Fable of Warning

One spring, many years ago, there was a great war to the south and many people came north looking for shelter.  So many people flooded into the small town in the beautiful valley that the town elders could not feed them all and had to turn many away.  One family struggled westward into the mountains rather than going north along the main road.  At dusk, they settled under the great willow tree.

The three children set out to find dry firewood because the area near the willow was damp.  Red pandas climbed down and followed these children around.  At first, they seemed simply cute but each of the children realized that the red pandas were picking up the dry wood in their mouths and carrying it away before the children could reach it.  Unhappily, the three returned to their family without any wood.

One of the adults in the family had taken a bow and arrows into the woods to hunt game for the family’s meal while another had gone searching for edible roots and mushrooms.  Soon these two adults found many red pandas just as their children had.  The furry creatures made such a racket with their cooing and the scraping of their claws as they climbed that all the other animals knew the hunter was coming and fled.  The other adult found edible plants and fungi but the pandas had dug up and eaten all them first.  Frustrated, these two returned to the camp as well without any food.

Cold and hungry, the family was about to go to sleep for the night when they heard the red pandas gathering above them in the limbs of the great old willow.  The family tried to throw rocks and yell the scare the pandas away but the creatures did not leave.  Instead, they began to shake the branches and leaves of the willow and a great deal of water started falling on the family, getting their clothes and beds soaked through.  Angrily, the family packed up and moved farther into the mountains.

Not three hours later, a group of soldiers, spears shining but armor black with blood, marched up the road, all the way to the big willow.  Seeing nobody, the soldiers grumbled and one of them, with a sword and silver helmet, reluctantly motioned for them to turn around and march away.

The red pandas, safely high in the trees, watched the soldiers clank back down the hill.  Their shiny black eyes could see an orange glow in the beautiful valley where the small town was.