He pats my back. “We are down, my mate.”
“W-we are?” My eyes are still tightly squeezed shut.
“Yes. You can stand on your own now.” To his credit, he sounds very patient and not annoyed with me at all. I dare to open one eye and glance around. I see nothing but ice and shadow, and I look down. Sure enough, Pashov’s big furry boots are plantedfirmly on the snow. I slide one leg down off of him and feel solid ground beneath my feet.
I burst into tears.
“Come now,” my mate soothes, cupping my face. “It is not so bad as that, is it?”
“I’m just relieved,” I tell him between tears. All the frantic, nervous energy being sapped right out of me through my tear ducts. I feel drained. I rest my face against his chest, sniffling. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”
“You are not a mess. We all have fears.”
I want to ask what he’s afraid of, but I know the answer. I think of his nightmares, always about cave-ins. Well, that particular fear is justified. I can’t blame him for that.
His hands slide to my butt, and he cups it. “Besides,” he teases. “I got to enjoy your legs around my waist, and now I get to put my hands on this round bottom of yours.” He pats it, teasing. “No tail. So strange.”
I hold my breath. That…that’s our old joke. He always grabs my butt and makes cracks about my lack of a tail. I wait, hoping he’s going to say something else. That he’ll remember more.
But he just gives my butt one final pat. “Come. Let us get to the new home-place and see what your howse will look like.”
My house. Not his. Not ours. Mine.
I don’t know what to think. Man, talk about mixed signals.
PASHOV
This place is nothing like I had imagined. I have lived my entire life in the sheltering walls of the tribal cave, and even though Ihave been told what this vee-lage should look like, my mind pictured it differently. I could not envision a place where so much stone is so neatly set together. The stone under our feet locks together like fat fingers, dusted by snow. It feels hard on the boots, and I wonder why anyone would set stone in the ground like this with such regularity.
“Cobblestones,” Stay-see murmurs as she comes to my side. “Nice.”
Is it? It feels strange under my feet. “What are they for?”
“Um?” Stay-see gives me a strange look. “To make roads. Floors. To keep the ground even. So it doesn’t get slushy or muddy. And it’s good for wheels.” She nudges me. “I don’t think you guys are up to wheels yet.”
“But you have seen this before?”
“Oh yeah. Mostly in older cities. But I’ve seen it.” She seems relaxed and comfortable at the sight. “I wonder what the houses will look like.”
I am curious about this as well. I gaze around us. The crevasse walls grow higher as we walk forward, and they block out a lot of the sunlight. The shadows make it colder down here, and I worry my mate will suffer. I hold my worries back, though, because Stay-see seems excited. After the trouble getting down here, I do not want to take her back out of the valley. Not if there are metlak up there. She will be safest with the tribe.
The crevasse winds around and splits. We turn a corner, and there ahead, I see the vee-lage. It is so…strange. Squat piles of rocks form regular, small caves neatly lined up in a way that looks unnatural and makes my mind hurt to see. Some are topped by leather suspended by poles until it forms a high triangle of sorts that points up at the sky. Smoke rises from a few different leather triangles, and I see people walking between the little stand-alone caves.
“Oh wow,” Stay-see breathes at my side, clutching my arm. “Check it out. They look like teepees on top of walls. I wonder who thought to do that.”
“I will ask,” I tell her. If it is important, I will find out for her.
“I’m sure we’ll find out.” She continues to hold on to me as we walk forward. Her eyes are wide, and she can’t stop staring. “It looks like everyone’s setting up in the small houses. I wonder what the big one is for.” She gestures, and at the far end of the rows of howses, there is a larger stone building, still with no top to it. “Maddie said there was a pool there, right?”
“I believe so?—”
“Stacy!” An excited squeal erupts from one of the tee-pee howses as we pass it. It is Jo-see, the chattery one. She springs out, practically dancing with excitement. “You guys are here! That’s wonderful! I’m so excited to see you!”
“Josie,” Stacy calls out, extending her arms. The smaller one flings herself at my mate, and the two women hug. “How was the trip here? Did everyone make it all right?”
“We did! It was great.” Jo-see beams at me. “Making our way down was a little hairy, but Harlow’s talking about setting up a pulley and a lift of some kind. I haven’t seen her this motivated since the earthquake.”
My mate gives Jo-see a gentle smile. “It’s been hard for her—the ship was her baby.”
