Frontier Chef: My Cooking Skills Are Broken-Chapter 20: Goodbye Furballs, Hello Desert

Green eyes.

That was the first thing he saw. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Two of them, looking down at him from directly above, framed by ivory hair and the kind of morning sun that had no business being that bright.

Water hit the back of his throat and he choked on it.

"Swallow," Neve said. "Or drown in your saliva."

Ezra swallowed. More water came, flowing down a bowl that was the top of a skull.

Not like he could complain. His head was pounding like a hangover he’d never agreed to.

His head was on something warm and his neck was angled upward. It took him another three full seconds to realize his skull was resting in her lap.

’I’m dreaming.’

He tried to sit up and her right hand pushed him back down by the forehead. She held it firm against her thighs and didn’t ease a bit.

’I’m not dreaming.’

"More," she said, tilting the skull down again. "You’re parched."

He drank it all down. He didn’t want to find out the alternative to saying no.

Not when Neve was counting every ounce.

"The desert freezes at midnight, and being naked doesn’t help." She poured more. "Frostbite got you good."

She tipped the skull and got every drop but one, a drip clinging to the rim.

Neve stuck her tongue out and licked it dry, then looked down again.

’Damn, lady.’

The sun was overhead, which meant morning was almost gone.

Around the two naked people, torches burned down to black stubs and drums were turned over on their sides. Ossalaka slept in piles of fur and bone with their pups tucked underneath.

The post-celebration version of the settlement looked like a frat house after homecoming weekend, except smaller and furrier.

’She carried me here. Well no, she can’t stand. She must have had me carried instead.

Either way my head ended up on her legs and she’s been sitting here since...’

"Stop thinking," Neve said. "It’s annoying."

Ezra lifted his head. She let him this time. "You can’t even hear my thoughts. It isn’t possible."

"No," she agreed. "But you make a stupid face." She put the skull bowl down and muttered something else out of his ears’ reach.

The bone circlet was still on her head. It sat crooked now, tilted from hours of sitting in one position. She hadn’t slept at all.

Ezra sat up, tensing once in case she retaliated but she was already looking straight ahead.

[ Ping! ]

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"How long was I out?" Ezra got to his feet and stretched. The sunburns were still present, frostbite long gone.

"Eight hours. You talked in your sleep." She was still staring at whatever was out there.

There was rustling beyond the rocks, subtle chanting and familiar footsteps.

"About what?"

"Betty." Neve looked up at him now. "Your mate?"

"Uh, no."

She actually raised an eyebrow.

"Ossa!" The Patriarch emerged from behind the boulder stack like it had been waiting for Ezra to wake up—it probably had. It planted the staff in the sand and barked three times.

The tribe stirred from their piles in a slow wave of yawns and scratching.

Four of the stocky royal guards followed, leading something on a harness made of bone and dried sinew.

It was a beetle. The size of a small car, flat-backed, six legs moving in alternating triplets. Its shell was the color of sand with scratches and dents from years of hauling loads.

It moved like it didn’t have opinions about where it was going and never would.

"That’s a freaky thing. Appraisal."

[ Dune Pacer — ★★ ]

> Profile: Domesticated desert arthropod. Load-bearing, docile temperament. Navigates by thermal gradient. Sustained overland travel 18-22 hours between rest cycles. Edible through slow roast under fire pit or equivalent.

Neve raised her other eyebrow, her gaze moving from Ezra’s pointed finger to the beetle then back to his finger.

"What the hell was that?"

’Oh shit. Nobody knows about us.’

[ Bzzt ]

The Patriarch barked at Neve.

"Ossa, ossa, ossa!" It said.

Neve paused for another second. She’d interrogate Ezra later.

"He says the shell-walker knows the path to the stone settlement." She fixed the circlet on her head straight. "East. Half a day if it doesn’t stop to burrow."

"If it burrows, we’re burning to death."

"It burrows when it’s hot. We wait in its saliva."

"Tell me you’re joking," Ezra gasped.

"Nope."

"Ossa!"

The Patriarch stepped forward and did something Ezra wasn’t ready for.

Its skull helmet clinked against his kneecap. The Patriarch held the position for three seconds, then stepped back and planted its staff.

The rest of the tribe followed in a wave of tiny foreheads against his legs that he couldn’t stop and didn’t try to. The smaller pups brought Ezra to eye-level, adorning his neck with necklaces made up bones and teeth.

Neve watched from where she sat with her mouth pressed shut.

"Ossa," the Patriarch said, no longer a chant. Just the word alone, gesturing to the entirety of Ezra.

They loaded Neve onto the beetle’s flat shell. Ezra climbed on behind her and the surface was warm and slippery under his hands, like sitting on a car hood left in a parking lot all day.

The royal guards led the Dune Pacer to the east gap, pointed it at the horizon, and bowed as it marched forward.

Its six legs churned sand in a rhythm that vibrated through the shell and into every part of Ezra that was touching it.

The settlement shrank behind them and the Ossalaka watched from the rim until the bowl was a dark speck against bright sand.

Neve sat in front of him with her back against his chest because she couldn’t sit upright on her own. She still had the circlet on. It caught the sunlight and stayed glowing.

"You didn’t have to stay up all night," Ezra said.

"I wasn’t staying up for you. I was making sure you didn’t choke on your own spit."

"That’s the same thing."

"Is it?"

She met his eyes, and he felt like leaning in.

[ Ping! ]

[ Side-quest completed: Befriend the Ossalaka tribe ]

> +1,250 Frontier Tokens

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’Fucking cockblocker.’