Cornsnake

Native American who came out of the sea. His mother claimed in a rage once the truth that she found him washed up on the shore with a circlet of jade around his middle. She sold the circlet for a leather thong tied around three bundles of ten blue feathers. She gave a bundle of feathers to the child and kept the other two. The woman kept the baby and named him Cornsnake after the circlet's engraving of a snake with it's tail in it's mouth. The crazy woman would sometimes yell obscenity at Cornsnake for seemingly no reason. Other times the woman would sing to the child and hold him warm against her skin while he slept. She always fed him and cleaned him. Each and every day she soothed him and sang to him. He grew conflicted toward attitudes of love.

The woman, Two Badgers in the Dark, taught young Cornsnake about the magical properties of stones, different types of special woods and plant gums which were acceptable to the Gods as a substitute for blood sacrifices. Two Badgers would take Cornsnake on trips to the island when he was old enough to help steer a dugout canoe. Some nights, they would haul the canoe up onto the shoreline and climb into the foothills. As they hiked up the mountain, Two Badgers would tell Cornsnake about the stars. She would prepare a tea from a foul smelling, but gorgeous white bell flower and explain to young Cornsnake about how we were descended from the stars. She would tell tales about worlds that existed long before the one they were experiencing. She taught Cornsnake how to produce his own fire, a practice held by the tribe to be unclean and very dangerous. It was a necessary trick if Cornsnake was ever going to learn to make tea or ink for recording his lessons.

Cornsnake was ridiculed by the other children in his village on the mainland. They teased him that he had a lunatic witch for a mother. She wasn't a proper shaman or priestess of Rain Spirit. They would often exclude Cornsnake from ball games or celebratory dancing rituals or throw stones at him and call him "shadow child".

"'I am astounded whenever I see you shadow child with two crazy badgers for a nurse! Why did the Gods allow you to not be eaten by both of her heads at the same time? Did she have a toothache when you were born, shadow child?'"

Cornsnake would cry until the other girls and boys would throw acorns and stones at him. He would run home to his mother. She lived in an oak tree that had been hollowed out after having survived a lightning strike. The tree smelled of sweet resins and animal musk. A door of seal hides covered the low door that Two Badgers and Cornsnake crawled through when they left their home for the day to gather acorns, berries, roots, muscles and three different kinds of eggs. Cornsnake loved to cook the eggs with little pinches of Coastal Sage and sea salt.

Sometimes, he waited until Two Badgers fell asleep or wandered off to pace the shoreline. He would dig up her store of spices and oils and spice up his omelets. He had never tasted anything like it! Two Badgers knew how to enter a trance and acted as an advertising agent for the tribes traders and textile craftspeople. Pushing her ability to the limit, Two Badgers would fly off to far away lands and sell information and advice in exchange for a scouting party to venture great distances

Often, when Cornsnake was around fifteen years old ,He would have frequent bouts where he would lose his temper and go off in a dugout canoe to the island for solitude. One day, while at the island, Cornsnake noticed a shadow rake across the earth. It moved slowly overhead like a condor. If only it had been such a docile creature. It was a giant flying monster!

There are many legends of thunderbird and secret treasures of the Franklin Mountains. This is one such story that survives against all odds to still be told to this day. It is the story of a great thunderbird that had attacked his people. His surrogate mother was among the first to be taken up by the great bird's thunderbolt into its belly. Many others, a good deal of them elders, were frozen under the luminescent bolts that ensnared their arms and heads. The effect was clusters of terrified tribe-folk running in place a few feet above ground. One by one they were placed in the thunderbird's tongue and swallowed. Cornsnake took hold of his blue feather charm and placed it in his mouth. As he paddled madly toward the village on the mainland Cornsnake managed to speak to the great bird while he labored toward the shore. The creature landed. A stranger emerged from the beak of the thunderbird and spoke in a strange tongue. The stranger was not a member of the village. Cornsnake demanded that the bird spit out his mother. The stranger removed her respirator and embraced the young man. "Upham'a, I am overjoyed to have finally found you." The stranger spoke to Cornsnake, removing her helmet. "We have searched for signs of you up and down the coast. We thought we had lost you, that we would never see you again."

Lightnovel Script Draft
A long time ago in what is now the Pacific coast of California, a simple human tribe lived. They lived in harmony with their environment. The people did not fear nature, they revered it. They identified with it.

A neighboring tribe had become successful at agriculture. So much so that they discovered surplus in a way apart from the simple tribe. Crime, social structure, favors, debts, illness and medicine of the two tribes was very different.

In the autumn and the late spring, large trading parties would meet on a common ground. Mystical trinkets, flavorful foods, dyes of every color, musical instruments, stories, memories, love.

During one meeting the daughter of a Priest-king from the south, and the son of a charcoal baker from the simple northern village met. They were strongly attracted to each other. They were forbidden to see each other. At last, they decide to run away together. They are blessed with a child.

The city-state tracks down the village of Cornsnake, the charcoal burner's young man. They attack the village killing and capturing members of Cornsnake's tribe. After a sleepless night on the stone shelf vantage point above the village Cornsnake decides it would be best to confront the minions of the Priest-king rather than continue running. His heart is broken because he fears being alone. His friends and family have been captured and killed. If he is taken prisoner, his child may not grow up remembering him. His young wife feels passionately for them to continue their escape by boat.

During the surrender Cornsnake calls down to the Priest-king that he will turn himself in and later help him find his daughter. In exchange, the remaining villagers are to be freed.

Javelins scream through the air. The young woman screams. Cornsnake catches one of the darts, the other tears through his middle and pins the mother's foot to the soil of the cliff. She pulls free the weapon in time to thrust it in a guard who had climbed up after them. Cornsnake uses his "technique" to improve success of having been damaged in a non-lethal way. He fights off another guard, wrestling him, too tired to use the "technique" properly during the fight. The mother of his child leaps to the edge of the cliff to save the papoose which was flung over the edge in the struggle. The distraction is enough for Cornsnake to overcome the guard. She calls to Cornsnake and throws him the baby before the cliff gives way and she falls to her death. Cornsnake tries to warp reality to a more favorable outcome, but is powerless to do so. He is filled with rage, pulls the javelin from the fallen guard and uses the technique differently to send the missile through the heart of the Priest-king.

Father and child walk down the mountain.