their gear constantly. Often violently,” Bash says, and almost as if it’s on cue, the Narwari on the far side reaches over the neck of the Narwari in the middle with the sole purpose of nipping the dancer. The bitten animal squeals and hops in place—and the groaning and creaking of harness leather and buckles can be heard all the way over here.
The driver hob claps his hands and barks something at the biter, who settles back down.
“Nice animals,” I tell Bash.
“Occasionally,” he agrees with absolute seriousness. He turns back to his work, tapping the maul over the stick again.
I turn away from the scary horses as they disappear up the ramp to exit the quarry and try to figure out what Bash is doing. “Are you making that strap fancy?”
Bash’s tapping trips out of rhythm before he finds his pace again and resumes. “It’s called ‘stamping.’”
“You’re taking the time to make it pretty.”
“I’m personalizing the harness,” Bash contends. “Each Narwari has their own gear fitted to their bodies and this,” he points to rune-like characters, “is the name of the Narwari this strap will belong to.”
“Hmm. What’s this over here?” I ask innocently.
Bash’s tail comes up out of nowhere and catches my pointing finger, sweeping it down and away. “Flurssh,” he mutter-growls.
“What was that?”
“Flourish!”
A grin attacks my face. “Like… fancy flourish?”
Bash frowns fiercely at the leather in his hands as he stabs a hole into it with a wicked-sharp awl. “You and your scale-less lips,” he grumbles. Then his eyes jump from his work to me. “Tell me how you came to be here.”
His tail grabs my leg and yanks—I’m about to yelp when my butt connects with a little stool that Bash’s tail must have set under me before he sat me down by force. I cough and sit up straight. I give him a seriously dangerous look that he isn’t at all worried about as he stays absorbed in what his hands are doing. “My journey was nothing compared to what a lot of the women here have gone through.” I grimace, thinking of what I’ve heard. The things some of these women have endured. “I had it real easy.”
“How so?”
“Do you know the Yrawwl race?”
Bash nods.
“A Yrawwl bought me. He said he picked me because he thought owning me would be interesting. The moment he had the receipt for me, I basically became the space version of a pet hamster.” I consider Bash, wondering if his translator will supply what a hamster is.
His eyes squint a little, and I think he must have what he needs because his ears flick and he says, “Go on.”
“Well, just like a kid’s first hamster, my novelty wore off and soon the responsibility of having to remember to feed me was kind of a hassle for him—crazy me, I wanted to be fed three times a day, while his kind only need sustenance like once every solar—”
“I’ve heard that,” Bash says grimly, a finer needle than the one he used earlier pinched between his clawed thumb and forefinger. He stabs it into the strap kind of aggressively.
“—so after a few arduous months of me not being interesting enough along with the downside of all my tiresome feeding? He was bored to tears with me.”
Bash makes a face. “Yrawwl can cry?”
“No—or, well, I don’t know—it’s just a saying. Anyway, when he heard that Gryfala had set up a preserve for the humankind they’d collected, he arranged to release me here like he was doing a good deed. And he was, don’t get me wrong. Here is a million times better. I get to hang out with a really nice alien.”
“Shut down. Hold this,” Bash instructs with an impressive economy of words and movements as he works.
My fingers pressing down on the leather, I have to smile. “...Shut down? Like power off?” I laugh.
He stops, frowning, his eyes meeting mine. “No, your people are always saying this to one another.”
“Oh, you mean shut up?”
“‘Up?’ Why up? We’re speaking of your mouth. Wouldn’t it make sense for the phrase to be ‘down?’” Bash slams his tail blades into a wood stump behind the table, frustrated. “Damn it! I’ve had it with this asinine language.”
“Hmm. You’re doing fine, Sunbeam. But let’s talk about something new. You could try the chattering thing too.”
Smoke puffing out of his nose, he settles back down with aggressive reluctance. “I want to hear you.”
Heart flip. “I’m trying really hard not to dance for joy here. Do you have any