Page 31 of Taken to Nobu
He’ll fight for me then too?I close my eyes and nod, trying not to think about how Kuaku lied to me and it was because of that lie that I ran off. I could have just talked to him. Been honest and open. Asked him to talk to Svera and Miari. Then all of this horribleness would have been avoided.
“Xhea,” Tre’Hurr says, pulling my attention back to my tea-drink-thing.
She is particularly interested in the human colony and asks me polite questions. I can feel her desire to ask more, but she doesn’t push. After a while, I notice Va’El’s apparent fatigue. Wishing I’d noticed it earlier, I mumble an awkward goodbye, rise and leave. As I make it to the door Tre’Hurr thanks me for coming to see them and I somehow manage to apologize, and then thank them again.
Back in the cold white once more, I think to myself of how ashamed Jaxal would be of me, and how pleased my apology would make my mom.When did I start looking up to him and stop looking up to her? And why can’t it be both?
The cold comes stronger now, and it only takes a few seconds for me to feel it on my face and in my lungs. I have to bite together to keep my teeth from shaking, and am grateful when Ka’Okkari finally leads me to another dwelling, this one in the middle of the valley and not sheltered at all by the mountain, but huddled along with other smaller, squat screa homes.
“This is the place of Re’Okkari,” he says when we pass through a circular door — one he has to hunch to get through.
Again, I notice the stark contrast to the other two homes I’ve been in. Where Okkari’s is all clean lines and efficiency and Tre’Hurr and Va’El’s feels alive with their love, Re’Okkari’s space is sparse. It doesn’t betray much.
To one side, there’s the same strange cooking apparatus and a dais that Ithinkis either meant for storing food, or for chopping it. At the back of the space, there’s a raised platform piled thickly with furs, though they don’t sit in a curved bed like Okkari’s do. There’s a stone basin in the center of the space with ash in the middle, and thick, grey pillows scattered around that.
To my right, opposite the kitchen area, there’s a low table on which I spy a half-finished game left for two or more players. My heart catches when I realize it’ll never get finished.
Biting my teeth together, I say quickly, “He didn’t have any family?”
“Nox, Xhea. He was unmated.”
“But what about his parents?”
Ka’Okkari tilts his head at this. “The ones who sired him hail from another tribe. They relocated, seeking warmer climates once their kit was fledged warrior.”
“They don’t see each other anymore?”
“Nox, they do not. I see this troubles you, yet this is the way on Nobu. Across all of Voraxia, in fact.”
I hug my opposite arms, thinking of what Kuaku said.I’ll never see them again. Even if she lied about the other things, it seems that in this aspect she spoke truths.I’ll never go home. I’ll never have a chance to tell my mom how sorry I am.
Softly, I say, “In the human colony, we stay close to our parents until they pass.”
“I take it you mean pass into the Great Ocean of the After.”
I don't know what that is, but I get the gist and nod.
White flickers over his ridges and he smiles at me fondly and I feel strange, like I’ve known him for years instead of just a few moments. “Kits are carried forward by their sires until they reach adulthood and take on their new titles, divesting themselves of the names they kept as children.”
Suddenly it makes sense why they do not share their names with one another. To do so would be sort of…intimate, representing a kinship it is not likely you’ll share with many, especially not if the birthing rate is so low. It also makes me sad.I want to know his name, but maybe that window is closed.
Ka’Okkari says, “My Xhea, I will leave you now.”
“What?”
“The Okkari has requested I leave you here.”
“What for?”
He hesitates, flaring white.White for surprise. Red for rage. Yellow for shame. Grey for grief. Blue for happiness. Purple for desire…I may not speak colorfluently, but I’m getting the hang of it little-by-little.
“He believed that you would be interested in maintaining your own residence apart from his.”
My mouth opens. I can’t speak. I feel hate and fear and terror and grief and bloodlust and savagery.But only at the thought that he forsakes me.
“If I may be so bold,” Ka’Okkari says, filling the silence, “I believe it may be his intention to attempt to court you in the human fashion. The manual produced by the Svera clearly states that males and females — or two males or two females — live apart during the courtship process.”
Svera and her Tri-God be damned. Leave it to a worshiper to write such a manual…I open my mouth to protest, but as I take a step, my foot falls onto one of the pillows by the fire. I stare down at the ashes, wondering when Re’Okkari’s last meal was, what he ate, if the fire was roaring when he ate it.
