The Air Dancer

Chapter 1

Inte'kunda laughed as she soared between branches. "Try to catch me, Kidala!" She squealed.

Deftly, she caught a vine and twisted through the air as she swung for a gabana tree, planting her feet on its smooth grey bark and spring-boarding off, letting go of the vine to fly forward. She spread her arms in a gorgeous swan dive and hit the ground perfectly, tucking and rolling without even breaking stride. She looked back at her friend and laughed.

"You are too fast," Kidala protested. The old jaguar was tearing through the underbrush with the speed of a seasoned hunter, but could not keep up with the girl. Inte'kunda was growing up quickly, and her strength and speed were a marvel to behold.

The forest was alive with sounds and smells that day. You know these sounds well, child. They are the same sounds today as they were then: rustling leaves, squawking birds, arguing apes, busy insects. All of those sounds, though, were no match for the shrieks and whoops from Inte'kunda as she raced underfoot, ducking under low-lying branches and vaulting over fallen logs.

"Last one home catches supper!" she shouted. She could already see the break in the trees up ahead as she sprinted. Her chin-length brown hair danced as she sped over the forest floor toward the clearing.

"I never agreed to that," roared Kidala. "You're just trying to get out of hunting tonight!" The jaguar was hot on the heels of Inte'kunda, and gaining -- but not quickly enough.

Sunlight poured through the opening up ahead, where the water from the Xichaqa river tumbled over boulders and onto the rocks several hundred feet below. The opening wasn't very wide -- as wide as the river was, which Inte'kunda could have leapt over with a running start -- but the view was the best in the whole forest, as it was one of the highest points around.

Like a king surveying his subjects, the top of the waterfall looked down over the endless jungle that went on and on as far as the eye could see, to the ends of the earth where Mother Sun sleeps.

Inte'kunda slid feet-first and grabbed the vine that hung down over the edge, which she had tied around a tree many years before. She caught her breath as her feet led the way off the cliff, followed by her legs and her body as, for the briefest of moments, she could fly. The wind hugged her and whipped through her hair as she laughed, closing her eyes as she fell, letting the vine snake through her hands.

The feeling of flight, little one, is one I cannot fully describe, as I have never truly tasted it. I am not the young man I once was, but even then I was never as brave as the Air Dancer, who did not feel fear the way that you and I do. She regarded death like the sun regards the darkness: something to be pushed away and scolded. Something to be tamed. Something that would never catch her.

But this was before she became the Air Dancer -- before she learned who she was. This day, she still needed the help of the forest to fly.

Wrapping her hands around the vine to slow her fall, she let herself be pulled in toward the wall of rocks as she looked up after the jaguar who stood over the edge, watching and grinning in defeat. Kidala slipped his way back into the forest to take the long way down as Inte'kunda's feet found the slippery rocks of the cliff. She bent her legs and bounded off again, sliding further down as she slowed.

With two more leaps backward she was nearly three-quarters of the way down.

Braced perpendicularly against the wall with her back facing the water below, she walked her way down the face of the cliff to the opening of the cave that they called home. Looking down, she spied the outcropping of rocks that signaled that she was close. She smiled, knowing she had beaten Kidala once again, and dropped the last ten feet onto the smooth rock floor. Behind her fell the waters of the Xichaqa that concealed the entrance to their home from prying eyes. It was not a perfect concealment, but they did not truly need one either. It provided peace of mind, and that was good enough for Inte'kunda.

She walked inside the cave lit by the sunlight that peeked its way through the waterfall.

Now: Inte'kunda lived simply, and that is what she preferred -- but she allowed herself comforts as well. The bed she slept on was made of feathers that she had wrapped in big, broad buma leaves (a trick she'd learned from the monkeys). She also had made herself a fire pit where she and Kidala could cook the food they caught, or spend time telling stories and watching the flames flicker. But the thing she was most proud of was tucked away in an unassuming nook in the cave, in a box of wood that she had carved and shaped herself.

She found herself walking toward it when she heard the familiar voice of Kidala.

"You are getting faster, Inte, there is no doubt about that." The big jaguar was shaking off the water that he had accumulated from jumping through the waterfall, sending droplets flying everywhere and misting the walls of the cave. "Soon you will outgrow your need for me."

Inte'kunda flashed a grin and laughed. "I will never outgrow my need for you, old one," she teased as she drew near. "Who else will fetch me supper when the night comes?" She was biting her bottom lip in a mischievous smile, reminding the jaguar that he still owed her a favor.

Kidala chuckled. "Very well, fair is fair. You did beat me, after all." He turned to leave again when Inte'kunda placed her hand on him.

"But not yet," she said. "I want to hear a story first."

"A story?"

Inte'kunda's eyes lit up when Kidala said the word, as if speaking it aloud made it an unbreakable bond. "Yes! A story!"

The jaguar settled down on his hind legs and licked a paw, pausing to look up at Inte'kunda. "And which story would you like to hear about today?" He ran his paw over his ear a few times, licked it again, and did the same for the other side. "The fish that swallowed the sea? The climbing vine that touched the sun?" He was watching her eyes for a flicker of excitement. "Or, I know: the boy who lived forever."

"None of those," Inte'kunda answered softly.

"Then what?"

She hesitated for a moment, then spoke.

"Tell me how the world ends."