23. A Cruel Reminder
A Cruel Reminder
After two more days, Driz was mostly healed.
They moved deeper into the canyonlands each night, away from civilization.
When Pearl would let her, Driz loved to hunt when she woke, and Pearl would hunt for Driz before dusk.
It was a newly discovered joy to bring Pearl food, to perform an act to keep her healthy and strong and content. Driz didn’t have much else to give.
Driz told Pearl each dawn to stay away, but Pearl would not listen to reason.
Things were at once wonderful and oddly tense between them. Pearl would brush her lips lightly against Driz’s cheek, driving Driz wild with the shadow of a touch, only to pull away and pretend she hadn’t.
Perhaps this was Driz’s curse manifesting. To have Pearl, but to not have her.
Trying to talk to Pearl about it didn’t prove helpful either. Pearl seemed to have a hard time saying what she was thinking or feeling, and Driz found herself hesitating as well, afraid of saying the wrong thing again and scaring Pearl away even more.
But she was getting better at interpreting what Pearl didn’t say. How she would chew on her lip when she didn’t want to answer a question, biting at her flesh with the gold of her replaced teeth.
Driz wanted Pearl to bite her again. But she hadn’t. She’d been keeping her teeth all to herself.
Not even Driz’s attempts at courting her with the harmonica worked, as it had that very first time. Pearl asked her to play each night, but then she would just smile instead of falling on her, all hungry and needy. So Driz must have been doing it wrong.
She tried not to be disappointed. She missed Pearl’s touch like a raging inferno, but she craved Pearl’s company more. And if this was all Pearl could give her, Driz would accept it. If this was her curse, she would learn to bear it.
On the fourth night, when Driz tested her wings, she was relieved to fly without discomfort. She pushed up into the sky, cheered by the sensation of the air rushing past her. She circled above the cave they’d found the night before and touched down at the entrance.
Pearl had just started a fire, smoke filling the poorly vented space and reminding Driz briefly of the mines, but the sight of Pearl chased those thoughts away. Driz was about to share the good news with Pearl when she heard the familiar bellow.
“What’s wrong?” Pearl asked.
“A Meeting. But we just had one.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I do not know.” Why would the speaker call for another so soon? It had never happened more than once per season at most in Driz’s recollection.
“You have to go?”
“I am afraid so.” Driz scowled. “I have not hunted for you yet.”
“I’ll do it myself. I’ll be fine. How long will you be gone?”
“I do not know. But I will return as soon as I can.”
The bellow came again. Driz leaned in for a quick kiss, but Pearl angled her face so Driz’s lips caught the edge of Pearl’s mouth, the interaction jarring and forced. Before Driz could ponder it, the renewed call drew her to the sky.
She was one of the last to arrive, touching down near Torrent. Driz looked for young Gully, but he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Torrent would not meet Driz’s gaze or answer her tentative greeting.
Everyone shifted, confused as she was about what was happening.
The speaker stepped onto the ledge. She appeared even more serious and subdued than the last time Driz had seen her.
“Two goyles are dead,” the speaker announced without preamble. “We must leave now and not wait another year.”
“What happened to them?” someone asked.
“Humans,” the speaker said simply. “There are too many in this area.”
“Which humans?” Driz asked, pushing closer. Everyone moved out of the way, their eyes taking in her tattered but very human clothes.
“One entered a town to the south. And the other attacked the new human railroad.”
“Who died?” Driz asked, her stomach dropping.
“Gully and Rush.”
Horror pierced through Driz as she thought of Gully’s shy smile. And Rush was only a few years older. Driz glanced back at Torrent.
“Young are always more curious and emotional, but we must never approach humans,” the speaker continued. “This is what happens.”
“Humans are not always dangerous,” Driz protested, aware of the bullet wounds that still scarred her body, and the hair on the half of her head starting to regrow.
“Be silent, Drizzle,” Torrent snapped. She was looking at Driz now, her gaze hard and hateful. Driz retreated a step, the look cutting through her as it had so very long ago.
“This is a reminder for us all,” the speaker said. “Make certain to teach your young better.”
Torrent flinched. It was a cruel thing to say when Torrent had just lost her fledgling, and Driz instinctively moved to comfort her mother. She started to approach, but Torrent snapped her wings and growled, baring her teeth as her aggression flared.
The goyles around them scattered, leaving space for a fight. Driz didn’t intend to fight and she crouched, keeping her wings tucked.
“You were always a reckless, curious whelp,” Torrent snarled. “Always disregarding the laws. And now your actions have killed my blood. I should have left you to die with your own.”
The words embedded like the bullets in her flesh. “I did not kill him,” Driz protested.
“Look at you,” Torrent sneered, and Driz’s clothes constricted around her, rough against her skin as eyes pinned it there. “I hope they kill you soon too, so you do not infect anyone else with your ideas.”
Torrent dove from the ledge, heading away, into the heartland of canyons.
The crowd stared at Driz with a mix of vague interest and disgust, lingering on her shoulder.
“The edge of the plains is no longer safe,” the speaker said. “We will retreat into the canyons. I will call another Meeting when I find a good location.” She looked at Driz and her lip curled. “You are blighted. Do not follow.”
And with that, the Meeting was over.
A few left right away, but most glanced around, wondering if they should mate again. A second Meeting so soon was unprecedented.
Driz stood there, struck heavy and numb. She noticed Drain, the male who always asked her. He avoided her eyes and edged over toward someone else.
Not even her solitary people wanted Driz anymore.
She did not attempt to stay, turning her wings toward the cave which sheltered Pearl. Toward home.
It took too long to reach it. Driz fought the tears that burned her eyes until the faint glow of Pearl’s fire came into sight. As she flew, all her recent wounds seemed to reopen.
Pearl was waiting for her, immediately drawing her in for a hug. Driz sagged, inhaling her hair. The floral aroma had faded, leaving just the natural scent of Pearl. Driz loved that, and she shook in Pearl’s arms.
“Tell me,” Pearl murmured.
Driz didn’t know what to say, or how to explain. “I do not want to be hated,” she finally answered, the tears spilling harder from her eyes. She was an outcast to goyles and a monster to humans.
“What did they do to you?” Pearl demanded, a harsh edge to her voice.
“My mother’s child is dead. And she thinks it is my fault.”
“How’s that possibly your fault?”
“It was humans.”
Pearl was silent for a moment. “It wasn’t…?”
“No. The speaker said a town to the south, and Salt Bluff is east. But either way, that does not matter to her.”
“I’m sorry, Driz.” Pearl cupped her damp cheek and pressed a soft kiss to it.
“No one asked me to mate,” Driz admitted, that fact hurting more than she’d thought it would.
Pearl stiffened against her. “And you wanted to mate?”
“No. I probably would have said no. But to not be asked, I felt rejected.”
“Probably?”
Driz pulled back so she could see Pearl’s face, and her confusion returned. “Would you have been upset if I said yes?”
“Of course I’d be upset!”
“Why?”
Pearl’s expression pinched with several things at once before she pulled back and turned toward the fire. “Was Mist there?” she asked the flames.
“I did not notice.”
Pearl snorted. “Yeah. Right.”
An angry heat rushed through Driz’s limbs. She couldn’t stand it. She slammed her hands into the floor of the cave beneath her, gouging furrows through the soft limestone with her claws. “I did not! Why does no one believe me when I speak?” Driz’s chest ached. “Why would I lie to you about that?”
Pearl recoiled from her, her face cold. “I dunno. Why would you?”
Driz tucked her wings against her back and retreated to the edge of the cave. Pearl was angry with her now too.
She folded herself into the stone, the only place she belonged and never wanted to be: alone.