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“Dinner!” Bracken drawled, looking unusually chipper as he sniffed the air.
He whistled, releasing a screeching sound that sounded like shattering glass. Then Bracken smirked at me, tossing his catch onto the ground with a hungry look in his twinkling purple gaze.
“By the smell of things, we’ll have dessert tonight, too. Isn’t that right, Clem? You should’ve waited for us.”
“Huh?” I asked as Clem let go of my hand and glided over, turning a dark shade of green, apologetic for reasons I couldn’t comprehend.
I turned my attention back to Kiar, who snarled, sour, and angry as he, too, shrugged off the massive pile of game on his scales.
I shook my head.
“Wasteful.” I muttered my disapproval even as my mouth watered at the prospect of eating meat, not the watered-down broth mixed with bone I’d been fed for months by the rats.
“I assure you,” Kiar grumbled, nearly knocking Clem over as he slithered beside me, shooting him a pointed look, “None of our catch will go to waste.”
“What have you two been up to?” he hissed, tone dripping in incrimination, changing the topic so fast I barely caught the shift.
“None of your business. Let us skin and cook the… game…” I drifted off, stomach-churning as Kiar unhinged his jaw and swallowed a raccoon whole.
I couldn’t watch him rip off another’s head, and opted to gather some twigs, sure my arrow and striking stone were good enough to act as flint.
Bracken squatted, hovering just above the ground, tracking my movements with a frown.
He motioned towards Kiar, unfurling a pouch of a skinned animal like one would a dainty handkerchief, “Don’t overdo it. Remember, keep control. You’re the master. Be firm yet gentle, you overindulgent idiot.”
Kiar, for his part, stopped shooting me a death glare and huffed, “It’s hard when he doesn’t keep his promises, you blowhard bastard.”
They spoke to each other like bickering brothers, feuding with one another. It caught me off guard since it seemed to me, they were talking about me like I wasn’t even there.
Blinking slowly, it dawned on me they were discussing me like I was a pet or a petulant child unable to understand again. Truly, it was unnerving. And while I was much stronger than I had been earlier, it wasn’t lost on me that I needed my naga to calm down.
I couldn’t take Kiar head on if his anger boiled over into a need to fight over whatever grievance he had with me. I needed to lighten the mood.
“What, were you giving him lessons on taming me Bracken?” I asked, joking. “Ignore Kiar. He’s just in a sour mood, don’t you think?”
There was a long, painful silence, as the air whistled through the leaves and both of them wouldn’t look directly at me.
“Umm… Guys?” I asked, astonished that I hit the mark.
Clasping his lower sets of hands together, and raising the higher set in the air, Clem shouted, “Let’s eat!” and we all pretended the awkward exchange never happened after that.
I closed my eyes as Bracken bit into the deer’s torso right away and, with a disgruntled noise, took my game to the pit I was building to light a fire.
A rabbit is all I can muster without vomiting, I thought, realizing I’d never watched nocs eat. Well, unless ripping humans to shreds for sport counted. Regardless, I didn’t think they were capable of being civilized.
In that moment of clarity, I didn’t know what was more disconcerting, the way they ate or, once again, how similar their mannerisms were to ours in the way they sat down for a shared meal.
Bracken wiped his mouth before lifting his animal skin pouch into the air. He turned it over halfway, dropping a mountain of shrubberies into Clem’s raised palms as he clicked excitedly.
“I didn’t forget you,” Bracken chimed as Clem happily stuffed all twenty of his sticky fingers into his mouth, it seemed, flapping, skin shimmering pink. “There’s not much in the way of nectar or fruit, which is why I never thought to unchain you during the winter. It was always better to let your roam the halls of the palace and libraries during the summer months. So, make do with this for now. We will save the rest for later.”
Cursing softly as finally I lit a flame; I stopped watching them eat so I could stomach my meal.
I had to remember that no matter how similar we may appear to be on the surface, they were, in fact, monstrous creatures. Sometimes, they were cute, often strangely handsome, and always crass. However, no matter how shocking the similarities were, we were not the same.
Cupping snow into my hand, I looked around for a way to heat it for drinking water until it melted down in the palms of my hands from hovering so close to the flame. I took sips, praying I wouldn’t catch a disease but knowing I had to take the risk seeing as we were too far from clean water.
It would be nice to clean up, to wash myself, brush my teeth and clean my clothes. I didn’t feel like myself.
