by Renard, Loki
He could walk away right now, leave me. I am half-afraid he will. And half-afraid he will not. Either way, I know I am still dead. This is just a reprieve. Either Trelok will find me and slay me, or the elements will claim me, or this creature who seems to have handed me life in the skull of the dead will bring about my end. I can feel it in my bones. I have always known I was not made for this world.
I sit back, and I sip the water from the skull and I wait to find out which of the evils will befall me first. I’m not afraid, because fear is only useful when you are trying to live, and I have been so close to death that I have felt the veil between the worlds and I know there is nothing to fear, really. What lies beyond this world is much better than the brutal struggle for existence I endure every day. Even Trelok’s prized wives are forced to bear his babes and make his meals and forage and tend crops and avoid the rough lizards which swim the waters of the river, waiting to take the unwary.
“What is your name, human?”
The question startles me.
“Tres.”
“I am Vulcan,” he says, turning back to me. “And I should not be here. I should not have rescued you from your bonds. It was wrong for me to do that. You are not the only one who will be angry about it. But I could not help myself. You are mine.”
He says those words as if he is declaring it to the whole entire world, as if the declaration is a rebellion against an authority I am not familiar with.
We make a miserable couple, he and I, watching the light wane. I thought he would know what to do with me, would have a plan. But maybe that’s too much to expect. Maybe he’s given me all he can give me already just by cutting the ropes and bringing me water.
I try to stand up. I can limp away now, find a place to hide and finish the process of becoming undone. I can’t see the sense in continuing to draw breath. I have nothing to fight for. I have lost the tribe, and without the tribe I am nothing.
But my legs are as much a traitor as Trelok accused me of being. They are too weak to hold me up, and when I try to stand, they hold me only for a moment before letting me fall again in a cloud of bone dust.
He turns to me. “Stay down,” he says. “You’re not strong enough to walk yet. You need food. I will get you some.”
So his task of heroism is not quite over.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You,” he says, “are starving.”
“I don’t need to eat. I was bound for the ancestors, and to them, I will return.”
He turns toward me, the glowing sun behind his back as it slides toward the curve of the world, descending from view.
“What are you saying, human? That you would refuse life?”
“I am saying that I was made for death.”
His lips split in a smile. His sharp teeth extend. “So was I.”
Vulcan
She doesn’t want to live. She has given up on this world, her life, and her beauty. She would curl up among the bones if I would let her and she would give herself to the end of her being. I could be angry, thinking that my attempt to save her was a waste, but I don’t believe it was. I am fighting for my life, and she will learn to fight for hers too.
“I am going to get us food. Stay here.”
She makes a muttering sound from the pile of bones she’s taken refuge in. I leave her, moving as swiftly as I can. I need to kill something quickly and turn it into food for her. She has not been tied up long enough to be sick from hunger, but she does need to eat. Her tribe neglected her. Her chief abused her. I will not abandon her, even if she wants to be abandoned.
I have to descend the mountain, which means going further than I’d like from the woman whose life I sense I am going to have to save more than once, given she is not overly interested in keeping herself alive.
One of the deer which wanders the plain below gives its life rather obligingly. Soon these animals will learn that they are made of meat, but they are so plentiful and hunted so relatively rarely they are yet to be careful. I wonder, as I complete the slaughter, what truly happened with this planet. Someone or something ripped time and I fell through it, like loose change falling through a hole in a pocket. That’s a very human thing to think. I’m trying to practice human thoughts. They will help me relate to Tres. Maybe. I suspect it will be many thousands of years before there are jeans with pockets with holes which change can fall through.
I take my prey back up to the cave where the girl still waits for me. She is curled up on herself, hiding from me and from the world which rejected her. I leave her be, sit at the mouth of the cave and undo the beast, turning it into fresh cuts of meat which will nourish us both when it is set on the hot coals of earth which simmer above. I would eat it raw, but the human cannot do so and get the benefit of all the nutrients. She needs it to be cooked so her soft blunt teeth and her underdeveloped digestive system can use it more effectively.
Tres
I can smell food cooking nearby. When I open my eyes, I see that Vulcan has lit a fire with molten rock and moss and has slabs of meat charring in the flames. My people rarely, if ever, eat meat. We are a fish and grain tribe. It is forbidden to eat the flesh of a four legged creature. It is also forbidden for me to still be breathing, so I suppose many rules and customs are being broken today.
I stay curled where I am, sensing that he will come for me soon enough with his forbidden food. Sure enough, within minutes he is removing the meat from the flames with what sounds like a satisfied sound. I watch as he throws a slice into his face and swallows it with just one chew. Whatever he is, he is full of hunger.
“Time to eat, little human,” he says when he has eaten his fill. I have closed my eyes again, but when I open them I see that he has elected to use discarded human ribs as a sort of serving device, and has put the meat on what remains of a pelvis. If I was tempted to eat before, I have lost my appetite entirely now. The ancestors will be furious at me eating and drinking from their remains. There could be no greater cursedness.
“I’m not allowed to eat the meat of running animals.”
“What do you mean, not allowed?”
“I mean my chief forbids it…”
“The same chief who had you tied to a board and left you to die in a cave?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you follow the edicts of a man who wants you dead?”
The question makes my mind twist in an uncomfortable way. I have always followed Trelok’s laws, and he has always despised me. That has been the natural order of things. I have never questioned it.
Now Vulcan is looking at me with distaste, I think. He would be truly disgusted if he knew that I didn’t even fight when my tribe tied me to the board and carried me up here. I didn’t try to escape my fate. I accepted it, because I have been taught to submit to authority, and to accept the consequences of disobedience.
“Because it is the law…”
“It was his law. Now there is a new law. My law. And my first edict is, you eat.”
I close my lips and shake my head. I am not meant for this world anymore. To eat is to delay the inevitable.
“No?”
I shake my head. No. I don’t need food. I don’t want food.
“Do I need to make you eat? Hmmm?” He rumbles the question as his finger slides beneath my chin, tickling lightly with retracted claw.
I feel something bubbling inside me, the desire to laugh, though surely there can be no mirth in this miserable moment. He smiles at me and the heat in his eyes smolders to warmth.
“You cannot make someone eat.”
“You can make anyone do anything when you put enough pressure on them,” he tells me. It is not a threat, just a simple statement of fact. His finger is still under my chin, his touch light. I have not been touched like this before in life. All the touches I’ve felt before have been harsh. I’m surprised how nice it feels, how my entire body responds to the lightest of caresses.
“You’re going to eat,” he says. “And not bec
ause I’m going to make you, but because you know you’re hungry, and this food is going to nourish you, make you strong for what comes next.”
“But nothing is supposed to come next. I was supposed to die.”
His eyes flicker for a moment with emotion I don’t quite recognize. He seems to waver for a second, as if he perhaps agrees with me. Maybe he regrets taking me from the starving board.
“There is no supposed to in this world, or any other,” he says. “There is only what happens, and what does not happen. I took you from the board. I intend to make sure you survive. So eat, little human, or I will find the particular pressure that makes you eat.” He pulls his finger away and presents the meat to me, dark red flesh highlighted against pristine white bone.
My stomach growls. I know this is wrong. I am not supposed to be drawing breath. I am not supposed to be eating, but my hand is creeping out and my fingers are taking hold and before I know it my teeth are sinking into the forbidden food. Animal juice runs down my chin as I chew the flesh, feel it slide down my throat. Almost immediately, energy runs through me. A flush of euphoria, which makes a little sound escape me. It is a groan of pleasure so deep and so primal it is better than any erotic charge.
“Good, isn’t it,” he purrs softly. “Never feel ashamed to consume, girl. All the universe is consumption. You have your place in it, and you claim it by making it part of yourself. You have a place in this world. You may have places in other worlds, but you will never see them if you give up when others tell you to. The meek inherit nothing but dirt.”
He is lecturing me and I am only barely listening. He has awoken more than one kind of hunger in me, changed my idea of what is possible. An hour ago, survival itself seemed impossible. Now, with the flesh of the animal inside me, becoming one with me, I feel fresh strength - and fresh hunger. I am ravenous. I demolish the first slice of meat and then the second, eating until I am so full I cannot fit another piece into my mouth and finally I lie back on the cave floor, groaning softly to myself.
“Your stomach will adjust,” Vulcan tells me as I press my hands to my belly. “You must get used to eating. You are too weak. When you are strong, there will not be a tribe on this planet which dares tie you down.”
“Planet?”
Vulcan
It is easy to forget how limited her education is. She knows next to nothing about where she lives. She doesn’t even have the concept of planet in her head. To her, the ground is everything and the sky is nothing.
“This is a world,” I try to explain, without telling her too much. Krave’s warning is echoing in my mind. It’s not just genetic interference that could cause chaos on this planet. Putting too much knowledge into the world could be just as dangerous.
She groans, not really listening. Her belly is noticeably full from the food, largely because she was so undernourished before. Her tribe must have given her only the scraps of their produce, made her tend the fields but not allowed her to eat the grain. It must be her red hair and green eyes which mark her as an outsider. Humans have always enjoyed persecuting the outsider. In a few thousand years, they will turn it into an art form of the most intense kind. For now, it is in its infancy, along with the rest of their cultural cruelty.
“I’m tired,” she says. “I think I’m going to sleep.”
“Move nearer the fire,” I tell her. “It will keep you warm through the night, and I will keep watch.”
Her eyes flicker open, catching the reflection of the flames. “They will come for us if they see the fire. There should be no light up here.”
“If they come for you, they will regret it,” I tell her.
She gives me a smile. “If they so much as see you, they will shit themselves, I think. Trelok is a coward.”
“They’re all cowards,” I say. “Even the women. Trelok did not do this to you alone, did he?”
“They're not allowed to disobey him, or he beats them,” she says. “He has broken limbs, and heads of disobedient women. He leaves a mark every time he says we make him hurt us.”
I let out a snarl. I want to make Trelok eat his own entrails, just for a starter. He has isolated a few females, and the remoteness of this tribe allows him to rule over them without interruption. One day a new band of unrelated humans will chance upon him and his harem. It is only a matter of time before natural justice takes care of him, so I must be patient.
The matter of the fire is still of concern. She is right. The fire will act as a beacon for miles. They will know that she is not dead. They will come to kill her, and then they will find me. And I will do terrible, unspeakable things which will lead to even worse consequences. Krave will be angry if I slaughter an entire tribe of ancient humans, so I must avoid the circumstances which might lead to that.
I quench the flames, take the girl in my arms, and pull her into an embrace. It is not for any carnal reason. It is because the mountain air is cooler than the air below and even the fire of the vents does not prevent a chill from starting to settle in the air.
She accepts my arms and my body as I work to ensure every sharp edge is retracted so she is not hurt by being close to me. She lies wrapped in my arms, and I ask her the question which at first did not seem worth asking. I assumed I knew what led to this, but perhaps I did not.
“Why did they do this to you?”
There is no possible answer I would take as reasonable, but I want to know the twisted thought that brings these vicious humans to such lengths of destruction. Scythkin fight to claim territory, freshly hatched broodkin will consume one another, and our matriarchs do battle to protect their clutches when they are laid, but we do not do… this. We do not weaken one another and leave them to slow deaths. We do not put artistry and ceremony into misery and torture. We do not take such obvious pleasure in it. They wanted her to die slowly. They wanted her to be aware of her passing, for it to be solitary and painful.
“My mother was condemned. Killed by Trelok. She was pregnant with me. I was supposed to die with her, but he cut me from her womb before I died and gave me to one of his women to raise as a sacrifice.”
“What was your mother’s crime?”
“She fell pregnant by another man. One of the hunters from the village around the mountain.”
“There’s another village nearby?”
“Yes. Trelok hates them. They don’t come to our side because Hyrrm protects us from him. When he found she was pregnant, he tried to kill her. She ran and she hid. But he found her just before I was born, and he killed her in front of the tribe. He was going to kill me too. But Mira, the woman who raised me, she had milk from a baby she lost. She asked to keep me to relieve her supply. Trelok agreed, but he said I would be sacrificed to Hyrrm. But Hyrrm only accepts virgins. And they saw you mate with me. So he said I should be sacrificed to the ancestors.”
I listen to her story, marveling at the simple nastiness of it. If not for me, she would have been thrown into a volcano. I have interfered in this world already, and I do not regret it one bit. This girl never had a chance. She was captive from birth, stolen from her true father, her mother murdered, her soul nearly crushed by the weight of being sacrifice. Has she ever known a day of love in her life? The woman who saved her life did not save her from the death the tribe decided for her.
“I am sorry.”
Those three words are not enough. I am not sorry. I am furious. I am outraged. I am filled with the desire to utterly destroy the people who hurt this sweet girl who did not know how to fight, who was never taught that she could make a decision of her own. They broke her so thoroughly she now accepts her death and even yearns for it.
Krave tells me that everything that is now happening has happened before. So, in the original timeline of Earth, she was thrown into a volcano. She was cooked alive, hurled to her death for the crime of ever having been conceived. I have changed history by saving her, I did the one thing Krave told me explicitly not to do down here on this planet. Oh well. He is used to me doing t
hings he explicitly told me not to do.
“What are you sorry for?” She looks at me, thoroughly confused.
“I am sorry they treated you so badly,” I say. “I’m sorry you never learned how beautiful you are, how much you are worth, how charmed you are in every way.”
A small smile appears on her lips, then flees almost immediately.
“You shouldn’t apologize,” she says. “None of this is your fault.”
She’s wrong. Everything which has happened since I arrived on this planet has been my fault. And the trouble is only going to grow. I am a stone thrown into a calm pond. The ripples of my existence are going to keep traveling forever outward no matter what I do. In the original Earth timeline, this woman should have died. Or perhaps not. There is no way to know. There are so many tendrils of cause and effect, one wound around the other. I have already set a million events in motion which would otherwise never have happened. It’s not possible to remove myself from this net of effects. However, I can try to minimize my impact, and hope that Krave comes for us soon.
“What happens if your tribe discovers that you did not die?”
“If they find me alive, they will stone me.”
It takes me a moment to search the recesses of my mind. Krave made us study human history when we became guardians of the far flung colony which exists many thousands of years in the future. She is making reference to a particularly barbaric practice where a human, who could be easily dispatched in a matter of seconds with a blade, is instead set upon with rocks thrown by others, hitting them until they die. It is a painful method of death, much like being left in this cave was, designed to make the end as long and frightening as possible. Once again, I feel a surge of hatred rush through me. It takes real effort to not let the sharp ridges of my body rise and accidentally hurt her.
“If they try to so much as touch you, I will rip them into pieces and feast on their insides,” I growl.
