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“How far is it?” she asks.
It’s a relief to talk about something other than relationships, whether ours or my parents.
“A couple of hours up, a couple down. Great views. You’ll love it.”
She flashes me that warm smile. I love it more every time I see it. As we walk, the day warms, and so do we from the exercise. I am used to soldiering on. When you are in a competition, you don’t take the time to remove layers.
But when Mira strips down to her tight-fitting shirt, I do the same. It is glorious to just be out on the mountain, walking. There’s no worrying about the time or where the other competitors are.
I’m where I’m supposed to be,I think.
No. You were supposed to be at Avaland two weeks ago.
The voice, which sounds suspiciously like my mother’s, comes from the back of my brain. I look over at Mira. There is a thin sheen of perspiration on her bare arms. With the sunlight, she seems to be glowing.
I have no regrets about giving up Avaland.
When we reach the top, the breeze is stiff. It cools us off quickly. I lead Mira to the outcropping I know. It’s sheltered and looks out onto the vast mountain range to the north.
“Wow.” She wraps her hand around my upper arm and leans into me. “I’ve never seen this before.”
“Most people don’t bother with this hike. Too long, too flat. They don’t know about this spot.”
Right now, that seems like a good thing. We haven’t seen a single person on the way up.
“It seems to go on forever.”
She studies the view, while I study her. I know our bond will hold if I leave her for the next competition, but I don’t want to leave her. Now that I’ve missed one, missing more seems easierall the time. At some point, though, I won’t be able to call myself a competitor if I don’t compete.
Would it be fair to her if I kept at it, though?
This is what being mated is about,I realize. Part of it, anyway. Always having to think about the other person.
“Do you want a snack?” I pull the blanket I packed out of my pack. She grabs one end of it, and we spread it out.
“I’m starving again, actually, that was a lot of walking. I could eat a…Great Garuch.” She grins at me. I laugh and gesture for her to sit down.
“I wouldn’t say that too loud around Kiphians.”
“What, why? I just meant I was really hungry. Humans say we could eat a horse.”
“Horse?” I ask.
“It’s a large animal, like the smallest one probably weighs four times what you do.”
“Maybe say you could eat two chickens. That would be a lot,” I suggest more practically. I am familiar with chickens, as some of the earliest human settlers brought them along. They still are raised in the human settlements to this day.
“I guess I don’t really fit in,” she notes.
“You fit in with me just fine.”
I wrap her up in my arms and pull her down to the ground. She rests her head on my chest and we stare up at the sky.
“There are no clouds.”
“That’s a good thing. Storms move quickly up here.”
“When I was a kid, we would try to find shapes in clouds. But I always thought they were mostly cloud shaped,” she says.
