The rain did not come, thankfully. Larisa and Farre were able to recuperate at the warm and dry cave. It was small, so well hidden thanks to the abundant vegetation that surrounded it. The predators did not come, as Larisa predicted they would. So the only things left to do was to make sure Farre got better. The leg wound she had suffered was deep, but not enough to warrant too long of a recovery. Tending to it now and again, Larisa noticed improvements. The redness and swelling would slowly go down, and the flesh was cut cleanly enough to allow for quick healing.
She fed Farre plenty of nutritious meals and gave her plenty of water. Day by day Farre’s complexion became more colourful, and she became more animate. Those things brought with them more and more conversations.
That way five days have passed as Larisa stood vigilant over Farre. She took care of her, tended to her needs. It was obvious Farre did not enjoy it as much as Larisa did. She would still flinch at her touch now and again. Some minor emotions would leak into the Essence. Mostly when Farre was reminded of Larisa’s scales.
At one point Larisa tried to pry more answers out of Farre about why she felt apprehension, fear and mild disgust when looking at them. Almost every time, she dismissed the question and would go all quiet on Larissa. On some occasions she would offer nuggets of information that would lessen Larisa’s building curiosity.
“You don’t know what beast-marked are?” Farre would ask and Larisa would say that no, she didn’t know. Farre, instead of offering a response that would explain thoroughly what those “beast-marked” were, would just say a vague description.
“That means one of their parents was a beast. Bestia.” And then she would go quiet again.
Farre’s reluctance to speak on that topic didn’t mean she was sitting there quietly. The opposite, actually. She would go to speak at great length why they shouldn’t dawdle in the cave and should move quickly to the expedition’s camp. How she must go back or else they might think she deserted. Or something like that. Once she started she could spiral into a loop of anxiety and restlessness that would stink the Essence with the funky smell of nervousness. When that would happen, Larisa had to go out to breathe some much fresher air.
Over the last couple of days Larisa has been intensely thinking about doing as Farre said. Some plan started to formulate in her mind, expectations started to emerge and ideas were floating freely in her head.
At night, Larisa, would imagine what meeting more people, people like Farre, would be like. How would they look and act. Would they be much different to Larisa or would some resemble her to the letter? She wondered what the smells would be like, if there weren’t any trees around. In this jungle, everywhere you looked, there was a tree, a bush. There was a humid, fresh smell of floating pollens, rotting leaves and musky droppings all around, mixing together in a characteristic scent. Larisa tried to put herself in the situation when people would be all around her. She knew that if she didn’t wash herself for some time, a nasty stench could emerge from her. She smelled it on herself on several occasions. Farre didn’t smell like much. Blood had a strong scent, the wound on her leg especially so. It covered other characteristic smells Farre might’ve had.
Those were the physical smells, though. Of the mundane kind. Larisa wondered how the Essence would feel. She could imagine the colourful array of all kinds of emotion floating thorough it. Animals gave of some of that as well. The more intelligent animal, the more its emotion could waft into the Essence.
The few days she spent with Farre made Larisa aware of how richer the world could be. Farre was a well of emotion and most of it ended up into the Essence. Larisa could feel it, smell it, taste it almost. It nearly felt tangible. That if she were to reach it, just so, it all would end up on her fingertips.
Those were the impressions she got. She felt a surge of excitement after that realization. Her heart was filled with anticipation and conviction. She wanted to meet people and for that she should get Farre back to the camp she came from. To the expedition. Whatever that meant.
The next day she woke up to find Farre standing up, although with a help of a big, whittled branch Larisa has made for her.
“Hello, sleepy princess. So, are we good to go now?” Farre said as she pointed to how she was standing.
Yes, it was time to go.
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“So, I don’t know exactly how long the trek to the edge’s gonna be, but my scout buddies and I walked for… I want to say six, maybe seven days until the incident after which you found me. I bet it’s gonna take a bit longer than that, now that I’m crippled.” Said Farre as she heaved herself up from the cave floor.
Larisa and Farre have been packing things to take with them for the journey. Larisa has also been hunting small game around the area of the cave. She smoked most of the meat and packed it in leaves she found were good for packaging provisions. As for the water, that has always been the hardest of the two.
There were a couple of streams and one wide river that flew through the jungle, said Farre on one of the days. To get the drinking water, those were the safest bet. Larisa agreed, since her camp was situated a hundred steps from such a stream, although she didn’t know about that wide river Farre spoke about. Apparently it was named the Sasza River after some man that discovered it. Larisa didn’t listen to Farre that intently when it came down to who did what, what got discovered and who fought what battle. It was all nonsense to Larisa. She didn’t know these people, and was surprised that Farre knew so many. It painted a picture of how many people there were in this world. Farre spoke as if there were hundreds, if not thousands of other humans in the world. Larisa could hardly imagine it. She tried to compare it to the ant's nest, she couldn’t think of any other creature as plentiful as that.
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The water could also be gained from something other than the river and streams in the jungle. Farre apparently didn’t know this, but Larisa has lived here long enough to know how important knowing where different drinking water sources were. There was a tree in this jungle, a palm to be more accurate, called tiger’s palm. It was a lean palm with white and black striped bark. The leaves looked like a typical palm leaves, long and pointy. But there was also another feature the palm had. The fruit that it produced, when overripe didn’t fall to the ground like any other of its type. Instead, the fruit would sprout roots that could reach the ground. When cut, large amount of water could be gathered from them.
It was an essential tree to know, and easy to spot too. The only hindrance was that the roots could fall off after a number of days. So meeting the palm at the right place and the right time could prove challenging. Back at her camp, Larisa was aware of the palms’ locations and would occasionally go and check out if the roots started to grow. In this part of the jungle though, that would not be possible. Larisa and Farre had to be conservative about their water usage.
There could be a stretch of the land where water would be near impossible to find, so it was crucial to start the journey with the right preparation.
They gathered as many supplies as they were able to carry and started the trek through the dense forest.
Larisa had to help Farre walk through the more difficult terrain but overall Farre was surprisingly strong for someone that laid down for so many days. Larisa suspected that she truly wanted to go back to her people. To this captain she spoke about. She also told Larisa extensively about funeral rites, and how burying the two scouts she started the journey into the jungle with, was important. Apparently it had something to do with returning the flesh to the soil from which they were born. Larisa quoted. How leaving them outside was an offence to the Goddess that watches. Larisa remembered that particular rant because when Farre took a pause to breathe Larisa told her that it was unlikely that they would find the bodies. They had probably been eaten already. Farre in turn screamed some words at Larisa. She noticed before, when Farre would speak, that some words Larisa was able to understand and some sounded strange. As if Farre spoke them through a different month. When Larisa asked her about it, she said it was Tanish. A language that most people also spoke. The one Larisa understood was called Halish and was a language everyone spoke.
Farre was not very forthcoming with Larisa with the meaning of the Tanish words she spoke sometime. It was another thing that Larisa thought Farre didn’t want her to know. Just like what being beast-marked meant.
Two days into their journey, after scaring a particularly annoying latavi that wanted to chomp on Farre’s hair, Farre started to speak about a topic Larisa actually bothered to listen to.
“That snake, kurnet bestia, never seen anything like that.” Said Farre after a particularly strong swing of her supporting stick. “Wonder if your mommy or daddy are one.” Larisa hummed at that. She knew it would be impossible, the books clearly stated how a human was made and snakes do not make an appearance as far as Larisa was aware.
“I should tell you, shouldn’t I? You don’t know, but you need to know. Everybody will know, and then what?”
“Know what, Farre?” Asked Larisa.
“You’re a beast-marked, bestian. That ain’t good from where I’m from.” Farre looked at Larisa with pity in her eyes. Larisa saw it there for the first time.
“I almost feel bad for you. But here you were so clearly someone didn’t, right?”
“What do you mean? I don’t understand you.”
“I mean that someone dumped you here. Beast-marked like you, they don’t have good lives. One of your parents fucked a beast, y’know. That’s what this is about. That ain’t right, you get kids like you and then they end up on the streets or worse. Guess someone wanted to spare you the suffering and left you for dead. No way a kid could survive here. I guess that’s what they thought.” The more Farre spoke the more Larisa didn’t like what she was hearing.
“I wasn’t dumped here. Someone simply had to leave.” That was the impression Larisa managed to recover from the pit of the darkness that was her younger years.
“That true? I see.” Said Farre. “You’ll gonna talk to the captain with me. I bet he’ll find some use for you. That’s the best I can do for someone like you.” It almost sounded like Farre was going to do something Larisa didn’t approve of. That couldn’t be.
“You will not say anything. I helped you.”
“Yeah? How are you going to stop me, kur? You’re gonna point at me with that stick at your back or something? Try me. You and I will get to camp and then you will do as I say. That’s the best way it could go for you. Beast-marked like you, they have no rights. They ain’t considered human, y’know. You’re not gonna be able to do much.” Larisa was getting angry. They stopped. The weight of this conversation, Larisa could almost feel it on her shoulders.
“What if no one finds out? Then that won’t be a problem.”
“I mean, I guess you’re right. But you’ll have to be covered in that bear skin all the time. You up for that? If I don’t tell the captain anything at the beginning, I can’t vouch for what will happen to you once they’ll find out.” Larisa was getting to Farre, she could tell.
“We could do the things your way, but if your scales will see the light of day, you can’t let people know I knew, you got me?” Farre pointed the walking stick right at Larisa’s face. Some apprehension from Farre leaked into the Essence, along with Larisa’s joy at her own victory with convincing Farre. Fighting with words could be fun too, it seemed.