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“Better than what?”
I gesture at my crude fur clothing and the snow around us, then point at Tal’nef and the other ancestors. “You know…everything?”
She chuckles, and the sound is soft and throaty. Her curly dark hair flies around her head in the breeze, and she looks really pretty and like she belongs here, for all that she’s wearing the same shitty clothes I am. It’s because she’s comfortable, I realize. She accepts all of this because she’s used to it. “’Better’ is a weird word to use. Things are always changing. New people arrive. Babies are born. People resonate. There’s always a ton of work to be done by hand. Some days it feels like a lot…but then I think about the people. I’ve lived with both tribes and they’re full of amazing, happy people. And even though the work is hard, it’s satisfying, which sounds weird to say. It’s true, though.”
“I…see.” I’m not sure I see at all, but she’s being very chatty, and listening to her helps me get out of my crisis-spiral a little.
Tia looks over at me. “I know it’s not easy to hear all of this. If you want my advice, learn a skill. It’ll save you from going crazy and it’ll bring you this weird sense of pride when you realize what you can contribute. It sounds like the most hippie, kumbaya sort of thing to say, but it really saved my sanity when things got to be too much for me.”
“And what skill did you learn?” I ask, because it seems like good advice. I could use a little sanity saving right now.
“I learned two. I learned herbs from Kemli, and from my friend Tiffany, I learned how to card dvisti wool and make yarn and to knit. Knitting really helps me stay focused when everything gets to be a lot.” She smiles at me, her expression thoughtful and proud all at once. “Callie does embroidery, and Veronica does healing, and Hannah keeps inventory. Bridget makes the ugliest-ass pottery I’ve ever seen, but it’s useful. Gail likes to feed everyone. Oh, and Liz shoots things with arrows. We all have different ways of coping, but it makes you feel really good when your coping mechanism benefits others.”
I nod, because what else can I say? It sounds like everyone finds a niche and goes after it. I like the idea that there’s a tight-knit community, but the thought of being stuck on a wintry planet hunting things with spears is still utterly terrifying. What about coffee? What about toilet paper? Hell, what about my precious books?
I’ve built my life around the book community. How can I possibly let that go and like…shoot things with arrows for fun instead? Things with faces? The thought makes me all panicky once more.
“Can I be a little intrusive?” Tia asks suddenly.
A laugh bubbles up out of me, because she’s been spouting advice for the last ten minutes and now she wants to get intrusive? “Go for it.”
She chuckles, as if realizing the absurdity of her question, and pauses in her walking. I pause too, waiting. “I know the whole situation is weird, but I’m really happy for you and R’jaal. He’s been waiting a very long time and he seems like a new person around you.”
“New person?”
“He’s happy,” she says simply. “He’s been kind of withering away slowly, I think. You could just see his happiness diminishing over time as everyone else resonated and were so in love and he was alone. He’s always been slightly alone, even when surrounded by people.”
“Oh.” Now my heart aches for him all over again. My poor R’jaal. No wonder he looks at me as if I’m the sun itself.
Er…suns. Whatever.
“I think it really broke something in him when he found Marisol and she resonated to T’chai instead.”
Wait, what? There was another woman other than Tia? “Who is Marisol?” I try to keep my tone even, but I probably fail. “He hasn’t brought her up.”
“Oh, it’s a whole messy situation,” she says, laughing. “And it’s in the past. Long past. He had a life before you showed up, you know. You did too, I’m sure.”
I’d thought he was a virgin, and now I’m hearing about this Marisol. I don’t know how that makes me feel. “I mean, sure, I had a life. I’m not a virgin—”
She shakes her head, interrupting me. “That’s not what I mean. Romantic entanglements are different here because some people”—and she points at R’jaal—“believe in waiting for resonance no matter the situation. I can assure you that man is as virginal as they come. But when he met Marisol, she was the first woman he’d seen since his island was destroyed, and so he thought she was destined for him. Turns out the moment she saw his tribesmate, she started resonating for him. That had to be devastating, especially since K’thar had immediately resonated to Lauren at first sight.”
