Vigneshvijaykk

Luna looked at the villagers gathered together with food and stuff. She stepped closer to rabbit. “Hey, are they all the people in your village? Hardly about sixty?”

Rabbit shook her head. “No, we are close to a hundred. But the others are not joining us” 

“It’s a festival. Why not?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. The lesser the number of people the less chaos.”

People looked around to see if everybody had assembled. Trekker and coconut walked in with a huge basket full of freshly plucked apples. 

“Do we really need this much food? For one afternoon?” asked Luna with wide eyes.

Rabbit laughed. “It’s not for us alone. We will feed the elephant calves. It’s mostly about the calves to be honest. So every year a little past the delivery season there will usually be a lot of newborn calves and they sometimes struggle to adapt. Nature has equipped them well of course, but we still do our bit by visiting them once, giving them scrubs, massages, food and pampering them a bit. That’s what this day is about.”

Luna nodded. 

“I wish someone would pamper me like that” Rabbit added with a smirk.

 Luna laughed. “Just say the word darling, I’m all here for you” she said flirtily. Rabbit threw her arm around her and giggled.

The crowd started walking and Luna noticed Trekker looking more upset than normal and asked Rabbit about it.

“Oh that? He goes silent on elephant festivals usually. Three years back, Lily and him had a fight on this day. They didn’t speak to each other after that. Nobody really asks him about it.”

Luna’s curious mind started bubbling, but she knew better than to go ask him. She made a mental note to investigate this when the time came.

** 

Luna was getting bored. Rabbit was quiet, lost in thoughts. And Luna was not the type to start conversations unless she had something important to ask. She wanted to go talk to Trekker but she knew it would look like she missed him. She didn’t want that. 

She isolated a pebble and started dribbling it as she walked, to Rabbit’s amusement. After a while Rabbit tried to take it from her, and soon they were playing a game they invented by themselves. Others started noticing them but they kept playing. They moved faster because of the game, and soon the crowd lagged behind them, leaving them alone with coconut and Trekker walking really fast and matching their pace a bit. 

When Luna and Rabbit ended up fighting hard for the pebble, they fell down, on the slightly uphill path they were walking, and rolled down to where trekker and coconut were. Rabbit had a bit of a scratch but Luna scraped her knee, and sprained her ankle. 

Trekker and Rabbit had to walk Luna together, holding her between them. “This is embarrassing” she murmured as she tried to balance herself with her arms around their shoulders. 

“You are short enough, you can just hang onto us” Rabbit said teasingly. Luna pinched her cheek. None of this cheered Trekker up though. He smiled briefly and didn’t react more than that. 

**

Rabbit joined the others and started playing with the calves while Trekker came and sat down next to Luna.

“You can join them. I can be alone. I don’t mind.” she said politely.

“No, it’s fine.” he said and got comfortable leaning back into the tree behind him. She mirrored him and leaned back to the adjacent side of the tree.

“How is the knee?” he asked. 

“Better now” 

“Did you see the swirl on the river on our way?” he asked her.

She nodded. She didn’t realise he couldn’t see her. He turned to her side, and asked “did you hear me?”

She giggled and nodded again. “Yes, yes. I saw. Sorry. I nodded but you didn’t see” 

“Yes. my mistake” he said with a teasing smile.

“Of course.”

“The river usually picks up a swirl around this time of the year. Three years back, Lily and I were walking together lagging behind the crowd on this day. She had been learning to swim just then. She was bragging about how she could handle the current with the heavy flow. I pointed at the swirl and said she wouldn’t be able to handle that.”

He paused. Luna didn’t prompt him. She waited. 

“She challenged me. She wanted us both to jump in and see who swims better.” 

Another pause. 

“I told her it’s risky, but she didn’t hear me. She jumped. And I had to jump too. And she managed pretty well to a point. Then suddenly…” a pause, “… well, she started losing control and moved toward the swirl. I panicked.” 

A long pause.

“I rushed to her, but she was too far away, and I couldn’t reach her. My heart sank and I screamed at her to not fight the current but use it to change direction, and I can’t describe how mad and scared I was. And then to my surprise she effortlessly moves away and laughs at me loudly.”

A longer pause. 

“She had once almost drowned in that river before and people had to save her. That is why I even taught her how to swim. I couldn’t even handle the thought of losing her. So you can imagine how I must have felt then. That was the most painful moment in my life. And I never spoke to her again after that.”

“Maybe you should have explained to her why you were upset…” Luna said softly. 

“She knew. She knew I care about her a lot. And I would die a hundred deaths if something were to happen to her. She didn’t need me to explain.” 

Luna didn’t say anything more. He probably would get triggered by anything right now, she thought. 

Just then an elephant calf came toward her. “Oh no. Why is it coming here?” she asked in panic.

Trekker was amused. He chuckled and said “maybe it finds you attractive.”

“Everyone finds me attractive,” she said, trying not to smile. 

He pulled it closer and petted it, getting on his knees but the calf didn’t let him hold it for long. It moved to Luna and bumped its head against her. She tried hard to not move away and slowly she touched its trunk and stroked it softly. It didn’t take long for her to bond with the baby. Trekker went off and brought back some fruits and she fed the calf. 

As it chewed on the fruit, she gently massaged its trunk mimicking Rabbit who was doing the same at a distance.

Trekker wanted to remind her how he was right about her getting along with the elephants, but he didn’t want to make her conscious. He walked off to the river bank and observed the water flowing. 

A little while later Rabbit came by. “Hey we are leaving.” He nodded and walked back with her.

**

Rabbit and Trekker resumed their Luna duty and walked her back. Rabbit got tired after a point and Luna said “It’s okay. I think Trekker should be enough. My right leg is fine.” 

Rabbit sighed in relief, freed herself and invited coconut to play pebble with her. He reluctantly agreed after she let him place a bet. 

Trekker and Luna were behind now. Trekker slowed down as he noticed a spot.

“This is where we both got back to the ground, I hope I never get to witness something like that again,” he recalled.

Luna felt awkward. She could see he was opening up emotionally and it didn’t sit well with her. It was too much. 

“Let me try walking on my own,” she said and started pulling away. He wanted to stop her but didn’t. He quietly followed her and remained close, wondering if he made her uncomfortable with his story. 

At this point, Luna noticed something stuck to a tree a bit farther. She was trying to get closer to the water and see more clearly. 

From where he stood, Trekker thought she might jump into the water. His flashback came to him and he got into panic mode. Especially with her sprained leg, he didn’t want her getting into the water. He yelled at her and ran toward her, as she got closer to the water. She turned back to look at him but continued walking ahead.

When she got into the water he started rushing. And then he tackled her onto the ground pulling her from the water. They landed on the ground and Luna was pissed and shocked. She pushed him away and slapped him hard.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING TREKKER?”

“Trying to save you.”

“FROM WHAT?” 

She got up, dusted her clothes and got back into the water. Behind the tree partly inside the river, she noticed a cloth floating on water. She held it and tried to pull it to her side and something moved toward her. Trekker saw her and only now he recognised what she was getting at. A human being. Possibly dead. He got up and moved closer and he knew who that was. His brother Leo. His late brother Leo. 

She looked at the body and at Trekker with visible irritation. And then she walked off ahead to inform and hold the others, leaving him to stay with Leo. 

First Hunter, and now Leo. Trekker realised that he had bigger things to worry about than Lily and her stupid prank.