“Meat,” she said. He hadn’t needed any help to catch it, either. He hadn’t even needed a spear. “And I, on the other hand,” sighed Amber, turning back to watch Nicci at the other fire,” never tried so hard to do something in my whole life as I tried to run that goddamn limping thing down. Take a note, lizardman: That was the best I could do. Amber Bierce’s very best was a miserable fucking failure.”

He caught her by the chin and pinched, not hard enough to hurt (although it was impossible not to feel the tremendous strength in that grip), but enough to shut her up. He pointed his knife down at the dead thing. He spoke again, just one word.

Did he want her to repeat him? Amber tried. “Soo—”

He pinched harder. Spoke.

“Saw…ow. Ak. Saw-owk.”

“Saoq,” he corrected, but released her. With the tip of his finger, he quickly drew a deer-shape in the wet dirt. “Saoq,” he said again, and stabbed his knife into its muddy heart. He said something else, pointed at the dead animal and said it again.

“What does that mean?” Amber asked. “Is it ‘dead’ or ‘meat’ or ‘hunt’ or—”

He caught her chin and pinched. He said his word.

“You know, I realize we’re the aliens here, but Scott wants you to learn English, not for us to learn lizardish.”

Pinch. He leaned close. He spoke once.

She repeated him., then crossly added, “Meat. Meat.”

He grunted, released her, and went back to butchering the animal…the saoq. He cut away a chunk of meat and held it up. He said a word.

“You should also know that I took Spanish from the second grade on up to the seventh and I flunked every single year.”

Meoraq cocked his head. He reached for her chin.

She pulled back out of his reach and said the stupid word.

The corners of his hard mouth turned up. He grunted, pulled the meat off the blade of his knife and skewered it on a thin bit of branch instead. He propped that over the fire beside him and said a new word, pointing at it.

Cook? Fire? Whatever it was, she parroted it back obediently.

His mouth opened in a hissing grimace. He took one of the gut-kabobs off the fire and held it up, steaming and dripping juices down its skewer, still partly raw and a little black around the edges, but enough to flood Amber’s mouth with eager water. He gestured at it, his spines flaring in what she could only hope was an encouraging manner.

She said the word she thought meant meat and then strung it all together into what she hoped was almost a real sentence: “Meoraq cook saoq meat.”

He winced. Sighed. Put the kabob back over the fire and looked at her.

“If you don’t like it, learn English. At least I’m making an effort here. Listen!” She reached out to pat the corpse. “Meat—oh yuck, it’s still warm. Oh God, and sticky!” She started to wipe her hand off on her pants, then changed her mind and dragged it over the ground instead. She only had so many clothes. “Meat! Say it with me! Meat!”

He frowned at her, silent.

“Any progress, Miss Bierce?”

Meoraq’s gaze shifted past her to watch Scott join them. His spines flattened. He bent over the saoq, ripping it out of the rest of its hide and muttering under his breath.

“What do you want?” Amber asked.

“Nothing. I’m just not comfortable leaving the heavily-armed alien unsupervised.”

“I’m here.”

“Also unsupervised.”

Scott probably had more to say, but whatever scathing insult he was cooking up turned into a gagging cry as Meoraq shoved a skinless, disemboweled, dead deer against his chest. He tried to back away, but Meoraq only shoved harder, more or less forcing Scott to embrace the corpse.

“What does he want?” Scott demanded shrilly.

Meoraq spat out some suggestions, then looked at Amber and cocked his head.

She replayed his words and realized there were a few in there she knew. “He wants you to eat it.”

Meoraq gave the corpse a last push and pointed firmly back at the other fire. He hissed through his teeth, his flat spines scraping at the top of his scaly head.

“And he wants us to leave him alone,” Amber translated. She started to get up.

Meoraq’s hand slammed down on her shoulder and seated her with a squishy thump back on the ground. He hissed at her next, exactly the same way. On his throat, faint lines of yellow color were coming into his scales. He pivoted at the hip and pointed at the other fire, spitting out lizard-words faster than she could follow. The message, however, was clear: Go back to your side of the camp and stay there.

Scott backed up, holding the carcass clumsily before him like a shield. “If that thing attacks me again, I’m holding you responsible,” he warned.

“He’s not attacking you, he’s feeding you,” said Amber, rubbing her shoulder. “Am I responsible for that? Seriously, Meoraq, that hurt.”

“Meoraq!” spat the lizardman, still glaring at Scott. But then he leaned back on his heels and cupped the end of his snout, taking deep breaths and muttering to himself, and when he looked at her again, the scales on his throat were all black once more. “Meoraq,” he said, and gestured toward her, grudgingly inviting her own name.

“Meat,” she said, using his word and rubbing her shoulder some more.

He flung up his hands, took one stomping step toward the fire and the gut-kabobs roasting there, then pulled himself up with a jerk and really stared at her.

“Yeah. Amber-meat. And if you make some joke about bacon—” she began, rounding on Scott, but he had taken advantage of Meoraq’s distraction to retreat. She could see him at the other fire already, surrounded by worshipful Manifestors, rewarding their loyalty with someone else’s food. And they loved him for it.

Something nudged her arm. Meoraq, impatiently trying to get her attention. He had another gut-kabob in his hand, this one a bit overcooked, and as soon as she was watching him, he plucked the chunk of liver off the top end of the skewer, said a word, and popped it into his mouth. He didn’t chew, but she could see the underside of his jaw moving as he worked his rigid tongue back and forth against the roof of his mouth. He swallowed, said the word again, and pointed at her with two fingers.

Her stomach growled. She clapped a hand over it stupidly, but it was too late. Meoraq looked at it and then at her, frowning.

“Meat,” she said in lizardish, stubbornly adding, “Meoraq’s meat,” just to let him know that she had no expectations.

His frown became a glare, so she knew she’d said it wrong, but he understood enough to pluck a second kabob off the coals and put it in her hand.

“You don’t get it. I don’t want you to take care of me,” she told him, trying to push it back at him. “I want you to show me how to take care of myself. Okay? Because I can’t be…” Her eyes wandered, seeking and finding the wisps of blonde hair flying above the crowd that could only be Nicci’s. “I have to take care of myself,” she said at last. “I have to take care of her.”

Meoraq rolled his eyes and scratched at the side of his snout, scowling at her. He started to speak, and then suddenly leaned out and caught her by the chin again. The scaly pads of his fingers dug in and forced her to face him. Red eyes that could never even pretend to be human stared her down while he talked at her. The word for ‘eat’ was in there. He hissed at the end of it, just a little, like putting an extra-hard dot on an i, then let her go and pointed at her kabob.

She ate it. It was tough as hell and overchewing it brought out all the wrong elements of its flavor, which was vaguely like beef, but darker, earthier, almost bitter with minerals. She was all too aware of how she looked as she struggled with it—the fat chick stuffing her face—but the first bite turned into the last one embarrassingly fast. When she looked up, sucking grease from her empty fingers, Meoraq was still holding on to most of his, his head slightly canted, watching her. So was the saoq’s head in the fire. Both of them with nearly the same expression.