Chapter Ten
Pretty
'Christmas' morning found Abbey drawing a picture for Lakshya. She probably wouldn't get it to him until the next day, but she did need to get it done. They had already had the morning ritual. Lakshya hadn't been able to come; he had something with his family or something. Apparently he did hunt. Abbey could work with that. But the morning had been interesting. The food had been rich; Abbey couldn't eat much of it, and most of the foods' smell was enticing. Too rich for her really, sometimes all Abbey wanted was some of her old unsalted or tampered with meats, but it all did smell so wonderful, even the meats seemed to call to her.
"Take it Kshama. The people of the village will thank you, and half the information on my last book came from you," said Seth.
"I do not know much about yetis," said the old woman. Seth laughed, he was helping cut up some sort of healing herb.
"My last book wasn't about yetis. I do other work. I told you that. Besides, I'm sure I'll need your observation for my next one. I've already been picking Abbey's mind for the last few weeks," said Seth, meeting Abbey's eyes and giving her a nod. Abbey nodded back before she reached for the color pencils. She planned on using a little paint too, but more for enhancement in parts than anything else.
Seth had come over a little earlier than they usually met to do meditation with her, coming just before Karuna left to get ready for the tests he'd been complaining about all morning until Indu yelled at him that they were celebrating Christmas and he was to be happy, plus the tests being the day after Christmas was all his fault anyway. Abbey still didn't understand why karuna had to take these classes, just that he had to go to a computer lab to do it, and she wasn't allowed there since she could do the same thing to the computers that she did for the guns.
Meditation had gone very well. Seth thought it was because she'd been more at peace than usual. Abbey wasn't sure if that was true, she had begun to deal with her problems with the humans and maybe come up with some ideas on how to deal with it. Mostly by barreling forward and not questioning herself.
"Abbey stretched her hand and looked down on her new gloves. Indu said she'd had seen them in the local clothes shop and then added her own embellishments. Now little stitches made up icicles and snowflakes. She'd also gotten a book from Karuna, well several books, but he'd borrowed some from below the mountain from a library and she had to return them. One book was hers to keep though, it had almost no words and was filled with beautiful photographs of snowflakes, Abbey had just glanced through it, but she planned on taking more time on it later. Kshama had gotten her small hunting knife.
Still, Abbey kinda thought the gloves were her favorite. It was silly. She had made perfectly functional gloves. But these fit better than her old gloves, and they had the most intriguing design. Not that the design meant anything, but it was like her pictures. There were only so many times she could spend her free time sketching what she remembered from her past and call it practice. It was more than that.
It was not right to lie too even yourself, especially yourself. The designs and pictures might be frivolous, but they were beautiful to her. She loved them. Maybe she was more like a human girl then she had first thought.
"You like my gloves?" asked Indu, sitting next to her. She had changed clothes. She had been wearing pajamas for the first part of the morning. Now she was wearing a dress of red and gold that wrapped around her tightly, showing off her figure and not looking very practical. Despite that Abbey could see the appeal in wearing it. It was gorgeous. Abbey almost wanted to try it on herself. It wouldn't fit her, and it was the wrong color, but it was so pretty. "Abbey?"
Abbey shook her head and wrote "pretty" on her pad. It was one of the words Karuna made sure she knew how to write about right away. Indu laughed.
"You know, for a yeti who tackles Karuna whenever he calls you a girl, you act a lot like a girl sometimes," said Indu. Abbey lifted her thumb, middle finger, and pinkie and flipped Indu off. The girl laughed. "Did you have a girl in your old tribe?"
Abbey nodded. She took off her gloves and then reached into the folds of her armor and unclasped the moon crystal necklace. Indu reached out toward it and Abbey quickly pulled away.
"Wow, moon crystal, isn't that rare?" asked Seth as he came over toward them. Abbey nodded, cradling the moon crystal and tracing each piece.
"She must have really liked you. What did you give her in return?" asked Indu. Abbey shook her head and Indu looked at her like she was insane. "You didn't give your girl anything? No wonder she… ow."
Kshama had hit her apprentice over the head with her cane. Abbey was glad. She didn't really want to know how the teen would have finished that sentence. Instead she quickly sketched Pyry and then herself. Then she ran into a glacier. How she supposed to show what she meant?
"She's bigger than you?" asked Indu. Abbey shook her head. That would make no sense. Every yeti was bigger than she was.
"In other tribes, the one who asks the other to bond with them is the one who gives the gift as a symbol," said Seth. "In yeti culture genders are unimportant. Females are equally strong as males, and even though the female carries the child, the baby needs both its parents presence to survive until it's born," said Seth.
"But he gets insulted when Karuna calls him a girl," Indu protested, picking up something with spikes on it and bringing it to go through her hair.
"He's from a warrior tribe. What he references when talking about what girls do is probably insulting to him," said Seth with a shrug. "Well, I need to get going. I'll see you girls around. I'll see you tomorrow Abbey, usual spot?"
Abbey nodded and waved to Seth while he left.
"So, you haven't seen anything about girls that you like? What is it about us that makes you so..?" Indu seemed to lose what she was going to say and started to rip at her hair. Abbey slipped her necklace back on and then put on her gloves.
It took her a moment to remember how to spell what she wanted to say, but then she grabbed her sketch book and wrote 'weak'. Indu threw her spiky thing at her and glared. Abbey leaned over and picked up the thing, not sure if she should give it back to the human.
"Give me back my brush," snapped Indu. Abbey handed it back carefully and watched as it was snatched out of her hands. "Girls are plenty strong. Just because we're not violent brutes who think the only strength there is, is bashing each other's brains out. I mean, Kshama and I are healers. Without us half the village would be dead."
Abbey shrugged and Indu huffed in disgust.
"It might be unimportant to a race that heals themselves, but humans need a bit of help, even with something as simple as a cut or infection," Indu snapped. Abbey thought about it and then nodded. She supposed Indu had a little bit of a point. While the females of this village, and probably all human females, seemed to take the jobs that Abbey saw as weak, they weren't, not really. Alright, the guards called females weak, and Karuna even joked about it, but females actually did the more useful jobs in the village.
Seth had said he envied and believed the women and men working the fields were the most crucial to their survival, and in this village that was probably true. Humans ate meat, but mostly from domesticated animals, hunting was more of a pastime, and they needed the vegetables, fruits, and grains to survive. That didn't stop female humans from being weak, but maybe being weak wasn't as bad as she thought, or even humans thought, maybe she should see it more as human females being the support system, and thus just as important to human life. Their jobs were crucial, not just menial work the tribe gave them so they could still feel some sense of importance.
Abbey wrote down "teach" and showed it to Indu. Indu stared at it a moment and then took a pencil and drew a question mark on the page. Abbey pointed her pencil at the girl.
"Teach you to be like me?" asked Indu, slowly brushing her hair. "Oh, teach you how to be like a girl?"
Abbey nodded and Indu laughed.
"Karuna's going to make fun of you. Guys aren't supposed to act like girls," said Indu flatly. Abbey shrugged, not commenting that girls weren't supposed to act like guys either. Instead she sketched Karuna and Indu and then drew and equal sign. Indu laughed at that too. "Fine, is there anything about girls you do like?"
Abbey nodded immediately and then quickly rewrote "pretty" and showed it to Indu.
"Oh, like your necklace," said Indu. Abbey nodded and then pointed at her gloves. "The gloves are more practical than anything, but I'm glad you like the embellishments. Alright, fine, what do you want to do first?"
Abbey carefully took the brush from the human's hand and then pointed at her hair. Indu looked a little freaked out, but she handed over the brush.
"Just be careful." Abbey nodded and carefully took some of the human's hair into her hand. As she carded carefully through the human hair, she sort of wished she could do it with her own. It would be nice to get all of the tangles out of her long hair and get it shiny and straight like Indu got hers. Abbey was sure her hair would be even prettier than. She imagined running a brush through it, making it shinny, really bringing out the rose and blue streaks through her hair.
At some point Indu started talking to her, not just the one or two word answers and questions she'd been doing the last three weeks, or the angry offensive she'd taken with Abbey this morning. Now the human was gossiping with her. When they went for a walk to cool Abbey off on Kshama's orders, Indu had actually started gossiping. It was strange. Just one little act on Abbey's part had gotten back the camaraderie that Abbey was afraid she'd lost at some point. She had thought the other girl had given up on her after Abbey had run away and reacted badly to being drugged. But it seemed that Indu just needed permission to be a girl in front of Abbey.
Not that Abbey found all of the things Indu talked about interesting. In fact, she knew none of the people outside her small circle of human friends, so half the people Indu told her about made no sense. Which on reflection was a good thing, because as a healer, Indu knew a lot of the villagers dirty snow and she had no problem telling Abbey about it. Abbey decided that she was never telling Indu anything she didn't want the rest of the village to know, because while she didn't talk as much as Karuna, and her body movements were distracting, she did talk about things of more substance than Karuna, and it wasn't the nice sort of substance. It was actually probably stuff that Indu shouldn't be talking about it.
Karuna found them later painting Indu's nails. Indu was talking about how it was a shame they couldn't paint Abbey's nails, but they would do so when Abbey got a hold on her ability to hold the cold inside herself. Karuna had predictably broken out laughing, so Abbey froze his feet to the ground.
The night ritual was simple enough, meals were very important to all human holidays like yeti celebrations, and certain food sounded like it was important to the night. Abbey froze all of their hot chocolate when they got it ready while Kshama told them stories about Christmas's back when she was a girl. She wasn't sure was the point was of heating chocolate and then having her freeze it into slush, but they claimed it was so she didn't turn the chocolate into hard ice.
All in all Christmas was nice, and Abbey used her free time afterwards to finish up her picture for Lakshya. The next day she slept in as usual and after meditation she went to secure her goat, mostly she froze some meat, feeling as if she wouldn't be able to stomach the spiced, cooked meat that Indu made for a few days at least.
As time went by things started to fall back into place again. It turned out that Lakshya had been assigned with her, and she spent a lot of her later morning hanging out with either Karuna or Lakshya. Lakshya at first clearly wasn't sure what to think; especially when Abbey made it clear she was taking over his training. He spent some time getting laughed at as Abbey basically beat him to the ground their first few lessons, but then Abbey challenged them and then showed them how they did against her. Oddly enough it got some of the more decent humans to show Lakshya how to properly hold and wield a gun.
Then her new human boss had her teach a class from three until four on fighting without guns. It was interesting, she started to pick the human style as she did so, and while humans would never be able to fight yetis with only physical fighting, but it could be useful against other humans, and the guards certainly enjoyed learning it. In the end it actually was the icebreaker Abbey needed to be truly accepted into their ranks.
Her friendship with Indu was taking off. It was a little strange to watch Karuna and even Indu herself try to wrap their minds around Abbey learning "girly" practices. The thing was, the more Abbey learned, the more she wanted to know. Yeah, a lot of their practices and the way girls were apparently were supposed to be completely obsessed with their image. That wasn't right, but, it was also completely fascinating. Watching Indu touch up her face and talk about the most shallow of opinions and facts about life like they were just as important as her healing powers was completely confusing.
Especially seeing as Indu would talk about serious things at the drop of a hat also. She would be talking about perfume, and then she'd be talking about the woman who couldn't get out of her bed because of what humans called "the winter blues". It was head spinning to say the least, but Abbey had a better idea of why human men had such a hard time understanding women. Though Abbey had to admit that even human men confused her sometimes too.
"Hey Abbey, you're up early," said Indu as Abbey entered their house around nine. Abbey nodded. She hadn't been able to sleep. It happened every once in a while. "It's alright; we're just finishing up here."
Abbey nodded and entered in. Mostly she'd come to see if she could read one of those books that Karuna had gotten her. The old man that was being treated glared at her. But Abbey ignored him and went to her book.
"Hey, Abbey, come help me with the weave," said Indu. Abbey looked up from her book. She'd just started to write down the words she wasn't sure of their meaning, even by using the context. She wrote her ideas of what she thought they meant, sometimes drawing a quick picture to trigger her memory. Still, the book she'd picked up was a little over her head. She should probably work on a different one first.
It didn't take long for Abbey to get the weave Indu wanted her to do. It wasn't difficult, it was for durability and practibility so there were no colors or beautiful designs she needed to weave in.
"So I was just thinking she needed to get over it. I mean, I know some women are conservative or whatever, but it's tradition for us as a people to not bother a girl about her partners and there's a drink to take the day after to take care of any problems. But, whatever, we try to get civilized and some of us become even worse, I swear," said Indu. From what Abbey could see, the human was talking to her work. Except whenever Abbey had tuned her out before, that had been the moment the human had started asking actual questions from her. "Did you have that problem in your old tribe?"
Abbey paused. How did she explain that most yetis were mainly attracted to those of their own gender and were encouraged to share a bed with those of the same gender except when they must reproduce. Males and females did interact and often there was a bit of trouble here and there, but usually an unexpected child was discovered only after the babe had died from not having their father near them.
Since Abbey wasn't sure how she could possibly draw this, she just shook her head.
Indu snorted and nodded. "Yeah, I figured. I mean, you wouldn't be ignored because you didn't plan on leaving this village."
Abbey watched in fascination as Indu stabbed at her work in anger.
"Of course then you had boy genius who was lined up to be trained to leave this village. But, I mean, if I leave too, why should he send anymore he gets in America if I'm gone. Since Karuna's parents died, no one shows any interest in him beyond his grades. As long as he's still a shoe in for college then they don't care what he does. They give him a place to stay and a monthly allowance, and that's all they think that's all he needs to feel indebted to us. I mean, the only other person he'd actually feel indebted to outside of me would be is Kshama and she's not going to last much longer," said Indu bitterly.
"Watch your tongue girl," said Kshama. Though she didn't move from across the room so the offense wasn't so bad. Of course, Abbey was routed to the spot? What did Indu mean? She hadn't heard anything about Karuna leaving. Why would he leave? Why would anyone, human or yeti, leave their village? That was horrible. Humans were horrible.
And why would the village be pushing for her friends to leave. Seth going off for the summer was bad enough. This… Abbey had no idea what to call this.
"Oh, ah, it's okay Abbey. Nothing's set in stone yet. Karuna might end up taking all his college courses here and become someone like Seth. And he won't be leaving for a while anyway. He still has some courses he has to take. And if he leaves, you have me. Better yet, if we throw enough of a fit, they'll send you with him. I think you'll like the states. Apparently they've had a treaty with monsters much longer than we have, though they have their own weird take on how to handle that. But, I mean, it's better than us, for one thing, they've had enough culture integration that they have volumes of text and thousands of monster races identified. All we knew before we got internet was yetis, mountain giants, and those six legged things that you meet when you get too far down the mountain," said Indu in a hurry. Abbey still didn't understand. Why was the village trying to get rid of Karuna.
"Um, so, you know how you and Seth have the day off tomorrow? We're planning on taking you snowboarding!" said Indu, her voice almost cracking near the end. Abbey glared at her and then sent a little ice chill at her when the human took away her sketch pad. "You know how to snowboard right?"
Abbey shrugged. That sounded like something up her alley, but she couldn't be sure. Humans had weird names for some of the things they did.
"Um, it looks like this." Abbey leaned in, and she realized why Indu had never stolen her sketch pad before. While Abbey thought there was something to Karuna's painting, Indu's was just bad. Indu rolled her eyes. "You attach a board to your feet and go down the mountain sideways. It's really fun. There's this nice setup to the east of us. It's a little bit of a walk, but completely worth it…"
And Indu was into her next bit of gossip. Abbey considered trying to make her go back to the whole "Karuna" was leaving thing. But the human teen only really talked to her when she was gossiping, and when Abbey tried to backtrack and Indu didn't want to, Indu would stop talking, or end their session with some sort of made up thing she had to do. Plus, at worse Abbey could ask Seth, who would feel she had the right to know and either tell her, or pressure her friends to tell her until they felt too guilty to keep it in.
Still, the little things she learned about humans. Sending their people away. What was wrong with them? Didn't they want to build up their tribe. Abbey shivered in disgust, but she kept to her work. She had chosen this life knowing that she was going to be working with the enemy. She had no one to blame for her situation but herself, and she wasn't going to disgrace herself by going back on her word.
That didn't mean she couldn't secretly wish there was some way to go back to the good old days. Back when she had a tribe and everything was right. She'd even have a better idea of who she might not regret killing. But that was a stupid thought. There was no point dwelling on the past. She must deal with the future, no matter how uncomfortable or angry it made her.