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The silence pressed in on us, silence from the screams and the shouts and the plasma shots and the shuttlecraft zooming overhead. A foreboding silence.
I was focused on escaping and getting away from the danger zone. Hazel was still dwelling on the things she’d witnessed.
“I’m sorry for what happened,” I said.
Hazel shook her head and continued to cry.
“Why did they have to kill all those people?” she said. “They were innocent! There were children! Kids!”
Her face screwed up and the tears cascaded over her cheeks. Even now, she was beautiful.
I considered revealing who I really was, that I was the great and powerful Titan emperor. The Lord Of A Thousand Suns. The heart, hope, and dreams of every Titan in the galaxy…
Who had failed his people.
Who had failed in his duty to protect them.
Hazel was not a Titan. She would not be impressed by my accolades. With my current appearance, I wasn’t sure it would give heart to many Titans either.
I didn’t deserve to be the emperor.
I wanted to reach out and touch her.
Should I? Was it the right thing to do?
I wanted to calm her, ease her worried mind. For my entire life, few had ever touched me. Even my closest allies, Garrick and Slak, never dared touch me. It was against the law to touch the emperor. For much of my life, I’d never felt the warm glow of friendship, never mind love.
It was an alien concept to me, as alien as Hazel was. Then perhaps, by that logic, as an alien, I could treat her differently to the way I treated Titans?
I reached out a hand and gently placed it on her arm.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” I said.
She didn’t flinch at the touch of my hand. Instead, she took comfort in it.
I place my other hand on her other arm, and again, she didn’t flinch. Hugging her from this angle was awkward. Her legs were in the way and it would have seemed strange.
She seemed so small sitting there.
A single human on this world, alone, forced into a war-like situation that should have had nothing to do with her.
I moved around her, sat down, and wrapped my arms around her from behind.
I placed my legs on either side and made sure my crotch was pulled back from her.
“What are you doing?” she said.
She looked at me cautiously over her shoulder but didn’t stop me.
I wrapped my arms around her and placed my chin on her shoulder.
She accepted the warmth.
I gently rocked us side to side. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was acting on instinct. I had never done anything like this before.
And then I surprised myself. I began to sing.
It was a low hum in the back of my throat. She must have felt the vibrations on her back but she didn’t complain. It was a song of mourning and loss, for all those who had perished.
