A Place To Bloom

A Friend Like Chirpy

That small, green, baby vita'o lizard creature thing zipped through the grass and circled Geraln's feet as soon as the eight of us came back through the gate. She frolicked around on two gangly legs, lifted her tiny lizard face all the way up to his knees, and chirped.

Geraln smiled, crouched low to pick her up, and gently set her back on his shoulder. "Here you go, Chirpy."

She burrowed her claws into his leather bow strap and rubbed her head in his cheek.

"Chirpy?" Davod furrowed his brow and chuckled. Like me, like the rest of us, his shirt and trousers were soaked and his hair clung to his back—that was the second time it dumped a foot of rain that day. For two minutes. Was it even two minutes?

Geraln lifted a finger and gently rubbed the creature beneath her chin. "They haven't given her a name yet, so I'm calling her that for now."

Two native girls walked out from beneath the verandah of the administration building dressed in nothing but a silk belt with a flap hanging down front and back, leaving bare dark-green skin everywhere else. One of them wore silver flower buttons over her nipples while the other, whose breasts were completely bare, shifted her amber eyes among us and smirked before they went around the corner.

"I mean..." Gino couldn't pull his gaze from where they'd disappeared. "That's... more comfortable in this damned heat, surely."

Probably.

Jame, watching the same spot, slapped his shoulder and grinned. "That's exactly what I was thinking! I wasn't thinking anything else at all!"

I tried to work out in my mind if there would come a point between the rain and sweat when my shirt would actually be dry.

Probably not.

Faren emerged from the medical ward with his head down. Dark circles decorated his eyes, his hair was a frazzled mess, and his own shirt was soaked around the collar and all down his back despite being inside during the two-minute rain.

"How is he?" Davod asked. I didn't want the answer.

Faren took a deep breath and let it out slowly, glancing back through the row of stone archways behind him. "He's still alive. Barely. He's sleeping for now. I'm going to get some lunch."

Dune was still alive when Oasis went out for a bit.

Massi lifted his shirt and wrung it out. His muscular chest was littered with small scars, and that Orca tattoo ran from his neck down to cover one of his pecs. "What's the big deal?" He shrugged. "So he got stabbed, so what?"

"Do you know what sepsis is?"

"Why?" He grinned back at me. "Is she pretty?"

From between the mess hall and the medical ward, a native man approached us. As with the women, he wore nothing but a black silk flap down his front, revealing chiseled, powerful muscle like a carved stone statue of an ancient, dark-green god. His bright-yellow eyes found me, and he froze. His mouth fell open, and he glanced between me, Davod, and Geraln, before coming back to me. Finally he shook his head vigorously and resumed his approach.

"Davod of Gath." He looked directly at him.

Davod chuckled lightly. "Does everyone here already know our names?"

The native man gave off an easy smile. "ʃʊsi xeŋise... dowa ʒʌgosa peyumi"

Davod raised one corner of his lips and looked at me with his brow furrowed. I shrugged.

Faren answered him with his usual smooth vibe. "Shusi means please, and se is you. So he's asking you to do something. I think."