From the touch of the bindings, her throat burned. The captive woman breathed soft, ragged breaths against the opaque veil. But that faint little promise still sang sweet inside her ears, the fleeting scent drifting past the ashen haze, a whisper beneath the stench of burning flesh.
The assembly of riders crossed the smoldering earth in silence. The only sounds that rang over the low howl of the wind were their rumbling hoofbeats and the vaguest creak of armor.
Only a single one of the procession straggled along on foot, bound from the waist to her neck by a thin length of silvery cord. Similar metal jingled quietly over the brow of her veil, pointed symbols she knew the riders believed would keep her well-contained.
It was not the insignia, she reminded herself: but the material. That line of pale metal, nearly as thin as spider’s silk, gleamed there in the firelit darkness. The glittering cord traveled from the loop cinched over her pulse, past the saddle of an armored roan destrier, all the way up into the grip of a plated mail gauntlet, fist clenched.
That lofty winged helm cut an imposing line past the swirls of airborne cinders. As if a thousand bladed feathers crowned the crest of her narrow visor, the massive warrior cast a sharpened, looming figure atop the back of her warhorse.
Emberlight played over the carvings of her plate-mail chestpiece. The form and function were each utilitarian, despite the intricate embellishment, a simple efficacy of solid steel and glittering chainmail. There were no further flourishes to her armor, only the metal patterns that rose and fell to flow over each forged curve, etched scrollwork unfurling across every last surface.
The towering rider turned her gaze downward, tilted to examine the delicate cord in her grasp, the metal-twined rope that kept her prisoner chained tight.
“Hold!” With a single tug of the reins, the knight halted her steed. The entire procession of riders gradually slowed to a standstill beside her. “What is that, there? Over in the moonlight.”
One of her followers, a much less daunting figure clad beneath a gray cloak and leathers, answered the call. She rode up astride a far leaner steed, a dapple pearl courser that bore little armor of its own. With a firm nudge of her knees, the woman urged her mount forward to approach the strange object. The nimble horse flared its nostrils and shrieked briefly at the scents swirling in the air, but it still obeyed her command.
“Well now, Sister...” A keen smirk flashed beneath the hood of that sleek linen cloak. “You should probably have a look for yourself.”
The tall crusader urged her warhorse forth as well, dragging her captive along with her. The veiled woman bound by shimmering ropes only whispered to herself and laughed ceaselessly through the smoky air, tears streaming down her face.
“See, there?” The gray-clad rider gestured high at the burnt remains of a dangling rope, still suspended far above in the air beside a natural pillar. “It does look as if the fire left some small part for us behind.” She rolled her shoulders in an unbothered shrug. “Must’ve been a bit damp to survive those flames, wouldn’t you say?”
The armored knight did not hesitate. “Bring it down.”
From beyond the veil of midnight, a glinting arrowhead whistled into the haze and pierced directly into the hanging cord. It fell to the ground with a dull thump.
“Let me see-” The bound woman strained against her bindings. She clawed her fingernails deep over the metal shackles around her forearms and wrists. “Let me see it!”
“Quiet.” The lofty crusader dismounted in one swift motion and jerked the binding rope back. It sent her prisoner sprawling, falling hard to reach the smoldering earth. The woman gasped aloud and trembled over the ground.
“Let me see it! Just let me..!” Her desperate eyes flashed, half-revealed beneath the opaque veil. The fabric only remained in place over her forehead by the same twine as the bindings around her arms and neck. “Please-!”
“Could it be relevant, you think?” The gray-cloaked rider stepped down from her horse as well. She reached gingerly for the fallen rope, lifting it before her eyes to examine the little scrap in closer detail. “I doubt anyone would have had time to scale a vantage point of this size while the blaze was still moving through. It would make poor shelter from the heat and the smoke. There won’t be anyone left up there, either way...” Her gaze slid skyward while she said so. “Not alive, at least.”
“There is only one way to know.” The looming knight lifted the burnt cord away from her fellow rider. She thrust it towards the veiled woman instead. “You. Be a good beast and scent this for us.”
A low murmuration of laughter began to echo through the assembled ranks. Their horses pawed a nervous rhythm over the blackened earth, tamping down the ashes.
“Yes.” The bound woman leaned forward, bowing her head low. She reached out, but the rope was dropped to the ground beneath her. She leaned closer to find it where it laid, to reach out, touching and grasping over the dirt with her fingernails and parched, cracked lips. “This, this is...”
A touch, a flash, a single trace along the wind: the same face inside the water with eyes burning bright.
“Yes.” She wept and clutched the half-burnt rope to her chest. “Yes, this is it!”
They all fell silent before her joyous weeping. The massive knight loomed directly over her laughing prisoner, staring down with unseen rancor through the narrow slits of her helmet.
A sharp yank sent the bound woman sprawling. The scrap of climbing rope tumbled away over the ashen ground.
Mounted again, the tall rider spurred her scarlet roan steed onward, towards the head of the trail. The veiled woman did not even struggle as she was dragged along, scraping against the scorched trail of earth behind her.
Countless hoofbeats rumbled away into the darkness.
Line Breaker [https://nautiluca.com/wp-content/uploads/Line_Breaker.png]
Dusky blue shadows drifted over the canyon walls. The soft wingbeats of countless bats flitted through the crisp air, darting back and forth beneath the last few rays of moonlight. The swift little creatures took their fill of the swarms of insects thrumming between the long reeds over the water.
The sky grew darker, deepening across the last gray haze of river mist.
Beyond the delicate lapse of sound and motion, a ray of sun broke through the rising fog. Morning spilled over the valley walls, reaching further along the wind-smoothed stones, between damp brambles and living green.
Sunlight crept into the mossy tangle. The hazy glow wandered deeper into the forest of reeds and hollow logs, where clear-winged flocks of singing insects jumped back and forth to leap out and find the warmth of the sun’s first touch.
It was there, resting beneath the shelter of the lush river grasses, that was where Amiela breathed out softly.
The calmness of her closed eyes, that most gentle, tranquil look over her face, it was the very first time in so many long weeks, Ranya realized, or maybe even in years, that she’d witnessed her favorite human look so entirely at ease.
Ranya’s ears slowly turned, lifting at the sight. She fawned over that particular girl in the morning silence, observing the quiet rise and fall of her lungs, the slow, steady sounds of her breath, far softer than a whisper.
Amber eyes watched the tiniest, most delicate hairs on the nape of Amiela’s neck stir from the morning breeze, the way the much longer strands that had escaped in the night were pushed aside by the wind in turn, or even the cute little twitch of her nose that happened every so often, tickled by one of those stray locks.
Human beings were utterly fascinating. Ranya’s pupils dilated to see her there in greater detail. It felt all too obvious how such a species had managed to sunder the very laws of nature in their world, carving them apart, bending it all to their wills and whims in whichever ways they desired.
Ranya leaned closer to observe the slender digits of Amiela’s fingers. It was those thumbs, she reasoned: such nimble, prehensile little things that set humans apart from nearly all other earthly creatures on that strange, beautiful planet. Such wonderful digits, so dexterously strong and tactile.
A human’s vocal cords stood at a close second. The ability to speak, to communicate, that one singular feature made their species incredibly distinct. But it would all be nothing, Ranya knew, without the mind hiding just inside.
Ranya laid herself down nearer against the grass, careful not to make more than a murmur in the lush carpet of green. She stared at a particularly unruly strand of hair curling over Amiela’s forehead. It was those hidden thoughts, Ranya knew, the quiet mind slumbering away in peace beneath that cute little lock. How lucky she was, Ranya thought, to even get just one small taste of Amiela’s imagination, the unique way in which human beings could perceive the world around them.
But what was it, beneath even the mind, that manner of thinking, down beneath the very soul of her, that which burned brighter than any worldly fire? What was it her most primal of instincts could scarcely seek out and sense, what made Ranya’s spirit quiver alight and howl just for the mere fleeting hint of it?
Ranya slowly reached out towards her. But then she stopped.
The pads of her digits lingered just short of Amiela’s skin, ghosting close beside her cheek. A touch would only wake her, Ranya knew, if she wasn’t deep-enough in slumber. Could it be worth it?
Ranya curled her fingers away, tilting her head aside as if the thought itself stung. She retracted each of those claw-tipped fingers one by one, pressing them tight against her own palm. No. Not that morning, no. Not when Amiela might just wake up and startle from her attention, charitable as it was.
A flock of distant waterbirds scattered away from the high walls of the canyon, swooping down low in search of water and food. Ranya sat up and gingerly stretched her legs. She yawned wide, flexing her powerful hands over the mossy earth, revealing in full that they were yet again melded halfway between clawed, doglike digits and something quite eerily human.
The birds that flew in scattered waves over Ranya’s makeshift resting spot were likely too fast for her to catch on foot, she figured. Idly licking her teeth and running her claws through her fur to neaten it, she looked up at the creatures while they each passed above the verdant tangle of greenery. If she became just a bit more like they were, however, chase them down from above, perhaps...
Olive’s entire figure suddenly twitched. The boy cried out a muffled sound in his sleep. He murmured against the mossy ground, a fierce tremor quavering his voice. Ranya turned to stare down at him.
His outline had gone rigid, curled up there over the soft moss, hugging himself tight. Beneath his eyelids, even closed, Ranya could see the way his eyes were racing back and forth. A dream, maybe? Ranya clambered over closer to examine him. No, she reasoned. More like a sudden nightmare.
She reached out to carefully pet her fingerlike paws over Olive’s stiff shoulders, easing back and forth. At least she could touch him that way without any issue. Young humans always looked so soft to her, just like tiny baby rabbits. Ranya grinned a little at the thought. She hoped his dreams the previous night may have given him some respite, at least.
As if sensing the thoughts she spared for him, Olive slowly settled beneath the steady rhythm of Ranya’s care. His panicked little whispers melded into a much calmer, mumbling sort of cadence instead. The young boy began to quietly snore and mutter against the thick blanket of green, much more of a contented whimper than any true notes of fear.
Ranya smiled at him once more. She leaned herself away.
Sunlight trickled over the tall grasses, across their little hidden refuge, dappling each of their tired, motionless bodies. When the whim suddenly took her, Ranya left her canine shape behind. She stretched out and basked in the warmth of the morning glow with a rumbling yawn, relaxing in the form of a massive, luxurious cat instead.
Her silken tail swished back and forth, stirring up the fluffy tufts of a few stray grass seeds. Ranya closed her eyes and flopped over on her side. She rolled around in the grass and purred. She rubbed her cheeks and paws and tail snug against the soft layer of fresh living green, painting the area thoroughly with her scent.
Not that anything in their right mind would ever dare cross the presence of a demon as powerful as she was, Ranya assured herself with a rhythmic twitch of her nose and whiskers, much less the vulnerable humans she was guarding. Even still, something about the dewy aroma of fresh grass always made her feel both invigorated yet lethargically lazy all at once.
She slowly batted the fluffy seeds floating through the air. Ranya watched the way her paw-pads glistened in the morning light, almost as richly golden as the sun rising past the canyon walls.
With any luck, Ranya supposed, her companions would sleep in tranquility for at least a few more hours, given how they were all finally secure enough to rest without outside disturbance. Ranya flicked her ears back and forth. She rumbled on a slow exhale, growling under her breath at the thought. If only she had the nerve to gently urge Amiela down to sleep for another full night, Ranya would do it in a heartbeat.
An abrupt clatter of flapping wings and harsh squawking calls rose out high above the hush of flowing water. A much rowdier flock of birds scattered themselves away from the dense river reeds, cackling and chattering in the air and squabbling with each other over the higher branches to seek out and perch. Ranya hissed out a low, snarling curse at the utter racket they created.
The commotion made Olive stir, but when Ranya peered past him to look in the other direction, at least, she reasoned, at the very least, Amiela was still fast asleep.
Ranya’s bristled expression softened at the sight of her. When she looked away from Amiela, she still curled back her upper lip to reveal her fierce pantherine teeth, breathing a harsh whispered exhale towards the sky for its brief lack of silence.
What in the world could have made the feathered beasts all flee the riverside like that? Ranya stood up on all four paws, narrowing her eyes to peer a bit higher over the swaying tops of the sedge grasses.
A sleek little creature was prowling further along the water’s edge. Ranya only caught a brief glimpse of it before the sly animal suddenly disappeared in an instant beneath the dense undergrowth. Ranya, however, knew a jackal when she saw one.
It only fully dawned over her in that small moment that the river valley truly was, in all senses, a remote little pocket of life.
Ranya gradually eased back. She let her lithe body sink down to relax against the plush mossy surface, settling there with a muffled snarl. She wondered if all those long days spent keeping watch over the stark, sunbaked wastelands had made her just a touch too paranoid, overly jumpy from any small disturbance. Or maybe that was just Amiela’s influence.
Olive stirred again. He rolled himself over with a clumsy, bleary flop against the soft moss. After a moment or two of total stillness, his eyes fluttered open beneath the sun. “Urgh...”
“Take it easy.” Ranya purred for him then, keeping her voice soft and low. “Shh. Don’t wake up Ami.”
Olive yawned. He lifted his hands to slowly rub away the residual sleepiness from his eyes.
“Well.” Ranya breathed a warm hum at him. “You definitely needed the rest, didn’t you?” She reached out to lightly prod one of Olive’s shoulders with the smooth pad of her nearest paw, careful not to let her pointed talons brush too close. “You were just about dead on your feet last night, kiddo.”
“Oh. Mhm. I guess I was.” Even when he nodded at her, the sound of Olive’s voice was still dry and groggy. “So, um... Where are we..?” Blinking past the gleam of morning brightness, his hazel-green eyes grew so very wide at the sight of the tall reeds completely surrounding him. Olive took a moment just to lay very still and listen to the soft whispering sounds, the quiet flow of wind through the grass and the water of so many rivers. “Gods... Wow.”
“Yup. We’ve found ourselves a little slice of paradise, it seems.” Ranya drew a deep breath of the fresh morning air. She exhaled a long, purring yawn. “Enjoy it before Ami wakes up and marches us right back out into that horrible mess again.” She shook her head. “Honestly. I’d almost think the silly thing enjoys being in the worst place on earth.” The sleek fur beneath Ranya’s whiskers wrinkled when she stuck her tongue out between her pointed teeth. “Pfft.”
Olive could not help it then. He leaned back against the mossy ground and laughed. Ranya nearly started to scold him for giggling to himself too loud, but she found she simply could not halt the slight little smile that crept over her face as well. It felt just as warm as the morning sun.
Maybe human children were simply like that, Ranya supposed, able to bounce back from nearly anything their world could throw at them. She only hoped his more recent memories of war had not seared themselves too deeply over Olive’s mind and consciousness.
“How are you feeling now, really?” Ranya stood up to pad her way closer to Olive, sitting at his side. The boy still laid flat on his back against the lush green earth, staring up almost dreamily into the hazy sky. “You had a difficult time of it yesterday.”
Olive nodded. “Yeah. But that wasn’t-” He blinked a few times. “I mean, it really wasn’t the first time I’ve seen people fighting out here, you know?” He watched the pale wispy clouds floating high over the walls of the canyon. “But I haven’t been right in the middle of it like that before. Not with soldiers, I mean. That part was... That was really scary.” Olive slowly turned to peer up into Ranya’s eyes instead, observing the strange, fleeting way he could never quite seem to find a part of her that was truly looking back at him, at least not in the same sense he did. “But you were there, Ranya. You... You saved me.”
For only a split moment, Olive swore he could see her truly stare at him, the way her eyes slid forth to meet his, the way he could almost begin to see the blood soaking her jaws again, feel the thick roar of thunder crashing fast through her throat, that cheerfully wet grimace of bristled whiskers and fangs flashing bright, each coated beneath slavering red film.
But then she was just as she was, merely a strange, feline creature of unusually large size and swirling pelt. Olive stared up into the odd source of calm that had settled so wholly over Ranya’s expression, the same detached air of flippantness he swore was also slowly softening. It felt quite the same when her powerful limbs ever so gradually relaxed and became smooth again, hiding away the solid layer of muscle and sinew and hooked claws that could easily gut a grown man in seconds.
What was it he had, her mind wondered; what was it humanity held, if not fire, not truly, that very same strange sort of something hidden just beyond the face of fierce yet tender spirit, that faint little spark as bright as daylight inside his soft hazel-green eyes?
Without a word, Ranya settled herself in the grass beside him. She closed her eyes and rested her chin down neatly against her front paws. Olive turned towards her, laying on his side to peer at her there. Why, he wondered, in the quietest corners of his own mind, why did he not feel quite so afraid of her anymore as that brief little moment spent back in the fields?
They both waited beneath the windswept silence, content to merely appreciate each other’s company. Ranya finally moved to flick her ears around and purr, but the steady sound was almost too quiet for Olive to catch. The only other noise above the murmur of the riverbeds was the rustling reeds, the chirping of tiny river frogs, and the occasional faint flitter of insects in the balmy air, all melding beneath the gusts of wind and fluttering of restless waterbirds.
Somehow, Olive felt himself oddly comforted when Ranya’s tail suddenly swept forward, as if on reflex, curling there to rest close behind him over the mossy earth by his back. It felt, in some way that was indescribably certain, like she was sheltering him there beside her.
Her keen amber eyes still laid hidden away and shut, but Olive had a feeling Ranya was not really dozing beneath the morning light, not in a true sense. Even when Olive himself felt like he was already drifting back somewhere with far calmer, waveless waters, left afloat between dreamland and reality.
Ranya’s vast lungs eased a quiet rhythm, rising up and down. Her pelt shimmered with sunlit darkness. The warmth of the light revealed the faint little spots of color that gradually spun and curled and reached far over her fluffy flesh like faraway galaxies, rosettes of half-hidden starlight.
Olive sighed in his state of half-consciousness. He settled even more against the mossy earth when that fluffy tuft of Ranya’s tail curled forth to press just a bit nearer beside him, cradling him close.
It truly wasn’t so bad, Olive mused to himself, through the long hours of morning: it was not such a bad thing if an enormous, powerful lioness with a coat of swirling leopard spots was looking out for him in that way. Even if she was not his mother. Even if Olive still could not quite push the thought of that soft, delicate fur soaked through with fresh red soldier’s blood far enough from his wandering mind.
Then why, even as blurred and swirling and murky as the clouds drifting high through the faraway realm of blue, did it already feel like she was far more human than that?
Only a few paces away from the two of them, Amiela’s fingers gradually began to twitch. Sunlight dappled in soft blurry splotches over her skin, warming her body with every passing hour. She eventually stirred in place as well, much too sated with sleep to spend the entire day at rest.
“Ranya?” Amiela’s voice cracked when she finally woke enough to speak to her, soft and hazy and slow. “How long have-?”
“You needed it.” Ranya peered over at Amiela with slightly narrowed eyes, though her fondness still shone clear. Her words rolled in a rumbling hush through the thin stalks of swaying river grass. “You just had the first solid block of sleep you’ve gotten in weeks, so do not go complaining to me.”
“Ugh.” Amiela covered up her eyes with one of her wrists to try and help block out the clear gleam of sunlight. “Okay, fine. Um, is...” She took another moment to try and gather her senses a bit more. “Is everything alright?”
“Yup. We are just peachy.” Ranya hummed and laid her ears back, each muscle resting loose and low. “But I haven’t really taken as much of a look around this place as I’d like to yet, to be honest. I wanted to stay close and keep watch over you guys.”
“Well. We can get that done before long.” Amiela sat herself up. She slowly stretched her arms above her head. She winced at the firm, solid ache that twinged deep inside her limbs. “Ugh. But we should probably eat something first-” Amiela tried not to sigh at the lingering pain. “Get our energy back up before we head out.”
Only then did Olive realize just how hungry he actually was. His belly growled up at the rest of him like a cranky, creaky bullfrog. He blushed a little and looked away. “Um. We still have those leftovers from yesterday, right?”
“Yes.” Amiela moved to shrug off the straps of her backpack and satchels. She had been much too tired to properly pull them from her shoulders before falling asleep the night before. “If you two can find some branches, or dry reeds, then I’ll get ready.”
Short Line Breaker [https://nautiluca.com/wp-content/uploads/Short_Line_Breaker.png]
The wetland sprawl fanned even further than Ranya first assumed. Ever since the dense veil of fog had finally lifted, clearing off from the warmth of the morning sun, her sharp eyes could reach much further past the first few miles of the valley, all the way to the solid barriers of the canyon walls.
Lush hills stretched over the uneven terrain, rising in grassy green ridges to crisscross between the various flowing rivers. Ranya took point with her tail swishing high, stepping forth with a casual swagger while she and Olive ventured out together.
It seemed like Amiela had been right to think of him that way, Ranya supposed: the boy followed along just like a scampering little puppy. Ranya felt a smile quirk at her lips at the thought. She moved her tail every so often to help guide Olive over the rougher patches of damp rocks and moss that sloped at an incline, curling the powerful limb over his wrist or arm to keep him from slipping away.
Despite the wildly uneven terrain, the two of them did not have to search very long to find what Amiela asked of them. And though it seemed like there were no living saplings left at all in the verdant yet somehow oddly desolate ravine, they soon wandered across something even more useful than that.
Between the high grasses, dry and spindly remnants of dead mangrove logs laid in massive clumps across the wetland. It looked to Olive’s eyes as if none of the regal trees had survived the initial wave of destruction that once swept over the land, not even a single one.
“This is all new growth, then?” Ranya peered around the grassy marsh. “Hm. But I’d bet this place really isn’t too different from how it all used to be, though. Before the war.”
“Yeah. You aren’t wrong.” Olive knelt down to crouch close beside a patch of unopened wildflowers. The minuscule yellow buds grew in a dense, wild tangle, curling all throughout the remains of a rotted log. “I mean, um, they... It was a little bit different. There were so many people before. All sorts of people, and animals, and plants. The people, they farmed rice and beans in the rivers. The ones that flowed even slower than these ones.”
Ranya slowly perked her ears. Her eyes watched as a glistening dragonfly whirled in lazy circles over the fields around them.
Olive could still picture it in his mind, as if he could almost just start to inhale and taste the airborne scent of lush farmland paddies and smoky marketplaces tucked deep into his memories. “There were bridges with dragons carved in the railing. And boats with lanterns that looked like fireflies, when it was nighttime. And so many birds!” He blinked at the air, as if he could still see then. “Even more than this. It felt like they were all different, every time I looked up I saw another one. I tried counting them all by the colors, but I never could.” Olive rested his hands over his knees and sighed.
Ranya moved to pad forward and stand nearer to him, lowering her head to catch the faint sounds of his mumbled words.
“The village we stayed in, it... It had lots of rice farms. They’d grow berries from the plants that liked floating around in the water. My mom’s cousin, he owned a few of the paddies.” Olive felt his voice grow even weaker. “So, where all of this other stuff, the sinking places, all the big rocks, and the sand, and everything, it...” He drew his arms close beside himself. “It really wasn’t always so bad, like it is now.”
“Right. You were there, weren’t you?” Ranya’s ears drifted a bit low. “Back then, while it was happening.” She reached over to tap a single claw against one of the slumbering little blooms. The flower petals unfurled at her slightest touch, releasing a soft puff of golden pollen into the air. She lowered her voice to a warm, dreamlike whisper. “I wonder if you have some secret, why you survived?”
Olive was not quite sure if she was talking to the tiny blossom or to him. Even when he looked at her curiously, Ranya did not elaborate.
Sometime in the hour that passed beneath warm winds and scents of water and richly sweet green, both of them began to carry back an armful of firewood (or Olive noted, in Ranya’s case: a rather toothy mouthful) back to the clearing beside the reeds. They arrived once more, treading over the lower hills when the sun was just starting to dip beyond noon.
But the little area was bare. Olive nearly startled at the sight, but Ranya just swished her tail around without a word, lowering her nose to sniff at the ground and pad further through the marshy grasses.
After Ranya had led the way far enough to track her missing companion down, the two of them found that Amiela had already ventured a fair distance away from where they’d slept, preferring to sit closer beside the water’s edge in a sheltered yet clear little gully, a sandy place filled with ferns circled beneath a dead mangrove tree. But in some odd sense, there was something quite different about the way she waited there that time.
Tranquil, yet even more so than the previous time she sat in that posture; Amiela’s eyes were shut. Her stance seemed loose, as if unguarded. It made Olive wonder how Amiela might have looked if she could always be so uncoiled and calm.
“There isn’t anyone else here for miles, at least.” Even when they first approached her, Amiela’s voice sounded distant as well. “But that doesn’t mean other people couldn’t find it and get in the same way we did.”
Ranya sat down to drop her collection of firewood nearby on the ground. “I’ll keep an eye out too. Nobody sneaks up on me, Ami. Don’t you worry.”
Olive stepped closer as well. He held one of his gathered sticks out for Amiela. Somehow, even without opening her eyes to see it, she accepted the offered branch with no comment.
Before long, there was fire. And with fire, Olive knew they could start cooking the rest of their precious supply of wild game: a few day-old grouse birds, the organ meat, and a single butchered rabbit.
Short Line Breaker [https://nautiluca.com/wp-content/uploads/Short_Line_Breaker.png]
“So, wait, is it just ‘cause you just don’t like the taste of it?” Olive kept munching on the cooked quarry in question between every word he spoke. The finely-seared rabbit tasted just fine to him, even if the meat itself was a day or so beyond fresh. “I know it’s kind of gamey sometimes, but-”
“It’s not that.” Amiela herself nearly looked like she was going to be sick. Her expression still remained stuck somewhere between a tersely thin grimace and barely-restrained nausea. She sat facing fully away from Olive so she did not have to watch. “It’s fine. You’ll... Enjoy it much more than I would.”
Olive could already tell Amiela wasn’t being entirely forthcoming with her feelings, not with the way her voice kept wavering in a queasy little echo at the end of her words like that. Even so, he supposed it was as alright as it could be, given that it meant more rabbit meat for him. Just as long as Amiela kept eating her own share of breakfast.
He’d already tried to share some of the rabbit with Ranya as well, but she just waved him off with a vague swish of her paw, telling him he was a growing boy and needed to eat. At least Amiela looked almost finished by then with the last of the seared grouse meat. It did not seem to Olive’s eyes like she disliked the flavor of wild birds.
Once they were both done with their cooked food, Amiela decided a few cans of fruit were in order.
“You need to eat things with more varied vitamins than just meat.” She pried open a tin of sliced pears with her switchblade, before she placed the can on the ground and nudged it nearer towards Olive, pushing it along with the knife’s handle. “Remember that. If you’re ever craving a certain type of food, listen to your body. It can tell you about nutritional deficiencies that way.”
“Oh. That makes sense. Yeah.” Olive reached out to pick up the can of pears with a wistful little smile on his face. “You know, we used to pick these fresh whenever they were ripe back home. They were wild, so the fruit would be really bitter unless you left it alone on the branches for a while.” He softly laughed at the old memories. “But, um. The birds would usually get to them first. Sometimes you’d get lucky enough and find a tree they didn’t already eat clean, though.”
Without hesitation, Amiela opened up another can of fruit, a kind Olive had never once heard of. The label on the tin said ‘pineapple,’ but the odd yellow contents did not look like any sort of apple he’d ever laid eyes on before.
Amiela carefully fished one of the unusual half-rings of fruit out of the can, lifting the semi-solid chunk up from the juice with the point of her knife. “These can be similar. They’re not really bitter, but they’re... Acidic, I guess?”
Olive soon traded her a slice of canned pear for one. After Amiela dropped a chunk of the bright yellow fruit into Olive’s pear can, he picked it up and sniffed it to get a sense of what the aroma could tell him. The fragrance was incredibly sweet, but then it became so sharp, so much that it began to feel like the scent itself was stinging gently inside his nose, though without any actual pain.
“Oh, that’s so weird..!” Olive laughed aloud at the odd tickly sensation. “Wow. I’d bet it grows from really far away?”
“Yes. They’re tropical.” Amiela began to eat her share of the bizarre yellow fruit with little delay, at least no more beyond a soft smile in Olive’s direction. She chewed slowly to enjoy the tangy flavor. “I’ve never traveled that far before, personally. But maybe someday.”
Ranya groaned aloud from a few paces off. “Why couldn’t we have gone there first..?”
Olive wondered if that small moment might have finally been the time to return to the foremost question on his mind: why in the world those two were even traveling the barren wastelands in the first place. But when he looked up into Amiela’s eyes, when he saw, yet again, just how peaceful her demeanor was for the first time he’d ever truly seen, his gaze darted away from her and shied. Olive’s nerve withered, and was lost.
“We are going to the tropics after all this rotten garbage, I swear!” Ranya rolled over on her back with another growling groan. She kicked her hind legs up high to claw at nothing and swatted her tail down hard against the mossy earth. “And I am going to lay my happy ass out at the beach all day, eat a whole roast wild boar all by myself, with plenty of dark rum, and as much ripe fruit as I can stuff in my mouth..!”
Olive laughed to himself at the sound of that. He tried to imagine Ranya rolling around on the warm, saltwashed sands just like a big happy tiger.
“Someday, maybe.” Amiela murmured at the thought of it. She did roll her eyes at Ranya’s antics, but the look held a much softer sense of ridicule than before. “We would need a boat ticket or two to get anywhere near it, you know. There’s an entire ocean between us.”
“Wait. Why not just fly there?” Olive peered over at the space where Ranya had sported a huge set of wings instead of her front legs the day prior. “Couldn’t... Ranya ‘carry’ you?” Olive set his can of fruit down to make a brief flapping gesture with his hands. “Or, um, can you guys not really touch like that either?”
Ranya rolled herself across the grass to face him. “Yeah, that wouldn’t work for a few reasons. At least not with the way we are now.” She laid down on her belly and dragged her tail back and forth through the supple reeds, making them whisper wherever she brushed. “That’s why we’re walking out here in this darn trash heap in the first place. Or being dragged along, in my case.” Ranya yawned with a flippant hum and stretched her front limbs far before herself, somewhat relaxing again. “What about you, Ami?” Her gaze honed in upon her other companion. “Where would you go right now if you could be anywhere else but here?”
Amiela narrowed her eyes towards nothing in particular. “I’d skip the entire wasteland to get where we’re headed in the first place.”
“That’s not what I asked.” Ranya turned to smirk at her. She was still lounging across the grassy riverbank in a most languid way, but somehow, Ranya still looked more than ready to pounce. “If it weren’t for all of this here, the wastes, where we went before, all of it... Where would you go if you could be anywhere?”
That gave Amiela pause.
Time stretched on in near-silence, lingering between the three of them for such a long, protracted moment that neither Ranya or Olive began to really feel sure if Amiela even would choose to answer.
Waterbirds bathed and preened their feathery tails in the clear blue rivers. Tiny frogs hopped out to dart their tongues at the buzzing water skippers that fluttered across the surface of the calmer pools. Flower petals rolled along over the flowing ripples, carried on by the passage of water and nature and time.
Finally, when she was finished with the rest of her chosen breakfast, after she had placed the empty pineapple can down against the ground, Amiela spoke again in a calm, quiet voice.
“The boardwalk with all the lights, by the river in Naperium.” Amiela stared deep into the tranquil surface of the water, far beyond the sight of her own reflection. “When we snuck out to see that concert, past curfew. I was only a teenager. Eulalie was there. The sky was still clear enough that you could see the stars, but it was just starting to snow.”
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Ranya did not speak. From the far corner of Olive’s gaze, he observed how her vigilant feline expression became something quite strange and complicated.
“But I guess that’s more of a time than a place.” A faraway smile briefly crossed Amiela’s lips, but the look was still only halfway sweet. She turned her gaze much higher, drawing it away from the flow of the river. “And a person. So, I don’t know. But that’s where I’d go.”
Olive slowly began to glance back and forth between them. Whatever point in time Amiela was speaking of, he’d been given no scraps of knowledge at all to help himself puzzle it out. But when he looked back towards Ranya again, she was seemingly gone.
“Well. We should have a look around.” Amiela stashed the empty cans into one of her satchels. Ranya’s shadow swirled over the ground beside her. “I don’t like the idea of moving around in broad daylight like this, but given how pristine this place is...” She lingered on the thought for a moment. “There really isn’t a huge chance many people know about it yet.” Amiela looked around at the lush greenery flanking the riverbank. She tried not to sigh. “Hopefully not, at least.”
Amiela stood up and lifted each of her packs. She raised her umbrella to let it snap open high over her head. Ranya’s shadow rose to settle there in a whirling shimmer of darkness, resting in the space beneath the fabric.
Olive blinked a few times at the sight, observing how much clearer yet still nebulous her presence seemed there than before. It felt strange to him to watch how one part of Ranya’s nimble body clambered up and ‘perched’ beneath the patchwork fabric in order to get a vantage point from higher within the inner struts, while the rest of her strange presence drifted down to conceal herself in the shadow cast out from the umbrella instead.
“This place-” Amiela tilted her umbrella aside somewhat to peer up at the massive stone barrier spanning around the lush ravine. “It wasn’t simple getting here. So we might have just enough luck this time.”
Olive remembered just how difficult it had looked, even for someone with Ranya’s otherworldly strength and agility to climb the high canyon walls. He wondered how in the world Amiela had ever managed to leap up and scale the sheer slopes, even with the aid of her climbing pick.
Once the campfire was fully extinguished, snuffed out with only a single flick and curl of Amiela’s fingertips, the two of them started off again.
Olive and Amiela traveled wherever the rivers flowed. The grassy path of semi-clear ground soon became a gradual slope downwards, an uneven stretch of rocky terrain that weaved past the winding riverbanks and ledges where splashing waterfalls began to form.
It wasn’t as difficult as Olive first imagined to navigate the terraced meadowland, not when he and Amiela could look up and use the tall valley walls as visual landmarks. Even then, it was complicated to see further than the next stretch of grass and spiky palm shrubs, given how uneven the ground became.
Eventually, beyond the long slopes of an earthen bend in the watery path, the river they were following led to a series of swiftly crashing waterfalls.
The gleaming liquid spilled across flat rocks and tumbled away to pour down over the sheer rocky cliffs. The river roared into a mighty spray of pure foam, toppling down, down, down, where it eventually splashed hard and filled a series of mossy green ponds between the distant reeds.
Olive stared down at it all in total awe. He found he couldn’t help but do a rapid little tapping-dance on the tips of his toes, delighted by the mere sight of such lush teal pools. Finally, he thought to himself, after so many aimless, mud-crusted weeks, there was deep-enough water for a proper bath.
Amiela moved to peer down as well over the grassy ledge, gazing into the water’s surface below. She tilted her head to examine the sheer drop that led towards the deep pools; another owlish gesture, Olive thought, rather like the time he first ever saw her. Amiela pursed her lips at the distance between the ledge where she stood and the falls. “Don’t get too excited. We don’t know if it’s safe.”
But Ranya abruptly reappeared, swirling out from the umbrella to curl and uncoil into in a sleekly pinniped form. She floated there before each of them with a swift thrum of glistening, liquid smoke, levitating in a shape between some large otterlike creature and a seal. “Then it’s a very good thing you have me to check...”
Amiela only sighed to herself when Ranya leaned away from atop the high cliff to drop right down through the air, plummeting faster than a slab of stone. Her streamlined body soared beneath the waterfall spray to crash headfirst against the rippling water.
Olive’s heart fluttered faster in his chest. “Oh man, I really hope it’s nice in there! I haven’t had a bath in-!” He suddenly felt much too embarrassed to try and count the days, even in his own mind. Olive’s cheeks flushed. “Oh, um..!” He fidgeted and glanced away. “A really long time, I think..?”
“Well.” Amiela sat herself atop a flat boulder. She reached down to try and brush away the dried mud and sandy grit from her boots and the legs of her suit. “If it is safe, we’ll keep watch so you can swim around for a while, if that’s what you want. Then you can keep watch for me.”
Olive beamed at Amiela. He began to dance around yet again beside the sheer edge of the falls. But it seemed, even despite the way Amiela sat there listlessly, like that smile he offered became infectious; before long, Olive barely caught a glimpse of her smirking just a little at his lively bout of antics.
Beneath the warm, gentle breeze of the valley, it nearly began to feel to Olive as if the previous day was just some distant nightmare of his, that the ache lingering over his eyes from desperately crying was only the soreness from sleep.
He found himself staring down into that looming space, that deep watery expanse where Ranya had dropped. Olive knelt down by the ledge to try and see wherever she’d gone. But a different sort of flash filled his mind, rippling out from the sound of those roaring waterfalls; the sudden crack of ghostly steel, of airborne fire, that same tinny, hollow echo of soldiers calling out to each other through the grass.
Olive shivered without even realizing it. His eyes blinked. His tongue felt dry. His skin had almost begun to feel cold, for just a small instant, even beneath the balmy warmth of the sunlit winds.
He could still feel them, the way they were lurking, those tall shadows in the tender foreground of his mind, just as raw as an open wound. Olive only realized his hands were gripping down over the mossy ledge when his fingers trembled and unclenched, stained with soft dirt and verdant green.
The water, he told himself. It would feel so nice and good to finally be able to wash himself off in the clear blue water down below. Everything would feel right again. He could even rinse away those stains that kept sticking over the bottoms of his boots, maybe even enough that they no longer looked quite so smeared with dried, crumbling scarlet.
The beauty of the wetlands, Olive reasoned, that delicate sliver of paradise: all of it would surely soon make it feel like the scorched battlegrounds were an entire world apart.
Short Line Breaker [https://nautiluca.com/wp-content/uploads/Short_Line_Breaker.png]
They made their way down to the much deeper pools, climbing together over the steep mossy ledges and slopes that spiraled beside the waterfalls.
Ranya’s sleek form suddenly breached the air below them for only an instant, leaping high over the surface of the waterfall pools to soar far beneath the rocky path.
Olive’s gaze caught on the sparkling trail of water that glittered from Ranya’s sinuous outline. She dove herself right back down with a hard slap of her tail over the river’s surface, sending off a spray of mist that rose high above.
A thin chromatic beam shimmered to life in the airborne water vapor. With the mist from the crashing waterfall, the pastel light of the faint little rainbow only became stronger.
Olive suddenly wished he still had one of the tiny disposable cameras they used to sell at the lonely old tourist shop back in his hometown. Even then, the much fancier full-color film cartridges were always much too expensive for his sort of pocket change, to his lament.
When they finally approached the lowest ledges of the river trail, Ranya’s face broke back through the surface with a sharp snort of air. “Well, there’s plenty of fish!”
Amiela moved to crouch closer beside the edge of the pond. Ranya crawled her way up to climb over the waterlogged ledge and meet her there on the shore, near enough to easily converse again.
“But I do think it’s safe enough.” Ranya snuffled a wet breath of river water and breathed in deep from the fresh air. “There’s definitely critters in here, sure, but nothing that really looks like it’d give you guys any trouble. No more than a nibble or two.” She winked at them both and lifted one of her flippers to point at the southwestern bend of the river. “Looks like it does get a lot more shallow over there, where the water fans out. Not as good for swimming, but much better for having a bath, or washing your clothes and gear. That sort of thing.”
Olive had already stripped himself right down to the set of khaki shorts he wore beneath his longer, baggier trousers, tossing his shirt over the shore. Without another word wasted, he leapt his way high over the shimmering waters and splashed directly into the deepest bit of blue he could find.
“Oh-ho!” Ranya laughed aloud at the sight of him with a raucous, cackling bark. “Maybe kiddo isn’t a kitten after all...” She moved to clap her front flippers together in a damp smack, before she hoisted herself the rest of the way out from the river’s edge. Her entire shimmering body, as sleek and dark as the midnight sky, dripped with water, thoroughly drenched. “He’s a little seal pup.”
Crouched just beside her, Amiela did not look quite as convinced. Her sharp gaze only stopped tracking Olive’s every last hint of movement when the boy finally surfaced again with a graceful splash, when she could witness just how he could glide his way along the swift river current with more agility than any swimmer she’d ever seen.
Amiela looked away and muttered to herself. “Okay. Yeah. He’s done this before.”
Somewhat content with the fact that her youngest companion wasn’t about to lose his way in the water, Amiela turned to examine the river’s surface instead. She pulled away her gloves and unzipped the sleeves of her suit, pushing them aside enough to try and wash her hands in the teal blue liquid.
She’d already gotten them terribly bloody again by readying the rest of the grouse for herself, not to mention the rabbit for Olive’s breakfast. Amiela still sighed at the sight of so much crimson clinging to her skin with a tacky sort of stickiness, refusing at first to be rubbed or smeared away.
There was only so much she could have done to clean them earlier without resorting to magic or wasting precious filtered water, Amiela supposed. It was worth it, she admitted, though only to herself, to see the boy’s eyes light up again like that at the thought of receiving another reliable meal.
With a flex of flippers and tail, leaning herself against the damp river rocks, Ranya slowly licked her tongue over her teeth. Her nostrils twitched at the sticky-sweet scent coating Amiela’s skin, but she did no more than that.
Beneath the burbling waves of the river’s surface, Olive made another swift dive. He swam down deep beneath the vast blue waters. Air bubbles streamed away from his nose and mouth. He blinked against the chill of the water and kicked out his legs to rapidly descend. But then, drifting further and further down into the depths, just along the bottommost reaches of the lush riverbed, he finally caught sight of something in particular nestled just between the deepest rocks.
Olive turned with another sharp kick to swim back up, rising higher and higher, finally crashing right out through the surface to call for his companions. “Hey! There’s freshwater mollusks in here!” He coughed out a giddy peal of laughter and waved his hands back and forth. “The river must flow from somewhere that has them, so they’re growing here!”
Ranya smiled at him. She turned back towards the shore and moved to shake her entire body from the soaking drench of the river water. Ranya wiggled her ears with a chuckling huff, mostly ignoring the indignant little hiss that sputtered from Amiela’s lips when the motion splashed cold droplets all over her. “Come on, you’re not going to melt from a little water.”
Amiela cursed at Ranya under her breath. She stood up and retreated a few paces away, stalking off with a posture as stiff as an arched-up cat. “Ugh, gods!” She flicked her arms around in vain to try and dry herself, before she shot Ranya a halfhearted glare. “You smell like a wet dog.”
“Well, excuse me.” Ranya wrinkled her snout with a toothy grin. “But after a few weeks with no proper bath, missy, you don’t exactly give off the aroma of a bed of roses yourself.” Ranya’s gaze slid back to find the way Olive was trying and failing not to giggle to himself at her particular choice of words.
Amiela rolled her eyes at them both. She turned away to pace further down the shore, making it sound like even the pebbles themselves were crunching in protest beneath her boots. She tried again to futilely shake the water away, walking back and forth. Amiela finally allowed her skin, what was visible of it from her protective suit, to flicker and spark up with a ripple of shimmering heat, just enough to force the liquid to rise off from her face and shoulders in plumes of airborne vapor.
“And! Not to mention, Ami...” Ranya focused her attention back directly on where Amiela stood. She hoisted herself further over the shoreline and lowered her voice down to a purr. “You are going to need all the help you can get when it comes to saving that beautiful hair of yours from the rat’s nest it’s becoming.”
Amiela briefly gave Ranya a blank stare. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked pointedly away. “I can handle it.”
“Oh?” Ranya leaned up to nudge her snout closer towards Amiela. “You won’t let me help?”
But Amiela merely stepped a few more paces back, standing there on the grassy shore as if daring Ranya to chase her over land in the body of a seal, with only flippers and a tail for limbs. Ranya narrowed her eyes and smirked.
The shadows formed once more into a swirling vortex, and churned.
And so it seemed, to Olive’s eyes, that Ranya really could become rather human after all. Or at the very least, her body could appear mostly indistinguishable from one.
Even then, Olive supposed, Ranya did have a set of antlers branching from high atop her silken head, crowning her with starlit adornment. That was not very human of her in the slightest. And those bare feet of hers that brushed softly over the damp grass along the rocky shoreline, they each sported pointed nails that looked vaguely, uncannily catlike.
And there, just behind her body, the way it rose from the shadows, that long and shadowy tufted tail flickered back and forth into existence, swishing just as delicately as any a painter’s brush, curling itself way forward like a most curious serpent, though it did not look quite as solidly tangible as the rest of her.
It was in that very moment, when the glittering demon took full shape and blinked her eyes open into a true, undeniable manner of embodiment, it was there where Olive began to feel almost abashed to be seen beside her. Ranya was immaculate.
Standing there in her featherlight garb, a wash of champagne silks and deepest royal blue, swirls of indigo starlight that flowed without a speck of sand or grit to be seen, Olive’s eyes could not find a single smear of dirt to mar her fine clothes or skin.
He wondered if it might have been demon magic that made Ranya look that way. There surely must have been something enchanted about the sense in which she stood there so loftily between those two haggard, mud-coated travelers, while Ranya herself looked like some deific statue come to life.
Because that image was, Olive swore, like some form of sorcery breathed into finest, sleekest stone, granted itself the power and will to unfurl into resolute mortal flesh. He realized he was afraid again, but only for a moment, when that tall stranger’s face became ever so similar to the toothy smiles and odd little notes of crinkled happiness her cats and dogs and avian forms so often tried to emulate.
Ranya’s keen eyes glinted, shining with each bright skitter of inner mischief. She tipped her head higher, and there where Olive realized Ranya stood incredibly tall, far more than either of her companions, though not quite unnaturally so; her height was not much more than a full head above Amiela, at least.
But seeing them both there, how those two women finally stood beside one another only a few mere paces apart, the sight of it made Olive realize how much paler Amiela looked compared to Ranya’s human guise.
The color of Ranya’s skin was certainly a little different from his own, Olive thought, but he could already see the way she wasn’t unlike how he looked, not at all. Her image did seem sleekly soft, like he noticed before, but there was also some unnatural rigidness to the visible power of her stance and posture, as if even that fluidly casual way she stood, there, as if by her own whims alone, could not be shaken by anything, even the gale force of a hurricane.
All around Ranya’s horns, a sort of wine-brown keratin tipped with shimmering gold, a longer mane of smooth hair flowed down over her forehead and shoulders to tumble far across her back. Deep and silken, shining quietly whenever she so much as breathed, those dark brown locks curled ever so playfully at the ends, as vast and deep as a moonless sky.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that.” Ranya’s voice became so much more human as well; richly melodic, a deeply knowing sort of timbre. She grinned with teeth that still looked much too sharply keen, smiling there at the utterly unfazed expression fixed over Amiela’s face. “I can give you a hand with it, now...” She wiggled her fingertips in the air to demonstrate.
Amiela only looked away from Ranya again, refusing to meet her gaze.
Ranya stood up on her tiptoes for just a moment, which made her look even taller. She then ambled off to the side and leaned right over to get a better look at Amiela’s hair, swishing her tail as a form of counterbalance against her own swiftly abrupt footsteps. She even moved like a cat, Olive noticed, gracefully yet strangely padding over the moss of the riverbank as if she expected another set of footfalls to settle before her.
“Yup.” Ranya sniffed at the air. She reached out to pretend she was plucking at one of the locks of hair hidden by Amiela’s ponytail. “It’s gotten long enough that it’s going to take you forever to untangle it without someone else helping.”
Amiela’s entire body tensed. The muscles of her arms, hidden in her suit, shivered at the sudden proximity between herself and Ranya. “You don’t have to.”
Ranya drew back, rising up only far enough to stare at Amiela, gazing directly into her eyes. She settled her heels back down against the solid green earth. Something about the set of her jaw tightened minutely yet unquestionably. “I want to.”
It was in that exact same instant where Ranya’s grasp shot out and grabbed over each of those hands, that brief moment in time where Olive first truly saw it: how Amiela instantly jerked back and seemed to flash her teeth at the affront, grimacing like some startled, wild animal.
Olive felt his own sharpened shiver run through his spine, prickling down over the back of his neck from only the sight of it, so much that it felt more like ice surrounding him where he treaded the deep blue river water. For there it was, right before his own eyes, where he could finally witness that strangest of unnatural phenomena, what Ranya had first described to him as a type of ‘magic flinch.’
It roared, flaring forth as a guttering burst of pale green flames to leap right over Ranya’s hands, a rapidly swelling burst of potent fire. But Ranya only winced and held on tighter. Amiela’s magic swelled, soaring further to roil and curl at her with thick swirls of inner color, a pastel sunset caught ablaze.
The surface of Amiela’s skin flashed and shimmered under Ranya’s firm grip, painted deep beneath each long coil of swirling patterns, sharp lines of diverging color and light.
Amiela struggled. Her eyes flashed wide, mouth open a slight degree in utter panic. She gasped without sound, thrashing there wordlessly against that utterly iron grasp. Her hands and forearms each became marked inch by inch under her own untamed fractal shapes, branching out to unfurl far across her skin as frenzied wildfire.
“See, I can handle you...” Ranya purred without truly wincing through the shock of fiery pain. Her skin practically creaked and quivered when it hardened, shimmering with a source of inner resistance. “You want to get control of it? This is how we start.” She almost seemed to grin down at that desperate little witch caught tight in her grasp, and yet there was something so vastly different about the way she looked out at her, something much more faraway and intensive brimming within her own brightened eyes. “Ami. Are you listening?”
It became clearer when Ranya tilted her head and sighed aloud that most of her teeth were indeed just as long as they were sharp, still nearly as pointed as whenever she took the form of a cat or a jackal. And though Ranya’s skin was sleek and smooth in a human shape, her hands did not react much at all when Amiela’s flickering energy pierced down even more viciously into the depths of her demonic flesh.
That pale fire tore past the hardening surface that seemed to glint like silken scales, ripping down through skin and muscle to tear even inside her bones.
Ranya gave only a wry, wincing chuckle at the sight. She watched those bleeding, crackling wounds as the fire clawed deeper into her own body, boiling her blood away, the way the deep fissures just kept closing themselves back up again only seconds after being scorched. “As lovely as your spark is, Ami, it won’t bother me much like this.”
Amiela just kept trying to grapple her way out of Ranya’s hold, pressing, pulling, straining against her there. Her gaze hardened down to utter steel for just a moment longer, before her expression abruptly faltered, thawing away into a manic, desperate fear. “Okay, okay... Alright!” She never did stop struggling, truly, pulling away in utter desperation, but Ranya’s solid grip kept her close.
Olive was not sure if he could have even summoned the will to try and call out to the two of them, that frenzied tangle of witch and demon, much less convince either of them to stop.
“Ami.” Ranya moved her thumbs to slowly trace steady little circles down over Amiela’s skin. “It’s only me. It’s me, remember? Shh, now.” Her voice lilted and purred. “Listen, Ami. Please. Listen to what I’m saying.” But even her more calming touch drew the same volatile sparking fire, coaxing breathy little sounds of panic from deeper inside Amiela’s throat. “You know I can’t hurt you, sweetie... Yeah?” The amber of her eyes, the look that swelled just as fiercely as the roaring magic, Olive realized, only truly burned with dire, unceasing gentleness rather than any sort of potent inner rage. Ranya breathed out slow. “I’m here to protect you.”
Beyond those passing moments, Amiela’s magic somehow wavered as well, weakening, fading, falling apart in pale green shards of fiery, sputtering heat. Ranya’s sharp eyes watched how the flashing blaze dimmed, hissing away to crackle much less violently than before. The colors slowly receded in turn, paling down over the surface of Amiela’s hands to become more of a continuous fluttering burn than any flare of raging outburst.
“There you go. I’ve got you, Ami. I’ve always got you. Shh. You’re going to be okay.” Ranya hushed her voice down to try and soothe past the panic left reeling in Amiela’s limbs. “Shh, shh. Breathe with me, now.” She listened to the quiet gasps that would not stop their rapid pace. “Your magic can be tamed, you know...” She petted her fingertips further over Amiela’s hands, over her wrists, brushing beneath the fabric of her suit, stroking her there as if those rigor-stiff arms were each frightened beasts themselves. “You just need to practice with someone who can take it. That’s all.”
“But, it... It’s hurting you! Gods, don’t you-!?” Amiela cried out and jolted. Her knees nearly buckled beneath herself in the wake of her struggle. She tried one last time to pull away, straining and tensing against Ranya’s solid grasp, before she slumped forward and began to give in, trembling hard. Her eyes looked so very glassy and wide in that moment, utterly wild with unchecked anxiety.
But then, through the moment that passed beneath the whisper of the wind and the waterfalls, her head slowly bowed low. Amiela tried and failed to control her rapid breathing, almost tucked away fully beneath Ranya’s chin, nestled just inches from her collarbone, where the demon could not directly see her face.
“That’s it.” Ranya softened her voice even more. “I’ve got you. They aren’t here, now. You don’t have to fight. It’s only me. You know me.” She carefully massaged her fingertips over Amiela’s shaking hands. “And you know I’m here to keep you safe from them.” Her eyes softened more the longer she spoke. “Try to breathe slow, yeah? Listen to my breath, Ami.” Ranya purred and hummed each of her words in a rumbling cadence for her. “Try and slow yours down, too.”
“The fire-” Amiela’s voice almost sobbed. “It’s going to keep hurting you...”
“Shh.” Ranya’s tone rang steady over Amiela’s faint little gasps of hyperventilation. “I don’t think I feel pain quite the same way. You know that. Not as much as humans do, at least.” She murmured and softly squeezed those burning little hands with her own, held fast in the depths of her grip. “Let me try, okay? Please?” Ranya tipped her head forward, as if to shelter the trembling human beneath her with just the sheer height of her frame. “I just want to help.”
Amiela began to feel her nerves soften, if only ever so slightly. Even when she shivered there, fighting and failing to keep those most desperate tears from forming, she knew she could not, would not, give Ranya the satisfaction of knowing it. Her breath finally wavered, whispering sharper than her body ever felt when she next spoke. “...Fine.”
Short Line Breaker [https://nautiluca.com/wp-content/uploads/Short_Line_Breaker.png]
When the early evening light started to fade over the canyon walls, the glow of the fireflies began to return.
Olive dried his hair with a quick shake of his head. He only realized after, when it all settled, that there wasn’t even as much of it curling down over his head as he’d assumed there was, even when his locks were all clean and loosened by being damp.
He patted his hands over his hair. Olive could feel the way only a short amount of those dense brown locks, no longer than a few inches or so, had managed to grow back since the last time he’d lopped it all off with a salvaged pair of scissors.
Olive shrugged to himself at the feeling. At least he did not really need a cloth from Amiela’s supplies to help dry off his hair, that way. Even so, Olive supposed: after he gave a discreet sniff to his own underarms, he realized his clothes could certainly use a proper bath of their own as well.
“Hey, kiddo?” Ranya called out to him from across the rocky clearing. “We’ll be right over here if you need us.”
Olive looked up at her. Ranya stood there along the shoreline, still human, lingering on the sandy riverbank while Amiela already disappeared into the dense cover of reeds. Ranya gave the soft rustle of grass a slightly strained look at being left so decisively behind.
With only the smallest glint of a wince, Ranya forced herself to look back and smile. “But, listen: it’s girl-time now, so you just stay right there unless you really need our help, okay?” She waved one of her hands towards the water. “And if you do, just call out and I’ll come back for you, yeah?”
“Okay. Sure.” Olive felt himself smile at her as well. He realized then, oddly enough, that there was something more inherently comforting about seeing Ranya with a human body instead of the shape of a beast, even if she still always moved around with such fluidly elegant footsteps.
Though in many ways beyond that feline air of balance, Ranya’s footsteps still seemed too graceful to be real, Olive marveled, with some other bizarrely indefinable sense.
Olive rested his chin in his hands and tried not to let it look like her strange nature was puzzling him quite as much as it did. “I think I’m just going to get some laundry done now.”
“That’s a good idea.” Ranya grinned back at him even more. “Oh, right. Ami’s got a few extra bars of soap stashed away in there.” She pointed a clawed fingertip towards the pile of supply bags, half-hidden where Amiela had shoved them deep into the mossy hollow of a fallen log. “I’ll tell her I gave you permission to grab some.” Ranya winked at Olive when she held up the pale beige bar she’d just pilfered. She smiled again, though more to herself. Ranya lowered her voice down to a conspiratorial whisper. “Bath time for cranky-girl...”
Olive watched her leave. He slowly tapped his fingertips over his own cheeks. Now, why in the world was Ranya ever acting so secretive all of a sudden? He blinked a few times at the way he saw her hurry right off through the tall reeds, becoming only a rustle of motion and a tufted tail disappearing into the deep, dark greenery.
Ranya and Amiela were both women, weren’t they, even if Ranya was a demon? To his knowledge, women bathed together all the time. So was it really such a big deal? Olive looked away and shrugged.
He really hoped Amiela was alright. She’d actually looked scared of Ranya for a moment, back there, even when curling forward to lean towards her, in a way he’d never seen a person look before. It was almost as if she was equally frightened of what her own fire could do as the person grasping so boldly over her shivering hands.
Olive blinked at the hazy light of the fireflies dancing in the sunset glow. He watched as the tall shadows dipped down low beneath the canyon walls. He hoped the two of them could smooth things over before nightfall, at least, while daylight still remained.
He looked aside at the open can of beef stew Amiela had left on the shore for him, along with a tin of peaches sealed with a pull tab, one he could easily take care of himself. A flicker of gratefulness twinged through Olive’s heart at the sight of it, but his worries were still clouded with that same murky, lingering air. He reached over to slowly sip at the can of soup.
Sighing to no one in particular, Olive stood himself back up. He went to go look through Amiela’s packs and find some soap for his laundry.
Short Line Breaker [https://nautiluca.com/wp-content/uploads/Short_Line_Breaker.png]
Deep beneath the tangled thicket of reeds, Amiela waited atop a flat ledge of rock. The clear surface of the deep green ponds pooled in calm waves against the weathered stone. Fireflies gathered lazily around her, swirling and weaving, curious to see what she could have ever been doing so near to their tranquil waters.
After unzipping her suit, it wasn’t all that much harder for her to strip herself down the rest of the way. Amiela shucked off her clothes in a messy pile. She unclipped the back of her bra and sighed. And there, within the quiet evening light, she took just a brief moment to stare down at herself.
It was not the little tattoo resting over her upper chest that she noticed first, though her gaze eventually did drift to land across it. It came as a belated yet unsurprising realization that wearing such a thick insulated suit over herself for several weeks was certainly not doing her already bleak complexion any favors. Amiela supposed there wasn’t much she could do about that, not in a realistic sense.
The tiny creature made of ink seemed all the more visible for it, a simple image of elegant lines and curved ‘brushstrokes’ flowing against the visible thinness of her collarbone. Amiela traced her fingertips over it, as if petting the pointy little ears and tiny tail painted into her body. The bitter scent blooming on her tongue was not ruefulness, not truly, but it tasted so much the same.
She could not even claim she regretted the more elaborately intricate inkwork peeking out from a place she simply would not mention, no matter how much she thought she really ought to have wished it away. Amiela huffed to herself and crossed her legs, resting one against the other to rest above the water and the paleness of slowly drifting lily blooms.
Amiela peered down at the even paler crisscrossed marks scattered over herself instead. Ragged scars still dotted far across her arms and legs, fierce nicks over her stomach and chest that had not yet faded into obscurity.
She could count the hazy whirl of every arrow in her mind, every flashing spear point, every blade. Amiela closed her eyes and tried not to glower at the disjointed swirl of memories. The bitter taste returned over her tongue all at once and seized it.
Featherlight footsteps padded over the moss behind her. Amiela fought back a bone-deep shiver at the soft prickle of rising sound. It was not as if Ranya had never seen her that way before, she reasoned. She could not have been bound to an otherworldly being for the majority of her life without being fully undressed around her once in a while. If only that damn demon wasn’t always so wildly curious about it.
Ranya knelt down behind her. “Humans are so pretty.”
“Glad you approve.” Amiela could not stop the shivering sensation then, not when Ranya’s fingertips ghosted close over her midsection. “Stop it.”
Ranya’s hands halted there, waiting just where they pressed down ever so slightly against Amiela’s skin. Firelight swirled ahead to bite deep into her fingertips. Her voice became feather-thin, somehow, soft and quiet and sorrowful. “You’re so thin now.”
“I... I am entirely alright.” Amiela clenched her teeth. She fought down the wild urge to lurch forth and break away from her, just to keep herself breathing at an even pace. Every little jolt, each sharp tremor of fiery magic that surged through her own flesh left even more of a fractal pattern swirling and blazing over her skin. Her colors curled and coiled and intensified. “You do not have to touch me like that in order to help me with my hair.”
Ranya smiled for her then, breathing closer over Amiela’s shoulder. Her cheeks flushed just a little, even if it was far more of a soft pulse of crimson starlight than any true sort of blood flow. Her tail slowly began to twitch. “But you’re beautiful. Even if I think you should eat more often.” Her gaze drifted out towards the deep teal water, over the soft petals of lily flowers dotting the placid surface. “It’s really not healthy, Ami.”
Amiela slowly looked back over her shoulder to meet Ranya’s eyes. She let just a bit more ire slip into her words that time. “You don’t always have to touch the things you find beautiful.”
But Ranya did not look phased at all by it, even beneath Amiela’s harsher tone. “If it makes you feel any better, you could always do the same to me.”
She did not care to answer. Amiela turned herself away all at once.
Ranya frowned at the sudden lack of eye contact. She leaned back on her heels, crouching low over the flowering bed of shoreline moss. “I haven’t gotten my ears petted in years, you know.” She flopped herself down to sit on her backside and briefly let her ears unfurl into much longer, catlike shapes, flexing them around with a deft wiggle of motion for emphasis. Golden light flickered from within, just like whenever she was a cat or a canine. “Years.”
“You are ridiculous.” Amiela drew in a deeper breath, but her voice shook so much less than before. She slipped her feet down into the water, chilled by the brisk evening wind. So frigid, yet invigorating: it sent a fresh wave of goosebumps prickling over her arms and legs.
Without another word, Ranya slipped right down as well to reach the pond beside Amiela. Her tail slapped like a heavy serpent falling against the water. The sleek limb curled all around to send little ripples scattering far across the surface, snaking among the flat green pads that held soft lotus flowers. Ranya stretched her arms out far above her head, languidly flexing each limb while she strode her way off even further into the depths of the pools.
Amiela watched how the luminous stream of ‘clothing’ billowed out behind Ranya’s body. It pooled there in the sunlit waters, liquid plumes of starlight draped over her powerful limbs.
With a dry sound pressed between her teeth, Amiela averted her gaze again. “You’re just lucky your clothes aren’t real.”
“Oh? They’re just about as real as I can make them.” Ranya beamed right back towards Amiela from over her shoulder, grinning with a toothily crooked smirk. “Unless you don’t like these? We could always try and think of something else.” She let the colors of her silks quiver to become deep strands of emerald rather than any sort of midnight blue, swirling into longer, richer waves that looked more like veils of verdant kelp billowing softly from her arms beneath a tranquil sea.
Unfurling lines began to bloom throughout the deep, dark green: waterflowers in the shade of lushest, deepest indigo. Ranya’s innermost magic made material; the odd blossoms mingling with true earthen blooms. She lifted them up in her gracefully clawed hands, watching her conjured flowers shudder and tremble into existence, breathing wet dew and blossoming from her own source of vibrant life.
One of Amiela’s eyebrows twitched. “I don’t see why you bothered. Those were fine.”
“Never hurts to do something just for the sake of it, Ami.” Ranya moved to sit down against an underwater ledge. Her tail curled up to rest higher behind herself, dripping there with a brief curtain of falling water. “Changing things up to look nice. Making myself feel pretty. I’ve never understood why humans insist on making themselves feel so vain for it.” The liquid created a fluid, glasslike mirror falling beside herself in the light of the sunset. It somehow made Ranya far look more like a poised scorpion that way, even though the end of it was only tufted, at least, and not venomous. “Well. Why don’t we get started?”
Amiela wondered if she’d truly gone insane somewhere during those long, windswept weeks. Maybe her brain really had fried and fizzled out at some point in time beneath the endless desert haze, ruined irrevocably from sunstroke. Even then, her thought process still internally reeled at the sheer and utter absurdness of it all, the idea that a demon, or whatever else, whichever sort of unfathomable creature Ranya really, actually was, that she wanted so very much to spend time with Amiela that she was willing to tackle the absolute travesty her hair had become.
With a sigh, Amiela crossed her arms over her chest. She lingered there at the edge of the pond for a brief while, unsure of the water’s true depth. The surface ahead looked clear enough, despite the layer of floating lily flowers. Just beyond the blossoming pads, the thick green plants grew in a verdant, slimy tangle beneath the gentle currents. Sunken branches blocked much of the forward path as well.
“Alright.” Amiela let her gaze rest on the murk beneath the clear blue water for longer than she really needed to. “Give me a minute.”
Offering only a quiet shrug, Ranya waited, reclining back against her chosen shelf of underwater stone with a sense of steady, unhurried ease. Her eyes did track the way Amiela began to navigate through the mossy blue ponds. Her gaze lingered on the way the firefly light illuminated that soft, pale skin, a sort of peachy alabaster among the watery pink blooms.
Ranya briefly tipped her head aside to eye the pile of clothes left behind on the shore. She wondered, for not the first time, why humans ever even bothered with so much unnecessary fabric in the first place. It was like throwing a burlap tarp over an intricate watercolor; an insult to such masterpiece. Ranya rolled her eyes to herself, leaning back and resting one of her arms across her forehead in quiet despair at the thought. Who in their right mind would ever choose to hide figures so picturesque?
Then again, Ranya thought: there were plenty of humans out there she would rather not see naked. Ranya hid the slightest reflex of a grimace with a quirk of her eyebrows instead. She supposed she ought to thank her luckiest stars on that one, even if it meant other such artistry remained woefully concealed.
A light flush graced Amiela’s face at the sight. She gave Ranya an even sterner look for having stared at her without any measure of subtleness. Even then, Amiela soon approached to sit in front of her as well. She crouched down on the rocky shelf with her back facing Ranya, resting close beside one another in the tranquil emerald pools.
Ranya, despite her best efforts, failed to stop a hum from rising over her voice. She reached out to examine the tangled mess of locks before her. Amiela’s hair had only gotten snarled tighter through the thick layers of sand and mud, worsening with each day spent cramped beneath a helmet in the merciless wastelands.
With another sigh, Ranya tried to determine her best course of action. She moved to curl and coil her tail forward while she thought, draping it over Amiela’s lap. The hissing magical reaction flash-boiled the water between them in a bubbling rush.
Amiela somewhat ‘delicately’ grabbed up the offending limb in both of her arms to shove the massive, heavy thing away. But when Ranya’s fingertips touched over her hair, however, no magic sparks leapt out to bite her.
“Ranya, you-” Amiela clenched her teeth hard before she spoke. “You need to... To warn me at least, alright?”
“Oh?” Ranya gently lifted each tight clump of matted hair, trying her best to untangle it without pulling. “How do you mean?”
“Listen, I... Gods. I know human etiquette isn’t exactly something-” Amiela swallowed back another bout of trembling anxiousness. “Something that comes naturally to you. But it’s rude to grab or touch people out of nowhere like this, and... I need more time. I’m talking about me, Ranya, not some ‘silly human society’ concept that doesn’t make sense to you.” She shivered when both of Ranya’s hands drifted away from her in full. “It’s too much, when you do it without any warning. Do you understand?”
As much as Ranya wanted to tell her the very same thing, that human beings truly were all such silly little creatures, oversensitive and much too complicated when it came to their unspoken rules of physical etiquette, even then, Ranya’s ears could still catch the rising flutter inside Amiela’s chest. Her keen nose could sense the bitter whiff of fearful pheromones, scents that made her own heart feel like it was sinking deeper than the wetland ponds could ever reach, where that same dawning source of realization stung far darker than any look of rejection pooling through Amiela’s eyes.
Was that why Amiela hadn’t calmed down for her already? Ranya frowned to herself. She knew if her ears had still been long and pointy, they would have surely drooped far by then. She stared down at the gentle strength of her own hands. Could that girl, Ranya wondered, that fierce little witch, the one her heart always held dearest, really not tell that she wasn’t about to try and hurt her?
“Okay, I-” Ranya paused, inhaling deep before her words could falter. “Understood. If this is what you need, then I can-” She fidgeted and tried to speak clearly again. “But you know, Ami...”
Amiela waited in silence when Ranya cupped a handful of water in her hands. The scent in the air became even more floral from the disturbed water lilies. With a deliberate little hum to try and warn her, Ranya moved to carefully pour the liquid down over Amiela’s hair. Then she began to pluck her way along the mess of snarled locks.
Ranya breathed a soft sigh when Amiela only fidgeted at her more delicate touch. “I really do think if we practice with this sort of thing, Ami, you’ll start to feel a lot better about it, with enough time.” She worked her hands over the stubborn strands with a careful sense of gentleness. “And if we practice it on me, then it doesn’t really do much harm.”
Amiela’s tone was clipped. “No.” Her shoulders, still stiff and coiled, drew even nearer to herself. Her arms rested tighter before her chest, half-hiding the little tattoo of the creature on her collarbone away. “At least... Not now.”
Ranya nodded, settling back into her work. She began to separate each enmeshed section of hair with as much of a delicate touch as she could. The thick tangles were all crusted beneath sludgy clods of mud and grit, but further handfuls of water helped soften up the caked-on earth. Soon, it became just pliable enough to wash away the worst of the muddy clumps.
“Hey, Ami.” Ranya hummed. “Maybe we could braid your hair this time instead?” She lifted a lock that was nearly free from debris. “It would help keep it from getting so tangled.”
Amiela kept fidgeting with her hands. She pressed them down against her lap underwater to help keep them still. “We might as well cut it instead. It would save you all this trouble.”
“Ami.” Ranya pretended to growl at her, but it was far more of a chiding purr than anything truly menacing. She held one of her hands forward so Amiela could see the presence of it before she moved.
Despite the gradual motion, Amiela still winced when Ranya ever so lightly tapped a few fingertips against her cheek to scold her. Fire licked out at Ranya’s skin, but Amiela herself seemed to freeze at the first true contact of skin, passive and stiff and distant from the flesh lightly touching the softest curve of her upper cheek.
“Ami...” Ranya’s gaze flicked down with quiet remorse. She moved to press her fingers over Amiela’s ear instead, just over the soft outer shell. “Sorry.”
When Amiela finally seemed to return to the moment, as if fading back into time and the true presence of herself in the water, her eyes slowly drifted back into focus, gazing up to see the hand pretending to tug at her ear.
“You know I won’t let them get you again, right?” Ranya breathed her words close beside her fingertips, hushing her voice over Amiela’s cheek in a desperate yet restrained whisper. “I’ll rip their silly throats out before they even get the chance!”
Amiela shivered bodily. “I know.” Her gaze flicked down. “I wish you wouldn’t.”
“I-” Ranya paused on a silent hiss. “I’ve been patient. I really have. I don’t go leaping out at anyone respectful enough to give us enough space to get past. I don’t put my claws in someone just for giving you nasty looks.”
Amiela felt her nerves wither. “Ranya-”
Ranya only leaned in close, on a harsher, yet somehow infinitely more tender whisper. “But I will not let them point a loaded crossbow at you and get away with it unscathed. I will not let anyone follow you to the ends of the earth, try to threaten your life, go hunting you down all over some silly, misguided, awful superstition.” Her amber eyes narrowed, but the light inside them blazed so incredibly fond. “No. They’re dead meat, if they try. I waited, Ami, with that one. And then he pulled the trigger.” Ranya’s voice dropped to a testy purr. “I was good. He wasn’t.”
“You...” Amiela felt her cheeks go numb at the memory of so much dripping crimson. “For a minute, you were, yes-”
“I will hold back, at first, fine, because it makes you happy.” Ranya slowly slid her fingertips over the delicate softness of Amiela’s ear. She then let her hand drift away, down to the stray little lock of hair by her neck that curled with soap bubbles and shimmering flecks of light from the fireflies. “But that? No. That’s not happening again. No more waiting around if anyone points something nasty at you and kiddo.” Ranya’s teeth glinted in the watery shadows. “I don’t care if you tell me not to. I’ll fight it, Ami. You know I will.”
Amiela felt that same cold weight settle into the pit of her throbbing heartbeat. She only trembled when Ranya’s fingertips ghosted above her ears again.
“But... There’s no way they’ll even find us like this, way out here. The worst we’ll find is more soldiers. Maybe bandits.” Ranya sighed and eased her hand away, moving to resume working on Amiela’s hair instead. “So. No more talk about doing such a silly thing like hacking off all this beautiful stuff, yeah?”
Amiela glanced away with mild exasperation. “It would be a lot easier to manage-”
“Your hair is way too pretty.” Ranya clicked her tongue and exhaled a weary mumble. “I mean, if you wanted to cut it short because you’d like it better that way, sure, it’d look just as nice if we style it right. But unless you actually want that-” She shook her head. “You should really leave it alone.”
Amiela said nothing. She only brushed her fingertips down over her own palms, watching the pale pink lotus petals drift gently among their scarlet brethren, each floating along the calm river stream.
Beneath the shelter of the reeds, tiny insects gradually began to sing their evening songs, chirping high all around them. Frogs hopped around the lily pads between the pale red waterflowers, croaking and flicking their little tongues at the various dewy caterpillars or flitting bugs.
Amiela did begin to feel a bit more exposed then, even in the gathering dusk of sunset. She suddenly wished she’d left her shirt on at least, or even her underclothes, even though she was submerged up to her chest in the water, hidden beneath the deep, dark surface of blue.
“Just... Tell me first if you do decide to cut it, yeah?” Ranya murmured a quiet tune while she worked. “I’ll make it look pretty, no matter how short. Won’t really be easy for you to do by yourself either, without a mirror or anything.”
Amiela felt the familiar bitterness of a smile grip her mouth before she could even realize it. She only nodded for Ranya then, clenching her teeth and gripping her nails tight enough to create little crescent marks in her palms beneath the pond.
Ranya’s nimble fingers were careful not to touch Amiela’s scalp too much with each stroke of motion, lest she find another hissing spark of magic. But it was only getting easier for her to separate out the intertwined strands from one another. Once she lathered the purloined bar of soap into a warm, bubbling froth between her hands, even more of the crusted dirt washed away smoothly.
“There we go.” Ranya breathed in deep when the worst of the silt finally separated and crumbled between her fingers. “Not so difficult.”
“We could trim the ends of it, at least.” Amiela mumbled when she lifted a handful of the soapy bubbles into her hands. “Enough to keep them from getting split.” She peered down at her own reflection inside the glittering foam. She could just start to see the quietness of Ranya’s determined expression there beside it. “But I still don’t know why you even bother with me, like this... When I’ve been such a total bitch to you.”
“Well.” Ranya began to hum low under her breath. “You’re not a bitch, for one. You never have been.” She smoothed her fingertips over each strand of bubble-slicked hair. “There’s nothing wrong with you that a little soap and patience can’t fix.” She breathed in deep. “And because as much as you might try to make yourself unlikable, Ami, it still just doesn’t fool me.”
Amiela’s shoulders shivered. She looked away, staring down at the waters in total disbelief.
Ranya did not retreat. She only hushed her voice down to a softer whisper, ghosting her words just over the edge of Amiela’s ear. “A bad person wouldn’t have taken in that little boy. She wouldn’t have given him her food, or made sure the soldiers didn’t get him. A bad person would have just left him out there to die.” Ranya let her eyes drift shut for a lingering, aching moment. She ran her fingers deep through Amiela’s hair, pressing gently enough to feel the fire bloom fast over her skin. “I wish I’d seen what you saw, at first.”
Amiela drew her own knees higher. She hugged them tight against her chest. “I wish we’d all met under different circumstances.”
“We get what we’re given.” Ranya leaned back with a softer sigh. But then her lips broke back into a tentative smile once she finally worked out enough mud and tangled grit to finally see those proper colors again. Ranya marveled at the first clear shine of ashen brown hair, just as rich as if she was holding strands of fine, silken honey between her patient hands. “I just wish you’d believe me when I say I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I wish I believed you.” Amiela’s voice almost cracked. “I... I wish we were friends, not this fucked up, twisted thing...”
“Hey. No, no-” Ranya let her arms drift back down into the water, hovering close around Amiela’s body. “We can be friends.”
Silence drifted far between them.
“I’m sorry.” Amiela closed her eyes to hide the tears away. “I’m going to get you out of this. I swear. I’m going to, if it’s the last-” Her voice fully broke, then faded.
Somehow, Ranya realized, with another twist of her heart beyond the swirl of watery murk, it had started to sound like Amiela was talking to someone else entirely.
“No. Don’t be sorry.” Ranya ground her teeth and leaned forward. “It’s not your fault, Ami.”
Amiela wiped at her eyes. She shook her head, forcing out a shuddery, shaking breath. “Thank you for helping with my hair.”
Ranya said nothing, not for a long, silent while. Soapy bubbles glimmered over the water between them both. She could see how the soft light of the fireflies began to seem trapped there inside each globule, illuminating the bubbles from within. They drifted and bobbed like they were little liquid lanterns themselves, floating out farther across the emerald blue.
“Ami, I-” Ranya whispered her words into the gathering dark. “I’m going to touch you, okay? Just tell me to stop again, if you... If you don’t want...”
When she received no response in the slightest, Ranya slowly reached out. With only a cautious little touch through the flicker, the warm bloom of heat and pale emerald fire, she slowly lathered a bit more soap along the upper curves of Amiela’s body, smoothing her way down between each of her angular shoulders.
Beneath the shadows of the evening light, in the faintest glow of those misty green pools, despite the dull roar of flame sparking and racing along the contours of her back, or even the cold shiver held tight within the next breath she inhaled, Amiela did not entirely flinch away.