All I learned of hunting in my lonely year, to drift like the air, to leap, to grip so delicately-all these learnings became for you! Not to bruise the smallest portion of your bright body. Oh, yes! I captured you whole in all your tiny perfection, though you sizzled and spat and fought me like the sunspark you are. And then
And then
I began to-Oh, terror! Delight-shame! How can I speak such a beautiful secret? — the Plan took me as a Mother guides her child and with my special hands I began to
t began to bind you up!
Oh yes! Oh yes! My special hands that had no use, now all unfurled and engorged and alive, never stopping the working in the strong juice of my jawsthey began to bind you, passing over and around and beneath you, every moment piercing me with fear and joy. I wound among your darling little limbs, into your inmost delicate recesses, gently swathing and soothing you, winding and binding until you became a shining jewel. Mine!
— But you responded. I know that now. We know! Oh yes, in your fierce struggles, shyly you helped me, always at the end each strand fell sweetly into place… Winding you, binding you, loving Leelyloo!… How our bodies moved in our first weaving song! I, feel it even now, I melt with excitement! How I wove the silk about you, tying each tiny limb, making you perfectly helpless. How fearlessly you gazed up at me, your terrifying captor! You! You were never frightened, as I'm not frightened now. Isn't it strange, my loveling? This sweetness that floods our bodies when we yield to the Plan. Great is the Plan! Fear it, fight ` it-but hold the sweetness yet.
Sweetly began our lovetime, when first I became your new true Mother, never to cast you out. How I fed you and caressed and tended and fondled you! What a responsibility it is to be a Mother. Anxiously I carried you furled in my secret arms, savagely I drove off all intruders, even the harmless banlings in the grass, in fear every moment that you were stifled or crushed!
And all the warm nights long, how I cared for your helpless little body, carefully releasing each infant limb, flexing and stretching it, cleaning every scarlet morsel of you with my giant tongue, nibbling your. baby claws with my terrible teeth, revelling in your baby hum, pretending to devour you while you shrieked with glee, Li! Lilili! Love- lili, Leelylee! But.: the greatest joy of all We spoke!
We spoke together, we two! We — communed, we shared, we poured ourselves one into the other. Love, how we stammered and stumbled at the first, you in your strange Mother-tongue and I in mine! How we blended our singing wordlessly and then with words, until more and more we came to see with each other's eyes, to hear, to taste, to feel the world of each. f other, until I became Leelyloo and you became Moggadeet, until finally we became together a new thing, Moggadeet-Leely, Lilliloo-Mogga, LiliMoggaloolydeet! Oh love, are we the first? Have others loved with their whole selves? Oh sad thinking, that lovers before us have left no trace. Remember us! Will you remember, my adored, though Moggadeet has spoiled everything and the cold grows? If only I could hear you speak once more, my red, my innocent one. You are remembering, your body tells me you remember even now. Softly, hold me softly yet. Hear your Moggadeet!
You told me how it was being you, yourself, tiny redling-Lilliloo. Of your Mother, your dreams, your baby joys and fears. And I told you mine, and all my learnings in the world since the day when my own Mother
Hear me, my heartmate! Time runs away.
— On the last day of my childhood my Mother called us all under her.
'Sons! S-son-n-nss!' Why did her dear voice creak so?
My brothers came in slowly, fearfully from the summer green. But I, small Moggadeet, I climb eagerly up under the great arch of her body, seeking the golden Mother-fur. Right into her warm cave I come, where her Mother-eyes are glowing, the cave that sheltered us so strongly all our lives, as I shelter you, my dawn-flower.
I long to touch her, to hear her speak and sing to us again. Her Mother-fur troubles me, it is tattered and drab. Shyly I press against one of her huge food glands. It feels dry, but a glow sparks deep in her Mother-eye.
'Mother,' I whisper. 'It's me, Moggadeet!'
'SONNNNNS!' Her voice rumbles through her armor. My big brothers huddle by her legs, peering back at the sunlight. They look so funny, shedding, half gold, half black.
'I'm afraid!' whimpers my brother Frim nearby. Like me Frim still has his gold baby fur. Mother is speaking again but her voice booms so I can hardly understand.
'WINNN-TER! WINTER, I SAY! AFTER THE WARM COMES THE COLD WINTER. THE COLD WINTER BEFORE THE WARM COMES AGAIN, COMES…'
Frim whimpers louder, I cuff him. What's wrong, why is her loving voice so hoarse and strange now? She always hummed us so tenderly, we nestled in her warm Mother-fur sucking the lovely Mother-juices, rocking to her steady walking-song. Ee-mooly-mooly, Ee-mooly-mooly, while far below the earth rolled by Oh, yes, and how we held our breaths and squealed when she began her mighty hunting-hum! Tann! Tann! Dir! Dir! Dir Hataan! HATONN! How we clung in,the thrilling climax when she plunged upon her prey and we heard the crunching, the tearing, the gurgling in her body that meant soon her food-glands would be richly full.
Suddenly I see a black streak down below-a big brother is running away! Mother's booming voice breaks off. Her great body tenses, her plates clash Mother roars!
Running, screaming down below! I burrow up into her fur, am flung about as she leaps.
'OUT! GO OUT!' she bellows. Her terrible hunting-limbs crash down, she roars without words, shuddering, jolting. When I dare to peek out I see the others all have fled. All except one!
A black body is lying under Mother's claws. It's my brother Sessoyes! But Mother is tearing him, is eating him! I watch in horrorSesso she cared for so proudly, so tenderly! I sob, bury my head in her fur. But the beautiful fur is coming loose in my hands, her golden Mother-fur is dying! I cling desperately, trying not to hear the crunches, the gulps and gurgling The world is ending, all is terrible, terrible.
And yet, my fireberry, even then I almost understood. Great is the Plan!
Presently Mother stops feeding and begins to move. The rocky ground jolts by far below. Her stride is not smooth but jerks me, even her deep hum is strange. On! On! Alone! Ever alone. And on! The rumbling ceases. Silence. Mother is resting.
'Mother!' I whisper. 'Mother, it's Moggadeet. I'm here!'
Her stomach plates contract, a belch reverberates in her vaults.
'Go,' she groans. 'Go. Too late. Mother no more.'
'I don't want to leave you. Why must I go? Mother!' I wail, 'Speak to me!' I keen my baby hum, Deet! Deet! Tikki-takka! Deed hoping Mother will answer, crooning deep, Brum! Brrumm! Brumaloobrum! Now I see one huge Mother-eye glow faintly but she only makes a grating sound.
'Too late. No more… The winter, I say. I did speak. . Before the winter, go. Go.'
'Tell me about Outside, Mother,' I plead.
Another groan or cough nearly shakes me from my perch. But when she speaks again her voice sounds gentler.
'Talk?' she grumbles. 'Talk, talk, talk. You are a strange son. Talk, like your Father.'
'What's that, Mother? What's a Father?'
She belches again. 'Always talk. The winters grow, he said. Oh, yes. Tell them the winters grow. So I did. Late. Winter, I spoke you. Cold!' Her voice booms. 'No more! Too late.' Outside I hear her armor rattle and clank.
'Mother, speak to me!'
'Go. Go-o-o!'
— Her belly-plates clash around me. I jump for another nest of fur but it comes loose in my grip. Wailing, I save myself by hanging to one of her great walking limbs. It is rigid, thrumming like rock.
'GO!' She roars.
Her Mother-eyes are shrivelling, dead! I panic, scramble down, everything is vibrating, resonating around me. Mother is holding back a storm of rage!
I leap for the ground, I rush diving into a crevice, I wiggle and burrow under the fearful bellowing and clanging that rains on me from above. Into the rocks I go with the hunting claws of Mother crashing behind me.
Oh my redling, my little tenderling! Never have you known such a night. Those dreadful hours hiding from the monster that had been my loving Mother!
I saw her once more, yes. When dawn came I clambered up a ledge and peered through the mist. It was warm then, the mists were warm. I knew what Mothers looked like; we had glimpses of huge horned dark shapes
