4 His New People
Sandstorm
Sandstorm would be lying if he said he’d never wanted to go into the forest. It looked beautiful and alien, sitting across the wide Blue River. All the green. All the life. All the danger. It sounded like the setting to one of Noknow’s stories.
Unfortunately, that’s why the Blue River tribe never went into it. There was too much risk of getting attacked by people or animals they couldn’t see through the trees. As a result, wood was rare to nonexistent in their society. In his naïve years, Sandstorm had wanted to go into the forest, talk with the tribes there, and figure out a way to stop them from attacking his people. Maybe they could start trading wood or rock or milk instead of children!
But he knew now that wasn’t how things worked. Humans only traded to help themselves fight each other over territory. That’s what Sandstorm was. A leg up over his birth tribe.
On top of that, all the plant and animal life here was breathing out magic. It hung over everything like fog. Sandstorm coughed, feeling like he should be suffocating. Squirrel, the diplomat, smiled.
“It’s strange, isn’t it?” he asked, “Don’t worry, you don’t have to learn to breathe another way around plants.”
“How do you see anything?” Sandstorm asked.
Squirrel laughed.
“It’s not that dark, is it?” he asked.
“No, I mean through the magic,” Sandstorm said.
Squirrel looked at him curiously.
“You see magic?” he asked.
“I’m Chosen, remember?” Sandstorm said.
Squirrel lapsed into thought. What he was thinking, though, Sandstorm couldn’t tell. It was about an hour before either traveler spoke again.
“We’re almost there,” Squirrel said, pointing ahead.
Over the hour, Sandstorm had started to adjust to the magic fog that covered everything. So when Squirrel said that, he could just make out the signature magic that humans breathed.
Through the crowded trees were open stretches of garden land, and beyond that, a circle of cabins. They were made of trees cut down and stripped of branches. Tribesmen and older children worked in the fields, carrying buckets or planting seeds. Young children played in the village itself as their mothers sewed or left to gather vegetation. In the center of the village was a large circle lined with stone. The place of the bonfire.
Squirrel brought out a small horn made from a hollow branch. He blew into it, and a high-pitched buzz came out the other end. The tribe members left their work or play and swarmed towards the newcomers. Sandstorm made sure to keep pace with Squirrel, bracing himself for the announcement that couldn’t be far behind.
“People of the Western Forest!” Squirrel called to the crowd, “We have great reason to rejoice! For Sandstorm, son of Chief Rain, has come to strengthen and lead us! What shall be his name among his new people?”
Sandstorm forced himself to not flinch. Instead, he held his head high, looking around at the people assorted. So these were the feared people of the Western Forest. His new people.
There were mischievous, creative, sneaky, kind, snappy, good-hearted faces in the crowd. It was almost like Sandstorm could identify who each person’s Blue River counterpart was. These were simply different faces and names to the same people he’d grown up with. The ache in Sandstorm’s chest lessened some. The children of chiefs left their birth people as surely as they were born. Such was the human way. But the people they led didn’t change. All tribes were the same at the core.
That’s why we fight, right? There can only be one. We don’t like sameness.
“Perhaps he could be ‘Rainstorm’!” a woman said.
The suggestion brought Sandstorm back to the matter at hand. And with it, the renaming commenced.
“Call him ‘Sunchild’!”
“‘Cloud’!”
“How about ‘Eagle’?”
“Wrong tribe, Willow!”
“Call him ‘Riverbed’!”
“‘Oaktree’!”
“‘Serpent’!”
“Willow!”
“What? No one else had suggestions!”
Sandstorm smiled at the six-year-old who was holding her exasperated father’s hand. He may not have any say as the suggestions were being given, but he didn’t mind her tries. They were pretty good guesses for such a young person, especially considering how far she was from the desert.
“Why not ‘Coward’?” a young man asked.
His group of friends laughed, and Sandstorm’s smile fell. That suggestion, on the other hand…
Thankfully Squirrel jumped in on it. He glared daggers at the group, and they fell silent.
“Are you disrespecting the future chief?” he asked.
They shook their heads in unison. Then a voice, around Sandstorm’s age, called out,
“His name should be ‘Greenbrook’.”
Everyone turned to a teen standing near the back of the group. He wore clothes of bear skin, and a wooden crescent moon hung around his neck. Beside him stood a teen girl, similarly dressed, with a wooden necklace of stars. The current chief’s son and his betrothed. Sandstorm stared. If a boy was married, then he couldn’t be traded. Why would the Western Forest want Sandstorm when their heir was still here?
Because I know how the Blue River people work. I will make better warfare against them then someone raised here.
The Forest Chief’s son smiled at the silence that came after his declaration. He clearly relished the attention.
“Don’t you see?” he asked casually, “The future chief comes from the Blue River, and the forest is green. He will become loyally green, but retain somewhat the knowledge of his birth people. In other words, the Blue River inside of him will become green and dry up a little. So: Greenbrook.”
There was a pause. Then voices began to ring out.
“Yes, Greenbrook!”
“Trailblazer spoke well! Sandstorm will be Greenbrook!”
“Greenbrook will nurture and water us well!”
“Greenbrook, Greenbrook, Greenbrook-”
The crowd began to chant the new name, pressing it onto Sandstorm. They fell silent only when Squirrel raised his hands. Then Squirrel turned to the newly renamed boy.
“Do you accept the name that your people have given you?” he asked.
Sandstorm took a shallow breath to steady his voice before answering.
“I do. I will no longer be Sandstorm of the Blue River people. I will be Greenbrook of the Western Forest, and lead my new people to victories against their enemies,” he said.
A cheer went up from the gathered tribe, and Sandstorm- now Greenbrook- looked around at their faces. As he made eye contact, he found that love for each person was already sprouting inside him. Yes, the desert would always bring an ache of longing. But he would be happy here in the forest.
These were his people.
