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By the time I’m done with the first hide, Angie has hers already done. Elly has several that need to be scraped as well, so we tackle those, too. Angie tells a surprisingly funny story as we scrape, talking about her wild cravings while she was pregnant with Violet, making us laugh so hard that Elly snorts, and that only sets us off again.
“You should have seen Vordis’s face,” Angie wheezes, laughing over her skins. “Waking up in the middle of the night to find his human mate chewing on his muddy boot. Poor man didn’t know what to think. I told him it was perfectly all right, that I wasn’t after the boot but the dirt instead.”
Elly giggles so hard she wipes tears from her eyes. “He’d never heard of women having mineral cravings during pregnancy?”
“No!” Angie laughs harder. “I really thought he’d drag me to the healer and say that he’d broke me. Do you know what he did? He rolled over and went back to sleep!”
“What?” I gasp, torn between laughter and surprise. “Why?”
“He was convinced it was a nightmare!” Angie holds her sides.
That sets us off to laughing again. Elly keens with giggles, shaking her head. “Stop,” she pants. “Stop, or I’m going to pee everywhere. My bladder hasn’t been the same since Emma sat on it for a year straight.”
“Try having two babies in one year!” Angie calls back. “I swear I pee if someone standing near me sneezes.”
Both women just howl with laughter again, and I laugh a little less hard. Does that really happen when you have babies? Even with the khui? I make a mental note to talk to Veronica about it. Maybe I should be glad I haven’t quite resonated yet. But then Emma crawls over to her giggling mother and flings her arms around Elly, and my heart squeezes. No, I definitely want babies.
As I sit up, rubbing my filthy, sore arms, a large shadow flies overhead. I glance up and catch a sight of golden wing, far too large to be one of the shore birds that hang out on the beaches south of here. “Is that Ashtar?”
“Yep,” says Angie, biting back the last of her giggles. “I heard Veronica and Lauren say they were doing a food trade with Croatoan. We have a lot of fish that the men caught recently and they wanted to trade for some more of the not-potato roots since they’re harder to find out here without trekking all over the mountains.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” I comment, imagining the addition of the savory chunks of root that can be added to the food dishes. Once I get better at cooking, I’m supposed to be added into the rotation. Right now, no one trusts me enough not to ruin the food (and I don’t blame them). If I messed up dinner, everyone would have to eat it anyhow, because food can’t be wasted. So I’m supposed to shadow Penny or Gail over the next while to learn more cooking. I need to do that, I tell myself, lost in thought as I scrape. I’m realizing more and more that an extra pair of hands truly helps out with the chores and makes such a difference.
I feel guilty that I’ve neglected to truly help for so long. I’ve been so focused on keeping myself ‘pretty’ like Johani wanted that I never stopped to realize that I no longer have to please him.
I need to please myself. And days like today – talking and working with Angie and Elly – make me feel good. I like sewing with Callie and Marisol. I like fishing with Raven and making clay pots with Bridget. I like being part of the tribe and helping out.
Maybe I started out on this path to please O’jek, but I’m doing it for me now.
It’s a good feeling. I glance over at the cookfires to see who’s making stew tonight. Maybe I can help put dinner together. Or tomorrow—
“D’see!” an urgent voice calls out, footsteps crunching on the sands. “D’see! Where is F’lor?”
I sit up, wiping a strand of hair off my sweaty face and see I’rec racing toward me, a rolled-up skin cradled in his arms. “Flor? I don’t know. Why?”
His hard face is full of excitement as he gestures at the skin he holds. “Tia has sent another letter! I must have her read it to me!”
Oh. I smile at his enthusiasm, because he’s always seemingly been sweet on her. I love love, I decide. And their love is the cutest. “I’m just finishing up this skin, and if you don’t mind waiting for me to clean up a bit, I can read it for you.”
His eyes widen and he nods quickly. “I will heat some water in my hut. You will come, yes?”
