Chapter 12
Twelve
Ayla
A s we moved north of the market, the houses got bigger. Then bigger still. At one point, Rymar pointed to the right and told me Naomi lived over there. But a few more blocks made the houses start to get smaller again, even if they did look fancier than the ones around where we lived.
When we finally made it to Jeera's place, the structure was almost the same size as ours, but built completely different. The outside was made of stone and some kind of plaster? I wasn't sure, but it reminded me of the walls inside our house. Rymar jogged up the pair of stairs and rapped his knuckles on the door.
It didn't take long before Brielle answered - in English. "Rymar. Hey, and Ayla! Come in, you two."
She was wearing a tight-fitting orange shirt and loose pants that almost looked like a skirt. Those were black, making her feet and tail appear even more blue against it. The orange ring around her tail and her bright hair were only one shade darker than her shirt, complementing her outfit nicely.
When I made it inside, I saw Jeera sitting on a chair next to Meri, a little table placed between them. Jeera had on a cream-and-pink dress. Meri, however, was wearing a long yellow one with blue flowers. It was not the same one she'd put on last night.
"You look much more comfortable," I said, kneeling before her to clasp her knee. "You okay?"
"I'm well, thank you," she replied formally.
I just gave her a look. It was the same type we'd shared so many times in our room, where no one could see us. The expression both called her out for evading and let her know I wasn't offended. Mostly, it made it clear I wasn't just asking to be polite.
"This is a lot," she finally said, "but your friends are good hosts. "
Better. Not perfect, and not as relaxed as I'd hoped, but I'd take it. I also understood, because I'd been very confused and overwhelmed when I'd first come to the surface. The concept of so much freedom had been something I couldn't have imagined, which meant Meri was probably waiting for the worst right now.
"Well, I brought you a book," I told her, passing over the copy. "This one was given to me when I first got here, so now I'm loaning it to you. It's a make-believe story, Meri. Something to pass the time."
"Thank you," she said, accepting the novel. "And it's okay for me to read this?"
"Perfectly okay," Jeera assured her. "I actually really like that story."
"Okay," Meri said, the word little more than a breath. "I just don't want to offend my hosts."
That meant I needed to change the subject a bit. Maybe lighten the mood. "New clothes?" I asked, smiling at Jeera to include her as well. Clothes were always safe, weren't they?
Meri smoothed down her skirt. "The ladies made me tell them what colors I like, then Ms. Lotus - "
"Who?" I broke in.
"Me," Brielle said. "My sign is the Lotus, and Merienne keeps trying to give me a title."
"Trust me, Ms. Basilisk is not quite how I want to be known," Jeera teased.
"I'm sorry!" Meri whimpered.
Jeera just waved her down. "I'm teasing you, Meri. It's okay. We simply prefer to use our first names. Everyone in Lorsa does."
"Calling people mister and missus is no longer done up here," I explained. "They don't even call Naomi Dr. Griffin. They just use her first name. It's more personal, and Dragons are more concerned with being friendly than being polite."
"Oh," Meri said.
Jeera tossed up her hands then gestured at me. "That's what I've been trying to figure out how to say!"
I giggled and turned for a chair. "I had to figure it all out while I could barely understand your words," I explained.
But Jeera hopped up. "Take the chair, Ayla. I'm sure Meri has been dying to see you. Rymar looks like he's lost - because his English isn't as good as he wants," she added to Meri. "And I need to talk to him about a few things anyway. Rymar?"
"Yah?" he replied, doing his best to mimic English.
I just shook my head, then claimed the chair Jeera had been in. Across the room, Brielle and Jeera were both waving Rymar back out of the house. I paused, wondering what they were doing, but when Rymar waved, I waved back. Maybe he was already leaving?
The door closed, so I turned to Meri. "Please tell me you're honestly okay here with them?"
She pressed her lips together for a moment, then nodded. "I am. They look very strange, Ayla, but they are nice. Much nicer than most of the wives."
"I know," I agreed. "Now, not everyone in Lorsa is nice, but the ones who are became my friends. See, things up here are nothing at all like what Mr. Cassidy said in his sermons."
"I know," she breathed. "I'm just so confused. They have to know the world is livable, right? But they always said it was burning!"
"Maybe because it's so hot?" I guessed. "Kanik told me - "
"Which one is he?" she broke in.
"Kanik is brown. Rymar is yellow. Zasen is the Wyvern and has the blue tail."
She nodded. "Okay. So this one is Rymar?"
"Yep," I agreed.
"Is he courting you?" she asked, quickly looking at the front door to make sure we were still alone.
I shook my head, aware I'd assumed the same thing when I'd been new here. "No. He's a friend, Meri. Just a friend, no different than you or Callah. Rymar has plenty of Dragons who want his attention." As I'd seen on the way here.
"Oh. But he is serving as your guardian today?"
I made a little noise to show she wasn't quite right. "I've never been here before, so Rymar showed me the way. That's it. He's not guarding me. He's giving me directions. Oh, and guess what else I did today?"
"What?" she asked.
Hopefully, this would show her exactly how different the surface was. Yes, I wanted to brag a bit, but mostly I wanted to find some way to prove to Meri that she really was safe. That it was okay to ask things, or make mistakes. Most of all, that I really could protect her.
"I learned something called hand-to-hand combat," I said. "Well, defense, but it's still a part of fighting. I learned how to flip the Wyvern if he tries to grab me. I did it, too! I dropped him to the ground at least four times!"
Meri's mouth dropped open. "Did he punish you?"
"Nope," I assured her. "Kanik was teaching me how, and Zasen was helping by playing the bad guy who tried to grab me. When I made him grunt because he hit so hard? He told me I did a good job." Then I reached over and grabbed her hand. "Everything is different up here, Meri. And the best part? You don't have to be like me, or be a proper wife, or anything else. You get to figure out what you like, and then become that version of yourself."
"Not anymore," she said, lifting her hand to rub her very swollen belly. "I'm a mother now, Ayla. I only have a couple of months before the baby is here."
"That's what I'm saying," I assured her. "Meri, you can raise that baby any way you want. You don't have to do it like your parents did. You can kiss on it, or hug it, or anything else. And you don't have to send it away when it's too old. Families don't do that here. The children live with their parents until they grow up."
"I don't even know how to feed it," she whispered. "Ayla, the wives were supposed to show me."
"And now Naomi will," I promised. "Meri, it's okay. It's all going to be okay. Even if something goes wrong, Naomi will save you. Dragons don't die when they have their babies. They have doctors and medicine. "
Meri's hand shifted, clutching at her belly now. "But if it doesn't turn..."
"Then Naomi will help you," I said again. "We're going to make sure you're okay. We'll - " I paused as the door opened and Jeera stepped back in.
"Ayla?" she asked. "Will you be okay here with Meri for about half an hour? Brielle wants to make an appointment with Mom for Meri."
"Oh," I said, nodding quickly. "We'll be fine."
"Good." She turned back, then paused. "Oh. Do you want me to make one for you too? Mom can give you an exam and then start birth control."
"Start what?" Meri asked.
"Birth control," Jeera said again. "It's a medicine that prevents women from getting pregnant. Even if they have sex, there won't be a baby. Ayla, you can say no."
But I didn't want to. She'd mentioned it before, and I was very interested. "I'd like that," I told her. "And maybe I can go with Meri so we can both ask questions?"
"I think that's a great idea," Jeera assured me. "Rymar has to go to City Hall, he said, but he'll come back when he's done. Brielle and I want to get Meri a few more things and price out a crib and supplies for the baby. Since you're here..."
"Go," I told her. "And thank you, Jeera."
"Anytime," Jeera assured me, giving Meri a wave, and then she slipped out the door again. I paused, listening to the group of them on the porch, but as their voices started to fade, I turned back to Meri.
"I was going to share my room with you, you know," I said. "I'd been trying to figure out how to get you and Callah out of there, but I don't know how to get in. Zasen said he'd help me, although we didn't get that far."
"It's okay," she promised. "At first, I was scared to death. I don't just mean here, Ayla. I mean from the moment they started pulling off my clothes and put those chains on me. I was so sure I'd just made the biggest mistake."
"But then?" I asked, hoping she'd tell me her story.
Instead, she skipped over that. "But when we left your home last night, Jeera and Brielle - is it really okay to call them that?"
"It really is," I promised.
She nodded and kept going. "They started telling me about Lorsa. They said all Dragons are born from human moms, so there are a lot of tailless women here."
"That's what they call people like you and me," I explained, guessing she'd been too scared yesterday to remember everything.
Which earned me a little smile. One that actually looked relaxed. "Yeah. But once we got home, they changed clothes and put on dresses! I mean, theirs have a tube or sleeve at the back for their tail, and that made them start explaining clothing to me."
"I don't even know that much about it," I admitted. "The guys were there when I was chained on the surface, and they brought me back. I had to walk the whole way, got sunburned, and couldn't speak a word to them."
"But they speak English," she pointed out .
I canted my head, because that wasn't quite true. "They read English, Meri. Until I got here, they didn't know how to pronounce it. I told you about the book and the 'walf,' right?"
"Yeah, but they speak it now," she said.
"Because Zasen has books in English and we all figured it out. Kanik asked me to read things, and then he tried to say words the way I do, but they have an accent."
Meri giggled this time. "They definitely do. I never really knew what that word meant until now, but it's like they say things just a bit differently than I know how to."
"I kinda like it," I admitted. "Their words sound bouncy almost, and the way they raise and lower the pitch isn't the same, but it's nice. It..." I paused, trying to think of how to explain it. Then I figured it out. "It doesn't sound like the men in the compound."
"Is it that much different here?"
"Yes," I breathed. "Good and bad, but very different. Dragons don't have electricity or refrigeration, but they have medicine. They have bows instead of guns. They make new cloth instead of recycling old fabric. So many differences, but they also don't get upset if we make a mistake. At least not the same way people in the compound did. Most of all?" I smiled. "Men aren't allowed to punish women. Not at all , Meri."
"Even when his wife disobeys?" she asked.
I shook my head. "Not even then. It's a crime. A husband does not own his wife. Even better, women aren't required to get married at all. Some couples fall in love. Real love, too! I saw a couple kiss and it was loving. They touched like they both wanted to, and they were in public. No one was angry."
"Really?"
"They were also two men," I admitted. "But women are allowed to be with other women too. Or men. People can love whoever they love, and there's no need to be married by a certain age, or to a certain bloodline, or anything. People become a couple when they find love."
"I thought I had," Meri said softly, touching her belly again, "but it was a lie."
That was the problem. All of it had been a lie, but how was I supposed to tell her that and have her believe me? I still had to. Soon enough, the Moles would return, and if Zasen was right? If Meri might know something that could help us stop them?
"Meri, the people in the compound?" I said gently. "They aren't righteous. The men lie. Over and over they lied to us, but Dragons don't. Sometimes they are loud, or hard, or even terrifying, but they don't lie. They just tell the truth in ways we've never seen before. They say it, even when it's not polite. But here's the most important thing."
"What?" she asked, hanging on every word.
"Gideon no longer has any right to you. Nothing except what you give him. As far as I care, he lied when he made you think he was loving and kind. He lied, and he doesn't deserve to ever see you again. If he tries, I will kill him myself!"
Her head jumped up, but it wasn't fear on her face. This time, it was hope. "Really?" she breathed.
I nodded, making sure she saw. "Really. You can leave everything about him back in the compound. Even your memories of him, if you want."
The air fell from her lungs and her eyes slipped closed. "Then Callah was right. I did need to come here."
"Yeah," I said softly. "I think you really did."