I was walking in less than a week. Turns out that they bandaged my leg without giving it a look. Black etchings traced down from my waist to my collarbone, and across my left half, including down my left arm. My left eye was the other casualty. In contrast to my normally blue-green eye, the other was black. The entire ball was nonreflective black. Strangely, I could still see through it. Perhaps even better than my normal eye. Kalamay insisted that I keep them covered around most people, but never explained why.
After that week, they put me on menial chores around the small village between language classes. Simple "do this until it's done" stuff.
My routine fell into a simple pattern. Wake up before dawn. Go to one of the villagers' farms and help out until noon. Return to the hospital-church for lunch with Kalamay and Stephasha, who was her ward. Learn the language until dinner. Clean the common areas. Wind down and go to sleep at dark. It was barely a few days before the women of the town were giving me special attention. Or more specifically the single ones. There were a lot of them, due to a lack of men in the village.
Some would offer to help with the farm chores. Others would sit on a fence and look prettier each day. After a week, one of them asked my age. When I told them I was twenty, they pressed with questions I didn't understand, until they mimed a couple.
After that... um... "elegant" display, I told them I did not have a partner.
That was the wrong thing to say.
And I didn't realise that until dinner.
At dinner time, someone knocked at the front door. Kalamay was busy setting the meal, so I answered it.
One of the women I had talked to earlier that day was there, basket on her arm.
She offered it to me. "This is for you."
"Priestess Kalamay making food. You not need make."
"But I wanted to. Plus, my cooking is much better than that old hag's."
I didn't understand the last word, but I could tell it was an insult. "Kindness. I eat Kalamay's food today. Anything else?"
She shoved her basket in my hands. "You should eat my food instead. Bye, bye." she turned and ran off, leaving me at the door with a basket of food.
It was a different girl each time, but that repeated for two weeks. Others gave me papercrafts and knick-knacks. I refused them all, but they all somehow ended up at the hospital-church.
Finally, just after dark one day, Stephasha approached me. She was sixteen, which was culturally accepted to be adulthood around here.
She seemed nervous. "Hey, Argolex? Could we go somewhere and chat?"
"Yes," I replied, "you pick place?"
"Yeah. If you would come."
"Lead."
She led me around the side of the hospital-church. She started climbing a ladder that was not usually there.
"Safe climb at dark?" I asked, trying to will my sentence to make sense.
"I can still see fine. Can you?"
I took off my eye bandage. With my left eye, it was almost as though it were just before dusk. "Yes, now."
I climbed up after her. The ladder was quite stable, leaning against the building. Using it, we climbed onto the roof of the two-story building.
"You move ladder?" I asked.
"Celestia's gift is permanently on it, so it can be carried and set easily by anyone, even of my size."
She led me to the front of the building, overlooking the town of about a hundred sleeping people. She sat on the edge of the roof, and gestured for me to sit next to her. I did, our height difference leveling out with the slant of the roof.
"What talk?"
She shifted uncomfortably. "Do you... like any of the girls in the village?"
"Maybe. Not all."
"I think you know what they all want."
"You too." I noted.
She jumped. "No, of course not!"
I smiled a little. "You question say you want."
She sighed, looking at the stars and kicking the air. "Yeah. I do. But I'm just the stray orphan that Kalamay picked up. They all have families, which means inheritance. Future. I don't have that."
"Stop. Wait." I said. She waited. I had her wait about thirty seconds.
"You now future of you who say 'no future'. All have future. One time I think I have no future. And I walk. I walk long way and stop here. I in future now."
She stopped and thought for a long while. Finally she said, "I can't give you anything. I can't cook. I'm bad at crafts. I became an apprentice nurse because caring for people is all I can do."
I struggled to remember the right words. "They give, you talk. They fake, you real. They want, you care. They not change, I not pick them. You be you, I pick you when time good."
Tears began to leak from her eyes as she looked at me. I opened my arms to give her a hug. That, at least, was universal. She fell into my arms and sobbed onto my shoulder for several minutes.
When she had cried it out, I said, "It late. We talk here tomorrow?"
She nodded.
We climbed back down the ladder, and she returned it to its normal spot.
We walked in together, and parted ways at the second floor, where the bedrooms were.
"Be ready soon, please." she whispered.
"We will see." I replied.