A Place To Bloom

Risks

The quartermaster stood eye-to-eye with Miyani. She turned to me and sneered, "I taught her, you know!"

Miyani stood with her arms crossed. Her face looked so beautiful with her lips scrunched up in a frown and her eyes blazing. She took a deep breath and held it. Every muscle in her body was tense, including her clearly-defined abs and that delicious curve where her hips wrapped around to her holy arse.

My girlfriend turned to me and scowled.

I meant to control it, truly I did. Beside the bag chair I sat upon, that venerable lizard lay on a padded sheet with his head on a plush, red velvet pillow with gold tassels. Outside the bay window, the morning sun cast amber light over the outer wall.

Pu'iyo turned back to me with that shrill, old-woman voice. "This little girl used to hold onto my knee before she learned to stand by herself! Do you hear the way she speaks to me?"

I scrunched up my eyebrows. "She was talking so fast..."

The old woman shot her face at my girlfriend and spat, "'uzi yavoɣa geza! zɪta goŋi keʃo'ibide 'amavidu ʃa yavoɣa geza!"

Miyani lifted her hands to speak, but the old woman cut her off, "fæ 'owude pabavidu. zɪta ya'uðede 'ækiɣe ʃa vʌ ba 'aʒedeɣa. deko feŋeðuɣedu. bi feŋeðuɣe? biʃʌkæviɣa?"

I tried to pick out words where I could, but the two of them argued so fast I was just lost. A small bird landed on the sill and skipped over to a wooden box in the corner. It pushed its beak into an opening at the bottom, then came up and lilted a familiar song, like an up-down-up-down-warble. The ancient vita'o-lizard-creature-guy got up and reached his head into a covered bin, scooped something into his mouth, then brought it over to the box and filled it with small, brown seeds. The bird took its fill and flew off, and the old lizard lay back down and watched as three more birds stopped by.

"Caleb!" The old woman was looking at me. "Let me explain something to you, and perhaps you can get through to her."

Miyani pleaded with her, "poke ki'i gaʒɪɣeza?"

The old woman lifted her hand to silence her. Miyani huffed out a hard exhale and looked off, still with her arms crossed and her jaw locked. Pu'iyo smiled at me. "How do you feel about what happened yesterday? And promise to be truthful."

"Truthful?" I narrowed my eyes on her. It felt like a requirement to dig deep and find the real answer. "I was a bit shook. I killed a man. And that's, you know, difficult. But, last night, Miyani and I talked about it... mostly I talked and she listened. She's a good listener."

The old woman laughed. "You won, didn't you?"

I shrugged and nodded. "Yeah, we won."

She nodded. "Kylen's group won, too, the other day."

"Oh?"

She raised a hand to my girlfriend. "She led them to an ambush point where they engaged the enemy at close range. The ambush was successful. They inflicted great harm to the enemy and won the day."

"OK?"

"Also, Jaysa, Collen, and Raveare were killed. But they won. Isn't that great?"

"Well..."

She lifted a finger. "Tell me something. What is etched on your bow?"

"The Parable of the Golden Acorns. Falcon cries because he sees they won't stop no matter what he tells them."

She urged her face forward. "So you know what it's about, then?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"