Murr nods slowly, then taps the compact. “Murr no?”
“Right. That’s a reflection.Reflection.”
“Reefessun,” he agrees, then squints at the image in the mirror, as if noticing the way his mouth moved for the first time. “Reefshun.”
Hmm. I worry I’m giving him the wrong word. I circle the entire compact in the air with my finger. “Reflection.” Then I point at my mouth. “Lips.”
He tilts his head, fascinated. “Lifffs.”
“Lips,” I repeat again, touching my mouth. “Dakota lips.” Then so it’s clear, I reach out and touch a fingertip to the corner of his mouth. “Lips. Murr lips.”
“Liffs,” Murr says again. He touches my nose, a question in his eyes.
“Nose,” I tell him.
“Nowd,” he parrots, then points at his mouth once more. “Liffs.”
For the next few minutes, we go over the features of the face, with Murr repeating each word I give him. He pronounces them all badly, swallowing his syllables as if he doesn’t know how to make the sounds work at all. He’s trying, though, and he’s got a good memory. By the time we’ve covered everything, he’s able to repeat them all back to me with perfect recognition. He’s certainly not stupid, just unfamiliar with the English language. I’ve never heard him speak anything else, so I wonder if he’s got a different way of speaking to his people. Aren’t there languages with whistling and tongue-pops in lieu of words? Maybe it’s something like that.
“Dakotah,” he says, pulling my attention back to him. “Lips…haha?” He bares his teeth in his approximation of a grin and gives a forced laugh. Then he stops, eyeing me and waiting.
“You want that word? There’s a few, actually.” I make a smile with exaggerated detail, putting my fingers in the corners of my mouth and dramatically raising them. “Smile.”
“Smmiihh,” he repeats, flashing his sharp teeth.
Well, that’s more of a grin, but I don’t want to argue semantics with someone that’s trying so hard. I nod and repeat the word for smile, then deliberately laugh. “Laugh.”
“Laff,” he says again, and then mimics my laugh in such a ridiculous way that it makes me burst into fresh giggles. The expression on his face changes to one of sheer delight, pleased he can make me chuckle.
CHAPTER 14
DAKOTA
The pharmacy is pretty pickedover, as most buildings are after so many years, but I’m happy with my finds. I dig through the old employee break room and find a few condiment packets and some sugar that’s dried into a hard lump at the bottom of a canister, but I’ll take it. Inside the store, there’s a bottle of shampoo with a bunch of gunk along the side, as if it exploded at one point, and I take that, too. I find a couple rolls of aluminum foil and decide those will take the place of a smoker. I can use those and some ingenuity instead of hunting all over the countryside for an actual grill. I don’t want to leave Rabbit for longer than I have to.
Murr has been pleasant company for the most part. He wants to help, even if he doesn’t know what he’s looking for. He just digs through piles of leaves and brush, fishing out objects and holding them up to me for approval if they’re filthy, and if they’re not, they go into the basket. Several of the containers he puts in the basket are empty (who leaves behind an old vitamins container, I ask you?) but I still appreciate a second set of eyes as we go through the rubble.
Once we’ve dug through everything at the front of the pharmacy (and Murr attacked a cardboard standee of a pharmacy employee), I head to the back to look for medication that might have been left behind. It’s unlikely—medication is the only thing rarer than food at this point—but I’m going to check anyhow. The pharmacy shelves have been picked clean, but I pull them from the walls and run my hands under the counters, looking for things that might have fallen into hard-to-reach places.
My efforts are rewarded with half a bottle of ibuprofen. No idea if they’re still any good at this point, but I’m taking them with me anyhow. Along with the ibuprofen, I’ve also got an eye cream that I’m going to try on the kittens with the worst eye infections. I don’t know if it’s safe for them or not, but hopefully there will be a book in the bookstore that can help me with that. I can’t sit back and watch them with gummy, glued-shut eyes and do nothing about it. I don’t hate cats. I love them…I just can’t feed them in the After.
Living through the apocalypse has forced me to harden my heart.
With my bag stuffed full of my finds, I put the rest of the goods into a shopping cart and push it back to the bookstore. It gets stuck on the ruts and chunks of cement in the road, but I shove it along anyhow. Murr doesn’t carry any of it or push the cart, but I also don’t ask him to. I don’t want to feel obligated to him more than I already am. That haunch of meat we got? People have been killed for less in forts. Murr has been nice so far, but I also don’t want him to think he owns me or that I owe him something in return.
I heard some sketchy rumors about dragons in the last fort we were in, and at the time, I chalked them up to absolute nonsense. Now that I’ve met Murr and seen that he likes to hangaround in his human form and touched my cheek, I’m starting to side-eye those rumors with new interest.
I heard that some fort was giving women to dragons so they wouldn’t get attacked.
Which is bullshit…right?
At least, Ihopeit’s bullshit. But Murr hasn’t attacked, and everything I know about dragons says that they’re vicious and unpredictable and will tear a human apart without thinking twice, so the fact that Murr has been friendly makes me uneasy.
He wants something, and I don’t know what. A smart woman would tell him to buzz off, but… he’s a dragon. I also know that him being in a good mood is also instrumental to us staying alive.
“Dakotah,” he says, walking next to me. Then he points at his hand and gives me another expectant look.
“You…want the word for that? Or something else?”
