by Amanda Milo
“I can see that, idtrek—I wanted to show her courtesy,” the nice male protests.
“Well, don’t,” Bash grouses. “She’s not yours to show anything to.”
Electricity seems to sizzle in the air, with all the heaviness that comes with a lightning strike. It’s so strong I can almost smell the ozone. Then I realize it’s because Bash is starting to smoke from his mouth and nostrils.
The other Rakhii’s face is open and looking pretty thrilled. He asks silkily, “Oh? And who’s is she then?” His voice is leaping with playfulness. “Any reason why you didn’t take the wagon to the regular fueling and filling stations? Lots of extra hands there to help. And loading brick is boring work. I’m sure the others would love to meet whoever this lovely creature is.”
“I like you,” I tell the Rakhii, breaking my silence, making Bash send me a dirty look that I pretend I can’t see. “I’m Isla.”
Bash is pretending too. He’s pretending the other male doesn’t exist. (Sort of—his dorsal spines are standing straight up now and beginning to drip, wetting the stone under our feet.) “Come here, Isla,” he orders me.
Dutifully, I move the whole four steps it takes to arrive at his side, my pitchfork dragging as I go, and I give him wide eyes as I lean back to gaze up at him. “Now what?”
“Now you will shush.” His gaze leaves mine and swings to the other Rakhii. “Which door?”
Flashing a smile at me with eyes that dance, the male says, “Let me check. You just wait here with your… Isla.”
“I will.” Bash is still holding his pitchfork, and no, he certainly doesn’t need the tool in order to do real damage (just look at him; every part of his body is built to cause damage) but with the way he’s gripping the handle in his talon-tipped hands, I’d be worried about irritating him (more). The other Rakhii must know to be a little wary because he grins at Bash as he backs away—literally backs away from him, until he disappears around the building. I shuffle enough to see around the rounded side of the kiln house and spy other Narwari wagons, ones that didn’t arrive here by way of the quarry—because I don’t recognize any of the animals or the wagons or the Rakhii that are moving back and forth carrying what looks like shovel fulls of black rock. Coal? It looks like tons of it, just judging by the wagons I can see. I guess it must take a lot to keep a building this size constantly fire-fed. Carts full of pale pink and yellow and lilac tiles—raw, unfired tiles, by the looks of them—sit off to the side, ready to be taken into the kiln.
While we wait for our Rakhii helper to return, I try to insert a nice, safe topic of discussion. “So, uh, it looks like there’s no hobs here?”
Bash, who’d been calmly glowering in the direction the other Rakhii left, is suddenly glaring at me, his eyes turning an impressive forest-fire green. As in, they flood as dark as a singed Evergreen. “No. You’ll not find them here. If it is hobs you want, you won’t find them this close to flames.”
“Oh.” I try silence on for size for as long as I can stand it.
I last maybe thirty seconds. Bash blows out a harassed breath when I ask in a loud stage whisper, “Why won’t you find hobs close to fire?”
The new Rakhii reappears in time to hear me ask this, trotting up to us, his tail held easily behind him (as opposed to the way Bash’s tail is snapping back and forth). The new Rakhii’s gaze slides from me to Bash. As he comes to a stop, his hands move to his hips as he takes us in for a moment. Then he smiles at me and offers, “Because hobs tend to catch fire.”
“Eeek.” I nod. “Good reason.” I give the new Rakhii a once-over. “You don’t catch fire?”
A grin is taking over the Rakhii’s face, and his eyes do the sliding thing again, from me to Bash and back to me. “Not before today,” he declares, sounding like he’s about to laugh. He taps the back of his arm, and my eyes drop to his scales there. “Our scales protect us from all but the most prolonged, direct flames.”
A big hand claps over my eyes. My hand flies up, covering the rough-scaled fingers, but I can’t budge the grip. Bash growls, “If you’re done showing yourself off to Isla, let’s unload this before the fire makes its revolution.”
“So,” I say conversationally from under Bash’s hand. “Mystery Rakhii. What is it you do here? Make things with clay?”
Voice laced with mirth, the other male sounds like he’s walking away as he calls back, “Sometimes. Officially, I’m a charcoal collier.”
“Like you make charcoal?” I fidget under Bash’s hand, picking at his finger’s scales, but not actively trying to escape. Truthfully, it hasn’t gone unnoticed that Bash doesn’t initiate contact with anyone, but he’s touched me with his tail and now this. I’m not going to break the spell here; I kind of like his hand on me, even if it is a little inappropriate (read: kinky) for an employer to blindfold an employee.
“Yes,” the mystery Rakhii replies.
“Neat. How do you make charcoal?”
A lock sounds like it clangs. There’s a creak of hinges. The Rakhii talks over this easily, his voice warming as he answers, “We make it right in the kiln. If Bash lets you have your vision back, I’ll show you some pieces during each part of the process. Essentially though, a collier like myself sets up organic material to heat at high temperatures, and the material undergoes a thermal process called pyrolysis, after which, you have chunks of charcoal.”
I absently tap the tines of my pitchfork between my feet. “Are we talking drawing or cooking charcoal?”
“We could easily make both, and have done so,” the male answers. “Especially for compressed types of artistic charcoals. There’s an art form to layering materials so that you get specific colors out of the composition. But drawing-type charcoals are a softer product requiring a gentler hand. Local artists prefer Rakhii-fired grapevine and willow charcoals. They’ll pay more for Rakhii to make small specialty batches, where we subject the material to pyrolysis from our own personal fires,” he explains with a friendly smile in his voice. “If you’d like to see a Rakhii demonstrate this for you, just ask.”
“Yes,” Bash mutters. “I’m growing eager to subject someone to some pyrolysis.” His tail slaps my leg; not painfully—more like its twitching has increased. It is snapping back and forth in a very Bash-cheery (irritated) fashion now.
“Was that veiled threat for me or for your friend?” I ask the darkness of Bash’s dry, warm hand.
Nobody answers, but I can feel speaking glances happening over my head, and this is confirmed when I hear a snort come from the other Rakhii before he says, “Come on then. You were complaining about wasting time. Now look at you.”
Bash’s hand drops. Vision clear, I see ahead of us is the kiln house with a door open, showing us an empty room made entirely of plain brick, just waiting for vine-straw fuel.
A peek off to the side of us shows me the Rakhii in the tile-making building are studiously back to work, no longer ogling me. From the kiln house’s doorway though, I’m definitely being watched by the no-name Rakhii. He swaggers to me and motions for me to hand him my pitchfork. He’s looking mighty amused.
I don’t hand my tool over. “I want to fork.”
The Rakhii blinks. “You want to… ahhh.” He graces me with a blinding smile. “My ears must be out of tune. For a click, I thought you suggested something else. Then my translator straightened me out.”
Bash growls and stomps past me to plant a hand in the other Rakhii’s chest, shoving him right inside the kiln. Then he turns his menace on me. “Move.”
He jerks his head to the wagon.
“You sure are Mr. Sunbeam.” I take up my pitchfork and move for the wagon.
“I’ll remember your pluck while I’m beating you,” my moody overseer grumbles to me.
I’m not afraid though. “You can’t hit me. I heard you have to play nice with the humans.”
“Then I’ll find a hob,” Bash immediately vows.
“What do you have against hobs?”
“Nothing,” Bash claims, lips f
lattening. “It’s Gryfala I distrust.”
“Oh.” I nod. “Ohhh.” I flick him a wince. “One screwed you over?”
A claw is suddenly right in front of my nose. “Chatter about something else.”
Not taking my eyes from the glinty-sharp tip an inch from shaving off my sniffer, I ask, “Like… for real? You want me to ‘chatter?’ Got any topic requests?”
“I suggest anything other than this topic.” He takes my short arm and turns me towards the very end of the wagon bed.
His tail nudges me over, and I’m not sure why he’s poking me with it until he drops the tailgate of the wagon and it narrowly misses clipping me—if I hadn’t been pressed back, I’d have gotten dinged.
That was awful nice of him to scoot me over. However, the look on his face is still not nice at all. I purse my lips. “Have you ever heard the case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?”
His tail taps my calves, then disappears. Then it touches me again. It’s swaying behind us. It feels like a slow sway; thoughtful now, not angry, if such a thing can be determined. “No. You may continue. I permit you to tell me.”
“Gee whiz, thanks for your permission.”
“You’re welcome.”
One of the Narwari makes a chuckling noise—and I wonder how much of our conversation they understand.
“I look forward to hearing this story too,” the mystery Rakhii says from behind us, sounding like he’s grinning.
I twist to glance back at him, but Bash catches the top of my head, talon tips touching my skin but not piercing, and he turns me to face forward again, our goal the wagon and only the wagon, clearly.
And I must be too slow in spitting out the story because Bash’s mighty scowl does not sound like it’s eased when he orders, “Tell me of your doctor and this other male.” He stabs his pitchfork into the pile of dead greenery.
“Oh I am so going to.” I hitch my pitchfork up and move to stab it into the vines too. It’s a little tricky at this angle. The wagon is a little too tall for me to reach comfortably, but I can make this work—
No warning, Bash turns, lifts me by the hips, and tosses me on top of the tailgate.
“Whoa!” I shriek—and the Narwari in front startle, letting out super-unsettling cries of their own. The wagon under my feet rocks forward and shakes with their jostling.
Bash’s hand covers just about all of the flesh of my upper thigh as he sort of pinches a handful of my leg to steady me. “Settle,” he warns the Narari—or me, or both, I can’t tell.
“What if the horses freak out and take off?” I whisper-holler. “This wagon could get pulled right out from under my feet!” The Narwari aren’t tied to anything if they decide to stampede.
“I suggest you don’t make a noise like that twice then,” Bash returns, his voice raised slightly. In disbelief, I think, not anger. His royal court-green eyes look very calm. Then again, it’s not him up here facing the possibility of winging off. “They were fine until you panicked. Settle yourself—and let’s fork.”
A chuckling cough has me glancing to the Rakhii leaning against the kiln’s doorway. He folds his arms over his chest and sends me a shit-eating grin. “Sorry. That word still sounded like something else to me.”
Bash’s hand tightens on my thigh before he lets me go with a grunted, “Isla. Chatter.”
I start talking. And we fork. We fork for a long time. There’s a lot of vines. Because I’m not to get near the kiln house at all, the extent of my job is to push them to the tailgate, where Bash stabs a chunk and walks his speared vines to the kiln opening. Because the fire travels around on its own, eating up burnables and moving to the next section of track, the other Rakhii gives a bellow of warning when the fire is close and Bash shuts the door and we all wait until the fire passes. And you can hear the fire eating its way past. Despite the thick brick sides of the building, the fire’s roars can’t be missed.
Once the fire passes, and the guys deem it safe to open the door again, heat shimmers dance through the air, making me super glad I’ve been vetoed from working inside of the chamber.
The sun is beating down on us. I feel like the top of my head is cooking, but I keep forking dutifully. I expect Bash to bitch and be a grump, what with him doing the harder work and it being so hot while he has to do it, but he doesn’t. He listens intently to the story of Jekyll and Hyde. Then he shocks me by asking me to keep ‘chattering’ to him.
“What do you want to hear? What do you even like?” I ask.
“Tell me about you. About your world,” he amends.
“Hmm. When I was growing up, I lived in a town that got so cold, the lake froze until the ice was four feet thick. They took draft horses—think Narwari, but with thicker legs, and feathers on their feet—”
“Feathers?” Bash asks, like this is the pinnacle of alienness.
“Silky hairs,” I correct. “They just call them feathers.”
His horns tilt as he looks at his alien horses. “Hairs? On their feet?”
“On their legs, on their legs—not sprouting from their toes. These are horses; not hobbits. Keep up. And good lord, don’t judge. Anyway, they’d hitch the horses to sleighs and drive them across the frozen lake. Which seemed crazy! I mean, every year, ice shanties would fall into the lake, because some fishermen didn’t pull theirs off of the ice before it got too warm and melted to the cracking point. One year, someone lost their truck. Crashed right through. So a team of draft horses and a sleigh? Crazy dangerous! Or so it looked like.”
“It wasn’t a danger?”
“No, that ice was rock solid. The horses and sleigh were fine. Pulled loads of people across the lake. It was awesome to see.”
“To see?” Bash pauses his forking to look up at me as I push more vines in his direction. “You didn’t ride?’
I jerk my head to indicate the front of the wagon. “You gave me my very first ride. And thanks, because I’ve always wondered what it was like.”
Bash seems contemplative. That would be my official answer if I was tasked with categorizing the way his brows are resting a little close together but not angry-close or annoyed-close. “You wondered, but you never went? Why?”
“Too chicken, I guess.”
Bash frowns harder. “...Fowl?”
“Scared,” I explain.
He shakes his ears out. “I will never understand your human idioms.”
I shrug. “It always seemed like a lot could go wrong. Obviously, it’s as safe as riding in anything else, but I was always nervous that it was going to end badly.”
He stares up at me for so long, I shove two forkfuls of vines towards his chest before he snaps out of it. “Guess it was a good thing you got bossy and just hauled me along for the ride. This is kind of nice.”
Bash drops his gaze to the vines, his arm muscles popping up really prettily as he stabs up his next tinefull. As he stretches forward, his tail raises and straightens behind him, acting as a counterbalance to his movement.
When he’s not pointing it at people or using it to threaten someone (often these actions are not mutually exclusive) he tends to keep it close to his body. I guess a guy who works in a place crowded with people and heavy rocks would have to learn to protect such a limb.
I poke my tines in another stack of vines, lift a chunk, and a glittery-shelled beetle the size of my fist rolls out and lands on my foot. Two roach-like antennas swing out. Legs emerge, clamping onto my shoe before the antenna begin tapping at my pant leg, slipping under the cuff and touching me above my sock.
Naturally, I howl. And then I start kicking wildly.
The Narwaris react like there’s a screaming alien behind them, jostling mightily, and one of them tries to rear.
“Ukko, don’t you dare,” Bash warns, rounding the wagon and leaning over the side, peering at me in bafflement. “What is it, human?”
He sounds as stymied as a cat owner gets when they see the way their feline reacts to finding a harmless cucumber on the floor.
(Seriously, if you happen to be on Earth where you’ve got access to YouTube, check out the cat vs. cucumber compilations.)
I’m shaking my foot, stabbing my pitchfork all around me, hopping back from the vines. “It just scuttled off but something’s in this stuff! It touched me! Something HUGE is in this stuff! I think I saw pincers. I’m sure I felt pincers!”
Bash’s claw lifts a Medusa’s head of vines, or whatever you call vines when they tangle into a snake-like pile that contains giant insects, and out pops the beetle.
“AAAAHHH!” I shriek, startled even though I expected it.
Bash blows fire, almost like an automatic response.
When I hear him curse, “TEVEK,” and the Rakhii at the kiln shouts, “Crite!” and starts running for us, I realize it was an automatic response.
In reaction to my terror, Bash spit fire on a wooden wagon essentially holding dry straw. Not a little bit of fire; a lot.
Bash vaults into the wagon—a sight worth seeing with an alien his size—and starts stomping and slapping at the quickly igniting vines with his feet and tail. But it’s like he’s standing on roof thatching. Everything’s just going whoosh. I trip towards him to help but his tail switches directions and holds me back.
Our coworker quickly scrambles up to join Bash, and then he’s huffing in a way that sounds to me like he’s repressing laughter.
"Get her down,” Bash bites out.
The other Rakhii swiftly but gently hooks me under the armpits and leans over the side of the wagon to drop me on my feet.
I move to the front to stand near the Narwari and try to murmur comforting things to them, but they’ve all turned their heads, standing stunned and still, watching the happenings of the wagon like they can’t believe what they’re seeing.
The wagon is creaking and smoke is coming off of the beaten stack, looking pretty alarming.
I bite my lip and grip the handle of my pitchfork.
When the stomping stops, both Rakhii swivel to look at me. I cough.
“This,” Bash says scary-quietly, leaning down to snatch up the sparkly shell of the beetle, holding it between his clawtips, “wouldn’t have harmed you.”
