previous part: https://jordynsaelor.com/2026/05/07/boy/
all parts: https://jordynsaelor.com/cant-catch-me-now/
***
Runabon grew too,
and like her father
she found herself a boy
and was fine with it
and the two of us
drifted
since xhe
got into the whole
ritual mating thing
common among xher kind
once they find out their sex,
and I was busy trying to map the dry wastes
further from the village
since
as much fun as it was
to live with huge flying creatures
that respected you as a healer
I sort of knew
it wouldn’t last forever.
My friendship with Runabon was circumstantial;
xhe was young
in a town of adults,
I was older than my years
but had never had many friends
so Runabon was my second chance
at childhood,
at making dolls out of lizard tails,
skipping rocks on the lake,
naming the plants growing up from the scorched garden
complicated names,
playing with our food,
making silly runes that shot confetti
or colored chalk
and nothing more.
But the games
got tired after a while,
while a seed named curiosity
took root in me,
reaching out to the rocky wastes
to find if anything lay beyond them.
But Runabon didn’t care as much
to explore
and I had no interest in the ritual mating thing
so we
drifted out of friendship
and that’s fine
though I did get
sort of jealous of the girls xhe laughed with
since if I had Runabon to carry me
I could travel three times as far in a day
to map the area around the garden,
but it was fine,
xhe was happy
and so was I
until
what lay beyond the rocky wastes
found us.
And it shouldn’t have surprised me
to find it violent
but I’m ashamed to say
I’d thought I was safe–
no warning
brought that belief down,
just a blue night
before dawn
suddenly red with raiders–
**to be continued**
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