7) Star-Rat Waiting in the Forest

Izzy led the party through the forest, down a path she’d carved days ahead of time. Despite it still being early spring the newly grown leaves had created a canopy that held in whatever heat made it down there. The air was thick; so humid they could almost drink it… Or so Liam, who didn't do much hiking and was dying from the exercise, thought.

Aloe was directly behind Izzy, followed by Liam, Cicilia and JJ. Simon and Xon stayed a good 20-30 metres behind the group to make sure Xon didn’t scare anything away, but close enough so he could still be within range to defend from predators. Mimi stayed back at the cabin to tend to the gardens and the party’s horses.

They were descending down hill, closing in on a small clearing. Izzy had signaled to tread slowly. They were coming up on something.

Izzy signalled to stop, she backed up to Aloe, and pointed to the first subject. After a second Aloe could see it clearly. Liam couldn’t until he crouched down a little;

The only way Liam could describe what he saw was if a monkey were a starfish. And that’s no exaggeration, from this distance it looks as if a monkey had fallen out of a tree flat on its stomach and just resigned to living life like that. It was brown, furry and was slowly moving across the ground.

Izzy whispers to Aloe. Aloe nods.

Aloe takes out her sketch book and starts. Because of the narrow path; Liam couldn't shift into position to get a good look at what was going on the page, but her shoulder was moving quickly. He heard the sound of pencil on paper, and he could see her head was locked on the subject, not at the page until she looked down and started doing smaller motions. She stopped pretty abruptly, reached into her pouch and pulled something else out. Her movements had become slow and precise, followed by quick precise scratches. He could hear her blowing on whatever she had done. She then reached into her pouch again and pulled out a small rectangular box and started alternating between slow strokes and dabbling motions. She stopped. She looked at her work, inhaling for a moment before suddenly breathing out seconds later. This whole process took around 2 minutes.

She put away her implements and turned the sketchbook to Izzy. She took a second to take it in before her eyes went wide and her neck arched forward. She looked towards the subject and back to the illustration. She started clapping silently and nodding. Aloe looked back, her eyes met Liam’s, and with some hesitation she turned slightly so her shoulder wouldn’t obscure it, and she turned the pad to him to reveal her work: It's the scene before them but rendered in beautiful water colour and ink. The lines are crisp and the darkest areas are shaded with cross hatching. The colours are accurate, but ethereal at the same time. Cicilia could also see it over Liam’s shoulder and gave a nod and a thumbs-up.

It was gorgeous. But Liam couldn’t help but notice that the subject was such a small part of the illustration, most of the space on the page was taken up by the surrounding scenery.

Izzy whispers something else excitedly to Aloe. She stands up and signals everyone to move forward. Aloe stood up with some hesitation and looked back to Liam and Cecilia with a fearful look in her eye.

At the edge of the clearing, Izzy takes a good minute to observe the surroundings before moving forward.

Izzy approaches the creature very slowly before lunging at it in the final 2 meters. She stands up holding the star shaped thing and turns it to the others revealing its underside; it was a small rodent-like creature and the part that they had been observing to this point was a disproportionately sized tail. It seemed fine with being held, making Izzy’s dramatic lunge to catch it seem unnecessary.

It was not at all what they expected. Cecilia did her best to contain her laughter, but couldn’t.

Liam catches a glimpse of Aloe’s unimpressed face as she gets her implements out. She begins sketching, and this time he can actually observe the process. She draws a very loose sketch with her pencil barely touching the paper, but never leaving it either. After a few seconds she starts to sketch some areas with more detail. She pulls out an ink pen and lays out confident, masterful strokes over the sketch. Then in the darker areas she plots some diagonal lines and then another set of diagonals in the other direction. She carefully blows on the ink to dry it. She takes out a rectangular box, she opens it to reveal her water colour set and does a quick pass of colours before going over it with another pass. There was a lot more detail this time, but it couldn’t have taken much longer. She takes a deep breath in and breathes out.

She nods to Izzy that it’s done. Izzy’s arms had started slumping after barely a minute of holding the struggling creature, but she held it in there.

‘Hey, you,’ Izzy addresses JJ; ‘bring the cage over.’

And JJ did just that, he unfolded a flattened metal cage he’d been tasked with carrying and opened the door. Izzy inserts the creature in and closes the little door.

‘Alright, everyone, we're off stealth mode for the time being. You two draw some more pictures and the rest of us will start lunch in a minute.’ Izzy announces

Aloe starts drawing and Liam finally takes out his stuff and draws as well.

Cecilia crouches down to get a closer look at the creature in the cage. Its front tail-frond was flipped back so it could observe its captors; ‘Awe, is this a Star-Rat?’

‘You bet!’ Izzy replied ‘They've been an invasive species in these parts for a few decades at this point, but their population has really boomed over the last year or two. So much so that I’m considering cooking this guy for our lunch.

‘Oh… interesting, why do you think they’re booming so suddenly?’

‘Well, I can’t be certain because I’ve only seen them get taken, but I’m pretty sure these guys evolved to look the way they do so they DO get eaten. And from there their young are birthed in whatever predator eats them and the babies eat the host from the inside out and do the whole thing over again. All that to say; it’s a parasite… probably.’

The party goes silent and everyone slowly looks Izzy’s way.

And you want to eat it?

Aloe finishes up a few more drawings from various angles and is about to go to where they set up the fire so she could rest, but she notices Liam is still working on his first drawing. He didn’t have any ink or water colours, so he was just drawing with pencil. It’s not great, but she notices that he tried some of the techniques he observed while watching her. He tried a light contour sketch followed by another more detailed pass and then had the right idea and did another pass over all of it to make the intended lines darker and clearer.

She was impressed that he picked all that up just seeing the process once.

Aloe sits next to him to watch for a bit.

Should she maybe…

‘Hey, guys, lunch is ready!’ Cecilia calls towards Liam and Aloe as she’s dishing out food, not paying much attention. No answer.

She starts to call again ‘Hey, guys-’, but she cuts herself off when she looks over and sees Aloe and Liam talking to each other. She sees Aloe pointing at spots on his drawing, giving direction. Liam replies with a smile and she… smiles back. They finally hit it off… and they’re really close to each other…

Cecilia’s heart sank a bit.