For
her part, Aalila enjoyed the sourness of a teni fruit. Especially
after she had used her weaving ability as she had with the fog. It
would leave her mouth dry and the bitter helped to counter it. Though
she enjoyed the taste far more judiciously by taking smaller bites
and chewing them slowly.
After
she had finished her own fruit, she asked him, “Are you going to be
cooperative and come down with me, or do I need to persuade you with
another teni?”
“One
is enough,” He admitted, mumbling, as he worked his mouth to get
the muscles in his lips to relax once again. “More than enough, I
need water.”
Aalila
stood, ”Then I'll meet you at the stream below.” She stretched
out her arms but, instead of shifting into a skriil or other bird,
skin grew from her arms and body and legs to form thin, resilient
membranes that allowed her to glide on the wind as she lept from the
stone. Laughing, Kaelish Nelmos followed her.
The
Fingers were close enough together, Aalila did not glide directly
from the top of the one she and her lover had been on. Instead, she
would glide and find purchase on the side of another of the stone
formations then push off and glide to another; each landing being a
bit lower down than the previous. In that manner, flitting between
four different ones, she reached the ground, landing beside the
stream, a few minutes later.
Kaelish
Nelmos landed just a few seconds later, very close beside her, having
copied her descent to the point of using the very same hand and
footholds she had used. Even as he willed his body back to its normal
form, he grab a hold of her and, laughing, pulled them both into the
stream. There followed quite some time of splashing and kissing and
touching one another before they climbed up onto the grassy bank to
lay in the dappled sunlight. Looking up, he noted that they were
lying nearly under a nune tree heavy with its nuts. While he was
better skilled at shifting and she at weaving, he was more than good
enough to use his weave sense to sever the stems to make a small
shower of the nuts rain down about them. Taking two in a hand, he
cracked the hard shells against one another by squeezing them then
fed the mellow, slightly oily meats to her before taking two more for
himself. Repeating this several times, they both were both sated and
had largely restored the energy their exertions had spent.
“These
are just ready for picking,” Aalila said, “We should harvest and
take them back home with us.”
“I'm
sure they'll be more welcome than sacks of teni,” He replied, then
hastily added, “but we can take some of those home, too,” in
response to the glare she gave him.
They
spent the rest of the day gathering up tall blades of grass and
weaving them, both with nimble fingers and their weave sense, into
sacks, harvesting nune and teni until those sacks were full to
overflowing. They cut several stalks of the thicker kaabu grass,
slung the sacks between them and settled them onto their shoulders,
Kaelish Nelmos in front and Aalila behind, to make the load easier
for them both to carry. Zaal's Eye was nearly setting as they set out
for home and they walked through the night; arriving just as the sun
rose the next morning.
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