Shassala 

 

Waking up in the morning and seeing the outlander already awake had been a bit of a shock. I had expected him to sleep for the better part of the day not be up and walking around at first light. If I had known that he would have been awake before me I wouldn’t have washed my clothes the night before and slept nude. But with the sweat and dirt from trekking up the mountain two days in a row they had needed to be washed pretty badly.  

 

Tallas and my mother would have been scandalized of course but I thought Neil would have been unconscious when I woke up. And it wasn’t like I would have let anything happen, and besides nothing did happen. He may have looked a little but so did I when I had put him down to bed last night. After that he gave me privacy and one of his shirts to use. Although the bottom clothes he had were useless for me so I just wrapped myself in the bedding that he had. 

 

Now that we had eaten the strange but tasty food, we sat companionably beside each other. At this point I wasn’t sure what we should do. I had come up here hoping to have an adventure and meet someone exotic but now that I was here I wasn’t sure what I should do next. As we sat he kept talking to me, showing me things and saying what they were called in his language, then having me say what they are in my own language before repeating those words back to me. 

 

It was fun if strange, I was not learning nearly as many words as he was. In just a short time he was starting to use short sentences. Just basic things but even going so far as to use words that I had taught him in a different context, or with other words to make new sentences. Watching him was somewhat amazing and a little intimidating. Were all Outlanders this fast with languages? 

 

“Clean, I clean. Go to the sacred pool. Come?” He said in slowly when just a few minutes ago he didn’t even know those words, it was incredible! 

 

“Yes, I’ll come. You go first, I need to get dressed.” I said gesturing to my clothes as I shooed him away. 

 

He looked at my clothes where he had hung them up this morning and looked at me before glancing down at my body before looking back up again. Really no matter the species men were all the same, did they really not know how obvious they were? 

 

He nodded his head, picked up the dishes that we had eaten with and walked towards the sacred pool. I got my clothes down and while they were still a little damp, they were much better than yesterday. I couldn’t move around with this blanket wrapped around me like this so I put the clothes on quickly, they could dry the rest of the way while I wore them. 

 

Placing the blanket back in the tent I closed the door looking at the zipper as Neil had called it. The metal work was incredible I couldn’t imagine how a craftsman could make something so small and intricate. Or why they would when almost any other way of closing a tent was just as good and easier to make. 

 

I was just about to join Neil when I saw he had once again left behind his spear. Really that man never learned. Picking it up I examined it and saw that it had been somewhat shoddily made, most other Lamia would probably not even call it a spear, just a sharpened stick. The tip was just whittled which would work on some monsters or animals but if he wanted to use it on any of the larger animals he would need to use some kind of a stone or other tip. I could make arrow heads, as could all Lamia, but a spear head was not something I had ever made before. We really only used arrows most of the time.  

 

Picking up the spear and carrying it with me I slithered out of Neils camp and up the stairs as he had called them to the sacred pool just in time to see him finish cleaning his dishes in the pool. Fortunately for Neil I wasn’t one of the more conservative Lamia, otherwise seeing him clean dishes in what my people considered to be one of our most sacred places may have made me angry. Instead I just smiled, after all just yesterday I had had a bath in it and washed my clothes. 

 

Neil looked up as I approached him and when he noticed the spear in my hand he at least got an embarrassed expression on his face. Chiding him I said “You have to be more careful; you can’t walk around without your weapons like that.” As I handed the weapon to him. 

 

He accepted it with a thank you and balanced his now clean dishes in one hand and carried the spear in the other. 

 

Gesturing for me to wait there he walked back to his camp leaving behind the pot, when he came back a few minutes later he was carrying that strange light black bag filled with potion ingredients and a strange container he used to carry water. I had left it near the clearing so it wasn’t too hard for him to find. 

 

Emptying the bag in front of me I noticed that these were all ingredients for a healing potion, in fact it was the same healing potion I had made for him just a few days ago. Giving him a flat stare I just said. “No. No more potions.” Miming drinking something I then mimed getting sick. “Mana sickness, too much.” 

 

Neil Looked at me and repeated “Mana sickness.” Mimed drinking and then being sick. 

 

“Yes, no more potions for at least 2 days.” I said holding up three fingers and pointing at the sun. 

 

“2 days no potions.” He said pointing at the sun with two fingers held up. 

 

“Yes.” I said nodding. 

 

Nodding he nonetheless gathered the ingredients and held them up to me. “Show me? Please?”  

 

Really his Lamia was getting better and better all the time. I wasn’t sure why he wanted me to show him, he obviously knew how to make a healing potion, but maybe this was different ingredients than he was used to? 

 

Deciding to humor him I showed him. Talking as I worked I showed him the simple healing potion that all Lamia potion makers knew. 

 

“First the peel the Moon Berry like this. You don’t need to use a knife unless it’s not ripe enough, this one is almost too ripe so we can just pull the skin off. Try not to lose the juice that’s actually the most important part. Next squish the Berry like this into the pot, it doesn’t really matter how you squish it but you have to try and make it as smooth as possible so take your time, and make sure you removed the seeds.” I said as I pulled them out and placed them on the ground. 

 

“If you had a mortar and pestle that would work a lot easier. No, that spoon is actually kind of useless for this.” I said as Neil tried to hand me a spoon. Instead I mimed using something to crush the Berry. With the way the spoon was designed trying to crush the Berry wouldn’t work, the spoon was just more likely to bend without crushing it. 

 

While it wasn’t ideal I just used my fingers to crush the Berry, for one potion it would be fine. “Next you should do the same with the Telerath Grass. It is important to keep as much of the liquid from the grass as possible as well as mix it with the Berry pulp so pulp it with the Berry as well and really pulp that well. Again a mortar and pestle would work better.” I said as I demonstrated everything. While Neil was starting at me intently as I worked I really wasn’t sure how much he was getting. He seemed to be paying close attention but every now and then he would get a far off look in his eyes and swipe at something in front of his face. No insects were bothering me, oh well better him than me. 

 

“Now the last part, the nectar of the Creeping Vine flower.” Picking up the delicate flower I showed Neil where in the flower the Nectar was. “Every flower is different of course, but if you know where to look it is never too hard to find.”  

 

Although he was still nodding along and asking simple questions I wondered not for the first time if he was actually learning anything. Oh well, he could already make some potions, I am sure he was gaining a little something from this. 

 

Scooping out the nectar with my long thin knife I showed the small drop to Neil before adding it to the potion. “Be careful to not get any of the flower itself.” I said gesturing to the flower before throwing it away. I was about to pick up another flower and repeat the process when Neil held out his hands. 

 

“Neil try? I get Nectar?” 

 

Handing him the flower and the small knife I watched as he turned the flower over in his hands before he managed to find the Nectar after a few turns. His hands shook more than they should have, probably a result of lingering mana sickness, but eventually he scooped it out showed it to me and added it to the pot. 

 

I handed him one more flower and watched as he repeated the process a little faster this time. As soon as he placed the nectar in the pot he beamed at me with excitement in a way I found infectious and my own smile soon joined his. 

 

Taking back the pot I stirred everything until it was mixed together in a smooth and somewhat chunky mixture. If we had a mortar and pestle or even a small rock I could have ground everything much finer which would have been a lot more effective.  

 

Now it was time for the final step adding the water.  

 

Looking at the sacred pool I realized my mistake, Neil had brought back everything except the pot so now I didn’t have a way to add water to the pot very easily. 

 

Looking at Neil I mimed getting water and said. “I need a cup, a cup.” 

 

He unhelpfully repeated “I need a cup, a cup.” Before running off and returning a few minutes later holding the metal cup. “Need a cup? 

 

“Yes, thank you.” I said taking the cup filling it and slowly pouring water into the pot and stirring it. The color should be a light blue green, add too much water however and I would need to add more Berries, Grass or even Nectar to even it out. 

 

Slowly pouring water and now using the spoon that Neil kept insistently handing to me to stir it wasn’t long before the potion was the desired color, smell and mostly the correct consistency. “Finished.” I said with a smile handing him the potion. 

 

Neil looked at it with awe on his face, he looked up at something and started swiping at the bug that must have still been bothering him. After he looked at me and said something I couldn’t catch in his own language, he sounded suitably impressed though.  

 

It really was an excellent potion if I did say so myself. 

 

After that Neil placed the pot back in his camp with a lid on top of the pot to keep anything from trying to get into it. He had wanted to use his strange water canteen to hold it but the potion was too thick for that and because he had nothing else that could hold the potion he was forced to hold it in the pot. 

 

Neil showed me several other plants that I think he wanted me to make into potions but with his only pot being used as storage we didn’t bother, although I only recognized one of the plants anyways. I wasn’t sure how to refine them into anything more useful either. It was after all only recently that I had been chosen to study potion making. 

 

When he picked up the seeds of the Moon Berry and asked. “Make potion? Useful?” 

 

I had the unfortunate experience of trying to explain to him using hand signals and simple words things like stomachache and diarrhea, though fortunately he learned those words quickly enough. 

 

After that I gathered all of the still usable plants, and held onto the Moon Berry seeds at Neils insistence and left them in the bag near the garden. It was really not safe to have magical plants near your camp, everyone knew that magic could attract animals or monsters, add in the overripe fruits and it would be asking for trouble to have that bag in his camp. 

 

It took some time to explain this to Neil but when he got it, he agreed and left the plants there himself. 

 

After that the two of us explored the top of the mountain. Neil carrying his pointy stick and I carrying my bow and arrows. 

 

It seemed that Neil hadn’t done a very thorough job of scouting the mountaintop every time we came to a new terrace as he called them, he looked at everything with new eyes as I did. Neil did have an excellent ability to find useful things though. He found several root vegetables, fruits and even some nuts that we planned to make into our dinner. Exploring with him was fun, he was excited as I was and not shy about showing his excitement. Most Lamia, especially men would try to be stoic and calm but Neil reveled in the adventure just as I did. 

 

The greatest finds were on the lowest part of the mountaintop. It looked like someone had tried to make it into a place to grow food. My tribe grew some things but we mostly preferred to hunt and gather our food, growing worked well some years, but other years crops would fail and people would starve. 

 

Here however there were great bounties of food on the lower terraces, many trees and bushes with fruit, vegetables and even nuts. It might not be enough for my tribe but for just Neil and myself we would be able to eat here for weeks before we would run out. 

 

After finishing searching the lower terraces I had wanted to enter the palace. Ever since I had seen it, I had wanted to explore its depths but when I made to enter it Neil held me back and said. “No. Dangerous, slimes. Tomorrow. Too dark now.” He said gesturing at the slowly setting sun. 

 

As he was still recovering from injuries from exploring that place and the slimes that had left those injuries I decided to listen to him.  “Tomorrow morning, we will go in and look.” I said pointing at were the sun would rise tomorrow morning and motioned for a sun coming up. 

 

With a deep breath he nodded and it was then that I realized he was scared. Twice now he had been attacked by monsters from there and once he had almost died from those monsters. It was good that he was willing to go in there again at all. 

 

With the sun moving towards the Wall of the Ancients as my people called the mountain range that separated us from the closest outlander city we settled back in his camp and began stoking the fire. Carefully we cooked the vegetables and despite not having much in the way of spices or even oil we were able to make a simple dinner out of everything. I of course contributed some herbs that I had found on the mountain and some jerky as well.  

 

Neil ended up cooking everything together and it actually tasted very good, like a spicy kind of meat, and the vegetables ended up being soft and filling. 

 

As the two of us sat side by side in front of the small fire in companionable silence I held myself as I found it cool with the sun going down. Neil seemed to have no such problem but he did notice my discomfort and he offered me a thick shirt to wear.  

 

Taking off my normal clothes I put the shirt on and had to stifle a laugh when he quickly turned around when I took my clothes off. Honestly it was kind of nice to know that despite his occasional glances he wasn’t going to leer at me any chance he got. 

 

Shortly later Neil changed his own clothes into something else. I had never met anyone before who had so many different clothes, he even had something just for sleeping! The fact that he would carry them on his back for who knows how long was impressive. 

 

The two of us sat beside each other on the ground. I looking at the fire and Neil staring straight up into the heavens. 

 

This hadn’t been the adventure I had hoped for when I came up here, I honestly wasn’t sure what I could expect. But this had been fun nonetheless, I had planned on going home tomorrow morning but would it really be a problem to stay one more night? Probably not I thought. 

 

After some time the two of us went into the tent. Neil had tried to give me his tent saying he would sleep outside, but I wasn’t about to kick someone out of their home. He had given me no reason to not trust him so far so we would share. Wearing his night clothes he lay down, and I decided to keep wearing the shirt he had given me. The two of us laying side by side I think neither of us were able to get to sleep very quickly, and I was very conscious of where my tail intertwined with his legs, the tent was simply too small to avoid it. If Neil minded he didn’t say so. 

 

After a little while of us laying down Neil turned to me and said something. I wasn’t sure what it was but assumed it was some variation of “Good night.” 

 

I responded with “Good night Neil.” 

 

After a moment he said, “Good night Shassala.” 

 

Feeling a little jealous at how quickly he was learning my language Neil quickly fell asleep his body no doubt still feeling the effects of the mana sickness. 

 

Before long I fell asleep as well, some small part of me regretting that neither of us had tried anything with the other. 

 

“Oh well, maybe tomorrow night.” I thought as I drifted to sleep.