Peering into the room, I found the same thing I’d seen the last four days.

Riz in bed, curled up and sleeping.

Studying her for a moment, and her room, I wondered if I had done the same thing when Nory died. I remembered just… sitting on the porch of our little cabin, absentmindedly. It was part of the reason I had waited so long to leave, even though I had wanted to leave right after burying her. Maybe I had done so for days too, even though I didn’t remember how long it had been.

Quietly stepping away, I went down the hallway back towards the front of the building. This house was large, but only a single level. This hallway only had bedrooms in it, and I was a little bothered by the… empty rooms within it.

Four at least. The rest were closed doors, and I didn’t want to be rude and just start opening them to check. I knew where Celine and Lial’s room was, but I wasn’t sure where Mordo’s was. If he even had one.

He hadn’t left the little sitting room since I had arrived, as far as I was aware. Which was weird. We’d been here for over a week now. Surely he had to at least… use the restroom, or want to get some fresh air?

Rounding a corner, I passed the kitchen. Celine was in there, quietly humming as she cleaned the dishes.

I had offered to help, but she didn’t seem to enjoy it when I did. It seemed she didn’t even let her children help her, as if she was very proud of her duties and didn’t want anyone to take them from her. Sometimes I heard her telling her husband to stop and leave her be, when he too tried to help her. At first I had thought they were simply being an odd married couple but now I knew she was being… a little serious about it.

Walking past the kitchen, I waved lightly at Mordo as I passed him and his little room. His weathered and sunken face made it hard to tell if his eyes were even open, but I thought I saw him nod lightly.

Reaching the house’s front door, I opened it slowly. The sun had set, but it wasn’t too late. A few torches were lit; some were positioned on the buildings while others were genuine torches, standing alone out in the darkness. One of those torches had a figure standing next to it.

Closing the front door behind me, I walked slowly over to Vim. He was staring out into the dark world beyond the torchlight. Oddly he was looking down, not up at the sky that was quickly being littered with vibrant stars.

This wasn’t the first time I had found Vim out here, just… staring out into the dark, but it was still just as concerning as the first time I had seen it. What did he see? I could barely make out the cliffs and rocks not far off in the distance, but nothing more than that. The torchlight made it harder to see in the dark from here.

Stepping up next to him, I tried to once again search for whatever had Vim’s attention. Squinting a little, I realized the stars and moon were a little brighter than the last few nights. I could see a tad bit better tonight than I had been able to. I could now see the rocks and cliff walls surrounding the buildings and us a little better. A little clearer.

Yet even with the better vision, I still couldn’t see anything worth focusing on.

“Did you have dinner?” Vim asked after a moment.

I nodded. “Celine is upset… but you need not avoid her so blatantly Vim,” I said. He hadn’t joined us for dinner again. For the sixth night in a row.

Vim sighed. “I’m not avoiding her. I spoke with her a few hours ago,” he said.

Smiling at him, I remembered their so called conversation. She had simply asked him to go get her husband and son from the ocean, since she had started dinner. Hardly a real conversation.

“She knows it’s not your fault. She spoke about it during dinner. She asked me to tell you that it’s okay, that she’s not upset. She knows it would have happened this way, no matter who told her,” I told him.

Vim sighed again, and shifted a little. As he did some loose rocks and pebbles he stood on crunched… and actually cracked and broke. I glanced down at his feet, and wondered if he had just crushed rocks into powder. It had sounded like it.

How did he do that? It was as if he suddenly got heavier without warning sometimes.

“Riz isn’t sobbing anymore at least. I’ve been listening, she’s just… been sleeping. She hasn’t sobbed or cried in at least three days,” I said, in hopes of making him feel a little better.

The way Vim’s eyebrows narrowed told me I hadn’t done a good job at all.

He crossed his arms, and I studied the way his loose shirt became tighter upon him. “Like humans, our people all are different. Some can move on quickly… and others never do. Like Kaley, they… break. In ways I don’t understand,” Vim said gently.

“Love is a powerful thing, Vim,” I said.

“You were able to move on after Nory, that doesn’t mean your love wasn’t as strong or pure. It’s not the love that causes such a fracture, it’s something else. Something deeper,” Vim said.

Oh…? I turned my head a little more towards him, so my ears could face him directly and not at an angle. I had enjoyed that odd tone he had just spoken with, and wanted to hear more of it… if it’d come.

“I didn’t mean it that way Vim… I just meant, it’s understandable. You can’t fault them for becoming so forlorn during such tragedies,” I said.

“Maybe I’m just… old. She barely knew him. Only had met him a few times, and hadn’t gotten too close to him during those moments either,” Vim wondered.

“You are old, but I think it’s because you don’t allow yourself to feel such things more than that. You don’t, can’t, allow yourself to weep and break over such things else it endangers the rest of us who still live,” I said.

“Did I cry for Lughes and the rest, or the paintings?” he then asked.

The question caught me off guard, and I had to calm my now quick heartbeat. It took a few seconds, but I got it under control. “Can it not be both…?” I whispered a barely acceptable answer.

Vim smirked and shifted again. This time though his feet made no sounds, even though I knew there was now lots of tiny grains of sand and rocks beneath him. He should be noisy.

“A very sly answer,” he said to me.

“It was, wasn’t it?” I smiled a little as I nodded.

“Well… all will be well. She’ll recover. And hopefully in time will find someone else to love. She obviously has a great heart, it’d be a shame for it to be wasted,” Vim said, deciding to… in a way, end the conversation.

I nodded, and shifted. “I overheard that Celine traveled with you. To find a husband,” I said.

“Yes. It happens sometimes. In fact most of the time the reason I have company is for such a thing. Oplar was, or is, the same. She decided…” Vim went quiet as he thought about it. “Oh thirty or forty years ago, she wanted to find a husband. So she’s been traveling around, sometimes with me while other times alone,” he said.

Huh…! “Forty years and she still hasn’t found one?” I asked. Surely by then you could go to all the locations in the Society?

Vim frowned. “She’s picky. Has a certain… desire? Requirement? Either she’ll wait until she finds the one who fulfills it, or will simply pick someone who is as close as she can get, I guess,” Vim said.

I wanted to ask what that supposed requirement was, but the way Vim had phrased it told me I probably shouldn’t pry. He didn’t like telling me about secrets as it was, let alone someone’s private life.

“Is it usually that difficult?” I asked, choosing to focus on that instead.

“Sometimes. Most… well…” Vim shifted again, and this time once again he made no sound as he did. I even glanced down as he moved, and I noticed a few rocks that were moved because of his feet. How come I didn’t, or hadn’t, heard that?

Was his weird silence something he did consciously or was it just… innate? Like an ability or something? Did he even know he did it?

“You think you’re two hundred, don’t you? Where’s your mate?” he then asked me.

Oh…? I smirked at him, and was about to say something that would probably make him flinch… but decided against it. Especially since he was looking at me with a rather serious expression on his face.

“Not everyone needs to be with someone to happy,” I defended not just myself, but many others.

“Hm, good answer. Honestly… such a thing has become a serious problem in the last few hundred years. Too many of the larger villages have been destroyed, or scattered, and now children are becoming… rare. Too rare. And most of the children being born, are those like them,” Vim gestured behind us.

I turned, but only saw the house. It had no windows, likely to combat the heat here, so I saw no sign of anyone or anything. One of the torches near the front door had gone out, but it was still embering lightly.

“Riz and Fival?” I asked. “What’s wrong with them?”

“They’re not pure-blooded. Lial is a type of horse. Celine is, and will be, the last pure blooded camel… that we know of,” Vim said gently.

Oh…

It was my turn to shift, and I wondered what to say about that. I knew Vim wasn’t actually upset over the idea of someone mating with someone different from themselves, but rather the underlying truth to it.

Celine had chosen Lial because there had not been any camels to choose from. And now her children would… be less inhuman, and continue becoming more human as the generations went on.

“How many generations does it take?” I asked. I’ve thought of such a thing many times before, especially lately ever since joining the Society and seeing so many of our kind who were… more human than not.

“Regrettably very few. Riz and Fival will live a long time, hundreds of years, barring a disaster… but odds are their children will not live half that. Even if they didn’t have children with humans,” Vim explained.

Just… one or two generations? “That quickly?” I asked.

He nodded. “It’s why people are so awed by you, Renn. You’re very… human in appearance, but it’s obvious you’re pure-blooded. Young, yet old. Yet you should be much older. Those like you, like Lilly, are far older. Lilly…” Vim went quiet a moment, and then nodded. “Lilly is as old as the Society. That’s usually what one expects when they think of a pure-blooded non-human,” he finished.

Lilly was? “She’s that old?”

“She is.”

“Well… there were those in Lumen right? Fly’s people? Surely there are others out there too? Maybe the next group won’t be so…” I gestured lightly with my hands, afraid to say it aloud.

“Hm… odd isn’t it? We go decades, hundreds of years, without meeting new blood…” Vim mumbled lightly.

“Were they all… not worth saving, Vim?” I asked gently. I knew from experience, from all the ones who had attacked and hunted me that many had not been the kinds of people we wanted in our Society… but there had been those like Wool. Simple, but deep down not evil.

“Reatti and I had gone down there after to search for any survivors. The few we found attacked us on sight, and hadn’t listened to reason. I believe a few survived… like Wool, but chose to stay in hiding. Or maybe even ran away, fleeing away,” Vim said.

I huffed, and a slight wind blew past. My ears fluttered as the torch near us made noises, growing hotter thanks to the burst of air.

Glancing over at the torch, I noted the metal tip that held all the burning stones within it. “Is that coal?” I asked. They looked oddly orange as they burnt, and smelled a little weird.

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“No. But it’s similar. It’s a chunk of resin soaked in a sea creature’s fat. It burns a very long time. They’ll last for weeks if not months sometimes,” Vim said.

“Fat…?” I thought of all the times I had cleaned an animal. Like a deer. Did he mean… that weird substance? That stuff burnt?

“Before we leave I’ll find a torch that needs to be reset, and I’ll show you,” Vim said.

Turning back to him, I smiled. “Thanks.”

“I agreed, regrettably,” Vim mumbled.

“Does it honestly bother you that much? Most the stuff you’ll be teaching me, Vim, doesn’t seem that bad,” I said, teasing him a little.

“Only because you’re too pure for your own good.”

“Pure…?” Was I?

“Hm… one moment, here it is,” Vim then uncrossed his arms, and bent down.

Going still, I hurriedly scanned the world beyond our little torch… and eventually found what he was talking about.

A tiny creature, a small mouse looking thing on two feet… jumped out from between some large rocks. It bounded towards us, at a rather quick pace, and because of how fast it approached… I had to consciously keep myself from stepping away and startling the thing. My ears and tail went still and stiff as it bounced up towards us, and came to a stop a few steps from the thicker shadows casted by our torch.

Vim reached into a pocket and then held his hand out, lowering it to the ground. There were a bunch of little seed looking things in his palm, and the creature had obviously been waiting for them.

It jumped forward, bounding like a rabbit, over to Vim’s hand. With it entering the lit up area, and drawing closer, I found it was kind of like a rabbit… just standing on two large feet and with a weirdly shaped body. It was like a mix between a rabbit and a mouse. Its ears were cute, though its whiskers looked oddly scraggly compared to the rest of it.

The tiny thing made a noise as it made tiny little bounces over to Vim’s hand, drawing close enough to nearly rest against it… and then it began to eat. It stuffed its mouth quickly with little arms, feeding without worry.

Smiling gently at the tiny creature, and the mighty man who was feeding it… I wondered if this was something he fed every time he came here… or if he had simply seen it from a distance one of the recent nights, and was now feeding it.

It didn’t take long for the small thing to stuff its cheeks with all the seeds. Once done, it patted around on Vim’s hand for a moment… likely looking for more. Once it didn’t, it squeaked and then bounced away. Hurrying back into the darkness and over to the rocks it had come from.

“Was it some kind of mouse?” I asked.

“A hopping rodent. They’re kind of like kangaroos, which are…” Vim went quiet as he tilted his head and frowned at himself.

“Another animal I’ll need to learn about,” I said with a smirk at him.

He sighed and nodded. He was still crouched next to me, and it didn’t seem like he had any intention of standing up just yet.

“Usually animals, especially smaller ones, completely ignore my presence. So when I encounter those that don’t, I try to be gentle with them,” he said.

Oh…? Right…

“That is odd. Was it able to smell you?” I asked.

“Who knows? It came over and patted my foot the other night, which isn’t… too strange for an animal to do. They can’t sense me, so they sometimes come up to me as to try and understand what I am. Usually though they get scared and run away once they realize I’m a living thing, and not just a weird rock or something,” Vim said.

Smiling at him, I stepped closer to him and then reached over and placed my hand on his head. “Some rock,” I said as I felt his hair.

“Hm…” Vim didn’t seem to mind or even register I was messing with his hair. He kept staring out in front of us, which told me he could see more… or maybe that very little creature still. I couldn’t. The world became too dark, or blurry, past the nearby rocks. Even with the bright sky above.

Moments passed as I focused on his head, and hair, I wondered what would happen if I shaved all of his hair off. Would it grow back? It never seemed to grow at all, always being the same length… so…

“Will you be able to endure, Renn?” Vim then broke the weirdly comfortable silence, and I tugged lightly on a small flock of hair because of it.

“Endure what Vim?”

“This life we live,” he said simply.

Ah…

Half tempted to wrap his head in a hug; I decided to not torture him that way just yet. Instead I only lowered my hand to his shoulder, patting it lightly. “I’d rather live this life, than the one I had been. Better to sob and weep, than to never experience this,” I said to him.

Vim sighed but nodded. “Are you upset yet over Fival?” he asked.

“Huh? Why would I be?” he was a quiet boy, but nothing he’s done or said had bothered me. He was actually very nice, and seemed willing to teach me when he could.

Vim turned his head just enough to smirk at me. “Hasn’t tried to bed you yet, right?”

Oh.

Smiling at Vim, I kept myself from laughing as I poked him in the cheek. “He’s just a boy.”

“Hm. He is I guess,” Vim admitted.

As I poked his cheek, I noted the feeling of his jaw beneath it. Pushing a little harder onto his cheek, I reached up to touch my own. In the same spot.

“What are you doing Renn?” Vim asked gently. When he spoke, I could feel the muscles and stuff beneath his skin coil and move. It felt weird.

“Just… comparing us, I guess,” I said.

He gave me an odd look, and I couldn’t help but smirk at him. “You have more muscles than I do. I can feel my jaw bone easier, yours… feels like it has extra layers of skin on it or something,” I said, telling him of my findings.

Vim smirked at me, and because of it I was able to feel those very muscles again. Yes. He definitely had more muscles than I did.

“Some of those are because I’m a man, and you’re not,” he said simply.

“Hm… and those that aren’t?” I asked.

“Well…” he frowned, and I changed my attention to his ear.

Vim let me poke and fondle him for a moment, and I realized our ears really were different. Our human shaped ones. My own were smaller, and rounded, and… soft and malleable. His were rather firm, to the point that I felt I’d be able to break something in them if I pushed and pulled too hard.

“Do you have bones in your ears?” I asked.

“It’s cartilage, like yours. Just… stronger,” he said.

Stronger… was that all it was?

For a long moment I stood there, with eyes closed, as I touched my own ear and his at the same time. To compare the two.

“You’re… an odd one, Renn,” Vim said.

“No one’s ever really let me touch them like this, so…” I defended myself as I stopped messing with his ear and wondered what else I could touch. His neck maybe? It was much thicker than my own, and…

Before I could though Vim stood. I wanted to complain, but decided to just do it next time. There’d be plenty more opportunity, after all.

He turned to me, and gave me an odd look.

“What?” I asked, waiting for him to say something.

He smiled and shook his head. “Didn’t you raise children?” he asked.

“Lujic and Ginny? Yes… but…”

“And Nory? You’re telling me you didn’t touch her in all those years with her?” he asked.

Frowning at him, I hesitated. I knew why he was asking such a thing. He wanted to know why I was so fascinated with our differences, and wanted to touch him as I had when I surely should have had similar opportunities like it before in the past.

He was right. I had. Not just the children, and Nory… but even recently. Reatti, Merit, and the many that I had gotten to spend time with. Like Lomi or Herra’s family. Several of them, mostly the children like Lomi, I had gotten to touch often. I had been able to feel their ears, their hands, and such. So I knew relatively the answers but…

“Yes… but…” I started to speak, but couldn’t continue.

“But?”

Unable to figure out how to answer without lying, and… really not finding anything wrong with it, I went ahead and answered him honestly.

“I want to know more about you Vim, not anyone else,” I said.

He blinked at me, and frowned. He looked away, over to the house. I knew from listening that no one had emerged. We were alone still… so…

Was he upset with me…? He didn’t really look it… but…

“She’s not named after Celine,” Vim then said.

I gulped and realized he had forcefully changed the conversation.

“I figured…” I said gently.

Next time I’ll be more careful. I’ll not be so blatant or…

Vim then sighed and scratched the side of his head. Near the ear I had been messing with.

Tilting my head at him, he shrugged and gave me an odd smile. “Sorry. That was awkward. I wasn’t sure what to say, so kind of just… tried to change the topic.”

Smiling back at him, I nodded. “You do that a lot you know?”

“I do?” he asked.

I nodded, firmly. “All the time! You should know by now that if you just… don’t want to talk about something you can just tell me, you know? I promise not to cry too much over it,” I said.

Vim shifted, and his smile turned into a wry smirk. “You’re more than I can handle,” he said.

“Of that I doubt, Vim… I’ve seen you flirt, you can do it just fine,” I said.

“Have you?” he asked with a frown, and I could tell he was quickly searching his recent memories.

“Do you not even notice when you do it?” I asked him.

He must have remembered a few instances, for he smiled worriedly. “Well I mean…”

“This goes back to what I was saying Vim. You get women to flirt with you all the time. You even have had men try their luck! The least you can do is flirt with me, since no one else will,” I said, reminding him of that weird old merchant in those mountains.

Vim flinched, and I knew he remembered it too. “That had been weird.”

“It is weird! You’re not even that handsome…” I complained as I glanced him up and down.

Really. What did women see in him?

Vim chuckled at me. “I’m starting wonder if you’re imperceptive or ignoring it on purpose,” he said.

“Imper-what?” I asked. Another weird word.

“It means obtuse, basically. Renn… you’ve had many men try to flirt with you recently. Even just in Lumen, don’t tell me you forgot because you don’t forget anything,” he said.

Oh…

“That’s not the same,” I said.

“How so?” he asked.

“Well…” I struggled for a moment, and realized he was right. It was the exact same.

The only reason I hadn’t seen it that way, was… well…

Because those men hadn’t been him.

Thankfully it was night, but I knew even in the dark Vim could see my blush as my face got hot. I’d not even be able to blame the nearby torch fire, since I was facing away from it.

Vim smirked softly, and my face got even hotter as I realized he really could see it.

Great.

“I admit. Yes. I guess… I have had a few try,” I admitted.

“Hm. Good. I was worried your flawless mind had finally started to crack,” he teased me.

“Oh shush….” I mumbled and wondered what to do or say now.

Vim’s smirk grew, and I hated how much I enjoyed seeing it on his face.

“You should have pretended to not notice my hypocrisy,” I said stiffly.

He nodded. “Sure, sure. Promise not to belittle yourself anymore then?” he asked.

Belittle…? “My point still stands Vim, though,” I argued. He tilted his head at me, so I went ahead and sighed and continued. “None of our members. No non-humans. The only people who have… even hinted or tried have been humans. And they’ll flirt with anything,” I said.

Honestly it was a horrible argument, but it was what I was going to cling to at the moment. My ears were burning in embarrassment, and I wanted something to blame it on.

Vim frowned as he glanced away. To the darkness. This time I knew it was not so he could ponder, or distract himself, but instead out of instinct. He was just… doing his job. Making sure we were safe.

“And don’t try and say that Herra’s family asking me to join them as a wife is the same thing. That’s just them taking an opportunity. They’d have asked any woman,” I said quickly, before he could.

Vim glanced back at me and a tiny smirk told me he had indeed been about to bring that up.

Fumbling with my hands, I realized my hands and fingers didn’t know what to do. Hold each other? Cross my arms? Stay limp at my sides? They couldn’t decide.

And I knew my ears and tail were also fluttering and puffed up. I bet I looked awful right now.

I was such a mess.

“And yes…! I know that you mentioned some of our members said I was pretty or whatever… but… That’s also just them being nice, isn’t it?” I added.

I knew I was now rambling, and probably looked… distraught, but honestly I was just excited. I was glad he was willing to talk about this a little more, even if it was super embarrassing for me. “Then every time I think you’re about to try something, you just… stop. And change the conversation, or run away, which makes me feel like you think I’m ugly or something and,” I continued to rattle on, and realized I had just revealed a hidden worry of mine.

About to groan, and turn away as if to hide the shame, I panicked as my mind went numb. What do I say now? I needed to keep talking, as to try and help get him to ignore and forget what I had just said and…

“Rennalee, I suggest you stop saying such things and acting in such a way or I’m going to prove you very wrong,” Vim then said.

My fidgeting stopped, and I looked up at his gaze. It was a firm one. A real one. There man before me had no smirk, and…

He nodded. “You’d think someone so good at painting would realize all the colors she was dyeing me in,” she said.

Smiling at him, I laughed at his weird attempt at a joke.

Vim let me laugh, and I felt the cold desert night’s wind cool me off as I wiped an eye. “That was good,” I said.

“Wasn’t it? Fit this place perfectly,” he agreed.

Yes… it did…

Feeling a little calmer after the laugh, I realized my shoulders were kind of stiff. I relaxed a bit, and felt a lot better.

“Sorry...” I apologized for going off on him. I hadn’t been rude, but I knew it had been… odd and likely unusual. Vim rarely had any members actually shout or say such things to him. Weep in his arms? Sure. Ask for help? Of course… but…

Did any ever do what I did? Babble on about weird things like affection and flirting, and complaining to him about his lack of attention?

“For being adorable? Sure. Apology accepted.”

My face got hot again as I groaned at him. “Who’s dyeing who?” I complained.