Chapter Six
The Dart of Friendship
Abbey slipped on the gloves as she stood to look out the cave. It was light outside and she pretty sure it was snowing lightly enough that she could take Indu to the road and point her in the right direction. Now all she had to do was wait for the other girl to wake up. Indu had spent most of the night awake, and had eventually given up trying to cook her meat, wasting it instead by throwing it into the flame.
The snow danced on her palm as she caught three flakes mid flight. Soon the drifts would be coming down in big chunks, then a scattering flurry, and then nothing but a couple of light spurts the rest of the day, ending sometime in the night. Abbey watched the white flakes spin around each other, bringing up her other hand as they moved faster and faster as if caught in a whirlwind that sported small and compact in her hands.
"I've never seen yeti magic before," said Indu, much too far into Abbey's personal space. She had to stop herself from grabbing the teen around her neck and taking her down. Instead she ran a hand down the girl's cheek and went to get her spear.
"So, are we heading out now?" asked Indu. Abbey nodded as she signed for her to get ready. "Oh, you covered up your hands."
Abbey glanced up at the human. Indu had a weird habit of stating the completely obvious.
"I liked your hands. I mean, not the whole giving me frost burn," said Indu, looking down at her wrapped hand with a misty look in her eyes. "But the color, and you have such pretty hands. Most yetis, even females, are big hulking things with fists the size of clubs. But yours were so… and they shimmered like glitter over a clear midday sky."
Abbey glanced down at her hands in confusion. She had never thought of her hands as being beautiful. They were weak and usually they broke easily under an onslaught, and she had spent many a night nursing bruises and broken bones under the moonlight with her tribesmen all around her.
"Are there many yetis the same size as us?" asked Indu. Abbey shook her head and mimed for Indu to leave the cave before her. "Oh, was it hard being so small?"
Indu turned around to walk backwards as she looked at Abbey. Abbey splayed her hands in front of her face and then collapsed her hand into a fist as she hit where her lips were. The sign meant the other girl was wasting breath by chattering on the way she was, but Indu apparently thought she meant something else because she giggled and ran to walk beside Abbey.
Abbey watched the girl carefully. This personality change was weird. She expected the human to still be angry with her. To act more reserved toward the yeti she had hated so much just a little while before. Abbey grabbed the girl's shoulder. Indu tensed and immediately tried to get away. Abbey was easily able to subdue her and then reached for the hand still wrapped in canvas.
"Oh that," said Indu, and now Abbey let the other girl get out of her grasp. She showed her fingers, they looked much better than they had the night before. Abbey breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn't been sure the simple healing would take effect on humans. The healing wasn't perfect, but it probably would have been more effective if they had shared energy or Abbey had actually contacted Indu's ancestors. Not that the humans seemed to hold their ancestors in such high regards as yetis. Well, no, that wasn't fair. She had heard some about ancestors, she probably jus hadn't been listening to the right conversations.
"Thank you. I don't know what you did, but it really helped," said Indu. She then bit her lip. "I'm sorry about how I acted after you saved me."
Abbey shrugged. They walked for a little while in silence again. At least Indu could be quiet, Abbey still remembered the way Karuna had rattled on and on none stop.
It wasn't long until they reached the road. Indu turned to her in confusion when Abbey stopped. Abbey pointed in the direction of the village. When Indu turned In the right direction Abbey turned on her heels, ready to leave. She wanted to ask if Indu was going to rat out the location of her cave, but decided against it. The human could easily lie.
"Wait, aren't you going back with me?" Indu asked. Abbey stopped and glanced back at the human. She shook her head. The guards would probably just shoot at her again. "But I thought that you wanted to see Karuna."
Abbey shifted the spear on her back uncomfortably. She then brought her hand up, miming holding a gun and then she flinched like she'd seen humans do against the recoil of their guns. She'd seen them do shooting practice a couple of times before. Karuna wasn't a bad shot. It ended up being a good thing that he was incompetent and paid no attention to his surroundings because he could have easily killed her if he had his act together.
"They won't shot you," said Indu slowly. Abbey was a little happy that the teen could figure out what some of her more basic signs meant. Then again, it also meant that Abbey had to defend her decisions instead of just running off. The yeti sighed, rubbing the spot she'd been shot before. "Oh, one of the guards did hit you when you froze our crops."
Abbey stomped her foot angrily and folded her arms. Indu blushed and pulled the hood a little over her eyes.
"Right, the yetis told us you meant to help us," said Indu. She sighed and waved her hand nervously. "Listen, I'll walk a bit in front and signal the guards that you're with me."
Abbey took a step back, slipping the spear from her back and clutching it protectively to her. She shook her head. Indu could just as easily signal the guards to kill her.
"Please Abbey. I want to make this right," said Indu. Abbey shook her head violently and then started to quickly back up as fast as she could. "You're shaking, don't you trust me?"
Abbey finally turned and ran. Maybe it wasn't something a strong yeti would do, but Abbey already knew that she had fallen from that regard long ago. Plus, it wasn't that cowardly to leave her now. Abbey still couldn't talk to her, she wasn't going to attack the human, and in the end she really needed to find a new place to sleep.
Half way to her cave she veered off and headed for a small forest further down the mountain. She was careful to keep out of sight, pulling a thin cover of snow over her armor. Besides that she kept to the deep drifts and was careful to keep the snow moving under her feet so that there was no sign that she had walked by. The spear on her back felt heavy on her back. Usually she wouldn't notice the weight. She had trained with spears. They were as much of her as her clothes. The needlework on her lips, or the presence of the scars on her palms should be more distracting to her than anything else.
The open air felt good on her lungs. Abbey was tempted to pull down her face mask. Her face was feelings hot, her lips felt swollen. Maybe if she could put some snow or ice on her lips they would start feeling better. Actually, staying out in the open for a while might be good. The whole being out in the open wouldn't be comfortable, her bones called out for some sort of place of safety. Still, she could deal, and she would start looking around for a place to consider.
So Abbey kept out of the way for a day, pushing snow against her face mask and calling herself paranoid. The village wouldn't find her and so what if they saw her lips sewn shut. Knowing her current luck the yeti from Abominable's tribe had already told them about it. Abbey sighed and ended up climbing a tree and trying to avoid the chill in the air and the thick layer of snow that now coated the ground. It was so much easier to control ice and snow then it was to first create it and then work from there. Less power needed, and it tended to cut the reaction time in half.
As Abbey stared up into the sky, watching as the stars shown bright in the sky, she wondered what had happened in the village when Indu had returned to it. Had the girl told them that Abbey had saved her, or did she say the small yeti stole her away and burnt her fingers. Not that she understood that part, she had thought burning only came to the flame, but it sounded like humans could be burned by both heat and cold. Humans really were weak creatures, creative, but perhaps that was the only reason they were still alive. Instead of having any strength of body or sense in their surrounding, they instead relied upon creativity and luck to get on in the world.
That must mean in other places in the world they were probably not as powerful. Were their mountains out there where no humans existed? Were humans only native to this mountain range? Or did they usually dwell where yetis and giants weren't usually?
What was their natural habitat like? Why had they felt the need to start moving up the mountain when they clearly could not survive it?
Abbey fell asleep, arms hanging to balance her weight, back against a tree trunk, one leg slipping off the branch. By the time she opened her eyes again, the sun had risen in the sky and warmed up the air around them with enough heat to start melting the snow. Abbey glared at it for a second, lifting her hand to catch a drop on her gloves. Why was everything melting already? The freezing season had just started; winter had just begun its true grip on the world. No snow should be melting and making her feel lethargic under the sun's harsh rays.
Something sunk into her arm. Abbey flinched, reaching up she pulled out a dart that had made it through the cloth that made the lower half of her face mask. She stared at it for a second before throwing herself out of the tree. Behind her she heard men curse. Abbey landed hard on the ground in a crouch. She quickly through up a shield of ice behind her, ignoring the humans and only thinking to get away.
The ground under her twisted and seemed to move under her very feet. Abbey shook her head, and crashed into a tree as she tried to keep running. She must have been getting further away from the humans because their voices sounding further away. Abbey groaned in pain, her stomach twisting, and her vision tunneled for a second. In seconds Abbey found herself crashing to the ground, the whole of her weight falling against the snow.
Poison, they had poisoned her. Well, they hadn't shot her with their metal. No, poison was the more reliable method. Abbey continued to try and pull herself to safety. She didn't want to die, not after all she had gone through, it just didn't seem fair. Her vision continued to tunnel though, her mind became fuzzy and holding thought was like trying to grip tight onto flowing water. Abbey felt hands fall on her, and she struggled against their grips, but she could hardly move her body.
The world finally darkened and Abbey slipped away.
"Should we take off his mask and make sure he's alright?" asked a female voice. It was distant, quickly becoming clearer the longer Abbey gripped onto the moment.
"We should probably put him back into snow. Keeping him in here is probably only going to make his recovery take longer," said another, gruffer female voice. Abbey slowly forced her eyes open. She felt so hot. It was so bad that she was pretty sure she was going to melt. Her chest felt heavy, and sweat made her armor stick to her skin. Why was it so hot during winter? Had the humans learned how to heat the land around them?
"Abbey," Karuna came into her line of sight. He was blurry, but Abbey recognized him well enough. She flinched as his hot breath heated up her face worse then before. "Wow, you have really purple eyes."
"Don't crowd him boy," said the gruff voice. Also female, though Abbey didn't remember hearing it. The heat, or maybe it was the poison, made her limbs seem heavy as Abbey started to try and move. "Yeti, look at me, I need a proper look at you, but it's hard to treat someone whose skin temperature will burn my own."
Abbey ignored her. If they wanted to kill, they could do it properly. What had she done to them really? Abbey had rescued their villager, protected them from beasts and their own kind. She would not allow them this slow and agonizing death. She would fight for that breath of freezing cold air until she took her last breath.
"Abbey, you need to stop," said Karuna, trying to push her back to her blankets. Abbey glared at him and felt a snarl try to break her lips apart. She tasted her blood, it was cool to her lips, but even her blood had started to turn to water instead of just the slush she had suffered before.
Angrily she pushed at her captors, pushing to the back of her mind anything they tried to tell her. A human tried to pick her off the ground and she tried to force them off, snarling and pulling her arms away. She hurt, pain running through her entire body. One of the humans knocked her over the head sharply with a blunt object and hands appeared at her sides, trying to pick her up and move her away.
And then there was cold air. Abbey ripped her arms out from its holder and toppled into the snow that she found. For a moment she was tempted to rip her armor was, but the sight of Karuna coming close again made her pause.
"You soaked the bed, did you know that?" he asked. Abbey looked at him stupidly for a couple of moments before she pushed at him. He laughed and toppled over. Abbey settled on gathering as much snow as she could around and then trying to stuff it down the seams of her clothing, the little gaps that would melt the cold ice loser to her skin.
"Don't be rude," snapped Indu. Abbey looked up at the teen and glared. Indu looked away, blushing. She brought the thick coat to hide her face in her collar.
"Should we cover you in snow?" asked Karuna. "We could turn you into a snowman."
Abbey shook her head. At one point covered in snow meant that heat would get trapped in instead of cooling her off. And Abbey had decided she definitely didn't want to be a snowman. Abbey wondered what it would be like to be a human. To be afraid of the snow and cold. To be so weak that she had to rely on cowardly weapons. It must be weird.
The humans continued to watch her, and Abbey saw the third one. An old looking woman with a cane, probably the one who had hit her. Abbey folded her three middle fingers, stuck out the thumb and pinkie, brought the thumb to her chin and then dipped her hand in the opposite direction she titled her head. She wanted to know why they had brought her here. Even more so, she wanted to why they were treating her so kindly after trying to overheat her and ruining her armor. Unfortunately, unlike shaking her head, and a couple of other signs that Indu had seemed to work out before, 'why' was not a universal sign between the yetis and humans.
"Are you alright yeti? Are you willing to take some clothes off so I can look you over?" asked the old woman. Abbey shook her head. She would not remove her clothing. The last time she so much as her hands show, she had hurt the humans. Plus, she needed her armor. She still didn't know what they wanted or if she was safe. While her armor was severely weakened without the ice reinforcement.
Before they could start talking again she held up a hand, surprising this worked on even Karuna. Abbey balled her hands into a fist and "violently" hit it against her neck. She fell over, closing her eyes, and then lying as if unconscious. Then she sat up and repeated "why".
"We don't know your sign language," said Karuna slowly and loudly. Abbey rolled her eyes and then shuffled away from the old woman when the human tried to get close to her. "Kshama just wants to help you. She's our healer."
"It's alright Karuna. I wouldn't trust the people who drugged and stuck me into a sauna after I did them a favor, either," said the old woman. She then slowly started to lower herself to Abbey's level. Abbey watched her. She should probably stand, that way she would be the one who would have to lean down, but her legs still felt like thin ice. Plus, Indu quickly came to stand next to the old woman and supporter her leaning down. "Now, boy, between one and ten, one being at death's door and ten at perfect health, how are you?"
Abbey thought for a moment and then held up seven fingers, after a moment of confusion she lifted one more finger.
"How do you feel? Can you show me what's hurting you worse?" asked Kshama. Abbey looked up in confusion. She tapped her fingers against her legs. Finally she lifted her hand and then started lightly tapping her fingers against her face and heading down her body. The old woman watched her carefully and then shook her head and sighed. "Let's try it this way. Are you hot?" This time the old woman fanned herself as she asked.
Abbey nodded, with one hand she fanned herself and with the other hand she tapped her nose.
"On the scale of one to ten, how much is what you're doing helping?" asked the old woman. Abbey held up five fingers. While she wasn't overheating any more, she was still light headed and uncomfortably warm from the heat still trapped against her armor. At least the cold had worked in enough to reach her sweat and kick start the cooling process. "Would it help if the snow was directly on your body?"
Abbey nodded and tapped her nose again. The old woman's eyes narrowed at her.
"Does the nose tapping mean yes?" she asked. Abbey nodded and tapped her nose again. "It seems a little redundant."
Abbey shrugged.
"Any other sign for 'you don't know?'" asked the old woman with a roll of her eyes. Abbey shook her head, brought up one hand horizontal to the ground, the other vertical from the ground, pinky down, and then brought the vertical one down on her horizontal hand. "So bloody complicated. Fine yeti, what about the drug? Has it left your system?"
Abbey titled her head to the side. They watched her. Karuna actually concentrated solely on her hands.
"Do you know what a drug is?" asked Indu. Abbey titled her head to the side. She knew she'd heard the term, and it obviously had been done to her. Finally she just shrugged and brought her hands to her chest and then gracefully brought her arms out as if begging for something, palms up and open. "It's what knocked you out. You probably feel sick, light headed, have a hard time concentrating, some yetis said they itched or their ears felt hot. Do you have any of that?"
Once again, Abbey concentrated on how she felt. She hit her stomach once, and then tapped her head. She pointed to her head but shrugged since everything felt hot. She also pointed her mouth.
"Your mouth is it dry, itchy, or both?" asked Kshama. Abbey froze. There wasn't a sign for itchy. The sign language she knew was supposed to be used in conjunction with speech. Most of the words in sign were for simple sentences, so that she didn't waste her breath a trivial yes or no. Abbey shifted from side to side on her hands. Finally she brought her hands up and rubbed her hands together.
"Dry?" asked Indu. Abbey signed no sharply and shook her head.
"You should do itchy like this," said Karuna as he used the fingers of one hand to mime digging into the back of his other hand. Abbey copied the movement. Indu made a noise and the old woman knocked Karuna over the head. Abbey was up in a moment, ripping the cane from her hand and glaring at the woman. Indu gasped and stumbled away in fear.
"We got it yeti, no attacking the boy you're stalking," said the old woman, leaning against Indu and making the girl pay enough attention to hold her up. "You must be feeling better if you can move like that."
Abbey nodded and looked over at Karuna, who for some reason was glaring at the old woman. Not that Abbey should be upset over that, seeing as that probably meant he was supporting her. Still, it was really weird for humans to suddenly be treating her so kindly. To suddenly ask act like they cared about how she felt and if she was hurt. Even if they were the ones who had hurt her. After all, the last two times she was caught just outside the village she'd been shot. Once with a gun and once with a dart. Though the dart was a drug apparently.
"Yeti," said Kshama. Abbey looked up at her. She reached out a hand. "Can I have my cane back?"
Abbey held it out, but watched the woman carefully to make sure that she didn't try to hit Karuna with it again. Kshama watched her and then pocked Indu. "Explain to the yeti why he was brought here."
Abbey perked up and looked over at the teen. Indu looked away from her. It was hard to tell if she was blushing or not, apparently the cold made the girls face turn red.
"We want you to live here. You've proven that you want to help. I got most of the town to agree and build a little cold hut next to Kshama's house here," said Indu. She wouldn't look Abbey in the eyes as she explained. Abbey brought her thumb to her chin and repeated the dip out with her hand while she cocked her head to the side. "I don't know what that means. But you can be with Karuna now. Sorta. He still has classes, but you can see him afterwards, and the guards'll get used to you soon and you can do rounds with them."
Karuna turned her head to face him. "We want you to live in the village. The villagers agreed as long as you keep mostly out of sight. Abominable mentioned that you might want to meet with Seth. He's our resident yeti expert, also does a good deal with meditation and yoga. He's agreed to meet with you a couple of days a week while we're at school," said Karuna. Suddenly he smiled widely and pulled Abbey into a tight hug. "We promise not to hurt you anymore. No more shooting or drugs and you can be part of our village. Isn't that great?"
Confused. Abbey definitely mostly felt confused. She signed 'why?' again. She had no idea what was going on.
"Please Abbey?" asked Karuna, taking a step back and clasping her shoulder. "We want you here. You're not going away. You obviously want to help. Anyone who's worried you're still a threat agreed that it would be better to have you insight instead of sneaking around. You'll be useful as a guard once we get our guards to protect you. Plus, Indu trusts you now, which apparently the biggest hurdle you needed to get over."
Abbey looked between the three, and then used her thumb and forefinger to close her eyes and the brought her fingers together. She might have been out of it for a couple of hours, but she still felt exhausted. She'd deal later. Plus, the more she heard, the more she was ready to just roll with what the humans were saying. She would be able to do her task better with the humans being more welcoming of her presence. She wouldn't have to hide away in that case.
"Would you like to be alone yeti?" asked the old woman, staring like she could see Abbey's soul. Abbey paused. That wasn't what the sign meant. She didn't want them misinterpreting her signs, though she supposed she could change the meaning of the signs to meet their meanings. "As long as feel well enough, I see no reason why you can't get used to your new home. Though I will expect you to eat dinner with the three of us."
Abbey nodded. She held out her hand and Karuna took her it and started to lead her around the small building that was the medicine woman's house. Abbey had always thought it was a little weird that the healer lived just a little outside the village. Not by much, just enough that it was separate. It was also small Karuna lived a little further in, but he did spend a lot of his extra time in the place. At first, before Abbey realized he was friends with the healer's apprentice, she thought his silliness kept getting him hurt and she was missing it because she wasn't close enough to really observe him.
The little cottage wasn't must. Abbey would work on it. She had a table, a light, a candle, a bureau, and some random supplies. She turned as Karuna said his lengthy goodbye, and with a sigh she finally started stripping and headed for bed. She would have to trust that the humans would not invade her privacy. With a sigh she found the coldest corner, curled up, and tried to will herself to get some rest.