9 Pain, Fear, and Niiganii

It's been six days since we've fallen off the cliff. My leg has healed up nicely, so I've been doing a little walking on my own. Giken hasn't said anything about the kiss nor has he shed any light about his knowledge of the spiritual realm.

"We sleep here tonight. We might reach the fall by tomorrow, but you must rest your leg."

I sat down and rubbed my exhausted feet. Giken had made me some straw sandals to help with the walking, but now it had given me blisters.

"Ouch." I grunted rubbing over my blistered pinky toes and the side of my feet. Giken rushes to my side and bends down grabbing my feet. I cowardly pull my leg away and shoot my arms up, blocking my face as a triggered memory flashes in my mind of Bjork grabbing my arms and ripping my sleeve off.

Giken backs off immediately, both hand up to show me that he isn't trying to invade my space.

I am breathing hard, breaking into a sweat and my whole body starts shaking uncontrollably with fear. I try to calm myself down, but the more I keep my eyes closed, the more I see Bjork. I slowly bring my arms down to look up at Giken as he reads my body language.

I reach my right hand out to him and he gently grabs hold of my hand. I pull him down towards me and wrap my arm around his waist. He embraces me and I cry.

I cried not because I was scared, but because Bjork's attack on me has been affecting me these past two days. Giken just held me in his arms until the uncontrollable shakes subsided. Then he reached into one of his pouches and took out a little clay container. In it was honey and some other herbs. He reaches down for my feet, watching my face the whole time. He then rubs the honey ointment onto my blisters and sores and then stood up and kissed my forehead.

"KISS." he said and we smiled at each other.

"Thank you, Giken."

*

The sun's warmth was getting hotter as spring started to roll in, parting away from the winter cold. We had been walking for miles now. I barely have any more energy left to put out and walk. Besides the exhaustion, my belly aches as if there is something inside, ripping my guts into shreds. I am dragging further and further behind Giken.

"Are you ill?" Giken shouted out to me from afar as he ran towards me. I shook my head no.

"You look paler than you normally do."

"I need a drink." I said, gesturing to him, me drinking from a leaf.

He hands me his waterskin filled with clean water. I gave him a disgusted expression because he had recently told me that they used deer bladders to make these containers.

But I took the waterskin and drank from it anyway, just to quench my thirst. I drank so fast that my overflowed mouth dripped water down my neck and into my cleavage, then I felt it drip down down my leg.

Giken points to my leg while making a weird, "Uhhhh" sound.

I look down and its blood. As if my life couldn't get any worse, my monthly bleeding decided to pay me a visit too. I am feeling physically miserable.

"You are bleeding!" Giken rushes over to examine my legs to look for its source, lifting my garments above the knee. I instinctively slap him behind his head and push him away.

Puzzled, he looked at me and asked, "Where are you bleeding from? I know for sure your leg wound wasn't that high up."

I covered my face with my palms and turned away from him. How can I tell the person that I am bleeding from my vagina and that it's a natural thing that women deal with?

I slowly walked to the shallow part of the river and sat down on a large rock, ignoring him completely. I ripped a part of what is left of my undergarments and started to clean the blood away.

Giken watched me from the riverbanks for a moment but as soon as he saw me washing up, he left to give me privacy.

Oh, how nice it will be to get to sit in a tub full of warm water and bathe away all of this stickiness from my flesh. I can hear Giken running around, fixing up an area for us to rest a bit, and I knew he was giving me space to take care of myself.

I think he is understanding a little bit, since I didn't panic at the sight of the blood.

I wiped away all the blood from my leg but pubic hair had clots that needed to be washed off. I looked around and giken was nowhere to be seen, so I moved deeper into the water, fully submerging just the lower half of my body. I didn't want to go too deep at the fear that I might just lose my footing and drown.

I took off my bottom garments and the top clothing that Giken had put together for me. I pulled my hair up into a bun and used part of the strings from the shin covers to tie it in place. I proceeded to wash and scrub all my clothes, twisting it dry, and tossing it towards the dry side of the riverbank.

Afterwards, I got lost in cleaning myself. I scrubbed my private areas, under my breasts that now sat above the water surface. I carried on with washing my arm, armpits, breast and nipples.

I undo the bun and duck my head into the water to soak my hair. My scalp was so greasy that I kept having to resubmerge myself to massage out the oil.

Two arms grabbed me from behind and lifted me out of the water.

I scream! Bjork is grabbing me again and I can feel his groin on my buttocks. I kick and scream, elbowing him as he pulls me up to shore fully naked. My wet hair was all tangled and covering my face, blocking my vision.

"It is only me!" Giken kept saying. "It's me. It's just me."

Upon hearing his voice, finally, I burst into a loud cry. He sat me on the dry grass and I brought up my knees into my chest trying to cover my naked body.

"I am sorry. I thought you were drowning. You kept bobbing up and down so I thought that maybe…" He runs to grab my damp clothes and returns to cover me up.

"I bumped into Niiganii. The pact has been searching for me. She has supplies and more tools. Stay here." Giken said, I watched as he entered the forest, my emotions still overcome with fear.

But then I saw something strange. I thought I saw Giken crouched down with both hands and feet as he ran into the forest, almost like a four legged animal. Maybe I'm just seeing things since my eyes were completely filled with tears.

It didn't take long for Giken to come back, but when he did he was accompanied by an older woman. She is fully clothed and covered from neck to toe. Her long white hair split in half down the center of her head, just like Giken, but was put into two long braids at the side of her body. They make their way to me and she takes off her shawl and covers me with it. She examines me and then turns to Giken.

"It's her time to bleed for the month. Are you dumb? Do you not know anything about a woman's body?" She scolded Giken.

"I didn't know." He replied.

"Why have you not hunted for animals? She needs clothes! SHE IS NAKED!! Are you even my son? How immature of you to let the poor woman suffer!"

"I didn't want to hunt because I didn't want her to see."

"She doesn't know?"

"No."

"Gikendaaso! You'd rather let this poor woman suffer because you were too scared to risk the exposure of our tribe?"

"Yes…well, no… but yes." Giken tugs at Niiganii's arm and they walk a little ways apart from me.

"What is wrong with you?" she went on and on yelling at Giken while he kept his eyes on me as they continued to walk further away.

"Niiganii, please!" he raised his voice for a split second, "Sereen is not well and she has…" his speech turns into a whisper. "...she has THE sacred sight. She needs our help as we do her."

They both dialed down their voices and are now exchanging words in a loud whisper.

"Niiganii, mother, I can't help but feel like I am connected to her. I can feel all of her pain and emotions. I can sense that something really bad happened to her, but she doesn't want to tell me."

"You might be her onaabeman…her destined partner." Niiganii gasped and covered her mouth. "The prophecy."

"But she is a foreigner. I don't think that to be me. The prophecy never said anything about a foreigner."

"Correct, it never SUGGESTS that a foreigner couldn't be the prophet either."

I stand up in anger. "I can HEAR YOU!" I yelled towards them. They both turn to look at me stunned.

"Do you know what she said?" Niiganii asked Giken.

"No." He replied.

Niiganii walks back to me and as soon as she gets to me, she wipes the tears off my face. "Here, drink this. It will help."

She hands me a clay flask. I look at Giken and he nods, so I took the flask and gulped it down in the fit of my anger.

My whole body calms immediately and I feel like my soul has been revitalized.

"Feel better?"

"Yes, much better." I replied.

"Good, it works." Niiganii said and smiled at me.

"Wait, you can understand me?"

"Yes, we can understand you now. It is a Ma'iingan potion. Only on the rarest occasions do we give this potion to strangers. But you are a special case."

Giken walks up to me and grabs my hands and kisses them. "KISS." he said, "It always makes your skin turn red with heat, so that you can feel better."

"That is not what a kiss does." I said. I looked at me bewildered. "A kiss is an exchange of feelings and emotions from one person to another. It is an expression of the need for physical touch of another person. It is a connection that… that…" they both were staring at me and I blush. "Nevermind." I said.

"Gikendaaso, I will help clean her up. You go hunt for a deer. We need the hide. Here is where we will rest for the night and tomorrow we will regroup with the pact."

Without hesitation, Giken agrees and sprints into the woods, disappearing into its darkness.

"You! Let's get you cleaned up."

The starry night sky is cool and calming as I sit by the fire enjoying my venison. Niiganii has been cleaning the hide for hours.

Giken is setting up areas for us to sleep.

I was indulging so deeply in my food that I didn't realize Giken and Niiganii as they were disarranging everything around us, until they both killed the fire with mounds of dirt.

"What's going on? Why are we rushing sleep?" I asked about the disorder.

"Quiet." Niiganii muttered. "We have company."

We all covered up our things in a bush nearby and ran into a heavy covered part of the woods. Niiganii chants a quick prayer and we all crouch down low to the ground.

Torches beamed from the near distance and I could hear voices. It was Clint and Bjork and they were headed straight our way.