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Subject: [Bwacuqwe] 1.1
Date: 24 Jul 1995 21:52:43 GMT
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[Please direct email responses to mcharles@cam.cornell.edu,
 not to the posting address.]

 Through the lurid haze of his pain, there came a sound, a
voice.  It mumbled at the edge of his hearing, and he
strove to clutch at that sound, dimly aware that in such
striving he might gain a foothold on consciousness again.
The mumbling came again, and he heard more distinctly this
time, something in a foreign tongue.  At the same time he
smelled, felt, a creature next to him, was numbly aware of
something gently rocking his shoulder.

He swam drunkenly towards the light of that voice, wrenched
open his eyes, was slammed into wakefulness by the numbing
pain under his hand and the figure kneeling over him.  It
was a female, with feline features and startling eyes, full
of concern.  She smiled briefly at him, but the frown
returned, and she mumbled again, something about helping
him.  He opened his mouth to voice a suitable comment, a
quip to show her he was all right perhaps, or a gracious
thankyou, but all that emerged was a choke of blood.  He
coughed, blacked out, woke again moments later.

She was still there.  She had pulled his hand away from his
sodden belly, was packing the wound maybe.  He could no
longer feel it anyway, an ambiguous relief.  He smelled her
mood, could see it in her back and the set of her jaw.

She was talking again in her strange accent, though not
looking at him.  Perhaps she talked to herself.  He tried
again to speak to her, this time with more success. "I...
thank you."  She jerked her head round to look at him, and
he saw her face accurately for the first time.  She had the
most intriguing eyes he had seen in a long, long time, and
her ... fur? was an autumnal orange.  He coughed again,
deliberately, and spoke with more surety, perhaps an
appropriately pale reflection of hers, "My name is ..
Bwacuqwe Khianod Zhevuisyc."  He managed a weak smile:
"...call me Bwacuqwe.  Interesting" - he winced - "city."


===========================================================
Copyright Michael A. Charleston, 1995.  All rights reserved.

Correspondence to mcharles@cam.cornell.edu