A little background info:
Why: I read a National Geographic article on this. I know my Neanderthals, thankyou.
Where: this is set in what would later be France, as the title says, 43,000 years ago...
Just a statement: I hope you get interested in Neanderthals by reading this--it was really cool reading about them. So brush up on your human ancestors. It was them that made us, well, us.
FYI: Xica is a Neanderthal, along with her brother Dojeer and their clan. Sare is a human... so here it is...
Xica sat back on her heels, feeling the icy ground beneath her body. The perpetual shakes of winter wracked her body day and night, and at times like these, in the early morning, she often wished for the warm midsummer sun that would shine upon her shoulders. Frustrated, she flung away the shaft she'd been trying since dawn to brace. The wooden rod fell with a thunk to the ground on a rock a few yards away. Her hazy mud green eyes glared at the other piece of the spear. The tightly-bound flint point had remained fletched to the shorter piece, but the longer, holding end had broken off. It would be easier to brace the shaft than to climb a tree and hack off a new decent-sized rod, she'd decided. But so far, it hadn't been working. She rose stiffly to her feet, scrambling over a patch of ice to get to the shaft.
As her fingers closed on the rough wooden handle, there was a slight noise behind her.
A mountain cat? She'd seen it happen--it would launch itself into the air, striking her square in the back, its bone-white fangs closing on her spinal cord, snapping it in two.... She braced for whatever might come. Another muffled sound stung her eardrums.
Xica whirled on the ice-covered ground, prepared to fight. Something caught her in the shoulder, knocking the air from her lungs. She fell backwards, onto the other shoulder, which contacted the unforgiving surface of the rock. A moving object was over her, then on her. She tried to jab it with the broken shaft, but landed only glancing blow. The creature proceeded to fall bodily on top of her, sprouting a soft, even delicate set of projections which now swept across her face--fingers.
"Dojeer!" she spat. "Gia! Gia! Enough." Xica used the shaft as a lever, propelling the squirming body away from hers.
"Ja, yes. I will stop," Dojeer replied, pulling himself from the folds of his shaggy mammoth skin robe.
"Ja. Good brother, Dojeer," Xica condoned his actions, her voice rising a bit in its odd, sing-song pitches.
"Good sister, Xica," Dojeer returned, helping her to her feet. Their eyes met, and Dojeer made a motion to his sister that she should follow him. She did so, brushing matted strands of coppery brown hair from her tanned forehead. Dojeer pranced the short distance into their cave home, a dry, sandy-bottomed alcove sheltered by a sloping outcropping of rock.
Xica went inside with him, falling to her knees at her bed; a crude mattress of rushes and a few bits of discarded mammoth skin. Beside it, she kept her few belongings. Now, she shuffled in the sand, digging up the items she needed: a few strips of sinew, and two strangely shaped lumps of woven tree-bark, her shoes. Tying the leather cords that held the bark sleds to her feet, she stood up again, twisting the bits of sinew. These would be useful in bracing the spear shaft, she decided. The sinew was stiff and strong, but pliable--exactly what the bark strips she'd been trying to use were not. She sat back down over the small bank of fire embers. Xica and began again, picking short, narrow sticks from the dirt where she'd dropped them in her frustrated tantrum. She placed several sticks on each side of the shaft, and then began to twine the sinew around them, making a sort of splint to secure the shaft in its original position. After several minutes, she stood up, eager to test her work. First, she shook the spear high in the air about her head. Then she drove the tip into the earth and pulled it back out. The wood creaked and groaned, but held. She then busied herself with scrounging around for food, her stomach wailing in her gut that it was hungry. All she found near the cave were a few deer bones, already sucked dry of their marrow. The older members of her clan had devoured the entirety the last night's meal. She'd just have to go hunt something for herself... Grabbing her spear and a deer bone to chew, she wailed to Dojeer, "Xica hunt! Xica hungry, so Xica hunt!"
Dojeer waved in acknowledgment, and then cried back "Dojeer hungry! Xica hunt Dojeer food!"
Xica grinned and nodded, murmuring "Ja. Ja." She looked over her shoulder to see Dojeer dart back into the cave where the older clan members lay, snoring loudly. He curled up next to a fire pit, shoving his bedding towards it, and covered himself with his mammoth robe. Had Xica been highly enough evolved, she'd most certainly have rolled her eyes. Frowning grimly in the cold air, she began the long hike to the hunting grounds. A few hours into her journey, she began to shiver more. The spear in her hand seemed to grow heavier, and the mammoth skin robe she wore seemed to be sparser. The snow was a muddy gray, slush tugging at her feet, soaking through the bark sandals she wore. Her stomach was now painful, as if it intended to eat out her insides just to satiate its craving. She yearned for a squirrel or deer, anything, to stumble into her path so she could stab its heart or brain out; eat its flesh. But no life was to be seen other than herself. She spoke to herself to ease the pressing silence, for, despite her primitive mind, she was acutely aware of the desolate surroundings. She longed to be curled up next to Dojeer, warm and safe in the confines of their cave, hungry but happy. Throughout the entire winter, there had been little game. She stopped to rest leaning against a tree trunk, and put her hand to her face, pressing on the flesh. A sharp ridge was easily felt through the skin; her cheekbones. Xica couldn't remember it being so harshly defined in the past. Why was she feeling more of it now, she wondered fleetingly. A low noise made her mind reel. A mammoth? No. A mammoth would make much more rustling noises, and there should be droppings about... Then she heard it again--a low, groan. A harsh, vibrating sound unlike any she'd ever heard before. It was too well-defined to come from any animal, but too simplistic and primitive to come from a fellow Neanderthal. She turned, scanning her surroundings.
"Come out!" she keened, raising her spear. Something felt wrong to her, a strange scent on the wind, a tingle in her spine-- then the noise was repeated. A grunt followed. A grunt. It was a Neanderthal, she was sure of it-- "Come out! Xica no hurt if you no hurt Xica!" she called again.
Another grunt, a moan. She followed the sound, now sprinting as she drew nearer its source.
In a small clearing, there lay a gaunt, hollow-eyed creature, its rich brown and black hair hanging limply over its face, its mouth open, sending out clouds of white breath that hung in the air.
"Xica no hurt," she repeated, this time more slowly, softer, almost gently as she studied the forlorn figure. It grunted, and tried to get up, but fell back, sending a pool of crimson liquid gushing out over the white snow where it lay. "You...hurt?" she asked tentatively.
"Sare..." said the stranger, gasping for breath as his cracked, harsh voice formed the single, rough syllable.
"You, Sare? Hurt?" Xica repeated herself, now putting down her spear.
"Sare. Pain." Sare's voice continued to grow raspier on each word, and he managed to sit up, but his leg spewed more blood as he did so. Xica saw with alarm what was happening. He would soon surely die... Dead bodies were edible... Xica thought for a moment, cocking her head critically until she had made her decision. "Sare die. Sare die by Xica or Sare die by Sare's hurt."
The poor man stared at her, his eyes so pleading, so pitiful that she had to look away. "Sare...pain..." he rasped, tears beginning to flow from his eyes.
"Xica hungry. Xica find no hunted. Xica need Sare be Xica's hunted, Xica eat Sare," she explained slowly, her voice falling in volume as she began to dread her coming actions. But it was inevitable--he would die, whether with a spear in his heart or from loss of blood. And she'd die if she didn't find something to eat soon. Sare's flesh was as good to eat as any mammoth's. Why not?...
eat...Sare? She considered it again, attempting to understand Sare's input, but his words were alien to her. Finally, she could take the angst no longer. "Ja. Sare be Xica's hunted. Xica do...Xica spear Sare. Sare no hurt more. Xica cook Sare. Xica and Dojeer eat Sare." she spoke her plans aloud, pitying the poor creature that had come to lie on the icy ground, bleeding to death. Then there was a single crack of a twig, and a blurr of white and grey fur flew towards them through the trees--Xica instantly raised her spear, aiming in the direction of the animal, whatever it was-in time to see it jump--at-her. A moment later, she knew nothing but darkness, the snow cold on her body; she lays sprawled in it, something digging into her chest. Dead? Sare tried to move to see what had happened to his new found companion, but the pain of his cut stilled him. Endless minutes later, their furry antagonist began to move, spreading more blood onto the snow as it did so. Then it fell limp to the side, revealing the blood-streaked body of the Neanderthal girl who had approached Sare. Slowly, her eyelids flickered open, and she smiled, looking at the broken end of her spear shaft that had gouged a deep abrasion into her chest. But the other end was stuck deep into the breast of the animal--a mountain cat. She'd killed a mountain cat. What a feast it would be, the lean, muscular meat and the soft, velvety fur of the cat's skins... She looked again at Sare, who also smiled, and she began to cut away the hide. A strip of it she handed to Sare, and began to inspect his leg wound. His right shin was split open in the middle, with the wound so deep, between the blood, a white shard of bone was visible. Xica touched it delicately, and he drew back, weakly throwing a back-hand punch at her forehead. He hit his mark, but succeeded in doing nothing more than greatly annoying his effective captress. Xica held him down with one arm, and with both hands, proceeded to wind a few strips of fresh sinew about his lower leg, sealing off the wound with the tight bindings. He kicked at her as she did so, writhing in her grasp from the sheer agony of the pain she was inflicting upon him. But she hadn't eaten him. She was, in fact, saving him. With no wood to build a fire, she hacked off a piece of cat-meat, popping the bloody flesh into her mouth, chewing slowly. She then continued to do this until she'd had her fill. Only then did her thoughts return to the grievously injured stranger. She cut off a leg from the cat using her spear tip, and held the gaping cut over Sare's mouth, which she forced open with a thumb braced against his throat, and squeezed the dismembered limb, wringing out a thick, dripping mess of red liquid--the cat's blood. It dropped into his mouth and spattered over his face, staining the raven locks of hair that covered his neck and dripping down onto the leather garments he wore. His clothing, Xica noticed, was more carefully crafted than her own. It had strange, tightly cut folds of leather covering his arms instead of a loose, puffy strip of mammoth fur as a cloak.
She looked up, surprised by an icy tingle on her bare arm. Snow was falling; thick, heavy flakes dripped from a slate gray sky above them. Chagrined, Xica let out a long, angry breath, and began to finish hiding the dead cat. As she shook out the blood-soaked skin, the flakes began to bite her skin. She looked around desperately, searching for a source of warmth. There was only one possibility. Sare's body was warm. Nothing else was. Reluctantly, she carved a hole in a snowdrift, and towed Sare by the arms to it, disregarding his unintelligible grunts of protest. She lay down in the hole with him, covering them with the skin of the mountain cat for shelter from the elements. She hugged him close for warmth, and braced for the coming blizzard.
