Another Chepiś spoke—it was the one Tokela had run into, with a voice and bodytalk that betrayed anger. Yet the Moon-haired one didn’t so much as blink, its gaze holding to Tokela’s, a courtesy he’d not expected any Chepiś to know. There was silver in the round eyes—indeed in all their eyes. As if the pale gleam of Brother Moon had been captured, and slurried by Starlight…
With a shudder, Tokela broke the gaze. He couldn’t help a flinch, humiliating as it was, as the third of the Chepiś knelt beside Moon Hair..
The Chepiś made more of the strange sounds, its voice warbling soft and light, less menacing than the dark-voiced one beside it.
“It’s a ghoteh, Rann,” Moon Hair replied. “Try not to frighten it, and be good enough to speak in a tongue it can understand.”
“It doesn’t seem to understand even this savage tongue,” Dark Voice muttered.
Savage? Ai, that was a word Tokela knew, well enough. Savage was the way these outLanders were rending talk so ancient and rich! Lacking the sort of ears that would pin, Tokela had to settle for sliding a narrow glare towards Dark Voice.
“Is it young, then?” The soft-voiced Chepiś—was it called Raahn?—kept staring at Tokela with its strange, stony eyes. It spoke his talk even worse than Moon Hair. “It is so tiny.”
“I daresay it’s young, but they are all small, these,” Moon Hair answered. “Even the elders.”
Indignation was swiftly elbowing aside trepidation. FirstPeople were not tiny; it was outLanders who were giants, too big to fit in a proper lodging! Tokela tried to angle forwards, was prevented by not only the grip on his shoulders, but the strange, sideways lassitude.
His slight shift was misinterpreted.
“We shan’t hurt you,” Moon-Hair repeated. “We’re trying to help. You’ve been poisoned.”
He was aware of that, well enough. Frankly he hadn’t expected to wake again. If they had helped him, he owed them for that much at least.
But why had they helped him?
“What unusual markings it has.” Rann started to reach out, undoubtedly towards the hennaed Marks upon Tokela’s cheekbones. Indignation burbled away as Tokela abruptly felt very tiny indeed. It took every scrap of courage he possessed to hold still, and even then his hand crept to where his skinning knife should be. Of course it wasn’t there—he could see it, piled with the rest of his garb at Dark Voice’s feet.
“I wouldn’t touch it, Rann. It could well bite, with those fangs.” Dark Voice’s arms were crossed in a gesture reminiscent of Tokela’s own folk. In fact, all of them had bodytalk not unlike his own. “Look at it! It might be young, but it’s as wild a brute as the shigala it killed. Like the serpents south of this wretched forest, the young even more poisonous than the parents.” Then, to Moon Hair, “You should have let it die. We aren’t allowed to interfere like this.”
A frown gathered Moon Hair’s too-pale brow, but not once did it take its eyes from Tokela. It was the Matwau who did something so incomprehensible—so normal—that Tokela’s eyes nearly bugged from his head.
The Matwau smacked a broad palm against the back of Dark Voice’s head akin to chastising an errant cub. “Quite a manner, you have, Vox, for not frightening the little one.”
Vohks? It was a ridiculous name; Tokela preferred Dark Voice.
“Perhaps it doesn’t understand us,” Rann put in.
Tokela had often heard his elders make talk past him, but he figured none of his tribe had been “talked over” quite like this. It was more withering than even a scornful glance from Sarinak could inspire.
“It doesn’t seem terribly afraid,” Rann continued.
I’m only as afraid as I need be, Tokela thought. And you’re the ones who have taken my knives from me.
The Matwau’s eyes met his and held. The colour of good amber, and quite canny. As if she’d heard his thought, a smirk touched her mouth. “He understands, all right.”
That he could be so easily read by Matwau was not at all reassuring.
Moon Hair was peering at Vox; the latter shrugged and retreated, coming to a halt before… Ai, it was the bow tree where Tokela had taken refuge. The Shaped creature still lay dead at the bow tree’s roots. A… shigala, Moon Hair had called it.
Returning its gaze to the Matwau fem, Moon Hair lingered there for several heartbeats. There was an intimacy in the shared glance, unspoken but plain; one more odd reassurance amidst all the unknown.
These creatures had friends, not merely companions. Close friends, from the bodytalk of those two—and subordinates, from the exchange between Moon Hair and Vox. That one bristled like a challenged oških, while the one known as Rann seemed young, openly curious as any ahlóssa.
“You know,” Rann was still peering at Tokela, curious as if he had sprouted from the rock mould, “I’ve never seen a ghoteh before. You know the most of us, Sivan. Is it very like to its people?”
Sih-van? Moon Hair’s name?
While all of them—save the Matwau, oddly enough—kept calling Tokela “it”. Well, then, all right, Tokela was doing the same, so taking offence was certainly questionable at this point. His nose told him nothing—again, save with the Matwau—but it seemed these Chepiś weren’t unlike Matwau, if decidedly unlike his own People…
Yet they weren’t so different as the taleKeepers would paint. They didn’t have four legs, or wings, or many eyes like spiderKin sometimes had. Perhaps they were like serpentKin, and hid their sex.
Perhaps they were neither. And if so…
A shiver ran down his nape. If so, could Chepiś sire a half-breed child?
“My brother knows more than any of us, save my father.” Sivan was eyeing Tokela, twitched narrow shoulders in what must be a shrug. “I’d dare to doubt the little one has ever seen such as us, either.”
They had brothers. Fathers. So they had young. Disheartening, the confirmation, full of too many possibilities.
“It is rather slender,” Rann offered. “And not quite
