Page 52 of Taken to Nobu
Something irks me then, a recurring thought I’ve had, one that I finally have the courage to voice. “Do Voraxian females resent human ones?”
Tre’Hurr’s ridges flash white with surprise. She opens her mouth to respond, but just then there is a commotion at my back, towards the entrance of the cavern. I turn and am surprised, just as I am every time, when Reema enters the cave. Currently auditioning for different roles, she’s begun helping the xub’Hurr these past few solars and sometimes we are stationed close enough to one another to speak. I’ve learned a lot about her.
Her mother is a xub’Xhen — what I’ve gathered to be some sort of scientist who studies organic matter — and her father is Garon, the weapons keeper. She doesn’t like skinning or tanning, but she likes the brining process because she gets to paint. She likes painting. They don’t have artists here on Nobu, so she hopes that in the coming solars, when she vies for a title of her own, she’ll become the xub’Garon, apprentice to the weapons keeper — she wants to take after her daddy. She doesn’t think she’ll have a chance for the post however, because there is only one xub’Garon and no female has ever vied for it before. But she still hopes. She also likes sweet shorba fruit and nut bread pudding — we both do.
“Surprised again, my Xhea,” Tre’Hurr says with a chuckle. “I would have thought seeing Reema would be a common sight for you. Especially after all I’ve heard of this human moon and its fertileness. You must have babes suckling on breasts and little kits running rampant.”
Reema is looking for something — someone — and when her gaze meets mine she smiles sheepishly and waves in the human greeting custom I taught her. I wave back and watch her until she is directed by Hurr into the antechamber where hides are soaked. Lifting my paintbrush back to the hevarr skin, I tell Tre’Hurr, “It’s just crazy to me howfewlike Reema I’ve seen — and she’s not even that young. I mean she’s obviously younger than we are, but I don’t know if I’ve seen any babies at all since I’ve been here.”
Tre’Hurr nods and a skein of grey grief winds across her forehead.
Stupid mouth.“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“Nox, my Xhea, you are correct. The Okkari’s village is the largest on Nobu. We are just over three thousand. Of that, we have only two hundred and ninety who do not yet have titles and, of those, only thirty two kits. No babies have been born in the past four rotations.”
I curse. “Comets, that’s terrible. And even for kits, that isn’t very many.”
“It is not. It makes it hard to picture this human colony you speak of. The thought of kits and their games, suckling babes and the guileless laughter of youth helping to carry us through these long ice storms is truly a wonderful thing to imagine. But so distant. Like trying to snatch ice from the air before it lands without it melting.”
“I’ve tried that. It didn’t work.”
She laughs lightly, but it does not reach her ridges. “We all have. So for now we are content to treasure our little ones. The few that we have. It is a wonder we have any sane adults at all with how badly we spoil our kits.”
I smile and we lapse into a pleasant silence. Around me I hear other females talking, renewed laughter and the occasional high trill of a much younger voice giggling among them. Distracted by thoughts of children, I drop my brush and when I turn to retrieve it, kick the bucket of dolloram accidentally — thescreabucket.
Needles shoot up my leg and I curse a thousand times before grumbling, “If only every blasted thing on this planet wasn’t made out of screa.”
Tre’Hurr laughs and tries to cage it behind her hand. “Deepest apologies, Xhea.”
“Xhea?” The word I hear everyday spoken in a voice I know only from another lifetime rattles me to my core. I turn and see a ghost and grin.
“I must be dreaming,” I say. In my peripheries I see that everyone has stopped working and is focused on me and the female standing near the entrance. Nothing but packed earth and pebbles separate us. I take a step forward and she grins when I do, her red face reflecting a heritage that I could never begrudge her, just as I can’t begrudge any of them, no matter how badly I’ve tried to. We can’t help the skin we’re born in.
Her hands move instinctively to cover her stomach, which bulges noticeably despite the many fur layers she’s wrapped in. Foreheads beaming with color tip forward as she waddles and wobbles further into the cavern.
I burst out laughing. “Oh my stars, I can’t believe it’s you!” I rush forward, dropping my paintbrush and throwing my arms around her shoulders. Half-Dra’Kesh, she’s taller than I am and when I step back, I have to look up at her.
“What are you doing here?”
She laughs and there is a glaze to her eyes that she wipes at. “Oh stars, Kiki, you don’t know how good it is to see you.” She brings me back in for another hug and when she turns this time, she drags me with her. “I wanted to surprise you.”
“Well you definitely have. I didn’t know it was safe to travel yet.” My stomach is in knots. My tasks forgotten. I can’t believe it.She’s here.
A flash of a memory. Another life.Miari squats inside of the cave, knees tucked under her chin, chewing on a piece of fruit leather and loaf of sand bread. Her eyes are wide and scared and still she’s smiling at me at something stupid she’s said or that I wrote down. I wasn’t speaking then, but when the khrui came for us, I stood up and held my grabar out in front of me. Of one thing I was certain, if it came to me and the khrui or Miari, I was prepared to die. She means so much to me.
Her belly presses against my belly in a way I find just a little unsettling. I make a face and hold her back and she laughs. “I know. I’m still not used to it myself. But to answer your question, the first icefall has passed and the next won’t start up again for another thirty solars or so, giving us just enough time.”
“Enough time for what?”
“To catch up.”
“I thought that’s what we’ve been doing on our calls these past solars.”
“I didn’t mean with me.” She pulls me to the entrance of the cave and when she steps out of the way, my jaw drops and I’m rendered completely speechless. Miari laughs, “So how about now? Are you still surprised?”
I must be hallucinating. Maybe the fumes from the dolloram really did kill me. Because standing ankle-deep in the snow close enough to touch are my favorite people in the world. All of them. Svera, Jaxal and my mom. And of course, just behind them, Kinan. He stands beside Miari’s Raku and a small contingent of warriors, looking on.
I shriek like a little girl and storm forward, embracing my mom first. “Oh my,” she says as she takes my weight. She’s shorter than I am and she seems much older than she had the last time I saw her.But she still smells the same. Like sand and earth and lavender-scented root butter, the kind she uses in her hair.
