by Amanda Milo
Bash’s shoulders seem to relax by a fraction—but then he moves to the driver-hob and great amounts of angry pointing (using his claws, horns, and tail blades) along with a little bit of fire breathing (the literal kind, although plenty of figurative fire-breathing too if Bash’s strident growls are any indication) commences. Even the alien horse ducks its head. At first I think it’s following the conversation—it’s an alien, after all, so there’s no telling how cognizant it is—but then I see it’s trying to reach for the tail end of a leather strap that fits in a V over its breastbone.
It’s not bowing its head in contrition. It’s trying to chew itself loose.
The animal is so going to eat all of the humans milling nearby, the same ones Bash is pointing out to the hob, like it’s the driver’s fault for flirting and not watching his quick-to-consume-limbs creature.
Roy Rogers’ Trigger it is not.
“Ah,” Jonohkada says, a rueful smile hitting his lips. “Well then, there’s something that’s been nipping at my mind ever since I began studying human literature. I’ve read countless medical journals, and although many sing the benefits of chocolate,” he confides, his deep voice pitching to whisper-level, “not once is chocolate mentioned as a required human nutrient.” He finishes this and sends a wary glance at Gracie’s group.
“Come again?” I ask.
The hob looks troubled as he returns his attention to me. “Chocolate. It isn’t discussed anywhere as a necessary nutrient in the human diet.”
“Ha, no—but it should be, right?” I laugh.
The hob does not laugh. “That’s what we were led to believe.”
“Jonoh? Close the wings.” The order appears out of nowhere. Gracie has appeared out of nowhere, right behind him.
With a defeated sort of acquiescence, Jonohkada does as he’s been told. The sparkly, colorful insides of his wings fold until they’re completely hidden.
Gracie grabs one, yanking it down and giving it a shake. “You tell NO ONE, do you hear me?” she hisses, her eyes narrowed dangerously.
“Whoaaa,” I interject, stepping forward. “No need to get physical on the poor guy.” I look around for the hob that Gracie is mated to. “Where’s your husband? Does he know you’re putting your hands all over other aliens?”
Instead of dropping Jonohkada, Gracie only stops shaking his wing to give me a TRY ME glare. In the most hushed whisper I’ve ever had to strain to hear, Gracie explains to both me and the hob whose wing she drops, “It’s best if everyone believes it was a very, very necessary trip to Earth. It was funded because a benevolent donor wanted humans to have our precious nutrients. Like chocolate.” Her eyes flare at me. “Like coffee.”
“Yikes,” I agree. “That’s not even a fib.” Life without chocolate and caffeine? Not possible.
Gracie slumps in relief and shouts, “Fucking thank you! Exactly.”
Jonohkada is watching us, confusion and indecision clear to read on his very innocent face. “So these two… are necessary?”
I nod, now convinced enough myself to convince him too. “They pretty much are. A woman doesn’t get her chocolate and coffee? People die.”
The hob looks stymied. “As I said, I’ve come across discussions of medical benefits, but not outright—”
“Just,” Gracie starts, sighing loudly and makes a shooing motion, which the much bigger male reacts so quickly to, it’s almost funny. He side-steps her, eyeing her with a ridiculous amount of trepidation. It’s like watching an Irish Wolfhound get bossed back by a King Charles Spaniel.
“Drop it,” she orders tiredly. “Forget what you haven’t found. Go back to doing whatever it was you were doing.” She sighs again and adds less brusquely, “You did good, Jonoh. Now quit worrying.”
“Just take your word for it?” Jonoh asks, still half turned away from her, like he’s afraid she’ll swipe at him with claws the size of a bear’s paw or something.
Gracie gives him a sharp look instead. “Yeah you’ll just take my word for it.”
He nods, agreeing fast. “There was never a question, princess.”
It’s apparently the perfect thing to say. Gracie’s head drops back, and her shoulders fall. “God bless Gryfala brainwashing. I love my title.”
“About that,” I start. “I’ve noticed we’re all—”
“Referred to as princesses,” Gracie nods. “Yep.”
An irritation-drenched growl slices the air.
We all look over and find Bash, who strides up to our huddle and doesn’t join it—he wrecks it. His appearance scares off Jonohkada, who takes one look at my new Rakhii friend and gets gone.
Said new friend turns his glare down to me. “You are well?”
I blink up at him, suddenly wondering if he’s not glaring at me, but peering at me with concern. His brow is knitted and he looks fit to throttle a few throats, but maybe this is his I’m-really-worried-for-you face. “I’m fine. And hey, thanks for spitting on me.”
Bash nods seriously. Then he takes my short arm. “Come with me.”
Since I’d been talking to Gracie, I look to her to make polite goodbyes, but she doesn’t need them. She’s grinning at me.
“What?” I ask.
Expression gleeful, she bounces a look between me and Bash. “Ohhh, nothhhhing...”
CHAPTER 5
ISLA
I’m still squinting at Gracie, only to get my hair tugged by Bash. “Isla.”
Pay attention to me, the tug says.
Gracie gives me a slightly alarming smile, something between delighted and This Is The Best Day EVER! “I’m just gonna go,” she says smugly.
“As are we,” Bash decrees as he drags me to his side and stalks up to the now-driverless Narwari cart, the very same one with the Narwari who tried to swallow me arm-first.
I wave goodbye to Gracie and allow myself to be towed closer to the horse-alligators.
She wildly waves back, still grinning. In fact, several humans are grinning, and some of the aliens are watching Bash and me, looking surprised.
Bash either doesn’t notice, or he’s ignoring them. He stops me a few feet from the wagon’s steps. His focus is on Not Trigger. He catches its bridle in his fist. “Mouth her again,” he warns, voice deadly, “and I’ll serve her soup out of your skull.”
“Ack,” I gag. “Why do I get punished?”
Bash’s forehead smooths as he transfers his stunning stare from the animal to me. “Narwari soup is a delicacy.”
“To you, maybe. Geeze. Aren’t you a regular horse-whisperer.”
All three of the alien horses hitched to the cart make eye contact with me, like they totally agree.
“Up, woman.” Five bands of iron clamp around my butt and another five curl over my hip and suddenly gravity isn’t a thing I feel—I’m in the air.
Before I can yelp, I’m on the cart’s bench seat, staring at the back of the Narwari’s heads.
“Slide over,” Bash orders.
“We’re… are we taking a cart ride?”
Bash hits me with a look of utter disbelief. “Does anyone get into a cart only to sit idle? Yes, we’re taking this cart for a ride.”
The whole wagon lists to the side as he plants one large wedge-toed foot on the floorboards and the wagon groans as he effortlessly joins me, plunking his butt on the bench, his tail crammed behind his back before it slithers over the bench in my direction. It stops at my thigh, sliding along my leg, and like it has a mind of its own, it runs itself down to my knee and curls over my calf like a candy cane until it thunks to the floor.
Amused, I stare down at it.
Bash seems determined to ignore that part of his body is touching a human. He takes up the reins, which were lying over the—the front-thing of the cart. I’m coming up blank as to what a person could call it. It’s like a front panel, the below-the-ski-hood to the ski, or the under-the-windshield area inside of a car. As I mull over words, Bash twitches the leather lines.
“What’s th
is called?” I ask, and I sit forward to tap the front cart panel, but Bash catches me by the shoulder—good thing, too, because we’re moving. One second, we’re at a standstill, the next we’re rolling, and the switch in momentum would have sent me tumbling ass over teakettle right off this ride.
Hooves clop prettily on the rock floor of the quarry, and the wagon creaks lightly. We can’t be going more than a couple miles per hour but from up here, it feels fast as faces begin to practically fly by us.
“The dashboard,” Bash answers me.
“Really? Ha! That’s so cool. We have dashboards in cars! On my planet, a long time ago, we got around by horses and carts too. I wonder if we called this part of our carts a ‘dashboard’ then, and if we did, then the name transferred to the motorized vehicle later? That’d be ironic-funny, because we have a term called ‘horsepower,’ which originally referred to how strong your,” I wave to the Narwari butts ahead of us, hauling us at a decent clip, “animal was, and that saying stuck so now our vehicle engines are measured by ‘horsepower’ even though there are no horses used, just mechanical parts.”
I glance up to find Bash staring down at me, his scaly brows bunched. He’s eyeing me like I might be a few bolts loose for a different kind of wagon than the one we’re riding in. Like a crazy one.
I pat his knee, and he jumps. “Feel free to add to the conversation at any time.”
His tail tightens where it’s gripping my leg.
Bash’s nostrils flare and he stares down at my hand so intensely that I slowly, carefully draw it off like a fast move could make him bite it. “Sorry. No five-finger contact from me. Got it. You, ah, want to tell me where we’re going?”
His voice is rough and sounds like it’s rusting when he faces our destination again. “The kiln house.”
“Neat. What’s a kiln house?”
A jade-green orb eyes me from the side. “A ring oven.”
“Yeah, nice try, but that gives me nothing.” I look to where we’re headed, squinting to get a better look at the building situated at the far end of the quarry, the one I was curious about seeing anyway. How handy that I’m getting a carriage ride all the way there. If I don’t tick off the alien beside me, I might get a carriage ride all the way back.
“It’s where all the brick and tiles are made.”
I twist to look behind us, into the wagon bed which is overfull with weird straw. “Why are we taking straw to a kiln?” I frown, confused. “Does straw go into clay bricks?”
“We’re taking dried grapevines. Two types of loads go through the doors: materials and fuel. The kiln house is full of ignition paths and burning chambers. It’s more or less elliptical, and the flames move constantly, chasing its path. Beside the path are rooms that hold whatever clay needs firing. Tiles, bricks. The fire burns so hot the clay cures as the flames heat the room and pass onto the next.”
“Nifty! So we’re going to fork vines into the building to feed the fire?” I hook my thumb behind me to indicate the pitchfork I spotted.
“We are not—you will stay outside of the kiln house. You can go into the clay pit,” Bash declares. “And the vines are not meant for feeding the flames.”
“They won’t burn? And what do I do in the clay pit?”
Bash sighs. “Practice silence?”
“Seriously?”
Bash’s eyes crank deliberately wide and he slowly, slooowwwly turns his head to look down at me.
“Okay, he means seriously,” I mutter, and—careful not to pinch his tail during the maneuver—I cross my leg over my knee, bouncing my top foot. “Why did you throw me up here if you didn’t want me talking to you? I could have stayed back there and worked.”
Bash blinks, a series of disbelieving snaps of his eyelids, like he’s clearing rainwater from his vision, not my words. He drags his fangs over his bottom lip and faces forward almost determinedly, adjusting his grip on the reins, making the leather creak a little, which makes me wonder if he’s thinking of holding my neck in his hands instead of leather straps. “I had no idea you would talk this much.”
“It’s just a few simple questions.”
“Try to ask less.”
“I don’t know if you know this, but you’re sort of grumpy. And… no offense? But you’re also a little bossy.”
A surprised sound breaks from the big alien’s mouth. “You’re… still… talking.”
“You told me to ask less questions. I didn’t ask anythi—” I stop moving my mouth on account of the way he cuts a look at me that holds a distinct warning vibe, if I’m not mistaken. I hold up my hand in surrender. To really illustrate how I feel about being dragged along only to be forced not to say anything, I let out a very speaking sigh.
Bash’s teeth meet, gritting together (his lips are drawn up high enough all his teeth are clearly visible) and his eyelids lower so that he’s either giving the path to the kiln house some serious bedroom eyes, or he’s irked and he’s going to dash my body against the canyon wall here in about two-point-five seconds.
“I’m being quiet,” I inform him.
“The hells you are,” Bash declares before clucking to the Nawari, who pick up their legs faster, increasing our speed.
Despite what he thinks, I do really good at not saying anything—specifically when I don’t say anything back to that.
Do I get credit for my restraint though? Nope. Bash is shaking his head at me when we finally reach the kiln house, where he surprises me by carefully helping me down. I half expected him to scruff me by the neck and send me sailing. However, I think (although, he’s an alien, I could be reading him all wrong) he’s regarding me with a mixture of bewilderment and awe and—possibly, possibly—amusement. A real good thing because I feel like my insides are filling up with words, and I hope he’s still awed if at some point I can’t keep them in anymore and they spew out like explosive verbal diarrhea.
I glance around him at the fire house. It’s massive. It’s like a round-ish mound of brick, wider at the bottom, the walls tapering until they meet the wide and low-slanted roof. Doors ring the building—the openings to the chambers Bash mentioned, I surmise.
Since I’ve been informed that I’m not going inside, I can’t help it that I have to open my mouth to ask, “Where’s the clay pit you want me to be quiet in?”
Bash makes a choked noise. “The one you couldn’t be quiet in if I buried you in it? My Creator, woman—did you know you talk to yourself? Here.” He reaches over my head to pull the set of pitchfork handles out of the back of the wagon.
(Pssst: I am aware that I talk to myself. Lots of people have told me—plus, I’ve caught myself doing it a time or two thousand and infinity.)
He shoves one handle at my hand.
Surprised, I take it and peer up at him. “You want my help?”
“I didn’t bring you with me so you could stun me with conversation, despite your incredible ability to do just that.” He strides for the kiln house, his own pitchfork clamped in his hand. I expect him to knock on one of the doors, but instead, he brings up the end of his fist to bang on what looks like a round rubber bump attached to the stone wall. It’s… it looks like a doorbell.
I exclaim, “You have doorbells?”
Ears shooting straight back, Bash grits his teeth.
After a moment—where I don’t say anything to him or myself, for the record—another Rakhii appears, but he arrives by circling the outside of the structure. He’s attired similarly to Bash, in a long-sleeved work shirt and rugged pants, with the addition of a clay-stained leather smock. He’s less dust-covered than us, not coated in a full-body red-yellow-purple of the quarry rock. Which leads me to believe his pleasant Boysenberry color is his natural one, as far as his scales go. His eyes are a surprising shade of amaranth, and you wouldn’t think it, but because of his manner or non-threatening color, the overall effect of him is… Calming. Approachable. So is his easy-going expression even as he approaches the glowering Bash. I crane to check out the direc
tion he came from and spy a second, smaller building. Rather than being covered in a series of doors, this one is more normal, with a number of windows that allow me to see inside. It looks like there are rows and rows of tables with clay squares on them. Tiles. There are a couple of Rakhii standing behind each table—tilemakers—but none of the aliens are moving.
Because they’re staring through the glass at me.
I wave at them.
I turn back to Bash and the new Rakhii, only to find they’re also staring at me.
Like I’m the strange alien among the aliens, pfft. I wave at them too. Then I bat my lashes up at Bash, which makes him twitch. “Am I allowed to speak a greeting out loud,” I tip my head to indicate the new guy, “or does the no-talking rule extend to salutations? What are the parameters? If you spell them out for me, I’ll follow them to the letter. Then you won’t have anything to get all bent out of shape about.”
“That’d be the day,” the new Rakhii chuckles. Unlike my pal Bash, he doesn’t wear permanently carved scowl lines on his face and he’s not actively frowning. His eyes are bright as they gaze down at me. He looks friendly.
“H—” I start.
Bash growls over me, “No.”
The other Rakhii’s eyes pop wide and his ears swing back.
“No, I can’t say hi?” I ask, giving Bash a very clear Are you crazy? face.
“Or ‘no, I’m not allowed to speak to your female?’” the new Rakhii inquires—and he smiles, and it’s pretty.
I smile back.
And very suddenly, Bash is wearing the exact opposite expression of the nice Rakhii. Bash is SCOWLING.
“That mud pit you’re going to bury me in,” I say with a radiant smile. “Want to point me in the right direction so I can start sinking?”
“What?” asks the Rakhii I still haven’t been introduced to. But he must know Bash pretty well because he doesn’t wait for an answer. He shakes himself—and bows. To me.
Bash’s tail balls up like a fist and socks him. “You don’t have to bow to her, she’s not a real princess.”