“No one is a warrior every day, Kelp. Not even the great Musselwhite. And I thank Sister Moon for that.”
He draped a friendly arm around Kelp’s shoulders and guided her back to the thick stand of cattails. The heads had all fluffed out. Seeds detached themselves in each slight breath of wind and lilted over the marsh, glittering like sparks in the flickers of firelight.
Kelp retrieved her pack from where she’d dropped it earlier and tucked the fistfuls of down inside. Then she hesitated, standing beside him with her head bowed, not wanting to look at Diamondback now. Despite the darkness, he could see the blush that mottled her face. He couldn’t help but smile. Standing there red-cheeked, with her hair tumbling over her shoulders, she looked very innocent and very charming. She could not possibly realize how deeply her mortification touched him.
Diamondback stripped two handfuls of fluff from the closest stem and tucked them into her pack. As he reached for two more, he said, “Do you have enough strips, of fabric to wrap these in? I brought an extra tunic and if you would like to tear it—”
“Oh, Great Mouse!” she said in a strangled voice. “Let’s not talk about it.”
Diamondback continued as though he hadn’t heard. “Father always told me I had no shame. I guess it’s true. I remember when I was little I used to want to crawl into the menstrual hut to find out what the women did in there. Naturally no one would let me, but I often sneaked away at night to sit outside the hut and listen to the women’s laughter. Being in the hut always sounded like fun.”
“Fun … ! Fun!”
“Yes. Didn’t you ever think so?”
“Hallowed Spirits, no! When they’re in the hut women can’t eat any meat, or drink anything except pure water. They’re not allowed to touch their looms or other tools. All they get to do is sit in there and talk!”
“Well, that doesn’t sound so bad to me.” He stuffed another handful of down into her pack. “They don’t have to take care of screaming children or coddle demanding husbands. They don’t have to cook or clean—”
“I hate the idea of the menstrual hut!”
The tears had vanished from her eyes, replaced by something akin to fury. Diamondback smiled. It wouldn’t take long at this rate until she were her old self again.
“Well,” he said, “then you chose wisely when you decided to be a warrior, since women warriors are endowed with a special Power, and it frees them from such responsibilities.”
“Yes, well,” she added, “I’ve always suspected that’s why women become warriors. Being killed in battle is preferable to enduring the menstrual hut.”
Diamondback squelched his grin. “Whatever the reason, I like it. On war walks men are allowed to look women warriors in the eyes, and treat them like normal humans, no matter what time of the moon it happens to be.”
Kelp managed to inhale a deep steady breath. She reached out and roughly raked a handful of fluff from a stem. A fuzzy halo of seeds floated around them. She stuffed the down in her pack.
Diamondback added his own. “Kelp?” he said.
“What?”
Weak glimmers of firelight shaded the upper half her face, accentuating her round eyes and short, pointed nose. Diamondback laid his palm on her cheek. “I feel joyous that you’ve become a woman.”
“You do?”
“Yes. Don’t you?”
She gave him a rueful smile. “Off and on all day, I’ve found myself wishing I were a little girl again, not because it was easy, it wasn’t, but because I knew what was expected of me, what I could and could not do. Now, I don’t know anything. I just feel … overwhelmed. And lonely, Diamondback. I miss my family.” Her voice constricted. She hastily tied her pack and slung it over her shoulder, then gazed across the marsh to the tiny campfire. “My grandmother,” Kelp whispered, “I miss her most of all. And Pondwader.”
“We will see Pondwader soon, Kelp. They can’t be more than a day ahead of us, and my mother is injured. They will be moving slowly.”
She jerked around to peer at him. “Your mother … that’s where the blood—”
“Yes. I think she suffered a head wound.”
Kelp reached out and grasped his hand. “Oh, Diamondback, do you think she’s all right?”
“She is well enough to walk. More than that, I can’t tell.”
Their gazes held, and for a time it seemed as if neither of them breathed. Sparkles of firelight reflected from the marsh, and shone in her dark eyes. The scents of damp grass and wet earth enveloped him, mixed with the faint fragrance of her yucca shampoo. Diamondback stood unmoving for so long that he felt as if he floated above the ground