Miyani had said that she'd try to meet me at Praying Mantis. I gazed at the massive planks pulled tight against the archway and watched the men on the ramparts for some sign that she might have arrived.
Maybe.
I could wait all night and she might not come. What if she was busy? What if she was making love to that boy right now, lying on her back and looking up at his face, calling out his name at this very moment?
My knee hurt from tripping on those steps earlier, but my head felt like it was about to explode. I needed to do something—anything—to free my mind from these chains.
The mess hall was about a third the size of the one at Carthia with the same open walls, but the ceiling had those fur-like roots hanging down that cooled the air and gave a calming earthy scent.
Geraln sat with Davod over hammered-copper mugs. He raised his hand and called me over, so I sat. His chubby cheeks smiled, and he poked his finger into my arm. "Tell him it's true!"
"Uh…" I looked back and forth between them and assured Davod, "it's absolutely true. Whatever it is."
Davod's face was buried in his cup. Geraln explained. "That they'd been taking shots at that guy all day. Jaysa—that's him over there—he missed, even I missed. Your boy Caleb comes up, nails both his feet to the log. Shut him the hell up, man!"
Davod still didn't look up. "I believe you."
From another table, men erupted in laughter. Ales, Faren, Gino, Jame, Northstar, Jezi, and the three Orca men from Kylen's group all gathered around Borel 'More-Bitches-Than-You,' who had a wisp of a young native woman sitting on his lap with one arm draped over his muscular shoulders.
Another young native woman, average height with a soft build and generous hips, set a hammered-copper mug before me with another each for my friends. She then came closer to brush her hand across my shoulder and leaned in close with an inviting smile. "hewo! I ŋem sofiya!"
"zawa," I answered. "ŋæɣʊde Caleb."
Geraln shook his head and chuckled to himself while Davod swallowed hard from his mug. sofiya smiled wide, stroking along the back of my neck, and bent over to allow her pendulous breasts to hang before me; her skin smelt like some kind of wildflower. She passed eyes all around my face and down my chest until she found the ear pendant Miyani had given me. Immediately her face reeled from shock. She stood up straight, clasped her hands together and bowed, "kupade! kupade!" before scurrying back to the kitchen.
Davod doubled over, banging his fist against the table between fits of laughter. Geraln chuckled hard, then squeaked out, "so… Sarina. Here's what you need to do. Go kill an enemy in battle…"
Davod lifted himself up and chuckled out loud, slapping his chair.
So Miyani had some boy asking her to break him in and that's fine, while I wore this woman-repellant she'd given me. I wondered if some boy would ask sofiya for 'æmiʃʌði. Or what about the woman in Borel's lap? She clung to the back of his neck and giggled into his eyes, leaning her lithe body into his and stroked his back. If some boy were to ask her, what would Borel say about it? Likely he'd be man enough to put his foot down.
I sipped my drink. Right away, a dazzling ribbon of fruity sweetness wrapped around my tongue and distracted me so that I almost missed the strong undertone of alcohol sneaking past my senses.
Borel called out to us. "You three! Get over here!"
Davod glanced between me and Geraln and shrugged, then swallowed the rest of his drink and stood. I brought mine over, and Borel held up some coins for sofiya, who took them and disappeared into the kitchen.
Borel looked around the table with smug confidence plastered over his meaty face. The young woman on his lap explored his chest with her fingers as he began. "I have decided that you all need to know who Massi was."
Geraln hadn't sat. He shook his head and turned to leave.
"Nah," Borel snapped, "especially you."
Geraln crossed his arms.
Borel smiled. "He was more than that guy who Diamond ripped his throat out, yeah? Ain't your fault, man—he had it coming. Sit down."
Geraln glanced at me and took a seat next to mine. Jame sat across from Borel. His lean face carried an easy smile and he chuckled, "Massi had it coming a thousand times over—that was before he got here!"
Borel laughed and sipped from his cup. He turned to me with a serious face. "He'd have stayed with you and Renou, you know. Massi would have stayed behind with you. He'd have told the rest of us chicken-shits to fuck right off."
The woman on Borel's lap pulled her face back and sneered. Borel bounced his leg up and down and consoled her, "just telling a story, love; that's how he'd have said it." Borel sipped from his cup, then continued. "Massi was an abject asshole."
sofiya returned with a tray full of cups and gave one to me, Davod, Geraln, and several of the other men. I didn't touch it as I was still sipping my first, but Davod took a generous swig from his.
Borel continued his eulogy. "One time, there was this kid, real 'amuŋaxatʌ…"
Half the men giggled lightly.
"... favorite thing this kid liked to talk about was how his family had all this money, and somehow that gave him the right to treat everyone else like shit. So I punched his arse in the face."
The woman on his lap pulled her face back. "You punch ass and face, what?"
"In the face, love." He kissed her lips and continued, "everyone was there. Everyone saw, including the headmistress. I get hauled off to this lady's office, and Massi comes along talking like he's an eyewitness. Kid has the audacity to tell her it wasn't me!"
"What?" some of the other men laughed.
"Yeah man! So Massi's there swearing up and down it wasn't me, and this lady's pissed—she was there; she saw it herself. He says, 'you old bag, you need to get your eyes checked!' I'm trying, man, I'm trying; it took all of my strength not to crack up laughing! Oh, she cuts into him so hard, man! She sends me away without even a detention while he gets suspended for two weeks."
Several men laughed; Davod emptied his cup and clanked it onto the table.
While Borel studied his lover's skinny body, Jame took the baton. "There was this time he really pissed me off. So there was this tournament. Some kind of, uh… charity thing. Winner got a crack at the princess." Jame looked around the table, "you guys ever laid eyes on Davina? The Count's daughter?"
A few of the other men huffed. One of the guys from Kylen's group grinned. I answered. "I liked her; she used to come by the church all the time."
Gino sniggered and smirked at me, "when you were there!"
Jame shook his head. "Yeah, well, Massi and I were there. He started talking like he was going to cut a few strands from this other guy's bowstring. I told that bastard he'd better not. I'm trying to explain to this kid, now you all know, I'd rather lose with honor than cheat. But does he listen? He tries it anyway, gets caught, and we both get kicked out. I couldn't believe that shit!"
Flower of the Orca clan, if I'd asked Davina to not give her body to some boy for the night, she'd have obliged me. She probably never heard of the rite.
Davod tapped my hand and nudged his chin towards the extra drink before me, so I passed it to him.
Gino took up the eulogy. "I didn't know him long. I only met him the day we left Kyoen, but in that short time he was a complete shit."
Half the table laughed.
Gino continued. "Man treated Renou like a scab he couldn't stop picking…"
Borel cocked his head to one side.
"... Even as we started through those high mountains, Massi kept picking on the guy. But at night, Renou was cold, and Massi gave him one of his blankets."
Borel furrowed his brow, "when did that happen?"
Jame answered. "Every night after you fell asleep."
Gino continued. "One night it was getting late and we couldn't find shelter. Renou points out some dome-looking thing made of snow, says let's sleep in there."
I glanced at Ales and Faren, who smiled at me in return.
"This guy," Gino gave a nod to Borel, "brushed him off, but Massi spoke up, let's go have a look. That was probably the most comfortable…"
A loud, guttural croak filled the air, followed by a sequence of low clicks. We all turned. At the end of the table stood a grizzled vita'o lizard creature beside an old native woman.
The lizard had scars over his body with more than a few scales missing and hard, toughened scales on his back, and long whiskers beneath his chin. He moved with the slowness of an elder, and when he opened his jaws, a handful of his jagged teeth were chipped.
The woman was petite with streaks of gray in her otherwise white hair. Her legs bore the powerful muscles of a scout, though her worn skin and sagging breasts heralded a great number of years. She'd dressed in a white silk flap over the front of her belt with blue embroidery in the image of a tree surrounded by a circle of animals trying to eat one another. On her left shoulder was a white crescent moon tattoo.
Immediately, the woman on Borel's lap stood, straightened out the flap of her loincloth, and bowed her head low before shuffling off into the kitchen.
The old scout's eyes followed her before turning to face me directly. She then extended her hand and made a come-hither with the stub that remained of her index finger.
Without speaking, she led me towards a far corner of the mess where just outside, the yellow-and-gray stones of the curtain wall rose up to the dense clouds above. Off to the side, the sounds of children playing filled the courtyard. Beyond that, the gate still hadn't opened for anyone to come in. The elder lizard raised his snout to my arm for a slow sniff.
The old woman was Miyani's height and had a scar on her right arm just above her elbow not unlike the one Blue had given me. She glanced at my wrist and smirked, then lifted her face and addressed me in Herali with a thick accent, "I'm Pu'iyo. I'm the quartermaster at Praying Mantis. You are Caleb of Gath?"
"Yeah."
"Is it true that you allowed an enemy taunter to escape?"
xatʌ. "Uh…" I ran a hand through my hair and twisted a lock around one finger. The woman looked up into my face and questioned me with her yellow eyes, not speaking a word.
"Well…" I tried to excuse myself. "It was a difficult shot. It had to be at least three-hundred-sixty yards; at that range I'd be lucky to hit anything…"
"You shot him in the foot. Then to make your point clear, you shot him in the otheɾ foot."
I lowered my eyes. "I don't know that I was trying to make a point…"
"Then, I'm told, you stood by and refused to kill him…"
At that moment, Davod threw his arm over the back of my neck and leaned his weight on me, staggering to stay upright. He looked at the woman with eyes half open and slurred, "you got a problem with my man?"
The quartermaster squinted at him. The old lizard brought his snout close to Davod's breath and sniffed, then groaned and twisted his head back and forth and gave a low chirp. Pu'iyo scowled at Davod. "How much did you drink?"
Davod chuckled and looked away.
She then called out to our waitress. "sofiya! pʊ xewekʊseza duvuθʊyu!"
sofiya glanced at my friend and nodded before picking up several cups from an empty table.
Davod slurred, "z… zero? Zero drinks? Is that what that means?"
The woman raised one white eyebrow high above the other while stroking the elder lizard gently on his neck and pointed back to our table. "Davod. I want you to choose one man from your unit."
He turned and gave a big, dumb smile. "Geraln! Get over here!"
Geraln came up and glanced between us, then settled his eyes on the quartermaster.
Pu'iyo explained. "Here is what you can expect. That man you let go, he's going to heal. He'll get better, return to running ops, setting ambushes, all that good stuff. And now," she poked Geraln in the center of his chest, "you're dead."
She passed her yellow eyes between me and Davod, "and you get to live with that."
With that, she turned and walked with her lizard companion out of the mess and out of sight.
Geraln smirked and turned to Davod. "Come on, man, why'd you have to get me killed?"
Davod laughed and shook his head, "I'm sorry, man, it won't happen again!" The two of them laughed it off and went back to the others.
I wished I could have done the same, but my mind tormented me. Where was Miyani, and what was taking her so long? What if she was making arrangements with that boy? God, what if something happened to her along the way, and I never saw her again, and my selfish arse couldn't stop blathering about that damned boy? What if I did speak to her, and she refused to make any concessions on any rites and rituals? What if this turned out OK, and there was some other weirdness in her culture that was even worse? What if the old woman was right and that man I spared ended up killing her?
What if I never saw her again?
Outside, goats browsed tufts of grass near the stone walls that rose up all around the muddy courtyard. About half a dozen native children ran around while Rock chased after them. He had a red collar around his neck, and every time he got close, they ran away and laughed.
One little girl who couldn't have been more than six wasn't fast enough to escape. When Rock tagged her, another boy pointed and taunted, "you got the pla-ague! You got the pla-ague!"
She started to cry, but Rock crouched down to her level. With a big smile he fitted a red collar around her neck so that they both had one, and pointed at the boy who'd mocked her, speaking low and gentle. The girl sniffled. Then he held up one hand and drew lines and circles on it with his finger. A moment later, she ran after the boy with a big smile on her face. The boy turned and stuck his tongue out at her until Rock crept up behind him and tagged him as well; he already had a collar in hand for him.
Across from them, Queen lay down in a bed of shredded coconut-husk and arched her long neck to gnaw at the human leg-bone she'd held beneath her talons. By then she'd already stripped the person's flesh away but for scraps of meat in their foot. Yumi reclined against her lizard friend's side with her knees up, butterfly beads at the end of her long, white braids, and she was entranced in a book. The title was Herali: His Forbidden Lust.
A man called out from the ramparts, "open the gate!"
My heart slammed against my chest. Heavy chains rattled, and the massive wooden door creaked as it fell open. The old lizard zoomed past me carrying the quartermaster on his back and raced up to the gate. "Everyone is in! What's going on?"
Men filed into the courtyard from the mess, and children stopped their games to watch.
As the massive wooden plank lowered, a lizard's snout peeked in from outside to reveal a blue-yellow eye with a black vertical slit. A vita'o face appeared, with a blue stripe down the length of his snout and down his neck. He chirped loud and croaked, and Miyani's face appeared. Her adorable yellow eyes found me, and her whole face glowed.
Pu'iyo glanced at me, then back to her, and then to me again before she erupted in laughter, only to dismount from her aging vita'o and return from whence she'd come. Everyone else went back to their business except three men. Ude, the man who'd been on the roof with me earlier, along with two other native men. All three of them beamed with joy.
Blue leaped onto the massive wooden plank before it could drop down all the way and skidded down into the courtyard by the time it thudded to a stop. He raced up to the three men, still carrying Miyani's giggly self on his back, and smothered them in affection, rubbing his face in each of their cheeks and wrapping his neck around one of them to pull him in close.
I stood alone and watched.
Miyani glanced at me with a warm smile and raised a finger before turning her attention back to the men. Then, while Blue knocked one of his friends down and continued his affection, Ude pulled my girlfriend in for a hug.
She embraced him in kind, and a jolt shot throughout my body. My heart thundered, and not in a good way. This man wrapped one arm around her waist, his other around her shoulders, and wiggled her back and forth. I froze. My blood boiled. Seeing this man embrace her like that, after all the shit going through my head over that boy, I felt like I was about to explode.
Blue thrust his face in front of mine and chirped. He broke my trance and rubbed his face in my cheek, pushing into my skin with effervescent enthusiasm, then continued to brush his body against mine and chirped again. I took a deep breath and tried to relax, and ended up stroking the smooth scales of his neck. He pushed in some and brought his snout towards a spot on his shoulder, so I stroked him there. He yawned his mouth wide and gave off two more chirps, twice tapping the tip of his nose to the same spot.
"Oh," I smiled. "Like this?" I pushed in some and felt the muscles beneath his skin, massaging them down to a tendon deep within. He let out a string of clicks, and so I pressed in deeper and worked out a tense spot just behind his shoulder. Blue tapped his foot against the ground excitedly and clicked some more. Meanwhile I watched as that man held her arms in his hands.
The other two men left, but Ude held her hands and tilted his gaze down to her, speaking softly.
I clenched my jaw trying to contain what was welling up inside me.
After far too long, he released her. I stepped up immediately and took hold of her arms, pulled her in close, and leaned down to kiss her lips. I felt her smile as she pecked at my lips a few times and reached her arms over my neck, and I reached behind to grasp at the full roundness of her arse, making sure Ude wouldn't miss that.
Miyani pulled from me briefly and traced her fingers down my chest, peering up into my eyes and giggling. "You like!"
I shot a glance at Ude, only for him to tilt his head to one side, laugh, and turn around, shaking his head as he walked back to the mess.
Blue chose a stall directly adjacent to where Yumi sat with Queen and nuzzled his body down into a mass of bedding. Miyani undid the strap about his waist and hung it on a hook next to her necklace of giant wooden beads when I mustered the courage to broach what tortured me. "ki'i ʒʌgodi."
"Mmm?" She faced me and tilted her head to the side, furrowing her brow.
"We need to talk."
She nodded, still smiling. "ki'i ʒʌgodi, ti. I undastan. zɪbixase ŋuve?"
My heart thundered. My breath quickened. "I don't want you to do amishudi."
She popped her eyebrows. "You know 'æmiʃʌði?"
"Right," I said. "vʌ 'æmiʃʌði. I forbid it. No."
A stifled giggle came from the side. I flashed my gaze at Yumi, and she returned her eyes to her book as soon as I did. She still grinned.
Miyani stared at me, blinked her eyes for a bit, and came back. "kaye?"
"Kaye?" I shook my head. "What's kaye?"
"Eh… boy at cafe. Nem kaye. He want."
"God, you already know! Absolutely not! No. Tell him, I said no. I forbid it. No amishudi."
"Eh…" she scratched her head and probed my face with her yellow eyes.
My fingers trembled. "Tell him no. I said no."
Miyani raised her eyebrows and stared at me blankly. I caught Yumi once again staring at us from the corner of my eye. She smiled wide and shook her head, then went back to her book.
Miyani squinted at me and asked, "you odo?"
"Odo?"
Miyani crossed her arms. "ʒɪ 'asʌsedu?"
"Yes, I order you. Uh…'asʌ… vʌ…"
Miyani shook her head and scowled. Yumi sniggered under her breath and watched. I kept at it, though. "I forbid it. I cannot. Tell him I said…"
Miyani held up a hand and shook her head, "no, no. No this way I like you talk. No. I no like."
"That's great, but this amishudi thing is…"
"No," she pursed her lips and shook her head. "Plan-to I suk dik at you, then no. No I like this way you talk."
That froze me in place, and I felt like an idiot. "I… I don't want to interrupt your plans…"
"vʌ!" she shouted. "zɪta xoso 'imogadesa ʃa vʌ tuvʌde! mama! poke vʌ tuvʌde? woθo ʃa'ukase ʒʌgodu? ʒɪ 'amuŋaxatʌse? pʊ te'a'ese!" She turned to our neighbor, who grinned wide watching this exchange, "yumi! Please translate for me?"
Yumi giggled and shook her head; she couldn't stop smiling. "kupade! vʌ."
Miyani scowled at her.
Yumi excused herself, "'uŋi you don't understand each other ʃa poke kʊmavisu? kupade. vʌ. You guys are too funny."
I stepped closer to Miyani, "I…"
"Go away!"
I pulled my face back in incredulity. "What do you mean, go away? I need to talk to you…"
She waved her hand at me and turned her attention to Blue, who'd rolled over and was busy rubbing his back in the mass of shredded coconut-husk. She turned back to me. "Go. Away."
And so I stepped off. My brain was numb, and I managed twenty paces towards the mess when an idea materialized. I wished I could just start over, and so that was exactly what I intended to do. Somehow. I needed a better way to approach her, and so I pondered the matter. What would Sarina advise me to do?
Caleb, I'm going to sit right here with Yumi and watch because she's right; you guys are too funny.
If I'm being honest, that's exactly what she'd have said. She'd probably break out a wine skin for the two of them to share while Miyani and I argued through a language barrier.
Alone, I went back to the stall, trying to act like I was just strolling along. Miyani held her arms crossed and didn't break her deadly scowl.
"Oh," I tried to act surprised, but dragged my words out slowly to give her time on each one. "Miyani! I, didn't, know, you, were, here! When, did, you, arrive?"
Yumi giggled and continued to watch. Miyani raised one eyebrow high above the other and pulled her lips to one side.
"It's good that we have not spoken yet." I turned to our audience, "Yumi! I didn't know you were there!"
Blue squawked some and lifted his long neck to brush his face in my cheek. I patted him beneath his chin, and he brushed me a few more times. I answered him, "it's good to see you, too, for the first time today."
Miyani started laughing. She tried to scowl through it, but she couldn't. Good sign?
I stood up straight and smiled down at her. "How are you? How do you feel? How was your journey from Carthia? Did you have a safe trip? Uh… let me think?"
She laughed lightly and nodded. "I, am, good. Wadup?"
That made me laugh. "Wadup, huh? Very nice! Where'd you hear that one from?"
She shook her head at me and squinted.
"Who told you that? Who said wadup?"
"Ah!" she nodded and smiled again. "Eh…" she drew her fingers around the white, bat's wing tattoo on her shoulder. "Dog Herali?"
"Wolf clan?"
"Ti!" she nodded excitedly. "Woof kulan."
I nodded, "yep! That sounds about right!" I rubbed my hands together. "What about you? What does Uhuida have? Weird words…"
"Yes," she smiled. "Wait. Sit."
We sat down together beside Blue, who rolled onto his side to expose his belly to her.
A family of small, gray opossums snuck out from a hole in the wood and sniffed over the lizard's skin.
From a small box beside the stall, Miyani opened the lid and took up what looked like hard, iron tongs with a sharp point. "Ah, I have. fʊgoʒʊ." She pointed at the opossums.
I looked in confusion.
The small, furry creatures crawled over to Blue and sniffed around his underbelly. A handful of bead-sized brown things clung to his belly, and the opossums nibbled them off.
Miyani stroked the large one's fur lightly and turned to me. "fʊgoʒʊ. 'uxuwida word to her. fʊgoʒʊ saŋɪwesa say tɪka."
"tɪka," I repeated it a few times until I got it right. Then she leaned in and inspected his scales close.
"I'm sorry for coming at you earlier. kupade."
"poke zɪbixase 'æmiʃʌði?"
"Uh…" I tried. "Maybe?"
She shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment. "Why… uh… where you hear uh… from?"
"Where did I hear that from?"
"Yes!" She smiled and sat up straight, resting her hands in her lap but not putting down the forceps. "Where'd you hear that from?"
"Taganu."
She echoed, "taganu, yes. Ok?"
"He and I, we met the boy from the cafe,"
"Kaye," she nodded.
"Good. OK. Taganu told me, that, Kaye wants amishudi, with you."
"Yes," she nodded. "He ask."
I sat up straight. "Oh, he asked you?"
"Yes."
"Oh," my face sunk. "W…"
She tilted her head at me. "Ahmi say me that no you want. Firss I talk at you. She… ŋo'oye faza'o ʃa… 'uŋi ɣʊkʊmavi sekɪwaviye bi'oyuto ʃa gaʒɪya ʃiko 'æmiʃʌði ʃa yʊpi ki'i ʒʌgoyeza ʃa ʃovotaye. gæðuye pozowa fi faza'o toto."
"OK" I squeezed my eyes closed. Miyani watched my face, while Yumi continued to smile as she glanced back and forth between us. Words jumbled together in my mind, and I had no idea where to begin. "Can you say all that again?"
Miyani laughed and took a deep breath. "ŋo'o 'ami faza'o…"
"Ahmi has a rule…"
She went through it again, helping me piece it together. Apparently, this wasn't the first time this issue had come up. Ahmi had a rule that if one of her sekiwa was involved with a foreigner and some boy asked for the rite, she was required to discuss the matter with her boyfriend before giving an answer.
One of the baby opossums sniffed around her leg. Then it started scratching at her skin and trying to dig between her calf and her thigh. Miyani looked down, then lifted herself up, and I'm sorry but her body from that angle, that was not fair. Not one little bit. I deserved a pass at least once.
The creature found a small, black dot on the back of her leg and nibbled at it as she urged me forward, "you talk, I listen. Go."
"Well…" I needed to be honest with her. Completely honest. Beyond how insanely gorgeous she looked, I needed to get this conversation right. "There's nothing like it in my culture. It's foreign to me; I never heard of it before I came here. It goes against so much of what I believe in, and I don't know if I can handle it. I feel like it would take away something."
She held up her hand and nodded through my words, then answered me slowly, sounding out each word to make sure I understood all of them. "Your people don't have amishudi, and you're afraid?"
"Yes."
"poke teɣose?"
"Why am I afraid?" I felt incredulous. How could I explain these things to her? "What if you like him?"
She laughed. Then she leaned in close and found a small, white thing poking out through Blue's skin just below his leg. She clamped down at it with the forceps and twisted around, and very slowly a long, shimmering, white thing like a slimy string of yarn came out of him as she twisted and wrapped it around her tongs. She glanced at me briefly and explained, "is 'æmiʃʌði. Is no… this way… no for like."
"How do you know you're not going to like being with him?"
She leaned in for emphasis. "I like you."
"I'm afraid of how I'm going to feel. Uh… teɣode, uh… kʊdazi… vi du."
She kept twisting that worm around her tongs, slowly pulling it out of Blue's body. His leg twitched repeatedly, and he gave us a string of clicks, which made her smile. Then she looked at me with her lips pursed. "ɣɪtuwe ʃoθo tesa fi ʃʌkæ. vʌbɪdi zaʃi 'æmiʃʌðixe."
I shrugged. "If it's not a big deal, then why…?"
"Ahh," she nodded. Then she leaned forward and looked at something close on Blue's leg only to brush it away with her finger. "ʒʊɣoʃoxe toto. powæfɪðaθoxa. vʌ 'amozo…" she turned to Yumi and insisted, "ʃʊsi? ʃʊsi zebuwosedu?"
Yumi looked up towards the sky and pursed her lips. Queen reached her head around and rested it in her lap, and Yumi smiled and scritched the back of her neck before looking back at Miyani as though she hadn't heard the question.
Miyani sucked her teeth.
Then I thought to ask. "Will girls to ask me for this?"
She sat up straight. "No. You no ŋa'uxuwi. No ask at you. vʌ ki'i 'æmiʃʌðise."
I shrugged. "Well, how's that fair? vʌ ŋevæxe!"
She pursed her lips at me. "Who you want?"
"I don't… I want you! I'm just saying…"
She smiled and bit her lower lip. "You want ʃʌkæ me?"
I blushed.
She added with a sly grin. "You want ʃʌ'aso me?"
"Uh…" a rush of giddiness blew through me, and my heart started racing. My body was ready.
She giggled. "I respect chaste. You want ʃʌvo? I come here… because this."
I grinned. "That's why you came here?"
"Yes," she nodded enthusiastically. "I want, uh… give. dowa puðʊde pigavisa to bokavidu. suweŋodexa."
I hadn't known I could blush harder. I shot a quick glance at Yumi, who watched us with a wide smile and stars in her eyes.
I summoned the words, "you dream of it, huh?"
She grinned wide, "ti." God, her face looked beautiful. "fɪze zoʃu'ude koyezu vapavidu vidu pigavisa. I want, OK? I respect chaste. Is OK?"
A deep rumble like a trumpet blast burst forth from Blue's rear end, followed by a horrid stench. I broke out laughing. Miyani's eyes went wide and she glared at Blue. He lifted his head up and spoke some string of clicks and gurgles, then turned over onto his back completely and rubbed his spine in the soft coconut bedding.
I couldn't stop laughing. Miyani closed her eyes and lowered her face. I asked, "what did he say?"
She took a deep breath and looked up at me. "He say, you right."
"I'm right? What am I right about?"
She rubbed his belly. He kicked the air and clicked. "He say, no fair 'æmiʃʌði that you no, uh… this."
"Oh?" I raised my eyebrows. "Not fair that you get to and I don't, huh?"
"No!" She shook her head and scrunched her face up. "It's not fair that you don't have to and I do!"