Wildlings

50: Nesting Birds

The bird was huge, like the size of a dog or something, its beak almost unnaturally long and yellow, its neck kinked. The bough sagged under its weight. It looked like an alien.

"You okay?"

Brock passed Sannah a tea in a dented metal mug, pulling her attention away from the creature in the trees. He was looking at her suspiciously, like she was an injured animal that he'd just released from a snare, and he wasn't sure if she was going to attack him or not.

Sannah nodded, wrapping her hands around the hot mug. The tea was weak and poorly made, but she was still glad of it.

The giant bird took her attention again, lifting itself with the force of its wingspan, making the branch shake as it rose. Its flight followed the curve of the river, then it alighted on a rock, just a white speck in the distance now.

"I thought you were never gonna wake up," Brock said, sitting back on the gritty sand and surveying the bubbling water in front of them. "I didn't know if I should've taken you to hospital or not."

"I'm alright. Just tired. I was up all night." Sannah bit her lip, not sure what she should tell him. "Did you know there were prostitutes? In Reeta and Tooley's house? Exotic ones? Locked in a room."

Brock's brow furrowed, his eyes still on the whispering river. "Licit? That's grim. I skitting hate that place."

"I thought it was the chang," he eventually said. "When I seen you in that swing. Like you'd had... a psychotic episode or something."

"Just shock," Sannah pushed her toes into the damp, grey-brown sand. "Although it might have been a bit of chang, to be fair. I'm not used to it, so even people smoking around me hurls me out a bit."

"Licit," Brock said. "I hate it."

"Really?" Sannah was surprised. "You don't tilt? I assumed..."

"No way." Brock sounded vehement. He shook his head, making his dark curls bounce. "I mean, I tried a couple of times, back on the reservation. But you've seen Reeta and Tooley, right? If that's not an anti-drugs poster, I don't know what is." He turned his mug upside-down so the last drops of tea dribbled out, making a dark worm in the sand.

"I'd rather have nothing to do with them at all. But I need digits, and beggars can't be choosers, like. There's not much I'm good at."

"Do you live here, then?" Sannah surveyed the strange, makeshift camp they were in. They sat on a small bay of grainy, grey sand, on the outside curve of a bend in a river. A valley, steep and rocky, rose up at every side of them, tall, leafy trees clinging to the edge, blocking out the sun, leaving the place wet and shadowed, almost feeling underground.

Behind them, the muddy cliff must have been eroded at some point by the river, faster-flowing than it was now. The roots of the trees were exposed, making a horizontal, knotted ceiling for a series of low, sandy-bottomed caves.

There was a small, expedition-style tent inside one of these caves, and it was into that cocoon Sannah had collapsed, exhausted, and slept like the dead for numen-knows how long, after Brock brought her here.

"Yeah. Kinda. I mean, for now, anyways. It's not gonna be doable come winter, I'll have to get something in town then. But while it's hot like this I'd rather be here than in that forsaken pit. Saves me money, like, as well."

He pressed the upside down cup into the sand, making a pattern with the circle imprints it left.

"Do they know about me?" His voice and shoulders were tense. "I mean, Judit's not here, so I don't know what happened, but... am I... tonight, can I..."