Far back when the world was new, or at least more new than it is now, back when the trees talked boldly in the daytime instead of whispering at night, when Coyote might appear one night at your fire and exchange stories with you until sunrise, one of Coyote's children fell in love.
His fur was pitch black, so he went by the name Noc, which in the old tongue meant "night," Noc did not know he had fallen in love, when it happened. He only knew that he kept coming back to the same clearing in the same woods, that even the top of the tallest mountain and the bottom of the deepest lake held less attraction than this peaceful dell in the trees of Ac-Ta-Mok.
Now, in those days, the forest of Ac-Ta-Mok extended from the base of Old Opa, with his snow-covered crown, all the way to the shimmering blue expanse of Lady Asha. Ac-Ta-Mok, in the old tongue, means "he who covers all." All the children lived with the trees in those days, and if the children of Coyote loved the clearings and dells, why, then, so much more room for the children of Fox among the tree roots, and Bear in the thick darkness at the heart of the forest, and squirrel in the branches that reached to Father Hawaa and tickled his white beards of clouds.
Of all the children of Coyote, Noc had traveled further and faster than any other. He had talked to Old Opa and Lady Asha, had played with the children of Water Rat and Sand Rat alike, and knew every path through Ac-Ta-Mok. The clearing in which he found himself night after night held nothing special: a burbling brook nearby (but every clearing had one of those), bushes with sweet berries (he knew hundreds like them), and a soft bed of leaves on which to curl up and sleep (throw a rock and try not to hit leaves). In fact, its only distinguishing feature was singularly annoying: a family of Raven's children.
Noc had no grievances against Raven's children, but this particular family annoyed him for a particular reason: they talked every night about their travels to the nearby pond and marvelous journeys to the red-fruit tree. Most of them had never been further than a day's flight from their nest. The exception was a young raveness whose name, he gathered, was Omber, which means "shadow" in the old tongue, and Omber was the one who annoyed Noc most of all.
As he lay beneath their tree curled up, Omber would tell her parents of the marvelous lake at the edge of the forest. They would exclaim at how large the world was and the trees chimed in to praise Omber for her daring. Or she would tell them about flying to the top of the tallest tree, how Ac-Ta-Mok looked like a verdant carpet below her and Father Hawaa an azure blanket above. Noc listened to her stories and laughed to himself. My sister's daughter's cubs have traveled farther. But his laughter had a jealous bite, and he could not say why every night, he came back to listen.
One night, Omber was deep into the tale of flying thrice around the top of the tallest pine tree. "The moon looked so close," she said, "I felt I could reach out and touch it with a wingtip."
"Were you not cold?" the old maple in which her nest rested asked. "The tops of my branches grow so cold when the wind blows that I can no longer feel them."
"Did you not get dizzy?" Her father, an old bird with one black glossy eye and one cloudy eye, clacked his beak with worry. "When I fly higher than Father Maple here, my world seems to spin blow me, and I fear I might fall to the ground."
"Our Omber is a brave, strong bird," her mother said, fathers fluffed out with pride. "Surely nobody has climbed as high as she, nor seen the things she has seen, none but the gods themselves."
At this, Noc had to uncurl himself from his hiding place and call up into the tree. "Then call me a god," he said, "for my travels have taken me to places you can only dream of."
