Page 33 of Taken to Nobu
“I will ask you a question, even though this is not customary for any Okkari or xub’Raku.”
“Okay.”
He inhales and exhales a steady breath. “Kiki, will you let me woo you?”
He is the oasis, and I’m swept away in the tide. Time passes. An indefinite amount of it. I don’t speak and he doesn’t move. There is no ceding on either side. And in the end, there’s only one thing I can say as my insides war with one another and my brain shuts down one cell after the next. Only one thing I can even hope to do.
“I’ll try.” My fist unclenches. My shoulders relax.I can do this. I can try.
He nods at me once. “That is all I ask of you.”
13
Kiki
“Gabel,” I say and Kuana places the odd, square-shaped fruit back in the bowl with a soft trill, just as she does every time. The star-shaped fruit comes next followed by the entire bowl, fruit and all. “Splintar and hibo?”
Smiling, she shakes her head. “Almost. Heeh-zoh,” she corrects, placing emphasis on the second syllable.
“Hizo,” I say and I’m rewarded by another one of her trills.
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep a straight face and roll my eyes, determined not to give in to the temptation to smile though, at this point, I don’t even know why. It’s been two solars since I last saw Okkari, since I moved into Re’Okkari’s house and since Kuana moved in with me.
When Kuana first showed up with supplies — pelts, furs, firestarters, chopped wood, skins of water and foods of all kinds, as well as a small device for me to contact Miari and Svera — I thought she was making a delivery. But when she started laying out a smaller pile of furs on the opposite side of the fire from the larger pile, I knew that was a fool’s hope.
My first instinct was to kick her out…but I couldn’t. Since I came into her life she’s been hunted, rejected, locked up, ridiculed, and hated. She’s my hasheba now —myhasheba — and though I don’t know much of their culture, I know I can’t dismiss her without bringing her great shame.And I’ve done enough of that.
So for the first half solar we operated around each other in an uncomfortable silence, each doing our own work to make the place livable. We hardly spoke. It seemed like we both tried to find excuses to be outside of the house as often as possible — much to the regret of my angry, wind-chapped skin.
The cold started to bare down on us in earnest and by the second half of that first solar, I knew we’d be cooped up togetherinsideuntil the lunar came. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore — sitting in silence with my anger and no outlet — and I knew that she couldn’t take it anymore — sitting in silence without fulfilling her role, being hated for no reasons she could possibly know or understand.
I don’t know how it happened, or who made the first move, but eventually, we did the unthinkable — we started to work together.
We built a fire together. She showed me how to light the pink stones using a torch found in one of the sliding trays in the area I can only callkitchenby force. It’s really just a series of sliding drawers, all polished black rock and filled with objects I can’t name.
I asked Kuana what a few of them were called only to discover that those objects were actually articles of food. She found my reaction funny and released her first trill. One solar later and she’s still helping me define the things that make up this strange new world around me. I’m terrible at remembering what she tells me, but I have gotten a few words down.
“Banaba,” I say, holding up a cup of the delicious thick tea I first offered to me by Tre’Hurr.
She shakes her head. “Bakaba.”
“Bakaba.”
“Nox. Ba-ka-ba.”
“Augh.” I tilt my head back in frustration and toss my hands into the air. “I’m never going to get this.”
“You have your translation mites. They will help you.”
“Mites? You don’t mean insects, do you?”
She trills again, face flowering with color. This time blue. She takes my wooden plate to one of the drawers which she slides open and shut. A funny rumbling sound begins and I can sense that there’s energy at work inside the drawer but I don’t know what kind, or what the effect will be. But I’m curious.Curious isn’t pleased. But it isn’t hate either.
Kuana nods. “Hexa, I do. They are very expensive. Not all here on Nobu have them. I was only given mites when I was named hasheba.”
“So you couldn’t understand me on the mountain?”
“Nox. Hurr translated most of what you said to me.”
