Lizard Love
It was unexpected. An hour earlier the day was bright and sunny and the market place was full of people. Now, the market place was abandoned. The winds were so strong that it was nearly impossible to walk against them and the rain stung any exposed skin like daggers falling from the sky. Everyone else, even the street urchins who I’d never seen leave the central city, had left the market place for a safer location. I was the only fool still outside. I needed to find her before I found shelter.
After our first night together I felt almost assured I would never see Illica ever again. We were very different and I thought for sure our language barrier would destroy any interest in each other. I wasn’t even sure Illica was her name. Illica could have meant scales or perhaps the name of her species or perhaps even her word for chest. Still, she always smiled when I meet her in the edges of the near by forest and called herself that. So, just like every night in the last three weeks, I was out again yelling for her.
“Illica!” I screamed, searching afterwards for any sign of movement. “Illica! Are you here?”
I was about to turn back, assuming she had found some sort of shelter from the rain when I noticed a large, dark shape running towards me. It took only seconds for her to be standing right in front of me.
“Come!” She hissed at me in her harsh reptilian voice as she grabbed my arm and began to pull in the direction of the deep forest.
“No, you have to come with me.” I yelled, trying to pull her in the opposite direction.
I felt certain she wouldn’t come with me into the city since all of my attempts in the last few weeks had resulted in a sad look upon my reptilian lovers face and a word I finally translated to be reptilian for no. Up until now spending time with Illica in the forest was a pleasant and new experience but it was not safe for either of us to be out tonight.
She looked at me with the same, sad look that she always gave me when I tried to get her to go into the city but this time she didn’t say no. She merely stood perfectly still and stared at me.
”Illica, you have to come with me. It’s not safe out here for you. I know you don’t want to go and I don’t know why but you have to trust me that you’ll be alright as long as you’re with me. We can’t stay out here much longer because the storm is getting worse.”
It was clear she didn’t understand any of what I was saying but I was certain she had at least understood the tone. Still, she remained steadfast in her placement and gaze.
“Illica, do you love me?” I asked her, pointing at her and myself at the appropriate moments. I knew from our first encounter that she understood the word love.
