Trinket (Reverse Harem)

Lick It

It took three days of hard flight to get to the southern coast. Assund rode the whole time being carried in Korr's maw. I had to give the wolf credit: he never once complained, even though the wind wore off half his pelt, and when we landed to rest and he shifted into human form, the entire back of his neck, shoulders, and back were bruised and swollen.

He never said a thing about it, and neither did I. I kept waiting for him to complain, but he didn't so much as shift a shoulder or wince. He also didn't say a word to anyone. He just watched me from a careful distance, like he'd judged exactly how close he could get to me before someone smacked him. Wolves were really good at knowing exactly how close they could get to someone.

"I wish he'd act like an asshole," I muttered to Itek on the third morning. Ethat was grouchy, and rubbing the underside of his claws on a rock. His entire underside, from chin to tail, was dried out and flaking from being exposed to the dry, tainted ground. Asund watched at his usual precise distance, in wolf-form, and I despised how calm he was, like he just knew he'd get what he'd come for in the end because of course he would.

"He doesn't need to act like an asshole to be an asshole," Itek said, one arm around me despite the murderous summer heat, and we both watched Ethat while Korr fanned him with frosty air to try to cool the punishing stinging itch the grasses were causing. Sleeping on a thin sheet of ice didn't help much after a while, and the rocks were tainted too, and poor Ethat was miserable.

"The corruption is worse down here," I said. Even I could feel it. It felt gross on the soles of my feet, even through my sandals. The air smelled a little gross, everything just seemed... wrong. I couldn't explain it. The sky was hazy, like there'd been a huge fire, but it was oily too and when we landed at night, we were actually grimy. The grasses were covered in something dusty, like mildew, and the bugs were either big and chomped hard, or didn't exist, and the ground was cracked down deep, and sort of smelled in places, even though it was too dry for anything to rot.

We had filled up the water skins two days earlier at a random well in the middle of what had been someone's meadow once, and the water had been fetid and gross and I'd almost thrown up, and in the blistering heat, we'd drained that water the previous day and only spotted a single disgusting trickle of water oozing in a dried up creekbed.

I didn't want to confess how thirsty I was, but I was thirsty, and my sunburned, chapped lips had dried and cracked. Itek's had too. Ethat had stopped shifting. It tore crevices in his abused skin, and the dehydration wasn't helping. Even his wing membranes looked chapped and cracked.

Asund stayed in wolf form, and Itek had decided to ride Ethat while I rode Korr: human forms required a lot less water than gryphon form. Wolf form required less than human form.

"We need to find water we can drink," I whispered to Itek. "I don't want to put more on Korr and Ethat—"

"They know we need to find water. Especially Ethat."

"Will he be okay?" I asked worriedly. Ethat just growled at me when I asked that, and I didn't want to stress him out more.

Itek's brow furrowed.

"I'm surprised Korr's not being affected so badly in this heat," I added in a whisper.

"He's got his weaknesses," Itek said. "Heat doesn't bother them. Ethat's powerful and strong, but he's vulnerable to the corruption. For obvious reasons. He shouldn't have left the safety of home, but they're clutch-sibs and have never been apart. They don't know how to be apart."

Ethat snapped at Korr, and Korr stopped fanning him, pulling his neck back and folding his wings against his side. Ethat rubbed his back leg against the same rock, grumbling, shook himself—something musty rose off him instead of the usual fireflies—and huffed. He seemed resigned to his torment.