45. Kira

45

Kira

When I wake up, I'm deliciously warm and feel much better. It hadn't actually been very long since we woke up in the other cave and fell asleep in this one, but sleep has been hard to come by on this stupid planet. Apparently, it takes a giant wind storm to get us some rest.

I take a deep breath in and wiggle to check how far along my healing has progressed. Not bad, just a dull ache from my ribs now.

After a nice stretch, I open my eyes. And then scramble away as fast as possible.

"Drasuk."

He startles awake, instantly ready to kill whatever threat is in the cave.

"You're shimmering."

I look down at myself and let out a yelp. "I am too. What the fornicate?"

He lets out a breath and thumps down on the ground again. "We aren't shimmering. Let me see your eyes, Kira."

I look up and he grunts. "As I suspected. Did you see Mar'cte's eyes?"

"Yeah. They were super weird and gross looking. Oh, wait... Seriously? Fornicate! Swirling yellow on molten silver isn't an improvement over pink."

"How they function is the improvement, if they are, in fact, xarxisi eyes. Remember I told you there was a species that tried to replace the manticorids?"

"Yes. You said they were extinct, though."

"They are, but from what I've heard, they could detect living creatures, even through barriers, and they described it as a shimmer."

"Isn't there pretty much a living creature everywhere I look? Why wouldn't the whole cave be lit up with it? Instead, all I see is sunlight hitting the walls."

"I don't know. But you aren't seeing the sun. It's very dark in here, Kira."

My eyebrows raise. I can see everything in here. No problem. No weird green night-vision goggle issues, though I suppose now I'm stuck with staring at Glitter Lizard.

He looks pretty cute, actually.

"Alright, I'm picking up what you are putting down about these eyes being great."

He lets out one of his annoyed grumbles to let me know what I said didn't translate well, but I'm too busy looking around in wonder to restate it.

"Am I going to be blind outside in bright sun now?"

"No. I don't know all the details, but I don't think xarxisi were light sensitive."

"Alright, fine."

I let out a cackle, channeling all the terrible superhero movies I watched during my misspent youth. "I stole this from my arch nemesis. Round one went to Kira, you fornicator."

"You did stab him."

"Exactly."

"And then he threw you off a cliff."

"Close your dirty mouth, Drasuk."

His laugh echoes in the small space, and my lips quirk.

I turn my gaze to the outside of the cave. I can see where a number of mid-sized animals are hiding in trees to wait out the rain. Judging by the lack of smaller animals on my new shimmer radar, it must only pick up creatures of a certain size.

Good. I don't need to know how many thousands of bugs are around me at any given time. Some things it's best to remain ignorant about.

"Do you think the worst of the storm has passed? It might be a good idea to start moving before it stops raining. Maybe it will help hide our trail."

"It would diminish it some, that's true, but if they get close, they'll still smell where we went."

I put a cheeky grin on my face. "Well, we could always hop back into the river."

He grunts. "That's actually a good idea."

"That was a joke, Drasuk. I don't want to get back in that crazy river. Especially not after a morning of torrential downpour is swelling it even higher. I like living."

"True. But we also need to gain some distance from them so we can plan and find another braceaaer group or camp. This time I won't destroy so many of the guns so you can find the ones that fit you best."

I assume this surge of giddy glee about gun shopping is how some women feel about shoes.

"Maybe I'll even find some weapons that will fit my hands," he continues.

I look down at his tough pads with his double sets of opposing digits, realizing that they no longer look weird to me anymore. It doesn't even bother me that his hands and feet look exactly the same and I'm only calling them different names out of habit.

I shake my head to focus back on his crazy idea. Well, my crazy idea, I guess.

"Are you sure you can keep us from drowning?"

***

It's fucking freezing, but I'm still alive. Drasuk has kept us safe, if not dry. The rain stopped a long time ago, but the river is still raging. My body doesn't even get any time to warm up to the water soaking me before another icy splash hits.

I'm noticeably warmer where my skin has been replaced by thicker hide, but that's only about a third of my body. I let out a snort. Funny how survival flips the script from worrying about a third of your body changing, to thinking about how the other two-thirds aren't as robust.

What can I say? Practicality rules supreme.

We reach another calmer section and Drasuk relaxes in the water for a while. It must be really hard work keeping his armadillo boat position amidst crashing into boulders and deadly currents.

I pat his chest and rest, too, by flipping onto my back instead of clinging to his spines. I'm pretty sure my new ant strength is the only reason I haven't been ripped off him.

"Alright, I'll admit it, Drasuk. You are a beast."

"Your tone says that's a compliment. Your words say otherwise."

"I guess you'll never know."

His tail flings up from the water and whacks me across the thighs. "Stop that. I was just getting moderately warm."

"Well, you should— "

I tense up and look around when his voice cuts off. He takes in a long, deep breath.

"I smell a manticorid."

"Really? Get us out of here, then. We need some venom in our lives to take care of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum."

He doesn't even bother asking me who I mean, just keeps reorienting himself and testing the wind. After a few breaths, he uses his tail to move us toward the bank.

When we get there, I fling water off and squeeze as much out of my hair as I can. It's to the middle of my back now, but there hasn't been a good opportunity to make Drasuk swear he won't cut my head off using the sword to cut it.

Actually, this might be a good time. "I think we should chop off my hair and toss it out into the river. Maybe they'll follow the scent or something."

"Good plan," he tells me, then simply steps over, grabs on to the wet fall of it and slices it off with his claws.

My jaw drops. "You let me struggle with a little knife this whole time when you could do that?"

"All you had to do was communicate intent, Kira."

I'm repeating the phrase back in a childish voice as he splashes back in to drop our red herring out in the water. Well, pink herring, I guess.

As I watch my hair drift down the river, I can't help but appreciate how Drasuk allows the space for me to be my own person, his very nature communicating his belief in me and his respect for my independence.

As if a fierce woman is a default.

Everything with him is face value, which is infuriating, but it also means that when he compliments me, he fucking means it. When he tells me he appreciates my strength and what I bring to this partnership, I can believe it.

It's mind-boggling. Too much to process right now, really, so I shelve it for later.

Then we spend a long damn time moving around in circles. According to Drasuk, the scent isn't coming from any one place and there are a lot of overlapping trails. Some of them designed to confuse.

He's confused, alright.

He didn't appreciate my sarcastic comments about his hunting skills, at least not once he realized I wasn't complimenting him. I wonder if his iguana brain will ever understand sarcasm.

Good thing he has me to train him.

A few nasty meals and one long nap in a tree later and he says he's convinced we're getting closer. I keep scanning with my new spidey sense. Shimmer sense?

We've bypassed a lot of opportunities to take out genali. That's how obsessed Drasuk is with finding this cat-man.

He's stalking along, his body rigid and his spines telling me what he thought of my joke about wanting to meet his maker. I tell myself it's his new shimmer that makes me keep looking at him, but I'm finding more and more to admire about him.

He no longer looks like a stupid dinosaur lug head. I mean, he is that, but what I see now is his grace. Appreciating how the cant of his spines can convey so much emotion. The nuance of which way they lean communicating better than his words sometimes.

Then there are all the scars. I want to know each one of their stories.

Then a thought occurs to me that has my brow furrowing. I don't have scars. If he has nanites healing him too, why does he?

"Drasuk?"

"I have no interest in your thoughts about things you know little about, Kira."

"Alright, sure. But I have a question."

"Didn't you just hear me?"

"This isn't about manticorids and how much you love and hate them. About nanites."

He lets out a long breath. "Ask."

"Why do you have scars?"

"Nanites don't heal scars, Kira."

"That's food excrement, Drasuk. I had hundreds of scars before the genali. Fiery pit in the ground, my fornicating arm barely worked because a cyborg crushed it."

"I'm tired, Kira. Speak clearly."

A groan of frustration rumbles up my throat, but then I rephrase. "I had scars before. I don't have them now."

He stops mid-step and turns toward me. "Show me."

I tell my suit to recede from my left arm, since it was a mass of surgery scars before. "Excrement."

It won't be much help as an example, though, since I'm not sure how I didn't notice, but it is now covered in dark red drak skin down to my forearms.

"I would have preferred more of my blue, but I still approve."

I let out an annoyed grunt. "Well, look at my hands, then. Completely scar free."

I turn them to all sides so he can see them.

"Regeneration is not normal."

"Is any of this," I pause as I gesture to all my new freaky additions to underscore my point, "fornicating normal, Drasuk?"

"Valid point. No, it is not. The best person to ask is the manticorid. If anyone made those nanite upgrades, it's them."

"Sure. I'll get right on finding them, since it's not like that isn't what we've been trying to do for a million years or anything."

Even my own eye twitches at the double negative, but I don't restate it.

He grunts at me in annoyance, then I switch to English and start belting out the best cat-man attractor I know.

"Here kitty, kitty, kitty!"

I keep yelling it louder and louder for a few repetitions and then stop. The pain switching back to his language is worth it.

"See? Useless."

"Are you sure? Someone just responded."

"No excrement. Are you fornicating with me?"

"I would never."

"I don't believe you."

"'Never' leaves little room for misinterpretation, Kira."

"No, I meant... This is not important. Who is it?"

"How would I know? I can't understand them. It just sounds like your curses."

"Mimic it, then."

He lets out a series of sounds I ask him to repeat three times before it sounds like who are you?

"They're speaking English, Drasuk!"

I yell back as loud as I can. "Kira. Who are you?"

I wait a beat, switch back to Drakonid, and ask what he heard. "What did they say?"

"'Ree,' I think. There were many, many more words than that, so I assume she must be human."

"Yes! I know her, Drasuk. Pick me up already and move those feet."

"Are you sure you can trust her?"

"Yes. Just go, glitter lizard."

He grumbles, but he does what I ask.

Ree and I keep calling each other's names back and forth, but it takes very little time to reach each other.

Probably because she's riding a giant orange cat thing like she's He-Man. A tiny, very excited looking female He-Man.

"Kira!"

It's all she manages to say because she's all choked up.

"Greetings, soldier Kira," the cat rumbles out.

A sharp pain and I'm speaking his harsh language. "Hello. I assume you must be the manticorid we've been looking for?"

Ree finds her voice. "He is. Did you really just use the cat dinner bell to find us?"

"Well, it worked, didn't it? Sorry I don't have any Fancy Feast."

We both start cackling at that.

She wipes tears from her eyes and speaks again. "This is Thivoll."

Then she slides off Thivoll's back and rushes over to me. I slip out of Drasuk's arms and then crush her to me in a hug and pat her back as she cries. I'll admit to spilling a few tears myself.

I never thought I would see her again. Not really.