To love from afar
And so with my staff against my chest, I lay my head down upon the bar, and listened to the quiet din of voice and song. My staff to my chest, I laid my fingers across the polished oak wood, and swayed slightly, lightly, against the current of sweet perfumed air. Mead, honeyed, was in abundance amongst those of this cold-weather crowd, and the celebration of victory over their foes sent many into a frothing frenzy of drink and delight.
And of honoring fallen compatriots. I honored my fallen compatriots as well, I honored them by etching their names into memory and feeling their spirits weave around me, as if to guide me towards duty and back onto the road. I would honor them, by never resting, never stopping, never letting the force which had claimed their precious lives from knowing a moment of peace. I could do it.
I would do it, they would be remembered, and I would carve their names into the forehead of the dark master, the Lord of Shadows, and I would do it in revenge for what had transpired! Nothing would hold me back! Nothing would stop justice from rearing its large, juistice-y head! Nothing!
"For juzhtizhe!" I cried and stood up! And then I promptly fell down into the wood with a loud thump of my chitin against the black oak.
Well, except maybe gravity and the way the ground wobbled up and down when I tried to stand up - sending me crashing back into the bar. The bar felt cool against my cheek - and I didn't want to stand up. Justice could wait for a moment. The bar was cool, and my staff was cold - I could feel the whispering rush of the ether around me - and felt it tingle down my antennae, and over the pulps inside of my mouth. My salivary gland began to water and spill down my Labium. I was drooling because of the flow of mana - and like a large clench to my foregut, I felt my body seize with magic.
And then I hiccupped and the sky exploded with a wash of light and power - and a belch left me - sending me over and crashing into the ground. The ground felt cool, and my mandibles clicked together. I also found a loose piece of copper and lifted it up. Free money? Was I in heaven?
"Zudox, you alright?" A voice - a female voice, asked me. I turned my head to look at the talking shoe that was right next to me, and blinked at it - before pulling a part of the lace into my mouth to nibble on. It tasted dirty - like dirt and mud and a little bit of blood. She needed to wash her feet too. It couldn't be helped - road travel was not clean business. "How much has he had to drink?"
"Six shots." The bartender lied. I hadn't had six shots. I'd had only four shots, tops! Well, four plus two freebies. I'd only paid for four shots! So the other two didn't count! I tried to lift myself up, but the ground was comfortable and ended up giving me money. I turned my head up and looked, following the boot to the smooth, pale flesh of my sweet human companion - the ever lovely Nehemiah - and looked up, to the join of her thigh and abdomen. Wait, no, humans didn't have abdomens. Well, they did, but they didn't. I looked up at her thigh and join - spying a flutter of pink cloth. Yeah, that's what I saw.
"Pink is a pretty zhuch a color." I heard someone say. They were an idiot, pink was a terrible color. I preferred red. But pink was like red, though. Oh, such quandaries as I stared up the skirt and onto lady laundries. "You zhould wear pink more often!"
"Zudox!" She exclaimed - and kicked the side of my head. My neck wobbled with my head on it - before she stepped back, her face burning and she looking quite indignant about that! I didn't understand why, it brought out the tone of her flesh so very nicely. I waved two of my four arms up at her - the primary and secondary limbs smacking together once. Work, damn arms, work! "Don't... get your buggy ass up!"
I didn't have an ass. So I was confused, but I knew better than to argue with an angry woman - and slowly sat up - only to slump to the other side. My staff hovered in front of me - and I used it, only to topple forward again with a thump. I heard someone laugh. Screw you buddy!
"Zkrew your body!" I muttered - and began the difficult ascent up the side of a stool - I climbing it and raising up to my tibia - careful not to catch my claws on anything. I pulled and stood, bent over and my throax bobbing in the air, humping it while trying to help me get stable. I wobbled, and strong hands encircled me and I was pulled up to stand. Probably to quick as I felt my mid-gut seize. I was fine. I was fine.
"You zhmell pretty, pretty lady. You smell like pretty... pretty thing that are zho pretty pretty." I nodded firmly. She did smell pretty. For a human. I liked the way her sweat had a faintly peppery musk to it - it reminded me of dinner. No, I didn't eat humans. Elves, maybe, but elves were useless for anything but picking ones Lacinia with their finger bones.
"Six shots of what?" She asked. I swatted the air and called my staff to me - which rose and slapped me in my chest. I grunted and grabbed for it - nearly toppling over the barstool - and I rose up - standing, and holding myself to shakey legs.
"Green. Six shots of Green."
"Six." She sighed wistfully. "God damn, and he's still breathing?"
I checked, my breathing spicules pulsed their ascent, and I agreed, I was still breathing. I stood, my staff used as a prop, before I started to sag but for arms holding me up. I grunted - and let Nehemiah hold me up. She was good for that too! I was not nearly as heavy as my denseness should have said I was - and I hung limpy in her two arms. She would have made an excellent bug, indeed.
"Zhix zhots of zha Green." I clicked - whistled, and looked backwards at her in a move that made her wince. Her neck was soft and smooth - and didn't have nearly the range that mine did. I gave her the best look of innocence that I had. "Zhuch a lie, only had four."
"Four, and zha two zhat where free." I nodded - and then looked back around the right way, still feeling the world spinning as I did so. I stepped forward and Nehemiah held onto me, before sliding two of my arms behind her back. I gripped down on her and looked over, more than happy.
"Zhello!" I stated to her, and leaned in until my brow touched her shoulder. She was taller than me, I barely topped five feet. "Zhu are very lovely zhuday. Did zhu have fun wizhh me during zhe trip? We hazh much zhat we muzht zhu. Evil zhat we muzht vanquizh and zha wonderouzh zhitiezh we muzht liberate! Come, we hazh muzh zhu do!"
She promptly lead me, not to the door, but to the stairs, and pushed me up them. I did not fall or stumble, to my delight - and even hopped the last few steps as she came up right behind me, her hand finding my join between thorax and abdomen, and pushing. I was lead in closer, and guided into my room - the highest priced suite. I had paid for it - the luxury was welcome after days on the road. The large bed greeted me, or I it, as I bounced onto it and lay flat on my face.
"Come, out of your robes - the servant girls will be around to wash them. And probably you. Off, take 'em off." She reached, pulling at the silk of my robe, and tugging it off of my frame. Her eyes gleamed, as did all mortal eyes - seeing the golden-brown of my body, and the flecks of green that wove into my chitinous exterior. More so when she saw the small gems that were embedded into my body - gems that told of my exploits and my wonders earned.
Six emeralds lined across my back near the vestigial wing cases. Six gems lay across the top of each - six were the rings of power I had so far mastered, and I worked on the last two - while the final would be of considerable work to set to my brow. My legacy and kin line were etched across my thorax and touched in a small layer of well worked silver, and a streak of gold, for duty to the elders and kings.
I was worth a fortune.
"You are really pretty sometimes, Zudox. I like the way the light catches your eyes." And she pulled my robe free and laid it upon a chair, and my stave, belts, knife, book, and pack all in the same spot. Gently, she settled down on the bed and stroked the top of my head, as the cool pillow sunk with my head upon it. I watched her, a panorama of lovely shape and leg and thigh and belly and chest and neck. She, like all humans, had breasts, but hers were small - perhaps less than a handful, as she put it. They were small, nearly flat. I liked that, made her less bothersome. "Don't drink like that again. I didn't know bugs could get drunk."
"We can gezh drunk! We can alzho danzh, zhing, and we can..." Her hand found and closed over my mandibles in a firm grip, and kept me quiet. She stared down at me, her brow perking and eyes slightly narrowed. It wasn't a look I liked one bit. She held my mouth still, I nodded once, and drew a finger into my mouth, to suckle off of, and to brush with my palps. Her brow perked slightly at such a thing - my mouth was cool, and her finger was hot.
"You can also be quiet. You need to rest now, Zudox, rest before you get up for study and preparations. We have things to do - plans to get ready for. We might have a few days of rest before we do anything - but you need to rest. That axe nearly took your thorax right off." That would have been painful. I looked back to the knit together chitin and flesh - I had just managed to turn, and it had only broken the chitin, but not all the way through. A mix of ground rock, spit, and paste had covered it and helped it close. So did the hint of magic around it. "Would not want to lose you like we lost so many others."
Reginald Plume, heir to a kingdom - a valiant warrior who had passed on the claws of a gryphon. The nest had been destroyed and the beasts routed - no more would they harass the cattle and sheep of the farmers, who had little enough to do. I still held his sword - and should have got to work on empowering his blade.
Maximus Typux, the wizard of death and necromancy. He was honorable and valiant - and vanished in the caverns of the Spider Queen. No trace of him was found, though I carried his staff with me, at all times. We did not vanquish the queen of spiders but slew many of her arachnid young. Honor and rest to his spirit.
I settled back - turning to rest against my casing, and looked to the plain wood of the ceiling above. I sighed - feeling a moment of melancholy, but even that faded as she settled beside me - and put her hand on my chest. I sighed - quietly. My breathing spicules pulsed - and I drew her in beside me. She was a fighter, a warrior - but she used the shadows and stealth to accomplish her works. She was the subtle blade and quick fingers that I admired about humanity, and humans in general. And her, especially her. I held her - she didn't seem to mind ever too much.
"Anyone ever tell you, that you smell like sage?"
"Zhage? Zhage izh common where I wazh raizhed. It wahz everywhere, but wahz of little uzhe. Zhage zhizh, Zhage zhat, zhage zhage zhage, but it did little of anything."
"No, sage is meant to garnish, not to really do anything." She replied, petting a hand on my chest, and listening to the dual thumps of my hearts. I enjoyed it - savored her warmth, so much hotter than anything else. Humans lived bright, hot lives. She was brightest of them all. I stroked through her hair, across her scalp, and through the softness of her neck. She was tired, and how she held to me, spoke that she needed to be held in turn, even if it was an ugly bug.
"Zhomezhimezh, we muzht have a little garnish to zhomezhingzh, zhomezhimezh we muzht let it be. And zhomezhimezh we muzht lezhht zhingzh happen ahz zhey will." I caressed her neck and over her scalp again - savoring the firey red of her hair, and the brilliant colors. She held me, her eyes closed and wet - a precious waste of salt. She must have been truly troubled to waste so much precious salt. "Zhomzhimezh, juzht zhomezhimezh, we muzht zhimply be. Zhink you can do zhazh wizht me?"
She nodded. And the proud warrior, the filcher and darkness stalker, who stood a full head and shoulders longer than I, let me hold her - and rested in my arms. We Thri'kreen did not sleep, and we did not grow tired. We did not dream - or waste a full third or more of our life still and unmoving. No, we did have a blessing over the dreamers like this.
But sometimes, I wished I could relax like her.
And so as she slept, I quietly braided her hair, and let the effects of the Green flow out of my system. I was dry of palp in the morning, and my antennae drooped - but I did not complain, as I played with and brushed out her hair, leaving them in long braids that danced behind her head in intricate patterns. And as she slept, I held her.
Thri'Kreen do not have emotions, they say. It's a lie. We do care, in our small ways - we care for many things. The sun burning red, the earth baked and dried and so settled for us. We cared for the few bits of life and the oasis that held so much life on a world that entered its final stages before rebirth. We cared for our lives - and the lives of our companions. And ever so often, ever so rarely, we knew a forbidden, heady experience.
Sometimes we loved.
I loved Nehemiah. And I was content, in all of my need and want and desire, I was content, to just hold her as she slept.
I loved her as she slept, and as she slowly awoke to my gentle breathing - nearly twelve hours later. She awoke and I turned, my body aching from the same position held for so many hours. I held her in a thin sheet, having gently divested her clothing, so she would not wake up as uncomfortable as she had been. I held her, as she leaned in and brushed her cheek on my chest and wrapped her arms closer around me. Her hair lay behind her - a wondrous straightened tangle that had bothered me for many many weeks.
I loved her even as she looked up at me, for a moment horrified at what might have happened - in the moments between dreaming and awake, where one is not sure of what happened between them. I stared down at her - and brought in a touch to her cheek. I withdrew from her. I understood - and understanding brought wisdom - and I would not begrudge her for that. She looked confused at me, and I gave her a look of contentment, hiding deep the pain of her unspoken rejection. I knew I could not have her. I would never begrudge her for that. Because if she was happy, even with someone else, I would not mind. And so, I simply loved Nehemiah from afar. And as she dressed, and slipped out for a morning bath, I spoke to the door.
"I love you."