I walk straight into the jungle and make a wide arc until I’m back at the ship, reaching it from the other side. I stop right behind the barricade.
Dorie is sitting on a rock, working with clay on her pottery wheel. She’s so small and fragile! And yet she clearly is the master of that patch of land. She can kill droks and befriend grikets, so she clearly deals with the jungle much better than I would have guessed from the way she looks.
The sight of her moves something in me I can’t name. It’s as if my blood remembers her kind while my mind doesn’t. Her shape is very strange. She’s round and smooth, with protrusions in the most interesting places. It should feel wrong, but it’s the most right thing I’ve ever seen. What might she look like under that garment?
The very thought sends heat to my midsection. I know what kind of bodies adult women have. The shaman showed me and the other boys many years ago. He used a wooden figure to show the differences. We were all eager to examine that doll. Some boys even asked to borrow it after the lecture. But the shaman would not allow it, so they made one of their own that was passed around until the shaman discovered it and threw it on the fire.
My smile at the memory dies the moment it grazes my lips. I will never see any of my friends again.
Aker’iz makes a noise, and Dorie looks up. Her eyes find mine, and for a heartbeat, neither of us moves. The air feels thick, like before a storm.
She quickly looks down.
I climb over the barricade and go over to her.
“I make a mug for Aker’iz,” she says when I approach. “Before is done, she use mine.” She rinses clay off her hands and holds out a thick-rimmed mug with a little sliver of fresh wood in it.
“You’ll need it yourself,” I point out. “Aker’iz is fine. She doesn’t need a mug this nice. She’s likely to break it on a rock the first chance she gets.”
“I have other mug for me,” Dorie says as she keeps working. “I made a spoon for her, too.”
I take out the little sliver of wood. Indeed, it is a spoon—the smallest I’ve ever seen. Baby-size, in fact.
I show it to the girl. “Aker’iz, Dorie has made this for you. It is a very fine spoon. Now say thank you.”
Aker’iz waves her arms and makes a frustrated noise.
“Her manners are not the best,” I admit. “But thank you for the mug and the spoon. We will make use of both.”
Dorie gives me a quick smile and keeps working, smoothing out the indentations in the clay. “You have see the lake?”
I force myself to look at the clay instead of her hands, so small, quick, and sure. I go over to the campfire and open the pot withAker’iz’s food. “We saw it. It’s both a lake and not, as you said. I have heard of these things. I think they’re called ‘oceans’.”
“Ocean,”she says. “That was word. Ocean.”
“It’s the first ocean Aker’iz has seen,” I tell her. “She was very impressed.”
“And you?”
I scoop up some of the thick fruit mix and fill the mug. “I was less impressed. More worried. What kind of Bigs might live in that?”
She sends me a glance. “That my worry, too.”
I use the spoon to feed the baby, spending a great part of the time getting her to open her mouth. Most of the fruit ends up on the ground, but it’s only our twelfth attempt, and it’s a great improvement over last time.
Dorie gets up and places the new clay mug on a rock where there are traces of previous items having been dried. “Ready for fire tomorrow.”
“It is very fine,” I tell her. In truth, it’s one of the most crooked and uneven clay items I’ve seen, but my tribe has many good potters, and their clay is likely much better than Dorie’s.
She stands up and looks around cautiously. Her gaze snags on my sword.
“If you have iron, I can make a blade for you,” I tell her. “If you don’t have it, I will find some. You plainly are a master of the spear, but a shorter weapon will often be useful.”
“I have no iron. Spear is good. And I have knife.” She shows me a tiny little blade that would be more suitable for Aker’iz thanan adult woman. “If want to wash, can use ocean. But not drink water. Is very bad.”
I frown. “The water is bad? Dirty?”
“Yes, dirty. But is also… other. I forget the name. I show you.” She grabs a couple of pots and starts towards the beach.
