Chapter 4

Kiva hugged her father, leaving for her trial after they shared a quick breakfast. Truthfully, she was too excited to eat much, but she forced down a meal anyway. It might be crabs and fish from here on out. Kiva headed off to the west side of town, out into the hills that protected the western side of their village. Tidefang otters made homes all over the base of the island. They were very common, living in huge family groupings. She could have easily found them at the base of the cliffs below Howler’s Cove, but there was simply not enough separation for her to get into the right mindset if the town was nearby. She headed far to the west, taking her time. This process should not be hurried. One day of leisure wouldn’t make a difference.

She walked along the southern cliff’s edge of the island, high above the water line, keeping one eye on the water below for any signs of the otters. A few could be seen here and there, but she wanted to improve her odds as much as possible. By the end of the day, her legs were sore from walking constantly. She rested, finally satisfied with a location. She dangled her legs off the cliffside, watching below. Several otters could be seen swimming around in the whitecaps below, easily noticeable from their glowing striped patterns. They appeared to be going in and out of the cave system that pocked the base of the island. Kiva suspected this was where a romp lived. This was where she would live for the next several weeks, or even potentially months. The light was fading though, and she would make her way down, in the morning. It was hard not to rush things, but a broken leg, or a deadly fall wouldn’t converge her any faster, so she sat, and watched, and finally slept.

The first of the morning suns rose, climbing into the sky, but the cliff was facing west, so she had to wait until the shadows cleared a bit, to give her good light to climb by. There were no stairs carved into the rock of the island, like back at Howler’s Cove. In the town, platforms wound in and out of the cave system, using both natural and man-made pathways to navigate the various levels of the town. Here, in the wild, she had no such luxury. It would be a hard, and dangerous climb down to the water line. It was very high, and though not afraid of heights, she had no desire to fall.

Slowly and carefully she lowered herself over the edge, finding footholds to brace herself. Her hands were strong, from years of working the nets with her father, but she was not an excellent climber by any means. Taking her time, she painstakingly tested each step, each handhold. She got into a rhythm, slowly working her way down the cliffside. She spent as much time going sideways as she did downward, looking for the easiest, and safest path she could.

A rock slipped out, crumbling beneath her right foot as she settled her weight onto it. She clung with a death grip to her handholds, holding on for her life, literally. Rough stone cut into her fingers, slicing them, but she didn’t dare let go. Below as the rocks tumbled, plunging into the waters where many otters were swimming, they scattered, barking up at her in dissatisfaction.

“Sorry,” she yelled down to them. Kiva hadn’t moved after reaffirming her footing. She needed to let her heart calm it’s powerful thudding in her chest. Adrenaline raced through her system, at the fight or flight response. After a few minutes she had slowed her breathing, and was able to open her eyes again so she carefully resumed her descent.

She didn’t know how long it took, but the second sun must have been up by the time she reached the bottom. Her muscles were sore. Her path had taken her down along a natural ledge, and she stepped onto the shoreline a few hundred yards north from where the romp was living. She could get there, but had to swim across several cave mouths, where the shoreline was disrupted, to reach her destination.

Kiva was a strong swimmer, but she had grown up on the water and had the necessary respect for its power. She had to be careful. Riptides on the shore could pull her to sea. The caves were dangerous inlets that were not forgiving, and the ocean surged in and out, with power being generated where the rock restricted the water’s flow. She elected to scale the cliffs again, climbing the rocks to work her way over the caves when she could, but it was not possible on all of them.

She stared. Only one cave mouth away was a rocky beachhead that would take her the rest of the way to the animals. There was no way up and over. Years storms from the west had worn this rock completely smooth.

She had to swim. Kiva watched as the waves crashed powerfully, slamming into the walls in a chaotic churn of foamy white. There was a storm coming, the winds making the ocean extra agitated. Still, she was a good swimmer, and she was not going to let one short crossing deny her the thing she’d been working towards her whole life.

She had a small backpack, with a few rations, cooking supplies, and a just enough rope to reach across the gap. She tied the backpack to her belt and left it sitting on the shore. She would pull it over, once she reached the other side. She plunged into the water, fighting through the shock as the icy cold hit her. She pumped her arms and legs, swimming with all her might. The thrashing water pushed her inward, unforgiving. She was slammed into a rock with a gasp and swallowed a mouthful of seawater as air left her lungs. She panicked, swimming even harder, scared to be pulled into the dark cave. There was no telling where that led, and she couldn’t see in there if she got pulled in too deep. She pumped her legs, driving until she could reach the shore, or something stable.

She was inside the mouth of the cave at this point, but within sight of the beach, as it extended to a shelf inside the cave about twenty feet. The darkness of the cave terrified her. She paddled, and just before her goal, the rope on her belt went taught, as rocky sand slipped through her fingers. Her pack had been dragged into the water in the chaos, the current pulling it below, with the rope wrapped around a rock. She was being dragged backwards and down, the rope pulling her along with the pack, which was somewhere below the waterline now. Vrosh vrosh vrosh! No!

She gulped one last bit of air, as she was dragged below the waterline as if attached to an anchor. She reached backwards trying to untie the rope, to free herself from this deathtrap. The rope was pulled tight, and she could get no slack to loosen it. The blackness of the cave was darkening as she sunk deeper. It was a bad situation to say the least. Abandoning her initial approach she simply undid her belt, forcefully freeing it out of her breaches belt loops, and out of the rope, letting them be dragged into the ocean below her. She kicked hard, desperately swimming until she broke the surface, gasping for air. She was too far into the cave, and it was dark. Light could barely be seen at the cave entrance, and she used it like a compass, driving towards it. She swam to the wall, trying to find a handhold the pull herself along. The force of the tide slammed her into the stone repeatedly, cutting her, and leaving several bruises to inspect later. The handholds were slippery, wet, and smooth, but she fought with all her willpower and was able to pull herself back towards the mouth of the cave. She crawled onto the beach, and collapsed, gulping air. She had to get out of the cave, the tide would come in soon, and this beachhead might be underwater.

“You’re ok, Kiva. You’ve got this,” she told herself, as she crawled on hands and knees to the rocky coastline outside of the cave. She made it a good twenty feet away from the cave before collapsing from exhaustion.