Page 203 of Mates for the Raskarrans #1-6

CHAPTER TEN

Dazzik

S leep is too far off for me to grasp after jolting from the dreamspace, no matter how hard I will my eyes to grow heavy so I can return to my Sam.

My Sam. My linasha. Lina has truly blessed me with a female and I have spent our nights together denying that she is real. Lina must curse me for a fool that I do not recognise her blessing when I receive it.

I scrub my hands over my face, feeling the raised ridges of my scars. Scars my Sam is yet to see. Fear cuts into my heartspace that she might take one look at my outcast marks and deny me, but I take a breath, slow my heartspace until I can think rationally.

My Sam is kind. She has been patient with me through my denial.

I recall the tears that blinked loose from her eyes - tears of joy, not sorrow.

Joy in being mine. My chest swells at the thought.

I am truly the luckiest of males to have such a sweet and devoted mate.

She will not rush to judging. If I can explain myself clearly to her, I am sure she will understand.

A smile tugs at my lips. If I can get enough words out to explain myself clearly. My Sam has many things to say, few of them making much sense to me. Next time we are in dreams together, I will listen closely to her. Do my best to understand her better.

But a thorn scratches at the edge of my joy, my headspace unable to forget a simple truth for a moment.

I am outcast. Wrongly outcast, yes, but while I am sure my Sam will come to understand this, would another raskarran take me at my word?

Being outcast is meant to be reserved for the worst of raskarrans, those who do not act with the tribe’s best interests in their headspace and heartspace.

Selfish males who would take from the tribe, do damage to it.

It is not a common thing, and we are taught from youngling days to abhor the very thought of a raskarran with their face marked.

Could Walset overcome this to listen to me? I am certain my Sam would appeal to him on my behalf, but would he trust a female to one such as I?

Would he trust me around his other brothers, the other females?

The younglings that will hopefully arrive one day.

For that is what I will have to ask. To be taken in by his tribe.

To join with them so I can live with my Sam in the kind of comfort and security that she deserves.

I cannot care for a mate alone under these trees when some seasons I struggle to care for myself.

I will not have my Sam hunger, I will not have her suffer loneliness as I have.

Perhaps if I come with offerings, something to sweeten my arrival, Walset may be more inclined to listen.

I look round at my stores, trying to picture them as Walset would see them.

A paltry addition to his own stores, but it is something.

It would mean I come with means to feed myself, to not place burden on his tribe.

I rise from my pelts, though it is yet late at night, too alert and full of fire in my chest to sleep.

My sweet Sam will have to wait until the next nightfall to visit with me again.

I do not like that my last words to her were ‘I cannot’, that she will think on this all day as she walks, wondering if I would continue to deny her.

I will not. I cannot just come to Walset’s tribe and claim her, this is true, but I will find a way to appease the chief of my Sam’s tribe.

I will find a way that we can be together as mates should be.

I will explain everything to her when we are next in dreams together. As she has shown me her world and the truth of herself, I will show her mine, and we will think on solutions to the problem together.

There will be a solution. There has to be. I do not believe Lina would be so cruel as to bless me with a mate I cannot have.

An offering to Walset, I think, as I stretch out my arms and back, looking at the small clearing around my cave, the dying remains of my fire.

What resource does the forest provide that would make for a good gift?

Something that is valued but not needed, I think, a thing that would please his brothers that they perhaps do not have the time to gather for themselves.

Back in the days before the sickness, when we were many and our numbers meant that we had time for frivolous things, there were so many pastimes that raskarrans developed. Sewing beautiful patterns into clothes, playing djossi, making pretty decorative things.

I can find pretty things, I think. Close to the river as I am, there are plenty of shallows where shelves and pretty stones might be found.

A gift for the females in my Sam’s tribe - something they can use to create something lovely while they wait out the big rains.

We raskarrans have ever been soft for our females.

If I can make Sam’s tribe smile, then perhaps their mates will be softer to me.

Perhaps they will see past my scars to the truth in my heartspace.

Pleased with my plan, I stoke my fire, bringing it back to life enough that it will burn on a while longer, then empty out my pack, setting each of the items in it inside the mouth of my cave, just out of reach of any rain that might yet fall this night.

With an empty bag on my shoulders and a burning branch from the fire in hand, I set off into the trees to look for lovely things.

I go to one of the many streams that feed the river first, scouting a way along its banks until I find some shallows.

There, by the light of my torch, I seek out the discarded shells of river creatures.

On the outside, they are plain, the colour of sand - the better for hiding from predators that would eat them.

But inside, they are lined with some shimmering substance that reminds me of how the sunlight appears when it catches the edge of clouds.

My mother used to wear a necklace of such a shell that my father made for her when they were first mated.

I think of my Sam, and how she would look with such a necklace on and smile.

She would like it, I think. She disliked her world for being so grey.

I will make sure she always is surrounded by many colours.

It is a fruitful first stop on my forage journey.

I find three shells, and several of the colourful stones that often line the riverbed, including one that has blue veins running through it that remind me of the colour of my Sam’s eyes.

I place this one in a separate pocket to the rest, along with the nicest of the shells.

Gifts for my linasha. It is not much, but I would give her something.

A token of my appreciation for her, my gratitude for her patience.

Her willingness to wait through the rains for me.

I continue to work my way down the stream, heading in the direction of the river proper.

The streams are better for the kind of forage I am doing this night, being shallower and slower than the Great River itself.

This close to the big rains, even the smallest of the streams are swollen and potentially treacherous, but there are shallows still, though fewer and further between.

I stop each time I come across one, hunting for the elusive shells, and gathering up any rocks that catch my eye.

By the fourth shallow section I check, I have quite the bounty of pretty things to gift to Walset, and I am not even halfway to the Great River.

The Great River that my Sam travels along, on her way back to another’s tribe.

Who did she say? I wish I had paid greater attention.

I am only familiar with Walset’s tribe, his being the only one that was likely to cross my path.

This other tribe must have many good males, for they have taken my Sam’s tribe in, cared for them well.

And did she not make mention of other mated pairs?

I curse myself for not listening better, but it matters little to my plan.

If it is Walset or if it is another, I must make the same approaches, must appease their concerns and prove myself a male worthy of their attention long enough to explain my circumstances.

But the thought that my Sam is out there this night, possibly even close enough by that I could steal up to her camp, spy her small frame through the doors of her travel tent - it sends a pleasant shiver through me.

She worries that we will come out of range of each other as she continues on her way back to her tribe, but I will follow after her.

I will gather what I need this night and then I will pack my foods and my pelts and I will head into the forest, my tired, leaking tent on my back, and I will follow in her footsteps until I am upon her people.

I picture the smile that will cross her face when she sees me in the waking world.

The way her sky eyes will light up as if the sun has risen in them.

Perhaps she will frown, concern shaping her mouth and brows as she takes in my scars, but surely she will chatter mouthfuls of excited words, and I will delight in hearing them.

I am so taken by these imaginings that I do not hear the footsteps until they are almost upon me.

Fortunately, I am bent low to the ground, my torch pinned beneath my knee so it does not roll away, my body shielding most of its light.

If I had not been so, then perhaps the male approaching would have noticed me sooner, also, and would have been able to dispatch me with a knife to my back before I had a moment to defend myself.

As it is, we both startle upon noticing each other at the same time, me rising to my feet, reaching for a knife I left in my cave, torch held out before me. He staggers backwards, almost stumbling in his haste to stop, also going for his weapon, which is in his belt where mine should be.