Into Tarzan
Popping out of the portal into a dense jungle was not what Dawn was expecting after having lived in a populated town for the last few months. It was hot and humid, neither of which Dawn enjoyed when coming from a world that had moderate weather. Dawn looked around and could not spot even a hint of civilization, it honestly made her nervous.
She had never been in a world without other people around before. This jungle was void of anyone around her and Dawn could only begin exploring carefully.
For protection, Dawn pulled out a small knife from her neither space. There was so much stuff hidden away in her neither space now, that Dawn put it in her mind to sort through everything she had accumulated so far and sell anything that did not have sentimental value at the next city or town she arrived at.
Birds chirped in the canopy and bugs buzzed everywhere around her. Dawn heard the trumpeting of an elephant in the far-off distance, and then she heard a waterfall. Continuing to slowly walk forward through the thick brush, with sunlight dappling the ground occasionally, Dawn finally came to the edge of the tree line which was situation on the edge of a short drop-off leading to a massive pool of crystal clear water.
There were dozens of animals all around including elephants, hippos, apes, and dozens of different species of birds such as flamingos and cranes. Dawn looked around and spied a small figure of a hunched over boy about her age. He only wore a scraggly loincloth, Dawn supposed this was not so much for modesty as to keep his sensitive private parts close to his body. The boy was currently roughhousing with an ape slightly bigger than he was. Dawn could hear him laughing even when the play fighting got him thrown into the pool of water.
Dawn looked down at herself. She was wearing civilized clothes. She knew she was meant to be here, not to take the boy to civilization. This was his home, who was she to remove him from it. Dawn quickly got undressed and grabbed an old rough spun cloth sheet from her neither space. With her knife, Dawn tore into the cloth to create a halter top that tied behind her neck and behind her back. With the rest of the cloth, Dawn created a simple wrap skirt that helped to hide her regular underwear. Finally, Dawn pulled out a simple leather tie and tied back her hair which had gotten waste length at this point in her life.
Done with getting ready to go down and meet that boy, Dawn nervously began climbing down the drop off to get to the edge of the water.
The boy seemed to communicate in grunts, exactly like the gorillas. Dawn had always been able to speak the language of the world she had arrived in, and so Dawn hoped it would be the same with the gorilla’s language.
Dawn was slow, watching the gorilla family carefully for any reactions towards her. Finally, one of them spotted her. It was a female on the edge of the group tending to a small baby gorilla. The female let out a warning cry to her family group and pointed at Dawn. Dawn halted; she did not dare to get any closer even though she was still quite far away.
The entire group of gorillas looked her way, and Dawn could hear words being spoken which relieved her greatly.
“It looks like Tarzan!”
“There’s more of them?”
“It looks different.”
Dawn watched as all of them communicated about her, and Dawn gathered her courage and waved a hand from where she was crouching like the boy. The only one she really wanted to interact with was the boy, the gorillas were interesting, but she knew she was only in this world because of the boy. “Hello.” Dawn called out.
The boy, Dawn assumed his name was Tarzan after overhearing the gorillas talking, slowly crept forward. Tarzan’s face showed open awe and surprise as he crept forward upon his knuckles. “Who are you?”
Dawn smiled warmly, “My name is Dawn.”
Tarzan crept forward slowly as he was quite nervous, Dawn looked to him with an easy smile. “I've never met someone that looked like me before. Where did you come from?”
“I came from the savanna; I’ve lived there for a long time. My parents died years ago and so I’ve been traveling ever since.”
Tarzan looked shocked, “There are other creatures like me? Like us?”
Dawn frowned, “Yes, however most of them are filled with greed and will destroy everything to satisfy their lust for material objects.”
Both Tarzan and the gorillas were confused. The other gorillas had come closer though the large silverback was watching her carefully while also keeping an eye on their surroundings. The gorilla that had been playfighting with Tarzan spoke up, “I don’t understand what you’re saying when you say material objects.”
Dawn smiled and reached down to pull a shiny stone laying on the side of the water. The rock was veined with some sort of shiny mineral, which made it sparkle in the sunlight. “There are people that would destroy this entire jungle for the shine light in this rock if they thought it would raise their standing in their group. There are people that would pluck every beautiful feather from every single colorful bird to as decoration regardless as to how many birds that kills, they would not even eat the meat. There are people who will kill an elephant just to take the tusks and leave the rest of the body untouched.”
Her words scared the gorillas and Tarzan, they were highly frightened of such an idea. The elephants listening in were also highly scared and a young elephant screamed and ran to hide behind its mother. “Will I eventually get this curse of greed?” Tarzan asked, looking terribly frightened at the thought of the idea.
Dawn smiled, “No, never. You are surrounded by a family who loves you. You are good, Tarzan. The curse of greed fills the hearts of people who were not loved, do not love others, and would kill for fun instead of survival.”
Tarzan looked greatly relieved. “I will protect my family! I will not fail!”
With a laugh, Dawn jumped up and gave a twirl before calming down, “I wanna play!”
Tarzan nodded and agreed along with his gorilla friend who introduced himself as Terk. For the rest of the day, Dawn played with Terk and Tarzan. The two were the best of friends and eventually persuaded the scaredy cat elephant named Tantor to join in the fun.
With only a little instruction, Dawn was soon using the vines to swing around along with Tarzan, and they began playing treetop tag with Terk. Terk was stronger than Tarzan and Dawn combined, but Tarzan was much more agile and nimble. Dawn had to learn quickly or else she would be easily left behind.
Tarzan explained that he used to have the same problem as Dawn was currently having, not being able to play on an even level with Terk. Tarzan explained about his adventure with Zugor and how Tarzan learned that he was fine being himself. Through the adventure with Zugor, Tarzan had gained the confidence to be himself which gained him the skills to climb the trees and vine swing like a lemur.
They went swimming with the hippos, crocodile baiting, made bets on how many fruits they could spear in a single throw, crane riding, elephant hopping, climbing the waterfalls, branch surfing, and anything else they could think of.
Dawn’s hands and feet grew tough. She gained more muscle in the span of weeks than she had in any previous world she had lived in. Dawn taught Tarzan to make fire so he could consume cooked meat from animals they hunted. They shared bits of the prized meat with the other gorillas, since gorillas are also omnivores, and Tarzan was looked on with pride from his mother.
It was an early afternoon; Dawn gripped a vine and swung her entire weight through the motion until releasing her grip at the apex of the swing. In the air, Dawn spun around, her hair swinging wildly round her head. She barely had look before she was grabbing the next vine which continued her momentum into another swing. Another few swings and she leapt upon a smooth branch which she slid down in a chase to catch up to Tarzan and Terk who were a little way ahead. Tarzan swung on the vines like Dawn was doing while Terk swung from branch to branch or merely leapt across distances that Tarzan and Dawn needed a little more momentum for.
Dawn slid down the smooth and damp bark of the branch and performed a picture-perfect forward spin as she leapt off the branch and into the hanging vines again. The boys were still ahead of her, but Dawn twisted until her belly was to the sky as if performing the high jump which boosted her height after releasing the vine she had grabbed. The height gave her a boost in speed as she performed a backwards dive before grabbing another vine to reorientate herself forward.
A loud laugh bubbled from her lips as she came out in front for their little impromptu race towards the lake. She swung on a few more vines before landing on a smooth branch that perfectly drooped down over the edge of the water. Dawn slid down, her feet not even having any trouble with the slick surface, and then performed the perfect swan dive into the deep waters.
Tarzan leapt after her in a dive while Terk gave up any reason for diving and cannonballed into the water. Tantor was already in the water, he was standing in a shallower section of water called out caution to Tarzan, Terk and Dawn as they began rough housing in the water. Finally, Terk called a break and climbed onto Tantor’s back while Dawn and Tarzan began racing each other to climb against the falling waters of the waterfall. Tarzan beat Dawn with a great gap between the two.
“I’m exhausted!” Dawn stated while panting. She lay on her back on one of the protruding rocks at the top of the falls. Tarzan laughed and grabbed a fruit and some grubs to share with Dawn.
“You’re getting stronger!” Tarzan exclaimed happily before tossing Dawn a fruit and half of the grubs he had collected.
Dawn had at first been weary of eating insects but soon ate them with relish. There was no room to be picky when one was hungry. Now she simply caught the grubs thrown at her and swallowed them with barely a thought other than satisfying her hunger. The fruit was savored for its juicy qualities as the sticky flesh spattered across her face in the first bite. “I’m still nowhere near as strong as you or Terk.”
Tarzan shrugged easily, “I don’t think I’m going to be as strong as Terk for a long time, I’ll keep trying though! You’re getting super-fast though!”
Dawn smiled, “Well, I learned from the best!”
Tarzan laughed and splashed Dawn with water. He then, without prompt, did a leap backwards into a dive over the edge of the falls to land back down at the bottom where Terk and Tantor were waiting.
Dawn collected her breath and then jumped after him.
“You two knuckleheads! I won’t be there to save ya if you fall from the falls!” Terk called out as Dawn and Tarzan swam closer.
“You could have seriously gotten hurt!” Tantor cried out as well, though everyone ignored him in good spirit since he was such a scaredy cat.
Tarzan gave a playful bellow and leapt after Terk. Terk simply kicked Tarzan over his head which had Tarzan splashing back into the water while Terk leapt after him. Terk was not going to hold back from starting a brawl with Tarzan.
Dawn swam over to Tantor and climbed up onto his back and lay down, still exhausted from climbing the falls. “We’re fine Tantor, calm down.”
“What if you had fallen!” Tantor whined at Dawn where she lay against his back.
“But we didn’t.” Dawn did not have the energy to try debating with Tantor about what-if scenarios.
Terk eventually won against Tarzan and had Tarzan pinned. Once Tarzan finally gave up, his energy finally flagging, both Terk and Tarzan came over to Dawn. “So, tell us a story!” Terk exclaimed. He was always excited to hear any story that Dawn was willing to give.
“Yeah, tell us a story!” Tarzan yelled while floating on his back in the shallow water.
Dawn smiled brightly, “Okay! How about a story from Jack! Mr. Skellington told the best scary stories!”
Tantor was already shaking. “Scary?”
Terk and Tarzan shushed Tantor, they wanted to hear Dawn’s story.
Dawn laughed, “Okay, instead of scary, how about one from North. He gave the most wonderful tales. Okay, once there was an okapi, named Haji, who had met a great white gorilla. Haji was guiding the gorilla across the mountain. When it grew dark, he stopped at field with red river hogs hoping for shelter for him and the white gorilla.
“The river hog leader, named Amare, state they could not stay because the monkeys came down at night and Amare and his group were forced to leave. Haji said it was okay, he was fine if he could spend some time in an old nest to get some sleep. Amare let him stay but he and his family had to leave due to the monkeys showing up. The monkeys made a mess of everything in sight but tried messing with the gorilla. The white gorilla rose from the ground and hunted the whole pack away from the nests.
“A few weeks later and Haji was crossing back through the red river hog’s territory wondering if the monkeys had come back. Haji heard a voice from the trees asking if the gorilla was with Haji still. Haji called back and said the gorilla was nearby with a dozen other gorillas bigger and fiercer. The monkey cried out and said they would never be coming back there. To this day, the monkeys have left the red river hog territory alone.”
Terk and Tarzan were laughing at the story, finding it hilarious while Tantor simply began questioning everything about the story.
For the rest of the day, they continued to exchange stories in between Tarzan and Terk brawling.
Finally, when nightfall came, Kala was calling for Tarzan and Terk to come to bed. Tarzan and Terk gave complaints but inevitably made their way back to the group. Dawn smiled and simply made her was up into a tree nearby the group. She was not welcome within the group because of Kerchak’s weariness of her. Dawn could do nothing but shrug and find her own little place to sleep at night.
After spending countless days having fun in the jungle, Dawn felt the tingle in her magic. She had been here too long already, and Tarzan was growing taller and stronger. He was growing up into a teenager and she was still small. It was time to leave.
Dawn grabbed Tarzan’s hand and dragged him and Terk over to Tantor to explain herself. “I’m going to be leaving the jungle soon.”
All three of her friends protested loudly.
Dawn simply gave a sad smile. “I’m really sorry, but I have to leave. You three are growing up but I’m not. I know you’ve noticed it and have hidden it from Kerchak and everyone else. While I might look like Tarzan, my body is different. I age very, very slowly. I have to continue traveling because I can’t stay in a place that changes so much but stay unchanged myself.”
It took ages for Dawn to explain her reasons to Tarzan, Terk and Tantor. The four of them devolved into tears eventually and Dawn gave some final gifts to her three friends. Tarzan received a knife and spear, Terk was given a bone carved necklace, and Tantor received tusk cuffs carved with runes of protection, strength and courage.
Tarzan could only gift Dawn with the pretty river stone he had carried around to ward off the curse of greed. Dawn smiled brightly at the gift.
“I’ll be back one day. You’re going to be all grown up and you’re going to be the protector of the forest. Maybe you’ll even find a female to love for yourself.” Dawn stated with a firm belief in Tarzan’s capabilities.
“We’ll be here, and I will protect everyone so you can see them when you come back.” Tarzan stated with all the seriousness he could muster.
Dawn gave a final hug to her friends before opening a portal and walking through.