Feeling a bit insecure, I hung a little back from Lonna while she addressed her family. "This is Wren. She swam out of the abyss in the lake and Kian decided to have her stay with us until the barter."
"She's warm." This came from a guy on the woman's left. He had dirty blond hair and light green eyes.
"She came from the abyss? What beast comes from the abyss?" The other guy has thick golden brown hair and bronze colored eyes.
"Let alone a warm blood." The woman said. "You are very mysterious. What kind of warm blood are you?"
"She hasn't said yet. I think she's a little uneasy. We're all trying to figure her out and she's in an unfamiliar territory. Who knows? Maybe our world is completely different from hers. I think she was sent by our goddess." Lonna smiled at me and her mother shrugged.
"Perhaps you're right, but if she was sent by our moon goddess, you'd think she'd descend from the sky."
"Perhaps it is another god or goddess that we know nothing of." This came from bronze eyes.
"Anyways, we're off to my place. Mother. Father. Fens." Lonna grabbed my arm and pulled me past her family.
"Which one was your father?" I asked.
"The one with the golden brown hair. His name is Nyk. My mother, Jezza. And then Fens. She had another mate, but he died in the great frost." Lonna looked sad.
"Are your cold seasons bad?" I asked, a bit concerned. Maybe people tend to die in the winter.
"Last Frost was. It snowed for days on end. It was dangerous to hunt or even go out. Normally, we sleep during most of the season and only wake to eat and relieve. But we didn't have enough food and Kip went out to find more food. He never came back. And when the frost ended, we saw that he had fallen down a great cliff. He was hunted and eaten by a snow beast."
"What's a snow beast?" I asked.
"They migrate with the frost. They feast on animals and us if they catch us out there. I've never seen one though. Some have said they're white as the snow and all you can see are glowing blue eyes when they're around. Those beasts are the reason why we normally stay in and eat stored food."
"I'm sorry about Kip." I said quietly.
"Yeah, he was the strongest of us. We suffered a great loss. He was also the greatest with us kids. He was more of a friend to me than my own father."
"Both my parents are useless. I managed to stay alive because of others that took pity on me. I stayed in school and worked hard as an escape from my own life."
"What is school?" Lonna asked.
"It's a place where people teach children the necessary skills and knowledge to make it out in the world."
"Wow. Sounds like a lot of parents in your world are useless. Everyone here learns that from their parents."
I giggled. "You don't even know the extent of it."
"There's more? I want to hear about it! And since you were raised by other people, I'll teach you the skills you need to survive here. All the ins and outs."
"Thanks Lonna." I smiled warmly at her and she waved a dismissive hand.
"Thank me by not dying. You're the most interesting person I've met so far and the only female that isn't obsessed with finding a mate and having babies."