Totem: Prologue (Patreon)

It was a perfectly normal summer’s day, right up until Amara sensed sister alligator on the hunt for a human child.

She turned horrified eyes to the opposite bank of the wide river. A toddler stood at the water’s edge, easily visible with a shock of brilliantly red hair. He was naked, muddy, and clutching a thick cattail stalk to stand as he stared back at the women.

And an ominous shadow crept under the water near it.

Horrified, Amara turned to the other women who were washing nearby. “Who’s child is that? My sisters are on the hunt nearby.”

Several women looked first in confusion, then with gasps as they spotted the child.

“He’s not one of ours. I’d recognize that hair, surely,” old Sarai said.

Bitterness flooded Amara’s mouth. Random idiots popped out babies all the time — so many of them they had no problem letting them run wild by the river. Meanwhile, she and her husband could not conceive one.

Amara’s thoughts cut short at the sympathetic tug of magic in her bones. Her hands, which were dotted with gray-green scales, shot up to clutch at the carved wooden alligator charm hanging from her necklace.

“Someone get that child away from the water!” she growled.

Several women cried out in alarm, clutching their own charms. Amara was the only one with an alligator affinity, but all the creatures which lived near the river — from the humble muskrat to the flashing kingfishers — knew when a predator was on the hunt.

In desperation, Amara scanned the river. The current was too lazy to wash minerals away, leaving the water dark and perfect for her sisters. She had lost sight of the shadow. Her totem was master of the ambush.

Several of the women screamed for the child to go up the bank. The toddler stared across at them, uncomprehending.

At last, Amara spotted the top of a log that was no log at all. It drifted straight toward the child.

Not today, she thought grimly.

She reached into her gray-green core, where the remains of her alligator spirit lay. As always, its strength roared into her.

Then she dove into the river. The water rippled behind her as if a ghostly tail propelled her forward. The technique drank down her core’s power like someone dying of thirst gulped water. It was just enough to get her to the opposite bank.

The little boy watched her with big green eyes. Amara reached the opposite bank and scooped him up just as the water exploded from behind her. A large alligator rushed forward with jaws agape.

Fierce protectiveness bloomed from within her. She squeezed down hard on her core, wringing it for every drop of power like she would a fruit.

The last of her affinity flooded her veins. Her rage gave it a form.

The ghostly outline of long reptilian jaws extended out from her head. She stepped forward to hiss as any she-alligator would do to defend her nest. Her young.

The other alligator stopped. Mouth still open in threat, it seemed to consider her for a moment.

Then slowly, sullenly, it backed into the water.

Amara’s core was wrung dry leaving the ghostly outline of her sleeping totem inside. She sagged, but stubbornness kept her legs from folding.

Her totem-animal was watching, and alligators were not known for their pity to the weak.

Across the river, several of the beaver and muskrat women were using their affinities to weave vegetation into a temporary bridge. Amara would not have to hold out here much longer.

She looked down at the boy in her arms. Uncrying, he watched the water with amazement in his eyes. He looked up at her and then cautiously patted some of the scales on her arms. Two more had bloomed thanks to today’s display of power. Soon, her entire right arm would be shielded in gray-green scales.

“You act like you haven’t seen a totem mark before,” she said with a smile. “What have your parents been teaching you?”

In answer, the child babbled nonsense.

Amara snuggled him closer. The boy was a comforting weight against her hip.

Surely, he belonged to someone… but she had already defended him as if he was her own.

And alligators did not give up their young lightly.

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