Part 9 - Awakening


  The Chief shook his head trying to clear it. He felt like he had been
walking in his sleep for days. He looked up to see his tribe spread
out over the field, some moaning, some snoring, some struggling to their feet.

  There seemed to be something wrong with his eyes. As he tried to assess the
status of his tribe, it seemed Lutins would appear out of thin air.  Some
even seemed to fade in and out of existence. The flickering made his eyes hurt,
which only made his head ache more.

  "Nunly! What happened?" groaned the Chief.

  He didn't really expect an answer, but closing his eyes and listening
stopped he pain from watching Lutins flickering. Unfortunately, some cat nearby
was wailing, and that made his head hurt.

  "Nunly, where are you?"

  The sound of his own voice drowned out the cat for a moment, but once he
stopped yelling he could hear the cat again. The yawling of the cat seemed to
echo in his head, and reminded him of Nunly whining about some meaningless
complaint he had about the tribe.

   "Nunly, can you hear me?"

  The Chief looked around when the heard the cat again, and was surprised to
see it sitting on Nunly's rock. An orange cat, just sitting there. The Chief
found it difficult to think of it as a throne, and the cat sitting on it made
the thought of it being a throne simply too funny to be taken at all seriously.

  "Nunly!"

  The cat looked up and stared at Yammi with bright orange eyes. "Meow."

  "Nunly!"

  "Meow!" The cat stared with glowing eyes.

  "Nunly!"

  "Meow!!" The cat answered in a agitated way. It continued to stare.

  "Nunly?" the Chief asked, staring at the cat.

  "Meow." The cat answered. Board with the game, the cat began cleaning it's
face, while sitting regally on the rock.

  The Chief took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The cat answered
him when he called for Nunly. That seemed obvious. The question was,
how could a cat be Nunly? Or Nunly be the cat? If only the flickering
of the Lutins would stop, he could think. He took in another deep breath.

  "Ok cat, are you Nunly?" the chief asked without actually expecting an
answer.

  The cat looked him right in the eye, and nodded his head up and down.

  "Oh." The Chief knew the cat was Nunly. He didn't know how, but Nunly
was now a cat. And if Nunly could turn into a cat, what else had happened?

  The Chief took another deep breath and looked around. And then he took
another. And yet another.  As he continued to look around,
muttering to himself "Something just doesn't smell right."

  And then it hit him. It really didn't smell right. He took a careful
breath and let it out. He took a second, and a third. And then it hit him.
It wasn't that something smelled wrong, it was that something didn't smell
right. Or rather, it was a lack of smell. He was unable to smell anything
like a Lutin, while he was in the middle of them. The realization made him
sit down on a nearby rock, shaken to his core. Then a Lutin appeared
directly in front of him, and he could no longer ignore the flickering
of the Lutins.

When he could focus his eyes again, the Chief saw it was Mock. When Mock
looked up and saw the Chief he yelled "Hey Chief, look what I can do!"

  And the Mock vanished.

  The Chief stared at the spot where Mock vanished, leaving behind a
faint outline of footprints in the dirt. And then additional footprints
appeared, leading away from the spot the Lutin vanished.

  "Hey Chief, try it out. This is fun. Lets eat." called Mock's voice from
the location of the new footprints.

  The Chief knew then what Nunly had done. He knew without a doubt that
Nunly was responsible for the lack of Lutin smell, and the ability of
the Lutins to disappear. He didn't understand why Nunly wanted to be a
cat, but that was his problem.  Now, the Chief had other problems.

  Yammi looked out over the Lutins and knew he had a responsibility
to keep control, and not let them panic.

  "Panic" he thought, "more like going crazy with fun."

He knew from experience that a full belly would to wonders to keep Lutins
under control. So the thing to do was to get them organized to start eating.

  "Tribe, it's time to eat!" he roared. At least the tribe had enough
sense to listen to him, he thought. In fact, they all seemed to be
paying more attention to him than usual. They all actually seemed to be
paying direct attention to him instead of hitting each other, scratching
their butts,  or any of the other things they did when he tried to talk.

  "What are we going to eat?" one voice called out from the pack. "All we
have here is moss, and that doesn't look so good."

  Yammi was shocked. The tribe picked this area as much to have easy
access to the moss as the fact is resembled their old home. He looked
around and found a nice looking patch in the shade under a nearby bolder.
He reached out a grabbed a juicy looking patch. He held the patch up and
cried "What's wrong with this?"

  The same voice answered "Taste it."

  Looking at the moss, it looked just like the moss he had eaten before,
so he took a bit byte. As he chewed, the taste brought back memories of
their old home, and how he was lucky enough to find a large untouched
piece of moss for himself. As he chewed, he knew it tasted just like
before, exactly as it did before. So he spit it out.

  The tribe waited on him, with some laughing a little as he spit out the
moss.  Looking around to find something else they could eat. He saw Nunly Cat
sitting, staring toward the way out of the valley.

  Yammi had wondered why Nunly had chosen to stay at the upper level
of the valley. The Chief remembered the smell of the fruit on the
trees, and for some reason it seemed a lot more attractive today than
yesterday. Well, it couldn't be any worse than this moss.

  "Ok, so lets go find some food. Everyone up to the upper level and
spread out."

  The tribe started marching, but was soon running up the path. When the
came up to the upper level, the tribe spread out and started grabbing
everything they could reach. Yammi was amazed, but found himself
walking forward to the trees. He reached up and picked a low hanging
fruit and bit into it. He had eaten fruit before, but this was so
totally different he couldn't believe it. As he picked and ate more,
he realized that this was another one of the changed that was
associated with Nunly. What else was different, he wondered.

  As he ate he could hear the members of his tribe talking to each other,
commenting on he fruit, complaining about the valley they had
chosen to live in the lower valley, when this was the ideal site
for their new home. The grumbling was widely distributed, but kept
to a minimum as the tribe ate everything they could reach.

  Yammi was surprised at the grumbling. In the past, any decision he
made was taken as law; no arguments, no grumbling, no disagreements.
He realized that things were changing, and the if he wanted to keep
control as chief, he would have to do something to show his authority.
He knew that keeping the tribe busy in the past had kept fights to a minimum,
so his plan was to keep the too busy to think.

  "Tribe, Assemble" he cried.

  The tribe assembled in front of him, looking expectant.

  "We are returning to the valley. Tribe, YO!" Yammi yelled.

  The tribe followed him down the path to the lower valley, where he
led them to the open area. He stood on the rock that he had called his
throne and looked around.

   "This is the valley we settled in as our home" he started. "He we have
made our new lives."

  Yammi looked around, and wondered why. he could hear the tribe start to
mutter to each other, and it was plain they were thinking the same thing. Now
was the time to do something to show his leadership.

  "All of us who have made this valley our home, welcome. This is were we
will stay." He heard the Lutins groan. "But for me, I will gather my
belongings and move to the upper valley. All those who are coming with me,
gather what you have, and lets move!"

  The Lutins cheered, and quickly scattered to their caves. Yammi quickly
ducked into his cave and looked around. The stream running through the cave
gave it a strange smell, and he was in a hurry to leave. He grabbed his sword
and wondered if Nunly's spell had somehow tried to destroy it, as it was in
sorry shape indeed. He looked for his staff, and passed over it 3 times
before recognizing it. He picked it up, and it was indeed his staff of office.
But now, it looked nothing like an official staff, but more like something
chewed on by rodents. The problem was, he could recognize every crack, nick and
cut in the staff, so he knew it was the real thing.

  What happened, he wondered. What had changed? His reverie was interrupted by
the calls of the gathering Lutins outside. Time enough to wonder about
that later, for now, time to be the Chief.

  Yammi left the cave and marched to the assembly area. The tribe was urging
him on, as they were ready to go. He looked around and held up his hand.

  "Wait" he yelled.  He could see two Lutins were missing. The fact he even
knew two were missing bothered him, but he was getting used to being bothered
by things he didn't understand.

  "Wait for the ALL members of the tribe."

   Mock and Loom came running up, hitting each other in the arms as they
blamed each other for being late. Yammi glared at them and
yelled "Tribe YO" and led them on the run out of the lower valley.

  Yammi had no idea what he would do next, but he had the belief that this
would work out all right. As he thought on what part of the upper valley
he would live in, Nunly Cat ran past on the way up out of the valley.
Yammi thought that while a lot things might be different, as least he was
unchanged.

  As they came up out of the lower valley, Yammi saw Nunly Cat chewing on
a mouse. He recalled the way Nunly had always been picky about what he ate,
and would often refuse to drink at the same pool as the Lutins. Watching Nunly
chew on the mouse, Yammi remembered the times he had been starving and would
have gladly taken the mouse from Nunly for himself. In fact, there were times
when he wasn't so hungry that he would have taken the mouse anyway. And with
that thought, he realized just how much they had changed.

  Yammi took a breath, and smiled at the mix of flowers and fruit.

  "Lets Eat!" he cried.

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