Year 5, Day 271
WildDog is a year old today, by my reckoning.
We don’t celebrate birth dates, at least not as adults. There would simply be too many of them! But we do celebrate a few important ones, and one of these is when a child completes its first year. Friends of the parents come together, and the child is given its first taste of sweets.
Little WildDog is still getting almost all of his nourishment from his mother’s milk though he does have teeth, as my fingers can attest! I am not sure why, as he certainly cannot chew anything, and they merely make nursing him uncomfortable for Songbird. She is beginning to chew food and then give it to him, and it occurred to me that it has been a long time since I brought sweet fruits to my helpers. So I teleported to the sites of several palms that have had sweet fruit in the past, and brought dates for Songbird to give WildDog. I also teleported a bit of honeycomb from a wild bees’ nest – from a healthy distance!
I had a hard time not laughing at the results. WildDog screwed his face up and prepared to cry at the strange taste in his mouth, as he usually does when Songbird gives him something new. Then his eyes went wide and he blinked a time or two, working his mouth. The final stage was a beatific smile, and a mouth eagerly opened for more. “That’s a special birthday treat,” I told him firmly. “I know it tastes good, but it won’t help you grow strong.”
I am not sure how much he understands, as I refuse to employ my mind-reading talent. But I could swear he looked disappointed.
Jarn’s Journal is a bit of the back story of the Jarnian Confederation, where most of my science fiction is based. It is the journal of a human-like alien with esper abilities, Jarn, who was stranded in Africa some 125,000 years ago.
By the way, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge this year, with posts live just after midnight about the characters and some of the world-building in my books. I’m letting the characters speak for themselves, though I try to tell when they’re speaking from.
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