“Go fuck yaself,” she calls out. She has picked up the speech patterns of the people who rescued her. It’s quite endearing, but I cannot tolerate attitude from a prisoner.
“Isu, let me down!” She wriggles and squirms hard enough to make me land another one of those very satisfying smacks to her rear quarters.
“How does she know your name?”
Ziril is too sharp to be fooled, but he will have to be. He cannot know what significance she has for me. He is always looking for weakness to exploit, and Aspel is mine.
“This is the human,” I say. “The human who woke the wyrm’s fury.”
“That was not my fault!”
She’s playing into my plan perfectly. Her outrage is more convincing than anything I could have said or done.
“It is this human’s fault that we must wander the worlds?”
“Aye.”
“Kill her.”
“Absolutely not.”
He looks at me askance. “Why not?”
“You think I am going to kill the one who woke the wyrm? Let her enjoy the peace of death while the rest of us struggle for survival? No. She will be my prisoner and I will ensure she pays the price for her sins every day of her life.”
Aspel has fallen very silent. For that, I am glad. Every word she says is one that could make pain even more inevitable than it already is.
“I’m taking her back to the fireside,” I say. I am eager to bring her to my makeshift burrow where the embers burn as bright as my lust for this woman.
“Good idea. Make an example of her for the rest of the men. We have all suffered greatly because of this female. She should pay the price every hour of every day from now until the end of her worthless life.”
“Silence,” I growl, both at Ziril and Aspel.
Her weight over my shoulder is a reminder that the burden of this misery is about to be borne by Aspel. I wish she had not come here. She seems well and I have no doubt that wherever she was, she was safe. Yet again, she has sought danger where none needed to exist. Once more, I must decide between her fate, and the fates of my people.
There are many eyes on us as we return. “The wyrm has been deposited!” I declare. “There is a ship at the location. Go and dismantle it while I begin the interrogation of the pilot.”
With that, I take Aspel into the earthen cave, which must suffice for my shelter.
“You’re wearing clothes,” she says as I put her down.
“It is colder here than on our world. It is a matter of necessity to clothe ourselves. You should not be here.”
Her face scrunches in that all too human way, showing disappointment. “I’m happy to see you,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “I thought you’d be happy to see me.”
“I gave you to the humans to be safe. Now I find you here, where the danger is most present. We are at war, Aspel. We must find a new home. One of fire, brimstone, life, and warmth. I cannot babysit a human through that.”
“I’m not asking you to babysit me.”
“No. You came to interfere.”
* * *
Aspel
I want to cry, but after the baby comment, I am trying very hard not to give in to that impulse.
“I didn’t come to interfere. I came because the people who live on this planet objected to you burning half of it down.”
“There are no humans here.”
“I didn’t say humans. I said people. We’re all people, even if we’re not human people. I’m a person. You’re a person. That asshole who wanted to kill me, he’s a person.”
“Enough!” Isu thunders.
He is not the man I remember. He is a monster, an animal. He is a black-eyed creature of violence and anger, and I am afraid of him. When I saw his face looking down at me after my ship crashed, I thought I was saved. I no longer think that. I have fallen into a nightmare from which there is no awakening.
“They are going to expect to see something,” he growls. “I am going to have to make a sacrifice of you.”
“You’re going to kill me?”
“Of course I’m not going to kill you,” he snaps. “I love you.”
The revelation, delivered in furious tones, shocks me into silence. He loves me. I would never have guessed it from the reception he has given me. “What happened? Why are you here?”
“The wyrm consumed our world. Faster and faster, it ate until there was nothing left. A few of us are wandering the stars with a few of the wyrm’s young, trying to find a world capable of sustaining life.”
“Wait. Why would you bring the wyrm’s young with you?”
“Because that is how we survive. We are symbiotic.”
“With something that inevitably kills you all?”
“All life ends, Aspel,” he says. “Living is the desperate attempt to stave that moment off as long as possible. We take the wyrm’s young because the young will find the heat and make the burrows future generations will thrive in.”