Chapter 105: Day 104

Day 104,

Didn’t have time to make a morning entry today.  Shortly after I got up I used the bracelet to get an idea of where Maiko was since I was planning on finding her today to invite to come with us to the cathedral tomorrow.  As it turned out, the general sense of direction I was picking up pointed toward about where her boat was stashed.  Not wanting to miss her before she got out on the water I tossed on some clothes and hurried out the door, leaving behind this journal safely home and dry, and attempting to eat on the run.  I don’t recommend that last part by the way.

Rather than my usual route of going behind the house, following the stream down to the beach, then walking back north up the coast, the ring led me out the front door, across the southern corner of Cass’s family’s fields (a.  thankfully empty at the tail end of the season and b.  why has it taken me this long to register how weird it is that no one here has surnames?), and into the unfamiliar stretch of forest on the other side.  I had a moment of being surprised at how easily I was moving through this trackless stretch of jungle and then I remembered the pale ring.  I’d gotten into such a habit of wearing it that it had sort of  faded into the background and I’d nearly forgotten it and its probable artifact properties.  In retrospect, that might have been how I so handily outpaced Lin and Cass in running to go check on Maiko that one day on the floating island expedition.

Even with magic jewelry guiding and easing my path (I swear, one of these days I’m going to be able to say the m-word without feeling like an idiot) I still didn’t make it to the shore before Maiko made it to the water and out past the mouth of the cove.  In a simultaneous display of both uncharacteristic foresight and uncharacteristic impulsiveness, I’d anticipated this would probably be the case and gone with the chiton/swimwear combo again (the foresight) and then proceeded to strip off the chiton and sandals as I ran toward and into the water (the impulsiveness).  This is also not something I would recommend, particularly after having just done an unusual amount of running (okay, more like a quick-paced hike) directly beforehand.

Thankfully, in this replay of our first close encounter Maiko paddled her boat towards me rather than away from me and proceeded to lean over the side and hoist me up into the boat.  Good thing too, seeing as I was out of breath to begin with by the time I jumped in the water and was already starting to cramp up.  It really wasn’t a plan of action I’d thought through.

Maiko asked me if something was wrong.  What was so urgent for me to come chase her down like this?

I took a minute or two to catch my breath enough to get a coherent sentence out.

I apologized for giving that worrying misapprehension.  Said it was nothing dangerous or serious.  Just that we were planning on checking out the cathedral ruins tomorrow and this was me inviting her to come along.

She gave me a long, flat stare as if to say “You’re kind of an idiot.”

I added that the bracelet indicated she was in this direction so I figured she was probably heading out on the boat since that’s what she was doing the last time I saw her here, and I didn’t know if she’d be back today, and at the time, swimming out to her seemed liked it would be less of a bother for her than calling from the shore and making her paddle back closer to talk clearly.

A pause.

She said the bracelets are creepy.

I conceded that they kinda were, yeah.

Another pause.

She said I was kind of an idiot sometimes.

I conceded that in this instance, I kind of was, yeah.

A longer pause.

I said that was pretty much the extent of my plans for today, so I guessed I’d get out of her hair and swim back to shore.  She knew where to find us if she wanted to show up tomorrow.

She told me to sit down before I flipped the boat over.

I sat.

She asked if I wanted her to row me back to shore or stick with her for the day.

I said whichever was less trouble for her.

She said something about extra trips and doubling back, and returned to paddling out to sea.

I asked where we were going.

To an island.

Descriptive.

She pointed at the one we were on a direct course toward that I had my back to and also happened to be the closest.

Well, in hindsight probably should have been obvious.

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The rest of the trip across the water was in silence.  I felt like I’d already overstepped bounds today and didn’t want to be pushy with questions.  Maiko’s never been one to start conversations for the sake of filling space.  Also, it had occurred to me all too late that I’d left my clothes on the shore and was now nearly showing as much skin as Maiko, which was a whole other source of embarrassment sinking in to keep me quiet.  Admittedly, it probably would have been worse in anyone else’s company.  What was I thinking when I got this?

By the time we beached the boat and pulled it up above the tideline I was curious to see how long I could just follow her lead in silence before she said something.  It turned out to be a decently long while as we made our way through jungle with only the barest hint of a path, maybe more of an animal trail really.  Eventually we came to a grove of trees with a small number of pink fruits hanging on them.  Or on the ground around them being chewed on by iguanas (or some similar enough lizard that I’m going to call them that anyway).

Maiko wasted no time in ascending one of these and picking a fruit for herself, which she promptly proceeded to begin consuming while still seated among the branches.

My attempt to do the same was poor enough that she soon plucked another fruit, told me to catch, and then dropped it.  There was some flailing and fumbling but I managed to comply.  It smelled sweet and the taste reminded me of the “fairy juice” I’d previously encountered.  No intoxicating side effects that I’ve been able to detect though.

Throughout it all the iguanas continued their meal unperturbed by our presence.  Figuring that the “catch” order was enough to count as her talking first, I commented that the iguanas were sort of cute.

She said that they tasted decent.  She preferred the fish in the surrounding reef we’d passed over though.  And it was the fruit she’d come for.

I asked if she comes here often.

Not much, but she’d had a craving and wanted to see if there were any left at this time of year.  Apparently at the end of the rainy seasons they’re more plentiful, larger, and juicier.  So are the lizards.

She picked a few more and descended.  She’d devoured her first seeds, stem, and all.  My own teeth were not so agreeable to that prospect.

She led me to the remnants of an old campsite, said to build a fire and that she’d be back.  A hundred days ago I would have said I had no idea how, and a few weeks from now I probably wouldn’t stand any better of a chance.  But today, I’d had some experience from dealing with a wood stove and everything was dry from months without rain.

I sort of almost had smoke by the time Maiko was back with a pair of fish.

Further reminded of my frailty and incompetence with nature, the new plan was to take the fish and fruit back and use my kitchen.  She’d remembered that I was “too weak of tooth and stomach to eat parts that were too crunchy or too soft anyway”.

I said it wasn’t my fault my biology can’t handle bones and gall bladders.

That actually got something of a laugh out of her.

On the way back, that talk of what humans can and can’t eat eventually led to me telling her about the equinox festival.  She seemed fascinated by it.  And perhaps a little sad at having missed out.

I said I wished she could have been there.

A couple hours later, after we’d returned to shore, collected my clothes, hidden the boat, gone back to the house, cooked her catch, and eaten, she said that she did too.

I pointed out that there’s always next year.

She verbally agreed in a tone that said otherwise.

Falling back on the old tool of self-deprecation, I said that at least she didn’t have to sit through my terrible public storytelling performance.

She asked if the story I told was really that bad.

I said that I thought the problem was more in the telling than the story itself.  Probably.

Curious by this point, she coaxed me into telling the story of the Merchant and the Blacksmith’s Daughter.

These things really are easier with a smaller crowd.

As Maiko was readying to leave for the day, I pointed out that if she doesn’t want to be creepily tracked down with the bracelets she can just take hers off and then put it back on again when she wants to be found.

She said she knew.

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