The jerky was dry and tough, but it didn't matter. I felt a warm glow inside. I closed my eyes, chewing, running my tongue over each bite of meat to bring out its flavor.
I opened my eyes again. The male was watching me closely. He seemed as curious about me as I was mystified by him.
I revised my age estimate upward: the coppery face fur and lack of grizzle around the chin must be because of the antelope's native heritage. Aside from the face, he looked physically mature — but only just. I guessed that the antelope was about eighteen, maybe nineteen at the most. I mentally riffled through what I learned in high-school biology, and decided this male was probably a steenbok.
My adrenaline began draining away and I felt tired. I sat on the ground and took another bite of meat. The ivy under me was wet, and I suddenly realized it was raining again, light but steady. I wasn't sure when it had started. Rain hardly registered on me anymore unless it was especially hard or inconvenient.
The steenbok sat down companionably beside me, still watching closely. He took off the floppy settlers' hat and I gasped. This was my first chance to look closely at his face, without the shade of the hat brim. I was stunned by how beautiful he was. The eyes, the high cheekbones, the full lips, the coppery-bronze facefur had already suggested "native" to me, but if all of the native prey on the island had looked the way this male did, there surely would be a lot more of them around today. His jet-black headfur was rough-cut and unkempt, but still flowed without obvious tangles. It reminded me of a black satin waterfall. His eyebrows... if asked to describe them, I would have said that many Hanging Boys adjusted their eyebrow line, just to make them look exactly the way this male's did naturally.
There must still be native families living here, that somehow didn't get absorbed into the settlers' culture. I frowned. That doesn't explain why the steenbok speaks our language. How did he learn it, if his people have stayed so well-hidden that the settlers haven't found them?
On the other hand, the conversation so far had not exactly been wide-ranging.
Swallowing the meat, I finally made a choice among the thousand questions springing through my mind like heated popcorn. "How... How did you make the dogboys go away?" Surely they couldn't have taken the steenbok to be one of their masters.
The steenbok frowned, looking confused. "The what?"
I blinked, thrown by the possibility that he knew even less about the island than I did. I pointed back in the way we had come. "Them. You know, 'rff rff.'" I imitated a dogboy's bark.
He grinned in sudden comprehension. "Oh!! Is that what they're called? Say it again."
I said, enunciating clearly, "Dogboys."
He repeated the word. "So... they're like boys?"
I struggled to get a feeling for the male's accent. Every vowel he used was shaded just a little away from the "ee" end and more toward the "oo" end, the last sentence coming out something like "Thay're loike buys". "They are boys," I told him, "Farmers did that to their arms and legs, but they're really young males just like us." I paused as he worked to process that, and came back to his question. "So why did they do what you said?"
"Oh." He smiled. "They like you if you have the leaves."
I was completely lost until he made a gesture to indicate the leather outfit he was wearing, while I was backtracking through my guess about his accent to determine that "leaves" was the word he'd used. It came to me suddenly — that was the word this male used for clothes! I nearly laughed. It did seem to make sense, somehow. Covering the body in that way might well seem like trees covering their branches with leaves. And another part of what the steenbok had said clicked into place — he was telling me that the dogboys discriminated based on clothing. They would give priority to their own master, but aside from that would treat anyone dressed in leather as a friend. And anybody naked and walking upright would be a slave, to be watched closely. Dogboys, like the farmers, had no expectation that a slave might cloud the issue by wearing clothes.
I recalled how delighted the steenbok had seemed to learn a new word, moments ago. I touched his leather outfit. "These are called 'clothes.' You're wearing clothes." Again, he repeated the word, flashing another happy smile. I noticed that he hadn't flinched away from my touch, which seemed a good thing overall.
Another thought struck me. I had no idea what the natives might wear these days, but this steenbok was wearing settlers' clothes, and I was positive no slaveowner would have given them to him. "Where did you get the clothes?"
"Oh." He nodded, looking pleased with himself as he explained, "I found them in a boss place. I watch the bosses to see when they leave their place empty, the place where they sleep..."
I didn't like interrupting, but he seemed so eager to learn. "Cabin. They sleep in their cabins."
"Cabins." Another grin. "I go in their cabins when they aren't there, and I take things I need. Like the clothes, food. I was going to do that again, now. And then I saw you and the dogboys."
I was getting better at translating his words, each time he spoke. And I noticed that each time he used a word I had taught him, he pronounced it just the way I did, without an accent. Or, well, in my accent.
The explanation of how he had come by the clothes and meat seemed straightforward enough, but it occurred to me that if that was how all of the natives got by, the settlers would have put a stop to the marauding long ago. Something still didn't seem right. "Where do you live? Where are your parents?"
The steenbok looked blank. "Parents?"
"Your father? Older people you live with?"
His frown turned to seeming comprehension at the last sentence. He shook his head. "The big boys went to serve bosses a long time ago."
I was puzzled for a moment, then my theory of his personal history took off in a completely new direction. Come on, that is really impossible. "You grew up with... the big boys?"
The steenbok nodded. "They took care of us for a long time, when we were littles. Then the bosses with... clothes took them away, and we were big boys then, and we got our own littles to take care of."
The steenbok had grown up in a pen at a breeding farm! It still was obvious he carried native genes in him — perhaps his mother, a breeder, had been a full-blooded native femme — but he was fully a member of the settlers' culture.
I squeezed my eyes shut. How in the hell... Okay, I thought, ask him that. "When the settlers came, later, when you were a big boy, and took the other big boys away... Why didn't they take you? How did you get away?"
"I ran." He laughed. "They always called me Runner. I guess I was always running around when I was a little. So when the bosses came — the settlers? — I did that."
I shook my head in disbelief. "They just let you run away?"
"They didn't mean to. But there was... kind of a thing happened. They opened up the big gate, like they did a long time before when they took the older big boys, and they had all of us start getting together. They were saying it was time to start serving them, and they started putting the shiny on us." He patted my ankle cuffs. My slave hardware was "the shiny" to this steenbok. He went on, "They were putting the shiny on Laugher, and then Leaf Eater, the little who always followed Laugher around, came running up crying and tried to stop them from taking Laugher. He didn't want Laugher to go. Laugher was telling Leaf Eater it was okay, we needed to serve the settlers for awhile and then they'd skin us. But Treefaller, one of the big boys, started crying too. He was like me, he didn't like that we had to serve predators before we could be fur. He slapped one of the settlers when they reached for him to put the shiny on him. The other settlers and some of the other boys tried to hold him and get him to quiet down. There were two... dogboys by the big gate, and they came up making that 'grrrrr' sound, like they were going to bite. And then nobody was watching the gate. So I just stepped back to it, real quiet, and when I got close enough I ran. Settlers were shouting, but I don't know if it was about me. I guess nobody saw me. Nobody chased me, anyway."
I was concentrating on following the steenbok's speech. Anyone from my own world would have been completely at sea, and not just because of the accent. You needed some pre-existing knowledge of how things worked on the island. Lucky I wrote that paper, I thought to myself — then remembered bitterly that the paper was what had got me trapped here on the island to begin with.
"How long ago was that?" I needed assurance that long term survival outside the system was possible here.
The steenbok shook his head, looking irritated. "It wasn't long ago. I did it."
I didn't think we'd be able to connect on the time issue. He might have no way of measuring lengths of time. I decided to move on. One thing he had said seemed to hint at his motivation. I said, "So you didn't think you should have to serve predators?"
"No!" He was suddenly vehement. "That never seemed right. When we were littles, the big boys told us all about how we are here to be fur, and we always liked that. We'd listen to their stories about the long-ago, when prey helped predators by providing fur for health and luck, and that really made us feel important." It seemed to me that those stories had been stretching the truth a little, but I was relieved that the prey on the island all learned what their ultimate purpose was. The steenbok went on, "Settlers need us to be healthy! But..." He frowned darkly. "The big boys would tell us how we needed to serve settlers first, before they'd let us be fur. And when I got bigger, I started thinking, that's just not right. If settlers need us for fur, they should treat us nicer! If they take us and make us start serving them, they're making us do things they could do themselves! That's not something we should have to do. We're here to be something they can't be!"
I sucked in my breath. Even with his limited vocabulary and experience with life, I didn't think any of history's classic speeches on prey rights had put the case as eloquently as this steenbok just had.
I realized I'd been so fascinated in learning his story I had overlooked the normal protocol of introductions. "So... you're called Runner?" When he smiled and nodded, I asked, "Do you have another name?"
He frowned. "Why would I need another name?"
I shook my head quickly. "You don't, I was just wondering. I'm Wynn."
Runner looked puzzled, and said slowly, "Wynn." After a long pause, he asked, "What does that mean?"
I started to say that names didn't mean anything where I came from, but a memory came back that I had forgotten. "Where I come from, it means 'friend.'"
Runner was still puzzled. "Then why don't they call you that?"
"There are a lot of things... different, where I come from. And I need to get back there. My..." It occurred to me that the word "brother" would be meaningless to Runner. "I was brought here and left here, and I didn't want to be here. I need to get back."
"Can't you go back the same way you came?"
I shook my head. "I came on..." He hesitated. "Have you seen the... big water? The water that goes on to the end?" I swept my hand forward to indicated the expanse of the ocean.
Runner nodded eagerly, and said proudly, "I've seen the whole world! One end of it is at the water, and the other is the high ground." He made an upsweeping gesture with his hand, indicating the mountains.
I shook my head. "Those aren't really the ends. I live on the other side of the water. I came her on a boat — that's like a lot of trees all tied together, and it rides on the water." I rushed past Runner's disbelieving look. "I can't make a boat myself. I have to go the other way, and find the people on the other side of the... high ground."
Despite the explanations, Runner's forehead was growing more wrinkled with skepticism by the second. Finally Runner shook his head. "There isn't anything past the end of the world."
I saw the trouble I might be running into. For as long as Runner could remember, he'd been confined to a small enclosure that served as his world. He had known there was an outside to the enclosure — food, and occasionally people, came in from outside. But, now on the loose in the larger world, there was a limit to how much larger a world Runner's mind could encompass. I knew how strongly people cling to beliefs that are important to them, and I knew I was going to encounter some resistance here. I already was.
Cautiously, I said, "Runner, you can see I know some things you didn't know, right?"
Equally cautiously, Runner nodded.
I went on, "That's because I've been in some places you haven't been. And I need you to help me get back." My crucial need for Runner was becoming clear in my mind as we talked. There was just no way I could cross the mountains by myself. Alone, I was an escaped slave. But accompanied by what appeared to be a predator, seeming to belong to him, to be his slave... "I need you to take me to the other side of the high ground..."
Runner shook his head quickly. "No! You're making a story! The high ground is the end! I don't want to go there and fall off!"
Exasperated, I said, "Runner, it's not like that! The other side looks just like this side, except there are more people there. And there are... places where the boats come. They don't come to this side, but they come there."
Runner gave me a caught-you look. "If the boats don't come here, how come you're here?"
I shook my head, foreseeing an explanation that stretched ocean-like to the horizon. "Runner, I have to go there." I decided I shouldn't show Runner how desperate my need for help was. "If you won't help me, I'll have to try to go myself."
Unexpectedly, Runner lunged toward me and threw his arms around me. "Wynn, don't go away! Please don't go!" I was stunned. Runner, his face pressed tightly against my chest, was crying. "Stay with me! We can be together here! You said you were a friend!"
I had underestimated how lonely Runner had been. How much Runner missed the companionship, the sharing of lives, the youngsters he'd always been surrounded by. I patted Runner's back, stroking his hair. "It's okay, it's okay."
For a moment, I considered whether to solicit a simpler type of help. Maybe Runner could just steal me some clothes. Then I could pose as a settler, instead of as Runner's slaveboy. I shook my head, then, at my own stupidity. Not a viable plan. Aside from the minor point of not being able to get the shorts on past the hobble chain, the biggest problem was that the clothing used on the island wouldn't cover up my slave hardware. I could never wear clothes here, unless I could get rid of the metal first. Clothes wouldn't accomplish anything except to make my punishment worse when I was caught.
I sighed and continued stroking Runner's hair.
Runner grew quiet eventually, still holding me. It felt nice to have Runner in my arms. I realized that I had underestimated my own loneliness as much as I had Runner's. After nearly a week lacking in intelligent contact, of constant fear of what any such contact would lead to, I now felt a space inside me, that I hadn't realized was empty, filling with warmth inside me.
I jumped slightly as Runner reached down to touch my bellyfur. He's used to being around males he's known for years, I reminded myself. Close physical contact is no big deal.
Back in puzzled mode again, Runner murmured, "Why is your hair so short down there?"
I smiled. I'm foreign to him in more ways than I'd realized. I really hadn't given any thought to my close-trimmed sheath. "Where I come from, sometimes boys keep it short. Some like it that way. I like how it feels" Go ahead, Wynn, I told myself, laughing internally, try explaining about laser treatments.
"Me too."
I was starting to feel a tingle between my legs at the unexpected intimacy, but Runner moved on to another, less personal question. "What's this for?" He was patting the vine running between my legs.
"That holds up the chain when I walk." I lifted the chain momentarily, and Runner absorbed yet another new word. "The settlers put traps under some of the trees. Those are things to catch slaves who run away. It catches their chains and holds them so the slaveowners can come get them. If I don't let the chain drag on the ground, the traps can't get me."
Runner gasped. "Those things that go 'kkkhhh'..." he imitated the clicking of the rods springing closed, "...when you step on them? I stepped on some of those. I never knew what they were for."
I nodded. "They can't catch you either. You don't have a chain."
My mind began to see a new strategy. It was a mistake to try to impress Runner with how strongly I feel about getting home. It's my need, not his, and I can't make him feel it. But if I can make the mainland sound more desirable to him, make it into a place he'd really want to go... "You were talking about how prey shouldn't have to serve predators..."
"Prey?"
I smiled, wishing I'd thought to bring along a magical pill that would instantly teach Runner all the new words he needed to know. "Prey are animals that are hunted. Predators hunt prey. Not any more, at last not on the mainland, but the animals we grew from" I went on, "Anyway, where I live, most people think the way you do. More and more all the time. Prey are not here just to serve predators, while we wait to be fur. We can do so much more than that. Each person has his own place to fill in the world, besides becoming fur. Each person has a... thing he can be, and he can choose what it is. Some prey... well, have you ever been sick sometimes? You or the other boys?"
Runner nodded, his ear still pressed against my chest.
"Well, where I live, prey can be doctors, who try to make sick people feel better. Or they can be teachers, who take a long time to learn a lot of things and then pass them on so other people can know them and understand them."
Runner looked up at me. "You're a teacher, aren't you, Wynn?"
I smiled. "That's one of the things I am. But there's more things people can be. They can be lawyers, and bring people together who are arguing and help them find a way to stop." I was glad nobody from home was present to take exception to that characterization. It's true though, I told myself, as far as it goes. And anybody should get a good word put in for them now and then, even lawyers.
I was running out of professions. Most jobs would be incomprehensible to Runner. I wasn't even sure I could explain what I did in a way Runner could understand. "And so many more things. Prey can be what they want to be, what they feel inside them. And they can even serve predators if they want to. Sometimes they do. I know a very good person who wanted to do exactly that. For him, that's the place where he wanted to be." I thought of Maxwell.
Runner sat up, an excited look on his face. "I see what you're saying! Wynn, I know what my place is!" Seconds later my hopes crashed and burned. "And I'm in my place! Living here, doing what I do... this is my place, Wynn! I never thought about it that way before!"
I opened my mouth, grasping fruitlessly for some kind of response. "Ummmm..."
Runner got up on his knees facing me. "Stay here with me, Wynn! This can be the place for both of us. You can teacher me things, and I can show you how to get things you need." He reached forward and grasped both of my hands tightly in his own. "Tell me you won't leave me, Wynn. Say you won't leave!" He was starting to cry again.
I said softly, "I won't leave you, Runner, I promise I won't leave you." It came out as words meant simply to calm the steenbok, but I suddenly realized that this was a promise I would have to keep. I was blocked by the mountains, hobbled by the chain. Runner had already saved me once, and I would need him again. The minute I left him, my clock would start ticking again toward captivity.
Runner's emotional balance had been restored the moment I'd promised loyalty. I watched as Runner stood and surveyed the area, hands on hips. "It's starting to get dark. We need to find something to eat. I still have some meat, but I want to save that until I can get some more." He was turning slowly. "Do you see any fruit from here?"
I looked around, pointed. "I'm not seeing any fruit trees, but there are lots of nuts."
Runner gave me the blank look I was growing used to. "Nuts?"
I walked over and picked up the nearest. "These."
Runner snorted and shook his head. "I tried those once. They're too hard. My teeth hurt after I bit one."
"No, inside." If Runner had never seen a nutshell before his escape, it wasn't surprising that he hadn't discovered their food value. "Watch." I found a nice large stone, and shattered the shell with a couple of hard hits. Peeling away the remnants, I held out the nut to Runner.
Runner's eyes went wide. "Those were always in our food!!" He scooped it out of my hand and palmed it into his mouth, chewing happily and swallowing. He swept his hand to indicate the ground around him. "Are those inside all the rocks?"
I picked up another shell. "The ones that look like this. That's a nut you're eating, and they come inside shells. These are the shells, all around here."
Runner laughed. "Okay, let's stay here tonight. Let me get my..." He searched his memory for the word. "...my clothes off, and then we can look for some more."
Instantly he peeled his moccasins off, setting them beside his hat. He undid the buttons on his vest. Runner muttered something he must have thought a thousand times before, judging from the absence of recently-learned vocabulary: "I don't know why they want to have leaves on them all the time." I smiled at the irony: while I'd struggled to deal with the vulnerability of being naked all the time, Runner was suffering the discomfort of wearing clothes for the first time in his life. And Runner and I had no way to trade places relative to clothing. Runner needed to pass as a settler for his safety. And as long as I had the slave hardware, putting clothing on wouldn't help me, even assuming I could somehow get the shorts on.
Runner rubbed his horns as if the floppy hat made them itch. He smiled. "I saw the settlers don't have bumps."
"Uh-huh," I responded vaguely. Runner slid the shorts down and added them to the pile. Naked now, he walked toward me and bent to help me finish gathering nuts. Runner's body was trim and athletic, comparable with any Hanging Boy's. His legs were strong — obviously he'd spent his life living up to his name — and his shoulders surprisingly broad.
Despite the lack of access to grooming equipment, Runner would attract awed attention from any anthro in my world. His dark fur was just dense enough, and lay smooth and even all over in spite of never being trimmed. His legs were covered with a soft fur that invited stroking. And his cock! A little bit big even for his height, and perfectly shaped. I longed to wrap my mouth around it, but I didn't want to start sex play without some sort of invitation from him. If I ever get home and he comes with me, I'm not sure I'd want to change anything about him. He is such a perfect example of what a one hundred percent natural anthro can be.
Runner had already gathered a dozen shells together. "Do I just smack them with that?" He pointed at the stone.
Speechless, I nodded.
I was developing an eye for relatively comfortable spots to sleep at night. In the fading light I spotted a fairly flat space, free of rocks, on a small rise of ground that should be immune to flooding. I knelt and patted the ground, feeling for traps. Once I was sure there wasn't one, I looked up at Runner. "Is this okay?" Runner smiled and nodded in answer.
I sat and untied the vines around my waist and coiled them up on the ground nearby. I stretched out on my left side, curling up and wriggling to find the best spot. Runner dropped down in front of my eyes, also on his left side, his head at my chest level, and I thought for a moment Runner wanted to sleep with our heads on each other's cocks, as I had often done with Maverick and my other roommates. But Runner did not move any farther down my body from where he was. He wriggled closer, and pulled my left arm toward him, resting his head on my upper arm, and moving his own arm to support my head. When Runner moved still closer and laid his lips on my right nipple, I twitched in startlement.
Runner looked at me, and drew his head back, away from my's nipple. "What's wrong?"
"Oh... Nothing. Sorry." Runner seemed so matter-of-fact about it, and I understood that this was how Runner was used to sleeping. Always. Until his escape. "Your... lips were a little cool."
Runner smiled once more, said softly, "Sorry," and let his lips surround my nipple once more.
Runner's forearm was behind my head, and gently nudged me closer. Cautiously, hoping I wasn't misunderstanding, I put my mouth on Runner's nipple, completing the symmetry.
A feeling of warmth and calm spread through my body. I had often kissed Maverick's nipples, and vice versa, but I had never used this as a sleep-for-the-night position with any of my friends — not even Larry, who loved variety above all. I saw I'd been missing something good all this time. The softness, the comfort...
I could only try to imagine what Runner must be feeling. How much Runner must have missed this.
The light faded and was gone. In the darkness, with no sounds other than the constant chirping of the crickets, I was left with the senses of touch, taste, smell.
Runner's chest smelled pleasantly of leather, the honored remnant of the skin that had covered an unknown prey anthro for a lifetime. Even better, it tasted of rainwater; that reminded me of that first drink I'd had on the island, a treasured memory of intolerable thirst quenched.
I felt Runner's mouth on my nipple, a light, constant caress of soft lips. There was sometimes a light brush of tongue, when Runner swallowed.
Behind the host of pleasant sensations, I fretted. A small voice inside me was telling me to avoid too much intimacy with Runner. There might well come a time, perhaps in the near future, when an opportunity to escape the island would force me to leave Runner behind. I had promised Runner I wouldn't do that, but the promise to return to the Academy and to my mission in life took priority. And if circumstances turned out to allow me to take Runner with me, I wasn't sure Runner would even want to leave. As Runner himself had excitedly said, this was his place. Whether a separation from Runner was forced on me, or resulted from Runner's own choice, it would be hard to leave behind someone I already owed so much to: I would be the permanent property of a local farmer right now, if Runner hadn't saved me.
As difficult as it was going to be to leave Runner, I couldn't afford to make it still harder by developing a close physical connection with him. As the much maligned saying went, Can't We Just Be Friends?
Groaning inside, I realized it was already too late. The connection was made. Even now I couldn't make myself pull away from Runner, break the connection. It felt way, way too good; I was too starved for personal closeness.
I left my mouth loosely around Runner's nipple as sleep stole over me.