Off to the side, Chad did his best to stay quiet and let the handmaidens do their work, wrapping Martin’s slim body in soft fabrics and scrubbing his red-brown skin with delicately scented salves. Twisting up her (no, his, Chad had to remind himself) hair into tight braids and arranging them into long plaits that hung down across his thin back. Making him beautiful. But rather than imagine what a beautiful woman Maa’ti could become, Chatok was admiring the handmaiden’s precision and attention to detail, and he almost began to imagine himself in Maa’ti’s place. Just because he was a boy and the chief’s son, did that mean that he couldn’t also be…
“What are you gawking at, boy?” Pa’lot sighed as she caught Chad staring, snapping him out of his fantasies. “She’s in good hands, so you don’t need to stand around taking up space. Don’t you have anything better to do?”
“Oh, umm… O-of course, handmaiden. My apologies…” Chad replied bashfully, a red blush covering his body as he took a few steps toward the entrance to the tent. “Maa’ti… Umm… I-I’ll find you later, okay? Just… t-try to remember, okay? Don’t forget anything important…”
At the sound of ‘his’ name, Martin snapped out of his own daze and looked at the little dark-skinned boy with the long braids. Forget? What was there to forget…? Flashes of his old life zipped through his head, images of his old home and his old school. Old friends, his family. His real family. With as much mental effort as he could muster, he reached out and held onto those images, desperate not to lose himself any more than he already had. With a quiet nod that shook his long hair, Martin acknowledged Chad’s warning before sitting back and letting the handmaidens finish their work, trying not to worry too much about the mysterious village boy that seemed to be missing from his mind. Or, for that matter, the bit of maleness that no longer existed between his legs.
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After he left Martin behind in the tent, Chad wandered out into the village, letting his little feet guide him down the narrow paths between tents and dwellings like he’d known them his entire life. As he turned the corner, he felt a large hand gently reach out and hold him by the shoulder, and he spun around to see the tall and lean form of Nequi, Chatok’s mentor in the arts of survival.
“Your first lesson in hunting. Come,” he said simply, hefting a bow, quiver, and leather sack over his shoulder and beckoning Chad to follow him toward the jungle. Wordlessly, he hurried after the older man, glancing back and seeing the other village children happily playing together in a nearby field. Deep inside him, Chad felt his other self bubbling up and beginning to speak through his mouth, growing strong enough to push Chad aside and to let Chatok take over for the time being.
“...Can’t Ruut come? He knows the jungle quite well, so-”
“The boy is clever, but loud. He’s suited to hunt down leaves and mushrooms and other things without ears to hear him coming. He will stay here,” Nequi lectured, silencing Chatok’s question immediately. Chatok knew better than to argue with a respected tribesman like Nequi and shut his mouth.
In mere minutes, the sights and sound of the tribe’s village had faded and only the jungle remained. Nequi left the beaten path and disappeared into the jungle’s underbrush, and Chatok had to struggle to keep up with the older man. His footsteps were loud and snapped twigs, surely alerting anything nearby to his presence. Nequi looked at the young boy that he had taken on to educate and shook his head silently.
“No. Lead with step with your toe, then follow with the heel. Let your foot down gently, so as not to disturb the leaves or sticks with your weight,” he said quietly and patiently, having taught the art of silence to many young hunters over his life. Chatok focused on the man’s words and took a few experimental steps forward, his footfalls immediately much quieter thanks to Nequi’s teaching. The hunter nodded with approval before moving forward at a quicker pace, expecting his student to learn to move both quickly and silently.
Soon, Chatok and Nequi reached a quiet clearing in the jungle, and Nequi’s ears pricked up as he flattened himself against the ground. Chakot, following his lead, pressed his body against a nearby tree trunk and held his breath. Out from the jungle, a large deer slowly walked out of hiding and over to a nearby stream to take a drink of water. Chakot glanced down and saw how his own dark brown skin blended in perfectly with dark wood, and how his dark braids helped to camouflage him against the rough bark of the tree. There was a flash in the jungle boy’s mind of a big man with pale pink skin and bright yellow hair, of the man he used to be. How ridiculous that man would look trying to hide in the jungle, standing out like a brightly-colored bird instead of becoming invisible like a true native of the jungle. His red-brown skin and brown hair were so much better, Chatok concluded as he pushed the image of the man aside for now and refocused on the hunt.
With complete silence and no wasted movements, Nequi drew his bow and arrow and slowly drew back the bowstring. Chatok remained silent as he watched the hunter intently, saying silent prayers to the jungle goddess that his arrow would fly true.
Fwik! Thunk!
In the blink of an eye, it was over. The deer lay on the ground with the arrow sticking proudly out of its neck, motionless. The master hunter’s careful aim had ended its life quickly and painlessly, letting it move into its next life without suffering. Perhaps in its next life, it would be the hunter instead of the hunted, or perhaps even be reborn as a member of Chatok's tribe. Only the goddess knew which body each soul was destined to inhabit.
Nequi and Chatok let out their breaths at the same time before muttering a prayer of thanks to the goddess. Chatok stumbled on his prayer a bit, feeling a distracting tug at the back of his mind that he should be fighting back against… something. To be resisting something. But after witnessing a master tribesman like Nequi at work, what could there possibly be to object to?
So, while Chad desperately tried to reassert himself and take back control of his life from the jungle boy he was becoming, Chatok just crouched silently on a nearby root and watched with bright, curious eyes as Nequi drew his knife and began to prepare the deer’s carcass for transport back to the village.