Chapter Eighteen

I watched the girl as she was rubbing Akela’s belly. She seemed to have calmed down: her tears had stopped flowing and she wasn’t trembling any more. I imagined the soft, fluffy sensation of Akela’s fur was a contributing factor, maybe almost as much as showing her Jevan’s sword.

Not-prey good belly-rub. Akela hummed approvingly.

I had been a teeny-tiny bit worried about how Akela would react to the human, but I shouldn’t have been: Akela, the lazy, belly-rub-loving bastard, seemed to prefer earthly pleasures over his predatory instincts. It was probably my fault. In any case, my plan was working so far, and it was time to try to get some information out of the girl.

Using my Mana-Gloved tentie, I drew an island on the ground — a lump with a few stylized trees on it, surrounded by wavy lines representing the sea, and then a stick figure girl and a fluffy dog-like creature representing us. Then I started tapping my tentie over the drawing, leaving little holes in the ground above the head of the stick-girl, hoping she’d understand the question.

The girl stared at my drawing, then at Akela, who didn’t bother lifting his head. She seemed to be in thought for a minute, not stopping the belly-rubs. Then she turned her head to look at my primitive drawing on the ground. She picked up one of the small sticks lying around and began to draw.

A small ship appeared on one of the wavy lines around the cartoon-island. A stick-figure girl and a stick-figure Jevan appeared on the ship, then a few more figures — I assumed those were sailors or something. Then she drew clouds and then a zig-zag line, going from the clouds to the ship. That made sense: stick-girl was on a ship that got caught in a storm. But she kept drawing.

Something that looked suspiciously like tentacles emerged from the wavy lines, reaching out to crush the ship. Huh. Sea monster. Maybe a kraken? Or some other distant cousin of mine? She then made a dotted line, connecting the broken ship to the island. She was good at this, wasn’t she, and I got the general picture. Shipwreck. Of course it was a shipwreck — how else could they have ended up on my island? I should have figured it out the moment I had first seen them. Oh well.

I drew my next question. I erased the shipwreck story from the ground, then I drew stick-Jevan and stick-girl, standing next to each other. Once that was done, I kept tapping my tentie over both of them.

The girl shivered and stopped rubbing Akela’s belly. My buddy lifted his head, looking at the girl angrily, letting out a small growl. She gasped, immediately resuming the belly-rubs. Akela put his head down again, enjoying the royal treatment. Oh, the lazy sod.

The girl drew a box around stick-girl, then a few vertical lines. It was a cage. Stick-girl was in a cage. Then she drew another figure next to stick-Jevan, then a few circles with some foreign looking symbols appeared between the two of them. Hm. Coins? Money? Then she erased the scene and drew a broken cage, then a running stick-girl being chased by stick-Jevan, sword in hand.

I understood.

And I wasn’t surprised. I was dealing with humans, wasn’t I? For a moment I was re-considering my position on whether I should insist on viewing myself as one. But that moment passed, and I reconciled with the fact that being human came with a number of inherent issues, stemming from the sometimes not-so-hidden darkness of human souls. One such issue was slavery. Then again, what did I expect? Good old Earth had slaves, probably from the moment humans first appeared, all the way to the present day. It was a human thing, unfortunately, and every culture, every race of people all over the globe had their hands in slavery at multiple points in history. And since this new world Wensah had dumped me in had humans, I wasn’t all that surprised by this girl drawing me the story of a slave escaping a slaver.

She finished her drawing, looking at Akela — and at me, indirectly — tears welling up in her eyes again. I sighed inwardly. Grimy as she was, I could tell she was a pretty girl — given a long bath and some proper nourishment, she’d be very attractive. If that swordsman, Jevan, had managed to sell her, I doubted she’d have been used as a gladiator in an arena like some local Spartacus. I didn’t know how the girl felt about being stranded on my island, but I figured she was better off here.

Then I heard a growl. It came from the girl, or more specifically, her stomach. I wanted to sigh — another hungry mouth to feed. And as if they had secretly conspired, Akela’s stomach grumbled, even louder than the girl’s. That settled it.

‘Akela, we’re going hunting,’ I said to the lazy mutt.

***

‘Alright, buddy, you can have one leg,’ I told Akela, putting the rest of the freshly killed unigoat carcass into Jack’s Room.

Prey … for not-prey?

‘Oh, so you do understand, huh?

Not-prey ... good belly-rub.

'Yeah, she deserves the food, doesn’t she?’ I said. ‘Should we keep her?’

Good belly-rub.

‘I’ll take it as a yes.’ I said, thinking about how to prepare something the girl could actually eat.

I couldn’t feed her raw meat, but I had no way to cook it for her. I regretted not looking into the plant life on this island. I was sure there were lots of edible things around, but until now I had no need for them. I had no choice but to do something with the unigoat meat.

I could cut a few thin slices, and if I could find or produce some sort of bowl, or container, then I could brine the meat in seawater. Then there was the question of fire. I had to figure out how to start a fire, then I could present her with simple, slightly salty, roast slices of unigoat.

I waited for Akela to eat his fill. I was a little worried leaving the girl alone for too long. I had tried to instruct her with a few, ambiguous drawings to stay and wait for us, but I wasn’t sure if she had understood my instructions. I hoped the girl had some patience. If she didn’t, well, Akela could find her, even if she wandered off somewhere.

We had the meat. I figured that if the girl, Jevan and that spear wielding guy had ended up here, perhaps parts of their ship — debris, wood, cargo — might also lay scattered on the beach. Perhaps we could find something useful.

Once Akela finished his meal, we headed to the western beach.

***

I’d been right: the beach was littered with broken ship parts, crates, barrels and such, even torn ropes and pieces of what I assumed had been the sails of the unfortunate ship. We didn’t find any people — the survivors had probably gone to explore the place, trying to figure out where they were. They’d realise soon that this was an island. What they’d do then, I had no idea.

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I picked up anything I thought could be useful. I even found a broken jar, probably clay or something, and I filled it with seawater before storing it.

Akela didn’t like the sea or the beach at all, so we didn’t linger to wait for the sailors to return.

On the way back, I collected as many dry twigs, leaves and moss as I could, and soon, for the first time since its creation, Jack’s Room was full. My metaphorical heart warmed as I thought of my time with the little critter.

***

The girl stared wide eyed as I unloaded all the things I had collected. Crates and barrels, broken pieces of wood, torn ropes and canvas, firewood, and of course a unigoat leg.

Akela growled a little as I told him to leave the meat alone — despite his earlier approval, he didn’t seem happy to share food with the human.

The girl’s jaw dropped as I willed Mana to form a sharp edge over my tentie and I began skinning the unigoat leg, cutting off nice, thin slices, putting them into the jar of seawater. I drew a few pictures on the ground, letting her know what I was planning. She scowled at the image of the campfire for a few moments, then she drew smoke rising from it, then a man with a spear, coming to investigate. This girl was clever; I hadn’t even thought of that. But then again, I was sure I could handle it if the other survivors of the shipwreck came along, and I drew Akela, barking and chasing the man away. The girl shrugged, then looked at the setting sun. Evening was coming, it was getting cold, and I was sure she’d appreciate the warmth of a campfire. I drew another instruction to her: stick-girl stretching and hanging canvas pieces on rocks so they could dry. She nodded, and we both got to work.

Akela settled down, chewing on a bit of sinewy meat, and I gathered the driest pieces of the wood I had collected. Oh, how I wished I had a lighter or matches. The one time I’d done camping in my life, we had a portable cooker with a propane gas canister, so the idea of rubbing sticks together to kindle a fire was … well, a scary one. But at least I had more than just hands to do it with, so I dug a small firepit, prepared the tree-bark, the stick and some dry moss and leaves, and I got to it.

And I failed.

No matter how much I rubbed the stick against the dry piece of tree-bark — at a fairly high MP cost to have three of my tenties wearing Mana-Gloves — nothing happened. Then the stick broke between my tenties. I just wasn’t cut out for living in the wild, was I? Not as a human at least.

Voice. Stupid. Akela scoffed.

‘Oh, shut up you!’ I gnarled at him. ‘You don’t even know what I’m doing.’

Hmph!

The girl was looking at the broken twig floating in the air before her, having finished hanging out the remnants of the sail to dry, and gave Akela — or me — a sympathetic look.

I racked my brain, forcing myself to stop thinking as a human and start thinking as a magical spirit creature. Surely there was a way to start a fire with Mana instead of the mundane, human way. The dry wood was there, all I needed was heat, or enough friction to create heat. The sun was behind the forest now, the last of the daylight disappearing quickly, so I didn’t have a lot of time left to set up that damned campfire and make dinner.

So Mana it was. I expelled half an MP’s worth of Mana to the tip of my tentie. I pressed it against the flat piece of bark, and I ordered the Mana to start swirling. It obeyed and promptly drilled a hole into the bark. I groaned in my soul, wanting to sigh, or scream, but I calmed myself, ready to try again. I pressed the tip of my tentie to another spot on the bark, replenishing lost MP, and this time I envisioned Mana swirling like a tiny vortex or whirlwind, touching the wood just enough to create that friction I needed, and without drilling through it. It worked, kind of. Mana moved, and after a while I could even see a little smoke rising up, but it wasn’t enough. Maybe the Mana-Vortex wasn’t swirling fast enough, so I made it go faster. Mana obeyed as usual, and in less than a minute, a small flame flickered into existence. I wasted no time admiring my tentacle-work and I grabbed a little bit of the dry moss, sprinkling it over the small fire. The moss ignited, I added some dry leaves, then more moss, then a few twigs, and voila, I held a nicely burning tray in my Mana-coated tenties, made of tree-bark and twigs. I gently placed into the firepit, adding a few more broken up branches.

The girl clapped her hands and moved closer to us. Akela pulled himself up, staring at the orange flames warily.

Voice? Bad.

‘Ah, come on, you’re not scared, are you?’ I laughed.

Warm. Bad.

He backed away from the fire, grumbling, accusing me of stupidity, then settled down a few paces away from the pit.

Luckily, everything I needed was in tentacle range, and I pulled the jar of seawater closer. I picked up a long, straight stick I’d previously sharpened, lifted the soaked meat out of the jar, skewering them onto the stick. The girl stared at it, her mouth watering, belly grumbling. I handed the skewer to her — or from her perspective, floated it over to her — then put some larger pieces of wood on the fire. The wood wasn’t completely dry, and the girl was squinting hard, tearing up due to all the smoke, but she sat down by the fire and began roasting her dinner. I watched her turning it over and over, her eyes sparkling, the thin unigoat slices quickly turning from red to dark brown.

Stars appeared in the sky, the moon climbing to join them, and the girl ate.

I wished I could have eaten with her. I wondered what unigoat tasted like: was it like goat meat? Or more like beef? My money was on beef. Seawater brine — while better than nothing — wasn’t the greatest and tastiest solution, and I wondered what seasoning would be the best for this meat. Perhaps a soy sauce and vinegar marinade with a bit of garlic? Maybe even a little bit of beer. Well, I’d never know, so I simply took pleasure in watching the girl wolfing it down. She was smiling and nearly crying. I felt something. Something I’d not felt for a long time. Cooking. I missed cooking.

***

The girl slept lying on the hard ground only a step from the firepit, wrapped in dry pieces of canvas. Akela lay sprawled out, having given up on his aversion to the “Bad Warm”, mostly as a result of my powers of persuasion — I’d basically told him to suck it up and act like a proper wolf.

I kept the fire from dying, putting some wood on it every half an hour throughout the night, while thinking about what to do about the girl, about the other survivors of the shipwreck, and about a fairly important question that had lodged itself into my mind. I was trying to decide whether I wanted to leave my island or not.

There were people in this world. Humans. For the past two years — even two and a half, I wasn’t really counting any more — I got used to living here. It was boring sometimes, but the lack of stress, the lack of drama, the lack of literally any issues that you simply couldn’t avoid in human society ... it had its allure. I couldn’t lie to myself: I was having a simple but fairly good life here as a spirit. But most importantly, it was safe. The animals didn’t care that I was a Spiritual Tentacle Horror; they didn’t give a damn about me being some unholy devourer of souls. But out there, in the great wide world, I’d be a target, of this I was sure. Still, I felt a sudden need, an urge, a desire to leave the island, to explore, to meet creatures who had the same kind of soul I had. I supposed it was a part of human nature to seek adventure, to experience new things and to build relationships with other people, and despite everything, I still considered myself … people.

I put another piece of wood on the fire and I watched the sun rising over the forest. I had time to make up my mind, didn’t I? I watched the girl, stirring under the canvas sheets, but not waking yet. I was sure she’d want to get off my island and go home, wherever that was. Ideas came and went in my mind, and after some time I kind of sort of knew what I wanted to do and how, and I had time to work out the details.

Akela woke with a start, suddenly alert, his ears flicking left and right, staring at the trees beyond one of the rocks and sniffing the air.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

Prey. Not-Prey. Prey?

‘Shit. Already?’