He pulled on the lever and a complex system of weights and counterweights, ropes and pulleys, opened the roof. Doing so let the rain in, of course, and given the only suitable word to describe the precipitate at that moment in time was 'persistent,' it was not at all long before water coursed down his long and straggled hair, collecting at the ends before falling in huge droplets to the earthen ground at his feet.

Naked save the downy fur, much finer than that which sprouted from his head and face, that covered his entire body, he sat, cricking his neck as he sought a position of comfort, his buttocks protesting mightily because in truth, the rock was anything but comfortable.

As pampered as he was likely to feel he pulled hard upon the rope above his head and the stone stool upon which his buttocks sat twisted as if it were a corkscrew, and took him up thirteen revolutions until it stopped, leaving him perfectly positioned to peer through the telescope of hollowed bone and scratched, roughly-hewn glass.

Blinking in an attempt to clear his vision, he smiled as he saw the silhouette of the strangers' flying craft against the sheer enormity of Luna, the sister of the very planet upon which he resided.

And then in a near-blinding flash of light the flying craft was gone. For a time he simply stared up at Luna, sometimes with the aid of the telescope and sometimes without.

She really is a beautiful sight, he thought, casting his mind back to one of the many conversations he'd had with the strangers though he was well aware, 'conversation' was a very loose term for he had not understood a word they said nor they, he.

"We're time-tourists, just paying a visit," one had said, though of course she could have said anything.

Communication issues aside there were definitely plenty of similarities. Just as he and his peers the strangers were bipedal with eyes and a nose and mouths, though they covered the vast majority of their bodies with strange colours and material as if there was shame in allowing one's fur to do its job.

He started at a shriek and for a moment forgot all about the telescope, Luna and the strangers with their disappearing craft.

Spinning upon the stool he dropped towards the ground below, twisting in mid-air in such a fashion that he could start running the very instant his feet met stone.

Within moments he reached the outskirts of the village, situated as it was in a cleared area of the forest, and from such a short distance away he was able to discern the nature of the continued shrieking with ease, though he did not believe it. The strangers had been friendly, if a little odd, but he suspected his people had seemed exactly the same way to them.

"Our children..." He looked up to see one of the men of his group stomping towards him. "They've taken our fucking children."

He stopped running. If it was true that the strangers had, indeed, taken the children, then there was precious little he could do. He did not have a flying craft and even if he did, he had no idea where the stranger's vessel had taken them.

The village was in disarray. Most people, men and women alike, were in tears, wondering why for the love of everything the visitors had taken their offspring and what, exactly, they were going to do with them.

Some people, however, were angry. He was angry, in fact he was furious and just as much with himself as with the strangers themselves. He had trusted them, and it seemed that had most definitely been the wrong thing to do.

He grit his teeth as every follicle on his body tensed.

"We will wait," he said, quietly, and then with far more volume, "We will wait for the strangers to return and they will return. And when they do, we will kill them!"