Page 4 of Shifter King
Somehow that seemed harder than helping to do whatever tasks around the camp needed tending.
QueQoa appeared on the south side of the camp, carrying what looked like two silver salmons over his shoulder. Their still-wet scales left imprints against his cotton cobalt tunic. His doublet must have been left somewhere else. He broke into a smile when he saw her. "You're alive."
"I am."
He looked her up and down, his forehead creasing. His mouth pursed with contemplation. "You don't look good."
AaQar sighed audibly from somewhere behind her.
She laughed, then nodded. "I bet I look like crap."
"No. Just like you lost a few fights and went through Dry Deep. But you do look better than you did before. Will you eat the fish? Do you need something else?"
"Fine. I'll eat the fish." Everyone was worried. Her elmis were still working. Almost alarmingly well. She could pick out each of the brothers and their general mood still. If she focused, she might even be able to pick out the specific worries even though it didn't take mindreading to guess most of it. Naatos wasn't near though everyone else was.
Where was he? She glanced around, her gaze drawn to the deeper forest beyond their camp. If she had to guess, he was there.
"He's scouting," AaQar said. "We'll be finding a more secure location. How much do you remember since we left Dry Deep?"
"Not much," she admitted. "Not yet at least. It's all rather blurred."
"A fair bit has happened." He told her about what had happened after they escaped from Dry Deep while he scaled and cleaned the fish. How ill she had been. How they had searched for aid. How Naatos had found an Abliato doctor who was able to use her medical knowledge and telekinetic abilities to remove the long leeches and venom. And how a group of Bealorns had arrived and proved most foul. The story seemed familiar in parts, and she wasn't sure if that was because she remembered it, dreamed about it, or someone had mentioned it earlier.
QueQoa interjected his perspective occasionally if he was near enough to comment, adding that Laachtue, the doctor, was charming for an Abliato or Tiablo woman, the Bealorns were vulgar, and why hadn’t they recognized how powerful Vawtrians actually were?
"That is strange," she said. "Why do you think they weren’t afraid?" She’d never met anyone like this family before. Certainly no other Vawtrians until them. And while all Vawtrians couldn’t be like them, it seemed as if most were on the more aggressive side. With their cadre units and the ability to become anything they chose with practice, how could anyone not be at least somewhat intimidated? And why would they march right into a Vawtrian camp and act as if they owned it.
"Laachtue says that she has never seen Vawtrians like us." QueQoa removed two coils of rope from the sledge and gave Proteus a scratch between the eyes. "Not so flattering when the mere fact that we could become more than one thing seemed to shock her. Or that we could become larger than our states of rest."
QueQoa liked Laachtue.
She blinked, then shook her head, startled. It wasn’t necessarily romantic. But something had happened to make QueQoa curious about this doctor. Or perhaps the doctor was curious about him? Maybe both. She almost asked him but stopped. As surely as she knew that one of them was interested in the other, she knew QueQoa would not want to talk about it.
And she knew AaQar was aware of it as well and amused. Worried too. But hopeful. He’d seen a glance or two between them both. Something subtle.
She turned her wrists over and frowned at the long jagged lines. Maybe she had been premature in assuming these marks and the impacts of Dry Deep and the long leech venom would lessen her mindreading. As it was, it felt...more open. Like things were slipping in. Things she might not even realize. She massaged both wrists in turn, her unease growing.
Naatos had said that many of the Neyeb went to Dry Deep for enlightenment and growth. Maybe it did open up abilities. At what cost though? Had she already paid it through the suffering in Dry Deep?
Or maybe it was continuing now as she struggled to adapt to being back in this body. She chewed on the inside of her lip as she continued to massage her wrists. Her whole body did feel wrong. As if it no longer quite fit. Maybe between Dry Deep and the Ki Valo Nakar and the long leeches that was what had happened. Her mind had been opened in a way that made her body no longer right.
She settled back onto the log and stared into the fire or toward the dark forest to the east. From time to time, she stretched out, testing her stiff muscles and rubbing life into her wrists and ankles.
The memories of her time in Dry Deep had all muddled together even with AaQar's summation of what had happened. Snatches of sound and images blurred together, some startlingly vivid for a breath before they melted away. In some respects, even what had happened before Dry Deep was no longer clear. It took several minutes of close focus to remember that they had been in this wilderness for several weeks. That there were migraine-creating storms and dinosaurs and large serpents with frog-like tongues that weren't supposed to be here.
But while physical details were difficult to recall with precision at the moment, what was clear were the feelings. Those became even clearer as she contemplated them. And chief among them was her relationship with Naatos and how it had changed over their time here.
She would not have survived the wilderness or the Unformed Ones without this family. Her family. Without Naatos. Her veskare. And there was one thing that made her wince when she thought back on it. A boundary she had crossed. One thing in particular that she needed to address and on which to reassure him.
What she needed was time though. Time alone with him. And that wasn't going to happen unless—she stopped, smiling as she caught the edges of an abrasive presence. Shrieking crespa, he had a loud one. But she didn't mind it now even with that light scraping sting. He was close. She leaned forward, resting her elbow on her knee.
The thick-leafed branches at the forest's edge bent. Then he strode into the camp, black spear with runes in hand, expression somber. His coarse black hair hung wild about his shoulders, a few twigs and leaves clinging in the strands. And it wasn't all bad news that he carried. Something had given him a thread of hope that lightened the edges of his mind.
Good. They definitely needed good news.
THE BUNKER
Amelia rose to her feet to greet Naatos, then faltered. The strength in her legs took a moment to return, and she had to steady herself on one of the boulders. Her head spun. Vaguely, she heard AaQar and QueQoa greet Naatos and his low response followed. The branches and leaves somewhere overhead cracked, and something landed nearby. WroOth was back too.
