Chapter Twenty-One

Confused

Getting the core reading and signing up for courses took a while despite the fact that they told her it was urgent she would be joining the class the beginning of the last year.

Right now Abbey was looking through some of the material the tutor for her classes had given her to start her studies. Unfortunately until they were able to make it down the mountain, nothing could come up. So they had given a list of the books Karuna owned, to which only five had the okay, and four had the read it only after she had read the internet sites on the monster side of the events that happened.

She also read some books on human history, but those were books that covered all the "basic" information and were incredibly boring and not overly informative only giving her the barest of facts.

The clock on the computer dinged, a signal Seth had set up to warn them their lessons for the day was coming to an end. Abbey's hands clenched involuntarily and she had to swallow wave of blood lust. It wasn't Seth's fault that Abbey had killed her father. that she had been forced to confront her people in the worst way possible. In the end it was her decision, he'd just given her the facts.

Abbey admitted that some illogical part of her blamed Seth. She understood that Seth knew this and was sensitive to this because he left her alone for the most part. He had explained that Abbey had to be careful while working with the computers. She couldn't snow on them, so Abbey had to be careful to pay attention to if she was getting over heated, and take breaks if it even got to the point she would start to snow.

Besides that, Seth acted as the main negotiator working on the human side of getting a monster into the states and from what Abominable had told Abbey through email that Seth even helped support him while he turned his dream of sending a yeti to the states into a reality. He was supportive in everything, and he avoided Abbey at every turn. Abbey needed to forgive him. Really forgive him, because maybe it wasn't his fault, but Abbey blamed him without thinking. Actually, if she could just forgive him, she would.

Abbey sighed and sent a quick email to her tutor asking if he could pull her an article or book online that was actually was neutral. Abbey had first read Karuna's human version of a big vampire debacle in Transylvania, now she had read an ebook from the monster point of view. Even some of the dates and what happened were skewed. Abbey wasn't sure what was true. She guessed that she could trust vampires more on what they actually were, which didn't include bursting into flames in the sun.

Abbey had been assigned a program and tech support that would teach her to work with the technology over a week. Abbey had been declared a master in two days. She didn't know why, but she really took to this technology thing. It was weird and foreign, especially at first, but she quickly got how it worked, and even her typing was at a satisfactory speed. Now the only problem came in getting access to information. It seemed even the internet was limited to her. Abbey had one user name, and three passwords that required different things in them, and more answers to security questions than she dared try to remember. So she kept them safe in the little notebook she used for taking notes.

It was weird. Abbey had thought she would hate school and learning. Instead she found herself loving it. All the information, and balancing that information with irrational humans and monsters that gave their own spin to situations. Abbey liked reading them, so she could compare, decode, and figure out what really happened. Sometimes, especially in the beginning, it had been irritating, but now, after a month of stuffing her head and getting more and more access to databases through Seth, Karuna, and her tutor, she felt she would be ready for high school.

Karuna of course shot this down the first time she said it. He pointed out that most of the people in the states not only took lessons since they were five, but they had access to the best education available. Indu skipped over to Abbey to get her out of the chair.

"Come on, we don't need you overheating during dinner like last week," said Indu, leaning over and turning off Abbey's monitor. Abbey rolled her eyes, but she had already signed off. "Plus, there's something I want to show you."

"The play thing right?" asked Abbey with a sigh. She didn't like the sound of those plays. They were silly, why would you pretend to be someone else when it was so hard to figure out who you were in the first place?

"It's different. You'll like it," Indu said with a sigh as she pushed Abbey out of the computer lab. As Indu bumbled herself up in the hallway, Abbey went into the daylight and let the wind whip over her face. The sun was starting to get a bit warm as spring moved in, but Abbey reminded herself that she had survived the summer without knowing how to pull her cold into her body. Plus, according to everyone, including her tutor, she would be dealing with worse than summer heat at sometimes during the year then.

Abbey leaned against the wall with a yawn. She had classes from 9:30am until 3:00pm, and then at 5:00pm was dinner where afterwards she would spend time with her friends and then she had work from 10:00pm until 6:00am. On Saturdays the computer lab wasn't open until 11:30 and on Sunday she didn't have classes or work. Abbey might be a yeti, but that schedule even made her exhausted, especially since she spent reading and discussing what she learned with Karuna. Abbey didn't have to worry about nightmares the last two weeks, she'd even slept through a good deal of Sunday even.

Indu came out of the building and looked around jumping when Abbey put a hand on her shoulder. The human smiled and slipped her hand into Abbey's gloved on. While Abbey could walk around in normal clothing, she tended to try and cover all her skin, and she even rolled up a cloth to cover her mouth. Part of the reason was because she could draw the cold into her body, she still had flashes where she would freeze the pencils and paper and various things. She didn't need a human brushing her bare skin and getting frozen, usually her own temperature only affected the thing she was touching directly.

The half mask the small the small yeti had first blamed on keeping the humans comfortable since she had always worn it before, but then admitted that Indu had a point. Abbey found herself imagining that she wore the same thick lipstick as Kshama. But Indu told her they would be getting something else. Apparently only old women wear thick lipstick like Kshama's or something.

Abbey sighs. Humans have so many different types of rules, but unlike yetis, these are unwritten or even unspoken rules. Every once in a while Abbey would tell Indu that she didn't care and wasn't a human. Sometimes she would say the most random things, like how she had told Abbey the other night that she needed someone to go with her to Karuna's apartment. Abbey had pointed out that she could kick any humans butt, even if they overwhelmed with numbers. She did control cold after all. Indu had rolled her eyes and said it wasn't appropriate, to which Abbey had told her that unlike humans yetis weren't prudes.

It turned out that they came to where a bunch of booths were set up. There was a long line of them where the older humans were looking at the booths and chatting together while most of the little ones were playing organized games. There was a lot of talking. Abbey was surprised the air hadn't thinned to nothing.

"Come on, I love this thing. You'd think we'd have nothing after being penned in here all winter," said Indu. "But somehow we also have enough hot food to pass around. Helps now that we have the yetis to trade with. We have a bunch of junk we saved but they didn't want or didn't have anything to trade it with and some of their stuff ends up in general circulation this way instead of being traded right down to the bottom of the mountain."

Abbey nodded, clasping her hand tighter in Indu's so that she wouldn't lose the human. Indu looked over at her in surprise and then smiled widely, giving Abbey's hand a little squeeze.

They sent time looking around. Indu bought them a hot drink, which Abbey rolled her eyes at before she froze her drink. Indu laughed but Abbey knew better than to freeze her drink. It was cold for humans. So Indu probably needed something to keep her warm.

"Come on Abbey, the hat would look adorable on you," said Indu. Abbey dodges, not a hard thing seeing as she's a good deal taller than Indu is. The humans around them ignore them for the most part. The children tended to look at Abbey's skin and either run away, or look at her in fascination until someone took them away. The teenagers tended to look at her in disgust or chat with their friends and laugh, and the adults tended to either ignore her completely or look at her in fear and anger.

For the most part.

Now they had some trouble. There were a lot of humans in one place. Abbey hadn't been in a place so crowded with humans until after she showed she was human. Some sent Abbey a sideways look, and the yeti had to wonder if

"Hey, look at this. I haven't seen this from the yetis yet," said Indu, disappearing into the crowd that she could apparently see through. Abbey bit down the instinctive need to sigh. She was still half sure that any moment the air was going to run out from the useless and constant use of air.

Thankfully Indu hadn't wandered too far away. What she was starring at made Abbey pause. It was her painting. Abbey had known they were going to sell her pictures, but she hadn't really thought the humans would be interested in buying. For one thing, her paintings were a horrid mess. More shapes and colors that hardly formed any kind of discernible picture. But ere one was, up for sale, Abbey didn't know if the price was cheap. She tended to tell her friends to buy whatever they wanted with her money, which she was pretty sure they ignored, but Abbey just knew she had enough to pay off living in her shack, and if she or her friends got low on food, she knew she could hunt. Clothes were also easy enough. Maybe she didn't make the best, but she could put together a decent set of armor out of skins if given time and away to find material.

"Ah, yes," said a slick voice. Abbey watched as a middle aged woman came to stand next to Indu, also looking at the painting. "Interesting isn't it? We think they painted it with the dyes they have. I see their ghosts heading to the cold stars, but others see deeper. I had one girl who couldn't bring herself to buy it, but couldn't stop looking at it, kept calling it the ugliest thing she'd seen."

The woman smiled over at Indu, but Indu wasn't paying her any attention, her eyes firmly locked on the picture, though Abbey was staring at the healers head. The saleswoman than turned to Abbey, her smile wide and twisted.

"What about you dear..." the last word she strangled and her voice hitched up. Abbey watched as the woman took a hurried step back then another as she tripped over her feet. Indu finally seemed to be able tare her eyes from the painting and looked over at Abbey.

"Come on Abbey, I want to see if we can find something for that shack of yours," said Indu. Abbey rolled her eyes. She spent hardly any time in there. She didn't really need anything.

"Indu what do you think you're doing?" demanded the woman. Abbey looked back as the saleswoman grabbed at Indu. Abbey glared at her.

"You have no control over me, let go," Indu demanded. She wrenched her arm but the saleswoman had a too firm grip. Abbey decided to intervene, but when she reached forward it only increased the woman's grip. Abbey took the woman's wrist in her own and even sent a slight frost over her arm. Finally Indu was able to wrench her grip away.

"She's dangerous," snapped the woman and even though Abbey was trying to pull her away from the grabby human, Indu leaned toward the woman.

"You have no control over my life," snapped Indu, and Abbey felt like she was holding onto Indu not to save her friend but the woman who had assaulted her. "You have no right to try and tell me who my friends should be."

"I thought the exaggerations of your company..."

"You abandoned me when I became a healer instead of going to the states," snarled Indu. Abbey held the human's arm a little tighter as Indu actually appeared to want to fight the woman. Seeing as neither woman probably had any fighting experience or training, and them fighting would be pathetic and lead to nothing but a headache, and Karuna would rightfully tell Abbey off for not stopping it.

Finally, as the woman went to snap at Indu, Indu turned and started storming in the opposite direction. Abbey followed her and Abbey quickly looked behind her to make sure the saleswoman wasn't following them. The woman just watched them, her face red and her hands twisted together. She looked like she wanted to run and catch Indu and continue to argue or fight with her but was restraining her.

Indu actually stormed all the way out of the booths and into the cold where she plopped herself down on the snow. Abbey followed and quickly wondered how long it would be until her friend got pneumonia, or whatever it was that killed humans even after they got warmed up again. For one thing, even through clothe, they tended to melt cold things. Humans apparently ran very hot.

"Sorry," said Indu after at least fifteen minutes of sitting. Abbey was only paying attention since it was slowly getting close to five. "I didn't mean for you to that or her."

Abbey touched Indu's lips and Indu laughed. "Karuna is right you know. You can talk now."

Abbey just shrugged. She could explain for the millionth time that she didn't believing in wasting breath, but it was one of those things that didn't stick. Like having to explain or insult Karuna every time he asked why girls spent so much time primping. Especially when he spent as much time as Indu did on his own morning rituals.

"You wouldn't understand anyway. Even after they banished you, you couldn't let them go. You kept their ideals and it was obvious that you still loved them," Abbey stared at Indu, willing her to say the right thing so she would know exactly what the human was referring to. It was amazing how much humans could talk without saying anything or missing the most important part. "Your family means everything to you."

"Kshama is your family," Abbey pointed out and Indu laughed, her tone fractured.

"She's the family that matters, but..." Indu broke off, her throat closing off. "I used to talk about it all the time. How they left me. How I was so much more than they dared call me. I used to tell anyone, at a drop of the hat. It made me a pariah to everyone but Karuna, but it helped. The more I talked about it, the more liberated I felt. As I said. You wouldn't understand. You would see your family and probably hug them, not talk smack behind their back."

"Smack?" asked Abbey, but Indu just laughed that broken way. Abbey sat next to Indu and draped her arm around the human. Her temperature would not be comfortable to the human, but that didn't matter in the long run. Maybe it was time for her to honest. To say the truth completely about what was going on. "I killed my father. I can't be with my tribe because my old tribe is being brought into it. I am driven to the states to run away from my family."

Indu looked up at her as if trying to see if she was telling the truth.

"That's why you couldn't stay," she said sadly. Abbey nodded. Indu let out a breath. "Then my family problems just seem petty."

"They hurt you," said Abbey, making sure to say everything so she didn't have to repeat herself, especially since it seemed Indu was half lost in her own thoughts. "To forgive is hard, maybe even the wrong decision if they want to control you."

"After ignoring me for so long, the realize that their abandoning me at the first sign of trouble is what made me lose any chance of going to the states. Then of course they realize how integral the healer of a village is," said Indu with a snort. "They're morons. Ever since the attack they've been trying to reconnect and then criticizing everything. You came up, but they're so blind they thought my involvement was over exaggerated."

"Did have a problem selling yeti paintings," Abbey pointed out.

"Nope," said Indu with that same broken chuckle. "They're the worst kind hypocrites. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Karuna is my family, and we're yours. But I'll be here if you need to talk."

With a shake of her head and a sigh, Abbey stood and offered her hand to Indu to help her up. They needed to head to dinner. Indu smiled and grabbed her hand.

Dinner was the usual affair. Karuna asked an insane amount of questions for someone who had refused to go to the fair. And apparently there had been a play going on, but since neither Abbey or Indu had gone to see it, Lakshya got to explain what happened. Abbey mulled over what Indu had told her. Would it make things easier if she talked about her lost tribe? She didn't like to talk. It wasn't in her nature to mull over the past when the future was what was important.

Still, reflecting on the past seemed odd to her, but Karuna said there was a human saying where you had to understand your history so you didn't make the same mistakes.

As usual they met in front of the fire. Indu helped undue the complicated braid pattern they'd put in each other's hair as they participated in different online conversations. The lag during those were horrible, and their tutors had them write up their reflections for the class to view since whenever they tried to join the conversation they would be at least two topics behind. So most of their contributation came in reflections and the responses, at least to Abbey's, had been interesting so far and very informative. Abbey had actually started what she was pretty sure was a touchy argument in a class she'd been assigned that accepted human and monster students.

Lakshya sighed and complained when Abbey started putting up her hair. The two girls gave him a look but he just sighed again.

"What is Lakshya?" asked Indu as she continued to paint her nails, her hair already down for the evening.

"Why does Abbey have to put her hair up? It looks so pretty shinning in the moon light," said Lakshya. Abbey just looked at him incredulously. Maybe the yetis had been taken care of for the time being, but there were still dangerous mountain animals and giants that could potentially kill and cause a lot of damage and even death. He shouldn't be trivializing it that much.

Abbey stared at Lakshya and then looked at Karuna who was smirking and shaking his head as he pretended to read some thick tomb. This was Lakshya they were talking about. He tended to think about anything but fighting. Abbey wondered if he had even fought during the battle, and she had a feeling from the hints he had given that the answer was no. This irritated her, of course, but Abbey was starting to think that most humans were distinctly unsuited mentally for fighting physically. Perhaps if she were a better yeti she would find his actions appalling, but instead she just found herself exasperated by the humans way of figuring out who would protect. They assumed that every son would be interested in his father's work, and even her guild had known better than that.

Of course, the gender thing still threw Abbey off, but she was sure in her mixed class she would one day be able to bring up the question of whether it was assumed everywhere that females of the human species weren't fit for combat.

Abbey reached over and took thing hair clips with plenty of glitter and cute looking little snow leopards with big cute eyes and offered them Lakshya.

"You wear those," said Abbey. Lakshya looked at them and then at Abbey, his expression one that was twisted in confusion. Abbey started to put them back in their box.

"Wait, Indu help me," said Lakshya. Karuna groaned and literally buried himself in his book. Indu just looked at the guard for a long moment before she sighed and started to pull back the hair and started putting them in the best she could so they would stay there. Abbey instantly let her bun fall and instead threw her hair in a fast ponytail. Maybe she would let it down, but she needed a little control of her hair.

"You are getting better at being inclusive," Abbey complimented Indu, the human just shrugged.

"I did try to teach you about human girl customs when I thought you were male," said Indu, then she sent an irritated look Karuna's way. "Plus, I'm trying to be a good model to some people who are going to be moving to a more diverse and progressive place then here."

"You hear that Karuna?" Abbey asked when Karuna continued to pretend to read. The human male looked up briefly before with a roll of his eyes he stuck his nose in the book again. "I have to go get ready."

Abbey spent the next few weeks working out the kinks in her schedule. Her studies were going along quickly, and her tutor demanded to know if she was cheating because she couldn't believe Abbey could know so much already with no prior lessons. She even got to see Abominable again, though the little yetis didn't come with him much to everyone's disappointment, well eveyone that mattered anyway.

Soon the ice was melting and Abbey was not only perfecting her ability to meditate and regulate her temperature, but looking forward to the three day break she would get when they went down the mountain to go shopping with her friends. Unfortunately Kshama couldn't come with them. She needed to stay in case of medical emergencies and she said her old bones were too old to make the trek down and then up the mountain.

Abbey also made a conscious effort to talk about her old tribe more. It had confused the others until Indu realized and told everyone else what she was doing. It was awkward at first, but the more she talked about it the easier it became. And she found that while she still couldn't and didn't want to talk about what they had done to hurt her, instead she talked about the good or neutral moments. And the more she talked the more she dredged up names from her memory and the more she scraped away from moments of violence. Maybe it wasn't perfect, but the more she was with the humans the more she learned to be and accept who she was.