So close that it hurt.
But this hurt was only mine, too, and it was not my people’s and therefore it was not real. There would be no healing for it.
So I would simply sit there beside her and feel it and pretend that I didn’t.
I would blink fresh blood from my eye and say, “No, Gahn. I do not bleed.”
“The first twoevents of the vaklok are concluded,” I announced, standing up from where I’d been seated beside Nazreen. “The ceremonial meal will now begin.”
It was harder to say the words than I would have anticipated. I was not looking forward to this aspect of the vaklok. My Deep Sky men all sat, knowing what was to come. The Sea Sand men did not. The brash one, Dalk – who’d caused so much trouble when I’d once taken him prisoner – began striding towards the food laid out in the shade.
“No,” I called, halting him. “The competitors do not fetch their own food during the vaklok. The traditional meal is to be brought to them…” My throat tightened. The words seemedstuck as I looked down at Nazreen, who stared carefully ahead. “…by the new women.”
“How can this be tradition if the new women have never even been here for a vaklok until this one?” Dalk asked, his sight stars, an odd, deep orange sort of tint, like late-day sun glinting on dark stone, fixed pointedly on me. I returned his gaze calmly, masking the fact that I was likely just as perturbed about this part of the vaklok as he was.
“The tradition is that the unmated women of the tribe bring the food to the vaklok’s competitors,” I explained. Nazreen shifted slightly in her place beside me, drawing every one of my senses towards her. My ears strained without moving. My tail just barely twitched as I restrained it from reaching for her.
“They are not of your tribe,” snapped Dalk.
“No, they are not,” I conceded. But with any luck and the Vrika’s will on our side…
They soon would be.
“Why can’t everyone help bring the food?” asked the new woman with the dark flowers on her skin, Fiona. “There are twenty hungry guys down there and only three of us. Give some of those kids a job; they’ve got the energy to spare.” She gestured her tiny, clawless thumb towards the cubs seated with their parents on the benches behind.
Before I could explain why such a thing would be considered a horrific perversion of the tradition, Zaria responded.
“That would be highly inappropriate! The delivery of the food is symbolic. Symbolic of a potential, future mate bond. By handing over the ceremonial meal, you are handing over a small piece of your future, acknowledging that any one of them might be your mate.”
And therein lay my own discomfort. Discomfort about watching Nazreen distribute little pieces of herself among my men…
And not to me.
“Alright, fair. I see why that would be extremely weird for a kid to do,” Fiona replied.
“Or a mated woman,” Zaria added. She smiled at Fiona. “You have no idea how glad I am that you are here. At the last vaklok, I was the only unmated woman. I had to hand-deliver each meal to the men.”
“I mean, we’re glad to help, of course,” the new woman with the black puff of curly hair, Tilly, said. “But I don’t know about this whole symbolic ‘you could be my mate’ thing.”
Nazreen said nothing. Why had she said nothing?
“I understand that this may feel foreign to you,” Zaria replied, “but the truth of the matter is that if you do not bring food to them, they will not eat.”
All three of the new women, Nazreen included, cast their gazes towards my seated men. They were considering it, clearly.
“Then let them go hungry,” Dalk suddenly growled, a possessive sweep of his sight stars going to Fiona.
Fiona, it seemed, had other plans. If the new women had taught me anything so far, it was that they did not cower or easily acquiesce to the will of any male.
Even a Gahn.
“Knock it off, Dalk,” she called over. “We’re not going to make everybody sit there hungry all morning. You guys need energy for the next rounds of the vaklok. Besides, we haven’t eaten, either. And I’m pretty sure none of us are going to want to sit here stuffing our faces while you’re all watching.”
“So you would serve these males?” Dalk asked, aiming a violent and disbelieving claw towards my own men, “even knowing what it means to them?”
What it meant to them. The ceremonial gifting of a tiny slice of the new women’s future.
“It doesn’t have to mean that to me,” Fiona retorted. “I’m just delivering breakfast over here. That’s it.”
