Primates
Coarse white pebbles crunched under his toes as Stob landed on the beach away from the islands. It was hot and the air was heavy. Stob looked over his shoulder at the islands, and somewhere beyond them, home. Two seasons had passed and it was now summer. Home... What home? Stob's ears dropped sadly. Until this curse was gone, there was no "home" to go home to. He had to free his kind from this awful two-foot form.
The grey kurach wandered aimlessly in this new world. There were no wolves or foxes that he saw, but there were plenty of cats. Spotted cats, but not like the bobcats of his forest. Some were big, even bigger than the cougars and rivercats he had encountered on the prairie near the looming mountains. The little monkeys flitting from tree to tree were amusing. They had funny faces! Their faces were so flat they were like flabby-beaked owls.
Monkeys were not to be the last primate he had contact with. One muggy afternoon as he dozed in the shade of a great tree, he was suddenly awakened by having a net thrown over him. Immediately enraged, he felt himself shift to the awful two-foot form. Stob ripped the net off of him and looked around for what had thrown the knotty ropes. He felt a sharp sting in his leg and knew no more.
When he awoke he found himself in some kind of pit with angular branches growing on the ceiling. He tried to fly his way out, but the branches would not give. Becoming frightened, he circled the pit several times, testing it for a weak place by digging. No use. He was trapped. More of those monkeys were above him now, but they were bald with strange tufts on their heads, a bit like the horses he had seen. "Let Stob out!" he barked.
"What's it saying, Papa?" a girl asked.
"I do not know," Maali replied.
"Zat Stob imt!" barked the winged wolf.
"Stay away from it, Sa'ida," her father warned. "It's a werewolf."
"Since when do werewolves fly?" Sa'ida wondered aloud.
"I do not know. The village scholars want to study it," he shrugged. "Come along. It's time for dinner."
"What of the werewolf?" she asked as she followed him.
"It will be fine," he answered.
Night came and went. Stob paced his enclosure uneasily. He wanted out! What was worse, he was held prisoner by two-foots. They did not seem to be like Pek and the other bad kurach, but it made him very nervous. He stopped his pacing and looked up through the criss-crossed bars so near yet so far above his head. The moon was shining tenderly at him, her broken beams glistening off his glossy black wings. Stob closed his eyes and howled a slow, mournful howl to her, begging her forgiveness for wandering so far from home and getting himself trapped in an unnatural den.
"It's crying, Papa!" Sa'ida said to her father.
"Likely angry at being caged," Maali replied nonchalantly as he wove a basket. "Just ignore it."
"It is not wise to bring such creatures into the village," Poupak hissed. "What if it breaks free and devours us in the night?"
"The pit has proven effective on past werewolves until the holymen can properly perform the rites on them and lay them to rest. We will be fine," Maali said.
"Ma, it spoke to me," Sa'ida said to her mother. "It said 'zat stob imt'. Do you know what that means?"
"Sounds like 'lost' to me," Poupak shrugged. "All werewolves are lost souls. It makes sense. Think no more of it, Sa'ida. No good can come from associating with one taken by the demons."
Sa'ida fell silent and continued her studies as her younger siblings and cousins played with their dolls. She rose early the following morning as she usually did and helped her mother and aunts prepare breakfast and tend to the yard fowl before asking permission to go see the werewolf.
"Law! What interest have you in such a beast?" Faimina asked incredulously.
"It's different from the others. It can fly and talk, and it's only a sliver of a moon! Werewolves are too weak to hold their form in such an old moon," Sa'ida replied. "I feel that I need to reach out to it."
"Mind you keep your fingers and toes away from its mouth," Faimina said sternly. "If it starts persuading you to do the demon's work, you'll not see it again."
"Thank you, Mausi!" Sa'ida exclaimed and embraced her aunt. She stopped at the door long enough to put on her slippers before darting outside.
