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“Sora is out there with them,” Fallon said. “And they already trampled the genka that broke through the fence and started the stampede. If there is any trouble, I will hear Sora’s barking.”
“She’s barking.”
Fallon and I both stopped to listen. Not a single bark to be heard.
“Are you quite well?” Fallon inquired, sounding genuinely concerned as Silar hauled him up and out of the chair. Kind of a bold question, considering Fallon was the one who’d almost ended up with a crushed windpipe today, not Silar.
In his usual fashion, Silar ignored the question, pushing the other man towards the door.
“I was not finished speaking to your wife!” Fallon whined as I stood up and hastened after them. “I was going to ask her more questions about Darcy!”
“It’s OK!” I said from behind Silar’s broad back as he marched Fallon towards the back door. I pulled my comms tablet from my pocket, the thing miraculously unscathed from my fall and frantic shuldu ride earlier. “Give me your information. You can call me on your-”
“No, you can’t,” Silar cut in.
“Hey! I’m allowed to talk to other people, you know!” I huffed at my husband.
“You can do whatever you want,” Silar acknowledged. “But he can’t.”
There didn’t seem to be any slowing or stopping Silar’s forward momentum. Suddenly exhausted by this entire day, I gave up on following them and let Silar shove Fallon all the way out of our house. Fallon gave me a harried-sounding shout of “Goodbye!” as Silar dragged him towards the shuldu stalls where they were soon out of sight.
23
SILAR
“Icannot wait,” Fallon said from atop his shuldu on the road in front of my house, “to tell Zohro how beautiful the human females are.” A manic white gleam entered Fallon’s eyes. “He is going to eat his own hat.”
Speaking of hats…
I bent down to pick up a completely flattened, dusty, torn-up disc that had once been the hat Cherry was wearing earlier. This could have been her body…
My fingers contracted involuntarily, crushing the garment further.
“And to think,” Fallon went on, oblivious as he so often was, “that Cherry said Darcy is even prettier than she is!”
“She isn’t.”
Fallon ignored that.
“Do you know what freckles are?”
“No,” I grunted. “Stop asking me questions before I push you off your saddle.”
I needed him gone. Now. So I could be alone with Cherry and maybe do that hug thing again. Uninterrupted this time.
Sora had joined us, running circles around Fallon’s mount, clearly eager to begin herding the bracku back to their ranch.
“Alright. I will go now. But Silar, let me just say that-”
Before he could finish his sentence I had already re-entered the house and closed the door behind me.
Cherry was still in the kitchen, seated in the chair I’d made for her. Her eyes fell to my hand.
“Oh!” she said, jumping up. “Is that… Oh no. Is that your hat?”
“No. This is your hat. Or it was, anyway. I’m still wearing my hat.”
“No. I mean… It was yours from when you were a kid. Oh, no. Just look at it now.” Her eyes grew very wet and shiny, and I jolted, realizing more of her human teerz were about to spill out.
