On the sand, Rukh has one of the skins unrolled and he's busy scraping the underside.
He's here. He's here and he's helping me. He's not going anywhere. I'm so relieved I sink to my knees and choke up again.
"Har-loh?" Rukh gets up from his spot by the skin and moves to my side. I watch through my tears as he studies his gross, blood-covered hands, as if he wants to hug me but can't. He drops to a squat next to me instead, tilting his head so he can see my face. "Yes?"
It's the wrong word, but I know what he's asking. I manage a smile and wipe my eyes. "I'm fine. Just emotional. Probably the pregnancy." Or that there's just been a lot going on for the last while, but I can't really tell him that now. "Thank you for staying."
He watches me, then moves in and kisses the top of my head. "Tea?"
"Oh." I get all sentimental and blubbery again, but I hide it better this time. He knows the word for tea. "Tea would be great, thank you." With just that small gesture, everything seems right in the world again.
Having Rukh's help makes everything not seem quite so daunting. Before I know it, all the meat is smoked, all the furs are scraped and the brains rubbed into the underside of the skin. It's not the best job I've ever done on skins. I know there are more steps to be taken to ensure the skin is the softest it can be—lots of stretching and drying, stretching and drying. But our priority is quantity rather than quality—quality can come later.
When I finish with my last hide and look around, I don't see anything urgent that has to be done. For the first time in days, there's nothing so pressing that it can't wait until tomorrow.
I want to collapse with relief. Instead, I just wipe my sweaty brow and give a hearty sigh. "I think we're done for now, baby."
Rukh frowns at me and wipes at my brow with his thumbs. Oh. I must have smeared something. I glance down at my hands…and grimace. I am utterly disgusting. My fingernails are ringed with dirt, my skin is covered with dried bits of unnamable things, and I'm sweaty and nasty. I glance over at Rukh and it's the same for him. He's dirty, too, and his long hair is sticking to his skin.
Now that the worst of the work is done, there's nothing I want more than a hot bath. "Let's wash up, shall we?" I make a scrubbing motion at my mate, indicating cleaning. "Wash."
He nods. "Wash."
As we've worked side by side today, I've gone over basic words with him. Hide. Meat. Scrape. Rock. Wave. Sea. Anything I could point at or easily do, I gave words to, and Rukh repeated them. I'm not sure if he'll be able to recall everything that we went over, but I'm hoping that day by day, we'll fall into an easier understanding of one another.
I poke the fire, stoking it, while Rukh fills up both of our pouches with water to warm over the flames. There's a few smaller rocks that I keep warming near the fire that I slip into the heated water to warm things faster as Rukh disappears into the cave again. To my delight, he returns with my soap-berries. "Wash," he says again, and gestures at the small, dried fruits. "Repeat?"
He's asking for the word for them. "Soap-berry," I say, and add a few to the water. They've withered because I've had them for so long, but I'm hoping that heating them in the water will squeeze a bit of the cleansing juice out. If nothing else, we'll smell nice and fruity.
As the water warms, Rukh moves toward me. I smile at him, tired. I'm half-expecting another word question, but instead, he tugs at the laces on my tunic. "Wash," he murmurs. "Wash Har-loh."
"I am pretty dirty." I smile up at him, standing still so he can pull at the ties. "Days and days of dirt. It'll feel good to get clean."
He narrows his eyes at me and I can tell he's trying to follow along with my words.
I put my hand on a smear on his rock-hard abdomen and brush at it. "Dirty," I tell him. I rub at another stripe of dirt on his arm. "Dirty."
Rukh grunts. He peels open the front of my tunic, revealing my breasts. My nipples prick at the cold, and his gaze goes there. A hungry ache starts low in my belly, and I wonder if this is going to turn sexy. But Rukh just pulls the tunic off of me and then eyes my lower arms and the grime there. "Dirty."
Yeah, I am pretty gross. I suppose it's a good thing that we're not getting sexy…though to be honest, I'm less and less concerned with how I look around Rukh. I know he likes me no matter what. My hair could be a disgusting mop and he'd still think I was beautiful. It's a rather freeing feeling. I rub my fingers over his chest, because I'm tired and sore and filthy but I'm also getting turned on. It's been days and days since I've had sex with my mate and I miss it. I miss him.