Wildlings

51: Whispers

"So you're definitely okay with it? I mean, like, to go? The way we planned?"

Gaen was almost whispering in the darkness, like there might be someone to hear, listening in the rafters, ready to rip it all away from them. It was the first time they'd shared the box bed. They weren't cuddled up, weren't even touching, it wasn't like that. There was just a lot to talk about. It felt symbolic, nonetheless.

"Yeah. I mean, I think so. It's—it's a lot to think about. But it kinda makes sense, in a weird way. I was feeling a bit off spec about going back, so..." Judit bit her lip, staring into the dark. "I'll have to talk to Sannah about it. She has, like, life-plans and stuff." Judit thought of Rama. She's not going to get that scholarship. Maybe not. Maybe she doesn't have life plans. "But yeah, I'm kinda up for it."

She looked up at the wooden ceiling of the bed, just shadow on shadow in the gloom.

"I thought you liked it here," she finally said. "I thought it was like, your dream. To be properly Native, and that."

"So did I." His voice was frank. "And it still kind of is, in a way. But just... not like this, y'know? I wanna be myself, too."

His words were engulfed by the silence as they lay, staring up, next to each other.

"It's like they're trying to make us go back in time or something. Like everything has to be how it was on some exact date three hundred years ago. And not two hundred years ago, because then we were getting wiped out and at war with the Generics and putting people's heads on spikes. And not four hundred years ago, 'cos then we were making human sacrifices. So just some arbitrary date in the middle that suits them."

"Licit?" Judit felt her eyebrows shoot up. She was glad for the cloak of darkness. "Human sacrifices?"

"Yeah. Burning people for witchcraft, too. The Natives weren't these perfect noble savages or something, y'know." He paused, then added, "still better than the Generics, though," his voice defensive.

Shadow, silence. A low crackle from the fire. Judit pushed her feet down into the blankets, running them over the woollen peaks and canyons.

"They're just trying to control us too much." He spoke on, and it sounded like cooped-up feelings, all dashing out, like the chickens this morning.

"We were out on the boat the other day and I caught a tunny. You seen 'em? They're massive. Good too, like steak or something. It would have fed all of us—me, you, Merle, Jaddy—for two meals at least. In just one catch! But then Dean wanted me to throw it back. And it was already dead! Such a waste of a life. He said it wasn't in line with the Native diet. Like we're supposed to ignore skitting climate change and force the pretence that we live in the past, even if that means going hungry."

His voice had risen, and he quelled it, saying, "Sorry. It just does my head in."

"I know what you mean," Judit said supportively, thinking of the soft moss. As if a menstrual cup would somehow stop me being close to nature. She was buoyed up by his unusual candidness, encouraged enough to express what had been playing in her mind since the mushroom incident.

"I thought you hated me."

"I don't hate you." He sounded surprised, and adamant. It felt wonderful. "I hate them. They're control freaks. They treat us like animals."