Trojian Horse

“Did you think I came about you by accident? That I would risk becoming supper for those talaksh, for a nobody….?” she asked.

“Well, doesn’t really answer my question,” he said, instinctively adding an inch of distance between them.

“Don’t get snippy with me vule,” she said, her eyes becoming more stern and clenching her fists.

Arien understood vule to be a derogatory term that some of the indigenous people used for the Vulpeculae. He kept his silence.

“I was sent to find you,” she said, in a much softer voice, unclenching her fists, and her eyes softening. “You need not worry; I mean you no harm.”

“For a while I thought you would eat me,” he said in a whisper mostly to himself. “Like those monsters back there.”

“Did they tell you that?” she asked, a look of horrified disgust on her face. She resented the very idea that he would suspect her of something so vile.

Something about the way she asked the question gave him the impression that she wasn’t really interested in an answer. The part about her not meaning him any harm sounded true enough. Otherwise why would she waste her energy saving him only to hurt him herself he thought. It was about this time that he realised that it was the first time he had been away from the safety of the Vulpeculae group and by far the farthest he had ever ventured into the forest alone or accompanied.

“So where are we going?” he asked.

“It’s a little way away, but I’ll take it a little slow so you can keep up.”

“You really don’t like to answer questions do you?”

“What point are questions when the answers would not be useful to you?”

“And you don’t think I should know where we are going?”

“Even if I told you it wouldn’t make a difference because you don’t know where it is anyway and you most certainly have no choice but to stick with me regardless of what manner of danger I put you in,” she said nonchalantly.

He meant to retaliate but found there was nothing he could say in response. He took a moment to process his predicament. He really had no choice because he didn’t know the forest well enough to find his way back to the Vulpeculae camp and he was more than a little interested in knowing why she had saved him. How did she even know how to find him? Who was she? And most importantly who had sent her? These and more questions coursed through his mind as he stared at her.

“If you’re thinking I’m going to take you back to your group, I won’t,” she said placing herself in front of the fire directly opposite him, her back to the entrance.

Something about her demeanour convinced Arien that a response to her statement would not encourage a favourable response. He would try to get answers at another time when he wasn’t quite so exhausted and hungry.

“Aren’t you worried that they’ll see the fire and come back for us?”

“No,” she answered then stared at him, daring him to ask her another question. He did.

“Why?”

“You are infuriating,” she said, running her hands through her long black hair. “I realise that this is obviously your first time experiencing the real world so for both our sakes I’ll tell you. We lost them far from here and the woodland around these parts is so thick that they would hardly see the smoke rising from only several hundred paces away. Plus, their sense of smell is terrible. That’s why they eat anything.” A little smirk in his direction followed her last comment.

“Oh…” He was surprisingly impressed with how informative her answer was though he felt he felt he should probably been a more offended.

“You need to sleep. We will leave when you get up. We have a long way to go.” She seemed to look past him into some imaginary distance as she spoke.

She pulled out some nuts from a pouch that she wrapped around her waist and roasted them on the edge of the fire.

“You have to roast them, otherwise they will kill you.”

“And you’re sure we should be eating this?” he asked, genuinely concerned.

“The shells, they have poison layer that only comes off when a little heat is applied. Our people call it the balliara. Good for energy, sustains the body when food is scarce. You might do well to remember that.”

“In a talkative mood all of a sudden I see,” Arien said. “Why would I need to know this?”

“Because you have been very protected vule and you can no longer afford to live in luxury anymore.”

“And what does that mean?”

“I only mean that hard times are coming. The least of which is the journey we are yet to begin.”

Arien did not know what to make of her statement. It was true, he knew, that he had been protected to a great degree even though he certainly had tried to curb this behaviour on the part of the Vulpeculae. Being a part of the royal family certainly did not make it easy.

She tossed some nuts which she had inspected in his direction. He looked suspiciously at them.

“Like this,” she said demonstrating how to crack the nuts open.

He ate them greedily. Despite his apprehension, the nuts were surprisingly delicious and only a handful were enough to satisfy his hunger.

“I still don’t know what your name is.”

“Turo,” she answered, still focused on the nuts on her hand. “Now sleep.”

He nodded in agreement. She was incredibly bossy he thought. He put his head on his hand and lay on his side facing her. In the light of the fire he took a moment to actually look at her.

Silky brown skin that seemed to shimmer in the light covered her body, a much lighter shade than his own skin. She looked like him in many respects with two arms, two legs although she had four fingers where he had five and her eyes though they were brown were a much darker brown than his own and were noticeably larger than his though not by much. Her smooth black hair seemed to lick her shoulders every time she shifted her head. He felt that her eyes were certainly her best feature. An outfit made of thin black cloth covered her ample bosom and terminated just above her knees wrapping tightly around each leg, punctuated by a black belt with a large blade holstered in it. She wore some ankle high boots made of a type of hard skin though he could not hazard a guess at which creature paid with its life to make those shoes. Two pointy ears stuck out beneath her hair. It was striking how much of her own physiological structure matched his own in stark contrast to many of the creatures on this planet especially his own Vulpeculae. Perhaps becoming wary of the unsolicited attention she was getting Turo stood up and went to stand by the entrance of the cave. He got the hint.

Shutting his eyes, he soon drifted off to sleep.