Predator Or Prey

By Namrata Dass

PREDATOR OR PREY

Written By Taaliikaa

“Predator or Prey? What will you be Sano?” rang a voice in my ears. Shrill. Waspish. Steeped in loathing. The voice of my mother in my head. An inconsequential noise. Louder and clearer than the consequential noises of pandemonium reigning around me.

Desperate growls, huffs and snorts of trapped animals wrestling the confines of their cages in the poacher’s camp. The carnal roars of escaped large snow leopards going in for the kill. The frantic cries of the flat-pawed savages trying to dominate the chaos. The ear- splitting cracks of blood-spilling silver seeds that spewed from the sleek black branches they wielded. Guns, they called it. Such a harmless word for a mindless thing that catapulted the flat-pawed savages from usurpers of the throne to the animal kingdom to purveyors of death in my forest.

“Predator or Prey? What will you be Sano?” my mother’s voice demanded. I quaked uncontrollably in the chilly air. Unable to control a huff-quack. A dead giveaway of my fear and more importantly my hiding place.

Predator? Prey? This red panda would have to choose the right one. Before I was forever branded with the wrong one.

***

That morning was like most mornings I knew. Shafts of blue tinted sunlight pilfering through the branches of clustered mountain trees with flowers brighter than the birds that lived there. Heavy mist swirled through the air, unfurling like the coiling bodies of stealthy tree- snakes. And an uninvited drizzle seeped into my fur much like the cold wetness of unwelcome motherhood percolating my core.

“We are ready to hunt by ourselves today, Sano” the male cub declared.

“Please let’s try again, Mama. This time we will make you proud,” the female cub supported his outrageous request. I was so furious that I didn’t even bother biting her ear and demanding that she call me by my birth name.

That’s right. I wanted them to call me Sano and I didn’t bother naming them. Names fostered a sense of closeness. What was the point of that? Most red panda cubs left their mothers when they were little less than a year old. Even me and my siblings had. These two were no different. All of six months and they wanted to be completely independent. Ungrateful red balls of fluff!

They weren’t suckling on my swollen teats anymore but it didn’t mean that they were ready to forage for food! Last week, only on their insistence to learn survival skills, I decided to conduct a simple practical test by teaching them to identify some predators and poisonous foods that would kill even the strongest of red pandas.

“Pluck all edible berries and mushrooms within our immediate radius. Winner gets extra bamboo shoots,” I had instructed to the wide- eyed cubs.

Off they went while I napped. Swapped forest gossip with a herd of goral about a notorious red-panda-snacking snow leopard’s affair with his rival’s mate, the infinite possibilities of polka-dotted bears if the brown and black species intermingled and the time worn topic about how our food chain was being alarming destabilized, no thanks to the insatiable greed and brutality of those wretched flat-pawed savages known as man by those in my forest. Then napped some more.

And what awaited me at the end of that slightly bearable day? Those dung-headed cubs returning with the two items that would cause immediate death on consumption - a cluster of red berries, brighter than their coats and the shredded discs of a sticky, white variety of mushroom that resembled their little snouts. Even the goral tossed their horns in scorn and murmured amongst themselves in disapproval.

Forget extra bamboo. They didn’t even get quarter of a shoot that day!

And here they were, challenging the pace of my lessons. I skipped over thick fallen logs and shallow pools that held fresh water from last night’s rain. The useless cubs flanking me clumsily stepped on fallen pine cones, releasing its sharp characteristic odour. A most refreshing scent that further awakened my senses. Alerting me of the rotten yellow-throated marten’s stinky spray. Which meant the sly sprayer was in our midst.

These cubs thought they were ready to hunt? Time to give them a real survival lesson! One borrowed from my mother’s books.

“There is a yellow-throated marten around. Cheeky black face. Literal yellow fur on its throat and dark, bushy tail. The marten is built for speed and endurance. Excellent climber. Stealthier than a shadow. Impatient gobbler of bird eggs, mice, lizards and of-course, little, know-it-all red pandas,” I looked from the female cub with dull, mud-brown-eyes to the absent- minded male cub swatting a dragonfly off his ear. “Keep walking around this perimeter, till the row of pink rhododendrons to the east….”

“Which is east?” the male cub interrupted me.

“The direction in which the sun wakes up!” I growled.

“But the sun sleeps and wakes up in the same direction, doesn’t it? Sinks into the same nest. Like us?” he swatted his ear again.

“Pay attention!” I reached out to yank his ear. When the female cub gently pulled him away whispering, “I’ll show you, bhaiyya.”

I took a measured breath. “Avoid the marten!”

“Is it a marten that scratched your nose?” the male cub enquired.

I winced within but glared at him. “And if you find the marten, outsmart it by climbing any of the birch trees here. Even the marten struggles with them…”

“If we escape the marten… Will you name me, mama?” the female cub asked me.

“No,” I hissed, “And if you don’t call me Sano, I will get the marten to name you. Trust me; he will only refer to you as ‘FOOD’!” The female cub whimpered and shrank back, blinking away tears.

She reminded me of my sister Chuppi- the hidden one; timid, polite, eager to please but thankfully she didn’t keep disappearing to find new hiding places. Or maybe that was a bad thing. At least that way I would be spared of those doleful brown eyes every time I refused to name her.

“Birch tree…. Cone tree…. All tall trees. What’s the difference?” the male cub mumbled.

“Predator or prey. There is no in- between for survival in our forest. Now, show me what you are…” I declared, shooing them away.

***

“We, red pandas live alone,” my mother said, patrolling the large tree where she had built a third den for us. I had grown to like that tree which had pointed leaves that were shaped like my ears. It also smelt nice. Like vanilla beans dug under fresh, rain-soaked earth. I had even made friends with our immediate neighbours- a joint family of squirrels who let me watch the sun sleep with them with soft, sweet, lichen and crunchy nuts resembling tiny brains. But I didn’t think we would stay there for too long. She kept moving us for fear of predators.

“So, if you don’t act like a predator, you lot will become prey,” my mother continued in a voice that always gave me the feeling of being smacked against the back of my head by a brown bear’s paw.

I never understood her logic. Why couldn’t we stay together? Like the group of red pandas that had banded together a few trees away from us? There was even a cub my age- one I would encounter later in my life. Bhoori- the brown one which didn’t make sense because her eyes were a fiery orange, like the bellies of my squirrel friends.

I tuned out my mother’s annoyed voice and watched as Bhoori snuggled against her mother and chomped on sparkling yellow berries that dripped a deliciously pink juice down her snout. While the others shared tender bamboo shoots and paw-fuls of what I was sure were equally sweet berries.

I felt a slow burning in my stomach that had nothing to with hunger. Why couldn’t we be like Bhoori’s group? Feeding each other? Protecting each other? There was no way we could end up in a snow leopard’s belly then.

I sighed loudly and my mother glowered at me. “I have birthed five litters till now and I just know that this will be my most disappointing one yet!” she spat. “Train and train to improve our numbers and I get sighs in response. Sigh again and I’ll puncture your nose!”

The golden rays of the morning sun, poked through the leaves of the trees, casting a warm glow on the otherwise cool forest. All I wanted to do was wrap my tail around my thin body and go to sleep, but there was no way I could miss my mother’s specialized solitary- survival training sessions after a warning like that.

“Now gather your senses. We may not have large, pointed teeth or claws that can slice through flesh in a single swipe like our nemesis, the snow leopard, but we are not built to be prey either. You lot, what helps us survive?” my mother quizzed.

“Our whiskers can detect even the smallest movements. We can use them to safely escape predators and find good hiding places,” my sister, Chuppi said. “We can also leave markings with our pee, droppings and the funny smelling leakage from our bottoms to locate each other.”

“What a liar! She never left a trail. Hide and seek was never fun with her,” I thought, plucking some rubbery brown mushrooms that grew abundantly in a hollow beside my new home.

“We have sharp claws too. What good is a snow leopard if we scratch its eyes out?” my brother Balwaan- the brave one said. He then scraped his sharp claws against the trunk of the tree and the spongy moss fell to the ground like moulted fur.

“Good,” my mother said, nodding at my siblings in approval and huffing at me. “Pay attention. You are the small and weak one! What do we do best with our claws?”

She didn’t need to remind me that I was small and weak. Sano implied just that.

“Eat?” I answered. Piercing my little claw through a mushroom and putting it in my mouth to demonstrate my point.

“Climb!” my mother hissed, her amber eyes flashing angrily like a merciless afternoon sun. “And you can show your brother and sister just how useful that skill is,” she waved her paw in the direction of a ring of moss- covered trees around our home.

“But I don’t climb well, Mama,” I said in a small voice while Chuppi and Balwaan sniggered.

“What will you do when you live alone?”

“Why should I live alone, Mama? We won’t become prey when we stick together,” I argued.

“Shut up! Now, think I am a snow leopard and start climbing!” my mother barked.

“But, Mama… You aren’t a snow leopard,” I said in a small voice. “You taught us to identify them. Snow leopards have thicker fur than us. Yellow and brown and spots. Lots of spots. Thicker, stronger tails and they can jump fifty feet in the air…”

“Then you will jump a hundred feet!” my mother advanced on me with exposed claws, swiping across the front of my face.

***

The yellow-throated marten wasn’t making himself scarce. He scaled a few pine trees, expertly finding flycatcher nests and swallowing the mottled brown eggs. Then climbed down with ease. Loping around languidly, looking for something bigger. Something better.

The cubs had managed to avoid him. The wind carrying their fur blowing away from his inquisitive black nose. Only due to the efforts of the female cub who steered the nonchalant male away to the fringes of tall grass that sprouted not too far from the rhododendron demarcating the east end.

The marten popped its head up. Nose puckering eagerly in anticipation. “Come out… Come out little one. Come to meet Uncle marten!”

The female cub held her brother tighter, dragging him to the nearest birch tree.

“Come on, little one. Let’s play a game with your fun Uncle marten!” the crafty bastard cooed.

“Friend!” the male cub declared joyfully, breaking free from his sister’s grasp.

“Is your brain emptier than the hollow of a bamboo stem? That is a foe! Martens eat us!” I yelled, feeling a strange pang in my chest.

“NO!” I cried, too terrified to even move.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the female cub slowly but surely scaling the nearest birch tree she could reach.

The marten smacked his maw in anticipation.

“Friend!” the male cub guffawed stupidly, racing off towards the marten.

Something snapped inside me. Like bamboo shoots splitting in half. Releasing an acrid mixture in my blood. Not anger. Or annoyance. Something more primal. Like the marten was about to grab me. Something I shouldn’t be feeling. Something maternal.

I arched my back and shook my head from side to side like an entire anthill of red ants were stuck to my fur. “Stay away from him!” I hollered. “Or you will be ingesting your own tail, next.”

“Huh?” the marten was temporarily distracted by my show of aggression, flattening down.

The male cub jumped on the marten’s stooped back and launched himself onto a fir tree, a broad grin on his chubby face. “Marten friend. Squishy rock friend!” the male cub announced in a sing-song voice, clinging there clumsily with his climbing digits instead of scaling higher up to safety.

If the marten hadn’t been interrupted, he would be the one grinning after having devoured the stupid cub! I wish I could say that the boy cub was like my brother, Balwaan- the brave one, but unfortunately, he was just dull-witted. And a terrible climber at that since we lived in a fir tree of medium height (some of them reached till the skies). The plan was to move them to a taller tree when they got slightly older and he could master the use of his climbing digits then.

I huff-quacked as loudly as possible and charged towards the marten, claws extended, a visceral picture of my mother’s memory. Which seemed to work as he scampered away.

“Is this how you two plan to survive? You will die within hours without me!” I threw my head back and growled.

“We won’t die with trails,” the male cub declared. He then lifted his tail and deposited a smelly pile of the previous day’s beetles he had feasted on. “Stinky trails save us,” he announced, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

I regretted that I couldn’t fling the foul pile on his head like those ill- mannered apple- bottomed- monkeys did sometimes. “You don’t just leave all your droppings in a single place. You leave just a little to find your way,” I snorted impatiently. “You two are nowhere ready for survival training!”

“We are!” the male cub insisted. “You just don’t teach us more!”

“Don’t you dare open your snouts about this, again. I will decide when you are ready!”

“We just wanted to make you proud of us…” the female cub hurried towards me. “So then you would even name us.”

“Both of you, shut up!”

“Sorry, Mama… Sano,” the female cub sniffed, lowering her head and scrubbing her dirty paws on the earth, wetting it in the process with her useless tears.

They should have considered themselves lucky. I was purposely taking time to teach them survival skills so that they could enjoy some part of their cub-hood. Unlike my mother who ruined mine with her daily lessons!

“You will remain hungry today… Till I get back… You get nothing… Nothing!” I declared and ambled away.

***

An hour and a rich bamboo feast later, I still wasn’t feeling better. I would teach those dung-headed cubs a lesson!

I lifted my paw and sniffed it. Despite the slushy earth that stuck to my soft pads, I could smell the maw-smacking aroma of tender bamboo shoots. Crispy enough to chew for hours and yet sweet enough to layer my tongue and remind me of the wonderful sugary taste, long after the shoots emerged from my back end. Knowing that I had enjoyed paw-fuls of those shoots without them would make the pain of their hungry, burning bellies even worse and hopefully deepen their regret for disregarding my sound parental advice.

Cheep… Cheep…. Tweet… Tweet…. The greedy cries of baby birds broke the tranquil pre-dawn silence. I looked above and surely enough, in the branches of a tall tree with leaves shaped like a blue sheep’s horns was a bird’s nest with five pale green heads peeking above it. I knew what their mother looked like- she was a fairly small bird with vivid green plumage, an orange beak that shone brighter than my fur and a black face.

“Thankless little things! Probably telling their mother that they can fetch better worms than her “I snorted angrily and my stomach mimicked the movement, rumbling loudly.

Just then I had an idea! I would show the cubs just how skilled a predator I was! Plucking leaves, fruits and dead insects was one thing, but it took great skill to hunt a live animal.

“We won’t leave till you teach us how to hunt like you, great, strong Sano!” I could imagine the cubs telling me with wonderment in their eyes. I would teach them no doubt but would ensure they trained for a long time.

I hated to admit it but my mother’s relentless training had made me quite a good climber and I easily found my way up and sat beside the nest.

The little birds flapped their weak wings, their beady black eyes widened in fear and made loud, frightened noises, instinctively recognising me as a threat.

I heard a louder flapping noise close-by, the mother. Those birds had so many children during their fifteen-year lifespan. Would she miss a hatchling or two?

“Oh, Mama. If only you could see the predator I am now,” I laughed aloud, jeering the hidden corner of my head where my mother’s voice seemed unusually quiet.

***

“Fresh dinner awaits you here. So, which of you lot will go first?” my mother asked. She wrapped her tail around the thick tree branch of a tree with blinding pink flowers that dangled limply over our heads, petals awaiting the faintest signal of dawn to blossom and did nothing to prevent the heavy raindrops from drenching our fur. Before her was a shabby nest of twigs and wobbling around within were three little hatchlings, staring at her with little black eyes like the seeds of the tasty black berries we spat out. They were covered in soft down the pale green of tender bamboo shoots.

I glared at Balwaan. He was the one who had protested the meal of month- old lizards our mother had fetched us and Chuppi just stayed quiet.

Now I was stuck, shivering beside them on a dangerously tall tree, while my mother suggested that we kill little birds for food! I had only eaten small dead things till then, never a warm, living being that looked me in the eye.

“The mother is out hunting. If you eat them, it must be now! You will have to pay with an eye or even a nose otherwise,” my mother said. Balwaan smacked his maw hungrily while Chuppi exchanged a hesitant glance with me.

“The snow leopard eats live things. But we aren’t bad like the snow leopard are we, Mama?” I asked.

“When you live alone in the wild, you have to eat whatever you get. Dead things, live things, it doesn’t matter. Sometimes, we need to be predators to survive.”

“But we are much safer together, Mama. Eight paws can gather much more bamboo shoots and mushrooms than two paws,” I looked at my little fore-paws. “The strong one can protect us,” I nodded at Balwaan. “The stealthy one can find us dens that evade even the keenest predator,” I smiled at Chuppi. “And we will look after you, too. Isn’t that much better than fighting for survival alone everyday or turning into killers to avoid being killed?”

“Predator or prey. What will you be Sano?” my mother growled.

Just then the baby birds beat their wings agitatedly and broke into ear splitting shrieks as if they had registered that we weren’t friendly visitors after all. “Hurry up, you cowardly lot!” my mother urged.

“I can’t, Mama,” I said, my heart quavering like the hatchlings’ fluttering wings. “I just cant…”

With a sharp, annoyed hiss, Balwaan stuck his large paw into the nest, picked up the nearest chick and stuffed it in his mouth. He then chewed furiously, trying to drown out the muffled squeaks of the horrified bird while I closed my eyes.

“Just a month more with me and you’ll be in the wild. No doubt as prey, Sano,” I heard my mother’s mocking voice. “The biggest disappointment of all my past litters and I am certain of all my future litters as well…”

***

“Weak little Sano can be a predator,” I said to no-one in particular and reached out to snatch the fattest hatchlings who were too sated to trill loudly.

SCREECH! The mother emerged from a branch to my side, orange beak opened in an angry squawk, her sharp claws outstretched, ready to scratch my eyes out.

I ducked, quickly popped both hatchlings into my mouth and hurried down the tree, faster than blue-sheep fleeing a snow leopard. It was a long walk home and I would spend every step of it savouring my first predatory kill.

***

It must have been my new predator high that made hatchling flesh the tastiest thing that had ever coated my tongue. It was not sweet and syrupy like bamboo, but earthier like a highly flavourful mushroom mixed with the sinful sting of fresh blood.

Although I had licked my maw clean of every last sapid drop, the lingering smell would invite a barrage of questions from the cubs regarding my impressive hunting skills- “How did you do it, Sano?”, “How did you manage to not get attacked by the hatchlings mother?”, “When will you teach us, Sano?” …

“Eight months to become half as fast as me. A year to sneak up on birds’ nests, undetected. And maybe another two years to get your first taste of a live hatchling. You can lick my snout and see whether it’s worth the wait,” I planned to tell them.

As I reached home, I was in a considerably better mood. So much so, that it took me sometime to pick up a scent that was a stark contrast to the sweet fragrance of pine needles. It was the sour, rotting smell of sweat and another burnt odour that came from the strange artificial hooves worn by the flat-pawed savages. Men were here!

Not the kind that explored the forest and collected plants. Or the kind that set up those funny pointy, colourful ground- nests and sang songs with the trees. No, these were the worst kind. The kind that captured any and every one of us that caught their fancy. There was a word for them around here that was spoken in whispers. Poachers.

I pulled out my claws and quickly climbed up the wide girth of the fir tree that served as my home. Why were the cubs unusually quiet? They usually smelt me when I was below the tree and called out for me relentlessly.

I peeked into the nest and shrank back in fear. The mewling mouths had been silent because they weren’t there!

“Get down here, Sano! It’s urgent” an angry female panda shouted loudly from below. I peeked down and saw Banjho, the infertile one.

Banjho used to be known as Bhoori- the brown one. Once her group realised, she was barren, she had been ousted. So much for family, huh?

I couldn’t tell whether she had followed me once I was on my own or whether it was mere co-incidence that she wound up living at the same distance from me like the old times.

“I have seen you longingly look at the cubs. Have you finally taken them?” I demanded, slowly climbing down the tree.

Banjho’s orange eyes were wild and gleaming, making the usually adorable red panda seem like a sinister, rabid animal.

“You always were a terrible mother, Sano. But to leave your cubs unprotected from human predators is not something I even expected of you,” Banjho fumed.

“I am a lenient mother. There is a difference!” I countered, ambling up to her. “What would you know of motherhood anyway? You…”

I was interrupted by a loud smack on my muzzle that sent me tumbling to the ground, crushing fallen pine cones that lay there.

“You are a selfish, cowardly pool of vulture vomit!” Banjho spat. “You did everything wrong on purpose. You didn’t change dens. You didn’t even choose the tallest tree. You never took a keen interest to teach them any of the things we learnt even before we were weaned. You should have taught them everything your mother taught you. But you kept them weak and dependent on you, so that they would never leave you like your family.”

“That’s not true,” I barked indignantly. Why should I be listening to the infertile one? What did she know of finer parenting anyway? “I just wanted to go a little easier on them. Let them grow into their training, unlike my mother.”

“Your mother used to go on about snow leopards. But the forest has much more dangerous predators. Our numbers are on the decline because of man. We are an endangered species,” Banjho continued, completely disregarding my statement. “The birds have heard rumours. Man uses us for all kinds of horrible things.” she bleated sadly, whiskers trembling uncontrollably.

Banjho then lunged towards me without warning, wrapped her paws around my throbbing muzzle and pulled me close for a whiff. “Hunted baby birds to show them what a great huntress you are. So that they would want to learn to kill like you. Yet another ploy! I bet your cubs were plucked away from your home just as you grabbed those helpless little birds from theirs.”

I snarled and pushed back at her. Banjho couldn’t be right. The why did I feel an ache within? Like my mother’s sharp talons had sliced past my nose and right down my throat? All the way to my beating heart… And pierced right through it?

“Those poor sweet cubs,” Banjho wailed. “What if those evil men pluck out their little eyes and ears for medicinal soups or rip out their precious tails to cover the lacklustre fur on their revolting human heads? The rumours say so...”

My heart felt like it was pulverized in a million raw, searing bits. I had to find the cubs. But how? I hadn’t even taught them to leave trails… I hadn’t taught them anything…. The cubs wouldn’t make it and it would be all my fault!

***

The sun quickly turned from a pleasant, soothing honey-gold to a blinding yellow. It was for good reason that we red pandas slept during the day. My paws bore large berry-like blisters from stepping over scorching hot rocks, my tongue constantly lolled outside like a lost wild dog and yet I didn’t stop searching for the cubs.

Banjho decided to invite herself to the search. Who was to stop her when innocent little lives were at stake? Not me. She had already smacked me across my nose. I needed my head intact to find the cubs.

We trudged further and further away from home, till the sky turned to the faint violet of a tangy berry my female cub enjoyed. And still no signs of my missing cubs.

“Sano! Over here! I smell your cub!” I heard Banjho calling from beneath a giant walnut tree, ravaged barren by squirrels. I rushed towards her and sniffed the disturbed grass where a few pellets of droppings lay. It held that familiar fetid scent that surrounded my female cub’s bottom.

“It’s here, too!” Banjho called out, smelling a patch of grass a few paces ahead. “She’s a smart cub.”

My heart swelled with pride. It was a peculiarly delightful sensation. She had paid attention when I admonished her brother about trail marking the last time!

We followed the trail of droppings till we reached a small clearing in the midst of dense deodar trees with the occasional sparse birch snaking through them. In a small clearing within, three of those funny, pointy ground- nests used as shelter by the flat-pawed savages were kept upright with broken branches. A small fire burned in the centre of those nests. A camp for poachers.

Muffled, frightened cries emanated from within the nearest nest which was the largest and shabbiest one. I could smell my cubs’ fur strongly by then which was so much like my own.

“They are inside,” I said, producing my claws and crawling forward, only to be yanked back by Banjho. She pointed her twitching snout towards a particularly tall deodar tree where two men were standing. They carried guns and wore ugly, black hooves that had the same burnt odour I had picked up near my den.

“I am not scared of them,” I hissed.

“Sano, the black branches spray silver seeds that are lethal,” Banjho warned. She licked her maw nervously. “Rumours say that once the silver seeds pierce your flesh, you will die within minutes.”

“I don’t care!” I declared.

“Quiet!” Banjho shushed me, shoving me flat to the ground atop a family of ants carrying large, lumps of sticky sugar. No doubt a successful theft from the ground-nests.

The flat-pawed savages spoke in hushed whispers and we pricked our ears to eavesdrop on them.

“The crazy Cheenis will pay us a hefty sum for both the cubs. We should have waited for the mother too. Her fur would have fetched ten times more,” one said.

“What do they do with them?” asked the second.

“Make rubbish medicines. Keep them as pets. How does it matter to us?” the first sniggered.

I suppressed a growl. How could those vile flat-pawed savages just steal my cubs and talk about trading them like they were fallen fruit? They were mine! I birthed them and no predator- no snow leopard or marten or anything else on four legs and especially two legs had the right to snatch them away and do as they pleased with them.

My cubs… Yes. They were mine. All mine! The coerced sense of maternity that plastered uncomfortably against my skin, like a prickling sheet of ice was gone. Replaced by the wonderful familiar warmth and wonderfulness of nectar trickles from the sweetest flowers. A feeling that felt could only be love.

“Didn’t you do as you pleased with those two hatchlings who were loved by their mother?” said a small voice in my head, dampening the wonderful warmth within me.

“Something is here,” the second man said. He quickly removed the gun from his shoulder and aimed it towards the trees where Banjho and I hid.

Rustle…. Rustle… Creak… Creak… The branches of the deodar trees trembled slightly, as if disturbed by a sudden gust of freezing wind, followed by a series of loud bangs.

“Watch out for the silver seeds,” Banjho cried while several men emerged from a scant line of birch trees opposite the animal thieves. Their faces were smeared with a black substance that made them look like two-legged martens and they carried bigger, scarier-looking guns. Like killer branches. The animal thieves roared like the desperate animals they hunted and fired back at them.

***

Banjho covered her ears unable to bear the terrible noise and the moment I felt her grip loosen on me, I rushed towards the large human nest that smelt less like the flat-pawed savages and more like a mixture of animal scents.

The inside was cold and dark but as my eyes were accustomed to see better with no light, I discerned my cubs, tied to an abnormally thick tree stump in the centre- resembling several fir trees tied together.

An excited cry and a weak warning hoot, signalled that they had seen me too.

I rushed towards my cubs. The male cub was alive and healthy, straining against a thick vine tied around his neck as he reached a rounded paw towards my face.

My clever female cub lay beside him, her large brown eyes desperately boring into mine for approval like they always did. “You found the trail I left you,” she said softly, her eyes closing.

I scooped her up in my arms, angry that I couldn’t cradle her because of the wretched coarse, vine that choked her. Another horrible invention of the flat-pawed savages!

Something, warm and thick poured down her back, that smelt several times stronger than the baby bird blood I had relished. “Help! Banjho! The silver seeds have hurt my Pyaari!” I cried.

“You named me, mama,” she whispered.

“Yes, Pyaari- my beloved one. I am so proud of you,” I nodded appreciatively at her, tears dripping onto her tiny white muzzle and she smiled a sweet smile at me. I held her close and squealed loudly like we red pandas did when we were saddened.

Outside, the flat-pawed savages still fired those terrible silver seeds at each other with deafening bangs but all I heard was the breathing of my precious girl cub growing fainter and fainter.

Until I couldn’t her breath. Not even a shallow one. Her chest no longer heaved. I stood with my dead Pyaari, as still as the frozen snow on the mountains in the cold, harsh winter. “I’m sorry, my Pyaari.”

“Sano! I’m scared!” My male cub whimpered and struggled against the vine, desperately trying to break free and run towards me. I gently placed Pyaari down and with a growl I attacked the vine that restrained him.

“I will not let you die, Bholu- my innocent one,” I vowed.

Carrying him in my arms, I rushed towards the other end of the ground-nest. Knocking into hard cold boxes. Even before my eyes could discern what they were, my nose picked up the strong scents- droppings, the liquid release of fear and the overpowering stench of rotting despair.

Pangolins with distraught eyes. Musk deer tethered to unmovable corners with something cold and shiny their necks. Brown and black bears within the same cage, their muzzles bound, their fur glistening with the spots of their combined sorrow. And more animals shrouded in the darkness.

I had to do something. Anything to help the other residents of my home. Didn’t matter who they were outside. Here they were all helpless. They were all prey. And so, I adjusted Bholu against me scratched against the flimsy metal with my claws on my way out.

***

“Get those poachers! They’re escaping!” I heard a yell. BANG… BANG… It erupted with greater fervour.

Followed by twin roars behind me. That scent of sleek confidence was unmistakable. I had ended up freeing a pair snow leopards as well. The notorious red-panda-snacker and his lover!

I pushed Bholu up a reasonably tall deodar tree and tried to climb up behind me when I felt a powerful paw thwack me out of the way. The notorious snow leopard, looking for a recharge snack before attacking his abductors.

“Leopards are on the loose. Fall back jawans!” cried one of the flat-pawed savages.

There was a frantic clopping as the musk deer emerged next from the ground-nest, blood oozing from their slender necks.

A dismal bleat and it was beheaded by a single swipe of the female snow-leopard, who wasted no time in feasting on the strips of raw flesh hanging from the poor animal’s neck.

My breath hitched in my chest, I rolled away, scurrying beneath a large rock that seemed inaccessible to the powerful predators around me.

“Sano! Help!” Bholu cried. He was sliding off the tree trunk. The bark was smoother than that of a fir tree and he hadn’t practised climbing on it.

“Use your climbing digits, Bholu, like this,” I dug my sharp climbing digits in the air to show him but scrambled back when I heard another roar.

“I can’t,” he moaned, slipping from the tree.

All around us chaos reigned supreme. An intoxicating nectar savoured by the powerful to coerce surrender of the powerless.

***

“Predator or Prey? What will you be Sano?” my mother’s voice demanded. I quaked uncontrollably in the chilly air. Unable to control a huff-quack. A dead giveaway of my fear and more importantly my hiding place.

Predator? Prey? This red panda would have to choose the right one. Before I was forever branded with the wrong one.

“Predator not to kill. To save what is mine!” I emerged from my hiding place, reared on my hind legs, fore-limbs extended, claws extended, squealing louder than the din of chaos. I didn’t care what came in my path. Flat-pawed savage. Thick spotted fur of the snow leopard. Velvety hide of a confused, unfriendly bear. Unsuspecting tree. I just raked at anything and everything. Until I was beneath the deodar tree my poor Bholu clung to.

“Think I am a snow leopard and I am chasing you,” I said like my mother, tears pooling in my eyes, as I dug my claws into the tree and scaled it.

“Snow leopard? Friend?” Bholu asked naively in trembling sing-song-voice. His next words were drowned out by a sonorous bang, louder than an avalanche crashing down a mountainside.

Bholu blew a tendril of mist out of his snout with a short, raspy breath and then only blood oozed through it.

“Bholu! No!” I cried and rushed towards him but it was too late. His claws left the tree trunk completely and he fell to the ground, a pool of blood around his fluffy head. He was gone forever, just like those poor hatchlings that had disappeared down my throat.

***

“Predator or prey” my mother’s voice pierced through the call of mountain birds heralding a morning like no other. A morning that soaked a secret part of the Himalayas in blood. The blood of every kind of predator. And the blood of every kind of prey.

Mama, you were wrong. It wasn’t a choice between predator and prey. In the forest, we were all prey. There would always be a bigger, smarter, faster predator. And yet survival was possible. As long as we had each other. As long as we had family.

Alas, Mama, I lost mine to the battle between those two redundant choices.

By Namrata Dass