Isla slowly drops her shoulder, rotating it by sticking out her arm and manipulating her muscles. She releases a textured sigh and tosses me a wry look. “Don’t take this the wrong way—”
I scowl. “A simple thank you would suffice.”
Isla’s gaze moves around my face and she laughs. “Sorry. I am grateful.”
“Then what are you preparing me for with a cautionary statement like that one?”
Her lids lower to half-mast and her lips curve higher.
This has a strange effect on my midsection. And the area below that.
“Where I come from—”
I huff, and smoke escapes my nose and mouth. “Oh, this is bound to be riveting.”
“WHERE I COME FROM,” Isla repeats, speaking over me. “Our salves are clean. And your abrasive brand of sarcasm gives me warm fuzzies.”
...Warm fuzzies? I shake my horns impatiently and hold up the jar. “It’s housed in glass and sealed with a non-porous stopper. How much cleaner do you require?” I set it down just inside the blacksmith stall’s doorway, as out of the way as anything here, thinking I’ll use it on her at shift’s end to set her muscles at ease for the night.
“Our salves don’t have spit in them,” she adds, like this is significant.
My tail slaps the ground, agitated, and peripherally I wonder why I haven’t shouted at her to go back to rock collecting. From the looks others are darting at us, I suppose they are wondering the same. Wisely though, none of them voice complaint. In fact, some of them are looking downright pleased about something. Perhaps they are viciously looking forward to me verbally attacking Isla for her idleness, even if their faces don’t look vicious. Then again, most of the watchers are human. Perhaps I simply can’t read them as well as I believe I can.
As if Isla can read the direction of my thoughts, she moves off to lift a rock. I follow her as she begins walking it to the nearest waiting wagon, and I lean down to scoop up a boulder as I fall into step beside her. “Are you implying that my saliva isn’t clean?”
Isla’s head tilts, and I get a flash of her eyes before she returns her gaze ahead of us and reaches up to deposit her rock over the cart’s side. “Well…”
When she turns to find another rock, I catch her by her sleeve, the one that covers her arm that I administered my saliva to. “‘Well’ what?”
“Bash, it’s spit.”
“Yes.”
“Nobody wants to be spit on.”
I frown. I gesture to everyone around us. “Who could make this claim? And what difference does the application make?”
“The application?”
I throw a hand out to indicate nearby Rakhii; all coupled, all with their human mate as close to their side as they can keep her and still allow her the freedom to move and work. “I’ve watched males lick humans every day.” I gesture to other humans, ones not paired to Rakhii. “Hells, I spit on these humans every day.”
Isla makes a face but her head is tilted down enough I can’t read her expression. I loop a length of my tail around her from her forehead to her crown and tilt her face up high enough that I can read her. I register only a momentary glimpse before she shows she’s startled by my action. “I also spat on you yesterday,” I tell her. Then I release her.
She blinks up at me. “All right, I hadn’t thought about it that way. I guess the chewed-up greens plus spit just freaked me out. Where I’m from, that’s the contents of a spittoon. And that’s going too far, for me. It’s weird, I know.”
I snort down at her, smoke drifting towards her face. A smile curves her lips as she bats it away.
“Thanks for the massage,” she tells me, sounding sincere. At least at first, with these words. Something altogether different enters her voice when she adds, “even if you were super proud of finishing quick.”
I narrow my eyes at her, sensing that she’s teasing me somehow. I also sense that she is complimenting me, commenting on the skill of my hands. It’s pathetic, how my hearts swell with her simple praise. “Hnrrr,” I growl at her.
Rakhii ears nearest to us swivel, as do hob’s heads; they hear the warning in the sound.
Isla’s ears detect the warning just as easily, too. But instead of growing concerned, she laughs.
It’s such a pleasant sound that my quills and spines fall. My defenses