Dara, Page, and the Secrets of the Multiverse

▷ 6.3

Dara watched as Page poked the fire, watching the smoke curling from the timbers it devoured. She looked at him from the hoods of her eyelids, careful of not letting him notice. He was dressed in what Page assumed to be the local fashion, with a long, wide-sleeved shirt tucked into belted trousers, which were tucked into wool boots. His hair was pinned up with nothing but a silver pin, which stayed on even after their scuffling.

"Stop staring at me," a voice grouched and bled into Page's ears. "One would think you are quietly stalking your prey."

Page looked behind her, noting nothing but trees, trees, and more trees. "Are you perceiving a company other than mine?" she asked. "I wonder if you have somewhere to check your eyes. Or your senses."

If Dara were offended by that, he didn't show it. Instead, he curled his lip inward, rummaging in his pack and pulling out a small, round fruit. He began peeling it, revealing plump, fleshy bits clumped together. He popped one into his mouth. Page pursed her lips, stopping herself from blurting to get him to give her some.

It was something of a miracle to find themselves sitting opposite each other in the middle of the vast forest untouched by the Plague. When she walked out on him earlier, she expected him to have continued on his way, leaving her alone. Instead, not only did he stalk after her, he never strayed away from her path. He offered no sign of interference, letting her have her own way. Only then, did she realize he was following her lead despite not knowing where she was going or if she knew what she was doing. That was a different kind of trust given to a stranger who tried to kill him at one point.

Maybe he felt guilt, leaving off a foreigner to die on a different planet. Or maybe he wanted to find Athepaliah too and use its resources against her. During the length of the journey, she turned and asked for his name. "Dara," he replied with a begrudging nod. When asked why the gesture was included, Dara responded with, "I suppose I judged you too soon. You have amended my impression of you when you asked for what I am called."

Which was a long way to say he didn't think of her as bad when she showed the least amount of concern for him.

Soon after, Page admitted to the canopies that she was lost, and that she didn't really have anything to go on. Dara then took the helm, propping her on a random slab of rock, starting a fire, and telling her to sleep the dark away. "You don't want to invite predators on your trail by moving about with a torch. Worse, you will start a forest fire and kill off everything the Blight didn't."

The last part made sense, but sitting in the dark with a burning campfire was the equivalent of waving a torch around, right? Page was in no position to argue, though. Dara got one thing correct about her—she was a foreigner in a world she knew nothing about. Even the archives in Nuvis' best space navigating school barely had any information about a planet called Guahiri. Maybe this really was Page's discovery, and she would write a book about it to teach in the next semester in the Academy. An ambition worth pursuing.