#sshasshluv

But why tell Noa about allowing something you had no slightest idea about? Everything you knew about the part of life, that called "sex" (you don't like that terse, stingy word — but there, where you'd absorbed the worst of human behavior for years, it was word most often used) was your subjective, reprehensible opinion. Having spent vast majority of your past existence amidst coercion, you were convinced — that part of life was one of the most subtle forms of humiliation, there, amid the scream-absorbing rust, the rot and blackness of the dungeon compartments.

There, in a prison forged from metal and all the existed sins, men amused themselves through that part of life — and women could only hope to gain favor after using by them. To avoid being beaten with belt buckles or anything heavier, women sometimes knelt down and pulled down the pants of those bastards themselves. They pleasured them with their mouths. They undressed themselves, placed their hands on their boobs, lower. Smacking, osculating, slurping... You saw it, you heard it. And more than once.

Did women there do this, beyond any guarantee of safety, for their own satisfaction? Unlikely.

And you know nothing about how different everything related to sex is here, among the apes. In the place, that has become your home. It's downright terrifying you.

Why then, right now, are you wondering if this side of life might cause not pain, not suffering, not shame, but pleasure?..

Oh no. No, no... Not at all what you should be thinking about.

No, no, no. It not at all what you might think about in september. But it something, that engulfs november in the flames of an unexpected forest fire.

Breath in-breath out-breath in, breath in-breath out-breath in. Breath in-breath out...

Breathing, while doused with a bucket of utterly disorienting, chilling to insides thoughts, seems an impossible task.

Your blood parents conceived you in love. Your foster parents raised you in love. Noa's parents, you're sure, surrounded him with the same unconditional love, that you so inconsolably grieve.

In the clan, the gaze of almost every couple is filled with an undisguised radiant love.

Love, and nothing else but love, draws a sparkle in the eyes. That sparkle you saw in the faces — in contrast to the disparate darkness of existence, —is unchanging. So, here and there, have existed, exist, and will continue to exist, unions in which sexual intercourse signifies not discomfort, anger, and regret, but... Sensual delight?..

When Noa touches scar on your shoulder, a shiver and a fever clash inside you. It must be the cold, what's bothering you, that's all...

Noa's touch is familiar. As always, it's sharp, yet careful, questioning. A tender?..

Damn, damn, damn! The word "tenderness" after everything that happened day before and many months before, feels like a myth, turned into reality. And you shouldn't think about, what exactly Noa is going to do after that touch.

But you think about every possible development of could happen next scenarios.

About that, how Noa could flip you over and take you like an animal, without looking you in the eye.

About that, how Noa could lean over you and squeeze your thighs until they crack, stealing your innocence and all your strength.

About that, how Noa could lean toward you for kiss that wasn't happened in wedding night, leaving bleeding bite marks on your lips.

And also about that Noa, as he promised, might never fulfill any of the fantasies blazing in his pupils.

Until you want him to.

In a mere handful of seconds having imagined everything that could happen, frozen with horror and resurrected by glimmer of confidence that Noa's actions would at least be acceptable — you nevertheless allow his touch.

Be that as it may, you didn't become husband and wife to keep distance. It was bound to happen someday. But...

In this heated, utterly intimate atmosphere, nothing forbidden happens between you. None of those thoughts, that race like herd through your head the moment Noa touches the corner of your mouth. None of those assumptions, that scared you to death just recently. None of those possibilities, that now don't frighten you in the least.

Silence has separated you so often and so irreconcilably, that now it's not so easy to grasp trustworthiness of silence. Lying so close, trusting each other with vulnerability. Looking so piercingly, wordlessly talk to each other about inmost. About something, that even now can’t say out loud, without vulgarizing the sprouts of awakening desire.

Before, when you fell asleep, you turned away from Master of Birds — exploring his features later, when the nightmare-inducing insomnia drove you to the point of wanting to end your life. He would draw his eyebrows together to bridge of nose — not nearly as distinct a human's, but no less distinctive, — mumble something unintelligible, sometimes growling, sometimes smiling contentedly. If the night was scraping, cold, you would lie a little closer. This always made his sleeping smile widen. But when Noa woke, you were either already gone or sitting at the foot of the bed, avoiding the bright green of his eyes. So he wouldn't see your timid smile.

You didn't know then, that your most painful fear would be the risk of losing him.

Now you lose yourself in his eyes, as if in the endless expanse of a forest. Now he drowns in your eyes, as if in a bottomless abyss of a sea.

Now, it seems, time has stood still for the two of you and the shimmering through rain moonlit shroud.

Nothing happens between you, except Noa's overly soft gaze, which makes you unable to resist — and you squeeze his hand, soothing scar on your face, in your hand.

Nothing happens between you. Except you, pressing Noa's palm to your heart too tenderly. Except Noa, stroking your hair with his other hand. Nothing happens between you — except what you won't talk about tomorrow, so as not to ruin the magic of what just happened.

Noa kisses the curve of your forehead, inhaling your scent chastely, defying the dictates of nature, won't doing nothing more...

You kiss the back of Noa's hand, weightlessly, fearfully, still fearfully... But slowly.

This isn't hasty foolishness, not a whim. It's something else. Something, over which you have no control — and something, you don't want to suppress. Something as natural, as the relentless flash of illumination that follows every lightning strike.

Perhaps, it's more like a demand for love. But you don't know enough about love to judge.

And how can you demand love from Noa, who confesses his feelings to you, figuratively, every single day?.. You certainly won't use him to feel what you lack, to the point of howling emptiness in your heart. Your husband deserves the kind of love that worships and exalts. Flawless love. A different kind of love. Looking at him, you know only one thing — you can't lose him. But this isn't love at all. It's simply gratitude and affection. You are tied to Noa, just as he is tied to you, by invisible ropes woven with countless knots. You tied the knots yourselves, so that no evil machinations could untie them. But these aren't the butterflies fluttering in your stomach, that foretell love.

It's unlikely, that the two of you know what love is in its true form.

But Noa's lips move unhindered from your forehead to your hairline, and his hand rests on your cheek again... And you let your lips linger on Noa's palm as he freezes, unsure of how to react... It all feels right now.

Whatever you name it.

Noa isn't the only one stunned — you're far more stunned. Nor can't think about the significance of those kisses, or pretend it's not happening.

Something's happening.

Even if, yet, nothing's happened.

"You're the most beautiful phenomen... I've ever seen. Of everything... I know. But... Y/N... You can't say, you're not afraid of anything right now... Even if you're not afraid of me"

You grasp Noa's hand with both of your hands, holding it where rhythm of your heartbeat outpaces the thunder. It's impossible to stop the frantic pounding in your chest. A new trap. You want to cry, but you smile, looking up at the ceiling lined with intertwined branches. Raindrops outside seem to coax from you a confession you're unsure of — but one you can no longer deny.

"Right now, I can't say I'm not afraid of anything. Because I'm afraid of losing you, Noa..." you repeat, fervently hoping this phrase will clarify your immediate action. "But I don't know, what that means"

"Y/N... It's more, than enough for... us. That's what I know now" Noa replies his scabrous fingers continuing to touch your temple.

"Why do you always say "us"? Why do you talk about us together? Nothing unites us, except our mutual lies..."

"Because we are together. Now I am honest with you... As... always have been. As... always will be. And did you lie to me now?"

A furious wind whistles behind the logs of walls.

Hail pounding into walls.

Noa admitted his limerence long ago. It's your turn. Limerence — a much less resounding definition than love, — still rips the ground from under your feet. You hadn't experienced that uplifting feeling inside your soul, that illusion of floating on clouds. On the contrary, the feel now filling your consciousness was tugging — as if in your ribs rocks were falling, avalanches were descending.

And yet, this feeling was pleasant. To have someone, who you're afraid to lose, is a value immeasurable in currencies of the past world. A value, that will remain in this world even after billions of years of continuous regression and continuous evolution. Here, in the pitch darkness that allows for revelation, having told Noa about your fear of losing him, you parted with the fears that haunted your past self. The past you remained amidst the shackles that rob you of truth. The present you crossed the threshold of silence. Well, here's you goes.

"You asked me, why I spoke to you after seeing a rabbit in a trap... I want to tell you, why I couldn't speak to you before..." words break on your tongue when the edge of Noa's palm touches your lips again.

"You didn't speak to everyone who might turn out to be... a scavenger. Did you think I was... like them?" his face is so close, that your breath catches. You nod, still feeling his lips on your skin, and breathe in pre-winter morning.

"I was angry then, thinking my worst fears had been confirmed. And I just didn't know what to do. But after that conversation... You disproved every one of my dreads. You protected me from my own dreads. You're not like them at all. You've saved me more times than I can count..." you hesitate, realizing that admitting it out loud isn't as hard, as you thought. You trail off when Noa, his breath fanning your blinking eyelids, moves a little closer. "That's why I told you just now about..."

"...Come on, what did you just tell him?", "What are you letting him do, huh?", "Say about your dirty wishes louder!", "Go ahead, please him!", "Unholy wench!..." Cutting you off mid-sentence, the voices in your head torment you with a torrent of disdain. They merge into a single, piercing, demonic wail. A cacophony. Your head swells. Demons cackle and hiss. You feel neither your body nor your mind. You won't endure this anymore... You look at Noa, then immediately look away. He stares at you with the longest gaze you've ever experienced. An admiring gaze. When he rests your head on his forearm, a sincere, quiet laugh erupts from your chest — almost exactly the way that you were lying, when he woke up.

"Before I met you, I... didn't know how to fight, at all. My fists were... the Sun. My weapon was... a flock of birds. With the help of birds, our clan won a long-ago battle. Against a despot, who distorted another's heritage... who appropriated another's achievements and intended to kill me. But birds are not property, they are... part of the family. They do not circle above us... constantly. When... scavengers pounced on you, I was unarmed. But I was so angry, that I didn't recognize myself..." Noa sighs, grins sadly, but smiling, as you do. "And weapon... wasn't needed"

"When I saw you that night, I thought, how much rage there was in that shadow's heart. Then I saw, that your heart was filled with nobility, wisdom, a thirst for new knowledge... You're not at all like how i've imagined apes there, where didn't even believe I'd find a way out of" you feel, how weight of a stone fall from your soul, releasing it. And how Noa runs the edge of his hand across the tip of your nose.

"You're also not at all like I imagined other people, Y/N. After meeting with human... before... I didn't believe, we could live side by side. Even though my friend, whose name was Raka, said so... Then I became disillusioned with the idea he followed... until the very end. With you, I've become convinced that... he was right" Noa's words make the chill inside you give way to heat, turning into a warm light.

Awkwardness, that's been simmering between you all this time evaporates. Over months of marriage, you've talked about so much that you've missed the point.

Now, for the first time, you're speaking frankly.

"What human? That girl, who caused the flood with explosives?" you know about that too, from Soona and Anaya, from Elders, from children. This incident is also part of your clan's history. And you're curious to know the details.

"That girl defended... the safety of humanity. I defended... the independence of apes. We could have become allies... or... enemies. But she left. To complete her mission. I stayed. To fulfill my destiny. Farewell... was for the best. Either humans oppress apes. Or apes oppress humans. We don't get along... When I met you, I thought you... would leave one day. Just like that. But I wanted you... to stay. Here. With me"

Under the crimson veil of october, you would certainly have made a caustic joke about Noa, probably, simply preferring human women. That such are his predilections.

But november gives way to winter's cold. And, lying in bed opposite the ape, who has become your sensitive husband, you don't feel like joking at all.

"Y/N... Who would I be to you now, if we hadn't become... husband and wife?"

You're increasingly enjoying the way, how Noa says your name.

"I don't know. Maybe a friend... Maybe a mate. Maybe nothing... But if we're going to talk about everything we haven't talked about before, then I must confess this too... Immediately after our marriage, I seriously planned to escape. I thought, that once you had me, you would act indistinguishable from those, who lassoed wives against their will down there, in dungeon. But here, I felt everything I'd been missing. Here, I found a family again. I don't know, how to explain it, Noa... But for that reason, I changed my mind. For that reason, I'm staying"

An honesty that had never existed between you, shone through. Absolute mutual honesty, reinforced by mutual, gradual touches.

Something that hovers so close to falling in love that you won't dispute it. Because the truth is as undeniable, as the calendar's months...

Noa's gaze, constantly researching your face, clouded.

Smile on his lips is bright. Smile on his lips doesn't completely fade, even when he wheezes in pain — bandages around his shoulder are soaked through with fresh blood...

No. No. No.

You're overcome with uncontrollable, wordless panic.

His wound should never have become infected.

A lump rises in your throat.

You could have talked until dawn... If the blood hadn't stained Noa's ribs, your sweater, your nest... If your husband hadn't suddenly exhausted, still stroking your hair in his sleep.

More words would definitely be unnecessary.

For now unnecessary.

You cup your husband's heavy head in your hands. You stand up to hastily make a re-bandage.

Sometimes, even in enrapture novels, written in times far removed from the current, shattered world, love doesn't blossom immediately. What you feel for Noa — is a feeling, that approaches love faster and quickly, than you thought. A feeling, that like swept from a clear sky hurricane wrecking chaos on your thoughts.

A feeling, that you will certainly organize. Right after you relieve Noa of this gluttonous wound. Right after, to characterisize what's happening between you, you have another similar conversation.

***

Moisten rags, soaked in blood. Anxiously scurrying midwives. Straining female bonobo.

One of captives of failed raiders. Very young. A child, carrying a child within.

She didn't give her name. She only cried, huddled in a corner of your former hut, now given over to captives and their children. Elders didn't protest. But since decision to shelter the newcomers was yours, a human's — while Noa lay unconscious and simply incapable of making a decision, — they considered you an upstart.

***

You didn't care. Mattered to you were the lives of yesterday's slaves. Amid the blinding gunfire, out of more than fifty, only twenty tormented lives remained, left in quarantine. Several ape and human women with grown children, several with babies in their arms. And one near term.

When her contractions began, in the darkest hour of previous night, she didn't even know what to do. You ran in here for medical help for Noa, for urgency. And she grabbed your sleeve.

"Quiet, quiet. You won't help your baby be born, if you scream like that. Will you breathe with me?" baby's head had appeared in previous morning. Second night would soon pass, and they still couldn't remove the baby from her womb.

You don't know, how to distract her from torment.

Marks of beatings clearly confirm suspicion had crept into your head, that she had been severely beaten. There are bruises on her stomach, no more than three days old. There are abscesses on her elbows and knees, threatening to burst. She coughs so harshly, as if she had chronic tuberculosis.

You fear, not without reason, that child will be stillborn.

You push away the fear, that almost crept into your soul.

Continue to guide female's breathing, so that she will quickly give a new life to world — believing that premonition is false, and everything will be fine.

***

Amidst lamentations of healeresses, Dar enters. She gives doulas same instructions that your foster mother gave midwives, when women in labor in glass room seemed hopeless.

They prepare a tub. Not for washing, but a much larger one. They seat limp mother, who has stopped straining, in water.

Another long hour passes.

Time stretching grinds. Your gaze darts from the swaying water in tub to the hanging lights, blown round in a cold, seeping air. Too loudly, amid the rattling of bowls filled with crushed herbs that soothe the pain, you call one of healeresses. You'd consider sending to your husband — but, lest you sow the weed-like growing discord in clan, you hold back.

You pray for Noa with all the prayers written in your prayer book and recognized here, looking at wedding bracelet.

A small hand appears. Almost hairless.

Expectant mother screams so loudly that the skies, shrouded in clouds scattering snow, shake.

Caught by assistants, small legs slip out. So thin.

A child's cry rings out, very quiet. But persistent.

"Look at this... noisy little boy... you've brought into this world" Dar, placing the newborn on his mother's breast, peers at him, smiling and bewildered. You peer at him too, shocked.

"Is he... alive? Healthy?" mother asks with dry lips, looking at baby with affection that overshadows her mistrust.

Assistants wipe mother down, showing her how to feed cub.

Doulas, having moved away, are whispering among themselves, glancing at you every now and then.

In seemingly pitch-black silence amidst the bustle of the healeresses, Dar looks at you, until you can’t believe your eyes.

***

"This child... There's no need to guess, for who this message... is meant" Dar places her hand over your wrist. Over the wedding bracelet, that her son wove for you.

"How could this child can be born?... Books say, that this children don't move, don't develop in their mothers' wombs. I... would like... to give Noa an heir. But I don't know, if our child will be able..."

"If... you speak of something... you see it... already accomplished. You've already seen... your child"

Dar doesn't ask. She states.

You can't utter a word.

But you nod, when your thoughts hovering around the glimmer of hope, that one day you'll put into a cradle baby just like him. Yours and Noa's together baby.

In the arms of exhausted mother is not ordinary bonobo cub — he has a human-like flat face, shorter small arms than a apes, and longer small legs. There's no fur anywhere, except the top of his head and back. Thin-skinned, wrinkled, sniffling. It defies explanation, but you see it and don't try to found an explainations. It's a interspecies cub. And — what's more important right now, than dumbfounded of disbelief, — he's not drinking mother's milk properly, because he's suffocating.

"Dar, can I ask you one more thing?" question escapes, before you can weigh the "pros" and "cons".

"You can ask... about anything, that worries you, daughter" you can't even dreamed, you'd ever hear that exact appeal, addressed to you, again.

"Noa said, that he'd been to a place where there were medicines?" your tone was hopeful and impatient. "Where is that place?"

"My son was looking for medicine for... you. He wandered far... south of here. Into a box with a cross and glass. You won't go there alone. I... won't let you. It's dangerous" shaking his head, Dar stared at mother, who was holding her son warily and awkwardly. "And what will I tell Noa... if you... go there?"

"Thanks to your efforts, I've already been cured. Many more of the rescued may need the medicine. For whom I'm responsible. And..." you don't want to upset mother, knowing how much she'll worry about her son. But you especially can't lie. "Noa needs medication too"

"If I can't... convince you otherwise... then my son is truly dear to you. Go... I'll gather you... some travel companions"

You nod again. Bow deeply. Your husband's mother, with a gesture, reminds you that your status exempts you from polite formalities. These words, seeing to root, mingle with funnel of other words spoken today, drawing you into a whirlpool. Noa is dear to you. That you don't dispute. For now, unable to sort out tangled paths of your own thoughts, you'll stick to this formulation.

***

Harness refuse to yield to your grip. Your hands refuse to obey you.

Unable to contain your anxiety, you sat down next to bed where Noa continued to sleep, before setting out. Not on your knees, not with your legs tucked under you, but on all fours. In ape-manner. You checked bandages, confirming that bleeding was slowly stopping. You left him another kiss — over bandages and blood. If only wounds could really heal like that...

As you hurried down from the hut, you nearly fell to ground.

The journey would be long, and you need to leave before noon.

On the day winter approaches, you feel so powerless and useless, as if the past spring had returned as a joyless drops.

A deer strolls past fences marking boundaries. His antlers are spreading, covered with hoarfrost. With him walk a graceful doe and two fawns. You recognize this guest.

So you meet again. The fawn, whose mother allowed you to pet, has formed his own herd.

And he has come to you, so that you can say hello.

You stretch out both hands, and stroke the children who run up to you clumsily.

Neither sadness nor anxiety leave your heart. But meeting the forest family again, you remember that the Mother Nature and the Eye of God will help you, will not abandon you in your time of need. And you set out on your journey with firm confidence in your awakened strength.

Strength, still spurred on by fear — but for first time in your life, a fear that's not destructive, but, in some inscrutable sense, beneficent.

***

Frost stings your face like needles. Winter sun isn't scarlet or golden, this so white, that it blends with snow dusting forest. You've never seen snow. You've never seen snowfall. Icicles hanging from tree branches. Ice crust covering the lake's water. You've never seen winter... You try not to look around, so you can hurry home with medicine — how do you know, who else might need medical help and how soon? Snowflakes swirl in the air like tiny feathers. You've never seen those either.

Or rather, of course, you saw both snowflakes and snowfalls in your early childhood.

But you've forgotten everything. Another reminder rains down on you from pine branches like snow pellets.

You ride Noa's horse, accustomed to how distracted you can be in the saddle after two months of riding lessons. Two riders walk behind you, guarding. Soona and Anaya ride beside you. Winged waymark, Eagle Sun, flies ahead.

A bird's call urges you to speed up.

When what used to be called hospitals appears on the bleached horizon, you gallop.

"Why... such a rush?" Anaya mutters as you stop by a frozen, rocky stream.

"Is something wrong... with newborn cub...?" instead of answer seeing your confusion, Soona gasp.

"Not quite... Not only..." you shake your head, confused by growing noise behind you.

You turn at dull clatter of hooves.

Expecting an attack by scavengers, you draw your pistol. You command riders prepare to fire as well. You wait. You squint. You aim... But you certainly don't expect to see Noa catching up in distance — with the Sun rapidly approaching to him, — and you nearly fall into a snowdrift.

"Y/N?.. Why did you... leave?" he asks, either displeased or alarmed, gain up with you, who are steadily continuing on. "Why did you leave?"

"I leave to get antiseptics and antibiotics for you, and..." you will explain what you saw, as well as reason for such zeal, to unsparing Master of Birds later. Not in front of everyone. "Why did you follow me?"

A gust of wind makes you wrap yourself tighter in jacket you took from one of soldiers killed in firefight.

Noa doesn't respond. He just dismounts, helping you do same.

You don't know, what to tell him first.

About you rushing headlong to save him, just like he saved you? About how newborn interspecies cub gave you hope for...? You don't even know, what kind of hope settled in you moment you saw that wrinkled face — half human, half ape. Thinking of baby, you smile.

Heavens sending a blizzard.

Deciding to wait out approaching storm in a cave, Noa starts a fire with a short, electrically charged staff. Orange-red flames chewing steam of short sentences.

Storm continues, bringing with it an early sunset.

Riders, as like Anaya and Soona, make overnight camp.

Noa adds wood to dying fire with his gaze. Continuous. Insightful. You don't need to look away from his gaze — after all, you set out on this journey for him. It's impossible to bear his gaze. A smoky orange shroud envelops Noa, and you finally understand, why beauty is in the eye of beholder.

Noa is handsome in his courage and restraint. He called you beautiful, not by apes standards of beauty, but in defiance. He's beautiful to you because, spitting on human standards of beauty, you see his beauty. Would you have believed it, if you'd known in advance, that you'd look at Noa without fear, without shying away, but... falling in love? Is it falling in love?.. The fire flares up, rising higher and higher. You lower your eyes, watching the reflections of flames dance across the ice.

"Don't look like that" you raise your eyes, with melted fear and warmth, you realizing that you've missed your husband. "What if you had to amputate your arm? What if you died?.. What was I supposed to do?"

"I take that as... runaway" trying to look angry, Noa looks at you as softly, as he did this morning. "Y/N... Did you go because of cub?"

"Pull back the bandage, so I can see if it's gotten better or worse" you added with a gesture, that you made a runaway because of him.

Did Noa feel, that you shared this strange feeling with him?

Did Noa feel, through layers of bandages, how you kissed his wound, no longer bleeding but still unhealed?

How will Noa take that, what you yourself believed only after your disbelief receded and remained the incomprehensibilty?

"Because of you and cub. This baby, Noa, he's... Not just a baby... A baby from an ape and a human. From an ape and a human, Noa... So weak, so shrunken... But alive. He can't breathe well, he can't eat. But he has to live, right?.."

A tear stung scar on your cheek.

You don't know, what made you cry. That baby and his mother managed to survive this — or that you were talking to Noa about it.

About that very future, which the faded fonts had written, was impossible.

Or that Noa, having crossed the distance, cupped your face in his hands — and wiped away your tears, which were useless now. Because the news was happy.

***

Sunbeams flood the cave. You don't remember, how falling asleep on Noa's chest. You only remember his embrace. His arms, brushing away your tears and wrapping you against howling blizzard. Your fingertips trace fur-covered scar on his collarbone.

"We need to go" you say, leaving your palm on Noa's skin until he wakes. Then, you fly out of cave.

"Today... did you have a good dream?" Noa pulls you closer, catching your hand in outside, on golden tapestry of snow. Even more carefully, than ever.

For a second bared teeth of winds subside.

For a second you two again in the semi-darkness of nest.

Noa lifts your palm to his lips. He kisses you differently, than you kissed his large hand. Unabashed. Unwilling to justify or stop. He kisses each of your thin fingers, each scratched bone. You're stunned.

Remembering Noa's touch all over your face, like a persistent tide, a single, perfectly mad thought fills your head — what would happen, if right now your mouths collided? If Noa's lips touch yours, would a comet fall, would there be an explosion?..

Four devoted riders, and one equally devoted bird — leaving you alone at a slow trot, — are ready to cross remaining miles to destination.

Noa ready to cross the line you once drew.

You're ready to let him do that.

Winds click their teeth. You don't want to pull away, when Noa rests his cheek against yours. You don't want to pull away, when he presses his nose to yours, holding your hands in his. You haven't sorted out your feelings — but your soul clings to your husband. If you were home now, you wouldn't pull away from his lips, almost pressed to yours... But you have to hurry. For you two.

Stretching on your toes, you kiss Noa's chin. With all the tenderness, that's been building up inside you, you hold his shoulder bandage. You climb into the saddle together with him. The word "togeter" feels beautiful in this context.

Hospital is just a stone's throw away, and winds rage more fiercely with each passing minute.

Riders walk, leading three horses by bridle — they snort, refusing to continue way.

Delay would mean possible death of the baby, whose birth contradicts all worldly laws in the most astonishing way. Neither you nor Noa — nor your fellow travelers, who don't fully understand the nature of the journey and assume, that the newborn or his mother simply has complications, —can't allow this to happen.

Building's outer entrance is inaccessible. Entire lower floor is covered in snow — both the glass entrance doors and reinforced windows. Oblong windows on second floor are made of flimsy glass — Anaya, looking around, breaks one of them, running behind a snowy hill. This how you've came inside one of wards.

You don't have wander around to find storage room. But finding medications themselves is not so easy. Almost everything, that stored here — is not same medications whose names you recognize.

If the handwritten cards are to be trusted, unknown names conceal experimental products. Judging by dates on the handwritten cards, someone created arsenal stored in refrigerator relatively recently. Some — a year ago. Some — last week.

Ink on one of vials is still fresh, not dry.

Packing in your backpack everything, what might need — immune-boosting, antivirals, disinfectants, syringes, wipes, and cotton wool, — you, as intuition tells you, advise Soona and Anaya of things on shelves and in the refrigerators, that you're doesn't enough dexterity to reach. You explain to Noa, who can't understand the written language, purpose of various jars, vials, and bottles.

Concluding that this is pure theft of someone else's property, but there's no other way out — you climb out window, holding your backpack in front of you, to keep contents safe. Your friends help you reach rooftop of first floor; all that's left is to jump down and return home... A voice echoes from depths of the hallway, making you jump, barely keeping your backpack from dropping.