Chapter 22 – To Cherish, To Hold #2
I worked away on the story for the kids until my wrist started hurting, at which point I pulled up my schedule.
A soft pink block labelled Appointment (Private) hovered in the middle of the afternoon, casting a gentle glow over my skin in the dim light.
I tapped the slot and found the location wasn't specified, which I assumed meant that someone would come and get me.
When I sat down for my daily chat with Sky Pebble, he made all the expected sympathetic sounds and told me how good I looked given the ordeal I'd been through.
He tried to get me to speak more about Seraphim, but I didn't feel like opening up any more of my old wounds, not for him anyway.
"And," he said, beaming at me while I sat there, feeling hollow, "I gather you're going to have a private conversation with Araxis later.
Do you have any hopes for how that might go? "
I had a lot of hopes, but didn't know how many would end up coming true. Mostly I was pissed off – that felt a hell of a lot better than the alternative, which I presumed would be sorrow if I scratched off the rage I’d plastered on top of it – but anger wouldn't play well on camera.
So instead, I put on a sad little smile that sat a little too comfortably on my lips and shrugged.
"I just hope… Well. All I want is for us to understand each other.
I know he's said he'll protect me. He's solving all of my problems. And maybe I shouldn't ask for anything else… "
I let myself trail off, looking down at my lap.
Across from me, Sky Pebble shifted in his seat, the material creaking.
"But if you were asking for more," he prompted.
When I was still quiet, he continued. "You said, before your media panel, that you thought the two of you had something.
Do you still think that? Is that what you're hoping for? "
I let myself look up at Sky Pebble's smooth brown face again, his eyes startlingly bright.
"Of course that's what I want," I said – and it had the added benefit of being true.
"But… I don't know. It seems like there's not much I can offer.
I don't know what I was ever thinking. Of course he doesn't want me. Why would he?"
The words came out raw, and I was shocked at how – honest they were. I hadn't meant to say anything real. I blinked rapidly, looking away. I had to get a handle on myself.
Across from me, Sky Pebble hummed thoughtfully. "When I spoke with him earlier today, Araxis described you as –" he said a word in an unfamiliar language, melodic. "It means that you're a treasure. How do you feel about that?"
I'm yours; you're mine.
You deserve to be cherished.
But also – a liability.
I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. "He said that?"
Sky Pebble's mouth tightened as he smiled. "Yes, he did."
"Then – I guess maybe I feel hopeful after all."
I left the interview room convinced that I'd gotten us more air time, even at the cost of being accidentally earnest, although I didn't expect I'd be thanked for it.
And why should I need thanks? Araxis was already taking care of everything else.
The least I could do was play the part he needed me to.
Silver Sea had removed my training sessions from my schedule, but persistently made sure my nutrition and hygiene breaks were in there.
Where I'd once been told to go run, swim, and sword-dance, now she had noted simply, Rest!
and Rest some more! and, once, Consider beginning an autobiographical story; please transcribe directly into your wristband.
I am obligated to remind you that anything you access or input can be shared at the discretion of the broadcaster.
I ignored her directions, and went instead to go run a few laps and duck my head underwater. Let the others stare. Let them wonder. It didn't matter anyway.
At least movement kept me from being tempted to poke that forbidden box in my head where I kept things like crinkled notes and squiggled hearts, and the misapprehension that I had any value at all beyond the playacting we were doing.
And if I could keep myself from thinking about that box, I wouldn't have to feel any of the things that I'd shoved into it.
Running around the training area also kept me from watching the minutes tick by as Appointment (Private) drew nearer and nearer.
I was gasping for air on the track, hands braced on my knees after a brutal final sprint, when one of the voltaari made a careful approach.
I couldn't tell then which one – honestly, they looked really similar to me, tall and hulking, scaled with sharp-looking horns on their brows – but they stopped about two arm spans away, robes fluttering quietly.
I glanced up, sweat dripping from my nose. "What?" I asked, voice flat as I straightened up. My fists curled by my sides, slow.
The voltaari looked down at me, their scales a light sandy brown.
I saw their jaw twitch. Most voltaari weren't talkative, but some took vows of silence for their cults.
Just when I had convinced myself that this one wasn't ever going to talk, they opened their mouth, voice raspy and sibilant when it slid out from between their many teeth.
"My priest made a petition to speak with me, and asked me to then speak with you.
She thanks you for your candour about the human station. "
My eyebrows shot up. "Oh?"
Their hands clasped in front of their massive body, their head inclining.
"The human mining initiative had rights to one of the moons in our system.
These rights have been revoked, and the mines restored to our people.
Our cult has been given occupancy. We have claimed their facility for ourselves. "
I assumed that was a good thing, and it definitely was a good thing that Seraphim had lost out on an entire facility.
The voltaari added, "We do not need an asteroid now, so I will yield to your prince.
Would you ask him to still his sword? I accept his verdict either way and offer gratitude, human.
" And then they turned and quietly headed back in the direction of one of the common areas, scaled features soft with a kind of serenity that struck me as – unprecedented, at least in the scope of my life.
"Ha." An incredulous sound left my mouth.
I guess I wasn't such a liability after all.
Maybe we could have played this whole thing differently: if we'd come in, figuring out who needed what and we'd approached them that way, we could have eliminated half of the players before ever hitting the sands.
Vivith had gotten some pretty basic files from an information broker, but I bet that if they'd asked around a bit more, they'd have been able to learn more.
No one came who wasn't desperate, that's what Alet Trident had said. And desperate people all had things they wanted. Could we have helped more of them?
I stopped by my rooms again to shower and get cleaned up, still buzzing from that interaction with the voltaari.
I'd gotten Grace Mining booted from a voltaari moon.
I'd gotten a cult their own secret moon base.
I'd convinced someone who mattered in another part of space not to trust Seraphim, no matter what they claimed to think about aliens.
I had done that, just like I'd gotten great numbers with the audience.
I'd figured out how to play Sky Pebble to our benefit, and it was clear from the metrics that Silver Sea shared with me that what we were doing – what I was doing – was working.
Araxis and I had come here to win and to perform well with viewers – Vivith had made that very clear – and a lot of that had been because of me.
I could help. I was good at this.
I let myself just barely start to wonder why, then, he was so upset with me, when I heard a gentle rapping at my door.
I took a few breaths to steady myself, my pulse picking up despite my firm resolution that I didn't care about any of this, that the bits of me that cared had been buried six feet under and locked away for good.
When I finally had steeled myself enough to open the door, it was to Araxis's familiar figure, though he looked – different.
My eyebrows shot upwards as I took him in: the slim-fitting pants tied at the waist; the loose dark tunic, carefully tucked inside his waist tie, its neckline wide and draping; his crest, unbound, a cascade of quills spilling from his head and down his neck.
"Oh," I said softly, and felt the foolish impulse to reach out and touch him. To thread my fingers through his mane of quills: I knew that they were more rigid and thicker than human hair, but still pliant, flexible, softer than I’d ever expected.
He was quiet, his eyes dark holes in the pale skin of his face. "Will you come with me?" he asked after a moment, studying me.
"Of course," I said. He turned, abrupt, and headed toward the stairwell; his quills rustled in the quiet hallway, like the sound of tall grasses in an open field or maybe like waves upon a rocky shore.
I didn't really know: I was just going off of documentary footage.
But I still felt a shiver along my spine as I watched the cascading movement of his crest down his back.
My stare trailed downward, tracing the familiar shape of him.
His narrow waist, the curve of his ass, his powerful thighs.
His feet, I noticed, were bare.
"Your feet are going to be cold," I offered as he headed into the stairwell and began to trek downwards. I'd traced these steps so often in the time since I'd arrived at the village that I barely took note as we passed by level after level.
He didn't look back, but I liked to imagine that made him smile. The line of his shoulders shifted ahead of me, just a little. "You're kind," he offered as he continued to walk downwards.