Page 39 of Citrine

I let out a huff of breath. I know myself. If he comes around, I will still talk to him. Dammit.

I recall the memory of him breaking the spine of the alligator. If I'm left alone with those creatures, I will not survive. That chilling thought is a lovely way to begin my day.

I stroke my now-fixed arm, looking around. I'm still starving, yes, but I can finally get a chance to observe my surroundings now that I'm not wallowing in pain.

As I take slow, steadying breaths, the ache in my arm reduces to a dull throbbing and in a while, I can finally move it enough to move in search of food.

19

Wroahk

I feel stupid now. Rushing out to help her, I was ready to protect her again. Despite what my self-restraint was telling me, I was ready to abandon my dignity to protect her from herself. It doesn't even make sense to me, but I already did it.

Already decided I will keep doing it.

She wasn't trying to hurt herself. As I suspected, she can't regrow her limbs. That seems awfully inconvenient, but she's an entirely different being, so it must be what happens to her species.

Her frequent use of things around her surroundings must also be a trait of her species. Rather than use it to blend in, rest, or hide, she has a surprising number of uses for the things around her.

It's fascinating.

She isn't like the enemy I plan to kill. Maybe there is some other use for her other than her death. Though I don't know what, something in me must already have the answer.

I have never restricted my strength before, the way I had to when holding her arm to straighten it. I barely held on to it and a little tug on my part straightened it right up. She felt so weak, so tiny in my hold.

It would've been easy to break her, to tear her to pieces, but I didn't. Being so close to her, I didn't want to hurt her. Something altogether strange rose up in me. The need to… I don't even have a word for the opposite of wanting to crush something.

And then there is the sudden impulse to speak.

I can't remember the last time I've heard my own voice this much. Speaking above water for an extended period is difficult, but nothing I cannot accomplish.

It is speaking to her that's the difficult part. The inflections in her voice, the rapid change of emotions in her eyes and her breaths, everything is infinitely more complicated with her.

That conflict made me slink back into the lake and flee, this time searching out an underwater cave better suited to me than large one in the cove.

No sense in staying above ground. I fall back deep into my new cave and just lay about, trying to think.

Still, I feel restless. There are many things that lurk in this lake, but none make me as agitated as that female. The feel of her skinlingers on my graspers, and the freshness of her breath persists in my mind.

I don't think it'll be easy to just leave her alone or erase her from my mind. My tentacles itch as I think about her, the urge to speak to her rising in me.

I haven't spoken this much to anybody since leaving my nursery group, which I left quite earlier than my peers and I have seen little of them in recent years.

I don't know if I'll ever get the chance to see them again now, stranded in this place, not that we would have done anything beyond try to insult or kill each other.

Memories of the days of glorious competition for territory surface in my mind. Those who are slow, born without the instincts to hunt, who cannot swim properly, and those who are cowards, are inevitably eaten by other predators. Those, like me, who do what they must for survival, live, at least until age makes them weak.

Some of them extend their lives by creating nursery groups, though they ultimately die as the group ages.

Killing and eating each other to survive is natural. The competition always starts from inside the pod, a feeding frenzy of survival where the weak are culled and the survivors get the chance to live. There are always conflicts for everything, but that is just the natural order.

So why am I protecting her? It's not because I am aging and the idea of her being strong enough to extend my own life is ridiculous.

A hunter may hurl insults at each other whenever we win or lose, never help the other heal. Those were the limits of social interactions I had, the essence of conversations that mattered to me.

Or the cutting barbs I exchanged with the few females I plunged my mating tentacles into as I held their sharp teeth at bay. It was always a race to deposit my seed before a chunk of me was missing or a tentacle was ripped off. Just the memory makes my two mating tentacles start swaying and grasping.

Speaking with her involves none of those things, and I'm starting to realize that I might not… hate it.