Fleas - Songs of the Gnolls I

A SLAVE, AN OLD MAN AND A MOUNTAIN GOAT 2.4

The flea wriggled in her fingers. Kkelea applied a little pressure each time it tried to escape. She sighed listlessly. Her mother approached and sat down beside her. From the top of the rock, they could see the vastness of the savannah. Everyone in it was like little fleas.

"Are you still angry with me?"

She did not answer. She crushed the flea and rubbed her paws. Her eyes remained lost in the rising mountains on the horizon. They said that beyond them was the endless water, the water that could not be drunk. Kkelea wondered what that would be like.

"I'm sorry you couldn't keep the cub, but it was useless. You know how a tribe works, it's only as strong as its weakest arm. We should have gotten rid of him a long time ago."

"Why now? Is it because I liked him?"

"No, there was another reason. Besides, the fondness you felt wasn't real. You're now an adult. Soon you'll understand that what other species call love is nothing more than an impulse, an instinct. Something that awakens in us as we grow up, and that we satiate when we understand what it is. Like when a little one is weaned and tastes meat for the first time. That feeling will pass."

Kkrya struggled to her paws.

"And if it doesn't?"

"Then use it, turn that frustration into anger, and that anger into strength. Keep it inside you, like the most precious treasure, and bring it out when danger looms before you like an uncontrollable beast. Then you will be even more beastly and uncontrollable," she said, placing a claw on her shoulder. "Daughter, you will be the fiercest warrior this tribe has ever seen. Sleep, we will leave at dawn."

Kkelea watched the sun set over the mountains before turning back. Everyone in the tribe was asleep except for the warriors who stood guard. They were more alert than usual because Fátrwa the Silent Death had disappeared some time ago, and with her the Wind Paws, her wards. No one was surprised, the matriarch usually moved on her own. Everyone trusted her because she acted in the name of the tribe. They all did. They were all one. Everyone except Fleas, he was nothing. So why did she miss him?