Her expression turns to one of sympathy. "There is plenty of game in the mountains, and in the waters here. We all pitch in together and bring in enough food for the entire tribe. Now that you're part of the tribe, you get to eat, too." She takes a step forward and places the warm bowl in my hands. "When you have rested, I'm sure you and your people will contribute, too. Until then, we'll feed you gladly."
I sniff the bowl, raising it to my lips. It looks like a mixture of cooked seeds and meat in a thick, rich broth. Hesitant, I scoop some out with my claws and eat. It is unusual, but the taste is good. It is also hot enough to scald the tips of my fingers, but I do not care. I will eat it anyhow.
The female smiles and holds a thing with a rounded end out to me. "Spoon?"
I eye it, but it does not look all that tasty. In fact, it looks as if it is made of dried bone. Not wishing to offend when she has offered me food, I take it and gently bite on the end, wondering if I am supposed to get a flavor from this.
"It's not for eating." Her mouth twitches and she holds her hand out. "May I?"
Relieved, I hand it back to her. She drops the rounded end in my bowl and uses it to shovel another mouthful, then offers it to me. "You use it to eat."
"Aaaah." I take it from her and nibble on the stuff scooped onto the “spoon.” "My thanks."
"Don't mention it."
Another custom? I nod. "If you like, I will never speak of it again."
She chuckles as if I have said something amusing, and tilts her head, indicating O'jek. "Your friend is welcome to come eat, too. It's allowed." Her expression grows slightly uncertain. "Is it not a thing, where you're from?"
I shove another mouthful into my face before someone changes their mind and snatches it from me. "Game was scarce at our home. If you did not catch it, you did not eat it."
"Well, it's a good thing we don't have that rule here," she says, patting her very pregnant belly. "My name is Harlow, by the way. My mate is Rukh. He's out hunting right now. We're part of the sa-khui tribe."
"H'rlow," I say gravely, giving her name the honorific slurring. "I am A'tam of Shadow Cat clan."
She nods again and then glances back at O'jek. "If I give you another bowl of food, will you make sure your friend is fed?"
I stuff more of my food into my face, shoveling it with my spoon. I want to eat it all before I am forced to share, just in case. "I am looking for someone. A female."
"Who? Maybe I can help?" She turns back to the fire and ladles another bowl of food out, tucking a small spoon into it as she does. I notice that no one seems to think this is odd. There are several others near the fire eating their food and talking quietly—a skinny brown female, a young one with a puffy mane, and one with a pale yellow mane and equally pale skin. Near them one of the sa-khui males paces, wolfing down his food as if he is racing off to start his day. None of them look twice at me, and so I eat a little slower, trying to make my food last.
"The beautiful one," I say between bites. "With the bright eyes."
H'rlow gives me a wry look. "You might have to be more specific than that."
I do? I consider this as I eat. "She has a brown mane," I say between bites. "And…nice teats. And she laughs a lot." When she gives me another helpless look, I grow frustrated. I cannot say she has a small nose, because they all have small noses. She is short, but they are all short. She…
Another female picks her way into the group, yawning. "Is breakfast ready?"
"She sat with that one!" I say triumphantly, using my spoon to gesture at the new female. "Last night."
"Oh?" H'rlow hands the bowl in her hands to the female. "Flor, can you help our new friend?"
The female smirks. "He's looking for Bridge."
B'reej?
"Bridget?" H'rlow echoes. "Oh, okay. She went out looking for sweetweed and gathering seeds. You'll probably find her near the cliffs." She points at the distance, where the steep rocky walls enclose the beach into its cove. "She won't be too far and she might appreciate the help."
I shove the last of my food into my mouth. "That is where I will go, then," I say around the food.
"Give some breakfast to your friend first?" H'rlow asks. "I'll make another bowl."
3
BRIDGET
I'm a vain, vain woman.
Since I don't have any particular skill I'm good at, I tend to do a variety of things around the camp to help out and earn my keep. Harlow's organizing us today, and when I asked what was needed to be done, she told me fishing, scraping some skins, or seed picking. And because there's a bunch of hot guys on the beach—one particularly smoking hot one—I went with seed picking. Fishing's just miserable in the icy water, and scraping skins is disgusting and messy. If I'm just picking seeds, I can at least look cute.
Too bad it takes me away from the center of camp. Maybe I'll run into Sexy Boy at lunchtime. With that thought on my mind, I get back to work on the sweetweed and the bramble seeds. It's a task I've done several times, and while it doesn't require a lot of skill, it can be time-consuming and my fingers get cold. My gloves—more mittens, really—don't allow for fine dexterity and today the breeze is exceptionally cold. The plants hang off the rocky cliffs a bit like moss, growing in every crack and crevice possible. You don't see them at first, because they're not a vibrant green like the plants at home. They're more of a grayish shade, and you get right up to the rocks before you realize that you're staring at a whole mess of clingy, thin vines. They also don't have leaves like the plants at home. Some of them coil, some of them have needles, and some just look like nasty, squatty pinecones.
I'm after the squatty pinecones and the stringy vines today. We need sweetweed (stringy vine) for flavoring and the seeds of the bramble seed plants are one of the staples of the food here, just because it provides a grain-like texture that breaks up some of the monotony of meat and fish. We have roots, too, but those require going out into the mountains, and I'm not allowed to go without an escort. At least with this, I can stay near the camp in flirting range and get some work done. I'm on my own with this—I invited Flor and Sam to come with me, but Flor overslept and Sam…well, Sam wasn't around this morning. It's like she's gone all skittish the moment the islanders showed up, which is weird and unlike her.
Just as well. If I happen to run into You-Know-Who, I'd rather not have anyone else around interrupting.
I'm fluttering inside with excitement. It's strange, because for the last month or so, I've just been in survival mode—adapting to the frigid weather, learning how to walk in snowshoes, making fires, a crash course on cooking, hunting, gathering, skinning…there's an endless amount of tasks to learn. None of my private school upbringing prepared me for life on a prehistoric beach, and I've been doing the best I can. But today…there's something to look forward to.
Maybe I've been more upset about the lack of guys on the beach than I thought. It's a weird thing to learn about yourself. I mean, I've had sex droughts before. Actually, I've probably been in a drought more often than I've been getting laid, now that I think about it. And it's not that the other ladies on the beach aren't awesome as friends. It's just…yeah.