Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 106646 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 533(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106646 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 533(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
It's a good feeling for someone who's always been an only child, cast aside and forgotten by parents who couldn't be bothered.
Because of the ongoing resonance and because everyone talks, A'tam and I tend to spend a lot of time by ourselves. We're together practically every minute of the day. If A'tam goes fishing, I join him, handling his nets and repairing them or just sitting atop a rock and talking while he casts them out.
It feels like I've got my best friend back, and there's no feeling quite like it.
He takes me hunting one day, and I'm not sure if it's to get away from everyone else in the tribe or because he truly feels the need to slog through knee-high snow, but I figure it's the former. Sometimes being in camp feels a little too noisy, a little too open, and we're still so fragile, him and I. I thought hunting with A'tam would be a pain in the ass, but I love it. Despite his normal impatient nature, he's a good teacher. He shows me how to look at tracks and tell which direction the game is going, and what it is. I can't sniff things out like he can, so he works with me on traps. I already know how to set them, but he helps me perfect them—finding the right location, tightening a knot here or there. And when the day gets long and I grow tired, he carries me on his back, and I whisper silly things in his ear. We laugh and joke all the way back to camp, and as we pass by R'jaal, he rolls his eyes at us.
Yeah, we're being silly and loud. I don't care.
I feel lighter than air. Happiness just floats out of me. It doesn't matter that we haven't solved the whole resonance problem. We'll get there. For now, I'm just enjoying A'tam's presence. I'm enjoying waking up in the morning to touches and cuddles and amazing sexy petting. I love our kisses and huddling under the furs at night in the hut by our cozy fire. I love…everything.
I don't think I've ever been so happy. Even back on Earth, I wasn't this content, this joyous. Here, though, I feel free.
Well…mostly free.
Two things still bother me.
One is Goliath and the fact that we've resonated, of course. That's a problem that still needs to get solved.
The other is my stupid fricking pottery.
Every night, I spend a few hours working on things. I have two more pots made, and A'tam made a pinch pot with a wobbly lip that I think is rather adorable. I've tried firing some of the ones I have ready, and it's not working. No matter what I do, I can't get the temperature right. It gets too hot, or not hot enough, and the pottery gets brittle and breaks into a million pieces the moment I touch it.
I should be used to that by now. I should be able to laugh off the fact that yet another batch has bitten the dust, and that hours of hard work are down the drain again. I can't, though. Each pot that doesn't fire correctly feels like a slap in the face. It makes me feel like I'm never going to succeed. That I'm always going to never quite pull my life together.
I'm sure some of my stress over the pots is hormone related, thanks to resonance, but it's just one frustration after another, and I'm ready to give up.
A week into happiness with A'tam, and I'm at my lowest with the pottery. He sits next to me in the small cave as I pick through shattered piece after shattered piece. Some of the pots crumble the moment I take them out of the fire. Some look great until they cool completely, and then snap in half. This one didn't even make it that far. There's no signs of my pots in the ashes, just sad pieces of broken ceramic. I tried making the pots thinner this time, hoping that would be the trick.
Turns out, no. There is no trick.
I just suck.
Stupid tears slide down my cheeks as I pick the pieces out of my fire pit. There's not a bit of it worth salvaging. "I think my process is fucked," I tell A'tam. "I should just give up."
"Are you crying over clay?" He brushes a tear off my face, his voice teasing. "It is dirt, my pretty mate. There is no reason to cry over dirt."
I manage a sniffly laugh. "Oh sure, you can say that. You're not the one that has failed twenty out of twenty times." I gesture at the wreckage of my latest batch of pots. "I have to start all over again. I have to sift more clay, prep it, make pots, dry them, and somehow figure out what I did wrong, somehow change it, and hope for the best. Again." I shake my head. "I'm just tired of failing all the time."