Nimbus 2056 Part 20 Take 1

“Who was she?” Anastasia asked.

The precarious situation Anastasia found herself in, was in the warm arms of a grieving man. She knew just how dangerous he could be. Yet, she found comfort from the cold in Nuck Nuck’s embrace.

“She is my wife. I will be with her when I cross the great divide. Her father wouldn’t let her be my wife, until I proved my courage. I had to retrieve this.” Nuck Nuck said as he pulled a large knife like tooth from under his layers of pelts and fur.

“Whoa!” Anastasia exclaimed.

The tooth was the same length as her forearm.

“Many moons ago, I was young and fearless. I wanted Naia. I had to prove my courage. I tracked a tiger for many days. I found it’s lair, and pulled the tooth from it’s sleeping jaws. The tiger didn’t like that. We battled, and here I am. With this her father knew I would be brave enough to protect her. When I saw the tiger attack Stuckey, the great spirit guided me to you.” Nuck Nuck spoke.

“I am at war with the Tiger. I take from him, he takes from me. I crippled his mother, he took the mother of my children.”

“Oh my god, no! She was?” Anastasia gulped.

“For one moon, she did not bleed.” Nuck Nuck answered.

He started to sob. Or that is how Anastasia interpreted it. He was breaking back into grieving chants.

Nuck Nuck grew silent, and found his voice again. “The tiger takes. Did tiger give too?”

When she felt his embrace tighten around her, she knew his mourning would take another direction soon. Then the sun shown miraculously illuminating the savage timber landscape, and the lack of anything she knew. This fertile hostile place, cared not for one species, it was life colliding. It was rebirth. It was morning.

Forged in the crucible of this environment, Nuck Nuck had his share of scars upon the muscles of survival. Anastasia was pristine. Her hair pampered and conditioned in appearance regardless of the lack of showers. Her skin harbored no tears, no lesions of recovery, for she lived safely.

These two people of paradoxically opposite lives share one breath. Upon the rugged earth there was solace in being together for this moment. Each of them was from the fringes of their imagination.

Nuck Nuck never knew a woman could feel this way. His fingers traced her skin, and the smooth sensation tantalized his course finger tips. No man she remembered, could compare to breadth and width she was wrapped up in.

There were no soft edges to him. His body started rough calloused and abrasive at the peripheries, then culminated in a hunk of mass.

“What must we do?” She asked.

“We’ve lost so much.” Nuck Nuck focused back on the funeral.

“I know. I’ve watched.”

“Then you know, what must happen.” He answered.

She exhaled. Bit her lip. Closed her eyes.

If she could resist her feeble attempts would be futile. She was powerless and trusting him. Her body became weightless, and the divide between her skin and his vanished.

Suddenly a new sensation shook her to core. A guttural rumble scurried it’s way from her stomach, up her throat and out.

“OH GOD NO!”

In a flash she threw her body away from him. She ran to the nearest tree she propped herself against. Her abdomen clenched viciously. The ride was coming to an end. She retched over and lost the connection she ingested. A deluge of the poor diet flowed forth.

Nuck Nuck placed his hand upon her back. He felt warm, and comforting. She collapsed and he caught her. The world had gone black for Anastasia.

Slowly she started to let the daylight in. As she became aware the mindless banter of Fableton and Stuckey polluted her earlobes.

Her feet huddled under a fuzzy blanket. Her body resting in a crafted bed inside the Nimbus. An aroma of barbecue meat, lofted into her nostrils. She drank in the scent and followed it to the source.

“It’s done! You are overcooking it!” Fableton chided Stuckey.

“Bullshit! You want parasites!” Stuckey said as he twirled a hunk of flesh over the rebuilt fire.

“Oh hey, you hungry?” Stuckey asked when he saw Anastasia approaching.

“After last night, I can’t even think of eating.” She cuddled her stomach.

“BUT. That smells good! What is it?”

Fableton was busy cutting flesh from bone with his teeth then pointed to the large carcass across the camp. They had cut into the bear and helped themselves first, before the other scavengers of the valley caught the scent.

“Menoha!” Nuck Nuck said as he took some meat.

“Menoha Mahka” The elder said as he too grabbed some food.

“Menoha” The two women also answered.

It was the first time Anastasia had seen the tribe stop the wailing. All of them circled the fire, sat and chewed on the meal together.

The two worlds smashed into each other sat in calm silence sharing the feast.

Stuckey was the first to break the quiet.

“You ate the mushrooms didn’t you? That’s why you were sick this morning.” He said looking to Anastasia.

“Yes. I don’t know why I did it. You two buffoons made it look terrible.”

“You wanted to know. You wanted to know more than pain.” Stuckey answered.

“Know what?”

“Why we are here, and what to do?” Stuckey said.

“Well that’s what made me do it. I’ve lived my entire life knowing what to do, or which stars to follow. Nothing here prepared me to be without. Do you remember what they said?”

“For me it was something more physical. There were little words shared. He told me, about why he saved you from the Tiger. How he lost his wife. I have a feeling we will be okay.” Anastasia took her gaze from Stuckey, and focused on Nuck Nuck.

The two looked at each other, locked eyes and smiled.