Captivity of the Canopy

The Friaren-Tounar wars had ended decisively almost seven years before when, southern most, Leaf Tahee had finally fallen to the tounar after a seven month long siege. It had been the end of a twenty-two year long conflict that had started and ended in tounar aggression. All friaren were either enslaved under the tounar or had escaped to other lands.

The friaren were a simple but elegant species. Being one of the three primate species still in existence, their biology resembled that of humans. Individuals varied dramatically in all characteristics minus their definitive lack of hair above the ear. This diversity was a result of subspecies formation, the friaren population had been split as a result of various physical and political boundaries over the jaqueradem[1].

Also derived from this diaspara were extensive cultural differences. Both these physical and cultural oddities had been united by the recent tounar captivity. To comprehend the actions of friaren one ought to know the clock by which their time is kept.

The friaren were ancient, presumably in existence as long as the humans. Of course, historic factuality is not promised in this account, all that can be given is what would be considered generally accepted myth, though some friaren would adamantly disagree.

Humans were always intricately part of the friaren worldview. Humans were widely accepted as their distantly related family. Somehow deeply connected to their past present and future. They were intriguing and often given respect and a noble like status. The humans relatively few numbers and nomadic habits in the lands near the friaren enforced this homage. The friaren creation myth took this reverence to the extreme. Humans were the gods of the friarens. The first friaren, the female being Yi and the male Yu, were twins born of human parents. They were human king and queen, Father and Mother, of the land of the Redwood. The will of this couple had created them, as did the will of the human couples that created all other species. The purpose of friaren existence, the purpose that Father and Mother had for willing them to existence, was a point of great argument amongst the friaren.

Vuspin

His cry was a witness of his gaiety and entertainment. His bare skinned head wrinkled in an uncharacteristically confident smile of a friaren. Vuspin had been crouching low in a corner of the barrack. But upon the violent humor he had found on the tattered paper he held, he sat, folding both tails in his lap from opposite sides. He was surrounded in a semicircle by seven other standing friarens who were undoubtedly agitated. Their stare had been toward the windows with an unfocused vision, but now was directed inquisitively to Vuspin in the corner of the room, some with eyes opened wide in surprise.

Vuspin looked up from the paper without an alteration of expression, showing the remnants of what had caused his outburst.

“Be calm, my sarom[1],” he spoke with an example of the command he had given. “I am easily amused by our comrade.”

The tenseness of the room was shattered for a few instants, but thickness of silence returned. The bright light of noon bounced off the yamt[2] and once again attracted the jumping eyes of the others to its source. But Vuspin was utterly unaffected by the thoughts gripping the others. His eyes now breezed over the letter with briskness and his face’s lack of countenance demonstrated his concentration. At once, he started, dropped the paper, rose upright and waited for the others to settle into an air of attention.

“It will be decided when Pazigu arrives. The information in reference to the Victory Day[4] celebration is; first, all foremen will take leave, second, guards will have four id extension on the shifts, third, Sky Tahee[5] will be empty, and last, tounar soldiers within 300 faxes will be preoccupied in the celebration.” Vuspin’s black eyes moved from one to another of his companions in continuous motion as he spoke. Soon after, the seven took their deliberate leave single file into the light beaming through the doorway.

For the first time since soon after his own assimilation by the tounar aggressors, Vuspin allowed his mind to wander. He sat with his head tilted back, with his eyes unfocused, seeing only the scenery of his mind.

Vuspin had long before become indifferent to the encouraging promises of the guards, and to their subsequent unfulfillment. He had no longer permitted his thoughts to be detained on those whose existence ended unexpectedly and untimely. He had seen no alternative to this numb existence, and could see none in retrospect. He had learned quickly, that while in slavery, it was not prudent for the soul to be supported on specific visions of the future. Vision had a trivial quality in slavery. It was possible to desire change, but resultant action toward that aim put one’s life in danger. Vision did not have its due power in slavery because its physical manifestation was unacceptable. From the state of limbo in which he was imprisoned, the only thing he had allowed himself to envision was the general hope of a better existence, an existence where his vision and its resultant action were the authority under which his world was governed. It was a dream of making dreams reality. Any further conscious development of the future was the road to masochism. The continuum of disappointment had left only his hope and his will to live, living being the ability to act on that hope. It was this that had become his optimistic foundation, and a very firm one.

But this moment was too close and his excitement spilled over the edges of his high banks. He could no longer feel numbness.

Vuspin began to integrate the many singular ideas he had formulated in respect to the ‘revolt’, the term and process receiving meaning cohesion for the first time. In two days time, a riot would be in progress. And within a few ids, on the platforms of Sky Tahee the friaren would be making their claim. United, they were living and dying with aspiration. This is what he saw and it was happiness he felt.

Vuspin stood, shaking himself from the fantasy. He judged the thoughts as still premature. He walked from the dark corner to the large piece of bark that with hinges made the door to his home. The floor was dirt and left a path of glimmering dust in his wake. He pushed the bark aside and stepped into the light of day. He looked at the sun, until reflex jerked his eyes away. Pazigu had been educating him on the Light and capturing its strength with the eyes and mind, but as of yet Vuspin was unsuccessful. He had joked with Pazigu that the sun had burned his scalp to many times for them to be companions, but Vuspin desired deeply to learn and master the use of Light. Frustrated, he let his view fall and his eye caught Jupiter, just above the trees in the far distance to the east, his back being to the door. It was redder than the light of the sun, and smaller, but it seemed to him almost as radiant as the sun. The pristine forest, his home, had a orange tint on the lively green of leaves. He looked slightly south and was able to make out the high redwoods on which Sky Tahee was supported. It was Vuspin’s habit, in a free moment, to find these trees and even catch glimpses of its dark structure. He consciously put no significance to it, it was a distant enigma that naturally beckoned the eyes. At this time, though, Vuspin became aware of his blind gaze and coincident thought. He felt the joy of discovery that his stare and mind were one.

He noticed the grass before him, and with an urge for motion, he crouched to the ground and sprung forward to a sprint. His lowered head turned from side to side observing space pass as his four limbs caught the rhythm of a gallop and his tails cracked behind him with coincident timing. He reached the edge of the circular plateau on which the barracks stood after about 2 faxes and stopped abruptly, and stood on his hind legs. He looked over the steep decline as his chest heaved in recovery. He saw the throng of friaren around the barrels of fruit beyond the high wood fence that lay directly below him. He leaned somewhat back and shuffled down the slope for a drop of 1 fax. He eyed the tounar in the gate keeping tower the entire way down. The tounar watched him at first, but when he noticed Vuspin’s intense gaze his whole slouched body flinched and he busied himself with opening the gate. Vuspin recognized him as Tyl, the tounar guard least suited to the lack of thought required to be a guard. He had two vertical scars on his left cheek for failing to carry out two execution orders. Vuspin recalled how both Rew and Quail on different occasions were sentenced to die for attempted escape. They would stay on the plateau when the others were called to work waiting for the fate they had seen many times occur to others. In both cases, it had taken a few weeks for the event to transpire, and Yose had told Vuspin that Tyl had been responsible for the delays, orders he had not performed. Vuspin pleaded in a whisper to Woman[7] that Tyl would be on duty in two days. 

He passed through the gate and with a whine it was promptly closed behind him. As he walked amongst the tribe resting about with fruit in hand, his thoughts remained on Tyl and the possibility of a weakness to exploit. In an attempt to comprehend Tyl’s failure to carry out orders and his apprehensive behavior, Vuspin visualized himself as a tounar, a guard in this slave camp. He stood watch at the towers, he oversaw the labor, and he punished and executed offenders. At once Vuspin was struck by the thought. He stopped abruptly as he approached the almost empty barrels. His eyes to the ground in an unconscious stare, he mumbled the concluding  line from a well known fable, "And yet even on the forest floor you may not always be in the shade."

Vuspin’s teeth grated audibly as his awareness returned. He took the steps to the closest barrel and stretched to the bottom, rising with a bruised joij[8]

A Beginning and an End

The end was near, Pazigu’s eyes had already rolled back and now his gasps were farther apart. There was disturbance felt by the more perceptive that a powerful being had left reality, lost its cohesion  as an ordered independent, aware being.

His last effort was one of desperation, a regression to his primitive state as his self control had left him. Now his followers, an odd bunch, stood around, glancing up at one another. There had been great loss and many changes to optimistic plans in the preceding days. This primordial salutation punctuated the intensity of the tribulations that the group of friaren had experienced. The last gasp came and went. Their escape was complete, yet a leader had been vanquished.

They were in a room at the fort town of the Hai on Gossamer Heights. During their flight from their own lost battle, they had come across a spectacular battle between great beasts and these sleek feline hunters who now hosted them. The Hai had considered the refugees nonthreatening enough, and  had only heard of there kind since their enslavement in the south. They were interested in helping them, being themselves on frigid terms with the tounar.

Vuspin was utterly disoriented by the loss of his mentor. He could not have prepared for the effect this had on him. It was a loss that felt unrecoverable, and was in fact unrecoverable. Pazigu had been a 'sun saint' and likely one of the last. Many myths surrounded these elite beings in friaren lore and their apparent ability to store, redirect and even focus light into a tool for good or evil.. But Pazigu had been their companion, their inspiration and with his departure, a great void lingered.