Scales by Pauline Creeden

Author:Pauline Creeden
Language: nld
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Published: 2015-08-04T22:00:00+00:00

For the next two days, I hunt in the morning and evening, returning with as much food as I can carry for Bailey. In my stash of Land Walker objects, I have a bag I could have used to carry more, but I fear returning to the grotto. Instead, I feed myself while hunting so that I have more room in my arms for Bailey’s meals.

He eats well and heals quickly. I can tell because his wincing becomes less frequent, and his attitude toward me is softer. When I return with my morning catch, he sits up quickly and smiles a greeting before he hides it with a scowl. I never realized he has dimples on both sides of his chin. But there is something familiar about them. Maybe a memory from when I was a youngling?

I smile. “Two sea trout for you today.”

He nods. Although he doesn’t say much to me and spends most of the time calling me noisy, it feels as though he enjoys my company almost as much as I enjoy his. He’s not as sullen as before.

I sit in front of him and watch him while he eats. “What is your line of study now?”

He chews slowly, watching his trout for a few moments, and stays silent.

Although he rarely answers my questions, I keep trying anyway. When he doesn’t answer, I just pelt him with more. “I prefer the warmer seas of the south, but I know a lot of Mer head north for the summer. What about your family? Do you tend toward the nomadic or do you stay here in Bermuda all summer?”

When he continues to eat without looking up, I answer for him. “I don’t remember you leaving with the caravan each year, but I really didn’t watch them as they left. For me, summer was always the easiest and best time. With less Mer around to remind me daily of my cursed state, I could spend more time studying quietly without interruption.”

He humphs. “So you spent all your time studying and still stayed at the bottom of the class?”

I shrug. “I don’t think anything I did would change my state. Even when I thought I’d improved, my placing in the class remained unchanged. I think that tradition made it so that once I was solidly named bottom feeder I could do nothing to pull myself up.”

He frowns. “Things are not supposed to be that way.”

“It’s the way things are even if they aren’t supposed to be.”

He eats his second trout in silence, and for once, I don’t feel much like pelting him with questions this round. Once he finishes, he settles again into the black sand. The red marks on his cheeks are faint, and the ones on his side are shallow. He no longer needs application of blubber salve to finish healing.

His wounds aren’t as severe as they’d seemed the first day and the salve has done its job of keeping things clean and quickening the healing process. The only thing that will continue to take time to heal are his ribs.

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