Beauties and Beasts

Chapter 116: brought to you by a lack of communication

A chapter will come when Winston and Neara mate, when the readers who have persisted this long will be satisfied, but it is not this chapter. An hour where the Tiger King will finally make his mark on the otherworldly female, but it is not this chapter. This chapter, we angst!

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"I have something to show you." Winston's low growl broke through her crazy dreams and she slowly moved to consciousness.

"Winston?" Her hands reached to her face and were covered by his warmth, almost soothing in the coolness of the morning. Warm arms cupped her body and gently lifted her from the Benedict/Tony sandwich. Cool air blew gently against her face as he walked into the new morning, the sun barely bright enough to make her squint.

Silence stifled them; even Winston's footsteps made noise. When he stopped walking, she braved a glance and her mouth fell open. A large chimney seemed to grow halfway up a hill, the brush on either side cleared for several yards. It seemed to begin (or end) in a large pot-bellied stove with a sturdy handle made of... large chunks of mud slapped into a rough ball. Weird design choice. Maybe it was meant for larger paws though... hands.

"This is yours. I tweaked a little of the design and if it doesn't function according to your plans, I'll remake it." He set her down and stepped back.

It looked impressive, but she didn't know if it would really work. What was the chimney for? It made sense to make a long chimney buried in the ground but wouldn't it lose too much heat if it was exposed to open air? How could they make it hot enough? She winced at the cold air on her thighs and tried to draw her cloak around her before remembering Agatha didn't wear a long cloak. So much for modesty; all skin, all the time. No wonder Winston didn't talk to her anymore.

Yeah, right, the guy can barely keep his hands off you. Did he have to carry you here? No. He just wanted to feel that lucious thigh meat.

Her inner Shay chided her. It might not be the healthiest coping mechanism, but it was common enough in movies that she felt only the smallest discomfort talking to 'herself'.

Besides that, I bet he put you in front so he could eye you. That's what you get for not putting out; a bunch of hungry beastmen in the middle of a female famine. Ha! Female Famine! Hey, if we ever get back to our world, we should make this a comic or something... that can be the title! I'll have my arms full of baby snakes and looking overwhelmed while Curtis and Ryan glare daggers over my head, and you'll be wrapped up in your cloak riding a sheep with all these adoring males surrounding you. Ha! I wish I had my pencils, I know EXACTLY what it'd look like.

Sometimes she gave her inner voice a little too much personality.

When Inner Shay stopped talking, she remembered where she was and, more embarrassing, who she was with. Winston stood at her side, eyes focused ahead on the chimney. She had to admit... it looked like it might work.

"So... should we give it a go," Neara said, trying to keep her eyes straight ahead, wondering if she saw his ears twitch out of the corner of her eye, or if the pink on his cheeks was the sunrise.

"I have this plate ready to go and the fire is fully stocked. I wanted to wait for your approval before I tested anything." He held out a flat square made entirely of clay. "It's all the same thickness so you can pinpoint any weaknesses in the kiln." He stressed the last word purposefully, unsure of its taste, but wanting to get it right.

"Oh, good idea." She tried not to bend it. He didn't take the plate back. "Um, do you want me to put it in?"

"I can do it for you if you don't want to get too close to the heat."

"No, it's fine... I'm fine." The bulging handle felt too big in her hand, like cupping a volleyball, but the surface was surprisingly cool. Total letdown when she opened it and all the heat rushed out at once. She jumped back in shock, her fingers digging into the plate.

Winston's hand pressed the door shut, his arm a solid bar of white in front of her. "Do you want to try again?"

"Yeah, it just... it surprised me, is all. That's all," she corrected herself and opened the kiln again, squinting her eyes against the tentacles of fire reaching around the flat stone place in the center. After laying the plate inside, she pulled her arms out, the smell of burnt hair plugging her nose.

Winston didn't flinch. "How long should we leave it there?"

"Um, maybe overnight? We'll check on it tomorrow."

He nodded, then moved to the side, where she saw a large set of bellows, sewn from several skins, lay stretched across logs as thick as her legs. His hands easily clasped the top bar and he flexed, bringing the entire thing shooting down, a fifth stripe of black against his chest. He carefully raised it again, the tawny skin of a deer puffing with the air intake.

Neara couldn't stop looking at his face, the small lines of it against the thicker boundaries of drought-stricken trees and the sickly blue sky. How could someone look this good and exist? After some minutes of watching him, the sun burning the back of her neck, she sank to the ground, not quite bored, but becoming increasingly frustrated by watching sweaty muscles and knowing they belonged to someone else. Not that she wanted to take him or anything, but she'd feel less guilty knowing Ethel didn't have a claim to them.

"I thought I'd find you out here! Whenever Winston does something, it's for you!" A cheerful voice called from just above her head and a huge Eagle thumped to the ground beside her. Ethel slid delicately from his back and tackled her. "It's been ages, Agatha!"

Winston's face remained alert, but impassive, and he continued to pump at the bellows.

"Yeah, um, Winston doesn't really do anything for me, not a lot, and..."

"Yeah, it's ok, I knew you two were up to something when Lawrence told me about all that dirt in your room. 'They're up to something' I told myself, and I was right! Ok, not that I could be wrong, because you two are always doing something unexpected, but good. Like digging the well." She glanced at the Eagle, still standing there, and smiled. "You can go; I'll go back to the castle with Agatha."

The Eagle cawed and pecked at the ground.

Ethel's smile fell slightly. "Winston's mated to Agatha; don't worry about him."

With a narrowing of his large eyes, the Eagle coughed harshly and launched himself into the air with his huge wings, dust spraying from the ground.

Other than closing his eyes against the deluge, Winston didn't react.

"I wanted to show you this tree I found. It's big and beautiful and has the prettiest bark. I swear, it's going to look like a sweet-crystal." Her cool fingers wrapped around Neara's, the thinness holding a surprising amount of strength.

"It's fine, Winston; I'll catch up to you later."

He nodded, but his eyes squinted against a bright sun that couldn't quite reach him.