Chapter 56
Fifty-Six
Ayla
W e sat for a while, talking about anything and everything. Some of it was about Meri, and whether I should spend more time with her. On my last visit, she'd told me Lessa wanted her help with sewing, and she'd sounded so happy about it. I just wasn't sure if that was because I was being a bad friend.
Kanik assured me Meri deserved to have her own friends too, just like I did, but while we were talking about it, my bobber dipped down. That led to a scramble of "reeling it in" only to find a fish on the end no bigger than my hand.
"How are we supposed to make a meal of that?" I asked.
Laughing, Kanik struggled to unhook the fish for me. "We're not," he promised. "This is considered too small, so we throw it back."
The moment it was loose, he tossed the thing towards the water. Immediately, Holly jumped up and raced after it, getting belly-deep in the water before I called her off.
"Holly, no! Come!" I commanded. The dog actually sighed before making her way back slowly.
Kanik leaned in and bumped my shoulder. "I think fetch is her favorite game."
"It really is," I agreed. "In truth, she just likes chasing things. When we go hunting, she's almost vibrating with excitement."
"You know," he said, "I was thinking about the other day. How she tried to take the stick from my hands?"
"I'm sorry," I told him again.
He waved that off. "No, Ayla. I was thinking that if she could hit me like that, what would it do to a Mole?"
Which made me sit up and gasp. "What if a rifle was what we taught her to fetch? "
"Out of their hands?" he asked.
I nodded. "Yes! If they don't have a gun, they can't shoot it." Then I groaned. "Oh, I didn't even think of that!"
"Wait, what?" he asked. "And pass me your pole so I can cast it without you killing me."
I handed him the fishing pole, thinking as he sent the bobber and hook back out into the water. When he gave it back, I once again rested my leg on the thing, but turned so I could face him.
"Okay, you know how I said it's an arms race?"
"Mhm."
"But they always have more guns, and we know they have rooms and rooms of weapons, right?"
He nodded slowly. "That's what you say."
"But what if I was wrong, Kanik?"
"They don't have rooms and rooms of guns?" he asked, sounding confused.
"No!" Leaning my head back, I groaned because I wasn't saying this right. "The arms race part. Kanik, I thought that if we kept collecting the Moles' guns, then they'd run out, but it doesn't really seem to be working. I hoped we'd be able to use them to even the odds, but we can't!"
"Sadly, no," he agreed.
"So what if I was wrong about which arms race we should worry about? What if we need to be focusing on disarming the men in combat - when they are shooting at us - instead of worrying about it afterwards? To use a weapon we already have - dogs! Holly's good at fetching, and you said there's more people with dogs in Lorsa, right?"
"One of the guys just joined the militia, actually," he told me. "He wanted to buy Holly, but - " And he stopped hard.
But I could guess where he was going. "You three bought her first?" I asked.
"No, um..." Then Kanik sighed. "Ayla, she's your dog."
"Yep," I agreed.
"And we don't want you to feel like everything you have comes back to us. Holly is not just a dog you own, but look at her!" He gestured to where she was lying beside me, chewing on her toy again. "She's better with you than she was with Lansin, and he raised her."
"Yeah?" I asked, liking how that felt.
"So it doesn't matter why she's yours, right?" he asked. "Just that she is, and that you have a skill with dogs I'm a little jealous of?"
"But you're good with her too!" I insisted.
He smiled at me and shifted closer. "Not as good as you, and that's allowed. I'm happy that you're good with her, and I'm proud of you for being so willing to learn all about her. Plus, you made enough with the bear to buy her on your own, right? You just didn't because you didn't want to put us out."
"Lansin said she'd need a fence," I explained. "But she's doing okay without one! "
"She is," he agreed. "It's because you take her hunting almost every night. Most dogs don't get that because their people don't hunt. You do, so she gets exercise. That means you make up for her not having a fence, and since she's not left outside, you don't have to worry about a cougar coming to eat her."
I sucked in a breath at that. "They'd eat her?"
"Which is why dogs are so expensive," he explained. "There's a lot of wild things that hunt. Dogs aren't that big by comparison. Puppies are even more vulnerable, so yeah. Dogs need people as much as people need dogs."
Which brought me right back to my point. "And we can use her to stop the Moles, right? To take their guns?"
"We'd have to try," he said.
I nodded. "Would you be willing to help me? We'd need one of the guns."
"Rymar can get that."
"And she'd knock you over again if it worked," I mumbled.
Which made him laugh. "Ayla, she didn't hurt me. She just surprised me - and I bet she'd surprise a Mole! I mean..." He let his words trail off as his eyes lost focus. "We'd need more dogs, but Xav has one. With two of them out there? It would definitely make a dent."
"And we have to make sure Tobias can talk to me," I reminded him. "I mean, I was thinking about writing a letter to Callah, and he's supposed to be getting a code to the door."
"Why?" Kanik asked.
"Which part?"
"The code," he said. "If we can get Callah out, then why do you need the code? Well, why does Zasen need it?" he asked.
"To stop them forever," I said.
Kanik nodded slowly. "But what about everyone else in there? Zasen thinks about breaking in with an army and killing them all, Ayla. You said the women are victims. That means they don't deserve to die, do they?"
I reached over to run my fingers through Holly's hair. "I don't know. I don't think so, but the people up here shouldn't be hunted, and I don't know how to stop this. I don't know how to save them without hurting more people, and I'm not sure they'd even help."
"Help with what?" he pressed.
I shrugged. "The men are useless without the women. Women cook. They clean. They sew. Without women, there's no one to heal! If the women would simply stop helping them..."
"So why didn't you stop?" he asked.
"But I didn't know!" I insisted.
"And they don't either," he reminded me.
Which made me pause. "But Tobias does. That means Callah should."
"And?" he asked, sounding like he was encouraging me.
I let my eyes drift out over the water, watching the reflections of light on the rippling surface. "If she tells them, it could be dangerous," I said. "What if they turn her in?"
"What if she tells them before she leaves?" he asked.
Which was a great idea. "I'll put that in the letter!" I decided. "I can tell her all about the surface, and all the things she thinks that are wrong. I'll explain about Dragons, and meat, and quarantine, and how hunters come here when there's plenty out there to eat."
"And how women can go on strike," he suggested.
But I didn't know that term. "What's on strike?"
"When the workers stop working to make their point heard." He murmured. "Well, in a very simplistic way. It's a way for the many to upend the power held by a few, and from everything you've said, it sounds like a handful of men are the ones in control down there."
"The elders, yes."
He reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. "And Callah has access to your books, right?"
I nodded. "Yes!"
"What if you sent her a book?"
I shook my head. "It would have to be a small one. Something she could hide."
"I can get a small book," he promised.
"In English," I reminded him. "And it would have to be something that proves there's a whole world up here."
"History," he assured me. "I'm pretty sure there's a copy of The Ruins of Men that's been reprinted in English." But his voice had turned distant, like he was mostly talking to himself. "That would explain everything to her about how the world became the way it is now, but she'd have to read all of it."
"As a girl, she'll have plenty of time alone in her room when she should be doing chores," I assured him. "I'd sneak into the library. It sounds like she's doing the same, so she could!"
"Then I'll get it, you write her a letter, and somehow we'll have to wrap it up so it can be hidden. That way Tobias won't get caught with it."
Okay, I was really liking this idea. "And she can start a strike before she leaves?"
He nodded. "Yeah, and maybe, if those women can stop things down there and get some power, then we can make an alliance with the Moles. Trade our hunting for their information or something? I don't even know, but if they'd just stop killing us , then we have options." He lightly touched my arm. "Ayla, a lot of those people are related to us."
"Yeah," I said. "Saveah and I were going to make a list of the women who went missing. The tailless ones, I mean. I thought I could send it to Callah. Maybe her mother's on there? Maybe she and Tobias are cousins? They need to know!"
"Not if we're getting her out," he reminded me.
"Yeah, but she still needs to know," I countered. "It's just..."
"What?" he pressed when I paused for too long.
"Just knowing it changes things," I explained. "I'm a real Dragon, Kanik. My mother was a Dragon, and now all her stories make so much more sense. If Callah knows her mother, and if she has people here? Tobias does now, and he was shocked."
"Yeah," he said. "It grounds you in a way. Gives you ties to the thing you're fighting for."
"Or against."
He glanced out at the water, checking our bobbers. "I'll help however you need. If that's playing with Holly, then even better."
The sound of her name made my dog lift her head and whine. Kanik turned to look at her just as a breeze picked up, blowing his hair all in his face. Without thinking, he pushed it back, but I giggled. His fix had made it all stick up.
"You know, wind isn't something we have down there," I said as I leaned in to put his hair in place.
But those purple eyes of his jumped over to land on mine. "That's hard to imagine," he said softly.
I moved a few more strands. "A lot of things are different. Before, this would've been leading you on."
"This," he promised, "is just being friends."
I nodded. "Zasen said it's okay to change my mind."
"It is," Kanik promised. "About anything. People are allowed to grow and alter their opinions."
So I nodded once, definitively. "Well, I've decided it's not improper to touch. It's nice, actually, so if you do that thing with my hair, I'm not going to yell at you for it again."
His eyes dropped to the blanket beneath us. "I like touching," he admitted. "Holding hands, hugging, and all of it. I'm just horrible at doing it."
"Yeah," I breathed. "Me too. Maybe we can practice together?"
"And not make you nervous?" he asked.
I nodded quickly, the movement rushed because of nervousness. "I still don't want to get married, though."
"Me either," he agreed. "I like how Saveah and Tasult did it. They got to know each other, and then just kept getting closer until they bought the house and had kids."
"I don't want kids either," I hurried to say.
Kanik chuckled. "I didn't mean like that! I meant getting to know someone as a friend. Not making it about complicated rituals like marriage. Just finding the people I belong with and then living my life with them in the way that makes us happy. It's kinda why I moved in with Rymar and Zasen, you know."
"Yeah?"
He nodded. "They're my best friends, Ayla. No matter what, those two have always had my back. Well, since I met them as boys, I mean. And I was never as impressive as them, or as popular with the ladies, or anything else, but they didn't care. When people called me weak, or bookish, or ugly?"
"You're not ugly!" I hurried to assure him .
That made him glance up at me. A little smile flickered on his lips, but he shrugged it away. "Ayla, I'm small for a man, I'm just brown, and I don't have the jawline of a handsome man."
"You have purple," I said. "Purple isn't boring, and your eyes are as pretty as Rymar's!" Then I reached over to trace the back of his hand. "And I like the little black freckles, but your stinger's my favorite."
He chuckled. "Yeah, um..." And he looked away. "I don't even know how to respond to that. Thanks?"
"It's true!" I insisted.
"It's true to you," he reminded me, "but a lifetime of being told something is hard to get over." He looked back. "Just like you being scared of men because you were told we're dangerous. I'm convinced I'm an unappealing man because I've been told that."
So I caught his hand, wrapping my fingers around it the same way I would with Meri. "But here's the thing, Kanik. They lied. Hold on to that, and remind yourself, because it's easier to accept the truth when you remember all those horrible things were nothing more than one great big lie."
His fingers curled to cradle mine. "I'm trying. You make it much easier."
And I found myself smiling, staring into those perfectly purple eyes and unable to look away.