Alternia Comics

Chapter 5

This is the story the mole told that night on the river bank.

Long ago, when man had just found how to use tools and was losing its hair that kept it warm, a great frost came to the earth. Without the hair that had once kept them warm, the men found themselves freezing to death, one by one. Their fire did not last long in the wind, and the clothes they made were little help against the biting cold.

None of the animals knew what to do for their brothers, the men. They gave of their furs in the hunt, but still that did not keep the men from dying. Then the moles, who live beneath the earth, and the beavers, who make their homes on the river, approached the men.

"Follow us," they said, and the men did. They were shown the burrows of the moles and the dams of the beavers, and were shown how such things could be made. They were shown where to make them, so that their hunters would not have to go far for water and for food. These things the moles and the beavers showed them, out of kindness and brotherhood.

Many of the men went and built their own homes as they had been shown. But some, after working only a short while said, "This is too hard. Why make our own when the beavers and moles have them already made? Let us go and take them."

These men were scolded and told not to be so foolish as to steal from them that had given such invaluable help. But that night, those men crept away from the half finished houses to where the moles and beavers lived. As they slept, the moles and beavers were thrown out of their homes to make room for the lazy humans. They laughed and feasted in the stolen halls all the next day. They day after, the moles and beavers returned with help from some of the other animals, but the men with their weapons were too strong, and they held onto their stolen homes.

Time passed, and the moles and beavers were without homes. One day, a hunting party from the new village happened upon some beavers trying to stay warm in the forest.

"Why are you here?" asked the hunters. "Why are you not in your homes, if you are so cold?"

"Do you not know?" they answered spitefully. "You stole them from us!"

The hunters looked to one another, confused. "No, it was not us who stole your homes. Did someone else?"

The beavers said nothing. The hunters saw how cold they were, and knew that some measure of trust would have to be given before anything more could be done. They took off their warm cloaks and wrapped the beavers inside them, and them took them back to the village. The beavers were warmed before fires protected from the wind.

"You have made your homes well," they told the men.

"You taught us well how to make them," answered the men.

More parties were sent out to find beavers and moles and bring them into the villages, where they were warmed and fed. Then the men talked among themselves, and agreed to take the burrows and dams back from their thieving brethren.

The next morning, led by the moles, the men surprised the lazy thieves who were still asleep. They could not put up much of a fight, even after they awoke, for they had gone too long eating of the moles' stored food and not hunting for their own. It was the same with the dams of the beavers, and soon the animals were back in their right places.

As for the thieves, the men made new homes, ones that could not be gotten out of, and threw them in there as punishment.

There are three lessons to be learned here, my friends. First, do not take what is not yours. Second, do not assume that if one is bad, then all are bad. And third, do not get careless in your success.