I touch my mane. “You did this for me the other day and seemed to like it. I want you to look upon me with approval. Should I take it down? I like it. It keeps my mane neat.”
She shakes her head, her expression growing a little shy. “No, I like it that way. It shows off your features. You look handsome.”
I grunt. I like that she enjoys gazing upon me. It fills me with a curious sense of pride, as if I have done something mighty, even though I have done nothing at all.
“So what are we doing now? You and me?” She asks.
I wave the jerky in front of her, because she still hasn’t taken it from my hand. “I am feeding my mate and my kit.”
F’lor takes the jerky from me with an amused expression and holds it in her grip. She stops and gazes up at me. “I mean, what are we doing? You and me? For the future?”
The urge to touch her is near-overwhelming. I reach toward her, and when she does not pull away, I gently touch her cheek, stroking her soft skin. Just being able to touch her eases the anxious edge of my spirit. “We will go on as we have in the last few days, I hope. I should like to continue to take care of you. I should like to be your mate most of all.”
I expect her to bring up T’ia again, to throw that in my face once more, but she only gazes up at me, expression thoughtful. She leans in against my hand. “You ready to be a father?”
“More than ready.” The thought brings me an almost unbearable joy. “I would love a boy. Or a girl. Or both.”
Her eyes widen and she playfully bites my thumb. “Ay, let’s just focus on having one baby right now, all right? Two at once is too many to consider right now.”
I grin. “We will consider it for our next resonance, then.”
“You think there will be another?”
“I know it.”
“Spoken like a man,” she replies, but she’s smiling up at me. “It’s so strange to be thinking about babies now, when all we’ve thought about for the last few days is sex.”
“If it helps, I am yet thinking about you in the furs.” I nudge the jerky she’s holding toward her. “Now eat.”
“Susmaryosep,” she mutters, and takes a big, deliberate bite, glaring up at me. Then she nods her head at D’see and O’jek. “We should catch up with them.”
Am I pushing her too hard? She is carrying my kit now. What if this is too much for her to do? What if she needs to walk slower? Or stop for the day? “Do you need to rest?”
“I’m fine.” She takes another big, gnawing bite out of the jerky. “Well, not completely fine. All of this baby talk is making me miss my mom.”
I put a hand on her back, gently steering her along the path as we start walking again. “Your mother would be pleased to know you are carrying my kit?”
She gives a small laugh around the jerky and then offers me a bite. “She would tell me that it’s about time. That she’s wanted more grand-babies forever and how come I held out for so long? The usual mom stuff.”
I like the amusement in her voice. “You were very close with your mother?”
“Yes and no.” F’lor pauses, thinking. “I miss all of my family, of course. My sisters, my father…but I think about my mother the most. You know I became a nurse to make her happy? She was a nurse, too. Wanted me to follow in her footsteps. I sometimes wonder what she’d think if she knew I wasn’t doing any kind of nursing anymore. That I’m not needed because of Veronica….and that I’m kind of glad for it.”
“Glad?” I know she has mentioned in the past that she was a healer back on her planet, but not in the same way that V’ronca is a healer here. She would tend to wounds and make the injured comfortable, but she had no ability to heal them, as she had no khui. This is the first time she has mentioned that she is glad to not be a healer, though. “Why glad?”
“Because it’s a lot of pressure,” she confesses. “This is an alien planet with no reliable technology to speak of. People are giving birth to babies right and left. I would feel so overwhelmed if it was all on my shoulders to keep them all healthy. At first I was upset that Veronica was the healer and not me, but then I realized how big of a relief it was that everyone turned to her instead of me. It feels like I can relax and just be me and figure myself out instead of being responsible for everyone on this beach. I guess I don’t have the calling like my mother did. It was just always assumed I’d be a nurse because that was what Mom did. And I don’t miss it.” She looks up at me. “What about you? Do you miss your family? Think about them often?”
I ponder this. It feels good to talk to F’lor in this way. To confess to her things I would never say to O’jek or U’dron or A’tam, for fear of my words being taken the wrong way. “I do not. Is that bad?”
“Nope. We all have different coping skills. I get it.” She reaches for my hand and takes it in her grasp, squeezing it. “And they’ve been gone for a long time, right?”
“A very long time,” I agree, thinking back to those first days after the Great Smoking Mountain exploded and took half the island—and almost all of the people—with it. Of days of hunger and ash covering everything. Of fear. Of sleepless nights, terrified the ground would shake and the mountain would finish us off and sink into the seas. “My memories of the time before the Great Smoking Mountain died the first time are very vague. It feels as if everything started that day we returned from our hunting trip to find that our clan was gone, our caves destroyed. It was only us left, and we started over in that moment. O’jek, U’dron, and A’tam looked to me for guidance, and I took charge. They became my family that day, and I made sure they were fed and taken care of, even if it meant I had to go without.”
She squeezes my hand again. “That’s enough hardship for a lifetime, right? Nothing but full bellies and good vibes for the future.”
“Yes,” I agree. “Our mating will be one of nothing but joy. I vow this to you.”
F’lor lets out a little sigh. “Nanay would be sad she never got to give me a weddinghandaan. That’s a big feast. Among my people, weddings are full of traditions. You eat certain things to bring good luck. You hope someone breaks a plate by accident, because it means the couple is blessed. There’s these little sticky rice cakes calledkalamaythat you eat at your wedding so you’ll ‘stick together.’ It’s all about making sure the couple is prosperous. Oh, and the bride always eats the wedding cake first so she can get pregnant…though I suppose we’ve got that part nailed down.” She pats her belly. “At least we’re being spared the bad karaoke.”