Vonda McIntyre: Dreamsnake

He soothed her. “Rest. I’ll keep watch till morning. Then we can move to a safer place.”

With his reassurance, she could rest. He left her for a moment, and she lay flat on the ground, her fingers spread wide and pressing down, as if the earth held her to it yet gave something back. Its coolness helped ease her returning awareness of the crossbow wound. She heard Arevin kneel beside her, and he laid a cool, wet cloth across her shoulder to soak loose the frayed material and dry blood. She watched him through her eyelashes, again admiring his hands, the long lines of his body. But his touch was as neutral as his words had been.

“How did you find us?” she asked. “I thought you were a dream.”

“I went to the healers’ station,” he said. “I had to try to make your people understand what happened and that the fault was my clan’s, not yours.” He glanced at her, then away, sadly. “I failed, I think. Your teacher said only that you must go home.”

Before, there had been no time for Arevin to respond to what she had said to him, that she dreamed about him and loved him. But now he acted as if she had never said those things, as if he had done what he had done out of duty alone. Snake wondered, with a great empty feeling of loss and regret, if she misunderstood his feelings. She did not want more gratitude and guilt.

“But you’re here,” she said. She pushed herself up on her elbow, and with some effort sat to face him. “You didn’t have to follow me, if you had a duty it ended at my home.”

He met her gaze. “I… dreamed about you, too.” He leaned toward her, forearms resting on his knees, hands outstretched. “I never exchanged names with another person.”

Slowly, gladly, Snake slid her dirty, scarred left hand around his clean, dark-tanned right one.

He looked up at her. “After what happened—”

Wishing even more now that she was not hurt, Snake released his hand and reached into her pocket. The eggling dreamsnake coiled itself around her fingers. She brought it out and showed it to Arevin. Nodding toward the wicker basket, she said, “I have more in there, and I know how to let them breed.”

He stared at the small serpent, then at her, in wonder. “Then you did reach the city. They accepted you.”

“No,” she said. She glanced toward the broken dome. “I found dreamsnakes up there. And a whole alien world, where they live.” She let the eggling slip back into her pocket. It was growing used to her already; it would make a good healer’s serpent. “The city people sent me away, but they haven’t seen the last of healers. They still owe me a debt.”

“My people owe you a debt, too,” Arevin said. “A debt I’ve failed to repay.”

“You helped save my daughter’s life! Do you think that counts for nothing?” Then, more calmly, Snake said, “Arevin, I wish Grass were still alive. I can’t pretend I don’t. But my negligence killed him, nothing else. I’ve never thought anything but that.”

“My clan,” Arevin said, “and my cousin’s partner—”

“Wait. If Grass hadn’t died, I’d never have started home when I did.”

Arevin smiled slightly.

“And if I hadn’t come back then,” Snake said, “I never would have gone to Center. I never would have found Melissa. And I never would have encountered the crazy or heard about the broken dome. It’s as if your clan acted as a catalyst. If not for you we would have kept on begging the city people for dreamsnakes, and they would have kept on refusing us. The healers would have gone on unchanging until there were no dreamsnakes and no healers left. That’s all different now. So maybe I’m in as much debt to you as you think you are to me.”

He looked at her for a long time. “I think you are making excuses for my people.”

Snake clenched her fist. “Is guilt all that can exist between us?”

“No!” Arevin said sharply. More quietly, as if surprised by his own outburst, he said, “At least, I’ve hoped for something more.”

Relenting, Snake took his hand. “So have I.” She kissed his palm.

Slowly, Arevin smiled. He leaned closer, and a moment later they were embracing each other.

“If we’ve owed each other, and repaid each other, our people can be friends,” Arevin said. “And perhaps you and I have earned the time you once said we needed.”

“We have,” Snake said.

Arevin brushed the tangled hair back from her forehead. “I’ve learned new customs since I came to the mountains,” he said. “I want to take care of you while your shoulder heals. And when you’re well, I want to ask if there’s anything else I can do for you.”

Snake returned his smile; she knew they understood each other. “That’s a question I’ve wanted to ask you, too,” she said, and then she grinned. “Healers mend quickly, you know.”