Moth Ch. 022

Lei nodded, searching for signs of fear or disgust and finding none.

"He is an abomination?" asked Hinea.

Lei narrowed her eyes, and spat out a mouthful of cake.

"I don't like that word," she said, angrily. Then averted her eyes, silently chiding herself for losing her temper. She needed to establish good relations with these people.

"Around here," said Baltin, sternly, "abomination means special. We would prefer if you remember that."

The statement took Lei with as much surprise as a big, wet, snowball in a summer night.

"Don't be so harsh on our guest, Baltin," said Hinea to Baltin, and to Lei she said, "Don't mind him. He gets like that sometimes. We dissolved our last village council some years back and put him in charge of everything. Sometimes it gets to his head. How old is your spider friend?"

Lei blinked, at the sudden topic changes, and stuffed a big cookie in her mouth to buy time.

"Look, mum," said one of the small children, pointing at Lei. Then the little one tested how much of her own cookie she could cram into her mouth at once.

"You're not a moth, darling," said a woman, probably the child's mother, and pulled the cookie from the child's mouth. "Smaller bites."

"But she..." insisted the child pointing at Lei.

"Lei is a moth," explained the woman. "You are a beetle. If you try to do what she does you might choke."

Lei chewed and swallowed.

"I never asked Black how old he is," said Lei. "I think he is a few years older than I am."

"Just a few?" asked Hinea, a strange hope in her voice.

For a moment the thought that the woman hoped to seduce Black for the sake of his silk, struck Lei, but then she pushed it away. No matter how strangely open-minded these beetles seemed to be about abominations, the thought was just too silly.

"I think so," said Lei.

"Don't get too far ahead of yourself, Hinea," said Baltin, shaking his head.

"There's nothing wrong with just having thoughts," said Hinea and looked around. "Where is she anyway?"

"Leave her be," said Baltin. "She will come out if she wants to."

"We have a little abomination of our own," said Hinea to Lei. "Maybe in some years, your friend and..."

"Black is mine," blurted Lei.

Her words were almost drowned by Baltin's stern:

"That's enough, Hinea."

But only almost.

Copyright of Nanna Marker 2010.

Lei nervously looked around, for signs of shock and disgust. She did see some shocked faces, before turning her eyes back to Hinea.

"She can't have him."

"What a pity," said Hinea and shrugged. "Ah well, it was too perfect to be true."

"You have come to the right place," said Baltin, his voice solemn, in a sterner tone he added. "The two of you will get no trouble with us for your choice of mate."

Lei couldn't quite believe her ears, and scooped in two spoonfuls of cake not to have to say anything.

"Maybe one of their children will be..." began Hinea, sounding as if she had had another thought.

"That's enough, Hinea," said a chorus of at least three beetles, including Baltin, and Hinea went quiet, a sour look on her face.

"Hinea has a bigger mouth than you do," said Baltin with an apologetic shrug. "Sadly she doesn't stuff it with cake."

Lei swallowed.

"We were worried about how you would react," she said, shaken to the core that everything had gone so unexpectedly easily. Somewhere inside she had a gnawing feeling that something horrible had to happen to make up for it.

"Of course you were," said Hinea and put an arm around Lei's shoulders. "There are too many nasty people in the world."

Lei nodded and forced back tears.

"Have some more cake," suggested Hinea.

Lei scooped in cake.

"There's plenty more where that come from," said Hinea, stating the obvious.

"Is your mate really an abomination?" asked a tiny voice from behind Lei.

Lei turned as much as she could without knocking down the plate of cookies, and saw a girl, not a day past her tenth year.

The child was holding an oversized blanket tightly around herself, but even just looking at her face, it was obvious that she wasn't a beetle.

The girl had natural head-armour. It started halfway down her forehead, and spread backward from there in a triangular form. On each her cheekbones she had a small patch of natural armour. Her eyes were green and had whites in them like a moth did; her skin was light brown; and her bodyarmour was dark brown, in some places almost black. On top of all that, the shape of her face was delicate, feminine, and heartbreakingly beautiful.

Lei swallowed. Somehow the chewed cake managed to squeeze past the lump in her throat.

"You have the most beautiful face I have ever seen," she told the little girl.

The girl hiccupped, spun around, and ran out of sight into the big hall. Lei heard another hiccup and then there were no more signs of the child.

"I didn't mean to upset her," said Lei, gazing after the girl. She longed to go find the child and give her a hug, but feared that might upset her further.

"Rebekka has had it hard," said Baltin. "There are too many nasty people in the world."

*

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