1. The Right Moment

1. The Right Moment

Kayona

Short strands of grass bristled up against Kayona’s legs and flies flitted across her arms and face, testing her concentration which, as she had predicted, was all over the place anyway today. She lay flat on her stomach, rigid, the muscles in her arm tight, quivering with the effort of keeping the arrow patiently nocked. Though she could not see him and she dared not risk even the quickest of glances lest she should make a sound, she knew Morric, too, had shot to attention. Of the two of them, his were the better reflexes and she knew he would have noticed the hare before she had. Both of them aimed for the same target spot, her angle sharper than his, focused on a pollock of grass the animal would reach if it took a single step. Kayona held her breath, gritting her teeth to banish thoughts of the growing cramps in her left shoulder. The black tips of its ears wobbled as it foraged, cheeks bulging as it  munched contentedly, oblivious that it was about to become prey..

  Both arrows loosed and the hare had time to snap up its head and freeze, realise it was under attack, but had no time to flee. One of the two hit its mark, ripping through fur, skin and muscle and Kayona, who’s arrow sailed past and disappeared from sight, lowered her bow and pushed herself to her feet. She shook her head, smiling, at Morric’s smug glance and passed her own bow from her left to her right hand as she went to collect the kill.

  ‘Four to one. Come on!’ he gloated.

  ‘One is all I need,’ she called back as she kneeled down and teased the arrow gently from the hare.

  ‘Snares don’t count.’

  ‘Ah but I set the snare, didn’t I?’ she said, grinning over her shoulder. She grabbed hold of the base of the ears and lifted the limp body into the satchel at her side, the two animals’ limbs coiling around each other so that she was no longer able to tell which belonged to which.

  Morric hoisted his bow onto his back and stretched. ‘Regardless, five is plenty. Let’s head back.’

  Kayona looked up quickly. ‘Back? Already? This is only half the time you usually take.’

  ‘Well it must seem longer when you’re not doing the actual hunting,’ he said.

  ‘You think all I do when I don’t accompany you is wait around for you to get back?’ she inquired. He was already turning in the direction they had come.

  ‘Did I say that?’

  ‘No, no,’ she said hurriedly. She lingered where she was, her foot still grazing against the strands of grass matted with the hare’s blood. ‘Shouldn’t we go for at least one more?’

  ‘We have what we need today. Besides, I promised Mayne I’d spend some time with his boys today. Teach them how to find water on a longer hunt, and I’m already a little late so we’d best get going if I’m to get there by noon.’

  ‘Wait!’The satchel thumped against her legs as Kayona hurried after him. She touched his shoulder, and when he showed no sign of slowing down, gripped it tighter and wheeled him around. She positioned herself in front of him. Her eyes shone and she took a deep breath, studying his face and already imagining the change in it when she let loose what she was about to say. The fingers of her other hand tightened on the satchel, so tight that her nails folded into her palms. She thought she’d have more time to prepare herself - Morric usually stayed out hunting a lot longer - but this, she guessed, would have to do. So long as they were alone, where no other reactions could distract her from his, just the two of them. She had gone through countless combinations of words and sentences in her mind, and they were all good, all perfect, in the right setting. That was, however, imagination and this was the real thing and she could not, like she did in her mind, fill in his parts for him. She needed this to be perfect.

  But she could tell that Morric’s thoughts were elsewhere. He glanced at the road ahead more than once as she failed to get to the point, struggling with choice of words and Kayona decided that the right moment had passed somewhere in the past two hours. She should have told him, slipped it in nonchalantly, right before they took the last shot. Maybe his arrow would have veered off course, maybe the hare would have darted away at his cry of joy and maybe he would have pushed all thoughts of hunt from his mind ..

  He twitched his shoulder impatiently and she let go of his shoulder. ‘What, Kay?’ he said.

  She backed down. ‘Can I come? I really need the chance to speak to Wouka. And to see the boys, of course,’ she added.

 Morric snorted.  Kayona couldn’t care less about her spoilt nephews and Morric knew it. ‘It’ll be early evening before we head back,’ he warned.

 She smiled sweetly. ‘That’s good,. I’ll have plenty of time with Wouka.’ She traded the smile for a grimace the minute Morric turned his back and began to retrace their steps between the line of trees. She shot one last rueful glance over her shoulder, knowing that she could have just told him without all the theatrics and saved herself the entire coming afternoon of contained, impatient excitement.

  But she wanted it to be perfect. She followed Morric across the unlevel forest terrain, one hand on the satchel, the other resting on her stomach. Tonight, then.

They drew closer to the cottage and the silhouettes, at first indistinguishable from one another, gradually receivied detail and colour until Kayona could tell which of the brothers darting across the grounds in front of the house was Wout and which was Leks. Morric was clearly anticipated - as soon as they noticed him, the boys immediately stopped antagonising each other and rushed out to greet him. They raced one another, strengthening each other’s excitement, each determined to reach Morric first. Morric just laughed and pulled both in close, one to either side and strode on to greet Mayne, arms occupied in resting on Wout and Leks’s shoulders.  Leks’s short, wavy brown hair was already grazing up against Morric’s chin, Kayona noticed. She drew back and let them go ahead.

  Wouka and Mayne paid little attention to the boys; tempering their excitement had apparently been given up somewhere during the course of the morning. Wouka sat cross-legged with her back against the north wall of the cottage, working her way through thick stacks of parchment. Mayne was on his knees not far off, eyes fixed on the block of wood his knife was laboriously chipping away at, glancing up every now and again to make sure his sons hadn’t started brawling again.

  ‘Still at it, I see, Mayne,’ Morric greeted him, unfastening himself and crouching closer to peer at the half-carved structure.

  ‘One of us must give in to relaxation,’ said Mayne, finishing his last indent with a careful flick before setting the knife down and clasping hands warmly with his friend.

  ‘And it’s not going to be me,’ said Wouka, lifting her eyes from her scroll.

  ‘Ah, for now. But if Morric takes the boys, you’ll be able to concentrate better and finish reading that on the hour,’ said Mayne.

  ‘If I could read faster, I would. But I can’t. That doesn’t mean I can’t take a break later, though,’ she added, tuning herself promptly back out of the conversation.

  Kayona only half-listened to Morric and Mayne’s conversation, losing track of it now and then when her own thoughts pushed through, making her have to concentrate to figure out what had come in between the snatches she did catch. At least his carpentry was improving - though the lines and figures on the wooden poles were still uneven and imprecise, it was better than the ones dotted around the grounds, hammered proudly into the grass like a mismatched fence, perpendicular to the wall Wouka was leaning against. As if Mayne wanted to boast to the world his own slow progress.

  Morric took leave of Mayne shortly after and kissed Kayona on the cheek before disappearing back in the direction of the woods with Leks and Wout bounding along behind him. She still hadn’t said a word, and was left standing awkwardly between Wouka and Mayne. She  grimaced - not only would she have to contain her news until the evening, she was going to have to endure that wait with two people that seemed too busy to entertain her. Morric had predicted she was going to be bored, but she had waved it away and she was left now wishing that she had indeed headed home. Wouka warded off any interruptions Kayona made in an attempt at conversation with friendly but short, half-hearted answers and when Mayne tried to rescue her by launching into a monologue on the difficulties of carpentry and when she felt she couldn’t keep up the polite nods and mm-hmms and yes’s up much longer, Morric finally moved the conversation on.

     ‘Yes, yes, beautiful trade, this. It’s just a simple pass-time for me, though, and I have entirely too little time to spend on it. My work in Avdima takes up most of my time. Too much time, really,’ he laughed. ‘But it brings in the necessary funding. You can’t make a living from your own front yard. Unless that front yard offers goods to trade, of course, but I don’t think my sculptures qualify just yet.’

  No, probably not even in a year, Kayona thought. ‘I don’t know about that, we do all right without depending on some high-and-mighty’s income.’

  ‘But you sell the prey you hunt in Avdima, no?’

  Kayona shrugged. ‘Rare herbs that are hard to obtain, too, when we come across them. But only when we have need of something beyond what we already have and that isn’t much. We have no need of markets for food and water, the house we built ourselves with what was available from nature, as did we with the furnishings.’

  Mayne’es eyes swept up and down as if assessing her. ‘You didn’t make those clothes yourself. You bought them.’

  ‘Yes. But I have no real need of them - without trade, I would have sewn together animal pelts and fabriced my own.’

  ‘But you didn’t, meaning you do have need of goods other than the ones you can procure yourself.’

  ‘It isn’t need. It’s ease,’ insisted Kayona.

  ‘Do you never get tired of living such primitive lives?’ asked Mayne. ‘If you were to accept payment from the ‘high-and-mighty’, as you call it, you’d discover that there is so much more to discover beyond simply taking care of your needs, and surviving. Beautiful skills, complete new worlds, as it were. Maybe pointless skills to have, such as in my case the carving of wood I will not be trading, but beautiful nonetheless.’

  ‘If you think so low of those of us who earn our own living without any dependence from the outside world, why did you ask Morric to show your sons the ropes?’ said Kayona sharply.

  ‘Oh no, no - don’t take it the wrong way,,’ said Mayne hurriedly, ‘Everyone has the right to live however they choose. I just think you’re being unfair to yourself, limiting yourself, by not even exploring the possibility life over there - in the villages, in the cities - can offer. And that is also why - besides spending time with them, the boys think the light shines from his shoes - I had Morric mentor the boys. So that if they choose, like you, to trek further into the mountains and live an independent life, they have that possibility by possessing the skills to survive. Wouldn’t you want to do everything you could for  your child to have, at least, the key to every door?’

  ‘No!’ said Kayona. ‘I mean, yes of course. But in time. I’d like them to grow sense first before I let him or her loose near the markets and taverns and busy, crowded places with all their dangers.’

  Mayne shook his head. ‘Dangers, yes, but also opportunities. But I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree, for now.’

  Kayona didn’t know why she always let herself be dragged into these kinds of discussions with Mayne. She pursed her lips, and glanced at Wouka to find that she was studying her with raised eyebrows and pursed lips of her own, a mocking glaze in her eyes. Kayona didn’t know how Morric had accepted her own eagerness to chat with Wouka without question - he knew the two of them didn’t usually see eye to eye. But perhaps he didn’t care, so long as he could do what he liked. No, that wasn’t fair, she was the one that had insisted on accompanying him.

  She excused herself from the discussion, claiming the tips of her arrows needed a good sharpening and, borrowing a knife from Morric, set to work, keeping conversation light and steering clear of anything that threatened to pursue the former topic. Busy-bodies, she thought. My child will be mine to raise, and mine alone. And Morric’s. Morric, who stayed out for hours with Leks and Wout, Morric who was a magnet to both boys. He had it in him to be a good father, she knew it. But she? Kayona honestly didn’t know.

Author's Note

I have limited time and add a little whenever I do find the time. Finished chapters end with a *** at the bottom - so if it seems on some days to end at random intervals, now you know the reason. ;)