“Of course they’re brolka!” came an unfamiliar voice. “But who in the great span of the Deep Sky are you?”
“It is I, Arton. Your grandson,” Arton called, stepping to the front of our group as a Deep Sky woman I’d never seen before approached. “I bring Zaria, and-”
“I know who you and Zaria are! I am not so old that I have lost my sense!” she replied at once. She had emerged from a small cave I hadn’t noticed. Though she was obviously an older woman – confirmed by Arton’s claiming to be her grandson – she moved with supreme confidence and purpose across the rocky shore towards us, using what appeared to be a huge, carved bow as a walking stick. A braxilk followed her on foot.
“It is I, Arton,” she repeated sarcastically under her breath as she reached us. “What, boy? You think that just because you haven’t come to see me since the day you informed me of Zaria’s pregnancy that I’ve forgotten your face?”
“Apologies, Grandmother,” Arton spluttered. “But you asked who it was who approached, and-”
“Obviously, I meant these ones!” She lifted her bow, sweeping it in a cracking arc that made Oxriel leap back in order to avoid a nice smack to the side of the head.
“These are my friends, Linnet,” Zaria said. “Three of the new women – Fiona, Tilly, and Nazreen.” She gestured to each of uswith her tail as she named us off. I took off my sunglasses to let the old woman see my face a little better.
Linnet gave an unimpressed grunt. “And what about these odd-looking louts?”
“Oxriel and Zoren of the Sea Sands. At your service!” Oxriel replied at once, lifting his tail before his eyes in a show of respect usually reserved for Gahns, Gahnalas, or the Lavrikala - the holy guardians of the Lavrika in the Sea Sands. Zoren quickly did the same, raising his tail and letting it fall.
“Bah,” she said, planting one end of her bow firmly down on the rocky ground like it was a sceptre, the muscles of her long, lean arm cording. “Save your tail raising for Gahn Thaleo. I’m long past the age where some scoundrel lifting his tail to me sets my heart a-fluttering! I’ll have none of that nonsense here. What is it you want?”
Linnet gave me crotchety old lady who didn’t give a fuck vibes. I liked her immediately.
“We wanted to come see the brolka, if that’s alright, Linnet,” I said. I suddenly understood Oxriel and Zoren’s compulsion. Under the stern glare of her lilac sight stars, I was struck with a near-comical urge to curtsy.
“So the Gahn’s favourite wants to see the brolka,” Linnet sniffed, “does she?”
“The…The Gahn’s what?” I echoed, startled.
“The Gahn’s favourite,” Linnet repeated. “Your ears no good, new woman?”
“Oh, I heard you. I just don’t…”
Linnet silenced me with a slice of her tail through the air. “Just because that fool,” she said, aiming her bow at Arton, “does not visit me near often enough to keep me apprised of the goings-on in the mountain, doesn’t mean that others don’t. I have heard tell of the new woman with the dark brows that arch like braxilk wings, with deep green sight stars below. They tellme that the Gahn’s eyes follow you as reliably as a man’s own tail follows him when he walks.”
“I mean, you kind of can’t argue with that,” Fiona said. “Gahn Thaleo does seem to like watching you.”
“I doubt that means that I’m his favourite!” I cried, looking at my friends and hoping for someone to back me up. No one did. “The man’s never even smiled at me!”
“Hasn’t smiled since before he got that scar,” Linnet growled. “Since before his parents died. He was a serious boy, and now he’s a serious man. And a good Gahn he is, too. A very good Gahn.” Her sight stars tightened as she looked me up and down. “You’re a scrawny little thing, but I don’t think Gahn Thaleo would waste time staring at someone unworthy of his attentions.”
She twitched her tail, a resolute look passing over her features, as if this conclusion she’d just drawn meant she was obliged to respect me. Just a little. “But don’t be expecting me to raise my tail to you yet,” she added sharply. “Unless the Vrika comes for him, you’re not my Gahnala. Gahn Thaleo follows the old ways for the good of our tribe. That means that no matter what sort of an interest he’s taken in you, he won’t choose you as his mate until the Vrika does.”
“Um. Alright. That’s…fine?”
I knew a few men who’d chosen their mates before getting their mate visions – Lerokan, Galok, Kohka, and Razek, to name a few. I’d never expected that sort of thing from Gahn Thaleo. Especially not if it was about choosing me! If anything, this was a good thing! I didn’t want to be his mate, so knowing it would take the Vrika to move him in that direction was just fucking fine with me. Peachy, even.
So why the hell am I suddenly so annoyed?
“Why don’t we go see the brolka,” Zaria said, perhaps sensing the awkwardness and wishing to diplomatically move things along.
Linnet grumbled that we were free to do so. It made me think that she would hang back here while we went ahead, but when we began to skirt around the lake to the area where the brolka were grazing, she came along with us, settling into step beside me.
“How long have you been taking care of the brolka, Linnet?” I asked her.
“My whole life,” she replied. “It was my father’s place before me, and I lived as much out here as I did in the mountain.”
“You lived out here?” But even as we passed the small cave Linnet had come from, I could see it was more than a temporary place to sleep. There was a fire pit outside, as well as shelving inside. What looked like drying meat and herbs hung deeper inside the cave, and there were plentiful sleeping furs.
“And still do now,” she replied with that odd sort of grumpy pride that only gruff old people seemed capable of.
