Niala 52

Holy shit.

Holy…. Fucking… Shit.

I swore. I unleashed a litany of swears that would have made LETTI’S eyes water. I swore in Anil, Acir, and English. I had obscenities from Acir that I didn’t even know I remembered. They came in flutters when my mind wandered. I threw in some Russian for good measure.

My eyes strobed, flashed by a light so bright that the world around me went white and throbbing. I struggled to reach for purchase as Gaff let me go.

I felt around us as we collapsed, my hand patting up Gaff’s leg. Blushing, I immediately felt the other direction. At least his ass made it out fine.

“Nice.” He chuckled.

“Gaf?” I whispered as my hands felt out, then a little further, and then my hands pushed into soft dewy grass and earth so rich that I sank my fingers straight into the soil.

The light faded, the darkness around us settling in as I saw acres of flat open earth around us with a myriad of solitary poles for power connects. It was a fairground! It was the fairgrounds the flock camped in near Oklahoma. I hadn’t even thought of this place! My breath heaved in my chest, eyes wide with excitement. I had hope.

“Ni!” He laughed at me, and I pushed myself over, his arms surrounding me as my lips mashed against his own.

As far as ‘first’ kisses went… it was awful. I didn’t care! I was... I was free. He was free. We were alive!

His hands fought to pull at me, and his teeth did something weird, and I felt this strange struggle between us, like our lips fought for dominance. Then he laughed. I laughed, and we discarded the mash of lips and teeth to plant small pecks over one another’s lips.

“Gaff!” I giggled back to him.

“I can’t believe that actually fucking worked,” He wheezed, dodging my determined kisses. I rolled off of him, laid out in the grass, face up. He rolled out beside me. Our hands found one another. My heart brimmed so full of joy, tears pouring, a great weight on my chest lifting.

“We need… we need to find Kiromir,” I told him, my chest shaking as I fought my laughs that turned to sobs.

“We need a plan, first,” He laughed.

“We find Kiromir, then plan.” That was my plan.

“I texted Kiromir that we would find him here. I said, ‘will meet at your legend.’ This place had a Mothman museum nearby. It’s closed now. There are many locations, but it narrows it down. So we stay put and wait for him to come. He will when it's safe. If they got us, no telling what they did to the others. If we call, we’re fucked. So we wait here,” Gaffriel said, going stern and demanding.

He was right. I was too eager to do something stupid.

“How does he know we’ll be here?” I asked.

“We go by the museum and mark the area with Ault. He’ll smell us,” he said. It was actually pretty brilliant.

“That sounds so much better than my plan.”

“My plan also involves a hotel room,” Gaff wheezed.

I kicked my heel over against his.

“Ah! Shit, what was that for?” He grumbled.

“BREEDING, REALLY?” I don’t know why I blamed him, but I did.

I looked over at him in the dusky moonlight, and red crept over his cheeks.

“I meant for a shower… “ Gaff said, going quiet, and I realized that we were filthy and covered in blood.

“There’s a water spigot somewhere.” Gaff said. We needed to move quickly.

I rolled over onto him, pecked a final kiss to his mouth, and moved to stand.

Everything hurt.

“Okay, maybe in five minutes.” I wheezed as I laid back down on the ground.