.8
Yahna
Waves broke upon hills of sand as the sun rose behind a tropical beach forest. Mahya rubbed his eyes stretched out his arms and yawned. From his hemp strewn hammock that twisted forward and back squeaking slightly with his movements, he could see his sister preparing breakfast in the tree hut across from him. He looked down between the hammock net to the jungle floor some 150 feet below him and saw a few fishermen returning home with a giant fish tied to sticks held by four men. He could smell the scales from here, and looked forward to dinner. He bounced from the hammock, swung on a branch, the canopy twirled green wheeled above him, and landed in the hut where his sister poured juice from a round spiky fruit with long thin leaves and yellow skin, into wooden cups. He tugged at her boarskin pants and shirt.
"What's for breakfast?"
"Good morning Mahya. Nice of you to join us." She had been up for a few hours working with her mother, preparing for the day, while Mahya lazed about in his hammock.
"Is it sweetbread?" His voice rose with hope.
"You did not get any syrup yesterday like mother asked." He closed his mouth dejected. She chopped leaves and sprinkled them in the cups.
"Not fruit pudding again." She rolled her eyes to his whining.
"Perhaps you should get the ingredients to the breakfast you want, and then I can sleep while you cook."
"Oh, you're doing a fine job. Besides, I wouldn't want to interfere with your wife training." He ducked as a giant wooden spoon came flying at his head. She went back to stirring, a bird chuckled somewhere behind them.
"Leyah?" His voice softened and he leaned over the table she was working over.
"Yes Mahya?" She answered reluctantly as she stirred. The fruit concoction began to thicken and her stirring slowed. He took the bowl from her and his vigorous stirs caused some of the pudding to spill over the side.
"How long til the Yahna?" He asked as he fingered the lip of the bowl and sucked on it.
"You just asked me that yesterday." Leyah laid out more bowls and chopped stocks of leaves with orange bulbs at the end.
"I know how long from yesterday, but how long from today?" He stirred again more carefully but just as vigorous.
"About 7 moons, Mahya." Sun rays, orange and sleepy meandered through the hut between them as they worked. Noise followed close behind, as more villagers awoke. A dancing branch creaked and a thud onto the bamboo walkway of the hut interrupted them. Thick ankles atop hurried hardened feet entered and tore through the hut, and a round woman, tall and firm, tidied the floor and finalized breakfast as the children took their places around the table. Anjah looked at her children and let the sunlight across her face.
"Thank you for helping, Mahya." She sat across from them and laid out raw chunks of meat that bled on their plates, licking her fingers of the red trickles.
"I did most of it." Leyah winced as she recognized the whining she emitted. Anjah ignored it.
"Your father will be here in a moment. Do not pester him. He's tired" They sat quietly for a moment. The sunlight yellowed slightly now awake and prepped for the day. The chattering bird flew in from a window and sat upon Mahya's head.
"Mother? Can we have sweetbread tomorrow?" Mahya sat his head on his knuckles with his elbow on the table. The bird cocked his head to the left waiting for the answer.
"Did you find the syrup?" She asked as she searched the door for her husband.
"I will today!"
"If you find the syrup then Leyah will make the bread." Mahya smiled and the bird flapped his wings and hopped.
"Why can't Mahya make the bread and I find the syrup?" Anjah whipped her head around at her daughter.
"Syrup finding is for the boys! Girls make the bread! You know that Leyah." Leyah forked the bleeding meat on her plate.
"With thoughts like that I wonder if Canj will marry you."
"Good." Leyah breathed out beneath her tongue.
"What was that?" Before she could inquire further the thick branch heaved and the leaves swooshed and a huge thud shook the hut. A giant man bowled through the door and put a flaming rock at the center of the table, then disappeared into another room. Anjah fanned the flames until the rock just glowed red and smoked. The Burly man bustled to the table, his giant wide shoulders and biceps blocked the sun and he clasped his fingers together and closed his eyes. The rest of the family did the same.
"Gaia prepared us and made us strong to cherish and make use of her gifts in the light, so that we may defend her in the night, and strengthen her with our might. Amen." They touched their fingers to their hearts and to their foreheads then they all slapped the bloody meat on the heated rock.
"How was fishing Oncoa?" Anjah spoke over the sizzling meat.
"Good." Oncoa nodded and bit the orange root bulb that was dwarfed in his giant palm. Mahya guzzled his juice. "We got a great fish for tonight." Finishing the juice Mahya had a large red ring around his lips. "And a surprise for the Yahna." Oncoa smirked mischievously revealing large dimples in his cheeks. His mustache was thick under his nostrils and thinned at the edge of the crease of his lips and his beard was cut close but shabbily.
"What is it father?" Mahya fed his leaves to the bird with the red stripes and black feathers, perched on his head.
"Mahya what did I say about pestering?" Anjah snapped.
"Don't feed that to Tridder. I gathered and prepared those for you!" Leyah snatched the thin leaves from the bird's beak and tossed them back to Mahya's plate. The bird chirped wildly and flapped his wings. Oncoa laughed boisterously and heartily and sipped from his juice. They all flipped their meat over to cook the other side.
"You'll have to wait till Yahna to find out." He beamed on his son, yellow light crested behind him and the jungle came alive with the shuffling of the day. Birds chattered, monkeys howled, and the villagers talked and rustled and took barrels and filled them and carried buckets and chopped vegetables and picked fruit and fed pets and laughed and haggled and argued and babies cried and on the edge of the jungle an old man knelt in the sand and laid his head upon a log and watched the waves pull up on the shore and heard the water call his name, and he closed his eyes and thought of his wife for the last time.
They grabbed their meat from the rock and cut into it with wooden utensils. Mahya grabbed for his pudding.
"Eat your meat first." His father growled a whisper gently without looking up from his cutting. Mahya obeyed and cut into his meat. Tridder hid behind Mahya's black scraggly hair. They ate the thin meat that fell into flakes on their tongues. It was warm and melted like butter.
"Your mother wants to talk to you Oncoa." Anjah spoke only after Oncoa had finished his meat and was spooning his pudding. It was sweet and thick and he felt like a boy again momentarily transported to his father's hut at his mother's table, greedily filling his cheeks with the yellow swirled dessert.
"I need a nap." He responded finally, handing his half eaten pudding to Mahya who lapped it up without tasting it. It pleased him to see his son happy and fat, though Mahya had lost his baby fat over the summer and was tall and lean now, no longer a boy. "Mahya. I want you to go gather the heating rocks. Be back before I awake." Mahya looked up from his pudding, another ring of yellow around his lips. He wanted to protest but his father's stare broke his words and he nodded in compliance.
Leyah had barely finished her meat and root bulb. "Leyah you go to Canj's hut and help his mother with the chores.
"Can't I stay here and clean up breakfast?" Leyah was bolder than Mahya when it came to their father. He wanted to say yes, he never wanted her to leave his hut, but it was out of his control. The village had spoken long ago, and next year it would be her duty to continue the traditions of the village. The Ahcaha were here long before he and his daughter. And if they were to continue to be here, she would have to grow up.
"No. Your duty is there today. Both of you go now." His voiced boomed kindly and they shot up out of their chairs. Mahya followed Leyah. He grabbed her pudding and put it on his head and Tridder fell in the cup. Anjah watched as they disappeared out of the hut and their branches dipped and the leaves shook as they swung away to other trees and past other huts. Oncoa took Leyah's orange bulb root and what was left of her meat and leaves and made makeshift sandwich and gnawed at it as he walked into the bedroom. Anjah followed behind him.
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