32
Stones and Showers
Rumi
“In the beginning,”
she began, shifting her position to square her body with his, crossing her legs before her.
Rumi held up her cupped palm.
“It was a time of nothingness.
Of quiet solitude.
The Deep was everything and nothing at the same time.
Until there was thought.”
Callum interrupted, holding up his hands.
“When I said the beginning, I meant—”
“Ah ah,”
Rumi scolded, holding up a hand herself.
“Do not interrupt.”
Callum grinned as his gesture turned apologetic.
Rumi waited a moment, then continued.
“Behiba was the first,”
Rumi said, her fingers circling her palm.
“The Mother.
The source of all life and the resting place of the dead, the Abyss given sentience.
“It was from her grace that arose the Twins, Kephril and Amuna.
Kephril is bold and brash and he crafted javelins from the corals of the Deep and threw his spears into the clouds, pulling himself and his golden chariot across the sky.”
Rumi’s other hand charted the course with a broad stroke over her head before pointing at her first finger, then her second.
“Amuna took after her Mother, finding solace in the dark places.
She wrapped herself in a cloak of black silk studded with diamonds mined from the very depths of the Deep.
She whispers of the future, if one has the ears to listen.”
A crash of thunder made Rumi jump.
She paused in her tale and looked across the hut at Callum who was watching her intently.
So intently, in fact, that she stuttered over her next words.
“A-Amuna spoke to Behiba about lands rising from the seas, of creatures that might abound on these planes of existence.
And they did.
Time passes differently for the gods—”
“You speak as if they are alive now,”
Callum interrupted, holding up his hands in surrender once again when she cut him with a glare.
“They are.”
He looked like he wanted to say more but snapped his teeth closed and waved for Rumi to continue.
“Behiba and her children took great care in creating creatures and plants to live in both the land and the sea.
Everything was connected, from the smallest ant to the largest of mammals.
Kephril soared over the skies, guarding the fowl of the air, and Amuna sheltered the wee ones under the safety of her cloak.”
“But Behiba was wise and saw that her creations needed more.
They needed invention and ambition—a purpose.
So she carved Morthis from the great stone mountain and gifted him with the breath of life that turned to a deep fire in his belly.”
Rumi stroked her third finger.
“Morthis was mighty indeed and he found great joy in exploring the world.
He claimed lands and sailed over seas, but as time went on, Morthis grew lonely.
So Behiba created Kaelthor.
Kaelthor was not carved from the mountains, as Morthis was, but instead, was put together from an amalgamation of things—animal bones, shells from the sea, stones from the mountains, leaves from the great trees.
When Behiba gave him life, she spoke to all the bits of him and he was able to feel it. Kaelthor’s connection to the world rivaled the Mother herself, and he declared himself its guardian.”
Rumi wiggled her pinkie finger with a smile.
“Verenestra, the youngest of the gods, bloomed in the center of Behiba’s forest, a ring of mushrooms calling the spirit from the depths of the earth.
Verenestra, the one who helps all things thrive and grow, quickly became the favorite and most beloved of the five.”
Rumi tapped her thumb and then wiggled all her fingers.
“The Five and the Mother.”
She sighed and picked up her bow, easily returning to carving out the weapon.
“Wait, that’s it?”
Callum objected, and the rustle of the moss made her look to where he’d moved closer.
“Well, no, but I do not wish to bore you with the many legends of our gods.”
“On the contrary, I find it quite interesting.”
“Hmm,”
was all she said.
“Do you get your magic from your gods?”
he asked.
He was prying, goading for more information, and Rumi narrowed her eyes at him.
“In a way,”
she said slowly.
“Do they…bless you? Or bestow it upon you?”
Was he mocking her? “Perhaps you should go outside and pray to Kephril or Amuna and see for yourself,”
Rumi snapped, shifting away from him slightly.
He made a sound low in his throat, moved to his side of the hut, and did not speak.
The atmosphere shifted back to where it had been in previous days, a quiet tension.
The sadness at the loss surprised Rumi.
She had embraced their new dynamic with abandon, unbeknownst to her, and as the silence stretched and the emptiness in the hut became more pronounced, she realized she wished for its return.
But the air was too thick, so she busied herself with her bow, but in all too short a time it was finished.
She looked around for something to do with her hands, settling on weaving a small satchel from some shinweed she had gathered for that purpose. The movements were familiar and reminded her of home.
“Fuck,”
he growled, breaking the silence.
“No thank you,”
she replied without looking up.
“Ha-ha, very funny.
I didn’t realize Arryvians could have such a great sense of humor.”
She could hear his eyes roll, the sarcasm thick in his voice.
“There’s not enough for the fire to last long, and finding something dry at this point is probably impossible.
Everything is too fucking wet now.”
“I am sure it is fine.
What was it you said? Oh yes, ‘do not get your britches in a knot.’”
She glanced at him then, raising an eyebrow.
He merely grumbled again and turned back to whatever it was he was doing.
“No hot food, and a cold night, that’s all.
I was just giving you a heads up, Twiggy.”
***
He had been telling the truth.
And she hated him for it.
Rumi sat on her side of the hut shivering so hard her teeth rattled together.
For the first time since the rains had washed them away, she missed her blanket and bedroll.
Everything was still damp from the rain and the ground was cold, its chill seeping into her bones.
Little clouds appeared in front of her face with every breath.
“Can’t you stop the damn chattering woman? It’s worse than a rattler.”
“How are you not cold?”
she demanded, turning to her side to face him with a glare.
“I ain’t skin and bones.
Plenty of meat,”
he replied, patting his belly to imply that he was naturally well-insulated, which he decidedly was not.
She’d seen the contours of muscle there.
Rumi crunched up tighter.
“Why don’t you get down off that pedestal of yours and come warm up beside me?”
Rumi’s eyes flared open and she gaped at him.
“It is not proper.”
“No, it ain’t, but this is what we in the militia call a survival situation.
Many rules shift in such times.
Trust me, I’m a stickler for rules.”
The smirk cut into his cheek, and she noticed a dimple pinning his smile.
“What you mean to say is you will deign to sully yourself by lying beside a criminal, is that it?”
“Now you’re catchin’ on.”
This time his grin grew wider and he opened his arms.
Any other time, she might have said no, but another crash of thunder boomed through the air and vibrated the whole mountain with its wrath, followed by a blinding flash of lightning that illuminated everything within the hut in stark detail.
Her resolve wavered.
“Just think of my arms and body as a form of shelter, like a blanket or a coat.”
He stretched again.
“Make your choice quickly, I’m getting cold.”
“Well, if you are getting cold, it would be terribly unkind of me to keep you in such a state,”
she replied lightly, attempting humor to disguise the tremor in her voice.
She crawled forward and tucked herself against him.
She thawed almost immediately, a little sigh escaping through her lips.
The traitorous thing.
His arms drew around her, guiding her closer and enveloping her in a warmth that reminded her of cinnamon and old oak trees.
He smelled like open skies and adventure, and her mind wandered dangerously close to curiosity.
The remnants of shivers traced over her skin, dancing around where his fingers touched.
His breathing slowed and his arms were a heavy weight around her shoulders.
An easy weightlessness lightened her bones and the exhaustion that had been tugging at her since her first capture seemed less somehow.
Before she knew it, she fell into a deep sleep.
***
Rumi woke first.
At least, she thought she did.
It was difficult to tell, and he might have been pretending, but it made it so neither one of them needed to speak about what had happened.
No awkward ‘thank yous’ or weirdness.
Instead, she slowly untangled herself from his heavy arms, drawing a loud snore once or twice as she did.
Once she was free, she stepped out of the hut. The rain had paused, though the skies threatened more, thunder rumbling through the grey storm clouds.
“Might need to get moving soon.
But first, here’s a ledge just a little ways away that’s got some runoff,”
Callum said, sneaking up behind her so silently she squeaked at the sound of his voice.
“Thought it might be nice to clean up a bit.”
“I knew you were feigning sleep!”
She accused, attempting to maintain a straight face, which only got a shrug and that slightly infuriating smirk of his as a response.
She took a deep breath, turning away so he could not see her smile.
“That does sound nice,”
she agreed.
“Will it rain again soon?”
“Not for a little while yet,”
he guessed, looking out at the horizon with his hand shading his eyes.
“Come on.”
He led her over the plateau, toward where the sun would set.
They scrambled over the rocks and ledges, climbing deftly over the bits loosened by the rain, with Callum pointing out footholds that were not stable.
It was glorious.
A small outcropping with a rush of crystal clear water falling from the mouth.
The area was a little exposed with only rock formations as an effective cover.
Her eyes turned back to him before returning to the little waterfall, hungry for the feel of cleanliness—to wash away everything that lingered on her skin.
The phantom licks of the whip needed to be washed away.
“No one else is around here, right? Just us?”
Rumi chewed her lips nervously, watching his face.
Callum shook his head, his pale eyes scanning the horizon as if he could see past the drizzle and pinpoint where the danger lurked.
“Nothin’ but critters,”
he assured her with a nod and stepped away to give her privacy.
Just in case, she announced loud enough for him to hear, a slight tremble in her voice, “I am undressing.
Avert your gaze, and I will let you know when I am done.”
She heard a chuckle behind some of the rock formations, and something that sounded like, “If that’s what you want…”
After a few moments, Rumi surreptitiously looked around before peeling her clothes off and depositing them on the ground.
The water was so cold it burned and a hiss scraped past her cheeks as it pelted her head and shoved the dirt through her hair.
She scrubbed her skin brusquely until it was red, her teeth chattering and her lips blue.
But it was good to feel clean.
Once her skin was fresh, she grabbed her clothes and scrubbed at them beneath the runoff until the water ran clear.
It did not take long before she felt like a new person.
Her mother used to tell her how cleansing the rain could be, but she never put too much stock into it until now.
It was a little tricky to put the chilled, wet clothes back on, but she was grateful to be covered.
Then she went to find Cal to let him know it was his turn.
He was a few hundred yards away in the scrub brush, tying braided grass stems into snares.
He had his back to her as she approached and a dead rabbit beside him, presumably from his last successful snare.
“Feeling better?”
Cal’s question rustled the air like a breeze through the underbrush.
“Like a new woman,”
she replied optimistically, coming to a seat beside him.
She watched his braiding for a moment with a small smile.
“My brother makes snares like that.
He always teases me that my braids could not hold a single thing before it came loose.
I would practice for hours trying to braid a simple grass loop and it would always come undone.
“Weaving and baskets and that sort of thing, no problem at all, but snares?”
She shook her head sadly.
“Where did you learn? Was it in the military?”
“Survival is important to everyone here,”
he replied, pinning the branch holding the braided loop.
He rolled to his feet, his eyes not quite meeting hers as he brushed off his pants and strolled toward the runoff.
“Be right back.
Don’t get eaten by nothin’.”
“The water is cold,”
she warned before offering him privacy and studying his snare.
She began to braid her hair as she waited.
She had meant what she said, she did not braid well, but it was better to have a sloppy braid than a nest of tangles.
Sezsha was the one with the skilled braiding fingers.
The thought dumped a stone into her stomach and she winced, missing her dear friend.
How was she? How were Temlee and Aba and Mbali? Did they think she was dead? Rumi dismissed the morose thoughts on a long exhale.
Nothing to be done about it now. All she could do was get back home.
She focused on foraging instead.
She found the prickly plant that Callum had said made the best cactus juice, and the star-shaped plants that taste good after cooking.
Rumi sliced off the tiny slabs from the spiky plant, setting the spines in a pocket of her pants and the slabs in her bag.
She hummed while she foraged, the notes weaving over each other forming a song reminiscent of those sung around a campfire at dusk.
Her voice rang out softly across the desert.
Once she had gathered a few edible plants he had taught her to identify, she stowed them in the shinweed satchel she had made the night before.
She grinned to herself in satisfaction.
After setting the satchel down, she practiced throwing Sweet Pea at the tall stalks of spiky plants he called a lefiin.
It was heavier in her hand than her usual knives, but after a time she got it down and was able to stick a few.
Then she hunted for some feathers for arrows to go with her bow.
She collected stick-like stalks and twigs with the same focused thoroughness that she had while foraging, and soon had a bundle in her arms.
Though they were wet, once they dried they would make for excellent arrows.
Her search brought her close to the outcropping that poured the water over their bathing spot and she found her eyes wandering toward him, betraying her disinterest.
Callum’s clothes were stretched out on the sun-drenched rocks, the stone below them a few shades darker as the heat of the air dried the fabric.
The bare skin of his shoulders were red, either from the cold runoff or a burn from the sun.
He held the wide belt knife in one hand, carefully scraping his cheek and chin with the razor-sharp edge.
He used the blade as a mirror, checking for more patches of scratchy hair on his chin.
Sunlight flashed off the blade, a brilliant wash of silver-white light lancing into her eyes.
He grinned in her direction, slowly shaking his head before he resumed cleaning the scruff off his cheeks.
Rumi’s own cheeks turned red-hot, embarrassed at being caught peeking.
She whirled away, picking her way further up the cliff and attempting to keep her gaze trained on the rocks to find more sticks.
The whispering scrrrr of his knife drew her attention once more.
She was mesmerized by the scrape and flick motion, watching sidelong, her gaze following the twist of his forearm.
She should not be here.
She should not watch.
But she could not tear her eyes away—she cursed as she stumbled, stubbing her toe on a jagged rock.
“Careful you don’t twist your ankle,”
he called before stepping under the water to rinse his face, “We’ll need to be limber for the next leg of the journey.”
He shook water from his head, flinging the beads from his straw-hued hair.
“So, your rules earlier, were they one-sided?”
He swiped more water from his hair as he stepped toward the rocks where his clothes were absorbing the heat from the stones.
“As for last night, apparently looking is acceptable, but touching is not?”
His question held no malice or lewdness, yet expressed his open curiosity and a desire to understand.
Maybe a hint of a smirk at the way she jerked away and kept her eyes trained skyward.
She grumbled, dropping her prizes and sitting down with her back to him to inspect her injured toe.
She hoped that her hunched shoulders covered her crimson neck.
“It is not…rules,”
she ground out, her flustered voice tighter than usual.
“It is tradition, I suppose.
We do not share skin with those we are not intimate with because it becomes a…”
she tripped over her words as she attempted to explain.
“Ti’la is Life.
It is Spirit.
It can create a bond with other living things, including other people.
So naturally, one must be scrupulous when it comes to, uh, intimacy.”
She knew, even from where he stood, he could see her trembling, tomato-red ears peeking from beneath her braid.
She wished desperately that she had a hood to hide beneath.
“I should not have looked.
I invaded your privacy and…should not have looked.
I did not mean to, well, at first…I have never seen someone do that before.”
“Shower in a runoff? You didn’t ask any questions before you went,”
she heard him tugging his pants on.
“The knife on your face.
Why do you do that?”
she risked a glance over her shoulder before quickly turning away.
His pants were hanging, unbuttoned, on his hips.
“Shaving?”
His tone was quizzical as he flipped the knife in his fingers.
“I grow hair on my face,”
he said, cupping his chin and cheeks with his free hand.
“It itches, so I cut it off.
Part of grooming, I suppose.”
“I saw a man once with hair on his face that grew to his chest.
It never occurred to me that you cut it off…”
The new knowledge made her eyes widen.
She tipped her head back to look again, still blushing.
“Do men where you come from all grow face hairs and cut them off?”
“No, not all cut them, but it’s standard practice for us in the Governor’s Military.”
He pushed his tongue into his cheek.
“So, this intimate Ti’la bond thing, does that mean Arryvians mate for life?”
“Most stay together for life, but not everyone.
Some grow apart and separate or choose other lovers.
It is rare, but not unheard of.”
She dared to sneak another glance, now that she was certain he was at least partially clothed.
“Hmm.”
Cal shoved his head into his shirt and finished doing up the buckle on his pants.
“So this betrothed of yours, you’ll bond with him?”
“That is the idea, yes.
We bond to have children and I am expected to have many children with Zinhar.”
A beat of silence settled between them while she watched him lace up his boots.
“I do not really want to.”
Why had she said that? The words had just blurted from her lips.
“Why not? Surely he’s a strapping lad.”
He waved her forward, back toward their hut and she followed.
“I do not know him.
I want what my aba and ama had.
He assures me that love blossoms as flowers do, but…it feels…cheap when he says it.”
She huffed a dry chuckle.
“I must be delirious from the heat, telling you such things.”
“My ma wishes I would marry, too.”
“Why have you not?”
“My career.”
He shrugged with a single shoulder.
“It wouldn’t suit a woman, I’m certain.”
He changed the subject when they arrived at the hut.
“Gather your things and let’s go before the rain starts again.
Now’s as good a time as any to climb down the cliff.”