Finding Contentus

Chapter 96: Sharing Scars

★★

Kaikara used to observe animals during mating season, specifically, the various mating rituals that some had before the female accepted the male. Rituals such as dances, songs and fights.

He would watch from a distance with large eyes. It seemed so simple and straight to the point. Why weren't humans that simple? Why was love so...

He didn't have the vocabulary to even fathom what love really was in that regard. The only love he could understand was the love he and his mother shared. His father, even as a child, wasn't home that often.

Kaili had explained that since he had been born, his father felt the need to do better for them, for his family, along with their people as Captain Koobus. Back then, Kaikara truly wondered what kind of man Koobus was before he was born, and whether or not, as a result of his birth, he had unintentionally played a role in his own father's degradation and fall to depravity.

How did his mother even fall in love with him? How did they even...

Kaikara found his answer the same day Imcke stopped him from chasing after his fleeing father who was luring him into Metero where he, again, would have the advantage.

Imcke knew that by then, Kaikara was stronger than his father, but still, Koobus was smarter, and in her time as apirate and crew leader for the Eifri, she forced herself to be smarter as well. It's how she won people's admiration for her, distinguishing herself from those who followed Koobus.

Imcke was tough but also kind, possessing a strong sense of justice for her people. People obeyed her barking orders as a result of her prowess. She could be fearless when she wanted to be, but also calm, usually seen with a sly smile on her face and a cigarette in her hand.

Imcke held Kaikara's hand as they swam out of the freezing Sayas river. Her teeth chattered like a woodpecker.

"Let's make a snow shelter for the day and night. We'll meet up with the rest tomorrow," she said.

Kaikara nodded, looking despondent, sniffling in grief like a shattered shell.

Imcke watched him with a heavy expression, but chose not to say anything just yet. They crafted interference lines around themselves for the primals. The two then worked together in building and hollowing out large piles of snow into a dome to stay warm and survive the winter of Kimba.

On the inside, they used the snow to make a snowbed to share, as well a small ventilation hole at the top of the dome. Imcke crafted fire inside, not hot enough to melt but sufficient enough to warm them up as the smoke rose and went out the dome hole.

"Fokk, finally." Imcke rubbed her hands together over the fire and stopped shivering.

Kaikara sat by the snowbed, facing the opposite direction. He was still sniffling. She felt a phantom pang settling in her chest just looking at his slouched shoulders and crushed posture, like he had lost everything all over again, like he had been abandoned all over again.

Imcke stepped away from the fire and gingerly sat next to him.

They sat like that. The stretch of silence was thick and tense, until Imcke coughed.

"Can you imagine if we met before, Kai?" She looked up at him, a tinge of sadness in her eyes. "Every time Kaili visited us, she would talk about you for years," Imcke chuckled dryly.

"I've never heard a mother mention their son's name in almost every single sentence. She really babied you didn't she? Hearing all that stuff made me really excited to meet you one day. But you were such a chicken shit that I was tempted to ambush you myself. If only I didn't have to work in Pa's workshop with Thenius and Mathius."