by Calista Skye
"Fight this. This is not you. I promise you. It is not."
Her brows furrowed, and the red of them eased back some, now a blood-pink as she looked him over with the confusion of a guard dog met with a smile and a bone from its prey.
"I mean you well."
She blinked rapidly.
Groaning and folding her arms around her chest, rocking.
"Nooo," she croaked out, barely forming a word that was distinguishable from a cry.
"You are so much stronger than whatever they've done to you. And I promise, I will help you get your revenge. We can find them, you and I. We can report them to the Allied Forces who will show them their deaths."
Her head falling to her hands, the girl's body wracked with a pained sob, and Kesh's own eyes glazed to see it.
"Jana-"
He began.
But the girl seemed to sense he would drug her, and she lifted her eyes to him.
"Nou," she said, mispronouncing her refusal.
He understood her well enough.
His eyes flicked to the open book, laid face down on the ramps by her flask. She'd been reading. Reorganizing her synapses, preparing for speech. His heart swelled with pride. She was strong. Quick and determined.
She'd be fine.
"Okay. No smoke. How about the tea? It will calm you, make it easier."
She eyed him warily, her eyes still blood-pink, flashing crimson every so often. But soon her shoulders sagged, and she nodded.
"Yesh."
He grinned, unsure whether she was saying his name or giving him the approval of a 'yes.' It was no matter. An adorable moment while she recovered herself. Soon her words would be clear. And in truth, he could not wait for them to come.
The past few shifts, he spent most of them thinking of what it would be like to talk to her. To know her. If she would allow that. He hoped she would permit him to learn her as she regained control over her mind.
She didn't owe him that, of course, but something within him had invested itself in her. That hadn't been the plan when he'd been presented with no other alternative but to raise her. But he couldn't deny the way a simple glance her way reduced his insides to a heated melt that threatened to take the wheel of his consciousness.
He was fully under her spell, even as she didn't seem to make the slightest effort to wind him in it. Stepping back, he gave her a nod and as warm a smile as he could muster.
He didn't return until starset, and he was pleased to find that she'd found the data terminal and was searching its archives. Noticing him, her eyes rested on him, and she managed a small, tentative smile – like she still didn't quite trust him, yet, but maybe wanted to.
"Farther," she said with more confidence than her attempt might have warranted.
"Are you speaking of distance?"
She shook her head, obviously frustrated.
"Fatherrrr," she said with emphasis, her brows knitting with seriousness.
Kesh's smile widened.
"Ah, yes. Your father is an enforcer. A renowned one, actually."
She nodded.
"Go bock."
Kesh furrowed his brow.
"Back? You want to go back."
She averted her eyes.
"Make... prood."
She seemed to strain to form the words, but he was already very pleased with her progress. And he knew precisely what she meant. She wanted to make her father proud. Wanted to go back.
Perhaps, she wanted to be the one who pursued revenge against her previous captors, first.
He would give her time.
She'd tell him.
And he'd be ready.
~
When they neared the perimeter Karlek Sho, Kesh's heart was in his throat. This might be close to the end of his time with her, and he wasn't ready to let go. He and Jana had poured over the star maps, looking for the ideal route, but it had led them here, at the very edge of unallied territory. It had taken a day span out of their intended route, but they'd needed it.
Bringing the last curved shell to the makeshift table he'd set with a number of Teleran delicacies (and a Tavalar dish he'd tried his hand at with an old recipe found in the data terminal), he took a step back and looked over the setting of burning wax lights, steaming curve shells and varied bottles filled with sauces and punches.
A swell of pride burst in his chest. It was certainly no royal dinner, but it had a kind of makeshift charm, and it would be the first hearty meal Ayanu would enjoy. Ayanu. Her name rolled off his tongue like the nectar of dark berries. He'd only learned it just yesterday, when she'd shared it shyly after he escorted her back from the bath he'd fashioned for her in the drifter.
It had been a bath that didn't befit someone as lovely as her, missing all of the wild blooms and heady oils he would have selected if he were in a place within reach of his means, but he'd done his best to make it as lush as possible. And she'd emerged in the best spirits he'd seen her in since.
Heading off to retrieve her and Jana, Kesh's heart swelled in his chest.
How odd that he felt a sort of familial bond forming between the three of them that was more palpable than what he felt with his own family. The thought of breaking up their merry trio was bittersweet, but Ayanu had not, yet, agreed to continue with the last, crucial part of the mission. And it wasn't certain that this night would not be their last.
So, he would treat it as such, at least in the sense of pageantry. They'd break open the one bottle of potent, Brew wine he'd managed to bring aboard, and they would laugh and share tales they could carry with them when they no longer shared this space on the drifter, together.
"Dinner is served," he announced to Jana, who was nodding off in her command chair.
Her head jerked up, and she quickly found his eyes on hers.
Pushing back against her irritation with him, she smiled. They'd had a tense few day spans together. He appreciated that she was willing to reach past it and enjoy this small gathering.
There'd be plenty of time for fits of worry and strains against futility. It was best they forget that tonight before they settled on a lodging bay, and stepped out into the civil station they decided upon to take in the sights... and perhaps allow Ayanu her farewell if she declared her readiness to hail her father and wait for him to retrieve her.
Kesh told himself they could still clear Tarik's name if she chose that path, and it helped to dim some of his worries. There was still the matter of his people, but he wouldn't give his thoughts to fits over that right now.
He'd been doing it far too often of late.
Ayanu was at the data terminal when he came to retrieve her, and her eyes lit with pleasure when he announced it was time for dinner. She'd come to reveal a sincere love of food, but her appetite had been mercifully less voracious than they'd anticipated. They'd still have some food stores left even without spending credits for more at the lodging station.
As they all sat down to partake of the feast he'd labored over, he gave sincerest gratitude to the spirits for the abundance they had at their disposal. He'd been able to work serious magic with the staples he'd brought aboard. More than he'd anticipated he would.
After a spoken offering of thanks, he dug into his own portion, lifting his head from the ambrosia of flavors every so often to check on both Ayanu and Jana as they tore into their own.
Every time his eyes turned to Ayanu, he found hers already waiting to meet his.
She eyed him all through dinner like that, the thoughts she hid behind those smoke-amber eyes unreadable to him, mostly because he was like a stunned child in her presence. His normal sense of decorum fell away as her lures laid him bare to her. He was sure she saw it, how his heart sped its beats when she was near. Whenever he looked at her and had to quickly look away.
Looking for a reason to avert their attentions from one another, he pointed to the curved bowl set in the center position several beats away from her.
"Have you tried the Monshu? It's a delicacy a
mong your father's people. I'm unsure I managed the nuances, but I hope it will at least give you some small sense of home."
Kesh managed a warm smile and averted his eyes to his plate.
He felt Jana's eyes on him, surmising her thoughts. His heart was undoubtedly hanging out on his sleeve, and she'd be questioning his objectivity. She shouldn't. He was serious about convincing Ayanu to lead them to the acquisitioners if he could.
11
Ayanu
She trusted him.
It had taken time for her to come to that realization, but she knew it now. Her other could argue that he was using her, angling her to get at something he needed, but he'd given her a choice. And even as she hadn't answered him about her desire to return to the red-eyed savages who'd captured her, he was kind and open, never bullying her or attempting to lure her into his charms.
Kesh was as straight-forward as they came.
It had taken some days for her to reacquire her memories, but enough of them had come back into her perception to make her certain of what kind of man she was sitting across from. He was unlike most of the men she'd met, both in Tavalar culture, and... elsewhere.
She struggled with her growing affections for the prince. She'd only just learned he was a royal, and it had caused a momentary triggering of distrust. There were no royals in Tavalar culture. Such systems are too fragile in the face of temptation into corruption. Royals are rarely respected by any Tavalar, and as a daughter, maybe not of blood, but of tradition, she should feel the same reserve.
But her distrust would not linger.
Kesh was simply Kesh.
Kind, compassionate, courageous in his own right. She'd done her own investigating of the ritual that had brought her back, and though there were some missing ingredients and chants, she was able to learn how forbidden it was. That he could have only brought her back with the blessing of the ancestors.
It would have been quite a risk for one such as him.
Her heart responded to that fact.
And his people... the way he'd spoken of them to Jana when he thought she couldn't hear. He'd said they were hollowed out, dying, misshapen. He'd used terms she didn't quite understand, but the same savages who had destroyed her mind before she'd fallen had also taken something very precious to him. Something he and Jana had insisted in hushed tones they must retrieve.
Setting the strange Teleran utensil against the shell, she gave Kesh a warm smile, her belly warmed by his food and too stuffed to accept another bite.
"You have picked up the nuances quite well, somehow," she told him, her eyes glinting with admiration as she looked to him.
He looked away, shyly, she thought. He'd been averting his gaze often lately, taking the role of moving back a step when she drew too close. Ayanu knew why. Since she'd reawoken, she could feel many things with a keen insight into the vibrations surrounding a matter, person, or thing. And Kesh's reluctance to get too close had everything to do with his actual desire to draw closer to her than he had to any woman ever.
In her own rapid-beating heart, her truth was the same.
She wasn't satisfied knowing him at a mere distance.
Ayanu wanted far more than that.
~
She snuck to him, in the still of dark, waiting until Jana disappeared in the bath, sure to be gone for at least 60 ticks. The woman was accustomed to a certain level of luxury, and she wouldn't be rushing to leave whatever escape the bath could afford.
Ayanu could sense the toll the trip on this thing they called a "drifter" took on them both.
Jana was a fiery woman, and she strained to maintain her composure even when her mood plumed about her in a maelstrom of discontent, eager to break anything within reach. Ayanu admired her wherewithal and restraint. It took a certain discipline, a kind of class to avoid giving into one's baser instincts.
Ayanu had learned the true hardship of building that sort of reserve as she fought the other within her.
Tonight, though, she and her closest nemesis did not fight.
The other folded into her, succumbing to her might, feeding her with a steady stream of fire hot enough to push her past the brink of her nerves and well into the keep of resolve where her courage lay.
Slipping from her body suit as quietly as she was able – which was quite skilled as it turned out, like a space cat no one heard until it was too late to stop it from seizing its prize – she slipped into the command room and took careful steps over to Kesh, her fingers brushing his cheek.
He roused with slow-lifting lids as her lips covered his, starting as she climbed atop him, took his hands and placed them over her breasts. Her curves dipped and billowed out wantonly, and she knew he appreciated them, drank them in with a hunger that wafted off of him like the heady smoke from his sticks.
Eyes heavy lidded, she burned for him.
"Ayanu. We mustn't-"
Her lips covered his again, muting his words to mumbles as his usually deft hands found her waist with a soft tremble. She felt him harden against her, and her core warmed in response, taking into a slow, preemptive throb.
Would he refuse her?
Could he refuse her?
Drawing a labored breath, he leaned into her, fighting himself and losing as he faced the impossibility of it. Her father would disapprove. His Jana would also, but their bodies and spirits called to one another even still. Why deny something so powerfully binding, so insistent on union?
His kiss was soft and tentative, a skilled dance of tongue against tongue, a drawing out of desire her body could not refuse.
Her sex grew wet against him. Wetter rather. Before her lips had even met his, her body had responded to the mere sight of him, as it often did when in reaction to the fine, lithe musculature of him. The depth of intensity in his eyes that spoke of wisdom, and pain, and soul. She understood that council of feelings better than her words could communicate.
Her body would succeed in revealing her kindred essence far more skillfully than words ever good.
Shivering under the feel of his fingers brushing over her, the warmth of his mouth as he leaned forward to take the blushing tips of her breasts onto his tongue, she opened to him like a bloom in the deep blush of its season. A soft, rasping moan danced from her flushed lips as his fingers found the bald split of her and delved inside of the warmth that waited and ached to receive him, learn him, and draw him out.
Oh, he was tender and strong in ways she could not imagine another man matching, and the pleasure of his touch coiled in her gut, the pressure of her desire building at the point of pleasure between her thighs.
Dearest Kesh. Her teacher. Her prince. Her Warrior lover. Her... resurrector.
Ayanu wanted to learn him with the same interest she had shown at the data terminal. She ached to learn every moan, every textured gasp, and burst of heat that flared his skin. Wanted to know how fast the stroke of her tongue need be to bring that out. What pressure to apply to each nip. How keenly and tight to close around him when he claimed her, penetrating her and driving himself to her core.
Shivering as his fingers stroked her, and he loosed her aureole from his tongue to find her mouth again, she tightened her thighs against him, dancing against his fingers as they learned her depths. His fingers were magic. So much that they dizzied her.
Her own fingers found the clasps of his robe, opening its heavy, emerald material to her feasting eyes as she pressed her palms to the heat of his chest, following each cut and dip. He was magnificent, a marvel of creation, and she ached to know him beyond tongues and fingers.
Freeing him of the constriction of his pants, she took the hard, thick response of him into her hands, batted his fingers away, and slowly guided herself over him.
Cleaving to her, he growled with pleasure, the tones of his voice vibrating through her and resonating every reborn nerve ending. He was impossibly large, but she managed him slowly, keen as he stretched her to her capacity around him, fitting him as a wanton vice as her
hips rolled carefully against him.
Shuddering, he drank her in with his kiss, his hunger coming out of its tether, too palpable to be reined in a moment longer. She answered him with her own force of passion, rocking against him when he finally reached her depths and rolled his hips with snake-like fluidity within her, driving himself in desirously, almost animalistically.
"Ayanu," he breathed lustily, shushed only as her mouth sucked his tongue against her own. Flicking its tip, she delighted in the play of their lips. Nipping and sucking and licking as he claimed her.
Her eyes slid closed when his energy rushed for her, and all in the space of a second, she felt him at his core.
His pain. His familial ties. The burden of royalty. Something truly majestic in his own heart. He was made for the service of his people, and for him it wasn't about vice. It was service. Her heart ached to feel it, and she rode him with the passion it stirred into a storm of pleasure building and building until she quaked against him when she felt him jerk inside of her.
"Succumb," she whispered when she'd loosed his lips.
His gaze darkened as his eyes slid shut, and he pulled her tight against him, the storm raging through them demanding its release and outpour. Shuddering as it surged through her, raining from her as his own answer filled her with warm and wet, she rocked against him with the force of tidal waters, her hips rolling in waves just as sharp and powerful.
And then they were still, panting against one another, holding the other is so tight an embrace, there could be no mistaking their intent to not part. At least for her, she knew it then, if she had not fully decided before.
She could not leave him.
Not yet.
And perhaps, not ever.
"I want to help you," she whispered, her heart warming as his eyes met hers. "I will help you find them, and get back what they stole."
12
Kesh
He was like a young child around her after they coupled. Even more ridiculously than before. Spilling things and dropping flasks. But there was kindness in her eyes, like none he'd truly enjoyed in the keep of his own people, and eventually he grew sure that the bond forming between them was not of a fleeting nature. Though, he'd worried quite a bit that it was.