Rykkon sighed deeply, resting his arm about her waist and drawing her close. “Prim,” he murmured, certain now she had lain awake, agonising over what help she might be to them. “If they were to cross the boundary into Arterian lands, it would be by their blades that they died. Every one of them.”
“They could make it,” she argued weakly. “It’s not like you have patrols. If they moved quickly enough...”
Rykkon smiled grimly, kissing her temple, loving her compassion even as he knew she could only be saddened by it. At least in this. “You do not know the other trades. There are frequent parties along that border by the hunters looking for game. There are warriors also who patrol our lands in case of invaders. Did you think all remained in the village?”
She shrugged—and why should she think anything else? He had not explained much to her about the rest of his people, choosing to speak more on their behaviour than on the nature of their skills. “They cannot cross into our lands, not if they wish to live. I am sorry.”
Prim nodded, looking far too much like the placid, dead-eyed creature who had first come to him. He nudged her. “Speak your mind, please.”
She did not, not at first. But he waited, and though her voice was soft, was strained with either fatigue or with tears, at least she was revealing her troubles to him. “I don’t want to help them.”
“Oh, Prim...”
“There’s a part of me,” she continued, her eyes over-bright, “that thinks maybe this is their justice, for... for letting bad men go free. For not raising their boys into something good. But then I think of you.”
His brow furrowed, the ridges pressing close. “Of me?”
“You want to leave. I could see it on our way here. You were free and happy, and it would be nice to simply... abandon everyone and everything and have that all the time. But you don’t. Because of the mothers’ whose babies would die because you weren’t there to ease the birth. Because of the children whose arms would set wrong if you weren’t there to brace them. Even when they’re horrible, you keep healing, keep fighting to show them that they’re wrong about you, about us, and that... that’s admirable.” She shook her head. “But I’m selfish, so I’m trying to think of what I could do. Not to help them, not really, but just so I can live with myself.”
He leaned down and kissed her forehead, her nose, her lips, trying to find the words that could soothe a soul that confused hurt with selfishness.
But before he could settle on something, she gave a deep sigh, tucking her fur more closely under her chin. “They’d talk about leaving, you know. Not so much when I got older, because hope had pretty much died at that point, but before that. Growing up. Desmond especially would talk about how wonderful life would be if we were able to find land that would just be ours, of building homes and growing food—completing the mission, you know?”
He most certainly did not know, but now seemed the wrong time to clarify.
“We were colonists. We were supposed to begin a new nation, and instead...” She scoffed, shaking her head. “Instead they’re going to be slaves to those... things.”
“We do not know that,” he reminded her, his argument feeling weak even to his ears. “The elders could have decided against it.”
“But why would they? It makes perfect sense, from their perspective. Hand over the colony, the Narada get their workers, and they don’t lose any more of their people.”
It was logical. Heartless. Perhaps even cruel, to sacrifice one people for the sake of another.
“We didn’t just look for beetles in the Wastes, you know.”
Rykkon smoothed his hand down her fur-covered arm, trying to offer comfort when his words failed him. “What did you look for?” he prompted softly.
“Pieces of the ship. Bits of technology. An engineer survived the crash and he had built...” she suddenly stopped, her lips forming a thin line.
Rykkon was not entirely sure of what an engineer might do, but he understood that he must be some kind of craftsman if he was allowed to construct. “What did he build?”
“We’re not supposed to talk about it,” she informed him, her voice suddenly dull. He pushed at her shoulder until she laid flat, the better for him to be able to see her—assess why she had suddenly shuttered herself from him.
“Not even with your husband? Your mate?”
Prim blinked, a frown forming. “Not with one of your... your kind.”
He withdrew his arm. “Oh.”
Prim sat up as he did, and then it was her reaching for him, holding onto his wrist, her eyes wide and imploring. “It isn’t just my secret. It wouldn’t work, it’s never worked, but if the elders knew...”
Rykkon’s eyes narrowed. “And you believe that I would tell them? Would betray your people in that way, betray you?”
“No,” she admitted miserably, her hand slackening. “No, you wouldn’t. You’re better than that.”
“Then I fail to see the problem.” He tried to soften his tone, but he could still readily detect the annoyance found there. She spoke frequently of her disapproval when he kept things from her, no matter for how short a time, and yet for her to do the same...
“You don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t... I don’t know why I said that. I know you of all people are trustworthy. I never thought I’d have a problem talking about it! I just... we’ve been trained since birth that this was our secret—our only hope of having a better life. They’d send us out into the Wastes, looking for the parts Sean still needed. But it’s been years since anyone has found one, and none of us actually thought he’d get it moving.”
Rykkon huffed out a breath, suddenly feeling weary. “I do not understand. Travel across the Wastes is impossible. They are the Wastes.”
Prim gave him a rather exasperated look—which he was certain he well deserved. She had spent much more time in them than he ever had. “Of course they are. But if my people were able to fly through the sky, I think that going across sand would not be so improbable.”
“And you believed that? That they came from the sky?” He tried unsuccessfully to keep the incredulity from his voice, but she heard it well anyway.
Prim’s glare was a fierce thing, and for a moment he wished he had not spoken at all. “You think my mother was a liar?”
Rykkon pressed his lips closed, considering how to tactfully avoid the full brunt of her ire. “I believe even the most honourable of persons can have... moments of untruth.”
Her mouth dropped open, and before he realised her intention, she scrambled from the tent and was knocking on the door to his parents’ dwelling.
He had heard movement earlier that suggested they were already awake so her intrusion would not prove rude, but he did not know her mind and he worried for his mamé’s state.
But the door was opening before he could calm her, could draw her back and force them to speak of these things rationally and without the ferocious look in her eyes.
“Prim?” his faeder uttered in some surprise, obviously noticing the look on her face.
“Morning,” Prim greeted with a nod, sounding unexpectedly calm given her temperament only a moment before. “How is your wife doing?”
“She is... well,” his father said, his tone betraying his confusion as he glanced toward Rykkon. “Would you like to enter? I am heating teshon, if you would care for some.”
Prim slid past him with an easy smile. Rykkon’s suspicion only grew more. “That would be lovely.”
Rykkon followed, wondering how angry she would become if he tucked her under his arm and carried her bodily from the house so they could finish their talk properly.
But his mamé was smiling at them both, and she gave first a hug to Prim and one to Rykkon before settling back on her stool by the fire. She was stirring a pot, and from the appearance of it, they would soon be offered parritch for their morning meal.
Prim knelt by her, and his father hurried over with another stool, and she smiled at him
gratefully. “Poppy,” she said, her voice not at all the same forceful tone she had used with him earlier. “I was wondering if you could confirm something for me.”
His mamé looked at her questioningly, but there was no alarm in her eyes, nothing to show that she was uncomfortable with Prim’s query. He was expecting her to feel awkward, as Prim had remained silent most of the previous day, allowing him to speak, and her current directness might prove surprising. But his mamé only gave a nod of encouragement.
“You came on a star craft, didn’t you? You and my mother, and Desmond, and the rest of them?”
His mamé’s eyes widened and she looked to her husband. She took a deep breath before looking nervously toward him, and he wondered at her reaction.
Were they truly so forbidding that she worried over speaking freely?
His mamé leaned closer to Prim, her voice a little tenuous but clear. “We don’t... we don’t talk about that.”
Prim did not glance back at him, and he supposed he could take that as a good sign that she did not remotely fear him, or his reactions. “Why?”
His mamé smiled at her a little sadly, before she patted Prim’s hand. “It is... too big for them to understand. To believe. I tried to teach Rykkon, but he is...” her word caught in her throat, but she took a steadying breath and continued. “Stubborn, like his father.”
Prim huffed out a breath, her lips forming that displeased line that revealed she was not quite as calm as she appeared. “And you were fine with them believing you were lying?”
His mamé shook her head. “I am fine with... loving Dax, and not... not arguing with him.”
Prim’s shoulders slumped, and for a moment Rykkon regretted his disbelief. Not because he necessarily thought himself wrong, but because it seemed to distress her so. His mamé suddenly looked to him, as if realising much the same, sighing as she did so before giving her pot another stir. “For what it is... worth, she is right. I came from the stars. From a planet far away. Not that... you will believe me, and that is... all right. I... forgave you for that a long time ago.”
His faeder closed his eyes looked somewhat pained, before he stepped closer and kissed the top of her head. “This argument is old.”
His mamé grimaced. “As are we.”
Prim crossed her arms, watching his parents with an inscrutable expression. This entire conversation seemed a bit incredible to him, first given its subject, and second to hear his mamé’s true voice again after so many cycles without it. It was stilted, to be certain, but it was present and real, even if her words spoke of a concept too magnificent to be real.
He would have suspected that the fever had muddled her memories of her arriving here amongst his faeder’s people, but he had heard the stories as a youngling, and Prim seemed determined to confirm them...
Which, he supposed, lent some credit to their truthfulness.
He shook his head. A craft that sailed through the stars?
There were bits of rubble that his mamé had saved, hidden away near their dwelling. She had shown them to him a few times, the remains of a craft, she had said, her craft. The one that had brought her to his faeder and allowed them to make him.
But he had imagined one of the sailing vessels, a raft perhaps or something similar. Some of the hunters had a few of those, for longer journeys that would speed their travel and allow them to carry home larger amounts of game.
Rykkon crossed so he could kneel beside Prim, taking her hand in is. She looked at him, the stool low enough that she was still lower than his eye line, and she shook her head. “Why is this what is so hard for you to accept? That what your mother, my mother, I have all said could be true?”
Why was it?
Some of the surrounding peoples have technologies that they did not. The Onidae were masters of metalwork, their weapons a highly sought thing for their balance and strength. He had never seen them, but Kondarr had told him they had entire ships made of metal, the better to cross the Great River to do trade with the Vashtni.
He could not say that he believed it. Not fully. How could a people who had constructed a craft to sail the stars be unable to defend themselves from a simple blade?
But... he supposed if it should please Prim, he could not say that he was completely resolute against believing it could be true.
Their leader did use that strange device to speak with the traders when they came to exchange food for the hasart beetles. There was no accounting for how it spat out words in the Arterian tongue, yet it did, and he had accepted it as something that simply... was.
Which made it easier to comfort his wife with words that he, in that moment, found at least truthful enough. “I do not believe you are lying,” he told her. “I do not believe your mamé was lying, nor is Mamé.” He was not certain they understood the entire truth themselves, but that was a very different thing that an outright deception.
Prim looked at him searchingly for a long while. She opened her mouth to speak, but quickly closed it again, glancing at his mamé once again. “I should just accept that, shouldn’t I?”
She gave her a rueful smile. “I would. It is... easier that way.”
Prim never seemed particularly fond of what was easy, but in this she gave a nod of her head, allowing him to draw her into an embrace, even if she remained more stiff than was usual.
“Is some of that parritch for me?” he asked, making an exaggerated show of peering into the pot his mamé continued to stir.
His mamé nudged him away, her eyes bright and sparkling, though when she made to answer, it took her longer to form the word. “N-not done,” she finally voiced, her frustration overridden by her obvious pleasure at being able to tease with her young once more.
His faeder busied himself with pouring the teshon, his mamé contentedly stirring her parritch, a smile playing on her lips. Rykkon peeked at Prim, hoping to find an expression of equal ease, but she still maintained that same pensive look. Rykkon sighed, patting her hands. “I do not know how to help you,” he murmured quietly.
She glanced at him. “You could offer a brilliant solution so that everything would be fixed.”
Rykkon grimaced. “I would gladly do so if I could.”
Then it was Prim patting his hands, while she looked back toward his mother. He grew nervous again. “Poppy,” she addressed again, his mamé humming in acknowledgement. “Rykkon mentioned that you had some of the wreckage hidden away. Do you know what parts they were?”
His mamé flushed, almost as if she was embarrassed. Rykkon glanced to his faeder, but he knew well that he knew of her keeping those items—he had helped her hide them. It was perhaps indulgence on his part, as Rykkon had seen no great value in them beyond their foreign mystery, but his mamé had wanted them, so none had reproached her.
“I... don’t have any idea what they are or what they... did. I wasn’t chosen for my smarts.”
Prim looked thoughtful for a moment, accepting the cup of teshon from his faeder before continuing to talk with his mamé. “What were you selected for, if you don’t mind my asking?”
His mamé peeked at his father, her cheeks brightening further. “They... they needed girls, didn’t they? In this... colony of theirs. Wouldn’t be much of a colony if it... died out within the first generation.”
Then it was Prim’s turn to flush, trying to smother it with a sip of teshon. “Oh.”
Rykkon looked up sharply. “They were going to breed you?” He turned toward Prim. “How is that any different than what the Narada mean to do? Why would you be agonising over a solution when apparently that was your people’s intentions all along!”
His mamé’s hand on his shoulder stilled him and quieted his voice, though his desire for answers remained strong. He realised how little they had talked of his mother’s past, stories of her people too entrenched with the issue of from where she had come, and one glance at his faeder would quiet her on that subject fairly quickly.
“That isn’t... what I meant, Ry
kkon.” He closed his eyes briefly as his name came from his mother’s lips, with the same tenderness as it had always been spoken. “There was nothing... forced about any of it. If you get enough men and... and women together, some things are simply natural.”
She gave a rather pointed look toward Prim and himself, and he looked rather abashed at that. She patted him again, before speaking to Prim once more. “What was your mother’s position?”
Prim looked a little sad, much as she always did upon the subject of her mamé. “Agriculture. She was going to be a part of the team that mapped the plantings.” A cheerless smile played about her mouth. “It always irritated her how nothing seemed to grow in the Wastes. Here she had come with all these hopes about a flourishing garden, and instead she got a sea of sand.”
His mamé pulled out her spoon, checking the parritch and evidently determining it was complete. His faeder appeared with bowls, and she began spooning in generous helpings, and Rykkon was gratified to see that dried berleets and another variety he could not readily identify were added to the top.
“I... I have never seen the Wastes,” his mamé commented quietly. “I landed at the border, but by the time I regained...” her brow furrowed, the word seemingly lost, and Rykkon supplied what he could imagine she meant to say. “Yes, consciousness. Once that came... back, I this one,” she gave a rough point toward his faeder, “threatening to... to kill me, and I was a bit preoccupied.”
“A mistake to even have suggested it,” his father assuring her, bending so he could kiss her forehead. “And obviously impossible to have carried out.”
He handed a bowl to Prim, who accepted it, though she eyed its contents with a hint of wariness. Rykkon leaned closer. “Stewed grains,” he murmured. “Nothing troublesome.”
She nodded with a half-smile, before taking a bite. She seemed surprised by the taste, the parritch having a natural sweetness from the frequent stirring, and she took another bite quickly. “It’s very good,” she complimented. “Will you teach me next time?”
His mamé almost glowed, her smile was so wide. “Y-yes.”
Mercy (Deridia Book 1) Page 31