Oops.
“It just means a lot,” I said hurriedly while Tilly and Fiona sent each other conspiratorial looks. “Have you got a lot of brolka to show us, girls?”
“Yes!” Wanda said.
Vanda snapped her tail eagerly in agreement, adding, “We have many metric fucktons!”
“Good work,” Fiona whispered to me, eyes sparkling, clearly enjoying this just a little too much. But if it helped get her out of her funk, I supposed it was worth it. At least no one in the Deep Sky would know the human phrase I’d accidentally taught their cute little kids was offensive language.
In the end, Salina decided to remain inside with the girls, despite their whiny protests and ardent attempts at negotiation. Even after Gahn Thaleo had given her assurances about how far away the borog was, she was feeling hesitant about taking her girls outside more than necessary, and I couldn’t say I blamed her.
Zaria’s mate Arton decided to join us, even though he was supposed to be resting after another long patrol. Likely, he wasn’t comfortable letting his pregnant mate leave the confines of the main mountain with two males from another tribe. He was a lean Deep Sky male with silvery-violet sight stars and a subdued, humble way about him that turned into a protectiveswagger around Zoren and Oxriel. He positioned himself between Zaria and Zoren as we made our way down to the exit out of the mountain.
“I have been assisting Gahn Thaleo track the borog,” he said, lifting his chin and casting his sight stars sideways at the other men. “Dangerous work!”
“Not too dangerous, I hope,” Zaria fretted as we walked.
“Not for me, my mate,” he said quickly, passing a soothing hand between her shoulder blades. “For I am strong, and a very swift flyer.”
“In the Sea Sands,” Oxriel tutted, “we cannot rely on the flapping of flying mounts to escape our foes! We must stand and face them!” He had his zeelk-spur-tipped spear with him, as he usually did, and he gave a swift stab into the air ahead of us. “Try to run from a zeelk, and see how far that gets you!”
“Or an ablokoi,” Zoren said. “An ablokoi would merely snatch you from the air with one of its many lethal arms!”
“Are we seriously having a competition about who has the most dangerous predators?” I murmured to Tilly and Fiona.
“None of those tiny things could compare to a borog!” Arton scoffed.
“Tiny!” Oxriel exclaimed. “Why, a zeelk stands near as tall as a man at full size! And look atthis!” He jabbed his spear closer to Arton’s face, swishing the shining black tip beneath the other man’s nose. “This is from the body of a zeelk I felled! Look atthatand tell me it is nothing!”
“A mere child’s toy,” Arton said dismissively, though his sight stars definitely lingered on the deadly-sharp tip of the spear’s point as Oxriel shook it this way and that, letting the lantern light catch on the shining black.
“Why, yes, we were indeed making playthings of such dangerous creatures at a young age,” Oxriel replied more coolly than I would have thought him capable of. “We were felling zeelkand taking their prizes for our spears as boys when you were still suckling at your mother’s teat!”
Fiona snorted and Tilly sucked in a breath at the same moment that I said “Oi! Ox!”
The Deep Sky people were hosting us here. That was going just a touch too far into rudeness for my liking. But Arton seemed to relish the insult, firing back with a comment about climbing mountains before Oxriel even knew the difference between his own tail and his cock. To which Oxriel responded that his ancestral territory of the Sea Sands did indeed have mountains of its own, and they were certainly better than these pathetic Deep Sky peaks! And that he’s always known the difference between his tail and his cock, as one is clearly so much longer and larger than the other! This, of course, devolved into all sorts of comments about sizes of various appendages, and Zaria eventually drifted back a little bit so that the three men walked ahead and all four of us girls were together behind.
“Boys are so weird,” Tilly said with a grin and a roll of her eyes.
“Yup,” I agreed, linking my arm with Zaria’s. “No matter what planet they’re from.”
The men continued their verbal sparring until we were outside. The air was dry, and though it was certainly hot, the temperature was not as punishing as that in the Sea Sands. A breeze made our solar protection jackets crinkle as we raised out hoods and put on our sunglasses.
Tilly sucked in a great big lungful of air. “Ah! Perfect. Isn’t this better, Fiona?” Fiona gave a noncommittal mumble in reply, but I was fairly certain she at least mostly agreed. The men did, too. It was like they’d warmed up with their little game of tit for tat inside, and now that they were out in the fresh air and sunshine, they appeared invigorated, stretching their arms and tails, good-natured looks of satisfaction on their faces.
They paid less attention to each other and more attention to us as we began making our way to where the brolka were kept, making sure we (the clumsy humans and the pregnant Zaria) kept our footing on the loose rocks of the valley we now traversed. We were heading in the opposite direction we’d taken to get to the vaklok area. For the vaklok, we’d basically come out of the front of the mountain and turned right. Now, we were following the shape of the mountain around to the left. We picked our way through a valley that curved around the main mountain, then branched sharply away. The temperature of the air undulated as we passed through cool shadows and bright patches of sun glinting off blue stone streaked with copper and indigo.
I was just beginning to wonder how much longer we were going to walk, and if we were in danger of disregarding Gahn Thaleo’s warning about not straying too far from the main mountain on foot, when the valley narrowed so suddenly, with such sheer walls of rock on each side, that we were forced to go in single file. At the end of this somewhat claustrophobic stretch was a steep, rocky slope to traverse. I was so focused on not breaking an ankle on the way down that it wasn’t until I was on flat ground again that I’d realized we’d reached our destination. Looking up, I gasped.
A glorious lake stretched before us. The stone below the water appeared to be more of that brilliant aguir, which made the sunlit water look nearly tropical, it was so perfectly turquoise. It deepened into a stunning azure at the centre, and my skin prickled with the desire to jump right into it. I’d always been a strong swimmer. I hadn’t seen that much cold, clear water since…
Since I’d left Earth.
The tender teeth of nostalgic grief sank into me.
But I didn’t have time to give completely into the feeling. There was so much tosee– that stretching, perfect line of water. The aqua-coloured boulders that jutted out of it, as well as silvery trees and grasses that lined the shores, climbing up the slopes of the mountains that ringed the lake. On one of those slopes, across the lake from here, what looked to be big, gray pompoms – at least two dozen of them – grazed.
“Are those the brolka?” I asked, squinting at the little dots in the distance.
