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“Huh,” she says, the last of her tension melting out of her. Her hands come to rest on her hips as she surveys the space around us. “What cocktail of drugs did they put me on before cryostasis?”
I have heard my brothers tell of all the strange words that their mates use, how the dreamspace struggles sometimes to relay the meaning, even though our spirits are joined deeply here. I get the sense that she talks of healing tonics and the cold sleep of thepods, but I am unsure of my interpretation.
“I am afraid I am unable to answer your question, linasha. Your words make little sense to me.”
I keep my voice soft and gentle, as I used to with my other sisters, careful not to put any suggestion of threat in my tone. My linasha watches me for a moment, eyes narrowed. Then she makes a dismissive noise, walking past me to the walls of the tent. She runs her fingers over the fabric, studying it closely.
“It’s so vivid. So detailed.”
“Because it is not just a dream, it is the dreamspace. If you would please sit with me a moment, I can try to explain…”
I do not get to finish before she throws the entrance of the tent open and steps outside. We are deep in the forest, in some place unfamiliar to me. A stream runs close to where the tent is pitched, some small caves set a little further back from the water’s edge. My linasha drops down to inspect a djenti bush beside the stream, looking from it to the caves and back again.
“Where do I go from here?” she says, in the tone of someone deep in thought.
“Come back to the tent,” I try. “I can…”
She holds up a hand in my direction, not looking round.
“If you’re not going to say anything useful, be quiet so I can think.”
I blink, even as my heartspace thrills at her boldness. I have come to this dreamspace expecting fear from her, and she tells me off as though I am a youngling and she my elder.
“The plan,” she mutters, rising to her full height and surveying the land. Again, I am struck by her magnificence. In the warm daylight of the dreamspace, I can see it even better than before. It is not just her height, although that is the most immediately striking thing about her. It is the other details that I become aware of now. Her tightly muscled backside, her perfectly thick thighs. She still has that feminine curve that is so enchanting about the human females, though it is less pronounced, her figure more like a raskarran female’s than her human sisters’.
She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
“Food,” my linasha says. “Food first, then better shelter.”
She looks at the caves as she says this, and I realise we are standing now where she is in the waking world. She has conjured her surroundings as if she was born to the dreamspace like a raskarran, not confused and disoriented like the unsuspecting humans. I marvel afresh at her spirit. Bold and clever and brave. Fine qualities by anyone’s measure.
I am so very blessed.
Too blessed.
I have to bite down on the urge to speak to that voice aloud, tell it to shut up.
“Food,” my linasha says again, turning to the stream. “Don’t think I’ll find any fish worth eating in here.”
She drops down again, dipping her hand in the water to test its depth. The stream is useful for keeping hydrated, or for getting clean, but it is too shallow to contain life big enough to make a worthwhile meal. More importantly, it is useful for locating her, and I would keep her close to its banks.
“Follow a stream far enough, and it will almost always take you to a river,” I say.
She turns to me, her eyes narrowing. They are a strange colour. Brown, but with a hint of green. I like it.
“Useful,” she says, pointing at me. “Thank you, projection of my subconscious.”
This does not sound like a term of endearment, but my chest puffs up with pride all the same.
She paces for a moment along the edge of the stream, staring down at it.
“Did it flow back towards the base or away from it?” she says, talking low, to the ground, not to me. “Can’t go back there yet, so I’ll need a Plan B if that’s where the stream leads.”
I dare to take a couple of steps closer, noticing more details about her the closer I get. She has a marking on her neck that at first I mistake for an injury, fear gripping my heartspace, but then I see it is a tattoo, much like the kind Calran has. It starts just beneath her ear, stretching round to the front of her neck, following the path of her collarbone. I wonder if humans earn markings the way Cliff Top tribe warriors do - for their fighting prowess. Looking at my linasha, it would not surprise me if she were a champion among her people.
But much as I want to fix every tiny piece of her in my memory, I drag my eyes away from her. It is a wrench, but I know I will only see the lushness of her in the waking world if I can find her, and to do that, it is the details of this location I need to be focused on. The shape of the trees around the stream, the arrangement of the caves. I study it all while my linasha paces, until I am sure I can remember it well enough when I wake.
Because I will find her. I will not fail my tribe, my goddess, my linasha.
