“Give me your neck.”

Wordlessly, she tilted her head back. Then the laughing creature’s eyes flashed with rage, and she drew a hand across her throat, glaring at Odval as he took her blood.

Saaral lay silent and weak on the floor of the tent. Odval tied his trousers and lifted the tent flap, but not before tossing a skin of pony blood toward her. It lay in the dust. Saaral stared at it, wanting to reach for it, but not giving Odval the satisfaction of seeing her eat.

Saraal would let no one watch her drink. No one but the laughing creature who followed her around the camp.

She had come to Saraal soon after Kuluun finally pulled her from the earth. Saaral did not know how long she had been buried, though she knew they had moved many times. Those flights were her only sliver of life. When Kuluun or one of his brothers would carry her still body in the air as they moved camp, she would feel, for a brief moment, the wind in her hair. She had glimpsed the laughing creature on one of those flights. Saw the corner of her grey eye peeking from behind a cloud. Then she was gone.

She’d appeared again in the moonlight, creeping into camp to sit next to Saaral as she washed clothes in a stream. It looked like a girl around her own age, but Saraal was suspicious. No one else reacted to her, though. They ignored the creature just as they ignored Saraal.

It followed her everywhere. Through the tents. By the cooking fires. She even hovered in the corner of the tent when Kuluun or one of his brothers rutted with her, making faces or looking bored. At first, Saraal was afraid. Afraid that the laughing girl would be captured as she had been. Eventually, she realized that no one saw the creature but her.

She must have been an older Sida because she could fly. She hung in the air and swooped like a joyful bird. One night, Saaral began to talk to her as she washed the clay cooking pots in the sand.

“What is your name?”

“My name?” The creature looked confused for a moment, then she looked up at the full moon. “You can call me Aday.”

It was a name from her human language, and it made Saraal smile. “You’re a Sida like me.”

“Yes.” Aday’s smile grew wide. “And no.”

“What do you mean? Why can no one can see you except me?”

“Can’t they?”

“You know they can’t. That’s why you mock them.”

Aday didn’t respond; she flew up in the air when Kuluun approached Saraal, towering over her.

“Who are you talking to, Saraal?”

Saraal put on the dead expression she wore for him. “No one.”

Aday came back, hovering behind Kuluun and mimicking his angry stance, hands on her hips and eyes narrowed in anger. Saraal saw her, and an unexpected laugh left her throat.

“What is wrong with you?” Kuluun asked. “You don’t speak to anyone but me.”

Then Aday began to sing, though Kuluun ignored her.

“Not true, not true!” Aday’s voice floated in the wind. “She talks to me, you old goat.”

Saraal felt it again, a burst of laughter so high and clear she thought it must be coming from someone else. Kuluun backhanded her. But Saraal didn’t stop laughing because Aday kept singing.

“Old goat! Hairless goat! Do your balls drag behind you, old goat?”

Kuluun glared at the laughing Saraal. “What is wrong with you? Disgusting bitch.”

“She’s disgusting?” Aday flew over and hovered in front of Kuluun, but he paid her no attention. “Do you like it when the other goats lick your sagging balls, Kuluun? They must get so dirty in the pony shit.”

Saraal couldn’t stop laughing. Tears came out of her eyes. She didn’t even feel it when Kuluun’s fist connected with her jaw. The pain was inconsequential. The joy of hearing Aday insult Kuluun made any pain he inflicted a pleasure.

Suk must have heard Saraal’s peals of laughter because he wandered over and pulled Kuluun’s arm back, stopping him from hitting her more.

“What’s wrong with you? It’s my turn with her tonight. And I’m tired of fucking a dead thing. Leave her alone, Kuluun.”

The glowering Sida wiped spittle from his mouth, his fangs cutting the back of his hand before he swung at his brother. “Shut up, you stupid shit, or you’ll get no turn with my woman tonight. She’s mine to do with as I like.”

Suk cocked his head, watching Saaral, who was still giggling on the ground.

“What is wrong with her?”

“I don’t know.” Kuluun kicked her, but Saraal just rolled in the sand, laughing.

“She’s mad. You’ve made her mad with your stupid punishment. I told you. She’ll be no good to anyone now.”

Odval wandered over. “At least she’s laughing. Maybe she’ll be a better fuck now that she’s mad.”

“I doubt it.”

Odval shrugged. “I don’t care. I’ll take her if you don’t want her anymore.”

Kuluun punched his brother. “She’s mine. You get a turn with her when I say so.”

“Fine,” Suk said, pulling Odval away before the brothers began fighting again. Saraal just watched them from the ground, smiling when she caught Aday behind them making rude gestures. Soon enough, the brothers wandered away, and she began washing the cooking pots again.

Some of the human women who belonged to the other Sida wandered over to do their chores alongside her, but no one spoke to Saraal.

The human women the Sida collected—those they didn’t kill right away—thought of her as a mute. She wasn’t human so she couldn’t be trusted. But they knew she was a captive too, so she wasn’t respected. They treated her with fearful disdain. There was no friendly chatter as the women did their chores, like Saraal faintly remembered from her human life.