The lagoon was deep and clear, and when Pahtl dived down into its depths he found fish as long as himself that gave a fantastic wrestle before losing to him. One of the fat silvery creatures was enough to feed five or six or a thousand of the smaller water people that trailed after him, forever impressed by his size and prowess. Sometimes he got tired of their praise, but it was important for the little ones to have someone to look up to, so he tolerated it

Great drooping trees lined the banks, and sometimes lizards, birds, and even long-tailed monkeys used the trailing branches to hunt insects and tadpoles on the surface of the water. Pulling the monkeys’ tails was a great game, and Pahtl was the best at it, though every now and then he let the one he’d named Burgess get there first. Burgess was fast, and he had a good laugh. Hearing him hoot after a good sneak-and-yank was almost as funny as watching the monkeys scream in frustration and throw their own scat after them. The little ones told almost as many tales about Burgess as they did about Pahtl himself. Well, almost. Actually, when he stopped to count, Burgess had only two stories the others told, and Pahtl had as many as the stars. Also, Burgess’s fur was a very dull brown.

He’d pulled the other water people along as far and as fast as he could, feeling his sense of Tarek grow little by little as the days of swimming took them ever northward. The river that had led them to this lagoon was the fourth they’d swum up once Pahtl had felt they’d gone far enough north, and none of the others had gone nearly as far inland as this one. For all that the little raft of water people had been the ones to insist they would go with him, they complained constantly of the effort and boredom that traveling so far took. When they’d found the lagoon, they’d all decided to stay for a while without even having to discuss it.

It was a good place. Pahtl had seen more of the world than any of the others dreamed, and he knew this was a prime spot. The underbrush was lush and green, the insects plentiful, and the fish endless. There were even a few tunnels into the rock down near the bottom of the lagoon that made for a very good game of chase. Had Pahtl not needed to keep going to find Tarek, he’d have been tempted to stay.

In fact, as he chewed on a fish head in the shade of a fern and watched four of the little ones splashing in the shallows, Fashagar nibbling daintily on the remains of the tail next to him, he realized many days had passed since they first found this lagoon. He had to pause his chewing to count the days. It had been two days past the half-full of the white moon when they’d arrived, and last night had been the full. Tavi had called that a fortnight, and even though it was very stupid of the slick-skins to have names for everything, Pahtl was shocked. He didn’t realize they’d stayed here so long. Tarek still pulled at him in his mind, but the feeling was not nearly as strong as he got closer, and perhaps he’d grown used to the pressure of it. He hadn’t even thought about his pet slick-skin in days.

Fashagar nuzzled him. “Why ye quit yer munchin’, boomy? Ye’re leavin’ all the smacky bits.”

Pahtl startled out of his thoughts. “You can have it. I could finish it if I wanted, but I will catch a bigger one later.”

She snatched up the half-eaten head without needing a second invitation, diving enthusiastically into the meal and cracking the head bones with her strong little jaws to get to the soft, sweet meat inside. Pahtl had already eaten the eyes, but she didn’t complain. Of all the new raft he belonged to, she complained the least and did the most. He liked it when she ate beside him.

“Ye’re workin’ yer thinkies, ain’t ye?” she said, the words garbled by fish meat and gore.

“I hadn’t realized we’d stayed here so long,” he admitted.

“Long?” she said. “Whaddya on aboot? Hardly dipped our swimmers yet.”

He smoothed his face fur, cleaning away the last of his food, and then pulled his favorite rock out of the pocket in his armpit to roll between his paws. He’d found the rock at the pool where he’d last seen Tarek. It was striped gray and brown and red, and it looked like an egg. It calmed him to roll it around and chew on it. “We’ve been here half a moon, Fashagar.”

“Ner,” she denied, disbelief in her voice. “It cannae be.”

“I counted, and I am the best at counting.”

She wolfed down the last of the fish head and cleaned her fur. “If ye say. And whatanif it be? Ees a bonnie spot for a speck.”

“Yes,” he said, watching the others. The little gray one with the white tail tip had caught all three of the others in turn, and now they had ganged up to chase her. Her shrieks of laughter bounced off the water and rang to the sky. “But I still must find my slick-skin friend.”

“Bah,” Fashagar said companionably. “Whassa slick-skin in the end? Ees a bonnie spot. We kin make a mighty fine raft if’n we stay.” She pressed the length of her body against his side. “Ye cannae make a raft with yer slick-skin.”

Pahtl’s insides churned, and for the first time he thought about what might happen if he simply left Tarek to his own devices. Fashagar would come into heat soon; even aside from her suggestive talk and cuddling, he could have been blind and deaf and still been able to smell it. She might be small, but she would be a good mate. She was strong and smart, and she always stuck by him. Even when the others complained, she helped him keep them moving. He worried that he might hurt her, being so much bigger than she was, but he’d been smaller once. Maybe she would grow too. It was a deeply appealing thought.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I had a mate once,” he said, forcing the words out.

Her head jerked up, and her liquid eyes betrayed her shock. “Ye left yer mate?”

“No. She died. All my raft did. A panther caught one of the tiny ones, and we fought it. My mate died first, and we all ended up badly bitten and hurt before the ones that lived chased it off. I licked and licked, but I was the only one that didn’t die.”

She fell quiet and settled against him. “Right sorry fer that. Claw folk are bad’uns.”

“They are.” He sank into his own thoughts. If it had been long since he’d last thought about Tarek, it had been longer still since he’d thought of his mate. Her fur had been black and sleek. They’d had three pups, all half-grown. The panther had killed them all.

“Hey,” Fashagar said, nudging him. “It were a year ago.”

He nodded slowly and let his head come to rest atop hers. “Maybe a thousand.”

They laid there in a doze for a long time during the afternoon, and Pahtl dreamt of his pups. They were grown and playing in the water of the lagoon with his new raft, and it made his soul calm. When they swam, they were even faster than he was.

The dreamed shattered, and he jerked awake with a cry, staggering to his feet. Fashagar leapt up, scampering for cover before stopping in confusion. There was no smell of danger, and she looked wildly on all sides.

“Whassa run from?” she cried, skittering back and forth.

“Nothing,” he said, smoothing his face against her fur. “Be calm. There’s no danger – not here.” His heart ached, and his feet itched. “It’s time to go.”

“Are ye daft?” she demanded. “No biters ner pounders to find, but ye say go? Were that flopper ye were chompin’ full o’ rot an crazy? Speak sense!”

The hook at the back of Pahtl’s mind was pulling harder than it had since he’d gone back to the Land with Tavi. “My friend is hurt. Very badly. I can feel it, and I have to help.”

“Yer friend?” she said despairingly. “Let ‘im go, ye great daft boomy lump! Ye’ve a raft now. I’ll mate ye ifan ye ask it. What sense is it to go?”

“No sense at all,” he whispered, miserable. “But I must.”

She regarded him sternly for a long moment, then whirled toward the water. “All right, ye lot! Up an going we are. Ner, ye’ll not gab and chew on it, we’re trompin’ now!”

In remarkably short order the entire raft was clambering past the little waterfall at the head of the lagoon and working their way further east up the stream. There was plenty of complaining, but there was plenty of play, too. Pahtl was grateful for the noise. Even the complaints distracted him from the ball of emotions in his mind that was Tarek. Pain and fear flashed through the distant boy in lightning flashes, and they just kept coming. Something was wrong, even more deeply wrong than before, and Pahtl needed to get to him so he could find the problem and bite it.

Three days they followed the stream until they reached its head and moved beyond it. The grasses and shrubs grew dry and brittle, and the tall trees thinned out and disappeared. The ground bunched itself into hills and gorges, and their progress slowed to a crawl. The little ones complained more and more. What water they found was still and brackish, and the red-bellied insects that scuttled through the gorse were bitter and slimy.

Then they reached the crest of a tall hill and stopped. The world stretched out before them, and Pahtl could see farther than he’d ever seen before. It was a dry, baking expanse of cracked earth so hot that he could see the heat shimmering in the air. It went on forever. It would take a year to cross, and he could feel that Tarek was somewhere on the far side of it.

“Assa bad spot,” one of the little ones whispered.

Pahtl said nothing. For the first time in his life, he was not sure he could win this game.

“Ees there ye’re aimin’ to wade?” Fashagar asked him quietly. He nodded.

“Ner, ye cannae wade in a spot sucha that ‘un,” Burgess said. There was no laughter in his voice now. “We cannae go.”

Still Pahtl stared into the distance. It was a dead land. He could see the bleached bones of some poor beast that had collapsed and died in the hazy distance. What can I say? I can’t even ask them to come.

“Water folk need water,” Burgess said. “We needa go back. The swim hole were a bonnie spot.”

Pahtl found his voice. “You should. It is a good spot. You can catch the big fish. You are good at it. Not as good as me, but almost.”

Burgess seemed to want to say something else, but like the others, he was not good with words. After a moment he bobbed his head and trundled off. The other little ones followed after him, and Pahtl watched them go. He thought of his long-dead pups and wished he could go with them.

The little ones disappeared around the curve of the hill, and he let the silence overtake him. He’d forgotten how quiet things were when traveling alone. It was a bad kind of quiet.

A shift in the grass behind him caught his ear, and he turned. Fashagar sat there, looking at him expectantly.

“They’re leaving,” he said. “You shouldn’t get too far behind.”

“Not goin’, am I?” she said.

“You aren’t?”

She snorted. “Ner. Theysa good raft, but that ‘un ye call Burgess’ll see ‘em ta their place aright.”

He smoothed his face fur, his thoughts conflicted. “You are the smartest and best of them. They will need you.”

“What anif I need summat different?” she countered. “If an I’m ta care for pups, I’d ferleast like ‘em ta be mine own.”

He hunkered down and looked her in the eye. “This is a dead land. I don’t know how I’ll cross it.”

“Ye’ll sort it,” she said, all confidence. “Ye’re the best o’ the water folk.”

“We might die,” he said.

She nuzzled him. “We all die. If an I do, it’ll be with ye.”

He curled around her. She fit entirely within the curve of his body. “Fashagar, will you be my mate?”

“Been chuckin’ meself at ye since we met, ain’t I?” she said dryly. “Jest waitin’ fer ye ta figger it.”

He nuzzled her deeply, nipping her on the nape of the neck. “I may be the best of the water people, but you are the smartest.”

Eventually they left their hilltop and forged on into the dry, cracked lands ahead. Pahtl had a stupid slick-skin to save, and there was no time to waste. But in the meantime, he would not be alone.