We were hungry later, so Cherie showed me her food. It was all together in one place, in a big stone hollow in the corner.

I skimmed my fingers through it. It sifted like sand.

“Did you collect all this?”

“A god brought it.”

I put a tiny pinch of it my mouth. It tasted like the grain heads you eat when you can’t find any meat or fruit.

“You can have more than that,” she said. “If it gets low, a god will refill it again.”

I couldn’t believe that. “The best they ever bring us is some clothes or a knife.”

Her pale eyebrows stretched up toward her hairline when I said that.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to have a knife,” she said.

I shrugged. “Then why did they drop it for us?”

“I-I don’t know.” She blinked and shook her head, pulling back a little. “You don’t have a knife here, do you?”

“Nah, it got lost when I fought with Thrasher—another guy on the Range. But I’ve got my spurs, so I don’t really need one. You’d think a girl would want some kind of weapon since you don’t have any spurs.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“We don’t need any. The gods protect us.”

“That must be nice,” I said, thinking of the night before, hidden away from the stars and monsters.

“It is.” She offered me a handful of food. Since there was nothing else and I didn’t know where to find better stuff, I ate a couple handfuls. It was easier to chew than grain heads, but it made me just as thirsty.

“Is there a stream in this {cave}?” I asked her.

She giggled, then asked me to say {cave} again.

“Did I say it wrong?”

Cherie shook her head. “I like the way you speak. There isn’t a stream in the {cave}, but there’s water over there.”

I stared at the shiny stick she’d pointed at. It sat on the ledge of another stone hollow.

“Here?”

“Here.” She pushed the stick. Water fell from it into the hollow. She kept pushing until it filled the stone to its ledge, then she pulled it. The stream stopped. She scooped out a handful and sipped it.

Everything Cherie did was so dainty. Even shaking the excess water from her hand.

She smiled self-consciously when she saw the way I was looking at her.

“What?” She wiped her lips with the back of her wrist. “What is it?”

“Nothing. You’re just great.”

With the food and water and each other there, we could’ve stayed right there forever. We didn’t leave all that day.

“Why do you think the gods don’t bring you food or protect you from monsters?” Cheri asked later on.

“I don’t know. Maybe they don’t like us as much as they like you.”

She frowned. “But why?”

“Maybe because our guys have spurs and like to crow and our girls are always trying to hide their stone babies in the woods so they can keep them.”

I thought about the time a god had stopped me and Thrasher fighting, how it had picked me up, and I’d bitten it and gotten thrown me across the clearing.

Then I looked at Cherie’s soft white feathers and downy hair. She was so different from us. Getting kicked around by a god? That would break every bone in her body. I hadn’t seen much of the guy Angels around here, but I got the feeling they wouldn’t even survive a spurring.

“Maybe they know they’ve got to take care of you,” I said. “I would.”