The Deep - Rivers Solomon Page 0,38

it is decided based on the preferences of the wajinru involved in the heat of the moment.”

“It is your understanding? Have you not—?”

“I haven’t,” said Yetu. The urge to avert her gaze overwhelmed her, but it was supplanted by the need to examine every detail of Oori’s face. She saw it with her eyes, but she also felt it against her skin, the shape of the passing breeze painting a picture of it on her scaled flesh.

“Would you like to?” asked Oori, sinking deeper into the water. She was scrubbing her hair now, black thick locs, each at least the width of an inch. They were dark like the deep.

“Yes,” said Yetu, her voice growing weak and stuttery. “But like you, only with someone special in a particular sort of way.” A stranger to these sorts of conversations, she treaded cautiously. It would be too easy to let herself get submerged, to be raptured by the beautiful closeness and say nothing at all, or worse, something foolish.

Oori said nothing, her eyes looking to the sea. She rarely looked Yetu directly in the face. At first, Yetu thought to be offended. Was she really so ugly? So distasteful to the gaze? Yetu often didn’t look people directly in the face, and certainly not the eyes, but for Oori it seemed an aversion. Whenever Oori did catch Yetu’s gaze, she flitted her eyes away then hardened her face.

Yetu understood now that it was a loneliness. Oori had lost everyone, everything. She couldn’t look at another’s face and think of anything but the screams of the last remaining specimens of her people.

“And do you find me special in a particular sort of way?” Oori asked, erupting the silence.

Yetu shivered at the note of tenderness in her voice, her throat and mouth uncomfortably dry. She tried to answer, but couldn’t speak, instead swallowing a lungful of ocean air, thick with moisture and the scent of salt.

Oori’s eyes were still affixed to the sea’s horizon, but Yetu caught the faintest flutter of movement as she went to turn toward Yetu then changed her mind, thinking better of it. “I do,” answered Yetu finally.

Though she could only see Oori in profile, Yetu saw her cheeks twitch and then plump. She was smiling, and that made Yetu’s heart speed up and the pit of her stomach become hot. “And do you find me pleasing to look at?” asked Oori. Just as Yetu’s did, Oori’s heartbeat quickened with each passing second, causing the water to throb against Yetu’s skin.

“Yes. I do,” said Yetu, her confidence growing. It felt so good to speak plainly, to know that the answers she gave would be accepted.

“I want you to know that I feel similarly about you,” said Oori. Yetu trembled as she tried to steady the flow of water coming in and out of her scales. “But I don’t think I can do this.” She stood up then pushed herself up out of the rocks, her naked body fully visible. A consuming desire to be closer to her, to step out of the water even if it killed her, overtook Yetu. She knew not where it came from.

Oori wrapped herself in thick white cloth. “I am going, Yetu.”

Yetu nodded, hoping she hadn’t revealed too much and frightened Oori away. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said. Despite her resolve to never alter herself for another again, she found herself worrying that she’d said something wrong, something that had made Oori want to go so suddenly. Yetu had asked too many invasive questions, and her answers to Oori’s questions had been too frank.

“I won’t be back tomorrow,” Oori said.

Yetu nodded again, this time less enthusiastically. Oori sometimes went on lengthy boating trips. Maybe it was time to leave the tidal pool. She could follow her. Everything felt so strained still. Her body protested most movement. She’d gotten used to a constant physical gnawing.

“How long will you be gone for, then?” asked Yetu.

“Uncertain. With this storm, I need to take a pilgrimage back to my homeland before it gets worse. I need to protect some of the fixtures, tend to the grave sites, lest they all vanish and the place I’m from become truly dead. I should’ve gone days ago. Weeks. But I didn’t. I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay for you.”

Yetu pressed her tail fin into the gushing sand below to disrupt her breathing. Her chest tightened, and she attempted to keep her body still. “What is a homeland?” Yetu asked,