Chapter 2

We stood there for moment in silence. Neither one of us seemed to know what to say next. I was so embarrassed. I wanted to explain everything, how I had been hunting in the forest, doing the thing I did most days, when she went running by. I wasn’t spying. I followed her because she looked afraid. I mean, yes, I had been watching her from the tree, but that was because...

The nun stared at me for a moment, her eyes on mine. She didn’t look afraid, in fact, I wasn’t sure if she was going to slap me. She looked like she was considering it.

It seemed like we stood in front of each other for an hour, both of us looking each other over and trying to figure out what to do or say. I mean, it was odd a Juoni standing in front of a naked settler in the middle of the forest. But eventually, her eyes rolled across me, across my outfit and weapons. “You’re a hunter,” she didn’t sound sure, more like she was guessing.

I was suddenly conscious of my bow and the way the string fell between my breasts. I stared down at the carved hilt of the dagger on my belt and the quiver that hung at my side.

It was easy to guess I was a hunter, that’s not what filled my head in the silence. What I wondered was what she knew of us, what stories she’d been told. The church hadn’t sent anyone to our village in a long time and the stories that Jennifer and Sarah told us of how the outside world saw us were never good.

A thin smile crossed my lips when I remembered Jennifer’s tale. We were told that on the full moon, the tribes sacrifice a male on the altar and then burn him in a fire and eat him. It made priests reluctant to wander into the forest.

No one knew where the settlers got such ideas. In our oldest histories, no tribe had ever eaten anyone. But every time people came to our village, to our forest, they brought new ideas of us, what they thought we were, what we would do, they even had ideas about where we came from.

What does she think of us? She’s not afraid. I held her gaze, careful not to gawk at her nakedness though, yes, she did seem more beautiful up close. “Why are you here?” It seemed like the best place to start. There was no reason a nun should have been that far from the settlement. At my pace, the settlement was three or four hours across forest strewn with hungry animals and she had no visible weapons.

Her cheeks went red and she glanced down at her feet - a moment of weakness for the naked woman who had called me out of the tree with an admonishing tone. “A pig.” She tucked a few stray curls behind her ear and then took a step back when she saw the look on my face. “It was a big pig, an angry bitch that wanted to kill me!”

Despite my best efforts to swallow my laughter, a chuckle escaped. She had run from me for more than a mile and tumbled down a pretty steep slope running from a pig that had stopped chasing her long before she ran by me.

“It’s not funny, really.” The nun crossed her arms and then realized again that she was naked and a little chilly in the shade of the trees. Her eyes went to the dress she had hung behind me.

“No, I am sorry.” I turned and looked at the dress. Slow, heavy drops of water fell from the edges. “Here,” I reached over my shoulder and grabbed the little pack I carried. There wasn’t much, but I did have a light blanket, a sleeping roll for if I decided to stay in the forest overnight. It was short and thin, but it was better than nothing and the nun’s eyes flared when she saw it.

She unrolled the woven blanket and wrapped it over her shoulders and across her chest. It wasn’t much but I could tell she appreciated it.

“Thank you,” she nodded and glanced back down embarrassed. “I bet you saw me fall?” She said quietly.

Now it was my turn to blush. “I slipped across the stream because I didn’t want you to go further that way,” I pointed into the darkness of the forest to the west and my ears flicked in that direction, listening for anything out of the ordinary.

The nun focused on my cat ears, the little triangles of fur of flesh perched on top of my head - another difference between us. “Why?” It was a vacant question, I could tell she didn’t really care what my answer was. There were a thousand other questions behind her eyes.

“The Ghel,” I turned toward the forest and watched the trees. The stream was the border between of our tribe’s hunting ground and the Ghels. I was technically on the wrong side of the water, but we were not at war and the line was simply the marking of territory. Still, I was standing on their side, with a naked settler and if anyone could see us, I preferred to know.

The nun turned in the same direction and imitated my movements, peering into the trees, and looking for anything or anyone that didn’t match the leaves and vines.

The silence between us while we both examined the forest was uncomfortable but not strained. I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a thousand questions too. I wanted to know about her. I wanted to know if our stories about them were as far from the truth as theirs were about us.

The forest was alive with a hundred different sounds, but none that we had to worry with. I turned to the nun wrapped in my blanket. “We can camp here. You’ll never make it back to the settlement before dark.”

She gave me a wary look, like she was trying to figure out my meaning or intentions or both. “Did I run that far?” She glanced at the hill she had fallen down and a shadow of disappointment fell across her face. “Stupid,” she mumbled the word and shook her head.

“The boar chased you that far,” I lied with a smile.

The nun chuckled and walked to a stone beside the stream. “Quite a mess I’ve made,” She untied the laces of her boots and slipped the shiny black leather off. Her feet were long and narrow where the boots had shaped them and her stockings were torn across her calves and knees where the forest had snagged her steps.

“Well,” I sat down on a stone near her “the boar could have killed you.”

She threw me a disapproving look like she knew I was lying. “When did you find me?” She nodded toward the tree I had been spying on her from.

“You ran by me a few minutes before you fell,” I said.

“There was no boar was there?” She stared into my eyes trying to make sure I didn’t lie.

“No, I mean, I didn’t see or hear...”

“I knew it,” she threw her hands up in disgust, “I couldn’t stop myself, I was so scared, I just kept running even after I was sure he wasn’t chasing me.”

I thought back to the way she had torn through the forest running like she was on fire. “Well, you’re safe now,” it was a feeble effort at consolation, but I didn’t know what else to say. It was true. She was safe. If nothing else, she was with a Juoni hunter. There wasn’t an animal in the forest that I couldn’t kill.

She looked me over again, this time more slowly and I did the same staring at the milky flesh of her thighs and the length of her fingers. Everywhere I was tanned and hardened, she was pale and supple. Our eyes met and we both looked away.

“The Ghe,” she glanced into the forest again, “the western tribes.”

“Yes. I am Juoni, from the east. This stream is our border.” I looked around where we were sitting. It was a nice clearing the trees were tall and the underbrush was only ankle high. Making camp would be comfortable and easy.

“What’s your name?” The nun pulled the blanket tighter over her shoulders and tugged at the bottom edge to cover more of her thighs.

“Anu,” I smiled.

“I am Bri,” she offered her hand to me.

I remembered Jennifer teaching us the settler’s customs and I took the nuns hand in my own and gave it a vigorous shake. “It’s good to meet you,” I looked into her eyes wondering if she would be impressed that I knew the custom.

She smiled, looked down at where I was swinging her hand up and down, and then back into my eyes. “It’s good to meet you too,” she chuckled and then slipped her hand free. “That’s quite a handshake.”

Handshake! That’s what they call it. I grinned proudly. “Yes,” I stood and started to look around the clearing for wood to burn. The sun was already cutting through the trees, making the shadows grow, and there was no way I could get Bri back to the settlement or my village before dark.

Bri pulled the blanket tight and started to help. “It’s getting cold.”

“Yes,” I picked up a broken stick about the width of my wrist. “I’ll make a fire.” I found another piece and began building a small pile.

“How far is your tribe?” Bri stood up and started toward her dripping clothes. “Can we make it there?”

“You can’t see in the dark,” I picked up a fallen branch with dry, crunchy leaves and tossed it toward the pile where it rattled like a rain stick.

Bri turned and looked at me for a moment. “You can?”

“Yes,” the question seemed odd. It was another major difference between the settlers and us - our eyes. Not only did we have cat ears on our heads, our eyes, the inner part of our eyes, were cat like. Instead of round like the settlers, our pupils were thin and tall and golden. We saw quite well in the dark.

“Amazing,” she reached behind her for a second like she was about to grab something and then realized she was naked again and straightened the blanket out across the width of her ass. “Wait, I want to grab my journal.” She stepped to her dress, folded it back along the branch it was drying on, and retrieved a small, tablet. When she swiped her finger across it, I recognized long lines of words. I had seen them before, more of the settler’s strange objects, Liandra called it tech. “They said you were part cat, but I thought that was just the ears.”

I watched Bri scratch her pencil across the paper for a moment and wondered what she was writing, but I didn’t ask. I wanted to. I wanted to ask all of the questions that buzzed around my head like bees, but I knew there would be time. Right then, there was a balance between us. I didn’t want to rush it, I liked our easy back and forth.

After the fire was built and Bri was sitting beside it warming her feet and hands, I slipped my bow over my head. “I will get us something to eat.”

Bri looked me up and down. “Really? Right now? You’re going to go kill something in the woods for us to eat?”

I stared down at the half-naked settler sitting beside the fire. Her skin reflected the warm orange of the flame and her eyes sparkled in the darkness. It made me feel strong, the wonder and excitement on her face.

“Yes.” I slipped an arrow from my quiver and stepped into the darkness of the trees.

Half a minute later I was perched on a branch that gave me a clear view of Bri and the fire on one side and a wide open patch of forest floor on the other.

Even though the sky was a shade between blue and purple, darkness had already settled among the trees. The forest was just beginning to change, the animals of the day were quieting down while those that hunted during the night were waking. I scanned the bushes and waited, but I could barely focus on the act of hunting.