Dream Walker✔️

2.7

Minutes passed with me alone, just fiddling with the charcoal bits. It didn't seem like he would be coming back any time soon, and I had to pee. With a sigh, I stood, still a little unsteady, and made my way out of the tent.

My tent was toward the back of a circle of snow-covered stone igloos and longhouses with little room between them. Borin wandered from building to building, carrying legs of meat, furs, or heavy baskets. Some of the women carried infants on their back, while others had young children toddling along at their ankles. Every single one of them stopped when they saw me and dropped what they were doing. They all dropped to their knees and pressed all four hands together above their heads—except for the children, of course. Those within reach of the mothers were pulled down to their knees as well, but the handful of free-wandering children acted like any child would act when faced with a new creature.

Most ran screaming to hide behind their mothers, but a couple brave souls ran toward me. They were both white-furred, with similar brown speckling that made me think they were siblings. Neither could've been older than six or seven, at least not if they'd been human. I stayed still and tried to look as inoffensive as I could.

The smaller child, a little girl with a brown splotch on her cheek, hesitated behind her brother. The brother plunged forward and grabbed a handful of my crest feathers in his fist. He laughed and tugged his sister closer, talking a mile a minute in their language. The girl giggled like he'd told a joke. She patted my nose and giggled some more before moving back to hide behind the boy.

A shriek from across the circle of homes made me flinch, and I accidentally knocked the kids over. The girl started bawling, and her brother dragged her away, muttering something that sounded like a chastisement. A woman I assumed to be their mother sprinted across to them and practically tackled them to the ground, speed-saying what I took to be tearful groveling.

I didn't have a clue how to calm her down. Luckily, Chief Garoth came jogging into the circle.

He sighed at me. "I heard the screaming and assumed Frozen Tooth was here."

"I had to pee."

"I could have sent someone with the same bucket you've been using these last few days." With a little huff, he added, "But seeing as you're able to walk now, you're free to move around. Please relieve yourself outside of the village borders." He waved past my tent, several rows of buildings, and a cluster of boulders to an open area at the end of a stone-paved 'road.'

Careful to watch my claws on the cobblestone, I trotted out behind the boulders and took care of business. When I came back, the people in the circle had gotten up and were not-so-naturally going about their business.

Chief Garoth smirked at me, his gaze obviously fixated on my head crest. "In a hurry to grow old, young goddess?"

I rolled my eyes. "Pair-bonding helped get my magic flowing again, that's all."

"Oh, I see." He nodded wisely. "We have a similar ritual we carry out when the men return from successful hunts. After long days in the snow, they meet their pair-bonds and make their blood flow hot."

Ugh, I was so glad Aster couldn't understand Bontair—and that he wasn't here right now, since he definitely could've read my embarrassment on my face.

"Yeah, well, you wouldn't happen to know where my human friend is, would you?" Guessing Aster had disappeared through one of the narrow doors around the circle, I turned to my half-human form, retaining my feathers to keep warm.

Garoth clapped his upper hands. "Impressive. I hadn't known such a youngling could perform such magics."

The other borins wandering around must've felt the same way, because quite a few of them stared so much that they ran into other people or doorways.