Matabar Chapter 1 - Blackberry Pie

Ardi had been hiding in the blackberry bushes for two hours now, watching his grandfather whistling into his humorous mustache as he carved a small animal out of a birch branch that had fallen to the ground. Was it a possum, perhaps? Or a baby squirrel?

Ardi hoped it was a possum.

He already had a baby squirrel that lived on a shelf above his bed, amid several of its siblings. A little fox nad Shali, who had an amusingly pointy nose, was one of them. She was accompanied by a little bear nad Guta, who was a bit clumsy, always sleepy and quite forgetful, but was no less the boy’s favorite friend. The third... well, the fourth, actually, in their friendly company, was the recently-found squirrel nad Skusty.

The boy did not get along well with Skusty.

Skusty was always sneaking sothing out of the kitchen: cookies, jam, candy. How could Ardi explain to his mother that it wasn’t Ardan Egobar, six years old, one ter and thirty-six centiters tall, with rosy cheeks, black hair, and amber irises, who stole treats from her kitchen every night?

It was all Skusty’s fault!

But no matter how much Ardi puffed up his chubby cheeks (His mother often told him, ’Ardi, don’t puff up your chubby cheeks at ...’ Even though they weren’t puffed up at all!), and no matter how much he smiled a naive smile and innocently scratched the back of his head, for so reason, only Grandpa believed that a wooden squirrel could steal anything.

Skusty was the worst.

As the only child in all of the Alcade, Ardi really hoped that Grandpa would carve out a possum for him. Or maybe a snow leopard kitten. He’d seen them from ti to ti. Not the actual kittens, of course, but adult snow leopards. All he had to do was venture upriver to the North Grove, and, of course, make sure no one had noticed his little adventure.

His parents had strictly forbidden Ardi from straying to the other side of the mountain. They’d ntioned sothing about animal trails, a contract with the Guardians, and other barely understood words.

But then again, if Shali, Guta, and even the pesky Skusty never did anything to harm their two-legged friend (aside from stealing cookies, damn that squirrel), why should the rest of the animals behave any differently?

So off he went.

First, he went up the river to the North Grove, then he snuck through an old hurricane-toppled spruce forest, and then, after a few short dashes through so hills, one could end up at Hawk’s Cliff.

Why was it called Hawk’s Cliff?

That was just what Ardi called it. He liked to na things. His mother said it was because it bothered him that he’d only ever known four nas his whole life: his own, his mother’s, his father’s, and his grandfather’s, though...you couldn’t really call that a na. Everybody just called the old man "Grandpa."

And so, while situated upon Hawk’s Cliff, and also hiding behind a rock — which he’d nad The Ogre’s Pimply Ass — when the weather was good, and with the blessing of the mountain gods and so incredible luck, one could gaze across the gorge at the high peaks of the Alcade. Their wild forests, swift rivers, majestic lakes, and endless waves of stone stretched all the way to the horizon. And there, sotis, the boy could even see the snow leopards, the kings of the mountain peaks.