The camp wasn't safe anymore, but she didn't know where else to take him. Kasimir was heavy and dragging him through the bushes toward the water was hard. But he was wounded and unconscious, and she needed somewhere to put him and the only place she knew of was the camp. Blood stopped soaking the bushes about halfway there.
She managed to haul him to the doorway before a familiar hissing sound behind her made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Without a thought, she jumped to the side and turned, striking out at the spitter.
It raised the frills around its neck and reared back to spit again, but she hit it―again and again―until it fell to the leaf litter. Del breathed unsteadily, her hands bleeding from the assault, and realized it was still alive.
Unconscious, just like Kasimir. She grabbed his sword and stared down at the thing, ready to hit it and kill it but stopped herself.
The dodo that had eaten the dark berries was back. It chirruped at her, as if welcoming her back to the camp. She had a strange thought.
The Sailback man controlled a dinosaur much larger than this little spitter, and even equipped it with a saddle. What if? This whole place had been a series of "what ifs", but what if the dodo was tame?
Del turned to the stupid dodo and said a silent apology. Not the first murder I committed today, she thought.
Every so often the spitter lifted its head weakly, and she fed it a slice of raw dodo meat. While she was waiting, she pulled Kasimir into the hut and managed to lay him on the bed.
His wounds were pretty bad, but the blood was congealing. She'd need to clean him up before anything else.
After running down to the water and filling his skin, she was met by the spitter standing calmly near the door. She stopped, staring at it and lifting the sword. It tilted its head and stared back, then made a soft trilling noise.
She edged nearer. It watched her without making a move, making noises every so often, standing in place and not budging. Her idea had panned out.
Del cleaned up Kasimir's face and arms using the remains of his shirt. The trip through the brush tore it to shreds, barely enough to cover. She looked over his wounds, but they appeared to be simple cuts and scrapes. The bigger concern was him being unconscious for so long.
She chewed on her lip and thought about that. The dark berries made animals and humans sleep. Those white ones had made her mouth burn but she was wide awake after, even if she had to dash to the water. Maybe...
She crushed some of the berries in the mortar and made a paste. There was residue in the bowl from the flint she'd ground, but she barely cared. Fed the concoction to Kasimir slowly, watching his Adam's apple bobbing.
He had so many scars. Del sat and waited, feeling her whole body shaking from the strain of everything that had happened. Her eyes moved over the endless chaos of scars, trying to imagine living long enough to get so many. Trying to imagine her own skin looking the same.
"Please wake up, Kasimir," she whispered, staring at him. His breathing was steady. She buried her face and tried not to cry. Maybe the berries wouldn't work. Maybe she'd made him worse.
She didn't want to think about that.
Finally, he coughed. When she looked up he was sitting up, staring at the wall and blinking. "Thank God," she gasped.
He looked around, still blinking rapidly. "Wh―" he started, then coughed again, wracking coughs that bent him over and sounded awful. Del watched him, alarmed.
"Water," he croaked, when he'd managed to get a breath in. Del grabbed the skin and thrust it at him. He drained the whole of it in a gulp.
Once he was composed again, he winced in pain. Started touching his wound sites, prodding them with two fingers. Del put a hand on his, shaking her head. "Don't―"
He looked at her, his usually sharp blue eyes clouded with pain. She dropped her hand from his, and looked away in sympathy.
"Shirt," he muttered.
"I used it as rags," she said.
Kasimir swore. Del's eyes widened. He'd never acted like that before. "I'm sorry," she added, softly.
"Don't be." He turned his arm over, looking at a gouge in the muscle. "Where are..." Looked up at her, questioningly.
Del coughed, nervously. "Gone. Dead."
For the first time ever, she saw him smile. It was a sad smile, because he knew what she'd had to do, but it was a smile nonetheless. The corners of his eyes turned up a bit, his whole face transforming and making him look much younger than she'd thought he was.
She didn't care if he never smiled again. He was alive, awake, and she wasn't alone on this island with roaring dinosaurs and warring tribes and the impossible gun that she had stashed away when she brought Kasimir back.
Del felt the tears building up in her eyes and almost threw herself at him, shuddering. Even if he pushed her away, she had to hug him. He'd woken up.
Kasimir grunted in pain when she grabbed him, putting his hand on her arm to pry her away.
Del breathed in and out, trying to calm down, feeling her eyes stinging.
He stopped himself, staring at her. "All good," he said, quietly.
"It's not safe here," she muffled, into his shoulder.
"Nothing is fucking safe here," he said, but his voice was lighthearted.
Del coughed out a laugh, and rubbed her forehead on his skin. "No," she agreed.
It was quiet for a moment. "...You did not go," he asked, though it really sounded like a statement.
"I said I wouldn't," she told him.
Kasimir smiled again.
"Stalkers," Kasimir said, later on. He was staring at the spitter, watching it listening to the forest around the camp and making bobbing motions with its head.
"Is that a tribe?" Del asked, slicing the wing of a dodo off as it rested above the fire.
"Paid," he replied, looking back to her.
"So, like... you?" She passed him the food.
"No," he said, shaking his head. "Not like me."
He was quiet then, chewing his food solemnly. He picked a piece of fat from the dodo, tossing it to the spitter.
"The Sailbacks paid them?" Del wondered. She'd almost worked out the whole thing. Tribes on the island fought, and sometimes they hired extra help. Like Kasimir.
He shook his head. "Maybe Crazy Bones."
Del swallowed. "Who's Crazy Bones?"
"Lives in the east."
She sighed. Trying to get anything useful out of him was impossible. "I need to know, Kasimir," she said, somewhat annoyed.
He looked up at her, his face closed in and dark. Finally, he spoke. "I killed his..." he made a waving motion with his hands, outlining what appeared to be a wavy snake. His hand came back around, the motion indecipherable by that point. "Big. Long neck."
"Long neck." Del thought for a moment, chewing on the bird. "Like a brontosaurus or something?"
Kasimir shrugged a shoulder. "Crazy Bones fights with long necks. Easy to see coming."
"And you killed one?"
He held up three fingers, keeping his index and thumb together. "Sailbacks paid," he said.
"You killed three brontosauruses?" Del asked, gaping at him.
He tossed the bone to the spitter, who sniffed at it and began to crush it with sharp teeth. "More, sometimes."
"How," she breathed.
He shrugged again. Del pouted. "You can't just―you have to tell me," she protested. "That sounds―awesome, I want to hear it."
Now he spoke more readily. "I do not want to tell the story," he said, looking at her with a cold expression.
"Why not?" Del put her hands together. "Please?"
"It could hurt you," Kasimir said, an edge in his voice.
"But―"
He stared across the fire and set his face into a familiar mask, one she knew meant he wouldn't say a word more about the matter. Del's temper flared, her patience finally broken. "If you don't tell me, I'll just go," she muttered. "Might as well find out for myself."
He glared at her, forcing her to look away. She ducked her head down, suddenly embarrassed. "Then go," he said, angrily.
"Kasimir," she started, but he was up and away before she could finish thinking of what to say. He shut the door of the hut behind him.
She fed the dodo bones to the spitter, watching it chomp away happily at the carcass. Moved to the door and knocked on it, her face red and chest tight. "Kasimir?" she called, dropping her hand to the other and gripping her thumb to steady them.
He didn't answer. "I'm sorry," she said, through the door. "I―I won't go. I promised."
Still no answer. Del felt a little panicked, then. The camp wasn't safe, he knew that. She'd explained the deaths and showed him the gun, but he refused to touch it. If he didn't want her around―and he left the camp because it wasn't safe―
You're such an idiot, she told herself. She'd barely managed to kill the woman, even after emptying the gun at her. Maybe it was luck that she'd not been shot herself, but―
"Kasimir―" she fought to keep the desperation out of her voice. "I'm stupid, okay? I'm just a stupid teenager! I didn't mean anything―"
The door opened with a jerk. Del jumped in fright, staring up at Kasimir with a stricken look on her face. He moved back, sitting against a wall. She climbed into the hut, standing at the door and biting her lip. "Look, I―I asked too much, I know," she stammered out. "I just―"
"Stupid teenager," he said, interrupting her.
"Y-yes," she said, pinching her thumb so hard it hurt.
Kasimir snorted, leaning his head back. He watched her through slitted eyes, as she struggled to find the words.
"I―when you were―I left the camp," she said, nervously. "The―buzzing?" She waved her hand by her head. "Was bad. I had to―I had to find you," Del finished, lamely. "I didn't stay. I'm sorry."
Kasimir frowned deeply. He didn't say anything for a while, just lifted his arm and stared at the diamond there. It was scuffed and old-looking compared to hers. Del was worn out, her head swimming from the high of emotion and guilt and the threat of dying. She didn't know what to say, at all. She never knew what to say.
He made a rumbling sound deep in his throat. "Made the tribe," he said, rubbing his hand over his beard.
"W-what?"
He looked up at the ceiling, shaking his head. "Later," he said, looking extremely tired. "Sleep now."
"Okay?" Del looked out of the door, hesitantly. "...I'll just make sure the spitter is okay, first."
She did check on it, even if it was only an excuse to cry in private. The spitter was content to chew on bones and didn't pay her a lick of attention as she slumped to the ground and rocked back and forth, covering her face and trying to be quiet.
Eventually she went back inside and passed out on the bed.
