SocNoc, Day 0

The rules of SocNoc are not as stringent as NaNoWriMo, and therefore I have decided to continue with a story I have already began with. So here's the specs to get you started:

Title: none yet, suggestions welcome. It shall be referred to as Untitled Lemur Novel
Genre: Fantasy
Audience: teens/crossover
Plot: partly conceptualised
Setting: Alternate-world Madagascar

Current wordcount: 4,143 words

Extract:

“There will be others,” said a soft voice beside Katta’s ear. It snapped the young lemur from her reverie. She squatted on a branch before the great stone tomb, final resting place for her ancestors, relatives and, most recently, her own son. She cast a glance across at her mother. Weariness exhibited itself on the older lemur’s features, in the drooping of her tufted ears, the dragging of her long striped tail.

“The twins are exhausting you,” Katta commented, referring to her two newborn siblings. It seemed bitter irony – the gods had deemed that her mother be graced with two hyperactive bundles of fur, whilst depriving her of her first and only. “And I know there will be more, Reniko…”

“It doesn’t make the loss any easier though, does it?” Her mother finished for her. She clasped Katta’s hand in her own, brushing her daughter’s cheek with her own.

“No.” Katta concluded. Her son had been but a few days old when his birth weaknesses had claimed him. The three days of mourning had barely passed, the grief still raw in her soul. This morning his body had been lain to rest and now the clan mourned his passing in true Maki style. There was dancing, and music and a great deal of rhum. Katta knew she should be partaking of the proceedings. Her son was now safe and content in the otherworld, with his great grandparents, aunts and uncles long since past. He would not want to see her torn asunder with grief and loss. But he had been her first, and now he was gone.