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I do not answer right away. Instead, I watch my mate. Does she seem hungry? I am out of mykah, having shared it with the males last night as we sat around the fire. F’lor will need something to eat to keep up her strength.I pick up one of the parcels from the pods, turning it over in my hands. “Is this food?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes, it might be.” She sets it down on the ground and turns it over. “I suppose we need to figure out how to open this. The girls are probably hungry.”
Bah. Always thinking of others. My mate is far too kind. I squat next to her and hand her my knife. “We do not need a sa-kohtsk.”
“No?” She runs my knife along the edge of the square, frowning at it. “How the heck does this thing open?”
“Do you want me to break it open over a rock?” When she shakes her head, I go back to my initial statement, watching her with amusement as she tries to pry up a corner. “As for a sa-kohtsk, I do not think they are necessary. On the island, when someone had a weak khui or theirs died, we would capture a kaari and then cut it open and steal the khui from it.
“So what you’re saying is any khui will work,” F’lor tells me, stabbing at the strange square package. “Unlike this motherfucking package that won’t motherfucking open!”
The large gray male—the one with the impossibly thick neck—moves toward us. He watches my mate stab at the package with furious movements and then gestures at it. “May I?”
With a huff, F’lor tosses it at him. “All yours.”
He gives us a chastising look, then sets the box down upon the mossy ground. With a brush of his hand over one seam, the lid pops open, revealing the contents. “Here.”
“How did you do that?” F’lor asks, fascinated.
The big male gestures at the box, and I notice he has two fingers and a thumb, all of them thick. Very odd. “It has a locking mechanism.”
“Well of course it does,” F’lor says, annoyed with herself. “Thank you for opening this. What’s your name again? I’m sure you’ve told me but I’m also sure I’ve forgotten given that everyone else has told me their names, too.”
He gestures at his chest. “I am called Kyth.” He watches F’lor for a moment and then glances over at me. “And I am leaving now.” He backs away, putting his hands up in the air and watching me.
“What was that all about?” my mate asks, curious.
“I said I would gut any of them if they looked at you for too long,” I admit. “Perhaps he wanted to make sure I was not angered.”
“You what?” She gives me a horrified laugh and then shakes her head. Scooping up one of the pouches inside the chest, she opens it and then sniffs the contents. “Mmmm, noodles. Part of me thinks we should save these for when we get back to camp, but we’re out of food at the moment.”
I shake my head and bend down to pluck one of the bags out of the package so I can sniff it for myself. “The food was left with these people. If they are hungry, we should let them eat it.” The scent of it is like…nothing. I sniff the package again. Perhaps like dried seaweed. “This is good?”
“I mean, it is to me? But I was a latchkey kid. Grew up on ramen.” She sighs happily. “It’s not gourmet, but I think we can feed a fair amount of people with one of these bags. We just need some water to boil over the fire. How big is your cooking pouch?”
“Not big,” I admit. “But if we are hunting for khuis, we can eat animal flesh as well.”
She hugs one of the bags to her chest and gets to her feet. “So we’re not hunting a sa-kohtsk then.”
“I am a mighty hunter, but even I cannot bring down one of those on my own.” Though it is flattering that she would think so. I resist the urge to flex my arms and show off my strength. I will show her later, in the furs. “Something large and fierce will do.”
“So like…what? A snowcat?”
I consider this. “Yes. Or perhaps sky-claw.”
F’lor looks at me as if I have lost all reasoning.“You are not hunting sky-claw. Absolutely not. I forbid it. That’s too dangerous and I don’t want to be a widow before I have a wedding feast, thank you very much.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “Have you seen the size of those things?”
K’th, the gray male, considers us. “We need a strong animal?”
I nod.
“What about that one?” He points up at the sky, just as a massive shadow crosses overhead.
A’tar, the drakoni.
“He is a friend,” I tell the male. “And a fellow tater.”
F’lor tilts her head at me. “A what?”
