{Night 12: Blondie}
I was sixteen now. Zaria was too. Hassan and Chaya were eighteen. Uriel was three, and Kahil was fourteen. Zaria had started to flesh out and get curvy, and outgrew her speech-impediment. Hassan and Chaya looked almost exactly like grown-ups by this point, and it was irritating how tall they were getting. Even Uriel was taller than me by this point. He was huge and well-muscled, and his giant fangs were starting to grow in. Kahil had started growing his hair out, and was still as pale as ever. I wore my dad's ring full-time now, and had gotten another piercing, above my eye.
The tree was almost full-grown now thanks to our magicians. Zaria and Hassan helped a lot, as did the quack. Mira and our other magicians had come over every once in a while to help as well. It was tall and good for climbing, with rough, rugged bark full of knots and grooves. The leaves were large and flat, and I was fairly certain it was starting to show signs of bearing fruit. It made the well one of the nicest places to be in all of Rotter-turf.
It was where Uriel, Kahil and I were right now. We were in the shade as the air surrounding us shimmered with heat. My mom had sent us out to get water, but we'd wound up watering the tree to keep it from getting sick in the heat and then lying in the mud.
I hummed as Uriel flicked his tail. The bell on it tinkled.
"Hey, Mal?" Kahil asked.
"Brat." I replied, not opening my eyes. I was debating taking my pants off and going naked for the day, or dragging these two to the beach.
"Who's your first going to be?"
Now I opened my eyes.
Kahil looked at me curiously.
"... I hadn't thought about it. Maybe Zaria? Or Chaya or Hassan. There's a girl called Tia in one of the other villages who's turning sixteen next week, maybe she'll be interested... I know that guy Raj is pretty well-known— Brat, are you pouting?!"
He blinked, blushed, and rolled over. "O-of course not!"
Uriel rumbled with laughter, and I snorted.
I hadn't really thought of Kahil as that type. He'd always struck me as a blushing prude from the time Zaria brought her beaded curtain into our house.
"Tell ya what, Kahil. I'll sleep around lots and lots for the next two years, and then I'll keep you up for three days straight. Sound good?" I bargained with a smirk.
"What?! Hell, no! Go die!"
I burst out laughing, and Uriel chortled. Kahil began cussing us out, rolling over to throw damp dirt and mud at us.
A soft thump made us all freeze.
We all got to our feet and peered around the tree-trunk.
"... Well where the fuck did this blighter come from?" I asked.
"Maybe the tree threw up." Kahil offered.
The still, face-down figure had long blonde hair and wore lots of green. Looking at them, Kahil's statement made sense. Whoever they were, they were certainly green enough to be tree-barf. It was a Not-Rot— Skin was too fine and hair was monochrome, eliminating all possible direct Rotter heritage.
"... So what do we do?" Kahil mumbled.
"Well, we can offer a rude awakening via well-water or we can drag it to Master Alban an' say it's a dragon."
Uriel snorted, and Kahil rolled his eyes.
"Fine, let's fill up the water-skin and then we can take this weirdo home and make sure they're okay!" I said in exasperation at Kahil's stick-in-the-mud attitude. "Kahil, you start winching water. Ur, help him. I'll get them in the shade."
As they started attacking the stubborn well, I strolled over to the collapsed stranger. I really couldn't tell whether this was a guy or a girl...
Huffing, I reached down and grabbed their shoulders. Lifting them up, I dragged them over to the tree. As I did so, the part in their shirt fell open.
Male.
I put the guy down under the tree, out of the sun, and waited for Kahil and Uriel to finish getting the water. They did so with surprising speed— I guess the heat loosened the gears or something?— and we draped the stranger over Uriel's shoulders. Skin in hand, we set off for home.
We attracted a few stares, but not many, as we headed for our house. Everyone was used to me bringing home weird things by this point. As we pushed through the curtain that was our door, Zahara didn't even spare us a second glance.
We put the blondie in Kahil's spot, and draped a damp rag over his forehead. As Kahil and I were debating going for the quack, a low whine reached our ears.
The guy's stomach.
"Ya gotta be kidding..." I muttered.
"He passed out from hunger?" Kahil said in a similar tone.
As the guy's stomach grumbled again, Uriel nudged him with a paw, tail flicking and making his bell jingle. Blue-green eyes, more blue than mine, fluttered open with a breathy sigh.
"Oh, 'e woke up." I said in surprise.
"That's good." my mom hummed, sounding amused.
"Umm..." The stranger looked around briefly before his gaze settled on us. "... Where am I?"
"Rotter-turf. Our house." I said bluntly. "Who're you, blondie?"
"I'm sorry to inconvenience you," he smiled, sitting up, "I'm Yunan, a traveller."