I could scarcely breathe. I could scarcely hear over my own heartbeat for I would see her again.

Miyani.

Just saying her name sent chills over my skin.

mɪ-ya-ŋi

Everything had to be right. That silk loincloth, I'd washed it by hand and strung it up to dry early that morning. I combed my hair, scrubbed every inch of my skin—nearly gave myself a rash. I brushed my teeth twice. Dariana had slipped me a vial of yastzi dust the day we left. This’ll win you any girl!

Her home was in one of the grass-covered clusters of domes between the vita’o yard and the library—a tower with mud apartments reaching five stories high stacked one atop another and thick grass growing all over it. Several windows on the higher levels gave hints that someone lived within—bright colored cloths hung over the sill or iron pots steaming with some tea. Three of those giant mud apartment houses formed a courtyard dominated by the smoke of seared spices that came from everywhere all at once, accompanied by the sound of children chasing each other amid drums and pipes being practiced off to the side.

People with dark green skin and white hair were everywhere; most were women. I saw one old man sitting beside a brick fire pit nursing an iron pot suspended over a trio of cut branches. His skin wrinkled him well into his elder years, and his hair had thinned long ago. He toked from a long wooden pipe, looked up at me as I came in, and nodded, smiling with the teeth he had left.

On his shoulder was a white tattoo in the shape of a bat’s wing just as Miyani had.

Several children bumped into me as they rushed past trying to tag one another with sticks, while a few women shouted at them something in Na’uhui. A few of those children had the same dark-green skin and white hair, while easily three of every four had the dark hair and green eyes of their Herali fathers.

I heard a voice call out, “mɪyaŋi!”

Beside the gaping entrance of one of the clusters an old woman sat, facing inside. Her face had aged into a permanent scowl, and she kept at it as her eyes traversed my body.

She also had a bat’s wing inked on her right shoulder.

Then she appeared. She had on a narrow, cream-colored silk flap that fell over her belt and ended in a sharp hem that tickled at her knees. A silver chain necklace dangled between her breasts, and I bathed my eyes in her. She had the most delicious thighs I could ever hope to dream of. Her whole body was toned and fit, in the most perfect way possible. And her face, damn! I couldn’t get over those effusive yellow eyes smiling as wide as her lips amid the most adorable round face, framed by her pixie-cut white hair.

The old woman leaned in and spoke to her, “‘uzi baxaŋa damʌfidoba yɪθi!”

Miyani’s eyes popped and her whole face dropped into alarm. She looked at the old woman. “ʃʊsi ‘o’okosedu?”

The old woman stabbed me with her eyes as she elaborated further. “ɣo’imeze damʌfidoba! baxaŋayeza yɪθi!”

Miyani furrowed her eyebrows at me and shouted, “ʒɪ xeŋeðoxe?”

“Uh…” I shook my head, unsure what was going on.

She stepped towards me quite aggressively, “ʒɪ xeŋeðoxe?” shouting it out. “ʒɪ xeŋeðoxe?”

Several faces turned towards me. I shook my head in desperation. “I don’t know…?”

Miyani stepped up closer, sneered at me, and shouted “ʒɪ xeŋeðoxe? ʒɪ xeŋeðoye? ʒɪ xeŋeðodeya?”

I shrugged.

Her eyes stabbed me and she shouted, “‘asʌ ʒʌgosedu! ʒɪ xeŋeðose!”

I furrowed my eyebrows and shrugged, holding my hands up in confusion. “Maybe?”

I stood with my mouth open adjacent a small scraggly tree with light blue leaves where a small boy sat in a high branch. A young Na’uhui woman came up to grab him and carry him off while giving me the evil eye. Others stood in a perimeter and watched Miyani continue to shout at me.

My heart raced and I felt stupid.

Then another woman emerged from the crowd. Her left leg was made of wood below her knee, her left hand was shriveled and distorted, and on her right shoulder was a white crescent moon tattoo. She was a native woman, and she hobbled between us and held out her good hand to give Miyani pause.

Miyani stood fuming, then turned to face her with her eyes wide. This woman whispered something quietly to her, then turned her amber eyes towards me. Her Herali was clean as a native speaker, “she asks if it's true that another woman gave you that,” pointing at the silk loincloth about my waist.

“Yeah,” I shrugged.

Miyani didn’t wait for a translation. She growled and lunged at me, only to snatch the ear pendant she’d given to me right off my neck. She then screamed, “pʊ ɣʊwose xatʌ!” and stormed back into her apartment.

“It wasn't like that!” I tried, but she didn't understand me. The crowd began to disperse.

“No!” I said. I turned my attention to the woman with the wooden leg. “Tell her it’s not like that!”

I heard a shrill caw behind me. The woman squinted and eyed me with a smug grin. I turned. About twenty feet behind me, Blue stood low on all fours facing me. He let out several guttural clicks before coiling his neck and ending that with a sharp hiss.

My heart raced. I had then to weigh the very real warning that I was about to get my liver ripped out against the need to talk things over with Miyani. It wasn’t what it looked like.

Blue took several steps towards me and dug his claws into the ground, and everyone got out of his way. He continued to hiss and snarl at me. I could imagine his teeth digging into my neck already. I needed to step off, but I had to smooth things over with Miyani. Somehow. It was a misunderstanding. It wasn’t what it looked like.

The woman with the wooden leg rested her good hand in the branch of that scraggly tree and spoke to me. “He says go away. You should probably listen.”

But I couldn't. I couldn't just let things die where they were. There was something about her, something… Ahmi was right. She drew me in like no one ever had. She'd set a place for me at her heart and invited me to sit. I begged for the skill to simply talk to her, know her hopes and ambitions, her fears and apprehensions. What were the challenges in her life and how did she feel about them? I couldn't just drop everything and let it go, not like this. I turned to the woman with the stunted left arm, “it’s not what you think! I just need to talk to her. Tell her…”

She smirked as Blue continued to menace me. “You have more urgent matters.”

Blue shrieked and rested one forelimb on my shoulder, allowing his claws to settle on my skin and set his face inches from mine. Then he yawned open wide and, amid the array of teeth before my eyes I could feel his breath as he hissed at me.

I pretended to be calm. I wasn’t calm, but I pretended to be. How well that worked, I didn’t know, but he likely felt my heart thundering beneath my skin. I held still as best I could, knowing the cost of misunderstanding. “Please let me talk to her?”

The woman with the wooden leg nearly giggled as she spoke. “Go away.”

I turned to face her. “It’s not what it looks like. I know…”

Blue turned one eye to me and pressed his face into mine.

The woman spoke again. “He’s growing impatient.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, hoping that if I could just remain calm, I might be able to go to bed that evening with all my internal organs where they were supposed to be. I swallowed. “I understand what it looks like. I cannot hurt her; I could never do that. I only want to talk to her, that’s all. Maybe you could explain…”

“Explain what?” the woman snapped. “That another kokaxa can’t wait to shove his dick in some native girl?” My eyes went wide as she continued. “A little trophy for your friends? I said go away!”

“That’s not…”

At that, Blue clasped his teeth around my arm and pulled. He didn’t clamp down enough to tear through the flesh, but he pulled with enough force that if I didn’t go with him there would be consequences.

The woman laughed, “bye!”

Blue shoved me away from the clustered buildings and across the grass towards the barracks a good fifty yards before he finally released me. I turned and saw him hiss at my face again, only to walk off towards the edge of the vita’o yard and sit down, resting his head over a forelimb and keeping one eye trained on me.

I didn’t know what to do.

There was no one else around, so I sat.

It wasn’t over. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t what it looked like; it wasn’t like that.

I cried.

I sat cross-legged in the grass and watched as twilight waned. Several open windows throughout the building offered up the faint glow of an oil lamp or some candle within, and the wind in the trees danced to the music of my breath. Several children wandered outside to point at me, only for their mothers to gawk and usher them back inside. All the while Blue didn’t move. He kept his eye on me.

I had an idea.

What if I could talk to him?

I didn’t know how much he understood me, but it was worth a shot.

I stood and looked at him. He lifted his head and held still.

I didn’t know why this didn’t occur to me before; she was close with him. They spent their day together roving through the forest. Who better than Blue to tell her that I was sorry, that it was all a misunderstanding, and that I was willing to do whatever it took to make it up to her, to show her I was serious?

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I started to walk towards him.

After a few steps, he raised his head further and cracked his mouth open.

“I want to talk to you.”

A few steps later, and he jumped up onto his hind legs, turned his face towards me, and hissed.

“No,” I said. “I just want to talk.”

At that, he barreled straight at me, stretching his neck out and in a few strides rammed his head into my belly, knocking me clean to the ground.

On my back, I tried to sort through the myriad of sensations, from the shock of pain to my arse, the thud of my head against the ground, or the overall fight to breathe while my muscles struggled to reset. Amid all that, I felt something sharp on my wrist. Out of instinct, I tried to jerk my hand away, only to get caught in his teeth. A searing pain focused all my attention to where he’d held my wrist in his jaws and, still struggling to breathe, a trickle of blood oozing down my arm sent a shock of terror through my heart.

I panicked. I froze. I didn’t know what was going to happen next.

At that, Blue released my arm and brought one eye close to the site of the injury before turning back to face me and letting out a sharp caw followed by a string of guttural clicks. Then he stepped away from me completely, raised his head to the sky and cawed again, only to loom back over me and hiss, only to step away again, bobbing his head about in earnest. I could see his eyes scanning the forest of the vita’o yard.

Another voice called out, “vʌ xewekʊ!”

It was Ta’o, the same man known for wrestling liver-eating lizards to the ground. He’d approached from the clustered building with the wooden-legged woman by his side. In his hand was a stick laden with skewered food glistening of sauce

Blue looked at him, cawed, then ran off behind a nearby bush.

All my strength left me, and I collapsed into the grass. The pain was everywhere. I still couldn't breathe let alone determine if I would still have a right hand in the morning.

“What the hell were you thinking, bro?”

I took as deep a breath as my body would allow. “Who says I was thinking?”

The woman with him rested her weight on her wooden leg and crossed one arm over her chest to grab at her stunted arm. She sneered at me, “are you ready to try going away, yet?”

Ta’o glanced at her and smirked, then came over to me and offered his hand. “Come on.”

I took it with my left and, without dropping his stick full of food, he hoisted me up to stand. Immediately I felt dizzy. I tried to take a deep breath but ended up coughing. Blood dripped onto the grass from my fingers, and I felt some kind of sharp pain in the small of my back. “There has to be a way to talk to her. Smooth things over. I know…”

Ta’o gazed at my mangled hand and broke out laughing. The woman stepped up to me and poked a finger from her good hand in the center of my chest. “You must be a special kind of stupid!”

I reeled some. “I’m probably stupider than you think. I thought it was some cultural difference, something I didn’t understand. I’ve been so wrong about so much since I got here that…”

The woman poked her finger into my chest again and snapped while Ta’o stared off into the distance between us. “You arrogant racist fuckbag! Us primitive savages, we’re so dumb, we’ll believe any amount of bullshit you throw at us, is that right?”

I shook my head, “no…”

Ta’o continued to stare into the distance with a blank expression as she continued. “Oh, those poor little uncivilized creatures! Let us show them the way! Oooh, look! Fire! That must be some super advanced technology, I wonder if I can eat it. Just make sure you bag a few of those naked savages while you’re here…”

“You don’t know me!”

“I don't need to—you’re all the same!” She lifted her wooden leg through the grass and leaned into me, thrusting her face up in defiance. “GO AWAY!”

I couldn’t take my eyes from Ta’o. His whole face went blank and he was frozen in that position, as though his mind was lost in another world.

The woman turned to look at him, and a flash of panic crossed her face. She forgot about me entirely and went towards him.

Ta’o turned to face her, and a warm smile stretched across his face. He then faced me while speaking to her. “No, he is that stupid. He’s actually stupider than that by order of magnitude.”

While he bit down on a morsel of food and slid it off the stick with his teeth, The woman rested her good hand on his chest and pleaded up at him with her eyes.

Ta’o swallowed and smiled at her. “‘eʒude.”

She leaned in close, draped her arm across his chest wrapping her fingers over his shoulder and whispered, “ʒɪ gasoɣe?”

“Yup!” Then he looked back at me. “No, uh… I was just realizing that this man you see before you,” he used his dinner as a pointer. “This man is the stupidest thing the universe has ever created. She created mugworms and said, ‘surely there must be a way to create something stupider than that.’ So for seven days and seven nights, Mother crafted this man right here, whose sole purpose is to serve as a baseline for stupidity. A mathematical zero, if you will.”

Ta’o gazed at me with a wide grin. The woman looked at me briefly before turning back to him, “to ŋavodiɣe… ʒɪ ‘eʒuɣe?”

I was desperate. “If there’s any chance I could talk things over with Miyani, you can write all that on my tombstone once Blue finishes off with my liver.”

Ta’o smiled wide and laughed. “Awesome!” Then he leaned down to whisper something in the woman’s ear.

She leaned her whole body into him and smiled, looking longingly into his eyes, “kʌŋʌ?”

“kʌŋʌ ‘eʒude,” he purred. “Don’t worry about it. So… Caleb, this is Dashuni, daʃuŋi, this is Caleb. He’s one of the new…”

“I know where he’s from.”

“ʃʊsi xewekʊɣe ʒʌgodeza. ti?”

“Fine.” At that, she hobbled back towards the entrance to her cluster building. I watched his eyes traverse her backside as she left—she turned and smiled at him over her shoulder before disappearing behind the mud building.

He then turned to me and bit down on another morsel of food, ripping it clean off the stick this time, allowing the sharp smell of roast onion to fill the air. “Alright, so you want to talk things over with Miyani, is that right?”

“Yes,” I nodded. My heart dared sing a flutter of hope.

“Even though Blue nearly ripped your hand off?”

I turned towards the trees in the yard nearby and found no sign of him. I looked at the wound on my wrist; the blood had stopped oozing and crusted over. I shrugged. “He’s protecting her. I can't blame him.”

Ta’o nodded. “You understand that you'll never come between them.”

I furrowed my eyebrows. He took another bite and continued.

“A scout and her vita'o are like… she'll be the most loyal, most loving, most supportive, most respectful, and most honest woman you'll ever meet. But you can be together, have five kids together, married fifty years, and if she has to choose between you and him, she'll choose him. Every time. That's how it is. And believe me, I've seen plenty of men struggle with that—Na’uhui men who grew up around it—who think they can handle not being the center of her world, only to find out the hard way that it's not that simple. My observation is if what you're looking for in a relationship is someone to make you feel like you're the center of the universe, then maybe someone like Miyani isn't for you. But if you're looking for a partner, someone who challenges you, who inspires you, someone who isn’t afraid to tell you the dirty truth when you need to hear it but still loves you no matter what, then,” he shrugged.

I nodded. In truth, I didn't hear half of what he said; I really just wanted to see her again. “So does this mean you'll help me?”

Ta’o laughed hard and slapped his hand on my shoulder. “You think you're up for it, huh? Alright, well… let's start with why are you wearing this?”

I looked down at the silk garment between my legs. “It's comfortable.”

He shook his head as he surveyed the remaining options on the stick, settling on what looked like a charred tomato. “No… no. Wrong answer. Try again.”

I studied the thing, feeling the smooth silk in my fingertips. “It's not like that. I left a tithe in the church, Tani said her son took it and she gave this to me to make up for it.”

Ta’o stood with a grin. “OK… we might be able to work with that. Did this taŋi tell you that was the reason why she gave it to you?”

I nodded.

Ta’o nodded in kind. “So… you’re saying that you didn't know taŋi was flirting with you, is that right?”

“No. I mean yes, that’s what I’m saying. I didn’t know.” Images flooded my mind of Tani sitting down next to me in the church and resting her hand on my knee as we spoke. There was a look in her eyes as she gave me the gift, and a peculiar way of peeking over her shoulder at me as she walked off.

“How much did the kid take?”

“Four kren.”

He snorted out a hard chortle of laughter. “Right. So that's a problem. Do you have any idea how much a yɪθi like this costs?”

I looked down at it again. My thumb traced a line of gold thread as it spiraled around. Ranía did say it was very expensive. “No?”

He smiled. “Think about it. How much do you think it costs?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know; I’ve never bought anything like this before.”

“Oh, come on! Feel the silk. All over your skin, where it counts the most. Feel the fine texture of the fabric. Tell me how much do you think that costs? Look at the gold embroidery. Look closely. Who stitched the hair on this spider’s legs? Do you think some amateur did that?”

“Uh… no?”

“OK. So how much do you think something like this is going to cost?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know? A lot?”

Ta’o nodded. “A lot.”

I looked at it again. “How much does something like this cost?”

Ta’o opened his eyes wide for emphasis. “A LOT!” He bit down on the next morsel of food and slid it off his stick, leaving a shimmering trail of grease behind.

“Oh.” I looked down at the offending garment once more. “I thought she was being friendly.”

“Yeah… when a Na'uhui woman gives you something to wear, she's not thinking ‘friends.’ But that's good—we can use that. We'll call it a cultural difference.”

I rubbed the fine silk between my fingers and studied the intricate gold stitching. “I should probably change out of this.”

Ta’o smirked. “That would be a good start! So you do that,” he lifted my hand and studied the wound, “might want to clean this up, and then come back. I will talk to her, and you're going to owe me one.”

I wasted no time. Back at the barracks, I shuffled out of the silk yɪθi and tossed it in the dirty pile. I then rummaged through whatever was clean, opting for simple trousers and skipped a shirt. I found a basin in the wash room where I scrubbed the dried blood from my arm. Once clean, it didn’t look nearly as bad, so I raced back over to the area where I’d left Ta’o.

I slowed as I approached, trying to look if I could see Blue lurking in the trees somewhere, hoping if I didn’t walk too aggressively he might not feel the need to finish making me left-handed. I didn’t see him, but I saw Miyani talking with Ta’o just outside the clusters of mud huts. I’d got about twenty yards away when I heard that loud squawk again.

I stopped and stood still with my hands up… and my chin down to cover my neck, just in case.

Blue strode towards me quickly, hissing as he went, then got down on all fours and snarled at me.

“BLUE!” Miyani called out to him.

He turned his lizard face towards her, and she made a come-hither with her finger. At that, he stood up again and darted over to her, then rubbed his face in her cheek. She smiled and stroked his neck and spoke softly to him things I wouldn’t have understood even if I could hear from where I stood.

Then she and Blue walked over to me with Ta’o closely behind. As she got close, she saw the cuts all over my wrist and turned to look at Blue. He squawked and looked away, and she pursed her lips before looking at me again.

Ta’o laughed. “You said you wanted to talk to her, here she is!”

Here was my chance. I couldn’t mess this up. I decided I would pour my heart out, be totally honest and tell her everything. She tilted her head up at me and fixed those adorable eyes on mine. “I’m… OK, so… I'm sorry. I'm deeply, deeply sorry. I didn't mean anything by it, I tell you the truth I didn't know she'd given it to me as a flirt, I should have known. Thinking back, I definitely should have known, but I honestly didn't think of it like that. I should have…”

Miyani looked at me with her brow furrowed before turning to Ta’o. I felt like a complete arse.

Ta’o looked back at her with a warm smile but shrugged and said nothing.

I looked down. I had to scour my mind for what little I knew. So, I looked at her and said, “go… uh… ɣowide. I'm an idiot. ɣowide.”

She laughed. Good sign? Then she shook her head. “kupa ‘avidide. xemiyu peŋevide veŋe xʌtidesa ʃa dowa xemasedu. tæ ‘esapadesa. fæŋode mewa yuʃʌfise ʃa ko’o wæðoxosa…”

“Bro!” Ta’o widened his eyes at me. “You're a virgin?”

“Huh?” I looked at him. “Wait, what is she saying?”

“Is that true, though?”

“I don't see what that has to do…” I shook off the question. “What did she say?”

Miyani turned to Ta’o in expectation. He ignored her and pulled the last morsel from his stick, popped it into his mouth, and licked his fingers.

She urged him, “ʒɪ zebuwose?”

Ta’o nibbled at some caramelized sauce that clung to his stick before looking at her and acting as if he hadn't heard anything.

I understood what he meant. So, I stepped up to her. I checked Blue to see if he would allow it, then took her hand and peered down into her beautiful face. “I really, really like you. Uh… ɣʊdʊ kæwiŋedesa. tuzubode…”

“tuzubose!” She laughed hard at that. “vʌ. vʌ tuzubose. No, I d-zheloos. I soly. ɣʊ ɣʊdʊ kæwiŋedesa really-really.”