Chapter 25
Szhe’ka
The sound of whimpering stirs me awake from my slumber and my first instinct is to hide Ani.
She was in my arms before we went to sleep, but she is not close to me anymore.
I immediately panic and bolt upright. My first thought is that she must have been taken by the hunters in the night but the scar from the weapon that the last one I met was wielding reminds me that they wouldn’t have quietly crept in and retrieved her. They would have murdered me.
I calm down by degrees and take a proper look around when I am startled by the same whimpering sounds that roused me from my healing sleep. Upon wiping the last sands of sleep from my eyes, I come to find that she is the source of the sound.
The fire has died down, and it is still dark outside. It is the early hours of the morning but she seems to be plagued by some discomfort in her sleep.
I pick her up and lay down again, making sure to hold her close to me.
She calms for a little while but her hands go right up to her eyes again, rubbing violently at them.
I pull her hands away and place them at her side, holding onto her tightly and hoping that it will stop her from trying to push her eyes out of her head. I quite like them.
Being this wide awake and having Ani’s body pinned to mine starts to evoke feelings inside me that I never thought I would have but I quickly cut them off.
She has been through so much and I am not sure if my attraction to her will fluff her feathers or make her hate me.
I force myself to just enjoy the feeling of her body pressing against mine, the smell of her soft skin and her red threads. It pulls me into sleep.
***
When I get up again, Ani is nowhere around me but I can hear the sounds of her scurrying around, humming a foreign tune under her breath, none of it forming words. I sit up and yawn, stretching the sleep away from my bones.
“I checked our rations. It should be enough for a while,” she says, reminding me that this situation is temporary—just us, alone together.
I truly am grateful for Azoeul; he saved her, protected her when she needed it the most. However, when it is just us, I find that I can be vulnerable in ways that I didn’t even think possible.
As fledglings, we were sung melodious tales about how feelings like these mainly happen when you find your mate.
It scares me to know that I might never find a mate but if there’s one thing my current situation has taught me, it’s that the plans I have for my life may not be the way they end up going.
Despite it all, I like it here, just me and just her.
She turns around and begins to walk toward me, her beautiful threads falling around her face. The rays of the sun breaking through the leaves above us beam on her like she is some kind of celestial being and I reiterate that I really am in the right place, here with her.
She looks up at me and I tilt my head to the side, taking in her new features. Her formerly crimson eye that is now a solid black. The other that is the mirror of mine.
“It’s not the best sort of food, but it will do,” she says in toneless words.
It is enough to pique my interest, so I pick a piece of food up and toss it into my mouth. I hum out my disgust, but keep eating. “Terrible.”
She lets out a sweet chortling sound and pulls her hand away, tucking her threads behind her ear.
The laugh seems to lift her spirits. For a moment, I find myself just looking at her again, studying and appreciating the curves and lines of her face, admiring her delicate bone structure and the sleek way her slender body moves as she shifts her weight in her seated position.
I take pleasure in just seeing her exist; it’s the most curious thing to me.
“Being with you is serene. I like it,” she mutters and my chest swells.
I am only too happy that we share the same thoughts.
I do not know when it happened, but she has become such an integral part of my being, and it is a relief beyond words to find out she enjoys my company too.
We relax into a comfortable silence as we get to finishing our sparse meal and my thoughts return to her once more.
Not her now sitting across from me but the Red I had initially met trapped in that cage high up in the trees.
She had been a screaming, confused thing, mistrustful of everything I did and barely willing to even get out of her prison but here she sits now, totally comfortable eating with me. It fills me with joy and a bit of pride.
After we finish eating, Ani gets up and stretches. “Azoeul said there’s a stream near here.”
“Would you like to go?” I ask and she shakes her head up and down. It was such a confusing thing to me but now it is so endearing. It means she agrees with me and that is something I will never trade.
We clamber out of our hiding spot and toward the stream, which is cleverly tucked between a bunch of trees and bushes.
Wide and fairly fast flowing, it reminds me of the river I first bathed in at the beginning of my journey and my first instinct is to jump straight in but I stop and scan the area first for predators and hunters.
Finding nothing out of the ordinary, I relax and turn to face Ani. I’m pleasantly surprised when the black clothing on her body starts to recede until it becomes a thin belt around her midsection.
I look over her cloud skin and the curves of her back until the point where it separates into two round globes. Her hair cascades down her back in a bright waterfall of shocking red and I am intrigued to see the hair lightly dusting the mound between her thighs, which is the same flaming color.
My eyes catch a glimpse of the raised, yellow skin on her arms and it makes my heart race. I almost don’t see her turning around before I can avert my gaze. Unfortunately, she catches me and lets out a quiet chortle as she makes her way into the stream.
She asks me to join her but I am too afraid of letting my guard down around her again. Even though I’ve scanned the area, danger could lurk behind any tree and I’ll be damned if I let anything separate us again or if she comes to any harm, at least until I can get her back to safety with Ree.
“More for me,” she says, and I let out a hum of amusement.
It might be impossible, but I would get her a whole planet if she asked for it.
Ani gently wades into the shallow end of the water, submerges herself in the stream a few times and then starts paddling around.
It is endearing to watch, calming even, and I allow myself to get lost in it, catching a twinkle in her pitch-black eye whenever she throws a glance my way.
I watch as she makes slow laps against the flow and basks in the glow of her peace.
She is totally relaxed. My chest swells at the thought.
I know she can only drop her guard this much because I am here standing guard.
After her swim, she sits beside me on a boulder by the edge of the water and basks in the sun, sharing conversation. I make a joke and she chortles, turning to look at me and blinking her eyes. I hold her gaze and a question pops into my mind.
“How did the change feel?” I ask her and she sighs.
She turns her head to face the sun and shuts her eyes. Her black clothing has been shortened so that her arms show, stopping around the middle of her thighs. I realized, just before she was captured, that the clothing works according to whatever she wants.
In my opinion, it is the only advantage the hunters could add. It barely counts with all the disadvantages they brought to her life.
“Painful, of course, and strange. My body feels the same, but strange.” She turns to me again and stretches her hand out between us, showing me her claws. “It’s not all bad.”
“If you like it, I do.” I tell her and she shows me her teeth, another sweet yet mildly confusing thing that she does. We waste some time sunbathing until Ani mentions something about getting burned by the sun and we head back toward our enclosure.
It feels cozy, just the two of us here, like it was meant to be.
We compliment each other in a strange way; two beings who have had something taken from them finding a way to exist together as a more complete version. Even if something were to happen and we separated, I will never forget the time when Ani was the only thing that held me together.