Chapter Seven #4
Cloudy looked over at the dancing crowd, and a very strange assortment of women were being escorted by five Zowoth, one of whom appeared to be the leader.
He was holding a woman who was tall but appeared excited by the gathering.
There was a scaled woman with horns sweeping back from her forehead.
She was near a pale woman who was talking excitedly with gardeners.
Another woman was moving and skipping through the dancers, and she looked a lot like the tall woman with the lead Zowoth.
The other Zowoth were staring in astonishment at the humans laughing, singing, and genuinely being relaxed. Some of the ladies were throwing flirty glances at the orcs, and they were shocked by it. Cloudy really wanted to know why.
Yvari walked over, and Elspeth joined her.
Cloudy blinked. “Shit, the moms have joined forces.”
“And Yvetha makes three.” Hazor chuckled.
The Hmrain consort walked over, and they talked with the variety of women.
Cloudy blinked. “That is quite the gathering.”
Aya reached for her hood and then left it down. “Guardian Hazor, is there an image of me in the records?”
He frowned. “No. That is odd. It registers you by a number and a basic description. I identified you off your visa application.”
Cloudy cuddled up to him and patted his cheek. “He’s smart like that.”
He leaned down for a kiss, and she went up on her toes.
Aya laughed. “Get it, Cloudy!”
Cloudy flipped the bird, and Aya laughed harder.
Thunder said, “And now they are all coming this way.”
Aya muttered, “Hide me.”
Cloudy chuckled and slowly broke the kiss. She glanced over and blinked. “Wow, they are all coming.”
She laughed but looked at Aya. She was hiding behind her half-brother. “Auntie?”
“I am not going back. They can’t make me go back.” Aya’s normally cheerful features looked haunted.
Cloudy said, “Auntie Aya, what did they do to you?”
“They put me in a room.”
“And?”
“For nearly four years. Four walls. Can never leave. Never walk the station. Never even see the stars.”
Cloudy stared at her. “What?”
“I was a soother. Zowoth warriors would come in, sit down, and I would relieve them of the burden of their rut so that they could return to active duty.”
“How?”
The group was there when she said, “I took the lust into myself and let it disappear.”
The tall Zowoth stared. “You are a soother?”
“Yeah. Why? You have your stress relief pressed against your side.”
The woman blinked. “Wow. Rude.”
“Dude, you vibrate at the same frequency. Either you are fucking, or he’s your brother, if it’s both... ew.”
The pilot paused and laughed. “Well, you aren’t wrong on the first guess. What the hell is a soother?”
Cloudy saw Aya smile as the big guy leaned down and whispered.
The pilot said, “What’s so bad about that?”
Aya said, “You freaked out in a small room. Imagine a larger room, but make the sentence four years. No one to talk to. The Zowoth don’t talk to soothers.
All hormones deadened by visits from medical every two months.
You can’t even relieve yourself manually.
You are numb, and you use that numbness to do your job.
There is nothing else. No relief. No breaks.
No sun, no air, no sky, no friends, no laughter.
Nothing. The better you are, the less you see.
Too valuable to leave, even when your bond is done, and you have enough funds accumulated. They. Don’t. Let. You. Go.”
The pilot was shaking halfway through the explanation, and she turned and punched her companion in the stomach. She kept going, and he was staring at Aya, stunned.
“I know your voice.”
“Of course you do. I soothed you four times in two years. Two of the others have been in my chair once each.”
The pilot reached out and grabbed Aya in a hug. “I can dump them all here and take you with me if you like. They can wait for the warship.”
Aya laughed. “I am out here to see the stars. If the overseer doesn’t mind, I will make Siloven home.”
Yvari smiled. “I believe clearances can be arranged. Would you like to remain a soother?”
“I am good at it, but I hate being confined. Thank you for the hug, Margo.”
“You are tall.”
“I broke out and went straight for Aten. I got a little taller and regained one hundred pounds in the repair units. The thing they don’t tell you is that rations don’t work for everyone.”
Margo blinked. “Didn’t the medics notice?”
“My bloodwork was good as far as they knew, and no medic is allowed to uncover a soother. We are like nuns that they rent out by the hour.”
“As far as they knew?”
“They depend on the records of previous soothers. There never was a human soother. So I was eating enough, constantly, really, and nothing was sticking. I am not the first human like this, and I won’t be the last.”
Cloudy frowned. “Like what, Auntie?”
“I can’t get enough from processed rations. A few of the Zowoth came in smelling of roasted meat, and I nearly tore their throats out. That was the point I had to leave.”
Thunder frowned. “How did you get out of it?”
“That is a story for another time. I am being summoned to play again.” She casually lifted an electric fiddle and a bow from somewhere, and she inclined her head and skipped over to the bandstand.
There was a cheer of excitement, and the music spiralled outward, sending droves of people to the dance floor.
The pale woman smiled. “She has too much life to be contained.” She frowned. “If they try it again, she’s not going to survive it.”
The Zowoth said, “She will give up?”
“They will come en masse, they will be careful, and they will shove her into another room where she will stop fighting.”
The younger woman skipped over. “Mom, why aren’t you dancing?”
“Ghost of Christmas past just showed up.”
“Who?” The woman looked around.
“The fiddler. Another Zowoth well-intended confinement that nearly killed a human.”
“She was a concubine?”
“Soother.”
“Like a pacifier?”
“She removed lust and frustration from their minds. They put her in a box, sat in a chair, had her do her psychic thing, and then they left her in the box.”
“I really want to be able to travel away from Mom right now.”
Cloudy blinked. “Why can’t you?”
The younger woman smiled and went translucent. “I am a ghost. I am haunting my mother until her body lets me reincarnate.”
“A ghost?”
The scaled woman smiled. “That’s my thing. I am the ghost memory of Terra. If you have any loved ones who died between my birth and my pickup date, I can access them.”
Cloudy looked around. “Most of my loved ones are here. We managed to get the entire village taken on by the generous Overseer Yvari.”
Yvari chuckled. “Vecchin authorized it, but yes. I thought it would be interesting to get an entire linked group here, and it definitely is.”
Cloudy grinned.
Margo raised her brows. “In joke?”
“This is my mate, partner, husband, whatever. Hazor. One of the guardians and grandson of Vecchin, who is over there chugging a beer.”
Cloudy looked at them. “Have you been to the pub yet? They are doing human-equivalent food samplers. Chips, fries, scotch eggs, hamburgers, coleslaw, and stir-fry. Different juices are available as well. Just ignore the colours and go for the flavour.”
Margo grinned. “Come on, Aken-Var. I am going to see if this matches up to anything I remember.”