Page 9 of Chasing Tail
Chapter 6
If I completely ignored that tiny, dried-up fish, land dweller food was actually delicious. Taron cleaned the flesh off every single one of those fish and kept insisting it wasn’t bad. He said it tasted better the more he ate it. I took his word on that and filled my belly with other food from the basket.
We saw how these things covered the bodies of the man and woman before they took them off to play in the water, but actually getting them on our bodies was difficult. What was the point of wrapping your body in these things? Didn’t it just get in the way?
Even if they didn’t even remotely fit his massive body, Taron's wrappings were easier to manage than mine. He looked ridiculous. I’d be laughing if my legs weren’t tangled up in a mess that would make walking more complex, and they expected women to cover their breasts in these horrible things that Taron had to try to figure out how to tie.
Did they have a problem with breasts on land? No one even thought about them under the sea. Mine were always uncovered, and no one had a problem with that. Now, they were smashed, shoved up under my chin, and I could hardly breathe. The white and brown round things were so beautiful. Why would they do this to harmless breasts?
I was sure we both looked totally ridiculous. One wrong move, and Taron was going to split out of those wrappings. I had the exact opposite problem. The woman was much bigger than I was. The only thing that wasn’t too big on me was this awful device that was meant for smashing breasts.
Still, I got this feeling this was way more acceptable to land dwellers than showing up the way nature intended. I felt utterly ridiculous, and these wrappings were making the hot air even hotter. I turned to Taron and fell out laughing.
“We look stupid.”
“Yes, we do. Walking is going to be even more difficult. You’re going to fall on your face, and these things are so tight, I’m going to have to take small steps, or I’ll break them.”
“I didn’t want to have to use it for that, but I took treasures from the ship graveyard. We’ll have to buy bindings that fit since land-dwellers insist on wrapping their bodies. It was like that when I saw the ship, and some of the paintings are like that underwater. I never paid attention because I thought I’d never come here.”
Taron groaned.
“We could be using it to try more of their delicious food.”
“I’m still disgusted you ate all that fish.”
“Let’s get out of here, Kishi. I know what those people were doing in the water. It feels amazing. Eventually, you get a little sore and have to take a break. It also worked up an appetite. They are going to come looking for their food and wrappings. I don’t want to fight them. Technically, we were the ones that stole from them.”
“You’re right. If we have to wear these awful things, then they definitely aren’t going to want to go back to their village without them. I don’t want to kill them. Still, I’d rather them be the ones to deal with their villagers completely overreacting than us. They are still land dwellers.”
“You are awful, Kishi. I love it.”
I pulled the dagger from my bag so it could guide us closer to the druid king. I had to use my other hand to hold all this nonsense pooling around my feet up, so I didn’t trip and stab myself with this enchanted knife. The more we walked, the easier it got. Probably because we couldn’t go very fast, or Taron would burst out of his.
We avoided the beach and the land dwellers we stole from until we finally broke through the trees and into their village. It was completely different from my village, but I wasn’t totally offended by it. The buildings were closer together and built out of different materials, but they were beautiful in their own way. I found them way less offensive than their ships.
I didn’t know the first thing about these people, but I knew a glowing dagger was more likely to get us killed than helped. It was late, but there were still people milling about on the street. Did land-dwellers not sleep? They must have fewer predators that came out in the dark because these people didn’t seem worried at all.
I was sure Taron and I looked utterly ridiculous, but no one stared or said anything to us. It was like we were totally anonymous. We could use that. We minded our own business, trying to navigate our way somewhere we could make use of the dagger when three men came spilling out of one of the buildings and knocked me flat on my ass.
Taron snapped into action. He shoved them away from me, but I didn’t think he knew the first thing about killing in this body. Still, he seemed to have some instincts. He swung his fists at one of the men, who just narrowly ducked before it connected with his face.
“Woah, there, lad!” the man said. “Do you know who you just tried to strike? I could have your head for that. We aren’t looking for a fight tonight. We are drunk and trying to forget our problems. We didn’t see your girl and didn’t mean to hurt her.”
I was hauled to my feet by arms I couldn’t see and pressed against a hard chest. I turned around and shoved the hands off me. I’d kill all of them if they tried to hurt Taron for defending me.
“You too?” the other man smirked. “You must not be from around here.”
Most of the men I’d seen so far didn’t hold a candle to Taron. They were weak looking, and I could have killed them even without an enchanted blade. However, these men would have put up a fight. They were easily the same size as Taron and just as good looking.
The other man who hadn’t spoken held up his hand, and magic started crackling. Fucking druids. I just had to get knocked over by a druid. Of course, I already knew they were honorless assholes who violated treaties and mutilated mermaids and sea life. They wouldn’t fight fair, and I really didn’t want to bring out my enchanted knife until I had to.
“Please, we really don’t want to fight either of you. You won’t win either way. We snuck out of the palace to get drunk, but if we come back with bruises and cuts on our faces because you managed to beat us, you’ll be hunted and killed for it. I’ve never seen you here, so you are clearly new in town. Personally, the three of us don’t give a shit if you beat us in a fair fight because we knocked your girl over, but our father is king here, and he doesn’t feel the same. So he’ll torture and kill the both of you for laying hands on us.”
There was our in to the druid king. Luck was clearly on our side if the first people that spoke to us were his sons. I could definitely use that. I knew Taron wanted to kill these men for knocking me down, but he was also intelligent. He could see the same strategy I was.
“If I beat them, it would mean getting an audience with the druid king. So how do you want to play this, Kishi?”
“The smart way. We can’t kill him in front of an audience and hope to escape. So let’s make nice.”
