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The human insult doesn’t work on me. I don’t know why they call each other that. All I know about chickens is that they taste like our taki meat, which is delicious. I strip down and jump anyway.
The water is freezing. I shout out, just like my mate did, as soon as I come up and the air hits my lungs. She’s already paddling back towards the shore and our house. I catch up with her in a few strong strokes.
“Want a ride?”
I’m teasing, but when she reaches for me, I let her grab my neck. I get us across the small lake in no time, and together we sprint up towards our cabin. We’ve been living here for the past four months or so, and we absolutely love it.
“Might be getting too cold for this.” Though we’re living near the base of the mountain and the temperatures are much less brutal here, it’s still getting to the chilly part of the year.
She hands me one of the towels we hung by the fire before we went out. I wrap it around her and rub it up and down vigorously. Then I dry myself off.
Five minutes later, we are cozied up in front of the fire, warm mugs in hand.
“I’ll go up and get our clothes after this.”
I raise my mug up slightly.
“Or later. It’s supposed to warm up.”
She shivers.
“I hope so. Much as I love our little morning ritual.” We jump in the lake first thing every morning. Well, often we make love first, then go jump in the lake. “It might just be getting too cold.”
“I knew you were a chicken.”
“Is that why you went and climbed Little Rainier without me?”
The Kiphian word for it is Kalorda. But she said humans compare it to a mountain on Earth called Rainier, so I started calling it that.
She nudges my foot with hers. “I just knew you wanted to lead that hike on the Southern Continent.”
We were apart for almost three weeks. On the mountain, I felt like myself, but I definitely missed her in my tent every night. It’s a feeling I never expected. Finding my fated mate did change me, but not in the way that I thought it would.
Having her out there, in the world, even when we are far apart, somehow it just means something. When I’m climbing, I’m not just trying to get to the top of the mountain. I’m always trying to get back to her.
“We should plan our next trip. You know, for after the mating ceremony. The moon journey.”
Iara laughs.
“Honeymoon.” She puts her head on my shoulder and rubs my chest under the towel. “Shouldn’t we plan the mating ceremony first?”
“I think my mom has taken care of most of that. She’s just waiting for us to pick from the options.”
“How many options?”
“A lot.”
We get dressed side by side. I head out to the taki house – coop, Iara always calls it a coop – and grab a couple of eggs. Since the day will warm up, I start a fire outside. Soon we will need a fire in the house continuously, but right now the passive solar heating is enough.
She cooks the eggs over the fire, and we eat in silence. A perfectly comfortable silence.
“We got the best spot, I think.”
I look around. Not many people would want to live way out in the middle of nowhere, but it suits us just fine. The air is clear,and the noises of the forest are a constant symphony. The lake provides more than enough water.
“What are you going to work on today? The icehouse or the greenhouse?”
Those are my two big projects right now. Iara is more focused on furnishing the house. The first piece of furniture she built was our bed.
