Late Evening
I’d bathed and changed into a clean set of clothes. I trotted down the stone steps and stepped in behind Henmop and nuzzled her neck. “Better?”
She gave the thick cyruh stew a stir then turned in my arms. “Much.” She pulled my lips down into a kiss. “Thank you for your help earlier. She was going to be a handful had you not been there.”
“I wish you wouldn’t try to do stuff like that by yourself. What if you’d gotten kicked?”
“I’ve been kicked before, and I’m sure I’ll get kicked again. Getting kicked and bitten is part of it. I saw you get kicked, but you’re not injured.”
I grunted. The spot I’d been kicked was starting to get sore, and I was going to have a bruise, but I’d live. “Still. You should have had one of the Butherats stay and help. It’s their animal after all. What if I hadn’t arrived when I did?”
“I would have managed without you. I was about to stick her when you came in, but with you helping I didn’t have to worry about breaking the needle off in her.”
“I still worry about you being out here alone with no help.”
“I can take care of myself, and help is only a portal away if I need it.”
She turned back to give the stew another stir. We’d had this conversation before. I wasn’t used to the wide-open spaces of Peraginisis. On Firaspatciti most of the population was clustered in the cities with vast dry tracts of land between them. What crops we grew were clustered near the poles where the weather was cooler and wetter, with ranching a bit further away from the poles where growing plants was difficult, but animals thrived.
Peragin was different. It had no ocean, but millions of lakes that contained its water. It was green, and cool, but so mountainous and rocky that growing crops would be problematic at best. The Peragins were semi-nomadic, traveling vast distances as they followed their herds, living in one of their many homes dotted across their vast land holdings.
I shook it off. The Peragins knew how to take care of themselves. But as I was becoming closer to Henmop, it was increasingly difficult to not worry about her well-being when I was away.
“I know,” I finally said.
“You’re far more likely to be hurt than I am,” she said, picking up the pot of stew and moving to the table. “Don’t forget, you’re the one that nearly died, not me.”
“You’re right. I know you’re right. But it’s so…empty…here. I enjoy the solitude a great deal when I’m here with you, but my imagination stalks me when I’m gone. Like tonight. What if you’d been kicked in the head or something?”
“Then I would have had a headache, and maybe a scar, and a lesson about being more careful.” She smiled at me. “It’s endearing that you worry about me, but you needn’t. It’s you I worry about. As much as I admire Lady Catherina for what she’s doing, and grateful to her I am for bringing us together, I don’t like the idea that you will take a long blade thrust meant for her.”
“It’s my duty.”
“And caring for these animals is mine. We both have to accept what we do and the dangers we may have to face…or we’ll have to acknowledge that can’t accept them and go our own ways.”
I took her hand. “Never.”
She smiled at me. “And I’m the same. I trust you to do your duty and come home to me after each cycle. Trust me to know what I’m doing and not take any unnecessary risks so I can be here when you return.”
I nodded. “Be patient with me. It’s difficult sometimes to embrace our differences.”
She softened. “No more for you than for me. You think I like the thought of you standing between Catherina and death?”
“No. But she would like you to visit. That part I know for sure.”
She nodded as she ignored my statement about a visit. “You’re right, I don’t. But I know that’s who you are, my mate. It makes you the man I care for.”
She smiled then pointed with her spoon. “Now eat, before the kulth gets cold. Then I’d like to have your help getting the huyarah up on her feet.”
I nodded, giving the thick stew a stir to help cool it. Embrace our differences. That was what Lady Catherina was always saying. I smiled as I took a small bite of the stew.
The Peragins ate mostly meat laden stews with various local tubers mixed in, sometimes ladled over a thick slice of bread. Henmop said it was because the meal could be left simmering for hours while work was being done and it would taste as good if eaten immediately or hours after it was prepared. On Firaspatciti, we didn’t mix our foods in this way, and I’d initially found the appearance unappetizing. I hadn’t wanted to offend her when she’d made it for the first time, so I’d tried it, and found it to be very tasty indeed. By mixing in different tubers, meats, and spices, what appeared to be the same dish had many different flavors and textures. It was hearty and filling, and I beginning to prefer it in some ways to the flame seared meats typical in the Firaspatciti diet.
After we’d eaten, we returned to the stable. The huyarah was still on her side, but it was obvious she had been struggling to get up as she had managed to turn herself crosswise in the stall and get herself stuck. Huyarahs were known for their soft fur and tasty meat, not their intelligence. The animal began to kick and trash as we stepped into the stall, its high pitched shriek of terror heart breaking and deafening at the same time.
“Easy, girl,” Henmop murmured as she knelt and stroked the animal’s head. The animal stopped thrashing, but its eyes were still rolled back in its head in fear. The huyarah knew that in the wild, if it didn’t get up so it could run, it was dead.
“Are you ready?” Henmop asked.
I nodded as I stepped behind the animal. I’d done this before, too. Henmop and I changed places. Since it was a front leg that was broken, the front is where the huyarah would need the most assistance, and since I was bigger and stronger, that is where I could be the most useful.
“Easy little sister,” I whispered, rubbing the animal on the head between its eyes as Henmop did to calm it. “We’re going to get you up, okay?”
I looked at my mate. She nodded and we lifted. Huyarahs were big animals, easily twice as heavy as I was. I grunted with the effort to get the animal up enough that it could get its good leg under her. The huyarah began kicking and thrashing, realizing she was almost on her feet, fighting to help. She stepped hard on my foot and I bit off the cry of pain. It would do no good and would only frighten the animal. Having my foot under her eight-toed foot allowed her toes to grab my foot as if it were a rock, giving her secure footing to get upright. The minute she was on her feet, I shoved her hard off my foot.
“Get off my foot you overweight sack of dung!”
As Henmop laughed at me, the huyarah stumbled then regained her balance, staring at me before she shrilled out her call in indication. I didn’t care if my shove made her hurt her damaged leg, she was breaking my foot.
Henmop stepped around to the front of the animal and offered her a tuber, a favorite treat for any huyarah. The animal limped forward and took it, crunching it loudly before looking Henmop to see if she was going to offer her another one. Henmop produced another and the animal took it greedily.
“Can you put some feed in the trough for her?” Henmop asked.
I poured a scoop of feed into the feed trough. As the obviously ravenous animal began to devour it, Henmop knelt and checked the splint and then made a small adjustment.
“That’s all I can do for her,” she said as she rose. “The bone is aligned. Now it just needs to heal. In a couple of days I’ll turn her out in the pasture during the day to let her walk around on it to speed the healing.”
I nodded like I agreed with the treatment, but in reality, I had no idea. I drew the beast some water, let her drink her fill from the container, and then refilled it. I refilled the food trough, but the huyarah seemed content at the moment.
Henmop nodded in satisfaction then smiled at me. “Thank you. How’s your foot?”
“It’s fine.”
“Are you sure? You don’t need me to…tend to you tonight? Perhaps I can think of something to take your mind off the discomfort.”
I smiled at her. “Perhaps.”
She smiled back. “Perhaps we should comfort each other?”
“Even better.”
She stepped in close. “When do you return to duty?”
“I report on the evening of the third day.”
She sighed. “Well, if that’s all the time we have, I don’t want to waste a moment of it.”
I lowered my lips to hers and took her in a long, slow kiss. I couldn’t have agreed with her more.