Week 10 Story: Hand and Hoof

"Wh...? Why do I...feel so stiff? Okay, get a hang on yourself, Ritchie. You set up camp, saw a nice savanna sunset, cleaned your gun for a while, then went to bed..."

Coming to, he sat in a strange situation: weary wooden walls surrounded him, assortments of bottles, masks, and tools littered the shelves upon them. Looking at himself, the same T-shirt and safari vest from yesterday adorned his scrawny frame, and the same khakis...

Oh, and his arms were bound with rope, his rifle gone. That definitely got him awake.

“What in the-?! Who?! What?!”

“Awake, are you?”

Ritchie froze at the rattly, feminine voice that approached from a large pot.

The…creature that spoke hardly appeared human, though it stood like one. Its short figure drenched in baggy robes, toned like acacia trees, with a head covered by a stoic wooden mask resembling a human face, a pair of curved horns rising from it.

“W-Who are you?! Where...?! Wh-”

“Silence.” She snapped. “You may call me Imani. You are in the forest, in my home. I am what you might call a shaman…a medicine woman…a witch doctor.”

“S-Shaman…?” Ritchie trembled. “What kind of...?”

“Whether they exist or not is irrelevant.” Imani said. “You are a hunter, correct? Your kind is not welcome here…”

“W-Wait…! Please! I just want to go home!”

Only the babble of birds outside filled the air, worried eyes staring at wooden eyes.

"If that is all you wish, then I will comply." Imani said, walking over the table next to the pot. "However, in exchange, you will help me."

Undoing his binds, Imani handed Ritchie a list of plants from the table, an ingredient list, seemingly. Some made sense, but others lied beyond the forest range.

"No...eye of newt or something?" Ritchie asked.

"I am against using animals in my work." Imani replied. "Besides, your gun remains with me. Now go."

"Wait! How will I know when-"

"When you have gathered what I need. Go."

For days, Ritchie foraged for Imani across the savanna, returned for dinner, then fell asleep. All with nary an exchange between them, even after an arduous day.

This did not stop Ritchie's growing confusion, however. He often asked Imani why she needed all this, but at every inquiry, the shaman kept quiet and sent him out with another list.

 (Dean Gle Mask (Late 19th-Early 20th Century), taken from Wikimedia Commons)

Returning to her shack one evening after a rather late excursion, Ritchie was surprised to find Imani's mask, missing its horns, laid to the side of her doorway.

Curious, Ritchie decided to ask Imani about it, stumbling across Imani without her mask... In its place was the head of a gazelle.

A score of screams echoed through the trees, and both sat for what felt like hours.

"So..." Ritchie led, "This is..."

"Yes," Imani sadly spoke, "Why I do not use animal ingredients..."

Ritchie sat befuddled. "I don't... How did...?"

Imani averted her eyes, sighing. "...Years ago...I was an ordinary gazelle. I was injured by hunters one day, and... a shaman saved my life. Grateful, I followed him for months and assisted with his work. In return, he kept me well-fed.

"But he grew more and more ill every week. He had no child to pass his teachings on to, but I still wanted to help him. Thus, he cast a spell on me before he passed, and at once I knew how humans walked, spoke, and learned."

"Incredible..." Ritchie gaped.

Imani's frown drooped with her ears. "Humans and animals...they both thought me unnatural... A beast daring to be its predator... A human form twisted beyond humankind's standards... That is why I remain here, and why I asked your help.

"I wish to construct a remedy to become human, then I can finally carry on his work..."

The crackling of cicadas filled the pause.

"Unbelievable?" Imani assuredly asked. "That is what I expected..."

"N-No! No..." Ritchie blurted. "I understand..."

Imani's ears straightened, eyes wide as she looked at him. "What?"

"My dad...always wanted me to toughen up, 'be a real man,' and all that." Ritchie admitted, rubbing his head awkwardly. "So...I thought hunting might...change that...?"

Imani just stared at the young man.

"I guess what I'm saying is...I-I know what it's like. With the...o-out of place and...stuff."

Stare.

"Um...Imani?"

Stare.

"If, uh...if it helps...I'm more of a vegetarian..."

Stare...

Then...a snicker.

The mood soon turned warm like the pot's water, the gazelle-shaman breaking into a giggling fit.

"You...are an odd human…!"

"H-Hey! I'm serious about this!"

"So you ventured into the forest with no prior knowledge, then? Hahahaha...!"

The raucous ribbing between the two continued on for a few minutes until Imani looked at Ritchie's arm.

"You are injured."

Ritchie looked at his right arm, noticing a small scrape on it. "O-Oh, must've been just a tree branch or something.”

"Tree branch or predator, it is an injury. Let me see..."

The gazelle grabbed a bottle off one of her shelves and applied some ointment to Ritchie's cut.

"It should heal in time."

"Uh...thanks... My arm..."

Imani then realized she had applied the ointment cleanly, feeling only Ritchie's bare arm in turn.

"Ah...A-Apologies...!" Imani yelped, jerking her arm away.

"N-No! It's fine...!" Ritchie blushed, scratching his left cheek, hoping to scrape the red away.

Imani felt the blood rushing too, though her fur mercifully obscured whatever red flooded her face.

Suddenly a stray thought flew out of Imani's mouth.

"Say..." Imani drawled. "If...hardiness is what ails you, I am wild-born. I can share what I know about the wilderness."

Ritchie looked confused at Imani. "But...that wasn't in our bargain..."

For the second time in years, Imani smiled. "Let us say we are striking a new deal."

For the first time in days, Ritchie smiled "Okay! I-In that case, I'll keep helping you with your remedy!"

Ritchie paused, scratching his cheeks in embarrassment before putting his hand out.

"M-Maybe...we can leave this forest together? Maybe?"

Imani's black eyes gleamed, grasping Ritchie's skinned hand with her furred one.

"I would like that."

Author's Notes

The Native American Marriage Tales have a few prevalent elements in them: interaction and tension between the worlds of humans and animals, marriage or romance as a plot device, end result, or obstacle, and a slight dash of the supernatural as evidenced by the usage of vivid, often illogical imagery and situations integrated into the story. This story does not take from one particular story, but instead uses elements common across many of them to create a new, original tale.

The initial plot of this story was very different, involving a confrontation at the end with Ritchie's hunting mentor about the role of animals and humans, as well as more explicit moments of Ritchie being enlightened to the struggles of animals. There was also something about a supernatural forest in there. Both were dummied out due to elongating the story and feeling like the ideas went nowhere. So I brought the scope of events down to focus on the conflict and reconciliation of both human and animal worlds, with a smatter of romantic implication near the end rather than a full-blown display to keep consistent with the characters' emotions and leaving the future open, while also wrapping up the main conflict.

Which brings me to the toughest part of writing this: the characters. Ritchie and Imani are probably some of the most difficult characters I've ever had to construct, due to the direction I wanted the story to go and wanting to keep their interactions realistic. Imani, I'm fairly confident in, but I feel once again the character length castrated my ability to do  more about that.

The choice to make Imani a gazelle and a shaman is for paradoxical meaning: gazelles are often attributed to beauty and grace, and I wanted to contrast this with an image that gets some shifty notions attached to it and I feel would deal in supernatural matters - more on name than anything; while witch doctors and shamans were more known as healers dealing with injuries from supposed witchcraft and not very feared, the name does carry some occult undertones. The image I went for is "true to life, but misunderstood." Imani's name means "faith," falling in line with her backstory.

Ritchie's conflict of masculinity served mainly as a linking point to bring together the two worlds, and I wish I had more space to flesh it out. Ritchie's name  was born form the desire to have a youthful sounding name, befitting his slightly awkward personality.

In conclusion, I'm happy with the characters I've conceived, and I'm happy with the story idea. But due to the criteria I was under to write this, I'm not too satisfied with the execution. I would very much love to revisit the lives of Ritchie and Imani some other day, but it's time for me to move on. I hope you enjoyed!

P.S.
For those complaining about implied beastiality, my counter-argument is this: Beauty and the Beast. 

Bibliography

Mythology & Folklore Native American Marriage Tales Unit, stories take from Tales of North American Indians by Stith Thompson

Research on Tokai Forest, gazelles, witch doctors