12: New friend on the team

A Few minutes before dawn, Nadjela is awoken by a distant scream. Rubbing her eyes, she yawns. On the horizon sees Chester appear rushing, carrying a bundle under his arm.

"Run!" shouts the nobleman, now at 400 steps and subtracting.

A hundred moving hills come behind the swordsman, shaking the ground under their dusty march. Nadjela squints and identifies the broad snouts, and the pair of five-foot-long fangs capable of impaling a grown man. The girl lets out a high-pitched scream.

They flee from the giant pig stampede. The fortuitous escape makes Nadjela's chest burn and her legs ache, but the hoarse, hostility-laden grunts were a wonderful incentive to not slacken. Chester, without pausing or letting go of his prey, yells at Nadjela to get on his back.

The young woman doesn't hesitate, jumps up and wraps her arms and legs around the man. Chester doesn't even flinch when the princess's nails dig into his pectorals, he only accelerates.

From her position Nadjela discovers what Chester is carrying. Another pig but smaller in diameter, barely half a meter, and almost completely round. The tusks are missing, and the fur also differs from the black tangles of anger that chase them, being white with a pink crest and tufts of the same pigment on the left side of the back, vaguely forming a flower. The small, glassy eyes reflect confusion. Nadjela, making eye contact with the piglet, wonders what it would be like to have a large, strange being take you in its arms and take you away from everything you know. Then she realizes that she understands the piglet completely.

After the marathon they succeed to lose the stampede. Chester allows himself to stop and fall face first into the dirt, bathed in sweat. Nadjela hurriedly moves away, avoiding to worsen the situation with her weight. The piglet pushes and manages to get out from underneath, but before she can get more than an arm's length away, Chester reaches out like lightning and catches her tail, making her squeal.

"Grab her," Chester says between gasps, his face powdered. "It's our emergency food"

Nadjela carries the animal. It's light and fluffy. The piglet's gaze seemed intelligent enough to read intentions, and to realize that the girl's interests were less carnivorous than those of the blue troglodyte, hence she behaves more docile in those gentle hands. During the time Chester takes to rejoin, Nadjela continues to soothe the animal using caresses and cooing.

"Stories from before I was born tell of my people trying to tame them" Nadjela tells the swordsman when he is standing "But only one female is born every 100 males or so, and the males are very irritable and hostile, and their meat is too tough. After many deaths, the plan to use them as livestock or mounts was abandoned"

"100 males. I don't know if I can eat something that's been hit from so many sides," Chester says, assessing the piglet. Those little porcine eyes look back at him with infinite reproach. "But when the hunger presses..."

The little eyes are now bathed in horror, and the round little body trembles.

"Poor thing" says Nadjela.

"But it's the food! You don't cuddle the food!"

"I was told that females are more docile. But this one seems particularly trusting"

Nadjela interrogates Chester about the encounter with the pigs. The swordsman reveals that he was looking for breakfast when caught them circling and jumping in sync, movements that in a more slender animal would look graceful, around the piglet.

"This one looked like a better tasting. So I went and got it"

"They were courting her. She must have barely reached maturity, and this was her first time, which explains the nerves," Nadjela says with all the understanding that a virginal maiden from La Cuna can give.

The next afternoon their water runs out earlier than planned, mainly because Nadjela insisted on sharing with the new team member. Chester questions why so much friendship with the emergency food, when Nadjela never showed mercy for the many other critters and monsters they devoured.

"Is it because she's small and cute?" Chester suspects.

Nadjela answers "No!" and turns her head away to hide the blush from being so transparent.

With the little pig Nadjela can have conversations that would be impossible for Chester. One-sided talks that, while carrying her in the arms, don't leave the sensation of talking with a wall. Also, it helps to distract her from the sun's weight.

"Something is wrong with him," Her eyes shift from the animal to Chester's back, who leads the way into the unknown about ten steps ahead. "Looks like a man. But he also becomes a child, or someone directly weird. Is savior or demon? Wise or foolish?"

The piglet raises her little snout and snores. Nadjela does not know how to interpret those porcine eyes, but the slight reactions are enough to encourage those "chats".

"How fresh the river shores are when the river runs. I would like to rest on the river forever. You would like that too. But what about him? I'd have to watch him stay away from the bottom so he wouldn't drown"

Moving forward, sweating from the heat and the hammering guilt.

"Did he notice? I'm sure he didn't. But what if...? I'm a snake with legs, and terrible lips"

With the ailment of homesickness.

"I miss Dad. I miss Majani. I miss Gaita and Suri. I even miss Zell... I never thought I'd say that"

Always with a mission that drives her.

"My people need help. If La Cuna continues to decline, it will be the end. We need a hero to lead us to a unique paradise, where food and water are plentiful, the grass is green, and the invisible, skin-devouring death is kept far away"

She also tells the little pig about a mystery that haunts her like a shadow.

"That voice, the one Chester heard several nights ago, could it be mother...? Even after what happened, I know she still loves me. Right...?"

She thanks the pig for being such a good listener, and the animal nods back in another show of intelligence.

The team find a place to spend the night. A ridge in the ground, curved downward in such a way that it forms a shelter five feet high and four feet deep. They take a while to remove the earth that floods the ledge. Nadjela lacked a sleeping bag due to her hasty escape in the early hours of the previous day.

"More got lost in Troy" Chester says.

"Troy?"

"Ancient history. I'll tell you about it later. Or better yet, I'll show you the movie. It's old, but watchable"

"You mention those mysterious "movies" again..."

Chester goes out to hunt and gather materials to build a bed, leaving Nadjela with the visor. When the swordsman put the glasses on Nadjela, the princess was blinded. But a couple words from Chester - whispers in the girl's ear that made her shudder - were enough to make the dense black become transparent. A thousand colors and lines appear and merge to show walls, warriors' legions, a giant wooden horse, and Brad Pitt.

(If this isn't magic, I don't know what is!)

Chester returns to the ledge with a dead tree scab on one arm, and a decapitated tarantula on the other. Bending down and stepping inside, Chester notices tears running under the glasses and down the girl's cheeks. He helps the girl take off the device, and asks what's wrong.

"Achilles did not deserve such fate...." Nadjela answers, sniffling.

They wait for Nadjela to stop crying before setting up the bonfire.

The piglet shows off her ability to eat anything, and enjoys the spider with them. Chester interrupts the munching when he chokes. Nadjela slaps him hard on the back, leading him to spit out a thick hairball.

Dinner over, Chester uses the tree bark, accompanied by red leaves and blades of parched grass, so that Nadjela does not spend the night on a rock. Lying there, hugging the sow, surrounded by strange shadows, and the howling of beasts in the distance, the princess thinks how strange this is and not to be afraid for her life. Accompanied by a stranger and an animal, her clothes and body weather-beaten by dust, satiating her hunger with vermin she would never have dared to eat before... And actually enjoying the journey.

(Am I going crazy?)

Eager to engage in conversation, she asks Chester if it is possible to bring all those wonders he talks about and solve his people's problems.

"Money is required" Chester answers.

"And what is money? Where do I get it?"

"Two centuries ago it was represented by paper. Now it's invisible, and moves through computers or subcutaneous chips. Also in metal... Metal never goes old-fashioned"

"Oh, I don't have those"

"Maybe it's for the best. I've known good guys who were driven crazy by money. Or who sold their dreams and time for a small fraction every Friday, or every two weeks. Others feel they are the world's kings because they have more capital than others, as if their blood won't run the same when you slit their throats"

A few words are enough to cover the money concept with a terrible fog capable to lose people. Nadjela shrinks with grief, but Chester's next statement enlightens her again.

"I'll see about finding a way. I have tamed those vulture nests known as banks," he says indifferently, like such a big favor means little.

Nadjela, unable to contain her gratitude, goes and hugs him. Chester receives the embrace with a confused grimace that turns into a faint smile. It takes Nadjela a few seconds to notice her outburst, she pulls away and apologizes, evading the swordsman's gaze asks another question.

"And what do you want in return?"

"Your smile is enough for me"

Nadjela returns to see him quickly, face red, eyes wide, and lips parted wordlessly.

Chester throws more twigs on the fire and says:

"Girls are supposed to be giggly. To have one following me with such a depressed face, it's not right"

The girl's blush goes away like a blur. She turns back and decides she will never speak to him again. Five minutes later she forgets the promise, and turns her body in direction to the ledge entrance. Chester is still squatting there, alone, near the fading fire. Nadjela places the sleeping piglet in the corner, and crawls over to sit beside him. The princess decides to ask about the voice and light that woke him.

"A mother looking to care her daughter. Could she be related to you?" Chester says with the eyes anchored on the campfire.

"Maybe..." Nadjela says, unable to mask the longing. "Mom was exiled when I was small. Perhaps Mom sends those messages from her current home, and somehow you heard her"

"Exiled?"

"She was cursed by heaven..."

That's all she says. Chester senses it would be inappropriate to inquire.

"Wherever she is, she's still thinking of you, Nadjela, I bet"

The princess nods, totally speechless. When she lies down on the uncomfortable bed and hugs the little pig, she falls asleep with a small hopeful smile.