185) The Salvation of Eden, Chapter 20 -- Kinship and Friendship
A few days passed. They joined the Klliik’s fire each evening for songs, smoking, and of course, eating and drinking. The Klliik took those particular indulgences to a whole new level.
Every night, except for the rainstorm, they feasted like it was a festival. Kohra didn’t know how it was possible for their food supplies, let alone their stomachs, to keep up this pace. Where DID all their food come from? She talked to the others about this mystery, and they’d all been wondering the same thing.
“Now there’s some sweet magic to get your hands on,” Lenny commented.
Gorb couldn’t have been more proud of his kinsmen. “By d’Light, Klliik know ‘ow t’ eat!”
Kohra also felt a kinship to these people, despite sharing nothing of her ancestry with theirs. There didn’t seem to be any historical ties between the Elves and the Klliik. But then again, she barely even felt like an Elf.
In truth, she had almost no idea what they were like; the only fullblood Elf she’d ever met, aside from her father, was Lenny, and Lenny had grown up exactly like her. Human. Besides, Kohra was pretty sure Lenny wasn’t representative of anything other than herself.
The “true” Elves hadn’t been seen since the Great War, retreating behind their Green Wall for the past three hundred years. Those few who remained in Eden, like her father, were too few in number to keep up their traditions; most even stopped speaking the language. Besides, being Elvish wasn’t exactly a mark of honour in most of Eden, least of all the Kingdom of Anthor.
Kohra had always felt a secret sympathy for Lenny, who was so obviously Elvish that she couldn’t pretend to be anything else. Her neck-scales were clearly grey, tinged with purple, darker than the rest of her face, whereas Kohra’s matched her skin. Hers were also much smaller; most people never even noticed them.
Lenny didn’t seem to care what race she looked like. If other people didn’t like it, that was their problem, not hers.
Kohra was the opposite. She’d gotten through life, so far, by being congenial, “nice,” and pretending to be whatever people seemed to want her to be. Sometimes she wondered, if you did that for long enough, would you never discover who you really are?
Maybe this is why I find the Klliik so alluring. They are so Real, their sincerity as strong as their belches. They’re more like Ms B than I realized. Only hairier and drunker.
One night, Kohra was enjoying the banter around the Klliik fire, soaking in the laughter and back-slapping, and she realized that she FELT it — the feeling of belonging.
Her life shifted subtly in that moment. She had spent her whole life looking in from the outside, the loner who longed not to be alone but could never seem to figure out how not to be. And yet, in a few short days, these open-palmed, open-hearted Klliik had changed everything. Or had at least cracked open a window in what seemed like a wall, and shown her what was possible.
She had even picked up bits of their language, and could understand their previously-incomprehensible humour, at least some of the time. When in doubt, if you threw your head back and laughed, took another drink and pounded the person’s back beside you, then it was all good; you’d fit right in.
She hoped it would last forever.
* * * * *
Dominic started coming to the Klliik fire on the fourth night. Kohra was deeply pleased when she saw him coming out of the darkness, and then nudging in beside her on the bench she was sharing with Bord and Joompy. The two younger Klliik had kind of taken her under their wing, showing her their ways, much of which was slapping their knees heartily and guffawing to pretty much everything that happened around them. It didn’t take long before Dominic got right into it, throwing his head back and laughing with the rest of them.
It was nice to see the old Dominic again, the one she had grown up with, the kid with the goofy smile and shining eyes as he set you up to be the victim of an outrageous pun. He was a natural in a crowd, as they had discovered back in the days of the Snakey & Squirrelly show, but like her, he also tended to isolate himself, preferring the quiet companionship of the woods to the frenzy of socializing.
When they had first been mysteriously transported to this caravan by the Silver Lady, Dominic had withdrawn from the others, almost like he had overextended his extraversion during their traveling days, and now needed to recuperate. But how could anyone resist the Klliik for long?
Kohra watched him loosen up, watched his sense of humour come back, like a big ol’ bear emerging from hibernation. These past weeks had been difficult for all of them. They were all carrying heavy loads.
She also watched him bond, bit by bit, with Gorb. He even gave Gorb’s drink a second try, and realized it didn’t smell like piss after all. (Or was it a different drink? Dominic wondered about that for a long time afterward.)
Friendships take time. Time to stare into fires. Sing together. Share food and jokes and watch the skyflows as evenings stretch into night.
And as luck (or the Light?) would have it, Gorb instantly agreed with the idea of a society without doors. He firmly believed in the deep Goodness inherent in all sentient beings, and he was intrigued by Dominic’s argument that the destabilization of society that would result from the removal of doors, would itself be the force that would transform peoplekind into a higher state of awareness.
Once they’d made that common connection, they were practically best friends. Kohra, for her part, was glad there was someone else now who would absorb some of Dominic’s need to discuss bizarre ideas. If she was honest about it, the whole door thing just made her annoyed.
But these were good days on the road. There were moments even, when she forgot how uncertain and terrifying their lives were. As long as she didn’t think about the past too much — or the future — everything was good.