Chapter 2

Fulfillment came next. Ancilla--do not trouble over which, for soon enough they are all as identical shapes shuffled about and scattered to the ground, without identity, just as intended--locates a spot hidden between shrubbery, absent of sound, absent of supervision and instruction for one sweet moment. In it, she observes the setting of the sun after a long day; observes just as Fossa, shortly after his growth, observed with anxiety and  unconcern. 

Ancilla saw much the same scene, and witnessed it with breath held. This, she thought, ought to be rumbling and making a racket. This ought to be stealing our attention every time. Why is it so silent?

Though silent the sun and the earth remained. So too did Ancilla, shivering with comfort at the security the bushes extended to her. 

On occasion, she would attempt to write on the soil just how important this daily occurrence was to her; how each time, a little different, the change in the sky hypnotized her, and fed her senses like an overwhelming drug; how it lasted just long enough; how it was, thank somebody, so worthy that she anticipated it all day. 

She never achieved completion of a single letter, for she worried to no end that, should her description be inadequate, the beauty would be diminished, or worse, erased. She thought, “Fossa will find it and read it, and he will tell me what I see isn’t so. He will say I do not see the beauty properly, I never have and I never can; unless unless unless.” 

And Fossa, reading long after she departs and leaves an offering of her self indented upon the earth, says “You know not what you see or do. Thankful for you, I am here to know in your place.” And he delivers confirmation of her fears: “You do not see correctly; the beauty shall be seen best with eyes closed--there it may never be cold nor cruel; indifferent or overbearing. You may have it as you like it.”

And here, in her dreamy imagination, Ancilla does write the words to which Fossa responds. She does her best.

The end of a day, like the end of a life. So much color condensed in a final show. Every shade perfect. Don’t go away, please, don’t go away.

Nothing broke her reverie. She crouched with only the sound of wind against her ears. Wouldn’t it be lovely to never leave Ancilla and this calm place? To never return to the abrasiveness of the high-strung Fossa, and the medium-strung hero-worshipper (as that adequately describes him in this time) Fidei? 

Well, it must happen; for even though Ancilla received the blooming of a personality, the same happened for the leaders. 

Fossa resented Ancilla and Fidei resented Ancilla, for keeping private the matter of their (the women’s) creation. 

“Say to me,” Fossa sternly says, “from where you grew? When?” 

He threatened more drumming from the sky, though for many days following the sky and air were more pleasant than usual; he threatened illness, though the Ancillas felt cheery and, for a moment, equal (and for a smaller moment, superior); he threatened to kill Fidei without moving a muscle, however Fidei lived on; he threatened eternal nighttime, however Ancilla still savored her hidden sunsets; finally he threatened with the sharp stone, but he did not do so commandingly enough--rather he did so halfheartedly, knowing in the same dreamy imagination-world as Ancilla, that without them he meant nothing.

He dare not erase them. They, on the other hand, could easily render him worthless.

Fossa’s paranoia worsened. The gloomy shadow of anxiety, a fear that at any time his veracity as the leader (or as he lately called in his own mind a “Supreme Leadership”) would come into question. In these early days, the dear leader Fossa lived vulnerably for quite some time. 

Nothing demonstrated this more than the eventual swelling of Ancilla’s stomach (of course, the swelling of her womb). This perturbed Fossa to no end, and it was pure fortune and chance that he never followed through with a plan to poke open the ever-growing balloon of a belly. 

What followed, as may have been guessed, was the first (known) blossoming of a human by means other than the growth from tree-limb. Although, we mustn’t forget, the Ancilla’s origins remain a mystery. In spite, Fossa declared it truth--once the small child (of which these people, having plopped to the ground full-sized, had never seen before) emerged from the birth canal--that such a birth was a first, and that he had willed it to happen. 

As it became clear, amid the painful shrieks from Ancilla, that a tiny human head peeked out to the small, captive audience surrounding the woman, Fossa swiftly declared his willing of the small piece of life; declaring “My son, here he comes--to follow my commands, and embody them.”

Never mind the surprise that occasionally flitted upon the dear leader’s face; and never mind that, as the episode reached its conclusion, the new child was female.

As reality slammed into the audience, Fossa nearly evacuated his bladder and bowels--much like his first waste-removal, if such a digression is pardoned, when the soon-to-be leader met a dog-like creature while alone in the surrounding forest. The loneliness injected no fearful response; no, it was gazing into the eyes of this living, breathing thing and noticing that those eyes were identical to his own, and to Ancilla’s, that caused him to s**t on the spot, urine chasing it down his legs. 

Fossa resisted such embarrassing panic on this occasion; though the sliding-out-of-control inside his stomach dried his mouth and chattered his teeth. Oh! The possibility that he may not be the best of all, supreme and unique, instead a banality! 

He overcame this by lamely (for lack of any entertaining or amusing value) claiming to have decided before the child’s genitals cleared the canal, to have a woman-child. 

And so yet another Ancilla. 

Soon, rumors reached Fossa that Ancilla had told, continued to tell, among other secrets, the truth of her origins. Rumors short-traveled, as they began at Fossa’s mouth, and ended at each ear. 

“Always muttering, always breathing words,” he would say to himself. And so she did, whispering nearly every time Fossa or Fidei came upon her while caring for the daughter. 

Notwithstanding the perceived flow against himself, Fossa continued to reign over the small clan. Nothing commanded he, and all did as he commanded. 

Most every action was known to him, except for one: where did Ancilla and the new child disappear to one time a day? 

On many occasions, Fossa trailed the two through a course of green leafy branches and tall fluttery grasses; however every time, he lost her; she flickered away like a dead flame.