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We reach the rocky island and Xuela have signalled that it looks safe and she is waiting on a high cliff. She really don't want to land where someone can ambush her again, but she also need to rest and eat, and she have been here before. So we anchor and we do a sweep of the island just to be sure, before we climb up the cliff. We locate features we have named, and take more headings and photos of them, while I let them practise using the mobile phone. We need to figure out a name for this island too, but it's hard to make something that's distinctive and not terrible, and several of us can pronounce. Xuela use her Direction and gives exact headings to several distant locations we can't see, like Lake Camp and King's Camp, and I make a sketch in the book making sure to mark features on the horizon. Then it's time for lunch and just try to enjoy a peaceful moment. Something to make this trip feel like leisure more than dangerous exploration. We still keep all around watch and we're not far from the catamaran, but Xuela haven't seen any sign of people, and this large island seems to be just about a sixth of a square kilometer with rock, grass, bushes and the some low trees on the land side. A good place to let sheep or goats graze if this was Earth, but not to build a camp here on Dinosaur planet. The water towards land isn't deep enough and a big dino could just walk out here, and we assume the dino's can swim. Seeing a dino coming wouldn't be that helpful if you didn't have good defences, but it would be possible.
Our meal is prepared food and we don't make a fire, so eating goes quick and it's time to cast off and head back. I really hope we get a frying pan next Rings of light as it would give better meal options. We already have a couple of different cooking vessels in earthenware, so we can make soup and slow cook, but more options are more options. We don't know if Koru have managed to get Kima yet, but without radio it is hard to coordinate. It annoys me far more than it should that I have two mobile phones, but without a working mast they can't be used for useful communication. Due to the danger of waiting on the island in Raider river, the plan is for Xuela to get her eyes on Koru so we can sort of guesstimate a rendezvous. Xuela is bad at judging distance-time on land or water, but she knows where Kima and the island is, and can say something like 'one third on the way back' and it is up to me to convert that due to wind and river current. I have my smart watch and have been taking time to reach certain spots. It might mean we have to sail slower or anchor offshore.
Xuela have left, and we're just about to cast off when Reiley take Bokyli with her to 'relieve themselves'. I get the distinct impression that they're going to the 'ladies room' to have a talk in private, since I know they pee'd and pooped before lunch. This can not be good. Did I miss something during lunch? Was it something I said? They're something like 70 meters away when they draw their bows and shout:
"Come out without weapons and with your hands away from your body!!"
What? Shit!
I scramble to grab my crossbow and flip the safety so the string is loaded. I kneel in cover and scan the surroundings while glancing at them as they shout again, and I see some person crawling out from under a bush. The person is about as big as them with a similar body shape and limbs and greyish-brown. I continue to scan for other threats, but I really want to hear what they're saying. And know why they are lowering their bows. Still ready, just not drawn. Although holding a drawn bow quickly gets hard. After several minutes the impression is more relaxed and Reiley signals 'friendly' and 'keep watch' which I do. After a few more minutes that feel like hours, Reiley walks back to me and the catamaran, while Bokyli stay and talk. I got so many questions, and Reiley informs me as she sit down on the catamaran and look back at Bokyli and the other person talking:
"It's a woman called Vekalie, and she is the same kind as Bokyli, with the same glowing irises, tail and ability to change. They seem to have lived far from each other, although they both have heard about the same distant city, just from opposite directions. I thought I heard something while we ate, but I was unsure, and I was honestly unsure even as I called for her to come out. Vekalie woke up 18 days ago, and have avoided contact with people as she have tried to find her way home. She seem to have just spent day after day running toward the sunset while avoiding dinosaurs, or running away from them, and she even ran in valleys below those snow capped distant mountains Xuela talked about. Vekalie reached the sea a few days ago and just started to run south. She found this island and have spent a day resting here and being depressed and feeling so lost and doubting her decisions, like if she should run north instead. Vekalie have seen many camps and people and there are three camps further north along the coast, but everyone looked so weird or was aggressive and she just wanted to get home. To find her tribe. Vekalie didn't realise that Bokyli were her kind, and she was planning to just watch us leave before starting to run again. Bokyli is informing her about this world, and your thoughts about it and the spirits. I assume we might have a new group member."
"If she really is like Bokyli..."
"Yes. She too will change for you."
Reiley doesn't have to say the words. Vekalie will also need 'my attention' eventually, and I am ambivalent to that. I'm actually not looking forward to that, and I will feel 'damned' about Vekalie too.
"You can't say anything to them or others about this, but I would honestly prefer that wouldn't be happening. Reiley, just cuddling with you each night is so nice and I love doing that, and I love you. I missed you when you were away scouting. You. Not the sex. Our sex is very nice, but you know that it is the intimacy I appreciate in our relationship, and talking and just being with you. Living with you. The Reiley I love is not your body; it is your mind that makes you, you. That makes you Reiley. It's my mind that makes me, me. Out bodies are important, but our mind is who we are. Bokyli was utterly unexpected, and although it needs to be done, I feel bad about just the sex part. Towards you and her. But I really don't like how Bokyli is being changed and keyed to me, and how she now get a pleasure rush from just smelling me, and she want to lick the sweat from my body because it taste so good. I fear that Bokyli is becoming addicted to me, and sex with me. I have you, and I don't want a brain washed addicted sex doll mistress, but none of us can stop what is happening to her, and I fear how far her body will change and change her mind, and how my touch or words will effect that change. Seeing those pictures won't help. But rejecting her might be even worse. Bokyli know some of this, but for me the scariest part is that her mind and personality is changing, and she don't seem to care because her body makes it so, no matter what the old Bokyli would really want. I would be utterly terrified to know that I would change like that.
Love is basically a chemical reaction in humans, and likely so in almost every person here, since that is how biology works. That good feeling and pleasure from seeing you smile is a chemical reaction, and it change me and what I prioritise. I want to see more of those smiles and protect you, because it makes me feel good. Love and attraction makes us do crazy things, but we do have some control over that. Bokyli though, is on a completely different scale. Not just that she have become territorial and protective of me. There is no reason for Bokyli to develop erogenous nipples, except that I like to make the woman feel good and if the sex is better, Bokyli will want more of it. Motivating the addict to get another rush. So, her body changing and the sex is one thing, but her mind is another thing. And now the same thing will likely happen with Vekalie too, and it will burden you even more. I can't even remotely blame the damn alien bastards this time, as Vekalie seem to have run an absurdly long distance; with Bokyli's mobility, 1000-1500 km is very likely over 18 days."
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
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"I just can't get over how your changed, and how fast."
"I know. It still feels strange seeing my own reflection, but I'm getting used to it and I'm curious how much I will change. Do you know the tale of Tenuro's tribe?
"What? Tenoru? Tenoru... You mean the tale where they change..."
"Exactly."
"That is a wild tale for children."
"When I woke up 10 days ago, I looked like you. Well, you know what I mean. Different tribe and all that. But our kind can 'change' far more and faster than I ever thought, and I remembered Tenoru's tale, although my change is not that fast or extreme. I woke up alone in a completely new environment, but I had plenty of food and spent day after day with Arne and Reiley, and Arne is the only man in our group."
"How does that matt.... Oh. Tenoru's tale. So that is why you..."
"Exactly."
"So if I join your group..."
"...you will change just like me, and I'm still changing a bit every day. Your body will probably use me and them as a guide, so it might go even quicker for you. Arne is a good, kind and wise man that just wants the best for all of us, and our camp is becoming very good, comfortable and safe. They risked their life to rescue me just because it was the right thing to do, and I really liked them before I started to change, and I'm happy to be Arne's woman."
"But he is not the same as us! He looks so weird! He doesn't even have a tail!"
"That doesn't matter, and if you insult him you better be prepared to face me with steel in your hand. Arne is sad that I change for him, and blame himself for something that isn't his fault, but I like my changes. This morning I realised that these have become erogenous, and it feels so good to play with them. I can't wait to get back to our camp as Arne have promised that he will fondle, lick and kiss them as we have sex. His kind is very inventive when it comes to sex, and our sex is just getting better. He smells so nice, and I could just lick the wonderful sweat from his body all day long. You too will be happy as his woman."
"I married two months ago! I love my husband Kemolo. I want to start a family with Kemolo. I want Kemolo!"
"The 'Mighty Spirits' took that future from you, as what you want from life doesn't matter to them. We are just their playthings. Arne refer to them as 'damn alien bastards' for very good reasons, and refuse to use the visions they have granted him just to make a point. As I said, he is a good, honest and principled man. So, no matter what you want or had planned in life, this is another world and you will never see Kemolo again. We two are the first we know for sure is even from the same kind, and you have travelled so far. You could spend the rest of your life living like you have - running day after day and hiding under bushes or up in trees - but you might just find a few more of us here. We two are from tribes far away from each other, but from what Arne and others have said about the actual size of our vast home worlds and this world, we two have been very lucky that we have meet and comes from places that are so close to each other."
"I love Kemolo."
"I know Vekalie. We all have family, people and loved ones we miss. But the hard truth is that you will never see Kemolo again, and you will live each day missing him while chasing rainbows and being alone and miserable. Or you might be killed, or captured and made a slave as some people here are very evil, and many will see you as an animal instead of a person. Arne will never see you as an animal, as his kind is used to seeing strange beings as real people. Come with us, and in just 8 to 14 days Kemolo won't be that important to you, and the pain you feel by missing him will disappear. Arne will become the only man that matters, and you will be pleased that it is so. I've never wanted to marry or have children, but now it would be so nice to make a family with Arne. But Arne have taught me a lot, and we're completely different species evolved on different worlds, so although we look close and I can change; children are impossible. Two similar species on our world like a Glaru bird and a Feri bird can't have offspring, and they are far closer than the different people waking up here. Although Arne worries that the Spirits have done or will do something incredibly creative and at least some people here might have children, or as he puts it; there is a non-zero chance. Arne don't want to have children since this is a dangerous world, and pregnancy and children is just too risky. I would really want to have children with Arne, and he would make a good father, but I agree with the dangers and we're simply not ready for that. We will have children if the 'Spirits' sees fit for us to have them, but as long as we have sex and I can spend time in his arms, I'll be happy."
"But if there are others of our kind here, we could eventually find a man and form a real family and have children."
"True, but you don't know how that man is, or how his life here is. Think of all the men you've meet in life before waking up here: Would you want to form a family with any randomly chosen man of them?"
"No! ... Oh, I see what you mean. And since that would be the only man, I would still change and probably quicker, so after a week or so I would want to form a family with him. And then I would have children in this dangerous world."
"Exactly, and you would be so alone and desperate for company with any connection to your old life, that you would stay until it was so. And that man might be completely incompetent, a slave or a very evil man. If I had been a man and not told you this, you would change for me before you even understood, and we don't know how men of our kind will change. It might be very bad. Arne is a very good, wise and competent man, and our leader for several good reasons. He didn't even have a proper knife or a canteen when he woke up here, as his culture is so very advanced and he lived in a town, but he is also very smart and crafty, and he made stone tools, traps, and built a very good hut with a stone roof, and made proper pots and furniture during just his first week here. Arne have just been here a week longer than you, but he's literally made real iron tools from mud - Mud! - and we have nice furniture and pots, good kitchens, crop fields, soap and so on. The huts are even getting glass windows, and he is working on glass vessels."
"Really?!"
"Really. That 'catamaran' is also Arne's design, and for him it is so primitive. Although his kind considers huge flying wagons to be an everyday thing. Arne comes from a very advanced culture where everyday life makes the tales we have sound paltry in comparison. You should just see some of the things he have, and he's already figured out stuff like how many days a year here have, and he is teaching us so much. He has literally created a written language that works with glyphs so everyone can learn it, no matter their own language. Our tribe will be a good and strong tribe that will grow, and you could be part of the core of our tribe. But you have to remember that Arne is in a relationship with Reiley and their hut is theirs. Reiley understandably won't like to share Arne with yet another woman, but already reluctantly accepted that since you will need it and she is a very good person and friend. She does not complain that my scent is on him and their bed. So you have to be nice and respectful, and remember that we don't talk about the sex to make that easier. We also need to pretend you are slightly older to make it easier for Arne, as he feel bad about us being young compared to him. It's a stupid human moral issue thing, so just say you're 18 when anyone ask. You will not share their hut and bed at night, but you will have a nice bed or hammock in the community hut, just like me."
"You don't share his hut or bed!?!"
"No."
"He doesn't love you?!"
"Arne's actions proves he does, but he is conflicted about being in a relationship with two women, as that is something bad in his culture. His kind have the same amount of men and women. Our relationship is just a few days old, so it will take some time to adjust. Reiley is used to a man having a couple of women, but Arne is her first man and she is in love, so it would be stupid of me to force myself in. I don't mind living in the community hut, and we will have company of two other people in there. It's large and nice, and getting nicer each day. Building just takes time as we have to do everything by ourselves, and this is a dangerous world where plans and priority change. Like building that catamaran and travelling here today."
"Why are you so willing to share the man you say you love?"
"I am not, and always remember that every wonderful moment you have with Arne, could have been my wonderful moment with Arne. But this is a dangerous world and we are of the same people, and what do we do when one of us is found in need of help, or we meet a wanderer?"
"We welcome them, and share our home, warmth and food."
"I welcome you Vekalie, knowing that doing so also means eventually sharing the man I love. Once you have changed and truly understand what that means, you will know how grateful you should be to me and Reiley. So, just be respectful to everyone, try to do good work and not be a bother or complain. You will have a few days to truly decide if you will stay or move on."
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