Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 119764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
I head outside, the dawn misty and muggy from yesterday’s brief rain shower. Murr’s golden skin gleams like a treasure pile of coins, startlingly beautiful, and I resist the urge to reach out and stroke him to see what it feels like. He’s got a dozen cats curled around him asleep, one draped over his thick tail.
The sight of the huge dragon should make me nervous, but the tabby stretched over his tail is the picture of contentment, and it’s hard to be anxious about a creature covered in cats. Murr opens one eye and looks at me, then yawns and carefully stretches one leg out, mindful of the cats.
“Thank you,” I tell him. “I know you’re guarding us. I appreciate it more than you realize.”
He just blinks at me, and I wonder if he caught any of that. Is his understanding of our language any different in this form compared to his human one? I don’t know, and I don’t have a way to ask.
But I do know he wants more of our language, and that’s one thing I can do for him. So while Rabbit is sleeping late, I start building a fire in our firepit. I head inside the store, to the children’s section, and find a picture book. One is just zoo animals, which doesn’t suit my needs, but another has pictures of common things like cars and trees, and I bring that one with me.
I poke at the fire, checking on it, and then put some of the long strips of venison on the spit. To think I spent so much time searching for smoking supplies when a quick read of a book told me that I could smoke the meat by cutting it into strips and roasting it over the fire. Figures. I season the meat and add some crunchy leaves to the coals to make things good and smoky, and then head back to Murr’s side. I sit down in front of him, and open the book.
The first few pages of “A” words aren’t all that useful. I don’t know that Murr’s going to care about apples or ants or angels. I flip ahead and pause when I see something useful. Showing him the book, I tap the picture of the cartoonish car. “Car.”
A moment later, I’m no longer talking to a massive dragon, but a golden man. He scoops up the tabby that was unceremoniously dumped on the ground and carries it with him to my side. Murr sits across from me, folding his legs in the criss-cross-applesauce way I was taught in grade school, and puts the cat in his lap. He strokes its ears as he studies the picture, then my face. “Cah?”
“Close. Carrrr.” I roll the R and then point at a broken-down SUV a short distance away. “Car.”
He blinks, and I can tell he’s not grasping it. I flip to the next page and show him the cartoon printed there. “Cat.” I tap the leg of the cat settling into his lap. “Cat.”
Murr frowns and takes the book from my hands. He brings it to his face and squints at the picture hard, then the cat in his lap. I can practically see the lightbulb go off over his head. He points at the picture. “Cat?”
CHAPTER 19
MURR
It is a book of glyphs. How fascinating. My clever Dakotah is trying to teach me more of her words by showing me some of the stylized glyphs of her people. I have vague memories of something like that from my home, but not nearly as colorful or foolish-looking as these. She seems happy with them, and points things out and pronounces the sounds so I can learn them, too.
The little creatures that I have adopted are cats. The sound is a small, hard one. Another similar sound are the cars, which are the strange metal squares I have found littered everywhere in this world. I’m not sure what they do, but she finds it important I learn this word.
She flips through the leaves of the book as I watch, frowning when she comes across certain things. After she frowns at another page, I lean over to see it for myself. It is a round object with white and black coloring.
“Izza sokkerball,” she says in that strange, babbling way of hers. “Prolly dunneeddat.”
“Dat?” I repeat, not sure what she is showing me.
Dakotah shakes her head again, flipping through more of the rustling leaves that are bound together. She keeps passing the glyphs and deciding against them, which frustrates me. I want to learn all of her words. Why are we not teaching them? She pauses on another, putting a hand over her chest. “Hart.”
The glyph this time is a human with their insides flayed open, displaying the tasty organs inside. “Meat.”
“Hart,” she says again, and thump-thumps on her chest to emphasize the motion. Ah. The name of a specific meat, then.