“Get what you need,” I say. “If you had need of them, I would’ve kept them alive, but you sent them away.”
Her eyes widen now, her lip trembling. Guilt pulses through her.
“I’d have spared them only until they had helped you,” I clarify. “Then they still would have died.”
“I hate you,” she whispers. “I hate you with all my soul.”
I actually chuckle this time. What a strange little thing, to think I would care about her feelings. “Noted.”
She does gather up quite a few things, stuffing some of them in a bag, and sitting down to use others. She puts salve on her feet, and then she wraps them in long strips of fabric, and then she covers them with fuzzy socks, and then she stuffs them into new human shoes. When she stands, she stays more-or-less upright on her own without grimacing.
It’s a big improvement.
“Is there anything else you require?” I look around. “You should grab it.”
She does, stuffing more things in another bag, and then tying them together. She lifts them up, and they appear to be rather evenly balanced. “You’re going to carry this for me.” She tilts her head. “It should fit over your massive withers just fine. Mostly.” She sighs. “Or you could leave me here.”
I roll my eyes. “Time to go.”
“Where are we going, anyway?” She looks out the window. “Because it’s a whole lot of nothing until we hit Reno, basically.”
“But Reno’s a human settlement?” I can’t help my smile. “Yes?”
She scowls, which I take as a yes.
“That’s where we’re headed, then.”
“It’s a desert between here and there,” she says. “I could die out there.”
“We’ll be traveling quickly,” I say. “And if you’re capable of listening, I plan to teach you some things along the way. Then you could be of use to me when we reach this Reno instead of a hindrance in accomplishing my purpose.”
“I hate you and your purpose,” she says. “I’d rather die than help you.”
“That’s been made clear,” I say. “But you don’t know what you don’t know. I plan to show you, and then we’ll see.”
“You bring death,” she says. “And humans need life. You’re not going to change my mind.”
I laugh again. “Oh, your version of life and mine aren’t the same. Maybe I will.”
“Don’t bet on it,” she says.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” But I’m smiling when I shift back into my horse form, because I kind of am betting that I can convince her by not killing her. Imagining her as a general, directing armies into battle, clearing out the rot of the world as it currently stands, almost makes me smile.
It would be a glorious sight to behold.
5
Xolotl
I paid no attention to the things Whitney stuffed into her makeshift saddle bags. Why would I? I’m not a human. I don’t need any of the stuff she needs. But the things she pulls out as we move, even when we’re moving fast, surprise me. She pulls out bottles and drinks things from them, almost dropping one and crying out when it slips from her hands and spills all over my right side. She unwraps crinkly packages and consumes things from inside those packages as well.
I’m not sure I’d ever paid as much attention to the things humans must do to live. They seem to need to eat quite often.
Once, she makes me stop so she can slink away and crouch behind a bush, as if I can’t hear and smell both her urine and her excrement. Humans are filthy creatures with all their fueling and waste creation, but Whitney’s extremely fussy about it. My other generals simply took care of things, no shame or shyness about it. They can’t control their weak little bodies in any case, so why should it matter if I hear or know that about them?
I should have paid a little more attention to her in that store.
Then it might not have come as such a surprise when she stabs me in the shoulder. The pain’s relatively minor, but the shock hits me fairly hard. In the more than six thousand years of my existence, never once has one of my own generals actually caused me harm.
