Page 44 of Taken to Nobu
His jaw clenches, his purple skin looking cool and grey beneath the clouds, which hang low. He clears his throat and there’s no mistaking the voice that speaks.It haunts me, but not like Bo’Raku, not in my dreams… this voice haunts me through the solar. It’s taken the place of my inner diatribe…
“Xhea, Kuana, pardon my entry. There is a break in the frost. We will honor Re’Okarru now with the chamar.”
“Now?”
His ridges flash a dark and sinister indigo. “Are you giving me cause to repeat myself, Xhea?”
I bite my lips together and clench my knees to keep my legs from wobbling. “No. I heard you. The chamar. I’ll get ready right away.” I’m nervous to look at him. The promise of punishment has my body rippling, tingling, pulsing. I can feel heavy weights in my breasts, the peaking of my nipples. This enormous pelt shrouding me feels like nothing at all.
Meanwhile, he is entirely devoid of expression. It irks me. “Do I have time to change?” I say when he doesn’t move.
“Hexa.”
I pause, thinking of the human tradition of wearing black to show mourning. I don’t have any black though. I only have the fur-lined suits Kuana brings me. “What should I wear?”
He doesn’t respond. Atall. His silence is a little shocking. He just stares at me with his huge eyes, dark and glossy enough I can see my reflection suspended in them. I can also see other patterns swirling through their endlessness. It hurts to try to follow them, but I can’t look away. I don’t want to look away.
Behind me, Kuana perks up. “Forgive my interruption, but I can assist you with this, if it please you, Xhea.”
“That would be great. Thank you, Kuana.”
Though the air is thicker now and harder to move through. It’shardto turn from him. I don’t understand it. Everything wasokaybefore — not fine, but alright — but now it hurts again. ThewantI’ve felt these past solars has returned tenfold.
I go to Kuana in the back of the dome who holds up another fur suit and lays it gently on top of the closed chest she removed it from. When I reach her, her fingers deftly untie the clasp at my front and without warning, she pulls the pelt away from me, stripping me bare.
“Woah, woah,” I whisper, catching the pelt as it falls. I glance over my shoulder and see that Okkari is watching me with brutal intensity. He hasn’t turned away and it sends shivers racing through my bones and goosebumps rippling across my flesh. Unwanted wetness surges between my legs. I squeeze them together as tight as I can and it doesn’t help at all.
“Oh!” Kuana’s forehead is bright blue with little slivers of white and gold and silver. To make matters worse, she flutters, “I can leave you and the Okkari, if you’d like privacy to consummate your Xiveri bond…”
“No! Oh my stars, comets and curses, nox. No, Kuana. That’s so…awkward.” I flush so hard I’m sure I’ll burst into actual flames. And behind me Okkari isn’t saying anything. But that doesn’t mean he’s silent. No. He’srumbling. I need Svera. I need her to tell me what this is because the painful sensation below my waist is anything but human.A hoarse moan chokes in my mouth and I quickly grab the fur-lined suit off the chest.
“Kuana, just hold up the pelt so I can change, please.”
“Nox,” comes the visceral rebuke from behind me. I glance back. He’s an even deeper purple and one foot is a little further forward than the other like he wants to come forward but is held in place by an invisible barrier. I meet his gaze and he shakes his head. Slowly. “Nox.”
I shiver and try to ignore him as Kuana helps me into the furs she’s laid out for me. These form sort of a pant with a skirt wrapped around them. Another fur engulfs my torso and finally, Kuana pulls a heavy shawl over my head that covers everything. I feel like a paper lamp shade, but when I turn towards the Okkari, he looks at me like I’m a moon — no, like I’mthemoon in a strange and distant universe where there is only one.
Kuana yanks a fur hat on over my braids. The ends flow free, draping over my suit down to my breasts and slightly past them. When I turn and approach Okkari, I see him staring at those tips murderously and I wonder what they’ve done to offend him.
I open my mouth, but I can’t seem to find any words to ask. “I’m ready for the chamar now, Okkari,” I say instead.
He nods once and together we step outside and wait the moments it takes for Kuana to ready herself. “During the chamar, you will stand at my side,” he says and I don’t understand why he’s telling me this.
“Where else would I be?”
He exhales, shoulders dropping slightly as if in relief and I cringe.He still doesn’t trust me. I still haven’t proven myself to him.
“I will stand at your side.”
I don’t miss the way his left hand twitches towards me as I step up to his side. “Xhivey. Then we will go now.”
The wind is calm, but the white that falls does so in big pieces, the size of my whole chest. I have a hard time walking through them, but eventually we work our way around the valley floor past the homes, past the training arena, past the place where the Hurr work, past the caves where the trackers practice their craft, past the medics and the granary, past several other doorways and entrances containing facilities I have yet to explore.
Walking becomes easier as we start an incline. The sounds become less muted and I slowly realize that we aren’t alone. A shadow appears up ahead through the enormous, airy sheets of white that fall, and then another. And then I start to make out the sound of footsteps behind us and slightly to the left. Many footsteps. The valley winds dramatically through the craggy, black screa hills, twisting this way and that, so it’s hard to see others for more than a few moments before they disappear behind the next bend, or we do.
Eventually though, an eerie hush settles over us and as we follow the next curve, the valley comes to its finish. There’s an entrance where the two hillsides meet, a great hole in the side of the rock where the white cannot reach it. People — I mean beings — nox, thetribe,the community — draw nearer to it. It’s the first time I’ve seen so many gathered.
Old and young, some with black hair, others with white, others like the Okkari’s and something in between. Skin in all emerald shades, from violet to lime to rust, but most prevalently their faces beam from above their fur-suits in shades of cobalt and charcoal. The Okkari’s shade is rather unique among them. I look up at him now, having to crane my neck to see his face. When I do, I’m shocked to see him already looking at me.
