Home. She was finally home. At the village she had left behind all those decades ago as a little girl.
There hadn’t been much left. At some point, probably during last stretches of the War the place had been demolished. Destroyed. She didn’t even want to know what had happened to people who had lived in there. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the small patch of land she could call her own, and small house built from debris and huge slabs of stones she had found from scattered ruins with Logan.
She glanced from the window. Sight made her forget momentarily the task at hand, and she just stood there, staring at the small figure little further in the field surrounding the house. Logan and two camels. Animals were strapped in front of an irrigation trolley Logan had made. He was steering them back and forth over light green growth of crop on the dry land. She could practically see greedy sun drinking off droplets of water sprinkling from the trolley before they even hit the land, but she knew Logan would make it work. He had made it work during previous winter; he’d made it work now. He was probably more stubborn than the camels he was steering. For the previous summer he had been planning some other way to keep the field watered, but every plan up until now had had some serious flaw. Well they had was too deep and water level too low to construct any kind of working irrigation channel. He still remembered rain birds. Mechanical devices that were attached to one end of a hose. Other end of that hose was attached to some sort of pump that would pull the water up and push it forward, out through the water bird that would spread it over wide area. He had tinkered for few weeks now, designing and building different birds, but they were missing the pump and a hose. He was quite sure that he could find both of the missing items from a settlement, but to get there would take two weeks. And right now they didn’t have a month to squander. Maybe after harvest, but not before.
She sighed and leaned her elbows against the windowsill, lowering her chin to her palms and let her gaze rest on him. The man she had first seen when she was just a child. She still carried the marks from their first meeting. They didn’t seem to bother Logan. On the contrary, those flawed spots on her tanned skin were usually the first he sought out at night when they lay on their bed. Fingers brushing over them, lips raining feather-light kisses over every white patch, until she couldn’t take it anymore, and she had to remind him how much she liked when he touched and kissed other parts of her.
She still sometimes went rigid and started trembling under his touch, but those times were few and far apart. When it happened, he usually left her alone and spent the night out, grooming camels and fixing things that needed fixing, or just generally wandering around. She was grateful for that. When memories came, she didn’t want him anywhere near her. She didn’t want to spoil this new image of Logan with the tainted leftovers from the beast at the Breeding Center.
She shrugged out of her thoughts when she noticed that the small spot on the furthest corner of the field had turned around and grown considerably larger. Logan was coming home. Hungry as a wolf. And here she stood, daydreaming, when she was supposed to prepare a meal for them.
Rice was cooked, leftovers from the previous day. She took out a large pan she had found from the ruins when they had first arrived here two years ago. It had probably belonged to the kitchen in the tavern. It was a huge, blackened, round slab of metal. Logan had spent several weeks building a fireplace big and sturdy enough to house it.
She plunked a knob of butter to the pan and raised it to the fireplace. Heat from the glowing coals heated the pan quickly, and made the butter melt and crackle. Next she threw in meat. Neatly sliced pieces, fresh from a rabbit Logan had caught few days ago. Waited until it was cooked and then add the rice.
“Hmmm… Something smells good…” She nearly dropped the bowls she was holding. She hated the fact that it was relatively easy for Logan to sneak up on her. For some reason super senses she had gotten from him refused to work properly when he was around.
She could feel Logan leaning against her back and his hands came around her, swooping down and catching the bowl before it fell and shattered to pieces. He reached to put it on the table, but didn’t let go of her. Instead he grabbed her even firmer against him and buried his face to the mass of brown, silky hair that flowed down her shoulders, and inhaled deeply.
“Smells good enough to eat…” He purred. Marie giggled.
“It’s the dinner, you big lug! And it won’t smell edible for long if you don’t let go of me and let me stir it before it burns!”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Hello. Got back on track with this one. Let's see how far I get.