Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ella was up and dressed when Draikis returned a while later.
With him was Elder Soparo, along with another man, this one different from the others.
He had the same violet skin as the rest of the order, but with a completely shorn head.
That bald dome, as well as the rest of his body, seemed to be covered with a far greater quantity of rune tattoos than anyone else from what she could see, and many of them were faintly glowing on top of that.
“Ella, it is good to see you in good health,” Elder Soparo greeted her. “I see you have not only healed but flourished under the attention of Brother Draikis.”
“He’s been a fantastic host. You all have. I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for me.”
“It is our pleasure as much as our duty to see to the care of those in need. And you, my dear, were ever so in need.”
“Tell me about it.”
Draikis stepped forward. “Ella, this is Skrizzit Volkarian. He is recently back among us and will be applying your runes. He is the most skilled Skrizzit in hundreds of systems. You are in good hands.”
Ella felt a rush of what? Fear? Excitement? Whatever this was, she was about to get special treatment normally not afforded outsiders.
She gave the man a little bow. “It is an honor, sir.”
“You are right. It is,” he said with a huff. “When Elder Soparo asked that I apply runes to a burn victim, I did not expect to see one with their flesh so pristine and unscarred.”
“She is a quick healer,” Draikis noted. “A quirk of her race, it seems.”
“Yes, apparently. I also did not expect to be asked to work on a female.”
The way he said it struck a nerve, but she kept her expression neutral.
His disdain wasn’t nearly as pronounced as some of the others, but it seemed even this holiest of holy men bore her some traces of ill will simply for her gender.
It seemed to be a running theme here, but Elder Soparo, however, had requested his services, and the Skrizzit would do his duty no matter what.
Even if that meant working on a woman such as her.
“Unusual. I’ve not seen your race before, but Draikis says your world is a recent addition to the Dotharian Conglomerate, is that correct?” Volkarian asked.
“Uh, yeah, brand new,” Ella replied, biting her tongue and not volunteering any more information than necessary lest she give away the true situation. The fact that Earth was very much not a part of their conglomerate.
Fortunately, the Skrizzit seemed satisfied with her response. In fact, his mood even shifted a fraction, if not to the friendly spectrum, at least to the less annoyed one.
“At least it will be an interesting process,” he said, circling her with a piercing gaze.
He reached out and ran his fingers along her bare arm, his touch far rougher and uncaring than the man who had worked her over earlier in the day.
“Supple. No scarring whatsoever. That in and of itself is quite interesting. Burns normally do not heal this well, even with the more potent salves and mending devices. I think this could be a very interesting process indeed.”
“I appreciate your doing this for me. I can’t express how grateful I am.”
“Of course you are. Now, shed your clothing and lay upon the table and we will begin.”
“We’ll leave you to it,” Elder Soparo said, apparently a little flustered at the thought of her bare flesh after so many years surrounded only by men.
“I will check on you later,” Draikis added as they left. “You are in good hands.”
And then they were gone, leaving the poor human woman all alone and at the mercy of the odd tattoo artist. A Skrizzit. A specialist in precisely this sort of very detailed sort of ink work. Or pigment as she’d been corrected on multiple occasions.
Ella stripped and climbed up onto the table.
Unlike before, this was not sexy in the slightest. Not his gaze nor his touch, and it had nothing to do with having already relieved herself not long ago.
This man was simply utilitarian in his touch.
Workmanlike and nothing more. She was just a piece of flesh for him to tend to. To experiment on, it would turn out.
He poked and prodded, then took out several small vials of different color pigments and held them up next to her skin, assessing their contrast to her flesh tone.
“Hmm. Unusual.”
“What is?” she asked.
“I do not have a base reference for your species, so this will require a bit of creative thinking.”
“Mama always said I lived outside the box.”
“Outside the box?”
“Oh, it’s an expression on my world. How people tend to think within the confines of what they’re familiar with. A box of sorts, metaphorically speaking.”
“And you live outside it? Outside this box?”
“I tend to see things a bit differently, yeah.” His questioning gaze was unsettling. “Um, what I meant was, since I’m not your usual kind of subject, I guess you’ll be working outside the box with me.”
Amazingly, a tiny curve appeared on his lips. Almost imperceptible, but Ella saw it.
“I suppose I will be,” he said, pulling out a dozen more vials. “Not knowing how your race reacts to the various pigments means we will first need to test them on you. I will do so in an innocuous area, of course.”
“Testing? Like, I’m going to be a human scratch pad?”
At that the dour man actually let out a tiny chuckle.
“I would do no such thing. All markings must be of the correct nature, and thus I will be giving you a series of small enhancing runes that typically do nothing on their own, but should a particular pigment take hold, they may connect with your new runes, strengthening some over time.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Now, relax. This will not take too long.”
He set to work, his hands moving with the steady speed of one who had done this sort of thing countless times. When it came to applying basic runes, Skrizzit Volkarian could do them in his sleep.
He chose her ankle for the tests, forming a band all the way around consisting of a total of seventeen small runes, each a different color pigment.
As he worked, he explained what sort of power each of them contained, idly chattering about the plants they were extracted from and how much of the galaxy’s energy they could hold.
Some were flat in color, while others were vibrant.
A couple even glowed faintly as they were set into her skin.
Then there was the final one. The darkest of black that she had seen on the chest of her host. The one used not just for basic designs, but also for the blocking rune. He placed that as the final marking then stepped back to look at his handiwork.
“Not bad,” he said, happy with the results.
Ella looked at her ankle. It was a densely intertwined group of beautiful runes making a rather stunning band all the way around. And, incredibly, it didn’t hurt. Sure, there’d been a poking sensation as he marked her, but apparently these pigments muted nearly all pain when they were applied.
“You do incredible work. It’s stunning,” she admired.
“Of course it is,” he replied, leaning closer, a confused look on his face. “But this doesn’t make sense.”
“What?”
“You shouldn’t absorb and assimilate that one so quickly.”
“Which one?”
“The silver-white one. A very powerful pigment that normally only binds to the most select few of our order. And yet you have already taken it in. And look. It is helping the others set in place. How remarkable.”
“I guess I’m just—”
“Impossible!”
Ella jumped at the outburst. “What?”
“The blackest pigment. Look!”
“Look at what? I don’t… oh!”
She saw what he was talking about now that she knew where to look.
The black pigment was normally void of any color, but this application had begun shifting.
Changing. It was dissolving before their eyes, losing its darkness and shifting into a swirling mix of the other colors combined, drawing from all of them and forming a unifying rune of sorts.
“I’ve never seen the like of it. What are you?”
“I’m a human, like I said.”
“Most unusual. Most unusual indeed!”
The Skrizzit shuffled around his pigments, arranging them and rearranging them on his tray, but his mind was clearly elsewhere.
Finally, after several busy minutes, he stopped and returned to examine his handiwork.
More than that, how this woman, this impossible woman, had somehow done what she had.
Gone was his frown, now replaced by a brightness in his eyes.
An excited look. He took a small device from his pocket, no bigger than his palm, rounded on the edges, as thick as a finger.
He pressed the center and tossed it in the air above her.
Ella reached up to catch it, but the little disc remained aloft above her, silently hovering.
“What is it?”
“A recording disc. Oh, this is remarkable,” he said, clearly worked up but in a good way. “I am going to document the entire process.”
“Is that normal?”
“Normal? No. We never bother. Why would we? But this? You? This is something entirely new, and I have the incredible privilege of being the first Skrizzit in the sector to apply these pigments. To document your species’ reaction.
And oh, what a reaction it has been so far. Marvelous. Just marvelous!”
“Uh, so that wasn’t bad, what it just did? The black ink, I mean.”
“Bad? No. I mean yes, I suppose, but also no. I don’t know what it means, but one thing is clear.”
“Yeah?”
“Only the finest pigments will be used on you. And I am going to carefully record every last detail of it. I’ll be the most famous Skrizzit in the order, thanks to you.”
“You’re welcome, I guess.”
The man was positively buzzing with anticipation, excited to find out what this novel specimen might do next.
How her skin would react to the many runes he would apply to her.
What had started as a tedious annoyance had become something quite different, and Skrizzit Volkarian was going to be the one breaking news of this to the galaxy.
“Only my very best work,” he said to himself, as if preparing for a difficult task.
“All will see this. Nothing but the absolute best will do.” He turned to actually look Ella in the eye, the amazing piece of meat he was about to work on morphing back into a person in his gaze, at least for a moment.
“Relax, my dear. This will be a longer session than usual.”
“Why? Is something wrong?”
“Wrong? No,” he said with a dreamy grin. “I am going to make your runes incredible.”