Page 116 of Mates for the Raskarrans #1-6

CHAPTER FOUR

Lorna

T here’s a lot of commotion when Rardek and Callif return, carrying what looks like a warthog with them.

It’s an ugly great thing, Callif straining as he hefts it towards the central fire and presents it to Hannah and Namson.

Judging by Namson’s reaction, though, we’re going to be in for a treat for dinner tonight.

“Kaka,” Ahnjas says, pointing.

“Horkat,” Sally says, smiling at him. “That’s right. Well done.”

She kisses his forehead, then sets him down on the old furs she’s laid out for him like a picnic blanket. His blocks are in the centre of them, other toys in a basket to the side, should the blocks not provide enough distraction.

“Are you sure about this?” Sally says. “Are you really sure?”

“It’s fine, go. Get yourself some well earned rest.”

She’s not far off giving birth now and always looks drained.

She stretches herself too much, trying to teach Jassal and Molly, while also trying to wrangle with Ahnjas, who’s right in the mischievous part of toddlerhood where you can’t take your eyes off him for a moment - case and point his misadventure with a thankfully empty reed basket in my hut yesterday.

When Shemza suggested I take the kids for her, she looked like she could cry with relief at the thought, but also like she didn’t want to put on me.

I remember what Shemza said about the tribe being a net.

I’m not the only one who’s reluctant to let it catch me, it seems.

Sally’s been on her own in the forest for a long time, just her mate to rely on. She has almost as much adjusting to do as we do.

“Well…” Sally hesitates, and I can see the war between wanting to take a break and not wanting to inconvenience me playing out in her shifting expressions. “If either of them acts up, you can come and get me. Or if Ahnjas starts grousing about his teeth again. Or if they wear you out and…”

“Sally.” I cut her off, trying to contain my amusement. “Go. And don’t even think about coming back out here until you’ve had a decent nap.”

She hesitates a moment longer, then smiles, her eyes full of gratitude, and heads toward her hut.

“You’re looking after us now, Lorna?” Jassal says as I sit down on the floor next to Ahnjas and his blocks.

Unlike the toys I’m used to seeing, it’s clear that they were all hand carved - probably by Jaskry while Sally was still pregnant.

I can picture it. The two of them snuggled up together on an evening, Jaskry working away on these blocks for his child to play with, while Sally snoozes next to him.

So much more wholesome than the families I’m accustomed to, where the kids are given all the toys money could buy with the expectation that it will keep them quiet and prevent them from bothering anyone.

Ahnjas’ blocks won’t stack as well as those expensive, manufactured toys, but his father carved them with love. There’s no way the two of them haven’t spent time building towers together, bonding in a way my parents never did with me.

“I know you don’t need much looking after,” I say, tweaking her nose. “But I am looking after Ahnjas, and I would love for you to help me.”

Jassal beams. She might be nine, or thereabouts, in human terms, but she’s much younger emotionally than most of the kids I’ve ever met. All those jaded top tier kids had already learned to lie through their teeth for their own advantage by her age. Jassal’s a sweet little thing, eager to please.

“Fshfsh, Lolo!” Anghar says, waving one of his blocks at me with such enthusiasm, he nearly smacks me over the head with it.

Jassal giggles as she snatches the block out of his hand. “It’s Lorna. Lor-na.”

“Lolo,” Ahnjas says again.

“I don’t mind being called Lolo,” I say, tickling Ahnjas under his chin.

He laughs, but his eyes roam about, looking for the block Jassal took from him.

She teases him with it a bit, holding it out of his reach so he’s bouncing where he sits to reach it.

She doesn’t taunt him long, though, recognising the moment the game stops being fun for Ahnjas and passing the block to him before he starts to protest. He immediately shoves it back in my face.

“Fshfsh, Lolo.”

He’s in a better mood today, his irritability vanished overnight. He’s cutting his back molars and suffering with it, but for now they obviously aren’t causing him any discomfort, and he’s brighter, more energetic for it. Not at all bothered by the slight bruise on his forehead, either.

“Fshfsh?” I say, taking it from him. “What does that mean, huh? Fish fish?”

I puff up my cheeks and open and close my mouth, making a popping noise.

Ahnjas howls with laughter, clapping his hands over my cheeks.

I deliberately make a raspberry sound, which just makes him laugh harder.

Jassal giggles along with him, and was there ever a better sound than the uninhibited laughter of children?

I don’t think I ever laughed like that. It makes me want to make them laugh all the time.

Sally thinks she’s putting on me, giving me the responsibility of taking care of her kids. Honestly, I’d take care of them every day if she wanted me to.

“Not fish fish,” Jassal says. “He’s trying to say ‘foshallen’. It means build. Ahnjas always wants to build things.”

“Foshallen,” I say, wrapping my tongue around the raskarran word. “Foshallen. Okay, what shall we build?”

“A hut!” Jassal says.

“A hut?” I say to Ahnjas. He grins at me, and I take that for agreement.

“Papa had to build a hut for Mama when she first came into his dreamspace,” Jassal says as we work together to build walls.

“That must have been hard work all by himself.”

“Mama said it took him nearly a whole season. That’s a long time.”

“Hopefully it won’t take us a whole season to build this one.”

Jassal giggles again, but her expression quickly shifts back to thoughtful. “It’s much better being a tribe. I like it more than being on our own. Do you like the tribe, Lorna?”

“I do, very much. This village is the nicest place I’ve ever lived.”

It’s funny how true that is. Everyone I ever knew would have looked down on the raskarrans for their simple homes, their communal way of living. And yet I’d gladly trade the wealth, the opulence, even the indoor plumbing, to live here with the raskarrans if I had the choice over again.

“Papa’s hut was nice,” Jassal says, as if she feels it’s a betrayal of her father somehow not to say so. “But the village is nicer. Just because it has more people. I like the people here.”

She talks in that meandering way that kids do when someone shows them the courtesy of listening.

She tells me about how Rardek has been helping her with her shooting, how Darsha showed her some good trees to practise her climbing and how Namson has shown her how to make sweet biscuits - moving from one topic to another in a way that’s difficult to follow.

I smile as I listen to her ramblings. All of this is almost as new to her as it is to me.

I particularly like her tales about the other raskarrans teaching her things.

There’s no gendering of any of the tasks, and I don’t think it’s just because there are no raskarran women.

Jassal would never be told not to climb trees because it’s not becoming of a young lady, because raskarrans just don’t think that way.

Ellie is allowed to hunt because it interests her and she’s skilled at it.

Khadija’s encouraged to learn how to make the traps and alarm systems the warriors use.

Namson does the cooking because he has the most knowledge, and he’s only so eager to pass his skills on to Sam and Hannah because his arthritic fingers struggle to peel and chop.

I think of myself at Jassal’s age, and my governess, who was instructed to teach me all the things a young lady of good standing was supposed to know.

Which was a very narrow band of things - I had to be educated, but not too educated, cultured, but not too cultured.

I had to have hobbies, but even that was difficult.

Sewing was out - that was for lesser girls.

The lower tier workers did that sort of thing.

Cooking, another big no no, for the same reasons.

Outdoorsy pursuits weren’t allowed either.

Didn’t want me breathing the bad air, or getting too tan.

Reading was okay, but only if I read the right things.

Mercenia controlled what literature the population was allowed to read, with waste disposal workers like Liv burning everything that wasn’t allowed, but even within their set reading list, there were further restrictions for me.

Nothing about finances, or history, or anything that might lead to me questioning a man’s opinion about something.

Make up and fashion were really all that was left to me, and neither interested me in the slightest.

I love that Jassal is just allowed to try everything. She leans toward hunting, but that’s because of her father. She might find as she grows that she would prefer to do something else, and no one here would try to limit her.

“Do your sisters not like the tribe? They always seem so scared and sad.”

I’m brought back to the present moment by her question, startling me out of my musings.

I’m not sure how she got on to the topic of the other girls - so lost in my thoughts that I’d stopped properly listening to her.

I feel a little guilty, but I make up for it by giving her question the serious consideration it deserves, rather than feeding her some platitude like my parents would have done to me.