All I knew is that the three women seemed to be very close and quite fond of each other.
Then the sentry turned to me.
She stared at me openly. I could see her eyes through the slit in her fur balaclava.
Once again, I recognized ‘vaklik’ in the question she asked Lelia.
Lelia answered, and the woman seemed satisfied… though she didn’t make any friendly gestures towards me. She very obviously kept her distance.
“This is Hala,” Lelia said.
I put up a hand in the air as a greeting. “Jack.”
Hala just looked uncertainly between me and Lelia, then turned away and headed deeper into the woods. We followed her.
We reached a small clearing where a fire burned in a pit in the ground. Around the fire sat two other women warming themselves by the flames. These women weren’t wearing masks, and I could clearly see their faces. They both had blue skin and white hair, just like Oona and Lelia. They were both quite cute, though Lelia had them beat.
As soon as they looked up, Hala said something, and I caught Lelia’s name amidst the foreign phrases.
The two women cried out and raced over to hug Lelia.
“Jack, these are Teeka and Mazaria,” Lelia announced.
I was just about to say something when another woman stepped out from the trees carrying a spear. Apparently she’d been on sentry duty like Hala.
She was taller than all the other women, but because of her wrappings, I couldn’t see her face. She had a distinctly different bearing – a commanding presence. There was a dignity to her. She didn’t rush over like the others had.
All the other women stepped out of the way. Then the tall woman came striding over to Lelia, her arms open wide, and Lelia hugged her tight. They said nothing, but their embrace was full of emotion, like two people who had thought they would never see each other again.
When the woman stepped back, she put her hands on Lelia’s cheeks and gazed at her fondly, overcome with emotion.
Lelia said something, and the tall woman touched Oona tenderly.
Then she turned to me and undid her balaclava wrappings, exposing her face.
She was quite beautiful, but in a different way from Lelia. She was thinner and more willowy than the other women, and at least five inches taller than them. In fact, she was only a few inches shorter than me. If Lelia was a Playboy Playmate, then this woman was a fashion model from a runway in Paris.
There was also a sternness to her that Lelia didn’t possess. She had the look of a leader – someone who bore the responsibility for others, and felt the weight of that on her shoulders.
“Jack, this is Fieria,” Lelia said. “She is our… how do you say it… she decides what the tribe does.”
FEAR-ee-uh.
So I’d been right about the ‘heavy is the head that wears the crown’ part.
“She’s your leader,” I said.
“Our leader,” Lelia agreed.
The tall woman peered at me with curiosity. Her eyes were a deep violet, and contrasted beautifully with the blue of her skin and the long white strands of her hair.
“Jack,” I said, giving her a slight bow of the head.
“…Jack…” the woman said tentatively, though it was more like she was just experimenting with the word rather than being afraid of not saying it right. Then she gestured at herself. “Fieria.”
“Nice to meet you.”
The tall woman looked at Lelia, who translated. Then Fieria said something else.
“She says hello and welcome,” Lelia informed me happily.
“Tell her thank you for me.”
As Lelia completed the niceties, I glanced around.
There were five women besides Lelia: Oona, Hala the sentry, Fieria, and the two women by the fire. All of them (with the exception of Lelia) looked at me askance – but none of them as much as Oona, who still regarded me with suspicion.
I could see there was going to be a problem if we didn’t get shit out in the open early on.
“Lelia,” I said, “you’d better tell them what Oona saw… and that I’m not like the other vaklik.”
Fieria seemed surprised to hear one of their own words come out of my mouth.
Lelia nodded, and began to speak in her own language. The women listened neutrally at first – but as Lelia continued, they looked at Oona in alarm.
Then they all stared at me.
I could feel the tension and distrust building.
Lelia began to speak with more passion, and I could tell she was arguing on my behalf.
When Lelia was finished, Fieria asked Oona something.
Oona looked at me fearfully… and then answered in a soft, almost conceding tone.
“What did she say?” I asked.
Lelia smiled. “She said you saved her from the skiris, and you also saved me. She does not think you are bad like the other vaklik, but she is still afraid of you.”
I looked over at Oona and nodded in gratitude. She blushed and dropped her gaze to the ground.
Fieria reached out and put a hand on my shoulder.
“Jack,” she said warmly, and smiled.
I smiled back.
I was guessing that meant at least a little bit of acceptance on their part.
Then Fieria frowned, which troubled me –
But she reached past me and pulled an arrow out of the quiver lashed to my backpack.
She looked at it, turning it this way and that, and asked something in her own language.
Lelia responded – then demonstrated.
She pulled the bow off her shoulder – whipped an arrow out of her own quiver – aimed – and fired.
The arrow struck a tree with a THOCK! and vibrated in the silence.
All the woman gasped and stared in wonder – well, all except Oona. She’d already seen us kill the skiris, so an arrow in a tree wasn’t nearly as impressive.
Lelia pointed at me and said something.
At that, they seemed to look at me with new respect.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“I told them you taught me how to make the arrows and shoot them, and you could
