A Place To Bloom

Man Enough

By the time Faren and I had arrived at the medical ward, Ales was asleep. He'd had a small cut on the side of his back with a handful of stitches beside round leech scars. I'd stayed with him long enough for Faren to get something from the mess, and then he stayed the night with him while everyone else went off to bed.

Geraln's whisper-scream cut through my sleep. "CALEB!"

I woke drenched in sweat with purple morning hues flooding through the windows. I rubbed my eyes and looked. Geraln lay on his back, and a green mass was on his chest. Davod got up and came closer to look, as did Rock. It was that creature that sniffed us all at the gate as we came in the day before.

Geraln lifted his head up and crossed his eyes to look. It had curled up with its tail and long neck wrapped around its body, and its legs and forelimbs tucked under. He lifted the whole thing up and down with each breath while his fingers trembled. He cried nervously, "why is it here!"

Rock tilted his whole body to the side and knelt down to get a closer look. "She sleep."

Geraln's voice quivered, "get it off me!"

The creature lifted its tiny head and stretched its mouth open, showing rows of needles on both sides top and bottom before closing, then turned its head to face him and chirped.

Davod reached out his hands to scoop it up. It looked at his hands, then coiled its neck and snapped, clamping its tiny jaws close to his fingers. Davod jerked his hands away fast, and the creature hissed at him. Then it turned its tiny face to Geraln once more and chirped.

"What do you want?" he pleaded.

I shrugged. "Have you tried sitting up?"

Geraln turned to face me; his eyes were wide. With that, he took in a deep breath and let it out, then slowly propped up on his elbows while the thing stared at him. He kept raising up, and soon the creature chirped again, then jumped off him and stepped onto the floor. As he sat up completely, it continued to stand before him, snaking its neck upwards to look at him, and chirped.

Someone laughed elsewhere in the barracks. It was another man, Herali, who'd watched this ordeal with a smile on his face. "Yeah," he said, "you'll get used to those things."

"Get used to it!" Geraln huffed. "Have you woken up with one of them sleeping on you?"

The man cocked his head and grinned. "Nope." He then went about stretching his arms and torso, rolling his neck around in all directions. On one shoulder he had a tattoo of Cougar with his mouth open wide showing his fangs.

I asked, "how long have you been here?"

"About a month. Let me tell you this, though..." he stood and picked up a long shirt of toughened leather that was laid out beside another of ring mail. "Whatever you do, don't pull a weapon on them."

I looked at Davod, who'd raised an eyebrow in my direction. Rock lifted his chin. "What he say?"

As I translated, another man came around, cinching his belt as he spoke. "Vita'o are honest creatures. If they like you, they'll let you know. And if they don't like you... they'll let you know. They got rules, though; one of them is if you pull a weapon on them, they're allowed to mess you up. And believe me, I seen 'em get pissed off, too. They'll growl, hiss, scream, bare their teeth and snap at you. It's scary as shit, and you can't do nothing—just stand there and take it."

Davod nodded. "Oh, so just like women."

He earned quite a few laughs for that.

Another man chimed in, chuckling. "You should see what the females do."