Chapter 10 - Mei Xiu
The girl who ducked through the entrance was young, maybe a year or two younger than Lin Wan.
Her dark eyes went straight to the flat rock over the fire and stayed there. She had completely forgotten to look anywhere else.
She was thin. Not dangerously so like the other females, at least not yet. But the kind of thin that said her body had been getting less than it needed for a long time.
Her hide clothing was simple. Her hair was loose. And she was staring at the cooked meat like it was the most important thing she had ever seen in her life.
Lin Wan understood that look. She had worn it herself at the pool not long ago.
"Hello, I am Liya," the girl said, still looking at the meat. Then she seemed to remember herself and looked at Wang and immediately dropped her gaze. "I am sorry for coming without being invited. I perceived the smell coming from your dwelling and I did not think before I walked over and I can leave if you want me to—"
"Shush, it's okay, you can sit down," Lin Wan said.
Liya sat down.
Lin Wan cut a portion of the cooked meat and held it out to Liya, which Liya took the meat with both hands, looked at it for a moment, then bit into it.
The sound she made was small and involuntary. She pressed her free hand over her mouth immediately, embarrassed. But her eyes had gone wide and bright and she took another bite before she had finished the first one.
Lin Wan watched her eat and felt something settle quietly in her chest.
She had been right. The body knew what it needed when you finally gave it the chance.
Wang had gone back to his spot against the far wall, watching the whole thing with no expression at all.
"How did you do this," Liya asked, between bites. "How did you make meat taste like this."
"Heat changes it," Lin Wan said simply. "It makes it safer to eat and easier to digest. Where I come from everyone eats this way."
Liya looked at her. "Where do you come from."
"I lost my memory," Lin Wan said simply.
It was the answer she had and also the answer that ended that line of questioning most efficiently, it wasn't like she was going to be strapped to a stone table and be tortured for information.
Liya accepted it and went back to eating.
When she finished she sat with her knees up and looked at the fire, the cautious wonder of someone who had been told their whole life that something was dangerous and was now sitting next to it and finding that it was just warm.
"The other females are going to want to know about this," Liya said quietly.
"You can tell them," Lin Wan said. "But for now let them wonder."
Liya looked at her with new eyes. Like she was putting Lin Wan into a different category than the one she had walked in with.
Before either of them could say anything else the atmosphere outside shifted. Footsteps. More than one set. Moving toward the cave with the deliberate pace of people who had made up their minds.
Wang straightened from the wall.
Liya scrambled to her feet.
Lin Wan stood, smoothed her clothing and stepped out through the entrance with Wang right behind her.
The tribe was gathered outside.
Not everyone but enough. A loose half circle on the open ground in front of the cave, standing at a distance that said we are here without saying we are threatening. Every face was pointed at Lin Wan and the cave behind her and the smell still drifting out into the evening air.
Lin Wan stood there and looked back at them steadily.
A male near the front stepped forward. Scarred jaw. Third warrior. Chen.
"The smell," Chen said, looking at Wang. "What is happening in your dwelling."
"Food," Wang said.
Chen looked at Lin Wan. "Your female made it."
"Yes," Wang said, in the tone that ended conversations.
The crowd murmured.
Strange.
Never smelled anything like that.
Is it safe.
Why does it smell like that.
Then suddenly the crowd parted in the middle.
Lin Wan had been expecting her. In all the story she read, there's always an enemy at this point, if the enemy would be a fleeting meeting or a long term enemy was left to the protagonist and the author to decide.
And so, Even before she saw her, she had felt her coming. And when she appeared moving through the gap with that particular grace of someone who knew every eye in the room was on her, Lin Wan knew immediately. This was her personal enemy. The mean eyes gave it away completely.
The female stopped in front of Lin Wan with a smile that was warm on the outside and empty underneath.
"I heard there was something interesting happening over here," she said pleasantly. Her eyes moved over Lin Wan's face, then over Liya standing in the entrance behind her. Something flickered in her expression when she saw Liya. Fast and gone, but Lin Wan caught it.
"My name is Mei Xiu," she said. "I wanted to see for myself what all the fuss was about."
"There is no fuss," Lin Wan said, smiling back. "Just having dinner."
Mei Xiu looked at the cave entrance, at the firelight flickering from inside, at the smell still drifting out into the evening air around them.
"How interesting," Mei Xiu said softly. "You have only been here one day and already things are different."
She said it like a compliment.
It was not a compliment.
"Thank you," Lin Wan replied
Mei Xiu held her gaze one beat too long, then smiled and turned and walked back through the crowd. The crowd folded around her and closed behind her like water.
Lin Wan watched her go.
Liya appeared at her shoulder. "She does not like you," Liya whispered.
"I know," Lin Wan said.
"She has never liked anyone who made the tribe look at them the way they are looking at you right now."
Lin Wan looked at the faces still watching her from the open ground. Curious. Uncertain. Trying to figure out what she was.
"What is your friend's name," Lin Wan said. "The thin one. Standing near the eastern wall when Wang brought me through earlier. Grey hide wrap. She was watching but did not come closer."
Liya blinked. "You noticed her."
"Of course," Lin Wan said.
"Her name is Susu. She is not leopard clan. She came with her mate two seasons ago. She has been sick on and off since she arrived." A pause. "She lost a cub last season."
Lin Wan looked toward the eastern wall of the settlement.
She thought about thin bodies and raw food and females who were never allowed to move. She thought about the way Liya had looked at the cooked meat like she had not known she was starving until the smell reached her.
She thought about Susu standing at the wall, watching and not coming closer.
She would come closer eventually. When she was ready.
Lin Wan went back inside.