Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 86059 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86059 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
For a long time, I remain perfectly still, letting her hand explore my face. I study her as I do, noticing that she wears different body coverings than the last time I saw her, that her stomach does not grumble with hunger constantly. Her face has strange coverings over her bruises, and the part of her face not concealed is the part that displays her scars. For all of her gentleness, my female is a warrior, I decide. She carries her battle wounds proudly.
She says something again, and then taps the end of my nose.
I reach out to her with my mind, trying to press my thoughts against hers, but still encounter nothing. Frustrated, I let out a huff of breath.
She yelps in response, jumping, and takes a step back. Her fear scent flares, and then dissipates as she approaches me again, making more of those sounds in her throat. After a moment, she taps her chest and coughs a sound. Then coughs it again, watching me with expectant eyes.
I like her dark eyes, I decide. It does not matter that they do not swirl with color. I like their stagnant brown. I am so tired of colors. I nuzzle at her small head as carefully as I can, licking at the coverings on the bad side of her face.
My female pushes my nose away, making noises once more. She pauses, and then I hear a sigh of frustration. After a moment, she gestures and then races away. I start to follow, but she makes more sounds and waves her hand so much that I suspect she does not want me to follow at all. So I lash my tail, waiting and watching to see what she does.
If she runs, I will follow her back to her hive once more. My thoughts are so peaceful when she is here. I need to keep that.
I need to keep her.
To my relief, my female returns a moment later with a metal disk. It almost looks like a loose dragon-scale, but she sets it down in front of me, then goes to pry another from one of the round legs of the metal carcasses that line this path. How puzzling. They are filthy, their shine dulled by dirt and time, but she looks pleased at the thought of them and sets a second one in front of me, and then a third. She produces something that looks like a small red egg and holds it up, making more mouth noises.
As I watch, she puts the red egg underneath one of the scales, and then moves them back and forth. Then, she gestures at me, indicating that all three scales are mine to choose from.
I…am not interested in any of them, though. I only want her. So I croon once more and then nuzzle at her soft hair.
She makes a frustrated sound, then taps her chest and coughs at me again.
Perhaps…perhaps my female is not very smart. Perhaps the colors and sounds bother her mind, too. How can I help with that, I wonder, if her mind will not connect with mine? She deliberately shuts me out.
Unless…
I reach out and touch Luminoura’s mind, brushing at her thoughts. She is nursing, her patter of thoughts happy and content, her mind full of images of her dam’s pale teat as she sucks on a nipple.
Her dam has a pale breast…because she is also human. I knew there was something different about Luminoura’s thoughts—Sallavatri’s too. That must be it. I probe at Luminoura’s thoughts, asking her to call up images of her mother. The flitters that fill my head are of a dark-eyed female with thick curls and a wide smile. Of gentle hands without claws. I brush at her thoughts for her father, and find they are a mixture of his battle-form and his two-legged form.
Aaaah. Luminoura’s mother only has one form. Perhaps my female does, too.
But I have two.
I remember that now, my thoughts surging with delight. I have a name—Jur—and a two-legged form as well as a battle-form.
JURIK, Luminoura reminds me. NOT JUR.
She is right. I forget part of myself when I only give half my name. When I only have one form instead of two. Pleased at this realization, I nuzzle my female’s mane again and then retreat a few steps to shift to my two-legged form.
It has been so long that I have forgotten how. My thoughts blank out for a long moment and I stare at my claws, waiting and wondering…and then bones shift. Wings disappear, and scales flex and tighten.
Then I am crouched on the ground, and my body is in its two-legged form, muscles tight with disuse. I groan, stretching, and scratch at my belly with now smaller claws. The world here—this ugly, stinking world—looks different from this height. Fascinating.