I did not tell Julie any of this so as to not worry her further. She seemed happy to spend the day talking about cooking and asking me about my dekes. I did not wish to see her smile fade with the knowledge that danger was near.
I would have to tell her soon, though. We were going to have to stop for the night and try again tomorrow.
I found a large tree with many wide branches that could serve as our shelter for the night. It was notmy first choice, but since very few predators roamed the treetops, it was our safest option.
“We will stay here tonight.” I remarked as I shook the tree to test the sturdiness of it.
“Where? Is there a den nearby that I’m not seeing?” Julie looked around our surroundings.
“Unfortunately, no,” I sighed. “We will sleep in this tree tonight.”
“This tree?” Julie pointed to the tree in question with a look of shock on her face. “No, no, no.” She shook her head. “Sleeping in a cave was bad enough. I can’t sleep out in the open in atree!”
“The tree is safer than the ground,” I teased.
“I know that.” She slapped my shoulder with her small hand.
“All will be well, you’ll see. We will get comfortable and you will tell me your fears and I will show you the stars.”
Julie was full of worries, and I did not think it was easy for her to unburden herself of them, but I found her to be incredibly brave because of it. If I carried as many worries as she did, I was not sure I’d ever leave the safety of the mountain.
She clung to my back as I used my claws to climb up the tree. I found the widest branch and sat against the tree trunk as I helped Julie find a comfortable position on my lap.
“Am I going to sleep on your lap? Do you sleep on each other under the mountain, too?” She questioned me with her arms folded over her chest.
“Of course, how else would we sleep?” Julie’seyes grew wide until she saw the quiver of my chin.
She slapped my shoulder again and chastised me. “Don’t do that!” But soon the corner of her mouth turned up in a reluctant smile and I felt like I had won a great victory. To see Julie smile despite all her worries was a great treasure indeed.
“Come, lay down against me and we will look up at the stars as I promised.” I patted my chest and beckoned her to lay down. Despite having her pressed against my back for most of the day I was still excited to feel the press of her skin against mine again tonight.
She lay down and looked up at the sky and started to recite what sounded like a chant.
“Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight.”
I shifted my gaze to where Julie was looking and spotted the star she had fixed her sight on.
“That’s a moon.”
Julie let out a disappointed sigh. “Just my luck, I wished on a moon.”
“If your wish was for protection, then the moon was the perfect thing to wish upon. The moons protect us. You see that small moon?”
She shifted her gaze to where was pointing. “Yes.”
“My mother said when she was a sietling that moon was double the size it is now. But one night they heard a loud sound from the heavens and looked up to see a giant rock crash into the moon. It collided with itinstead of Valo Prime. That small moon saved us from untold damage.”
“Does your mother live with you in the mountain?”
The familiar ache I felt every time I thought of my mother shot through me like a spear to the heart.
“No, she died when the stiffness spread through the dekes when I was a young male.”
“The stiffness?”
“A disease that weakens a person and leaves their muscles as stiff as wood. They become immobile and die within a few days of getting sick.”
The memory of my mother drawing in her last breath would haunt me until the end of my days. My sire had died years earlier while on a hunt. Once my mother was gone I was truly alone.
