Chapter Twenty-One – The Dragon’s Favorite Strays
Chapter Twenty-One
DAKOTA
The next day’s weather dictates our actions. It’s rainy outside and cold, a sign that the weather’s changing. There are leaves littering the parking lot outside, and I’m dreading the winter. Texas winters are always mild compared to a lot of states, but they still get colder than I’d like, and it makes survival that much harder every day.
Luckily for us, we have a nice building to shelter inside. Even if we can’t make a fire indoors — and won’t, because I don’t want to risk it — being out of the wind and elements makes the chill tolerable. I put on my thickest sweater over my clothing and double-up my socks. Rabbit is still wrapped in her blankets, sitting next to an open space on the floor near one of the windows. She’s working on a puzzle she found near the back of the store, and one of the cats is in her lap. One of the black cats has attached itself to her and goes with her everywhere, and it both warms my heart and scares me. If we have to leave the cat behind, she’ll be devastated.
But that’s a problem for the future, I chide myself. I can think about it tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll figure out what we can plant in pots that will grow in the winter. We’ll scavenge the nearby areas to see if there’s anything left behind. Today, though, we can be a bit lazy. There’s dried meat from yesterday, and I’ve got a can of black-eyed peas I’ve been saving for a special occasion. We’ve got food.
I pull a gardening book into my lap and light a candle nearby. The moment I do, the door opens and Murr strolls inside. He’s got a cat on his shoulders, one under his arm, and two more trotting at his side like he’s the Pied Piper of felines. Murr’s expression brightens when he sees me, and he saunters over, flashing his teeth in that still-slightly-unnatural grin of his.
“Good morning,” I say, sitting up and extinguishing the candle immediately. If I’m not reading, I need to save it for future use.
“Dakotah.” He thumps down into a crouch, setting down one cat and then letting the big one on his shoulders climb down his arm. One cat comes to me, and another rubs against his leg. Murr immediately makes a ‘speak’ gesture with his hand to his mouth, indicating that he wants to learn more words. “Yes?”
I nod. “Yes. We can do more lessons.” Just not about kisses. Not getting anywhere near kisses.
The gardening book offers some safe photos, so I point at the obvious objects that will apply to our daily life. He won’t give two shits about weeds or fertilizer, but the words sun and tree and flower are universal enough.
He points at an elderly woman gardening in one picture. “Dakotah?”
Jeez. That woman’s at least seventy if she’s a day, complete with gray hair and floral grandma gardening scarf on her head. “Woman. Not Dakotah.”
“Wommn,” he echoes, studying the picture. He flips through the book to another page, his clawed fingertips cumbersome for finer movements, and finds another photo. This one is of a younger woman spreading mulch. He points at her. “Wommn not Dakotah?”
I nod. “Woman.” Flip back to the prior page to the older woman. “Woman.” I point at myself. “Woman.” Point at the first picture again, then the second. “Not Dakota, not Dakota.” Point back to myself. “Dakota.”
He considers this, then asks, “Ribbit no wommn?”
How do I answer that? She’s female, true, but is she a grown woman at the age of fourteen? The mother in me who’s raised her for the last seven years says absolutely fucking not. It was only yesterday that she was my little baby with pigtails and gap teeth. But how to give nuance to something like age when our words are so limited? “Dakotah woman, Rabbit girl,” I decide on. “Girl.”
Now to find a book with a baby girl on it so I can show him the difference between the two.
Murr digests this information, then says, “Dakotah kith Ribbit.”
Did I? I’m sure I did. “Yes.”
I’m also pretty sure I know where this conversation is going.
“Dakotah kith…Murr?”
Yup, there it is. “No. Kith is special. I mean, kiss. You don’t kiss people just because they ask nicely.” Or because they have a pretty mouth. Or anything like that. “Kisses have meaning.”
“Meeng,” Murr says, and then gestures I should repeat myself. It’s clear he’s not following. His gaze is on my lips again, as if he wants to understand…or maybe he just wants to know what it feels like. It’s probably just curiosity, right? A human custom he doesn’t quite understand, since he doesn’t really seem to grasp our language, or smiling, either. When he laughs, his body shakes with amusement, but most of the time, no sound comes out. It’s like he’s having to learn so many things brand new, which is baffling.
But if that’s the case, then it would make sense that he’s curious about a kiss, right? I’m sure I’m reading too much into it.
I try to explain to him (using a cat that wanders past with her kitten as an example) that Rabbit is my kitten, more or less, and that mothers kiss their babies. As if to prove my point, the cat immediately sits down and starts to groom her kitten, washing the little face with her tongue.
The light clicks on for Murr. He lifts his hand and licks the back of it, then gestures at me. “Dakotah Rabbit?”
Was I grooming her? With a kiss?
Okay, maybe the light didn’t click on after all. “Not exactly.” I drum my fingers on my mouth, thinking. I’m just making this worse. “Maybe–”
There’s a metallic crash outside.
Murr’s smooth golden eyes immediately shift to pitch black, and he tenses.
Oh shit.
