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!andRest 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 allbeyond 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 asAppointment (Private)drew nearer and nearer.
I was gasping for air on the track,hands braced on my knees aftera brutalfinal sprint,whenone of the voltaarimade a carefulapproach.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,soI 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 thatstruck 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 havehelpedmore of them?
I stopped by my rooms again to shower and get cleaned up, still buzzing from that interaction with the voltaari.I'dgotten Grace Mining booted from a voltaari moon.I'dgotten a cult their own secret moon base.I'dconvinced 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 playSkyPebble to our benefit, and it was clear from the metrics that Silver Sea shared with me that what we were doing – whatIwasdoing– was working.Araxis and I had come here to winandto perform well with viewers – Vivith had made that very clear – and a lot of that had been because of me.
I could help.Iwasgood 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'tcareabout 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 thanI’d everexpected.
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.Theline of his shouldersshiftedahead of me,just a little."You're kind," he offered as he continued to walk downwards.
We passed the levels of the common areas, the track and training ring, the pool.At the bottom level, Araxis took a keycard from a pocket at his waist and pressed it to a panel set into the back corner.There was a soft chime.A door that had been nearly invisible opened, revealing a more utilitarian stairwell beyond, all metal grating and cold, sterile railings lit by too-bright lights.
He looked at me then, holding the door open and gesturing toward the stairs that wentsomewhere.I might have hesitated or at leastasked a question or two, but his eyes had softened, just a bit, and he looked… I don't know, wistful, maybe?Sad?
A couple weeks ago, I had been incredibly confident in my ability to read his stoic features.In some ways, I had been in command of his reactions: I knew how to make him blush, or fall quiet, or gasp, or go soft and pliant.
Now, I felt like I barely knew him at all.
I guess that feeling was closer to the truth, in the end.How arrogant, to assume that I could have everknownhim when we were on the ship.I didn't understand his culture or his identity, and I sure as hell didn't understand what it meant to be the head of Creche Thiel.I didn't know what it meant to be sinnenthi.I didn't know anything, but I had believed that I did.I had felt that I knew him on some deep, instinctive, truthful level – like we were two souls tethered in our own way.I likened us earlier to comets locked in a decaying orbit together and that's what it felt like.
