David Policar 1996.
The boy had no name, and longed for one. In this, he was special.
He had had many names among People. He was Infant in his first memories, when the world was small; Student in the months after his first cold time, when he learned the world's names -- that of the tall branchless tree that could not be climbed without the clawed rope, and of the white-feathered birds that nested in the tree's high tufts; the soft tubers growing in the dirt by the rivers, and the silver powder Apothecaries made from it, that tasted bitter but helped maintain alertness; names for the colors of the light as it moved beyond the trees between darknesses, and the colors of the plants and the animals and the soil and the people, and much more. He learned names for the cold season, and the wet season, and the dry season, and the many patterns of temperature and moisture that came during each season. He learned the history of People, which spanned many hundreds of seasons, and the important lessons learned. He learned also of the bodies of Student, so different from Infant's, and of their boundaries and the pleasures of merging them in mating. The world remained small, and he learned much of it.
After the second cold season, he was Hunter, and the world grew. He tasted the eggs of the white-feathered birds, too fragile to carry; he learned the pains of the chase, hunger and fatigue, so different from Student's bruises and cuts. He learned the movements of the four-legged beasts, and how they died. These things he learned from his own senses, and as he encountered each of them, they joined to the names Teachers had placed in his mind.
In a short time the cold had returned, and prey hid, so he stayed among People, watching them as he had watched prey, seeking patterns. He saw old Apothecary, ending his sixth cycle before moving to Student House to spend his last cycle as Teacher. He saw young Apothecary, red-haired with brown hands and feet and golden eyes, and streaks of white and gold along her chest and belly; three others he saw (Hunter, Artist, and Physician) shared those markings, though different in other ways.
For this too, he knew, there was a name, but it had been placed in his mind long ago, and he was not Scientist, and he could not join the thing to the name. But he saw the markings move from body to body -- the light-brown tufts along Artist's back, shared by Weaver, agemate to Apothecary -- and he knew them as the patterns of matings and births of People. For a time, he stayed with Historian, sharing the memories she had been given as Student, learning the birthlines.
After the third cold season, he became Hunter again; but when the cold returned, he returned to tracking births among People, and learned many subtle patterns. One such pattern intrigued him especially: a new Student, whose eyes and teeth and fur marked her as child of Artist, who was child of Weaver and Apothecary (who in turn were born of others, though none but he and Historian knew them), but whose yellow mane and folded ears and sloped forehead made a pattern he had never seen. It was a puzzle.
He had seen in Historian's memories that unique markings could, and sometimes did, appear in a People... but never so many. New patterns appeared only when Wanderers joined the People, but no Wanderer had joined in many cycles. Still - within the history was the pattern he sought, a golden-furred visitor from the time of Historian's teacher... a mere five cycles past. Perhaps a Wanderer, perhaps not; the People could not share with him and thus knew nothing of him. He arrived, and stayed a time, and left, and the pattern left with him, to return again cycles later in the body of this new Student.
When the cold receded, he had found no better answer, and became Hunter again. The wet days, when the waters ran deep and fast, were a good time for fish, and so Hunter sat by the riverside, calling the fish with his clever feet and watching himself in the water's surface. Amused by the game, he moved so that a leafy patch on the river floor served as a backdrop to his mane, rather like the hats some wore during the wet season. Except, of course, that a hat would cover his forehead and his... ears.
His ears, folded along his skull, behind his yellow mane.
Of course.
Feet wet, and fish forgotten, he returned home chilled and hungry. But the chase was still on, and so he pushed the feelings aside and ran to the student-hall, where a moment's observation verified that the markings he had been unable to identify were his own. He realized suddenly that this should have been obvious from the start, but it had never occured to him to observe himself the way he observed others.
He was the student's sire... although that was not the correct name, he realized. People were not bred like animals; the names he had learned as a tender of animals should not apply. But he knew no name for himself now, and knew no name for his feelings. Curiosity, yes, and triumph at the completion of a chase, but something else as well.
It would be many years and many miles before he learned his new name. To do so, he would be forced to leave the People, leave the woods he knew, and journey across worlds and states of being.But it was at that moment that he first became Father.