Veiiaret

I reached out and grabbed a piece of wood. My small hands together could barely reach around it. I tried lifting it but it barely budged.

“Leave those there Leiio,” my father’s stern voice spoke. I looked up at my giant of a father, his big hands – one of which engulfed both of mine – reached down and easily pushed the stick back.

“But why?” I asked, kicking a stick close to the ground. “Why are you building this?”

My father’s Veiiaret Neera nudged my side, trying to push me aside. He held another stick in his jaw, my father took it and placed in on the top of the mound of sticks.

“This is how the Veiira say farewell.”

“But why?” I asked, crouching down and poking a rock. “There’s no one to say goodbye too.”

“Tonight we say farewell to your grandfather.”

I made a huffing noise. “That’s stupid.”

“I know you’re young Leiio, but you have to understand that he is gone forever.”

Forever seemed too long a time.

“But why are you building it?”

Neera growled, something that was almost a purring sound. I felt his soft feathers rubbing against the side of my side. I wrapped my little arms around his jaw and felt my eyes burning.

My grandfather was dead, they said. Dead meant gone, they said. He would never come back, they said.

I could remember sitting with my grandfather just the other day. We would often sit together and he would tell me stories of the great Brom, the founder of our people. My grandfather loved Brom so much that when his Veiiaret hatched he named him Brom as well.

“I was almost 10,” my grandfather recalled, “and Brom still hadn’t hatched. I was the only child left alone. I wanted to crack his egg open I was so eager.”

My grandfather laughed and Brom licked my face.

“My father had to keep reminding me that Brom was more than an egg, Brom was half my soul. So I waited, and Brom kept growing in his egg until he finally hatched. He spent so long in that egg that he grew bigger than any other Veiiaret.”

My grandfather patted Brom’s feathery head.

“The longer they stay in their egg, the bigger they get,” my grandfather smiled at me.

Brom was seven feet long.

Neera mouthed my shoulder, taking me out of my dream. My father looked down at me and spoke.

“You don’t have to be here, you can go play elsewhere. Just stay out of grandfather’s tent.”

I nodded and got up.

Why would I go to grandfather’s tent? There was only one place I wanted to go. Only one place I could go where the taller kids wouldn’t bug me.

Everyone was taller than me, kids my age, even kids younger than me. My teacher had told me that my father had been my size too and that he was still shorter than most men. But my father had become one of our greatest warriors.

“There’s still hope for you yet,” my teacher said, his thin bone fingers patting my head. “Size doesn’t matter. Just look at the Veiiaret, they’re not the largest Deners by far, but they are the fiercest.”

I walked through the tall trees towards the biggest tent, it was my favourite tent. It held the most important thing in the world to the Veiira, the Veiiaret eggs.

I opened the heavy leather tent flag and looked into the dark room. A small fire was in the middle and the eggs were placed in a circle near enough it to keep warm but far enough not too harm them. Each one was placed into a small ditch dug into the ground to keep them from rolling away.

“Ah, hello Leiio,” Sral greeted me with a smile. Sral was an old man with a long dark grey beard and wispy hair. His Veiiaret Etel was curled in one corner, fast asleep; but I knew Etel – or any Veiiaret – could spring awake at a moments notice.

“They’re putting sticks in a pile, it’s stupid,” I said as I walked over to one specific egg.

It was the smallest egg in the room. It was my egg, laid the same moment I was born. We were tied together, that egg and I.

Many times I had asked Sral why it took so long for eggs to hatch and why no egg hatched after the same amount of years. He always had the same answer.

“The egg hatches when you are ready.”

“Ready for what?” I would always ask.

“Ready for the responsibility of having a whole soul.”

“That’s stupid,” I would always reply.

I sat down in front of my egg and watched it closely, looking for signs of hatching. One girl’s egg had hatched two weeks ago. She was three years older than me, but I was still anxious now. How much longer would I have to wait?

“Has it moved yet?”

Sral smiled kindly at me. “Not yet, but Etel has been watching your egg closer than the others. She’ll come and fetch you when it is time.”

I poked the egg. “Will be big?”

“It’s hard to tell.”

“I want him to be taller than me.”

He laughed, a deep laugh. “Only if he stands straight up.”

“… I’m ready for him to hatch now.”

“When you’re ready, he will hatch.”

I waited for an hour, but the egg never moved that day. Finally I gave up and decided to find my father, hoping that he would be done with the stick pile.

“Goodbye,” I quickly said, Etel raised her head to find the source of the noise and then lowered it again to continue sleeping.

“Goodbye Leiio, and remember to keep away from your grandfather’s tent.”

I was already half way out of the tent and barely heard him, but I did and this time it made me pause and find my grandfather’s tent through the trees.

Why would I go to my grandfather’s tent?

And… why didn’t they want me to go there?

I stared at it for a few more seconds and then decided it wasn’t important. I ran off to find my father.

They put my grandfather on the pile of sticks. They set the sticks on fire.

“Be calm,” my father gently whispered into my ear as he held me. I buried my face into his strong shoulder, tears falling down my face.

“Why?” I choked. “Why are you burning him?”

“It’s how we’ve always done things.”

“But why?” I almost screamed, but my voice was muffled in his clothing.

“In the old days, they believed burning the body would release the soul. They thought maybe the two halves could then be united.”

“Can they?” My voice quivered.

“No…” My father’s voice seemed to quiet. “The two halves can never be one until both are dead.”

“They why are you burning him!?!”

“It is how we say goodbye.”

I spent the rest of the funeral silently sobbing, finally understanding what death really meant. And wondering what it meant to be half a soul. My grandfather and Brom were one soul, but my grandfather was dead and the two halves would remain apart until Brom died.

I wanted to see Brom, wanted to hug him and sleep on his soft side like I used to when I was with my grandfather.

Brom would lick my face and I would laugh.

I missed Brom.

When the fire began to die, my father put me down he wiped my eyes and smiled at me.

“Go home, I’m going to be late.”

“Where are you going?”

“I have something to do first. Go straight home, and don’t go to your grandfather’s tent.”

My father stood and left, heading to the chief’s tent, the second largest in the camp.

I looked towards my grandfather’s tent and knew I had to go now. What was in there? Was it Brom? Did they want me to leave him along because he was sad? I liked being left alone when I was sad, but I liked it even more when my father came in and hugged me.

I started towards my grandfather’s tent.

Halfway there the camp grew silent and darker as lights were snuffed out and people began going to sleep. I began to feel alone.

My grandfather’s tent looked so dark, and then I realized it was the only place with no light. My legs didn’t want to go forward, but I forced them to. I had to see Brom, see if he was all right. I had to tell him that even though my grandfather was gone, I would still be his friend.

Before I knew it I was standing outside the tent flap. My hand reached out, it shook and I swallowed hard.

Why was I so afraid all of the sudden?

I opened the tent flap. Cold air and silence met me.

“Brom?” I stepped inside.

It was so dark I couldn’t even see my small hands anymore. I reached out to where I remembered his torch and flint to be.

I heard a low growl, the purr of sleeping. Brom was sleeping. I smiled to myself, of course it would be dark if he was sleeping.

I lit the torch and took in my surroundings.

Brom lay curled on my grandfather’s mat. It was torn to shreds. All the objects close to Brom were broken or thrown about.

Then I saw the chain, nailed to the far side of the wall by a great metal spike. The chain ran thick over to where Brom slept and there I saw it attached to his neck.

“Brom!”

He opened his eyes and nearly dropped my torch. His eyes were wide and empty, the same eyes my grandfather had right before my father had closed his eyelids and told us he was dead.

Brom growled and his empty eyes focused on me. He stood up, his back arching and his teeth barred.

He hissed.

I wanted to ask what was wrong, but before I could Brom lunged at me, I ran to the side of the tent, trying to distance myself from him. I looked back just in time to see his lunge suddenly stop and he was lurched back by the chain on his neck.

But he didn’t stop, he was back on his feet, pulling on his chain so hard I knew it would break. He chomped his teeth at me, screeched at me, and clawed the ground with his long sickle claw.

I dropped my torch as I fell to the ground and curled into a ball, covering my ears to block out the sound.

“STOP IT!!!” I screamed.

The tent flap opened and my father calmly walk in. He looked from Brom to me.

“I told you to stay out,” he said quietly. I thought he would yell at me, but he didn’t even look mad.

“I’M SORRY!!!” I screamed and ran over to the protection of his leg, hugging it as hard as I could.

“No one can live with only half a soul,” he said and raised a long metal object. I had seen these being carried away with hunting parties before, but had never seen one in use. My father held it up with both hands, one end held near his eye and the other pointed at Brom’s growling head.

“What are you doing!?! What’s wrong with Brom!?!”

“That’s not Brom anymore, that’s not even a Veiiaret anymore. Now he’s nothing more than a wild beast, a creature with only half a soul.”

‘Wild.’ I remembered my grandfather saying something like that.

“There are creatures who look like Humans and Veiiaret, but they are wild,” my grandfather had said grimly. “They are incomplete.”

A Veiiaret with only half a soul.

I heard a loud banging noise, so loud it hurt my ears. I closed my eyes in fear and everything went silent.

When I opened them again Brom was lying still on the ground, a puddle of blood forming around his head.

“It’s all right,” I head my father say. “Their soul is one again.”

My father carried me home, not saying a word.

I couldn’t sleep that night. I kept thinking of Brom, crazed beyond recognition, a being with only half a soul.

That is what happened to the Veiiaret when they had only half a soul left.

It was hard for me to understand, and I spent weeks in near silence, only speaking to ask my father questions about why something so terrible could happen.

But the one question I couldn’t ask, couldn’t bear to hear the answer of, was what happened to a Veiira when they lost half their soul?

(The idea for this came to me right after Boxing Day. My cousin got Roboraptor for Christmas and as I watched him play with it I was reminded of a boy playing with a puppy. I started to think how cute it would be to have a Raptor for a pet. At work the next day the idea evolved until I had the basis for a civilization of Humans and Dinosaurs existing together. Right after work I went to a bookstore and bought a book on Dinosaurs. Anyway, this one plot idea entered my mind and I knew it couldn’t exist as anything other than a short story, so I thought it might be fun to just try to waters and see how the world worked on paper. I thought the best introduction would be through a child’s eye and I really wanted that last line to be in there. It was written in first person mostly because I’m in first-person mode after working on Beowulf – go check that out too! – for so long. A novel idea of when Leiio grows up is now kicking around in my skull, I won’t be posting that, though I might post more short stories that take place in this world if you liked this one. Review please! I need feedback to live!)