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"Are you gonna go or not?"

Baruna looked down at the water, then at Jeru again. She got up on her toes and peered intently into the depths, her tail whipping nervously.

"I...changed my mind."

The young fox crossed his arms. "But you gotta, we swore!" He whispered furiously, as if the surrounding kapok and jambu trees around the lush lagoon hung on his every word.

The older vixen glared at her brother. "I will not do it," she said simply, and stepped back from the edge to the safety of some low-hanging vines to grip upon. "I do not like the way the water looks right now," she shrugged, "Maybe tomorrow I-"

"You're just a scaredy-fox. You're afraid 'cuz I'm right, that's all. It's down there. I'm sure of it..." His golden eyes were big as saucers, the look of a child that knew something wonderful - or absolutely awful.

"You were just imagining things told to you. The Mulus have you tricked. Your mind is odd to begin with. You were with the old woman far too long..."

"I'm telling you the truth, sis! She says they saw it, okay? If you're not gonna go and check it out, then I will!" He stepped to the edge, hanging onto one of the vines next to her, and started untying his loincloth.

"Alright!" Baruna growled, bringing a paw out to his chest to hold him back. "I will go." She looked unhappily at the water again, untying her loincloth and top, letting them drop to her feet, then reached for the spear fashioned of a durian branch and bamboo silk she had made earlier in the day - before this crazy trek had started.

She turned and rested a paw on Jeru's shoulder. "Please watch over me," she whispered, and gave him a kiss on his nose, before turning and diving naked head-first into the lagoon. Jeru sat down at the water's edge and waited.

*Where are you?* Baruna heard her brother's send from above as she dove expertly deeper, her legs kicking at kelp and tangled water-vines, feeling her way almost blindly downwards with the spear. She had been right. The lagoon's waters, crystal clear and beautiful near the top, had turned murky and clouded the deeper she swam, festooned with flora that threatened to grab her and trap her forever in a watery tomb.

*Where do you THINK I am?* His sister's angry retort came to him, and he smiled, relieved. *Do you see anything?*

*Nothing so far. Just a lot of...eww!* Baruna felt a long tendril of slimy, slick water-vine ride up around her legs, and tangle about her waist, and she stopped, losing precious seconds of air twisting and turning until she could free herself. *There is too much down here! I am coming back up* The young vixen stopped and started to stroke and kick for the surface - until she noticed a strange glint, a quick flash of light - as if the roily, dark depths had opened briefly, like black stormclouds allowing the briefest touch of sunlight to come through before closing up again. Thinking none the wiser than her brother, she flipped around and dove towards the flash she had seen, the bottom of the lagoon rising up to meet her fumbling paws.

Her green eyes narrowed, trying to peer through the mucky clouds of silt she was creating. There! She scissored her legs and used the soft sandy bottom to pull forwards. *I see something!* She shouted out, and her head suddenly pounded. That was too hard. She shook her head a few times, waiting for the white blindness to leave her, and let a few bubbles from her mouth, staving off the need to breathe for at least a little while longer. She suddenly realized why Jeru had asked her here, and why SHE was the one in the water. He'd never have lasted this long.

She ran her paws around the tiny silver medallion sticking up from the clouds of sand-laced murk and grabbed a thin silver chain attached to it. With a quick burst of speed, she planted her feet on the bottom and pushed back up, gliding through the depths and finally gasping hugely at the surface, shaking her head back and forth.

"Thank the gods!" Jeru exclaimed, getting up and offering a paw out to the vixen, helping her out of the water and to the edge. "Wow...what is that?"

Baruna lifted the chain up, rubbing at her stinging eyes. "I do not know. There is writing here."

"Lemme see, lemme see!" He was excited again, taking the medallion from her. "Jah...Jahnn..."

Baruna smiled, tying her loincloth back around her waist and approaching her brother. "Here." She took the chain carefully, reading it against her breasts. "Johnson. Mark A. 372-87-2122 AF. Type O. Christian..."

"What's all that mean?"

"I do not know. But this is what the old one was going on about?"

"I guess. A treasure, she kept saying, and that's pretty, isn't it? Could this be it?"

Baruna held it up to the sunlight, watching the chain twist the square silver trinket around. "It is pretty. We shall take it back to the tribe and let them see." She bent down to tie her top around her again, shaking water from her tail and long dark tresses. "The sun will be over half-past soon. We must go back."

"I didn't mean to make you go down," the boy whispered again as they walked away from the water's edge, and Baruna smiled, hugging an arm around him. "I know..."

"You're the bravest of our tribe..."

The girl smiled proudly and even allowed a tint more color to her cheeks that time.

**

They arrived back in the village at last-light. Baruna steered Jeru away from the Mulu gathered by the fire, and one of the wolves looked after them curiously. "Baruna," he spoke out, getting up and walking towards her. The girl quickly tucked her find inside her top and turned around to face him. "Where have you been all day? We prepared for your tribe an excellent meal to share," he gestured to the fire, then looked carefully at the vixen again. "Did it rain?"

The girl smiled, "No, I went for a swim with Jeru at our usual spot."

The wolf nodded slowly, then leaned his head close to her hair, sniffing. Baruna fought every impulse to slap his face. "The water smells strange today...different..." He glanced at the younger fox, his grey eyes a little colder to him. "Why are you dry?"

"He stayed with me to watch," the girl hastily spoke up. "He...found some fish nearby and made sport with them instead." She managed a giggle, pawing her wet hair. "I even helped catch a few by diving after them with my spear." She looked over at Jeru, who was wordlessly nodding, looking down at his feet. "Is...Loka returned from her spell?" She smoothly changed the subject. No point in giving the Mulu any reason to doubt her claim. She knew quite well the less-traveled jungle trail they had taken was forbidden to the children.

The wolf looked at them a moment more, mostly at Baruna, licked his lips then nodded, seeming satisifed. "In her hut. It was bad this time. You want something to eat?" He asked the girl, his eyes seeming less cold.

There was no hiding the fact the wolf wanted to mate with the vixen at her time, and Baruna was dreading that day. He had only to ask Loka for her permission, and a new bond would form between the tribes anew, as to the tradition passed on through untold seasons. In the next full-turn, Baruna would be forced to have his fox-cubs, and the Mulu and Kekee tribes would be even more integrated. The girl once made the mistake of remarking to the priestess that Heeto would not rest until the jungle was filled with nothing but fox-wolves. It had earned her a reproachful glance, and a silent treatment for some time.

"Not right now, Heeto, thank you." The vixen smiled, stepping slowly backwards, pushing Jeru behind her with her tail, "I must speak to Loka..." She found the will inside of her to lean forward and stroke the bottom of his chin. "Perhaps later?" She walked away quickly, leaving Heeto a bit flustered and warm. She faintly heard raucous laughter from the Mulu group and wondered what Heeto was saying to them - and found she didn't care. He may give me children, she thought grimly, but I will never give him my heart.

She approached the hut quietly, not wanting to disturb anything. Loka still turned a cold eye to her at times for her insolence and naive, outgoing spirit, and she didn't want to complicate that by walking in unannounced. Jeru reached up and shook carefully on the trailing vine of wooden sticks.

"Come!" a elderly voice snapped from inside.

"Do you want to stay outside?"

"No," the young todd spoke up meekly, "I'm not afraid of her...much."

Baruna snugged the black fox to her side and stepped inside the hut.

Loka was sitting on the edge of her bed, worrying a few beads between her fingers as she strung them along a piece of bamboo silk. "Ah, children," the elder vixen smiled, but it didn't touch her eyes at all; merely an exercise in lip-tugging and whisker-twitching. She immediately drew her attention to Jeru's face and frowned. "You went there. I feel the shame in you." Loka pursed her lips, and was ready to start a tirade of chiding when Baruna cut her off, dipping a paw into her bosom and lifting the trinket she found up to the older woman.

"We did, and we found this. Is this the treasure you told my brother about? Tell me."

Loka peered at the metallic piece, turning it over in spidery fingers. "It is not," she said simply, and placed it on the wooden stump next to her before turning to Jeru. "In the lagoon, child?"

"Yes," Baruna spoke for him, lifting her head up to face her. "I went down to the bottom and found it. It was too dangerous for the boy. He might have drowned..."

"As could you have, girl." Loka carefully stood up, walking slowly past them both. "What they saw was much larger-"

"And yet you do not know what it was," Baruna answered haughtily.

"The spirits do not tell me everything, my child..." Loka chuckled.

"Well, maybe they should," the vixen retorted, and it all came out in a flood. "You sit here turn after turn in your hut, and you go into your spells, and you visit with your so-called spirits, and frighten the village with their stories and their signs, all the while so very gently arranging my entire life, surrounded by fox-cubs, meant to be nothing more than another bond in this senseless chaos you call a tradition!"

Loka's eyes closed and she sighed, sitting down on the edge of her bed again. "My dear Baruna, you have eyes, but you do not see. You want so much to be in your own world, you never consider how wonderful the one you are in truly is..."

"I know my place," the girl responded, a little softer. "And it is not here..." She grabbed up the medallion from the stump and pushed Jeru with her out of the hut.

TO BE CONTINUED...