In The Lair of the Draca (Book 2)

In The Lair of the Draca (Book 2) Chapter 18: No Proper Evening Maiden

Joo-Lee regained consciousness.

It had happened one morning early after Mother's twins and Sashek left the lodge to collect their wash-water. Mother had departed shortly after waking up as well, stopping on a rare visit with one of her weaving friends. Gormaq was out-- only Ziuta and Amek remained, sitting next to each other on their eating mats while they snacked on a light breakfast of pine nuts and bolberries.

Behind them, there was a brief rustling of blankets. Curious, Ziuta turned, a mouthful of nuts still pouched in the corner of one cheek, and was startled to see that Joo-Lee was sitting up amidst her coverings, blinking and looking at Ziuta with her too-small eyes as though she had never seen her before.

"Joo-Lee!" Ziuta swallowed her nuts, which were only half-chewed, and scrambled off of her eating mat so she could rush to her best friend's side, but Joo-Lee backed away and whimpered. She clutched one of Mother's soft, woolen blankets to her chin and wept softly.

"Joo-Lee, what is the matter? Everything is okay now! You are safe, you are alive, and you have finally woken up!" Ziuta gushed. Amek had shyly followed her friend to the back of the lodge and stood with one nervous finger tucked in her mouth (as she often did when she was anxious or conflicted), staring down at the confused-looking girl.

"Well?" Ziuta extended her hand to Joo-Lee and smiled beckoningly. Her heart seemed close to bursting with happiness, but Joo-Lee only withdrew and chattered morosely in that slow, lazy-sounding language of the human beings.

It was then that the horrible realization dawned on Ziuta; without thinking, she had been speaking in the chirruping, bird-like tongue of the Evening People...and it had been so long since she had studied with Joo-Lee that Ziuta had forgotten almost every English word.

"What's wrong with her? What's she saying?" Amek asked, curiosity alight in her granite-colored eyes.

Ziuta did not answer. Instead, fighting tears of her own, she moved to place protective arms around Joo-Lee's shoulders. "Blessed Mother Rosavati. You cannot understand me at all anymore, can you?" Joo-Lee did not pull away from Ziuta's embrace. Her lips quivered, her thin arms shook, and she buried her swollen face in her hands before finally bursting into tears.

Amek hopped from one foot to the other. "What do we do?" she asked eagerly. "We need to tell Mother and Sashek! They will want to see her now that she is awake, and--"

"No! That is the last thing she needs." Joo-Lee's palm caressed the auburn stubble atop Joo-Lee's head. "She has just woken up from one nightmare and found herself in another. How would you feel, Amek, if you had been one of the survivors from the ancient Disc of Secrets? What if you had been injured in that crash, only to wake up and find strange-looking beings crowding you, like an interesting specimen of weed?"

As though in silent understanding, Amek did not say another word. With a heaviness in her chest for the trials and tribulations that she and Joo-Lee had endured, Ziuta soberly took her best friend's hands within her own and studied Joo-Lee from head to toe.

Her hair had slowly begun to grow back, though she would likely continue to be bald for a very long time, and teeth marks from the earth-dragon (finally healed, thanks to Sashek's dutiful work) were painfully evident. They crossed from above the left ear and curled round the back of Joo-Lee's head, stopping at the nape of her neck. Dark scabs covered the wounds. Although Joo-Lee had traditionally been taller than Ziuta and looked older than her age, her weeks of lying unconscious had rendered her arms and legs so weak as to be almost useless. The muscles had atrophied, reducing her to a mere skeleton stretched with a pale covering of skin, but her belly was strangely round, as though it contained a large water-fruit.