Kori
... So long. So long without human contact that I had forgotten I was on Earth. That perhaps this inferior substitute for my homeworld would suffice as a place, a sanctuary to live out the remainder of my days. That, perhaps, I was just alone. Alone as the rest of them.
I lived a simple life, surviving on a diet of fruits and berries found on the tropical island which was my home. I was a prisoner - though this island was no prison. It was true: my ship had crashed here, but I was a creature of flight, and could leave if I so wished. But I did not. Perhaps it was too painful to leave - I knew that my previous prescence on Earth had been barely accepted, and I knew that I would possibly not be tolerated further. And perhaps, out of the thorn in my own heart, I remained. I had been hurt before, a long time ago, in the company of humans, and desperate to heal my wounds I sought refuge in solitude.
So it was, to my utter surprise, that one day a large... a submarine, that was what it was known as to humans - surfaced briefly just off the coast of the island. I was interested, but I did not intrude. Ships sometimes passed by, but never stopping, and never coming this near. Let the humans sort themselves out - they and their petty arguments.
However, this one was... different. It sank back beneath the waves, and I thought I had seen the last of it, and was about to head back to foraging for fruits, but suddenly, there was a gigantic explosion, one that seemed to shake the earth to its core. A gigantic plume of water, with an underlying current of red fire bubbling up from beneath it, shot from the still sea like the serrated tongue of a minyat.
A few pieces of black shrapnel rained from the sky, falling back onto the mirrored surface of the water. All the people aboard that ship must be dead, I thought, and returned to my duties, the jungle swallowing me. I thought no more of what had happened until later that evening.
As I returned to the beach to peruse the trees for any more coconuts, I saw a large, dark shape sprawled over the dark red sand, like a piece of glowing coal in a fireplace, the waves breaking over it, shimmering and glinting. I stepped cautiously towards it, for fear that it might suddenly rise and attack, fire ready in hand to strike it down should it attempt to do so, but as I neared I realised it was still, perhaps dead, for it did not move. I reached its side, and, upon closer inspection, realised it was clearly male.
He was lying facedown, his clothes ragged and torn, half his head obscured by a red metal mask, and the other half sprouted a shock of dark hair, matted with salt and damp with the retreating tide. I turned him over, removing his broken mask. My breath hitched in my throat.
A sudden rush, a flow of unbidden memories.
"..."
"'I'chard?"
The dark hair - the eyes, when I opened the lids - blue, just like a jay's feathers. Just... just like his. On a bright morning, staring into mine, drowsy with the sleep yet to be cleared from them.
"I... I love you, Kory."
"And I too..."
... Could not. I would not bring myself to remember his name. He was just another faded memory, faded like the hem of my dress. He should be gone. But somehow... he remained.
I checked the stranger's pulse, and found it weak but present. He was still alive, though not breathing, but would surely die if left unattended. Should I save him? Rescue a human, whose kind had scarred my heart, who did not want me here-
His eyes. They reminded me so much of his that I had to. Felt compelled to. I pushed down on his chest, approximately where his lungs were, and a stream of water surged from between his lips, pouring out onto the damp sand, slithering beneath the wet grains. I repeated the process until with a start, he coughed, and jerked back to life. Good. He was breathing, though it was laboured, for quite a number of his ribs were broken. I dragged his body up from the beach, then hefted him over my shoulder and carried him all the way up to a small hut, a short ways off from the mothership. I had built it with my own two hands, and sometimes liked to lie on the bed there, watching the sunset as I had once watched the sunrise. There had once been another body, close to mine, playing with my hair, stroking it, whispering incomprehensible nothings into my ears. Loving me. And yet, I was utterly alone.
I laid him down on the bed, removing his clothes, placing them out to dry beside him. Among his possessions, of which there were few, he had the metal weapon called a gun, and that aroused my suspicions. This man must be inclined to violence, for my previous acquaintance had never carried one. His arm was broken, which I could clearly tell - it lolled at an angle strange with respect to the rest of his body, and in my previous years on this earth I had observed that humans, being quite fragile, tended to break rather easily. I arranged it atop of him, holding it in place with a simple cast of leaves and vines, then covering what I deduced to be his intimate areas with more brush. Observing him closely, he seemed to have the well- built physique that my previous acquaintance possessed, and, save from a few slight features that distinguished him from him - the set of the jaw, the build of the chest - they could have been the same person. However, until the stranger woke and I determined whether he was friend or foe, I should not allow my emotions to take control yet. It was one of the painful but valuable lessons that I had learnt on Earth - that it was, simply put, not Tamaran.
Humans took care of things with their cold logic first.
Over the next few days I cared for my patient, replacing his makeshift bandages with proper cloth ones that I had found upon the mothership, and feeding him. He was still unconscious, but his pulse was stronger, and his breathing steady. His ribs had healed with the help of a salve that I had found in the medical bay aboard the mothership. Angry red sores had appeared where I had applied the salve, but it did not seem to kill him, which I deduced should be all right.
And then on the eighth day, he awoke.
"How is the patient - conscious yet?" Perhaps I felt a little foolish, talking to someone who could not hear me, but I did so anyway. It was comforting in a strange sense, talking to this stranger at my sunsets, who was naked, unconscious - I did not know him, and yet I was caring for him. It seemed almost gratifying to know that by my own care, he was slowly recovering. The last time I had had a similar experience was caring for a blythda that had fallen in the palace garden and injured its wing. I had slowly nursed it to health with the help of Galfore, but one day I had been careless, and left the door open. The only parts I found that remained of it were its bright blue feathers.
I had cried for hours, then under the guidance of my beloved k'norfka, burned it with my own flame and sang its praises to X'hal. Perhaps, Galfore had told me, it would be much better off with the goddess than with me.
I examined my patient, who was still motionless on the bed. The memories were threatening to jump out at me any moment, deep as I had buried them. Who was he?
Familiar, but... In another time, perhaps...?
"Morning, beautiful..." That wonderful, knowing smirk on his lips that made the world seem all right again...
No. Not him. I risked reaching down, my fingers brushing his hair - and that was when he sat up. In his hands was the gun.
