Chương 16: Vol 1. Martha

Morton and Tahir trekked for a couple of days, settling into the routine that they had built over the last little while. Hike, stop, rest. Hike, stop, set up camp. Hunt hare, eat said hare, sleep, rinse, and repeat. Over those last few nights, however, Tahir found himself particularly drawn to Morton in a way he hadn't been before. Not romantically, of course. Certainly not. No, he found himself interested in the human in an almost scholarly way.

And the more he looked at Morton, the more he felt he was a person straight out of literary tradition. First, his appearance was that of a feminine warrior: his hands, with their long, padless digits, were scarred, the skin rough and coarse. They were the hands of practicality; of a labourer; of battle. His furlessness, at first, had been jarring and unsightly. Yet the more Tahir looked at it, the more he found it strangely charming.

It reminded him of those knights of old who would trim their fur back to baldness before battle, casting vanity aside as if it were nothing but a burden weighing them down. He also had that feminine, gravelly voice. Rough on the ears, yes, but incredibly soothing when heard beside a dancing fire. And the way he worked was so utterly graceful. Every movement he made was precise and purposeful.

Every knot tied, branch split, and meal prepared was guided by an instinct that made it clear he had been doing this for a long time. A true warrior of the old romantic tradition. And yet he wasn't a woman. That was what occupied Tahir's mind the most: the simple, galling fact that Morton was not a woman. It was not as if he hadn't met feminine men before. They were hardly some mystical creature. But there was just something about Morton that felt different. Right… Morton was feminine to him.

That was something that truly intrigued him about Morton: the realm from which he came. The more Morton talked about it, the more mysterious it became, like a land from an imaginary voyage novel. One night on their long journey, Tahir sat on a log, kicking his feet back and forth as he watched Morton work. He then asked, "Sir Christian, may I ask you a question about your realm?"

"Sure. Whatcha wanna know?"

"You said I would be… feminine in your realm, correct?" Morton chuckled.

"For the most part, yeah."

"What are women like in your realm?" Morton paused what he was doing for a moment.

"Oh, sweet baby Jesus," he said.

"That ain't exactly an easy question to answer, is it?"

"How come?" Tahir asked earnestly.

"Well, not every woman is the same, and not every man is the same, right?"

"Well, of course," Tahir said, "but surely there must be some cultural principle. Sir Christian… I believe you mentioned before that you were married?" A solemn look came over Morton's face.

"I… used to be," Morton whispered.

"Long time ago now." Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Tahir lowered his tail, then said, "Can you tell me what she was like?" The campfire crackled and popped. Crickets chirped in the distance. A small bird flew from one branch above them to the next. Morton stared into the flames for a while, their brilliance illuminating his rough visage as small bits of ash hung in the air around him.

He mulled the question over, turning it this way and that, forward and backward, really trying to figure out how best to answer it. Then he gave a soft laugh.

"Ah, Martha," he said.

"Mean as could be, but also so lovely when she wanted to be. She was smart. Real smart. Smarter than I will ever be, I reckon. She made me feel like I was the biggest idiot in the damn book. Did that quite often, if I'm bein' honest."

"How did you meet?" Tahir asked with a flick of his ears.

"Was it an arranged marriage?"

"Oh, goodness no!" Morton said with a belly laugh.

"Hell, her daddy hated me. He reckoned I was a bad influence on his innocent little daughter.

"Martha, you see, we went to school together, and she was real popular—a right pretty gal. I never thought someone like that woulda wanted to go out with a little farm boy like me.

"But to my surprise, she was the one who came up to me! I was workin' on my daddy's truck, somethin' was goin' on with the transmission or whatnot, and she came up to me.

"In front of me was this gorgeous gal, in a nice dress with some flowers on it, lookin' down at my dirty self, and she said, 'Would you wanna maybe… go to the movies?' At first, I thought she was makin' fun of me, you know, askin' me out as a prank. For a minute, I just kinda stood there like a deer starin' into headlights. I asked her if there was somethin' wrong with her head, but she said no. And so I let my guard down, and I replied, 'Then damn right I would!'""

Is it not normal for a woman to make the first move in your realm?" Tahir asked. He had also noticed how Morton had described her in very masculine features; yet to him, this was considered normally feminine.

"Hell, I wish," Morton said with a smile.

"Nah, in Texas, the man's gotta ask the girl out, and that can be right tough. You gotta suck it up and march over with a prayer on your lips."

"That sounds rather dreadful," Tahir said.

"Yet, that would feel very romantic, in a way."

"You got that damn right! But anyway, I had to sneak her out the window like I was damn robbin' the place, make sure her father didn't know—""Wait," Tahir said, staring.

"She asked you out without her father's approval?"

"Oh, no, he wouldn't have approved anyway… mostly by puttin' my head through the wall." Tahir cringed at that visualization.

"No, he always hated me. He hated how poor I was, how stupid I was; he hated my parents and my grandparents. I don't think there was anythin' on God's green earth that man actually liked."

"Forbidden love," Tahir said. His ears flicked, and a little smirk spread across his face. As much as he acted above it, he did enjoy a tragic play where the central theme was forbidden love: two people who could never be together. There was always something so delightfully tragic about it.

"So we went to the movies that night—""What is a… moving play?" Tahir asked.

"Ah, think of it like a play, but, um… the actors ain't actually there, you know?"

"I think I understand," Tahir said.

"Anyway, I remember that night. We parked our car, and, oh, by the Lord above, that movie was right terrible, just a heapin' pile of trash! But there came on a scene, a real sexy scene, if you will. I remember she put her hand on my thigh, and I couldn't help but blush, and she leaned in and began kissin' me. And I tell you, kid, I may be a man of the good book, but I don't think the Lord was pleased with me that night."

"What do you mean?" Tahir asked. His ears flicked back in embarrassment when he realized what Morton meant. He felt his embarrassment concentrate into heat and radiate from his fur like a sun-struck stone.

"Yeah," Morton said reminiscently, "she was not only a damn good woman, but she was my woman."

"Whatever happened to her?" Tahir asked. Morton frowned.

"That's a story for another day, kid."

"Oh," Tahir said with his paws defensively held up, "I did not mean to pry too much like that, Sir—""It's okay, kid," Morton said.

"Just… personal is all." Silence overtook the world for a moment; the only noise was the crackling of the fire, the settling of the firewood, and the low chirps of the baby birds who refused to fall into slumber.

"Sir Christian," Tahir said.

"Do you think I would make a good husband?" Morton looked at him.

"I think if you find someone who treats ya' right, and you treat 'er right, it will all be fine." Tahir's ears flicked.

"Do you ever feel like you were… born in the wrong place?" Tahir asked.

"All the time," Morton said.

"We don't get to choose what we're born as. We only get to choose who we are."

"That is very wise, Sir Christian," Tahir said.

"Perhaps one day, I may visit this Texas for myself." Morton frowned.

"Maybe," he said.

"Maybe." Tahir's mind was racing with poetics, form, and rhyme: he bet that he could make a great epic poem out of Sir Christian.