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She would deliver the food, and the symbolism of her future mate bond to his men, but not to him.
No wonder he does not go on and on about accepting the symbolism of the act, I observed with no small amount of dark, internal glee. In these circumstances, I do not think he even accepts it himself.
Gahn Thaleo wanted Nasrin. He did not have her. This made me happy. With any luck, he would never have her, and I’d be able to bask in his suffering forever.
The pleasure at that thought was short-lived, replaced with annoyance that the three unmated new women were already rising from their places on the bench and picking their way over to the food that had been laid out.
After a moment of hesitation, Oxriel and Zoren sat down with the Deep Sky men, not among them, exactly, but a little off to the side. Eventually, I did the same, my skin crawling with the odd, new sensation of the ends of my hair tickling my shoulders. I would have to either cut it shorter or re-braid it, but at this current length a braid seemed difficult. Maybe just a simple tie at the back, then... I certainly wouldn’t be able to continue on the way it was now, swishing about my neck and making prickles run up and down my spine.
As Fiona, Nasrin, and Tilly loaded food onto large bone trays, I got to work, slicing one of my sharp claws along the edge of my dakrival hide belt. I peeled off a soft, flexible strip of leather, then used it to secure my hair behind me. I gave my head a few shakes, making sure it was tight enough to last through the next few rounds of the vaklok. Other than my hair feeling much lighter than it did before, it seemed like it would more or less be alright. I still could not quite believe that the foul braxilk had gone ahead and not only snipped of my braid, but eaten it. Ill-trained creature.
At least it let me on its back when I told it I had a woman to impress. I wasn’t entirely certain, but maybe it had been a male. Maybe it knew all about the lengths one had to go to to catch the eye of a rare and pretty female.
And there that rare and pretty female was, a huge tray balanced precariously in her arms, laden with Deep Sky food. Fiona walked carefully from the shady area over to us in the sunlight, followed closely by Nasrin and Tilly.
Since I was the last one to have sat down, it worked out that I was also the furthest from the group and the closest to the approaching new women. With Fiona leading the way and me directly in her path, it would have made sense for her to make her way to me first.
Well, it would have made sense to me, anyway. Apparently not to her, though. When she noticed that I was the one before her, she stopped short, then glanced furtively left and right, looking for someone else to bestow the bounty upon.
Oxriel was the next closest male, and with something that looked like relief, she angled herself his way and took a step.
Oh, no. I don’t think so.
My tail was faster than Fiona. It swept along the stone and stopped right in front of her foot-shells. She halted, leaning backward to compensate for her forward momentum and the weight of the tray.
“Dalk!” she cried. “I could have dropped this!”
“Whether I eat it from the bone tray or the stone ground makes no difference to me,” I said, looking up at her. As long as you are the one to bring it to me. And to bring it to me first.
I did not say that part out loud.
Her breath came out in a sharp huff that usually meant some sort of rebuke was coming. I was ready for it, more than ready, rather eagerly anticipating it, actually. But instead she just sighed and lowered herself carefully onto her knees, brandishing the tray between us.
We both looked down at the proffered food stuffs.
Some of it I recognized and could tolerate reasonably well. I was generally satisfied to eat any sort of meat at any time, and I saw plenty of it here. There were other items I recognized but did not enjoy, like the sickeningly sweet, squishy white bars called moonbark. There were other sorts of food I had not ever seen before, and I wondered if these were special to the vaklok. For example, there were scraped-out husks of Deep Sky valok plants stuffed with a sort of jelly – maybe something made from bone marrow – and topped with fragrant bits of grass.
“Well?” Fiona asked. “Are you going to eat any of it?” Her tone softened as her gaze fell to my mouth. “Hopefully none of it hurts your lip.”
Other than the swelling that had made it a little difficult to speak, I’d mostly forgotten about my split lip. I waved away her words with a rise and flick of my tail off the ground.
“I know you new women like to fancy yourselves much stronger than you actually are, but truly, a foot to my face, even from one as stubborn as you, is not enough to cause me any real injury.”
I had meant the words to be comforting, to remind her that there was really no way for her to hurt me. At least not physically, but I would not pursue that line of thinking. Would not go down the path of imagining what ways she really could hurt me, because that way felt very cold and dark. Cold and dark like an empty tent in the night. And maybe it would always be empty...
Whatever my intention, Fiona did not seem comforted. She pinched her pink mouth up, her eyes flashing.
“Well, I’m glad my weak human ass didn’t actually hurt you. Thanks for reminding me how not-strong I am.”
I was about to tell her she was welcome, but I paused, trying to make sense of the contradiction between her face – angry – and her words – glad.
“You are doing that human thing,” I grunted, skewering a juicy piece of felkora meat with my claw and popping it into my mouth.
“What human thing?” she asked warily as I chewed and swallowed.
“That thing where you say the opposite of what you really mean.”
“You mean sarkazm?”
