Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A.N: Edited and cleaned 4.19.16
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"And death shall have no dominion
Dead men naked, they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone
They shall have stars at elbow and foot
Though they go mad they shall be sane
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again
Though lovers be lost love shall not
And death shall have no dominion."
—Dylan Thomas, And Death Shall Have No Dominion
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Ravenous
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She knows she's not supposed to be here, but she can't help it.
She crouches and watches the prisoner beneath the ferns. He's quiet, even when the men had brought him in a week ago. He sits in a corner, back to the stout wooden bars, one knee to his chest. His clothing is the blackest leather, his hair, salt white. His long, narrow fingers are steepled, as if in prayer. His eyes are closed now. When they're opened they're so green they look black. She likes it when they're opened. It's no fun to watch an animal when it's sleeping. His alieness tugs at her. She wants to see his eyes but can't explain it. It won't leave her alone.
There's a hunger in her heart, and it scares her.
"Coming to gawk, woman?"
His tone and words are cultured, a somewhat gravelly purr. Her heart is in her throat, pounding. This is the first time he's speaking directly to her, just her, and she's unsure of how to proceed. Should she pretend she hasn't heard him? Should she slip away? Should she acknowledge him? Would the guard notice? She thinks of what to do, struggling with the uneasy chagrin at being caught.
"It's all right," the Wraith says, as if understanding her hesitation. His eyes remain closed, but she knows he's looking right at her. "I, too, sometimes cannot help but watch your kind. You are of a . . . particular . . . creature."
She slowly unfolds from her crouch, rising from the bed of ferns. It's green all around, that vibrant kind of shade leaves get right after a rainstorm, when everything else is dark from the wetness. She moves closer, her feet sinking in last season's mulch. Somewhere, a bird whistles.
"Why—" She has to wet her lips to speak. "Why is your hair white?"
Her voice comes out louder than intended. She winces.
"You don't have to look over your shoulder like that," the Wraith says, his eyes still closed. "Not too long ago a pretty female took my young guard away. I'm sure neither of them will be coming back for some time." The prisoner tilts his head. His nostrils flare. "Your pulse has quickened."
"Why is your hair white?"
A little snort comes from him. Was it annoyance? She's both terrified and exhilarated, her senses tuned to the tiniest nuance. She's floating. Even in her dreams she couldn't picture their encounter as intimidating as this.
"Shouldn't you be asking why I eat your kind? Or, better yet, whether I enjoy it? Come, this is the sixth time you've snuck to observe me and this is all you can ask?" He still doesn't look at her, his alien face serene and composed. It lends to nothing what he's thinking. She can't tell if he's annoyed or pleased.
She swallows, because she doesn't want to ask him what she really wants to know. She wants to know if his hair feels as silky as it looks. She wants to know what makes him weep, if he can at all. What makes him laugh. What tickles his fancy. What's his greatest fear. She wants to ask him what he sees in her.
But that's too dangerous a question.
"I . . . I just want to know," she says, "why your hair is the colour it is."
She's lying, of course.
She wants to know much more.
The Wraith's brow knits for an instant before smoothing. Then, to her everlasting delight, he opens his eyes. They are as she remembers them: dark green, almost black, like lakewater far beneath the surface. Except she's closer now, and she can see speckles of yellow along the iris. They remind her of fools gold. The eyes regard her between the bars of the cage with nonchalant ease, shadowed beneath the sloping eye-ridges. They are for her alone, their attention on no one else. Her breathing shallows as she holds them with her own.
Her heart clenches and the hunger aches. She knows it's wrong, and the fear returns. She hasn't realized how close she's become to the bars of the cage, that if she reached, she would touch the rough bark. She takes a step back, to be sure.
"Why does it matter to you?"
"I . . . you won't tell me?"
"Why should I? I am Wraith. Secrets and tricks are what we are. Why interest yourself in something that cannot give you a straight answer?" The Wraith's eyes are unblinking. There's a little wrinkle between the two eye-ridges, and she thinks it's a frown.
"I like puzzles," she says. "You know, mind-games. Questions. I'm very good at chezā, a game we have with strategy and figures."
Though her voice is steady her heart is a wet knot. She doesn't know why she's telling this creature all this. Even the man she calls husband didn't know this aspect of her . . . if he even knew she existed, that is. She knows this creature won't care. He would kill her if he could. But he's so still, so calm, it's easy to forget. Harder it is to ignore the aura of knowledge and—would she dare think it?—goodwill. His quiet eyes are inviting. His soft mouth is intriguing.
The Wraith says nothing. His eyes are closed again, as if signaling the end of his window of interaction. She's left in the awkward position of standing and waiting, the occasional drip on leaves and the heartbeat in her ears only sounds in the tiny clearing.
She turns to leave, something in her chest tight and hurting.
"It's a matter of chemical confluences when Wraith reach a certain stage of development." It's the Wraith, his voice soft. "Gender, too, comes into factor, as the females either retain their hair colour or allow the chemical alteration to take place. We males have no choice, but when we are young, our hair is black."
He becomes quiet again, but it's enough.
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She visits the prisoner time and time again. He says little during the encounters, but what he does say soothes the strange, forbidden pain in her chest. The elegant mustachios charms her. The dark leather intrigues her. The multi-toned words captures her.
Soon she can't go by without at least seeing the prisoner once a day. The hole in her heart is a void, a yawning chasm where only the sight and sound of him can soothe. He consumes her thoughts without lifting a finger, devours her waking dreams with a smirk, holds her captive with a glance.
And if anyone finds out, she's as good as dead.
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Another week goes by and the Wraith is acting strangely.
She'd like to think he's as deeply in-tuned with her movements as she is his, but she can't be sure. She isn't sure if he's aware she's observing his odd glances to the sky, or his lapses of deep concentration. It's like he's waiting for something.
One day, as she kneels by the cage, she asks, "Are others going to come for you?"
It requires a very good reason for the Wraith to look at her, so when he does, she knows she's said something of interest. But what he has for an answer, however, deflates her.
"Your curiosity will kill you one day," he says. "Take it as a word of caution."
"I'm not afraid."
The prisoner's nostrils flare. She's been around him long enough to recognize he's sighing.
"That's my point," he says, and grows quiet. He's focusing on something beyond her understanding, beyond the clouds.
She edges closer to the cage. She knows he could reach out and grab her if he wanted to; she knows she's hardly on the same level as far as reflexes go. She's close enough to smell him, and there's nothing quite like it. In an attempt to grasp the alien quality of it she equates the Wraith's musk to cobwebs. Dry. Cool. Scentless. Do all Wraith smell the same?
"Are you talking to them now?"
For some reason the yellow in his eyes are darker today. They shift as he regards her. But he says nothing, not even when his eyes flick to the bruise on her cheek. She flushes and shame turns her head just enough to hide her husband's newest caress. She's embarrassed of her fragility. Not like him. Though he's been in the cage for over a week and a half he appears as hale as the day he came. She bets he doesn't have to worry about bruises or cuffs or slaps. He doesn't have to worry about breathing softly. He doesn't have to worry about someone taking him at any hour of night, no matter what he felt. He could take care of himself. He was the monster at the end of the tunnel, terrible and unmolested. He was powerful.
He was Wraith.
She understands he could shatter the wooden bars of his cage if it so pleased him. Understands it very, very well. Why he remains, of course, continues to elude her. Simply asking is out of the question.
Sometimes, in her dreams, she imagines it's because of her he remains captive on her planet. Those are the good ones, but the better ones are those with him saving her from her husband.
But those are dreams. She doesn't even have the courage to ask him how his skin feels, or if his hair is as silky as it appears.
"Do you want to know?"
She turns her head and finds the Wraith had, without sound or notice, approached her side of the cage. He's leaning in, forehead pressed up to the bars. They're close enough to kiss. She's so surprised she can't even cry out.
"Know . . . know what?"
"How my skin feels. My hair." He repeats his question in the same, low tone. "Do you want to know?"
Her blood drains from her face as she realizes she had spoken her secret desires out loud. Heat returns to her cheeks a moment later. She's close enough to count his eyelashes. She has such a spectacular view of his eyes.
She can only nod her head.
"Stay still."
Terror, fear, exhilaration, adrenaline, dread, ecstasy; all of it rushes through her as a hand reaches through the bars. Her breathing is shallow and unsteady it reaches for her face. She can't turn away. She can't move. It's as if she's transfixed, a rabbit before the weasel. The claws ghost her face, their tips just shy from touching the skin. They pause at the bruise, hovering. She doesn't dare look away, despite the claws in her peripheral vision. Looking at the Wraith's expression is like looking at stone. There's nothing. No interest, no curiosity, no disgust, no life. Cold breath fans her face.
The hand now travels to the well of her throat, slowly, leisurely, taking its time. She can feel herself shake as the prisoner brushes the back of his hand against her exposed neck and underside of her chin. Wraith skin is cool to the touch, dry, hairless. She had thought it'd be more like a fish's, or a snake's, but the humanness of it takes her off-guard.
The hand travels again, pausing just above her breasts before flattening, palm-down, on her chest. Terror is in her throat but she remains sitting where she is, pulse thundering at gunfire pace. Cold sweat trickles behind her neck. The Wraith's breathing continues to be steady while she, in turn, cannot even gasp.
She squeezes her eyes shut and waits for the end.
She uncomprehending when a gentle shove pushes her backwards. Her eyes shoot open and she watches the prisoner lean back and retreat to his corner of the cage. He doesn't look at her. He doesn't move. He stares off into the forest as she looks down at her chest for a wound. There's nothing. No decay. No mark.
". . . Why?"
But there's no answer. The Wraith closes his eyes in the sun while misery clouds in hers.
When she returns to her tent, her husband beats her for sneaking off. It's for her own protection, he says. Doesn't she know bad things lurk out there?
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When the Wraith come, they come with a vengeance.
The darts streak out of the stone Ring, their screeching whines drowning the screaming and wailing below. Foot soldiers tramp down the Ring's worn steps in an apparent, endless tide, their alien weaponry unyielding and hostile. Electric blasts whizz through the air and their targets slump to the forest floor like dead men falling.
It's chaos.
Somehow she knew this would happen. She had heard of the rumors of the wide-spread famine plaguing the Wraith's ranks. If they notice small camps like this, she thinks in a crazy moment of clarity, running with the pack, then they must be starving.
It doesn't take long before the camp is round up, and even less time for everyone to realize they've lost. They stand like herded cattle, dumb, stupid, terrified, the few who do act up are shot, trussed, and dragged away. The older children have slapped the younger ones silent and now they sniffle, snot dribbling from their noses. They look up at their parents but they aren't much help. If anything, their parents' beaten expressions scare them all the more. It's the older children who hold the little ones' hands tightly with their own, strong and naïf enough to comfort their brothers and sister and themselves.
The Wraith don't waste time with collars or chains or rope. Words are few and rare but cuffs and shoves are plenty as bone-masked soldiers force the them to stand in line as darts beam them up. Repeat dodgers are shot and taken away.
She's in one of the small throngs, waiting to be put in a line. She's standing on what had been someone's hearth. There is still uneaten remains of nai and zenu underfoot, along with the ashes of a fire. She's been jostled in the front but she doesn't fight the injustice of human nature. She knows they were all going to die, whether someone was first in line or last. Her husband is nowhere to be seen. She closes her eyes, briefly, at the tiny respite.
That cuvoku. That dog. She hopes he chokes on his tongue. She hopes the Wraith skewer his eyes.
Prayers whisper under breathes all around her. Though she keeps her eyes forward as the murmurs crowd her back she wishes she knew one too. There is fear in her heart, and despair, too, but she's been living with them for much longer. What could the Wraith do to her? Take her life? She had no life before. The prisoner had been the only stirring within her breast, and now he's gone. She waits her turn.
Then she sees him.
He's still in the same clothes since she'd last seen him and but it's clear from the richness and style of his dress he outclasses all of the other Wraith there. She's not surprised. Even the first time she saw him she knew he was different from the ordinary class of his kind. But he's different, too, from the cage. The composure is now stern, authoritative. What little words he says are clipped and brusque, and instantly obeyed.
Her heart stirs a little from its stupor but she desperately tries to ignore it. The pain she feels isn't sweet, but bitter. She sees and acknowledges the astronomical ravine between them, he, a Wraith commander, and she, some nameless woman. He eats, she is eaten. Her dreams are delicious but hardly nourishing. They make her foolish.
And yet, all the same, her traitorous heart still feels.
She's more than willing to admire him from afar before she's led to her death but something jolts her out of her reverie.
He's looking at her.
There's no expression on his face to give away what he's thinking. On a human might've been surprise, or indifference, or contempt. Not so with a Wraith.
He strides towards her, his leathers billowing around his legs, leaving the minion he'd been talking to blinking. Her breathing shallows. Spent adrenaline sludges through her veins, feebly rousing her anxiety. Though she has a choice whether to remain still or attempt to hide within the crowd, she knows it's a mockery of free will. She knows she has nowhere to hide. There is no choice but to wait for him. Her betraying heart is a yearning sore, thick and painful.
A clawed hand grabs the upper part of her arm and she's dragged away. She has to half-trot, half-jog to keep up with his long stride. A few of the lower-ranked Wraith glance over at them but leaves her Wraith unmolested. The bone-masked soldiers ignore them entirely. Her Wraith looks straight ahead as he takes her away from the destroyed camp, his grip iron, his skin cool and dry against her own sweaty, dirt-streaked one. She has no intention of breaking away, knowing even her strongest of struggles would've been pitiful compared to his. She trips and stumbles as they go deeper into the woods, several times only his grip keeping her upright. She has no idea what to expect.
They reach a pseudo clearing. It's gray skies overhead, bloated with tick-like ships. Screaming darts whine in the distance.
It's a small shove, but it's enough to throw her to the ground. She lands hard enough to knock the wind out of her. She lays there as if dead already, afraid and breathless and confused.
"Don't speak. Don't question. Don't look back. Just run."
She stares up him, disbelieving. His head is turned away so she cannot see his face. He stands there as if it's his intention to, but she knows better. She knows he's waiting for her to leave.
This time she doesn't ask why, not because he ordered her not to, but because she's realizes there's no answer for this, not now, not tomorrow, not when she's old and dying. Wraith love their secrets too much.
Without a word, without a thanks, she picks herself up and begins to run. There's no sound of pursuit as she flings herself into the bushes. There's gratitude in her heart, but it's a numbing fear as well. Guilt and humanity demands she turn back but the strange, horrible, beautiful mixture of relief and terror soars in her blood and pushes her forward.
A Wraith has saved her.
She has what she had wished.
Too bad it now makes her a condemned woman.
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-fin-