Page 11 of Purring, Presents, and Parties

“Aspin! Jalin!” a voice called out.

“We were going to join a group to play ground-ball,” Jalin explained as he tugged the hem of her wrap up to reveal scrapes on both knees.

“Great, I have the knees of an active ten-year-old child,” Zuri quipped, trying hard to smile. “Sorry about being an ambulatory speed bump. You guys have fun.”

Jalin’s eyes narrowed on her before he looked up at Aspin. “You go play. I’m going to take Zuri to the infirmary.”

Aspin looked in the direction of the voice then back at them. “Maybe I should take her? I’m the one who knocked Zuri over.”

“I played yesterday, and my legs are still a little sore,” Jalin said, making a shooing motion with his hands. “Go have fun, I’m going to take it easy.”

That’s all the encouragement Aspin needed. “Sorry, Zuri!” he said as he jogged away.

Once he was gone, Zuri met Jalin’s eyes. “I’m not going to the infirmary for a little cobble rash.”

Considering Kasium was living there now, she might never visit the infirmary again.

“Of course not,” Jalin agreed as he stood up. “We’re going to walk over to the pond and chat, like we used to do on Omanal.”

“Except there we walked to the edge of the bog,” Zuri reminded him, accepting his hand to help her stand.

“I like the pond better. It doesn’t stink,” Jalin commented as Zuri tested her joints. The pain was minimal, no real damage had been done. “And we don’t have to watch out for hungry tweshi.”

“Is there such a thing as a full tweshi?” Zuri asked, picturing the deadly bog beast.

They bantered about tweshi, bogs, and life on Omanal until they reached a stone bench sitting on the edge of an artificial pond. Brilliant flashes of color came close to the surface anddisappeared again as specially engineered fish swam the pond's borders.

She’d been told they planned to expand the pond into something the humans could use for swimming, but that had to wait until the necessary building was done.

“What’s really going on?” Jalin asked once they were sitting side by side on the bench.

Zuri kept her eyes focused on the pond. “Kasium moved out.”

Jalin sucked in a breath. “He broke up with you?”

Sniffing back a tear, Zuri shook her head. “Can you call it a breakup when you were never really together?”

“That male is an idiot!” Jalin declared, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“You’re right, but that doesn’t change anything,” Zuri got out before the tears started falling. Back on Omanal, she and Jalin had shared a house. He was her best friend, and now she regretted being so quick to move into the cottage with Kasium.

“Tell me everything,” Jalin demanded.

Zuri spent the next two hours telling Jalin about her relationship with the healer, starting when she first met him on Falsof Station and ending with their confrontation that morning. By the time she was done, her eyes were sore and her nose was stuffy from crying, but she felt calmer.

Jalin hadn’t interrupted once and made soothing sounds and rocked them a little the entire time. Once she was done retelling her sad story, he gave her a little kiss on the top of her head.

“It hurts now, but it’ll get better.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” she said.

“We’ll keep you busy,” Jalin said. “It’ll help. Drew and Aspin are constantly organizing games. We could work on your distillery or help Emery with the epic history they’re trying to write.”

“Will you move into the cottage with me?” Zuri didn’t expect those words to come out of her mouth, but the moment she said it she liked the idea. “There’s plenty of room.”

Jalin looked dubious. “Don’t you have the distillery taking up a bunch of space?”

“Yeah, but it’s only one room. The other room has two beds.” She sighed and dropped her head sideways to rest on Jalin’s shoulder. “Well, a bed and a nest because Kasium acted like I was contagious.”

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