Chapter 19 – The Library is Open
The next morning, I met Araxis in the hot training room as always.
We slid into our usual back-and-forth, comfortable and challenging all at once.
Grigor glowered from across the room, and I worked hard to keep an eye on him, just in case.
He stopped pounding on the punching bag whenever he saw Araxis and I draw near to each other, his face a permanent scowl.
Once, Grigor even spit on the floor – this was why aliens thought humans were backwater slobs!
– when Araxis stepped in close behind me, hand falling to my hip as he showed me a variation on one of the dancing sequences that could be deadly as an attack.
"Hey," I gasped, bent over with my hands planted on my knees after we'd finished running through all nine sword-dancing sequences at a brutal pace, "I'm going to try and talk to shithead over there.
" I tipped my chin toward Grigor, who was fighting a punching bag like it had personally offended him or maybe propositioned him, which were probably the same thing.
"Would you mind just waiting in the stairwell for, like, five minutes?
If I don't show up, you can assume he's killed me. "
Araxis stared at me, black eyes wide. "That does not sound wise, Sashen. I could accompany you."
I waved one hand, dismissive. "I think it's better if I talk to him on my own. He gets all bug-eyed whenever he sees us together. Since, you know." I straightened, fighting against the pleased little smile that wanted to slip free. I lost. "He seems to think you might like me."
Araxis blinked several times, rapid. "I do like you," he said slowly. "Why would that –" He stopped, apparently catching up with what I meant by like; I could see him restrain himself from looking up to the silver camera glinting just over our heads. "Hm. And he would find this unacceptable."
"For a whole slew of reasons," I said, shoving my hair off my forehead.
"And would you find it unacceptable?" Araxis asked, mild.
I laughed, unable to stop myself. Across the room, Grigor's head swung in my direction, his face tightening in disgust. Since we had an audience, I drifted to Araxis, brushing my hand against his shoulder.
"No," I murmured, tipping my head in close to his ear.
"I would definitely not find that unacceptable.
I might even be pleased. You'll wait for me? "
"Yes, of course." Dropping my fingers away from his upright shoulder felt like trying to pull two magnets apart, but I did it anyway and cut a path across the training room.
When I drew near to Grigor, who'd gone back to beating the ever living shit out of that punching bag, I was careful to school my face to pleasant blandness. He rocked back on his heels, glowering at me. "What do you want?"
I shrugged, leaning against another piece of equipment designed for someone who had more limbs than either Grigor or I did. "I was thinking about some of what you said."
"Were you?" He looked unimpressed and skeptical. "It looked to me like you were continuing to indulge in the sins of the flesh. Haven't closed those legs yet, Alikander."
Well, so much for an easy in. He clearly wasn't feeling convivial – how incredibly in character of him. But that was fine: I was a virra. I was pretty sure I could get even someone like Grigor to do what I needed him to.
"I was thinking about some things, yes," I said with an affected earnestness.
"You said Seraphim is fine with – different cultures.
Alien cultures. And you're obviously with a mining outfit.
I guess I just wondered where you're mining.
" I held my hands up placatingly as he turned to square off with me, features pinched.
"It can't be on-planet. You must be working with a partner somewhere else.
So I was… curious." I swallowed, throat dry, and added, "I don't know, maybe things have changed since I left.
I never would have expected the Shepherds would send anyone to something like this, and I guess a decade is a long time.
" The words tasted sour on my tongue, but I said them anyway and then watched, careful, to see if they'd landed.
He huffed out a hard breath, shaking his head. "Why do you care? Did your boyfriend ask you to find out about our operations?"
"He's not my boyfriend," I said, sharper than I intended. "He's not a man."
Grigor snorted. "Who knows what it is. Can't be your girlfriend. You wouldn't know what to do with a woman anyway."
He was so ignorant it might be laughable, except that it was Araxis he was talking about.
How hard could I bite my tongue before I actually bit clean through it?
And if I spit blood in his face, would that be enough of a distraction that I could kick the shit out of him?
Long enough for me to get to my practice blades and use blunt force trauma to shut him up?
"They really didn't send their most tactful, did they?" I asked, my voice nearly even and my mouth only tasting a little of blood.
He scoffed, hauling on his collar so he could swipe at his sweaty neck. "Tact isn't what wins anything that matters, Alikander. It's competence. It's righteousness. It's not hesitating to put the wicked in their place."
His flat stare told me exactly where he thought I belonged in that sequence.
"If your objective here is to make Seraphim look better, I've got to let you know: you're doing a shit job," I said finally.
"Genuinely. Is this a joke the Shepherds are playing?
You haven't convinced me of shit. I came over here to chat, and you've just been a dick.
You sound like an idiot in your interviews.
Sky Pebble told me you can barely string together a coherent sentence in Standard, and that's even with a chip helping you.
And all you're doing for Seraphim's image is making them look like the kind of place that sends violent, bigoted brutes to competitions they don't know shit about.
The only reason you're even getting any screen time is because you're talking to me.
You should try saying thank you. And maybe the next time you decide you want a late night chat, you should start with please, Sashen, won't you help me interest anyone in the slightest? "
Grigor purpled as he listened to me, fists curling tighter and tighter.
"And," I added in Standard, feeling a grim satisfaction as I set my own pieces into play, "it's a good thing I'm working the love triangle storyline on your behalf. Otherwise, you'd be well and truly fucked. You're welcome."
I turned on my heel and beelined out of the training room before Grigor could make heads or tails of what I'd just said. I knew he'd belatedly understood me when I heard the juddering thuds of his fists landing on the punching bag, again and again and again: violent, furious, relentless.
When I burst through the doors into the stairwell, Araxis was waiting, his features pinched with worry.
"All good," I said brightly as a wild smile took me by surprise; I was flying close to the sun, I knew that, and it was exhilarating and terrifying.
"I think I made him pretty fucking mad, though.
Whoops. That's alright. He'll punch things until he calms down. "
Araxis followed me up the stairs, casting a careful look backwards as if to assure the thing Grigor was going to punch in order to feel better wasn't Sashen’s head, from behind. "You're quite certain that was wise," he said slowly, although it was a question.
Wisdom wasn't really a quality anyone associated with me. "I mean, no," I admitted. "But what's he going to do? It's not like he can kill me extra hard on the sands."
"Hm, true," Araxis admitted. "And I have been told that you intend to slay either way, so."
I burst into slightly breathless laughter and we went our separate ways for the morning, agreeing to meet up again once we'd finished our daily interviews.
When Sky Pebble asked me if there was anything else I wanted to share at the end of our interview that afternoon, I nodded earnestly.
"Yeah, actually. I can't imagine you've had time to review the footage yet, but – I've had a few weird interactions with Grigor Spade recently, and there's one thing I just can't get out of my mind.
It might make a good line of inquiry if you finally want to get something interesting out of him. "
Sky Pebble leaned forward, his yellow eyes glinting. "Oh?"
"Grigor accused me of indulging in the sins of the flesh with Araxis," I said the phrase in English, chasing it with an approximate translation in Standard.
"I keep thinking about that word choice, indulging.
Generally, we only indulge in things we really want but have been denying ourselves.
I can't help but wonder how he'd like to indulge himself with me.
Or with us." I shrugged, feigning disinterest. "He definitely talks a lot about how pretty I am, and he showed up at my room last night.
He couldn't keep his eyes off me. I mean, do you think he's jealous?
Or is there some repression thing going on?
It might actually give you a decent angle. Just a thought."
That night in my room, when Araxis was sitting on the couch next to me, I let myself settle in close to his side and I tucked a note I'd written earlier in the hygiene room into the pocket of his pants, making sure he felt the paper crinkle.
He angled his head toward me, black eyes reflecting back the glow of the screen, where Be'oi was currently engaged in a prolonged battle against evil robots from another dimension.
I let my hand rest there, against his flesh of his hip. "Is this okay?" I murmured.
"Yes," he said, low; in the background, Be'oi was delivering a rousing speech, but the words fuzzed out as I leaned closer to Araxis. "Are you… a very tactile people?"