Only Rainfall

A Short Story

The wet season was in full swing, and the aroma of flowering shrubs spun in the tossing wind. The two-year-old Rainfall stared into it, letting the breeze nip her eyelids and comb through her whiskers. It soothed the heat from her tawny fur and brindled brown stripes. After a few moments her eyes began to close and the soft, reassuring calls that'd been trickling from her muzzle ceased. Exhaustion swamped her.

A sharp snout nudged her shoulder. Rainfall's eyes snapped open, and her neck twisted to the side, the movement so forceful that her whole body jerked. Her hindpaws scrabbled at the bark of the branch she was perched on and her long, heavy front claws wrapped over a thinner branch to keep her from falling. Another meerkat balanced in the shrub beside her, orange-yellow sand clotting around her black claws and nose. Wide green eyes circled in deep brown fur like Rainfall's own peered at her.

"Sorry," her older sister, Leaf, murmured. "I thought you might like a break. I can take over as sentry."

Rainfall blinked and shook out her pelt, small round ears pricked. "Thanks."

Leaf bobbed her head, snout already turning so that her sharp gaze could scan the surrounding desert. "I think Hyena's looking for you." When she met Rainfall's flower-blue gaze again her expression was soft with sympathy. "He's been keeping you busy, hasn't he?"

The other meer squirmed, her paws slipping once more. "I suppose."

"I can always help out if you need it, take him off your paws for a while."

"I'll keep that in mind." Rainfall bit the inside of her cheek as she ducked, removing her paws from their holds to slide to the ground. She cast a glance at her family, the Watchers gang of meerkats. They were ranged across a valley between two large dunes, most of them digging fervently. The holes weren't deep, the wet season drew their prey to the top of the soil and within easier reach. Her understudy, the young four-moon-old that she was tasked with caring for, shouldn't have run into any trouble unearthing an insect to fill his stomach while she was taking her turn as sentinel, watching for predators. Her gaze flitted to the spot at the base of a gnarled, dead tree where she'd scented the liar of a scorpion and left her younger brother to dig it out for himself.

The spot was deserted, though the soil was churned. She noticed a discarded black stinger as she trotted over, tail up, brown tip waving with her steps. "Hyena," she sighed, scratching at the earth, "I asked you to wait here."

After nosing about the area, she stood on her hindlegs, using her stiff tail to balance, and searched the family. She sniffed, nostrils flaring, but the Watchers were too spread out to pick out Hyena's smaller form and scruffier fur among the other adults. Rainfall did hear her mother's rhythmic lead calls though, sounding like a cross between a hoarse bark and a mew. The dominant female emitted them to make it easier for the family to follow her and not become separated if they lost sight of her. Louder than that was Leaf's steady chorus of calm chuffs, carrying over the group to assure them that someone was on sentry duty.

Squinting under the sun's stare, Rainfall rose and wound a path towards her mother, picking at the dust as she went. She'd enjoyed a millipede that morning and was still full but a meer couldn't afford not to eat as much as possible while the foraging was good. In the desert fortunes could change swiftly.

So swiftly in fact that even a rational meer like Rainfall wasn't ready for it.

She was so intent on finding her parents, thinking that Hyena might've latched onto the dominant male or female in her absence, that she failed to notice her littersister. An almost identical meer slammed into her shoulder, making Rainfall stumble. She swung to face the female with the lighter tawny fur only to find that it was Adder, who'd been skulking at the edge of the group with her head bowed.