The Twisted Vine

by Alyce Caswell

  ‘He avoiding the TerraCorp scum for once? Good. They’re as bad as Chippers.’

  ‘There’s a reason they’re as bad as each other,’ Fei said.

  Inesh’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’

  Fei tried to keep her mouth shut. She really did. But it just spilled right out of her. ‘You know I work for TerraCorp, right? They’re in bed with GLEA. They even bankroll them, can you believe that?’

  Inesh snarled. ‘I can believe it. Scum. Starking scum.’

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ Fei sighed. ‘It just makes me so angry that TerraCorp will go around pretending they’re an independent business when every time they’re doing work for a client, they’re actually finding ways to insert a temple and force their religion onto the local population. Other times they’ll even let GLEA overrule a client’s wishes!’

  Fei broke off when she realised Inesh was staring at her. The anger that had twisted his features had dissolved into concern. ‘This is personal, isn’t it? What did they do to you?’

  ‘Nothing, I guess,’ Fei muttered. ‘Except pay me. It doesn’t matter if I refuse to do their bidding. It’ll still get done by someone.’ She refocused on Inesh, her heart thudding erratically inside her ribcage. ‘Please don’t tell anyone what I said. I might get fired and I’m not sure I want to lose my job just yet.’

  Fei sucked in a few unsteady breaths and wavered on her feet, painfully aware that she had no idea if her plea would work on Inesh, someone who had no reason to like her much less help her. But then he was beside her, offering his arm if she needed to lean on it, which she did.

  Inesh’s voice lacked its usual snap when he spoke again. ‘I won’t tell anyone. It’s your responsibility to say it, not mine. But now I think you need to lie down for a bit.’

  ‘I want to wait for Kuja,’ she protested as he began leading her away from the centre of the village.

  ‘There’s no telling when he’ll get back,’ Inesh said, then pushed her into Kuja’s hut. ‘I got no idea where he goes when he’s not with the TerraCorp scum, but he’s usually gone for hours so best to wait in here. He would not mind.’

  Fei parted the netting strung around the single bed so that she could seat herself on it. When Inesh remained standing by the door, she asked him, ‘Inesh, does it upset you that Bagara doesn’t speak to any of you outside of the festival?’

  ‘No. He doesn’t need to.’

  ‘Then how do you know he’s there? That he cares?’

  Inesh gestured at the window. ‘He’s always there. Even when we don’t need him. Don’t you feel it?’

  ‘No,’ Fei admitted. ‘I don’t even feel my own god.’

  Inesh sat at the end of the bed, leaving several lengths between them. ‘You may never meet a god or speak to one. But you can look, you can smell, you can taste and you can listen to the worlds Bagara tends and know that they are full of life because of him. He has given us places to connect with others and ourselves. What need have we for his constant attention when he has provided all this for us?’

  She closed her eyes rather than tell him to leave.

  ‘Just listen,’ Inesh insisted.

  So she did. She heard the whirr of the nashba bugs and the croaks of the shingbats, their combined chorus unending but never unwanted. She heard the constant hum of voices as the village prepared for the festival. And if she strained her ears, she could even hear the crash of the distant waterfall. It was so peaceful here. The ambient sounds of Bagaran quietened her mind in ways the oceans of Enoc never had.

  Fei rose from the bed and walked to the window, resting her hands against the wooden sill. The wood grew wet beneath her fingers; a downpour had started, a comforting background noise that was in danger of pulling a yawn from her.

  ‘I don’t feel Bagara…’ she began.

  ‘But?’ Inesh prompted.

  Fei reached out, cupping her hands and then scissoring her fingers apart to let the rainwater trickle through. ‘But I feel. I feel connected. To this world. To you. To everyone here. I don’t need Bagara for that.’ She glanced at Inesh, afraid that she’d offended him. ‘Sorry. I’m not sure I can worship another god, even yours.’

  ‘Kuja would say it doesn’t matter, that it’s enough that Bagara’s domain has brought you peace,’ Inesh commented, his gaze distant. ‘Maybe he’s not wrong.’

  ‘He’s not,’ Fei said, believing it.

  Her fingers began to catch tears instead of rain as her chest heaved, disgorging the weight of so much pain that had gathered over so many years. When she opened her eyes, Inesh had gone, but the rainforest remained, just outside the walls of Bagath.

  Even in here she could feel it.

  • • •

  Kuja emerged from the thicket beside the TerraCorp shelters and waved at Gerns as she bowled over to greet him. Her tentacles were twitching, a physical echo of just how troubled she felt. Not for the first time, Kuja was tempted to suggest that the TerraCorp scientists take a day off to explore the rainforest surrounding them. They always viewed it as something to research and exploit, never considering that it might actually give them some peace.

  ‘So this festival they’re holding,’ Gerns began, carefully navigating her way along the edge of the path and trying not to crush any plants. ‘Do you think they’d mind us showing up? Now me, I haven’t so much as seen a drop of alcohol in months, let alone absorbed it through my suction cups.’

  ‘You should bring this up with the village headman,’ Kuja said, the phrase an old, tired one between them, but he smiled as he delivered it.

  Gerns flopped one tentacle through the air, a parody of a human’s dismissive wave. ‘You don’t understand your role here, do you, Kuja? You’re the go-between. My people can stand you. The villagers can stand you. Just about anyone can stand you! Now me, I’d say the Creator God placed you here to help us all get along.’

  Kuja wrinkled his nose. ‘I’m not here to do his bidding. Bagara is my chosen deity.’

  ‘Must be nice, choosing from a pantheon of gods,’ Gerns mused. ‘My mothering circle was big on the Creator God and I’d feel guilty if I went against their wishes.’ She aimed one of her tentacles at Kuja. ‘Now me, I’ll tell you this and it’s true. I’d talk to the headman for you if our positions were reversed.’

  ‘I’m beginning to think I let people walk all over me,’ Kuja muttered.

  Gerns clucked for several seconds. ‘Oh no, Kuja. You’re just obsessed with helping people and you can’t say no to a Jezlo in need of a good drink, can you?’

  Kuja sighed. He didn’t say no.

  When he entered the village a couple of minutes later, Fei jogged over to him, her gold hair slicked with rain and her eyes — green today, he noticed, almost the exact same shade as his own — shining with excitement.

  ‘Kuja, I need to tell you something!’ she said, then rattled off exactly what she’d been up to while he’d been on eight or nine different planets simultaneously.

  Kuja gave her as much of his attention as he could, making soft sounds at all the right moments. He nearly lost the thread of her words a few times, as she seemed incapable of finishing one sentence before another occurred to her. Even having access to her thoughts didn’t help; they were chaotic, as always.

  ‘So it’s okay if I never feel the rainforest god, because I don’t need to,’ Fei finished, beaming.

  Kuja meant to rest his hand on her shoulder, but his touch began to inch its way towards her neck almost immediately. His fingers were soon stroking her exposed skin. ‘You are so much more confident in yourself than you were a handful of days ago.’

  ‘Is that a bad thing?’ she asked with a tiny smile.

  ‘No, it’s actually quite sexy,’ Kuja said honestly. His thumb reached her cheek and her lips emitted a soft sigh. ‘Uh, not that you weren’t already sexy to begin with. But it’s a good look on you.’ Fei’s tendency to babble was apparently infectious, he noted.

  Fortunately, her face explo
ded into a grin. ‘Nice save.’

  She accompanied him when he went to meet with the village headman, an older man with slightly bluish skin, indicating a Lentarian ancestor.

  ‘If Bagara does not want the scientists here for the festival, then they won’t be,’ the headman said with a shrug. ‘Invite them. Perhaps they may learn something about us. It pleases me to see that at least one of them already understands our ways, Feiscina, even if you are leaving us in a handful of weeks.’

  The moment they left the headman’s hut, Fei abruptly sagged, so Kuja went to her and delivered a hug which he meant to keep short and supportive, but she fell against him, trembling.

  ‘I can’t go back,’ she whispered, her eyes distant. ‘I can’t do it. I can’t terraform deserts just because GLEA doesn’t like that the people in them worship a different god.’

  ‘Why did you accept the job at TerraCorp in the first place?’ Kuja asked her. ‘I seriously doubt it was so you could live near the Enocian Harem.’

  Just as he’d hoped, she burst out laughing. ‘The Harem? God, no! I’ve never been in there. Tempted to, yes, but…no, I needed a high-paying job so Zareth and I could get our own place. I went to TerraCorp for him. He didn’t make much off his paintings.’

  ‘Then perhaps you need to find a job you actually want,’ Kuja suggested.

  Fei sprang out of his arms and spun to face him. ‘But I like what I do. I like knowing there are planets out there with my mark on them. It makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something.’ She deflated. ‘Except I can’t even visit the worlds I’ve helped shape, because it’s considered costly and unnecessary.’

  ‘I’m glad they let you visit this world,’ Kuja said.

  Smiling, Fei shuffled back towards him. ‘Me too. Because I like kissing you. And I’m going to do it again, if you don’t mind.’

  Kuja’s breathing quickened. ‘I suppose I do need the practice.’

  ‘Happy to help,’ Fei replied, her straight face rapidly losing its integrity.

  Kuja leaned in and kissed her. It was a gentle bumping of lips, just like their first kiss at the waterfall, but this time heat filled his face and flooded his very being. Kuja pried himself away, disturbed, and quickly erected a smile for Fei. ‘I know you don’t believe me, but I like hearing you ramble. It makes it incredibly hard not to kiss you when you go on as you do.’

  ‘Um,’ she said.

  Kuja grinned. ‘Nothing to say now?’

  ‘You…’ she attempted, blinking.

  Then she dragged him behind the village headman’s hut and exacted her revenge. Back planted against the wall, her body pressed up against his, Kuja found it hard to remember why he should be worried about the sensations she was causing inside him.

  She drew back to lick her lips and must have seen his desire for more, because she renewed her attack. This time she pinned his wrists beneath her fingers and ground her hips against him, seeking so much more than a kiss, but Kuja wasn’t sure what he could give her.

  Fei pulled away again, gasping. ‘That was fun.’

  Her eyes travelled down to Kuja’s obvious and emphatic agreement. He wondered if he should cover the affected area with his hands. But then Fei lunged in for another kiss and it seemed moot to feel awkward about her seeing his biological reaction when she was rubbing up against it.

  He was, however, decidedly more embarrassed when the headman came out and caught them.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A lengthy Bagaran dusk had smeared the sky for three full hours when Fei came to stand in the doorway of Kuja’s hut. She glanced down at herself, wondering if she looked ridiculous in the dress that Lilliean had lent her for the evening. Though they were a similar height, Fei’s figure was much fuller and so the tan, suede item clung to her hips and every other curve she usually tried to obscure with looser clothes.

  Fei’s feet were bare tonight. She had been hesitant to shed her shoes at first, but now she enjoyed the mud squelching beneath her, massaging each individual toe. It was raining again, not too heavily, just enough to sprinkle droplets over her untamed hair like tiny pieces of glinting glass. She would have spent an extra hour smoothing out the strands with chemicals, so that her look would last the night, but she had felt the need to show Kuja who she was without all that effort — and what she’d look like in the morning if he woke beside her.

  Kuja was in the same clothes he always wore, but at least he’d actually cleaned them for once. He’d also taken the time to slick his hair back with water, though Fei wasn’t sure how long that would last. She had to admit that she hadn’t been terribly specific when she’d asked him to dress up for her.

  ‘That’s what you’re wearing?’ she asked, her lips twitching.

  Uncertainty crept into Kuja’s expression. ‘Should I be wearing anything else?’

  The smile finally escaped. ‘No. You look like you and I like that. Don’t change.’

  Taking his hand, she led him towards the square in the centre of the village. A wooden stage had been erected there, containing not only the statue that Bagara would be speaking through, but an array of buffet food ranging from fruit to smoked rice, freely available to the villagers and their god, should he choose to partake. Fei stifled a laugh when she saw that a couple of her misshapen baskets had made it into the display.

  The space directly in front of the stage was filled with dancers moving to the beat of nearby drums. A pan flute provided a melody to go along with the rhythm, played by a man who was actually known galaxywide for the music he traded in return for any parts or supplies that Bagath needed. Fei eyed the patch of moist earth that served as the dance floor. She felt certain Kuja would oblige her, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to make herself so obvious a target for everyone’s eyes and attention.

  Instead she chose to stay in Kuja’s shadow as people came up to talk to him. When the villagers sensed her reluctance to be drawn into conversation, they would focus on him, allowing her to drift and enjoy the atmosphere.

  ‘You look happy,’ Kuja told her when they were alone at last.

  Fei beamed at him. ‘I am. I guess it’s because I realised I don’t have to force myself to be someone I’m not, just to impress some invisible deity. It’s…it’s liberating.’

  ‘Bagara is pleased to hear this,’ he said softly.

  Fei blinked at him but didn’t have time to muster a vocal response, because moments later the TerraCorp scientists arrived in one tightly-knit cluster. Fei supposed she should help ease their arrival and walked over, intending to greet them. She had made it halfway across the square before she realised what she was doing.

  I must be getting better at this talking-to-people thing, she thought with delight as she grasped Gerns’ proffered tentacle.

  • • •

  ‘Do you need company?’ a feminine voice asked.

  Kuja only turned away from speaking to Inesh when the other man made a low whistle. Half-lying against the stage to better accentuate the curves of her body, Lorena offered a smile while her scanty clothing offered a lot more. Kuja raised his eyebrows. He knew exactly what she looked like beneath the two-piece outfit, but his body gave no reaction to those memories or at the sight of her now. He glanced past her to the buffet tables, where Fei was talking to Gerns and animatedly gesturing at the baskets she’d made, and felt a persistent tug somewhere beneath his navel.

  ‘I already have a companion for this evening,’ Kuja told Lorena, lifting the drink in his hand and tipping it towards Fei.

  But Lorena thought he meant Bagara’s statue. Her top lip folded up towards her nostrils. ‘You don’t really believe he’ll speak to you, do you? Even if this god does exist, he’s not likely to bother with ordinary people. Not even my Creator God does that — and with good reason. We cannot distract the gods from their higher duties.’

  Inesh chortled and said aside to Kuja, ‘Listen to this woman! And you want me to let them trample all over Bagara’s land?’ Inesh jerked his chin at Lorena
. ‘You, Dr Hackett, do you realise that what your company struggles to make in years Bagara can do in one day? He can raise rainforests from the soil beneath any man’s feet!’

  ‘Then why doesn’t he?’ Lorena challenged.

  While Inesh launched into one of his usual tirades, Kuja let his gaze wander back over to Fei. He wasn’t sure where she’d managed to find the dress but it looked good on her and he liked that she’d chosen to do nothing with her hair. It showed how relaxed she was on Bagaran. Her bare ankles carried the proud marks of someone who had been trundling around the nearby paths in search of scenery, often with him, sometimes without. He joined her whenever he could — it wasn’t as though the plants on his many worlds couldn’t contact him if someone needed Bagara’s immediate assistance.

  But if I mean to expand my influence tonight, I will need to see less of her, he thought. Regardless, I will enjoy her remaining weeks here. And I will also enjoy giving her the pleasure she is so intent on finding in my bed when I am not there to see it…

  The grin came unbidden but Kuja did nothing to banish it. The vines in his hut had been more than happy to share those arousing images of Fei. He had no problem with her passing the time in that way while she waited for him, even though it sorely tempted him to abandon his duties so that he could take human form and run his hands over her. She was a distraction, but not one he couldn’t ignore if he had to…

  Inesh’s words were steadily growing more heated. Kuja dismissed them at first, but then Lorena’s piercing retort coasted across the square, drawing all eyes and ears towards her. ‘You think new rainforests just pop out of the ground, do you? Terraforming is hard work! And whatever your god creates, he can’t do it without science. You can’t make a tree grow if you don’t give it the right soil — even a fool like you should see that!’

  ‘Bagara knows all these things,’ Inesh said stiffly. ‘And if you were not so set in your own ways, Chipper-lover, then you would know that a tree flourishes best when it is loved by the hands that buried its seed.’

  ‘You assume your god knows everything but he is only a handful of decades old,’ Lorena pointed out, teeth peeking through the small, terse gap created by her lips. ‘Tell me, has he learned the composition of all the different soils on all the rainforest worlds in the galaxy by now?’