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“Why?”
“Because,” he says, reaching for me and slinging me up into his arms with an easy motion which makes my stomach quiver. “I was at war when this happened. I was fighting the warriors of another tribe, and I was winning, but something must have happened and now we are all stranded down here. I will finish the battle before they do damage to this world and this time.”
“You are so brave,” I say, my hands wrapping around his horns for grip as he boosts me up onto his shoulders and carries me aloft out of the cave and down over the ashen mountain.
He makes a powerful mount. My weight is no physical burden for him, but he says so little to me I don’t know if I am being rescued or abducted. I don’t know if it matters. Being sacrificed was painful and frightening, but it also meant that my struggles were over. I was waiting to die, ready to let myself pass. There was no fight left in me. A life of being the other primed me to accept death without question.
Now I feel as though my life might have some meaning outside being a sacrifice. There might be a future for me, one Vulcan claimed for me. Maybe fate is not the deciding force in a human life. Maybe we can fight it, and carve our own channels of destiny. I am excited by the thought as much as I am scared by it.
“There is another tribe down here,” I tell him. “They are much larger, and much scarier. They are warriors. Trelok is afraid of them. He appeases the mountain so it will keep them from him and his hidden river. It’s the tribe where my father comes from.”
“Do you want to try to find your father?”
I stiffen at the suggestion. I thought of it a few times when I was younger but I was too afraid to travel so far.
I was also angry. I saw how Trelok guarded his women, and I knew that my father must not have guarded my mother. If he still lives, he is worse than Trelok, to my mind. He abandoned me, and he let my mother die. For that reason, I will never forgive even the concept of my father.
If Vulcan notices that I didn’t answer the question, he doesn’t comment on it. His hands tighten on my shins as he descends carefully toward the world which exists on the other side of Hyrrm. I have always known the world to be river and mountain, but there is a great deal beyond both which I am seeing for the first time. Plains stretch on forever, the world rolling itself out for the both of us, wild and open, going on as far as I can see, and I suspect, into a great beyond.
Vulcan
The little human clings to me with such easy, perfect trust. Her earlier request was a difficult one, one I avoided answering completely. I want to keep her. I never want to be separated from her, but it is clear that staying on this planet is not an option for me, and removing her from it is not one either. I have already failed my clutch, and put the whole of humanity at risk by being sucked down onto this planet. If I pursue selfish desire again, it could be disastrous for everyone, including her.
“There’s another cave here,” she points out happily as we descend. “If there aren’t any bears in it, it might be a good vantage point to camp in.”
She has a natural knack for survival. I suppose all humans do, but I am surprised at how quickly it has come to her when mere hours ago she was willing to sacrifice herself for her village, to die for those who hated her and surrender herself to ancestors who could not possibly care one way or another. I do not know what happens to humans when they die, but I do know that innocent, sweet girls like Tres cannot pay the price for the sins of those they leave behind.
One day the bastard Trelok will be an ancestor, along with so many other bastards who do not deserve light or life, yet have it. And one day, some small part of them may eventually do some good. This is no way to run a reality, but that is not up to me. As powerful as I am, I do not control all of existence.
“This is a good cave,” I say as we dip into it. I set her down, marveling at her lightness and yet strength. It barely feels as though I have put anything down at all. “Good spotting.”
“Thanks,” she smiles. “I am used to finding places to hide.”
“That is an excellent talent for any prey animal to cultivate.”
