“Some would say thatbothof you are children.”
They exchanged a look and paused whatever they were doing. “I amnot,” Guidy countered and Tegha shook her head at me like I was insane. “I will start my huntress training after the next migration. I am basically grown up.”
The fierce look on her face was adorable.
But, despite what she was saying, theywerestill children. Otherwise, they would know that I was not marrying their uncle for him to “play with my hair.”
And the reminder of what was expected of me sent me into another anxious spiral. So much that I barely registered anything else they talked about.
4
My bride will not be cold.
Filbur
The farther we traveled from our winter lands, the warmer the water points were. It was not just the fact that summer was warming everything, but also because, with each passing day, we got closer to the sea.
I would have still bathed without complaints if the water had been cold, but the warmth helped chase the worries from my mind.
What if she ran away when she saw me? Maybe she would not find me attractive. Maybe it would even make our reproduction attempts impossible. I knew my way around a Canco female’s body, but a human? Were the…reproductive parts the same? Thepleasurepoints?
What if they were like the Tauri and Ari females and did not feel pleasure except during their fertility window?
I splashed some water on my face, shaking my head vehemently.This does not matter. If reproductive sex was the only sexual activity she was willing to participate in, then it was the only one we would do. I accepted to take on a human bride. Pleasure or not, I would do my best to be the partner she deserved. Worst case scenario, I could still pleasure my damn self.
“Filbur!” someone yelled from behind me and I turned around, not at all expecting to find the person standing on the shore.
“Ghauro?” What was the Tauri doinghere? Were we back to visiting each other now?
“I have been looking for you for a whole fucking hour. Hurry up, I have to go back.”
I was too stunned to argue or even ask about his presence. I walked to the shore where he stood, picking up the cloth I had brought to dry off.
“What are you doing here?” I muttered.
“Drop the attitude,” he snapped back. “I am here to save you from a damn headache.”
“I am a healer, I can save myself from my own headaches.” Not that I had one at the moment. His comment made no sense at all.
He let out a series of curses that my translator mostly picked up on and shoved a hard and heavy large rectangular thing against my now dry chest.
“Theupcomingheadache, you idiot.”
I looked down. It looked like a book, but the words on the cover were not written in a language I could read. What Icouldsee though, was the detailed drawing of a human body.
“What is this?” I asked, opening to look through the pages. Hundreds and hundreds of pages I could not understand with explicative drawings.
“I call this the human codex,” Ghauro said, crossing his arms over his chest with a satisfied look. “Zhari stole it from the human base when she was staying there with Melanie.”
I blinked at him, unsure of what he wanted me to do with it. “And? My translator does not work on written words, Ghauro. How am I supposed to read this?”
His eyes widened. “Oh, right.” He dug into the pocket of his pants and pulled out what looked to be a magnifying glass. “Translating glass. It is set on Tauri, but you can turn the lens.”
He showed me some symbols on the side. All looked foreign except one, the one sayingCanco, and written in our people’s writing.
“Where did your sister find this?” I asked, impressed.
Zhari, from what I had seen when Ghauro and I were a bit younger, had always been one mischievous woman.
