Page 29 of Taken to Nobu
“I thought you might need it,” she offers in this timid, heartbreaking way that only heightens my agony. These beings aren’t like the Dra’Kesh. They aren’t even like the humans. Humans are mean, nasty little things.And since I’ve been made by humans, and reshaped by the Dra’Kesh, what does that make me?
I hastily pull on the jump suit and the additional fur pelt that Kuana gives me and follow her to the front door where Ka’Okkari waits wearing a small smile. I notice that his skin is bluer and darker than the Okkari’s, his face not quite so angular, giving it a softer slant. I don’t know why, but I’m notafraidof him like I thought I’d be. I feel no urge to fight.
“The temperatures have risen just enough this solar for this weather to be safe. Still, coming from your desertous moon colony, I imagine the icefall will still be bracing. Are you ready, Xhea?”
I nod, surprised again that he could know so much about my colony and say, “Yes.”
“Xhivey,” he replies before opening the front door to a world of white. “Brace yourself.”
I follow him down the black stone steps, surprised to note that they’re the only things out here that aren’t white and cold. The cold white is coming down heavier now, flakes bigger than my face, even if they are flat like bark. Their size and ceaselessness makes it hard to see more than one house away. Luckily, we don’t travel far before we arrive at a dwelling carved into the same stone mountain as the Okkari’s.
It has a glass-plated front, but being further down the mountain, it lacks the same impressive view of the village that the Okkari’s house has. Stuck deeper into the mountain, I’m not surprised to find that most of the house is black stone, rather than white when I step inside into the warmth. And it is warm. Warm and welcoming with a distinctly feminine touch.
Where the Okkari’s home is all white and black everything, this house has rich red tapestries woven through with gold scattered across the dark rock floor. Lush green plants that seem as if they’d grow only in much warmer climates sit on stone daises, hang from the ceiling in large black rock basins or seem content to merely lick their way directly up the walls.
As I take a step further into the room and the doors shut behind me, I can’t help but be drawn to a whole shelf that’s just full of holo images trapped in pink and green and beige frames. In every one is smiling face. A smilingalienface.
Sometimes in snowy environments, some in ones more lush and green, some inside buildings, some with other aliens, but in all of them are the same two aliens — Va’El and a female — and in all of the images they look incandescently happy.
“We are honored to receive you, Xhea,” a female voice says and I tear my gaze away from the holographs and refocus on the female alien by the fire pit who’s holding Va’El’s hand. The female from the pictures. The sight of them sitting there so obviously in love with one another makes my chest sting. I rub the space above my heart with the heel of my hand even though it does nothing to dispel the sensation.
Va’El is sprawled out on a divan, his leg propped up on a stack of plush furry pillows. Even though his leg was broken in three places and acid from the hevarr venom chewed through a lot of the muscle in his calf, he’s still smiling. His guiless contentment makes me wonder how it can be that in a house full of aliens, the person I hate the most in that moment is me.
“I just…”Stop sounding like outer dome trash and speak.I try to hone my inner Svera and inhale deeply. I exhale just as deep. “It is I who is honored,” I say finally, though it takes some will. Some force. It’s the first kind thing I’ve said to any of them and it hurts, but only because it feels so good.
Va’El and his female exchange a look. She seems slightly amused, but inclines her head nonetheless. “It is gracious of you, Xhea.”
“Most gracious,” Va’El echoes.
When I don’t continue, and they don’t either, I feel heat rise in my cheeks. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say to these people. To these aliens, I mean…No, to thesehonorablebeings. “I um…”Stuttering fool.“What you did, Va’El, it was really brave.”Idiot.
“It was my duty, Xhea. An honor. And if my own Xiveri mate had been in the same position, I’d have counted on the Okkari to do the same.”
That surprises me, and I feel the heat in my cheeks hold. “You two are Xiveri mates?”
“Hexa,” Va’El says and his ridges suddenly pop with radiant colors. They remind me of the Okkari’s ridges and the way he looks at his woman reminds me of the way the Okkari looks at me sometimes.Used to look. Now he doesn’t want to see me. “Tre’Hurr and I discovered our bond during a Run on the Mountain between our tribe and a neighboring one. Two rotations ago, it was one of the largest runs we’ve seen yet.”
The alien —Tre’Hurr— beams. “Hexa, we are most blessed by Xana and Xaneru to have found one another. We hear that you and the Okkari are also blessed. I must say that I find it even more remarkable that Xana and Xaneru would have placed you in each other’s paths from so far away. Even if the circumstances that brought you two together were most unfortunate. I grieve for your human females.”
“Dra’Kesh muxung,” Va’El spits, before his ridges radiate a soft yellow, scattered amidst a much deeper red. “Apologies, Xhea. It is simply too unforgivable not to want to speak on the subject.”
“You…you know about our Hunt?”
“We know that the matings were forced, hexa,” Va’El says.
“And how the human females’ lives were forfeit unless unborn hybrid kits were discarded.” Tre’Hurr makes a trilling sound in the back of her throat while her ridges beam grey. I wonder if grey then doesn’t mean grief, for I see it echoed in the ridges of many of the aliens in the room.Allof the aliens.
A stone lodges in my throat then, making it hard to speak. I blink many times, hoping to keep the emotion from my tone.They grieve for us.“How do you know all this?”
“We have received the first broadcasts from the human advisor to the Rakukanna —Shuh-vair-ax,” she says, mispronouncing the name so badly I can’t help the twitch to my lips. “They are very detailed reports on human culture and recent history. The Okkari requested the information be disseminated across all of Nobu so that we may better understand our Xhea. He has also informed us that you were not immune to the unfair pact created between your human council and the Dra’Kesh,” Tre’Hurr says softly, stunning me.They know. They all know about Bo’Raku and what he did to me.
“How…he had no right to share that information,” I rasp, air punching out of me.
Va’El makes a face, something like a frown but it’s filled with so genuine a sympathy, my anger falls away as quickly as it came. “It is important that this information is shared, so that the perpetrators may be condemned and so that your courage and resilience may be known. It is a brave female who continues to fight, as you do, after such a dishonor — his, certainly, not yours.”
“It’s…embarrassing,” I wheeze.
I don’t need to speak color to know that shock is the sentiment echoed around the room. “Embarrassing? Nox, my Xhea. Forgive us, but here on Nobu what you have faced only increases your honor and the respect we feel for you. To have a Xhea who has fought battles and survived horrors. It is truly an honor to welcome you, even if we do wish that these were battles you had never fought, and horrors you had never been through.”
