Page 149 of Sun Warrior

Laru woofed softly, and when she bent to kiss him, too, he flooded her face with licks. Sputtering and laughing, Mari straightened to grin at Nik, who pulled her into his arms and kissed her thoroughly.

“Ugh,” she said when he let her go. “I’m covered in Shepherd slobber. I’m sure you got some of it on you.”

“You know it’s my favorite. Well, besides Moon Woman slobber.” He waggled his eyebrows at her before calling, “See ya, Sora.”

“Not if I see you first,” Sora quipped as the two Shepherds bounded out of the burrow with Nik following close behind.

“There. Now we should have some peace.” Mari returned to her spot beside Sora and picked up her tea. “Tell me what I can do to help.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Okay, you asked for it. I don’t even have half of the pantry loaded up. And there are so many clothes to go through. What about all of these sleeping pallets? What are we going to do with them? And the weaving supplies? We’ll need to impress the Wind Riders, so we need all of the looms and the hemp. The women have been gathering roots and shoots and seeds, but what about live plants? We have to bring some of them. Do Wind Riders have blueberries? Well, they should. What about that? All of that?”

Sora finally took a breath and Mari was able to speak. “First, you need to add some lavender to your tea. Not enough to make you sleepy. Just enough to help you relax a little.”

“Enough to make me think things aren’t as stressful as they really are,” Sora said sardonically.

“Yes and no. You’re building up a lot of stress in your mind, Sora. Like the pallets. Each person will pack their own. And I talked with Nik when we were packing my burrow this morning about using litters to carry a lot of these supplies to the boats. He agreed. So, let’s start by taking apart the bed frames and using them to make litters. There’snothing wrong with moving the pallets to the floor. We can strap the looms and weaving materials to the litters, as well as live plants, and then transfer them to their own boats. Nik said we can lash boats together. That’s what we’ll do.”

“But what about when we leave the river and have to carry all this stuff?”

“We will have eaten a lot of this stuff by then. And if we have too much to carry, we leave it beside the river. We’ll make that decision then. No need to worry about it now.”

“I just want to do this right, and that seemed so easy when we were talking about it, but making it happen is a whole other thing,” Sora said.

“But you’re not alone. I owe you an apology. I’ve been distracted by packing up my burrow. I should have been here for you,” Mari said.

“You don’t owe me anything. I should be able to handle this on my own. You’re handling it just fine.”

Mari laughed. “Oh no, no, no! I’m faking it! I’m just as scared as you are. But I’m used to living day-to-day, afraid of being found out. I’ve learned to keep my feelings hidden.”

“Strangely enough, that’s a comfort to me.”

“So, you want to add lavender to that tea, and then you and I are going to go through that pantry back there and get it packed up. All of it,” Mari said.

“Yes. And thank you,” Sora said.

“No problem.”

Sora touched her arm. “No, really. Thank you. And thank you for being my friend.”

“You didn’t give me much choice,” Mari said.

“Sure I did. You could have been my friend or let Rigel eat me,” Sora said, grinning at Mari.

“Rigel said he was afraid you’d be too fatty to eat, and you know he doesn’t like fat.”

“He did not say that!” Sora gasped.

Mari giggled. “No, he didn’t. But it’s funny.”

“For whom?”

“Rigel and me, of course. Now, let’s get to work. It’ll be dusk before you know it, and it’s a Third Night.”

“Do you think Jaxom will return?” Sora asked.