Lavender & Ice

14. Progress

No. Shima shook her head at her inner monologue. He wouldn't bring her out here to the wilderness and run off after some dangerous animal, if he didn't know what he was doing. Would he? She waited, choosing again to trust him. What felt like an eternity later, but was probably fifteen minutes, he called out. "Shima!"

She jumped up and took off like a bolt, sprinting in the direction she heard him call for her. "Kietnan?" She yelled back in response. "Yiet.". He responded. She altered her course slightly, at the sound. And then a few moments later she saw him.

She stopped abruptly and gasped at the site. Kietnan was crouched over an animal. If she had to pick something to describe it based on any animals she had seen in her life, she would compare it to something in the deer, or possibly the goat family. It had black fur, with dark burgundy stripes running through it, she noticed as she got closer. A short, stubby tail, and its head had antlers that pointed straight forward. She shuddered at the thought of being on the receiving end of a headbutt from the animal.

Kietnan was using a smaller blade than what he had run off with earlier. She watched as he made short work of the animal, removing its insides. He had several wrapping cloths laid out already before she got there, he pulled apart some of the animals organs. Tossing some to the side, while putting others up next to the cloths.

"Shima." he looked up at her. He spoke more words she didn't understand, but he made sure to use hand gestures. He pointed at the organs, and then pointed at the wrapping cloths.

"Do you want me to wrap them?" She said hesitantly. While she wasn't necessarily a squeamish person, she had definitely never done anything like this.

He grabbed one of the organs, set it in a wrapping, folded it up and tied the top. And set it to the side. He then pointed at her. "Shima." Pointed back at the meat and pointed back at the cloths.

She let at a long breath. "OK, then." She crouched down on the other side of the meat from him and began working. They moved in silence as they both did their parts to field dress the animal and get it ready for transport. 

She had all of the organs wrapped and neatly beside each other near his bag. She looked over to see that he had finished removing any of the animal that he did not want to keep, and was holding it up for it to drain. For a moment she admired the way his muscles flexed and pushed at the thin fabric he was wearing, her eyes following a drop of blood that ran down his strong forearm. And she briefly let herself admit that there was something about the way he had just ran down a wild animal, killed it, and gutted it with barely more than his bare hands. She felt a primal urge to show him how much she appreciated his skills.

He sat the animal down after a moment, pulling her from her thoughts. He took all of the wrapped organs, and put them inside of a larger wrapping he pulled out of his bag, then put them all inside of the pack. Using a bit of their water jar and an extra cloth to wipe off his arms and hands, he slipped his jacket back on and then put the pack on his back. Ashima's primal thoughts returned as she watched him proceed to lug the animal up on top of his shoulders, each pair of legs hanging over the front of his shoulders. He adjusted the animal slightly until he felt comfortable.

"Shima." She shuddered slightly at the sound of his voice speaking her name but quickly shook her head to clear her thoughts. "Hanton." He said as he turned and began walking the direction they'd originally come from.

"Hanton... let's go, right?" She followed in his footsteps. "Hanton means let's go. Donto means follow."

"So this was a hunting trip all along?" She asked him a while later. "I've never seen you eat any meat. Is this whole thing for me? Did you do all of this for me?" She asked sheepishly. She wondered if she would've actually asked the question if she knew he could understand what she was saying.

When the sun in the sky showed that it was early afternoon, they had just reached the area where the underbrush was starting to thin again. Kietnan relieved himself of the pack and animal. He pulled the bag of intestines out and set it to the side before digging through the bag again, pulling out some water, a small piece of meat, and a small piece of the orange, carrot-like vegetable she had tried the night before and handing them to her.

He then pulled himself out, a vial of deep red liquid and a chunk of pale yellow dried vegetable for himself. They ate and drank in silence for a few moments before Ashima spoke.

"Thank you."

Kietnan looked up. She suspected that he had learned what that word meant. She had said it often enough. Although she noticed that he looked slightly troubled, or was it uncomfortable?

"Thank you for helping me, Kietnan. I don't know how to thank you. You've done so much for me. And now we've spent this entire day out here hunting for meat so that I can have something to eat. I don't know how I will ever repay you."

She thought of that day when she screamed for help in the lake. When he had pulled her out of the water and looked at her curiously. She smiled slightly and a single tear rolled down her cheek before she brushed it away. She was lucky, she recognized. So lucky to have landed right in front of him.

When she thought of the woman at the medical tent and the woman that chased her through camp, somehow she knew that they would never have treated her as kindly as Kietnan had this past week.

"Shima?" She looked up to find him staring at her as if he wasn't sure what to do.

"It's ok, Kietnan, I'm ok." She sucked in a breath and offered him a light smile.

He began speaking, but as usual she didn't understand him. She felt herself getting frustrated but paused when she heard the word "please" in the middle of a string of words she didn't recognize. She listened more intently and thought she had simply been hearing things when the words "what must I do" came to her ears.

"Kietnan?" She asked and he stopped speaking, looking at her in concern. She remained silent, confusion running through her.

"Shima?"

"Kietnan, were you speaking English just now?" She asked, even though she knew it was absurd.

He stared at her for a moment before he responded. Her face fell when she didn't recognize any of the words, but when his sentence ended with "finish eating and return to camp." She jumped up and gasped.

Kietnan stood as well, muscles tense as if in a defensive stance.

"Kietnan!" She reached forward and grabbed his forearms with each of her hands. "I understood some of that! It was like you were speaking my language!" He just stared at her and she stood back to pace as she rambled. "But you weren't, I could tell your lips weren't saying those English words. You were speaking your native tongue but I could understand you as if you were speaking my own language." She rubbed her chin with her hand as she paced.

She stopped abruptly and gasped, again grabbing onto his forearms. "Kietnan!" Her smile lit up her whole face. "The translator!" She jumped up and down and he looked around and then back at her in concern. She let go of him and stepped back. "You think I've lost my mind, but I'm too excited to care. I completely forgot about the translator! They installed it in the skin behind my ear years ago, when I was first approved to work directly with the Aurelians."

"Aureli?!" He said in surprise.

"Oh! That's right, you must know who they are! They know who you are, and I know they've had at least some contact with your people." She smiled. "Kietnan, I need you to talk more. The translator is so close. You barely talk, that's why it's taken this long to decipher your language. But it's SO close, Ki!" She was beaming in excitement. "This will change everything!"

Frustrated, Kietnan placed the empty jars back in the pack and put it on his back. As he reached for the animal, she grabbed his arm gently, causing him to still.

"Kietnan, I know you're confused." She began and waited for him to look at her before continuing. "Can you understand anything I've been saying?"

He just stared at her, as he always did. "The translation device must need to make more progress on your language before it starts allowing me to speak it." Realizing she was getting nowhere with her current methods, she took her hand off of his arm and stepped back. She motioned for him to pick up the animal so they could continue on. He looked at her skeptically, but grabbed the animal, putting it up on his shoulders again, and continuing on their trek.