As usual, thank you Stunt for your encouragement. It is both reassuring and invigorating, and thank you to everyone who has reached out or reviewed for the feedback, it is such a treat to read about your thoughts. Good or bad. I hope you enjoy what comes next, there is still a lot to write about.
Please excuse the terrible delay in this chapter, home life, and school had to be dealt with first and now I am free to continue writing again.
-Old Night
-0-
Vetra felt her breath catch in her lungs as the words left Sindri's mouth. A heady rush shot through her heart and throughout a body as the thrill of what he'd said ensnared and delighted her. No correction came, no admission of a joke, just the words and his even gaze.
"How come?" she blurted out even as she cringed internally at how the filter between her brain and mouth seemed to have quietly collapsed.
Sindri's eyes didn't waver nor did his smile falter.
"I mean, did you always like Turian girls? What changed?"
With a thoughtful sigh, he slid closer to her on the couch and grasped her hand again before looking at it, then at her to check if she didn't like it. Gently he opened her palm and laid his own on it and observed them both as if to compare.
"Could ask you the same thing, Vetra Nyx."
"I asked first."
At this, he smiled earnestly.
Vetra intertwined her fingers with his own and squeezed his hand. Looking at him anew she scooted a little closer as she took a deep breath to still the energetic butterflies in her guts. Thinking about it clearly perhaps for the first time she realized, she'd never thought of humans as ugly. They were certainly very different. And hairy. All that hair everywhere. But they certainly weren't ugly. And Sindri certainly was not an ugly individual. His skin despite the wounds and scarring (which she knew he hated revealing) was fair and soft. His hair and eyes were dark and warm by contrast.
He had kind eyes, she realized.
And those eyes were looking at her now, very close. In them, she saw no anger, no disgust, no shame, or guilt. These eyes seemed the kind used to smiling, such was the cut of the creases around them that squinted to match the rise of his cheeks. There was only obvious happiness in them and unabashed needfulness to be close to her, to explore her hand, and enjoy her warmth.
"I've never offered flowers to anyone. And I never thought you'd feel this way about me."
A little blue hue asserted itself on Vetra's faceplate, and a little pride wormed its way into her heart.
"So, I'm your first huh?"
"Yes, you are."
"When did you start feeling like you wanted to grow flowers for me?"
Rolling his eyes amicably Sindri shook his head as his ears were tinged scarlet.
"You are merciless, do you know that? Shame on you, leave me some air of mystery along with my dignity."
"I want to know!"
"Why?"
"Because I had no idea you felt this way. I was embarrassed at first during the tournament when you were saluting us and when you made that little comment, you know."
"Got under your skin did it?"
"Not in a bad way, you Darskirr are so dramatic. But it's sweet in a way, you're so blunt."
"It is not our way to leave things unsaid. Especially in things like friendships, quarrels, or love."
Vetra's heart jumped in her chest and she squeezed Sindri's hand. That word, it sounded so good coming out of his mouth, it sounded so sweet spoken in his voice.
She wanted to hear him say it again.
"I have a question for you, Vee."
"Anything" she exhaled, as her mandibles hugged her jaw in pleasant anxiety.
"When did you decide you wanted me for yourself?"
Grinning, the Turian shook her head.
"You first, Bogatyr."
"I asked first, Nyx."
A little modest embarrassment made Vetra uncomfortable in her soft seat.
"I'm not sure I've decided yet. But I'm selfish and you're sweet and nobody knows you like I know you. So maybe I-"
Vetra looked at Sindri in the eyes and thought for a brief moment about the long and absurd road that had brought her here and her choices to continue on it. She had chosen, hadn't she?
"Maybe nobody else deserves to be with you; and nothing about this feels wrong."
With a little blush playing across his face the human broke eye contact only for her to poke him in the chest playfully.
"Your turn."
"My people say: Home does not rest upon your hearth but upon your woman. And if I am being honest; aren't you home to me, Vetra?. You and Sid both. We skipped a few gestures and stages to get to us cohabitating but here we are, making up for the proper steps in the dance."
Turning her face away Vetra shook it, wondering if she'd misheard him. After an instant she looked at Sindri again, his expression had not changed nor had the warmth in his eyes left him.
"Sindri, is this real? How can you be so sure?"
Cringing inside, Vetra noticed how he took a deep breath before settling into comparing their hands on his lap. Was he introspective or annoyed?
Spirits, am I killing the mood?
"Sorry, for asking so many questions."
Shaking his head gently, the human looked back up at her.
"No, it's fine. This is new and you want to be sure. I do too."
"Sindri" Vetra began as the words strained to catch themselves in the back of her throat as her heart raced again.
"It's ok if you don't really want to. I just want to be sure you are ok with it, it gets messy otherwise."
Sindri held her gaze for a long moment before his hand came to the side of Vetra's face. He was very close now, his arm felt comforting around her shoulder. She could smell him, his scent was pleasurable and it reminded her of their home in the woods. The feeling of his fingers on her cheek made it tingle. After a moment as he drew his hand away her own shot up to keep it there.
"Vetra."
The Turian could feel his air, each puff of his breath was a delicious invitation to come closer. The thought of them locking lips was intoxicating. She looked at them and wondered if they would be as soft as she remembered them.
She didn't have to wonder for longer than an instant.
Sindri came forward and their lips met. Despite how firm the contact between them was, Vetra was struck by how gentle he was with her even as his hand on her cheek held her in place. This tender kiss was replaced with a genuine needfulness as his confidence built by her requited kissing. She could taste his breath and her own errant hands draped themselves around his shoulders and pulled him closer.
Vetra felt an indescribable joy as she squeezed Sindri tight to her chest. The comfort of his warmth and physical presence cleared her anxious mind and chased away her worries like a beam of sunlight piercing a cloud of morning mist. Where once she would have felt an awkward tension to encroaching on his personal space now she relished holding the man in her arms, having him, kissing him. This was the man who she called her closest friend, who'd sheltered and protected her and Sid and asked for nothing in return. He did not want her from the start because he could get something out of her, he loved her for her. He loved her because of who she was.
Knowing that made her feel like the luckiest Turian alive. The words came like the clear ring of a bell in her mind.
To live, truly live.
So much had changed in a day just because she took a risk and embraced opening herself up to something she was barely willing to admit to herself. Coming apart from one another (and up for air) Vetra clasped her hand around her wrist behind Sindri's back. Resting her head on his shoulder she closed her eyes, almost drunk on the feeling of her thumping heartbeat in her chest. The human's hands explored her back and intermittently pressed her close to him. His fingertips pleasantly traced little circuits that gave her goosebumps with each lazy caress.
Sindri languidly broke the embrace and looked at Vetra.
"I love you."
"What?" she asked, suddenly very sober.
"I said, I love you," he answered with a pleasant smile.
He said it quietly but without hesitation or nerves; almost as if remarking on the state of the temperature in the Apothecary. Vetra blinked quietly while struggling to process what he said and a little unnerved by what it meant now.
This was skipping too many 'steps in the dance' for her. Even if she believed him and didn't really think she didn't feel the same way.
Like a needle pressed into a thumb she felt the mental prick of sudden awareness for the entire day's exchanges and what had brought her here. She remembered her concern for why Sindri could never find out why she'd come all those months ago in an effort to befriend him initially. And the siren call of the crate of medicine in their refrigerator at home.
"Vee, what's wrong?"
Standing up and stifling a sudden wave of self-loathing the Turian held herself and shook her head.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that."
"Why are you saying this?"
"Sindri I am not good for you. I have been an asshole for most of my adult life and done a ton of things I am not proud of. You just turned a new leaf, you deserve to be with someone honest."
"You are not a deceitful woman, Vee."
"Sindri you don't know who I am. Not really. Or why I came into your life."
"Honesty is a choice, tell me the truth then."
"Sindri, I can't. I'd rather have you hate me for pushing you away than think less of me."
"Oh, cut the shit!"
Vetra jumped at the volume and real anger in the human's voice.
"The esteem I hold you in was earned, not given. Spare me the self-pity, it's pathetic and it is beneath you and-"
The human's face twisted in a shallow grimace as his eyes darted for a moment out the dark window and the brightly lit streets of Grennik. After an instant, a little reproach came to his face as a thought almost seemed to dawn on him and the flash of anger that came over him seemed to cool instantly.
"I don't deserve your esteem, Bogatyr. Or everything you've done for me and Sid."
"And I don't deserve your loyalty but I am selfish enough to try to be worthy of it anyway. You've made me want to fight, to be a better person. What was it you called me? A pussy? For being too weak to move on from what I've seen and what I've done and what's been done to me? Well now you are on the other end, I am calling you a coward. Tell me the truth and be rid of the weight."
"I can't."
"Why?"
"Because-"
A look of anguish came over Vetra's expression and she knew it. The anger in Sindri's eyes now struck her differently, she hated it. And her pride was the only thing that stopped the urge to cry, just barely.
"Because I can't stand the thought of losing you."
"Because you are afraid of losing your home? You know me better than that, Vetra."
Bitterness took root inside the Turian where pain once was. She wanted to slap the Darskirr standing before her.
"Do you really think that little of me? That I'm just concerned with having you kick Sid and me out?"
Sindri's eyes flickered in doubt as a little embarrassment obviously worked its way across his heart.
"No, I suppose not."
With a sigh, Vetra looked at her feet.
She felt battered and a little scared.
"Sindri, I don't want to fight. I hate doing this with you."
Closing his eyes and breathing deeply the human looked at her again.
"As do I. Please, just speak plainly: what is troubling you so much?"
"I told you. I can't stand the thought of losing you. I trust you and I am happier with you than I've been in years. Since you came into my life and Sid's everything's only ever gotten better. I know you'd never just throw us out into the cold but I've done so many things I'm ashamed of now, I'm afraid if I tell you it'll cross some Darskirri line I won't be able to come back from and you won't look at me the way you did today anymore."
"I doubt that."
"Sindri." Vetra began.
"I am not a good person. And it's not just things I've said or done to others but things I've done to you. Or meant to."
"You needn't feel guilty about my exile. I chose it freely and I am at peace with it."
"That's not what I'm talking about."
A cold silence stretched between them with only the noise of the howling wind outside to fill the gap between them.
With hard eyes, Sindri's expression gave away to a familiar sort of guilt she hadn't seen in a long time. The kind of guilt she had seen when he'd spoken about Callux.
"I have kept secrets too. And I have many things to be ashamed over."
His ears perked up visibly and the human standing before her raised his chin by a few increments. The air around him changed and a patient but tired disdain played across his smile and tone while his eyes left Vetra and went to the hallway.
"Bottom line, Vetra Nyx." he began as his umber eyes went back to hers.
"I love you."
Stepping forward he gently cupped her hands and kissed her cheek. Equal parts sadness and joy roiled in her guts as she found herself unable to move, paralyzed by his tender hold on her sweaty hands.
"Perhaps it is time that I come clean."
"Of what?"
"I have done unbelievable things to protect my home and guard my people when I believed Turians were nothing but monsters. And of what happened to Callux. Things you should know before you decide whether or not to allow yourself to love me as I've decided to allow myself to love you."
The words bubbled up like bile in the back of Vetra's gullet like an unstoppable tide as equal parts fear of rejection and a desire to come clean fought for control over her tongue.
"Sindri, I-"
Placing his hand on her chest in a gesture to stop, Sindri smiled at her without mirth.
"These words are for us alone. And not for those eavesdroppers; hiding around the bend in fact."
To her surprise, Vetra's head snapped around, and heard quick shuffling steps and muffled words as the sound quickly faded back into the clinic's halls.
"Little shit, I bet you that was Amanda."
"And Rivana and Grin. Pity only a former thug in my clinic has the sense to grant us our privacy."
"Where are you going?"
Sindri stopped just short of the corner before looking back at his Turian.
"I want to walk. Clear my head for a while and find the words I need to speak to you."
"Can I come with you? We can get some fresh air together."
"No." he replied firmly.
"The first night you spent in my home I told you the day Callux was killed is a secret that would never part my lips. I meant it then. But now I have to find the nerve to say it."
With a forlorn gaze to the outside and the colorfully hued snows given new character by his stained glass windows, his eyes closed in thought for a moment.
"Give me an hour or two. Then meet me at Calo Park. We can speak there and in private."
Vetra in a moment found herself standing alone as the receding steps of Sindri's boots faded and the gentle thud of his heavy wooden door closed.
She had a dreadful feeling in her heart that her better instincts might have been correct.
He's never going to forgive me if I tell him. He wouldn't have gone through all this if he hadn't stood up for a thief without knowing it. Come to think of it, he wouldn't have stood up for a thief in the first place, would he?
Frowning and lightly holding her hands to her heart as it began to ache with a loss not yet realized she thought of what Alexandra had said. And fundamentally, she was right.
What life could Sindri have had with a Turian he had no business loving?
With a Turian who'd meant to manipulate him.
With a woman who had irreversibly tarnished his standing with his people.
All this strife she'd inflicted on someone who didn't deserve it. Just because she had to try to rob an honest man who'd been through too much.
I am such a piece of shit. I didn't save his life. I ruined it. He has no future with me or Sid in the long term. Not in a way that's healthy for him.
If he hadn't chosen us he'd be in the hands of people who can actually love him the way he needs, as the Darskirr know how. He'd have a wife, kids, and a clan to protect and look after him. Even if he doesn't like them, they are his people. They understand each other.
Feeling the lingering ghost of his lips on hers Vetra winced with pain.
"Sindri, I should have just left Old Jinn that night without a word. I made the wrong choice then but I'll make the right one now."
As her blue eyes as they screwed shut in pain a pair of tears edged out and down her face as she cupped her mouth.
I'm going to let you go.
-0-
Sindri ambled peaceably through Grennik's empty streets as he passed by the quiet houses of his former kinsmen. It was an easier thing he had to admit to himself, playing the villain was. Perhaps it was because he'd voiced something so intimate to someone so important to him that he was thinking clearly and his pride was subdued. Marching through the streets with his Turians and pretending he was not ashamed was an easy thing, mischief came to him as easy as breathing as did the smug arrogance he'd cultivated over the years. Even if it was insincere. A quality he hated. But now, having decided to love Vetra Nyx only to have her push back because of her guilty feelings was vexing him horrendously.
He had to speak truthfully and honestly.
She deserved that much, to get a good look at the man who was courting her.
Slowing his pace and realizing he was a little lost he looked up to the street sign.
He was on Drunzen Street.
Turning his head to his left he saw a house with white walls and a muted red roof.
As fogged as the windows were he could see Marishka Bosunovich by the broad window with a cup of wine and her three-year-old son sitting on her lap. She laughed with her guests while bouncing her son on her knee. He'd been a difficult birth for Marishka, her first child. Sindri had delivered him and entreated her husband Theo to help him. Mirrardi Darskirr left childbirth to the women and her female relatives as it turned out. Dubeka Darskirr held that fathers should learn to deliver their children. It'd been made clear to him this was a difference between the clans when she was in labor.
Theo had been an enthusiastic help as had Marishka's mother and sister. Sindri had looked for problems as her son began coming down and found he had his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. Deftly unwrapping it he gently pulled the baby as Marishka pushed. With a single whimpering cry the baby took his first few breaths.
The new parents had sworn eternal friendship with Sindri for having saved their newborn and preserved their family before it could have been tragically cut short.
They had named him Anto and he'd been a friendly baby as Sindri had come to know him over the years.
A sweet little boy.
Marishka turned her head and looked out the window as she sipped her wine. Locking eyes with Sindri she smiled again at her guests and continued on with her happy conversation having given no indication or word that she'd seen him.
Not a wince or a frown, no acknowledgment that he was even out there.
It was just as well, his birthstone was broken and he did not exist. Not really. Not anymore. Not to Nikita, or Grandmother or James. And certainly not to her.
This would have grieved him privately as recently as earlier that day. But now it felt like someone else's life.
Now his life was different and would remain so if he could muster the courage to tell Vetra what had truly happened on Dubek and to Callux. To confess his sins to who deserved to know, for there should be no grievous secrets between kindred.
He felt dread and shivered from the thought of voicing to Vetra what perhaps not even the Gods had borne witness to.
Sindri Bogatyr was a coward and he let his friend die.
He'd wanted to run away out of shame so badly he couldn't even muster the courage to drive to Kuov and attend his funeral. The thought of looking at his parents and sister in the eye after what he'd done made suicide seem eminently less painful.
But now things were different. He had to be strong, he was someone's older brother and he could not fail his little sister. Not the way he'd failed his birth siblings.
Besides, Vetra deserved the truth. Even if she misguidedly thought she was bad for him.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a few figures move to the window.
James and Alexandra venomously glared at him from inside the house.
Sindri blew them a kiss with a grand sweep of his arm as he sauntered away and down the lonely street in a roundabout path to his destination.
His mind wandered to a time and a place that did not exist. A place where Vetra had accepted him despite his faults and his shame. A time when he'd finally atoned for them and become a man worthy of the devotion of his two Turians, a time when he could hold his head up high with the pride of the courageous. A future where Vetra and he were married and the Nyx sisters took the name Bogatyr and would become the very first Turian Darskirr. The thought of this strange little clan of three pleased him and frightened him in equal measure. This was a pure fantasy he knew. But a future where Vetra and he raised their nieces and nephews by Sid and her future husband made him inexplicably happy and hopeful perhaps for the first time in years.
"The Darskirri clan Bogatyr, a clan of Turians. I am such an idiot." he wheezed as laughter erupted from his guts.
Yes, it was a pleasant fantasy. But that's all it was. The most he should hope for was for Vetra's embrace and to see a new day with her.
Seems unlikely. But who knows? Even Gods may die.
The Exile continued his happy path and turned the corner.
Oblivious of the people who followed him at a distance.
-0-
Trudging through the juvenile and scant woods of Calo Park with an almost timid trepidation, Sindri leafed through his errant thoughts like a man skipping pages in a book with no clear plot or answers.
Breathing deeply he admitted to himself it was not the cold or the relative darkness of the place that bothered him; or the frigid air but the burning fear that now coursed through his veins. He knew in his heart now as he knew amidst the woods in Dubek before an attack on the Turians that his next steps would dictate the new path he'd take in life. He was terrorized beyond reckoning at the thought of assaulting the aliens. The mere thought of leveling his rifle, sighting his enemy, and squeezing the trigger seemed like such an insurmountable task.
Until he chose to be brave and fight as his kindred did. And now, life called to him to be brave again.
The snow crunched under his boots as he breathed deep and the shameful confession stuck to his tongue like blood. It fought against being spat out but it also would not allow itself to be swallowed back down.
It's poison.
Vetra had taken a risk in telling him how she felt, she was behaving as a good Darskirr does; without shame or secrets holding her down and no feral cunning to weigh advantages or subterfuge. She'd told him she loved him too with a bundle of clothes. But he wasn't being honorable, and this was not the way a man worthy of her and Sid would behave.
He needed to tell the truth.
But how to phrase it?
Shaking his head he closed his eyes and breathed deep.
Winter was about to end, but if he was being perfectly honest it was his favorite time of the year. He loved the stillness and the flakes of glittering glass that would pick up with the wind and shine with moonlight.
The food was particularly good as well.
Finding a bench to sit on to his right amidst a clearing in the trees he trudged towards and sat while burying his hands in his pockets.
"Vetra," he began under his breath.
He could still feel the ghost of her lips on his and the thought made him recoil. The look on her face once he revealed himself for who and what he was. The words would not come.
In the muted quiet of the bench's grove, Sindri heard the crunch of snow from whence he'd approached. A shadow rose over the edge of the hill and its outline cut itself away from the inky blackness of the trees and stones. It was a man and a few others with him. Holding his breath for a long moment Sindri narrowed his eyes as if to pierce through the darkness. Were they revelers? If they were they were at a strange lack of words.
His suspicions increased as these four didn't deviate around him, so sure was he that they couldn't see his face as he could not see theirs.
It was not unlikely that they'd invite him to walk with them, perhaps to drink, obviously not seeing who he is. It was only good manners after all.
"Hey Sindri." one of them called.
He recognized his cousin's voice, James. The man and his three goonish friends didn't trouble him overmuch as the four of them were heavy drinkers and a common sight on most nights, never less than three of them together. Idiots, all of them. And to address him by his name, they must definitely be drunk.
"Good evening, James."
Gesturing to his companions to wait the man approached the Exile with careful eyes but a soft tone.
"Do you mind if I sit with you?"
"Why?" asked Sindri, as his eyes wandered to fingers, pockets, and coats where cigarettes and lighters were produced and a little flask of drink.
"Because I wanted to talk to you. I don't think we ever really did talk about what happened."
This was new to the Exile but despite his being on edge he knew he could take all four of them if it came to that. It didn't trouble him at all to share the bench with his former kinsmen, especially if he was going to be uncharacteristically diplomatic. James was just a loud idiot at worst.
"I do not mind."
James sat with a nervous amicability as he drew a box of cigarettes and offered one to Sindri who shook his head, still looking at hands and pockets.
"So uh-How've you been?"
"Fair, actually. I'm happy."
Nodding and taking a long drag as he savored the smoke, the young man looked at his older cousin and smiled.
"So, why'd you do it?"
Sindri looked at his cousin in the eye for a long time before he broke his gaze upward towards the treetops, still keeping the men around him in the periphery.
Why not just speak to a man who hated him? The Darskirr truly could not think less of him and his friends wouldn't believe any malevolent lies out of the clan.
"Why did I do what?"
"You know. Defend that thi-I mean, alien. Why'd you defend the Turian? Why aren't you ever ashamed of yourself?"
Taking a deep breath Sindri exhaled the bloody words in his mouth. Who better to be honest with than a man who had come to despise everything he was?
"Because defending Vetra and Sid is nothing to be ashamed of. I have enough deeds I'd rather not remember to feel ashamed about."
"But they are Turians, they hate our kind."
With a smile, Sindri turned to really look at his cousin for the first time in months and felt sure of himself. James was so ignorant. Again his thoughts turned to Vetra and happier times. Walking in the woods with her or sitting between the sisters while watching ancient Terran movies and a few Martian ones every so often. The way Sid looked up to him and the way Vetra came to trust and rely on him. It made him feel like a real man again. To be wanted and loved.
To have been embraced by a woman who saw the stars in his eyes, if only for a single kiss.
"Vetra doesn't hate humans. She's friends with a few of them and she's friends with me."
"Really good friends I hear."
"Watch your tone."
The young man hissed as he exhaled, a grimace of disgust playing across his mouth.
"How you could ever care for those people I will never understand."
"James, I had to grow up without the guidance of my forefathers and I've suffered for it. How was I to learn how to deal with having lost my entire family without their wisdom to help me rein in all the pain I was feeling. So I took it out on the Turians who burned down my village and killed my parents. What I did was past just or vengeful, the lengths I went to were evil of me. I don't want to be that man anymore."
"The Turians are evil, Sindri. You learned that first hand, I just don't understand how you could-"
"They are not evil at all, they are just like us humans. You shouldn't hold such a grudge against them."
Scoffing, James leaned forward and slapped his knee as his teeth squeezed the end of his vice between smoking breaths.
"How couldn't we? After all, they did to us? Don't you remember what it felt like? How you felt?"
"I have chosen to forgive them. I have not however chosen to forgive you and Nikita for murdering my friend because of your selfishness. You couldn't tolerate me moving on from what happened to me, fine kinsman you and your brother are."
At this, the young man stared at the Exile, mouth agape, before swiftly shaking his head.
"You idiot. We didn't kill Callux for us, we killed him for you."
Sindri turned his eyes towards his cousin in genuine confusion.
"What?"
"Who do you think we learned it from? Don't you remember what you were like when you got off that ship? You hated those fucking aliens with a rage so rich and so pure I could have lubricated a rig engine with it. And then you went and played the martyr because we killed one of them? Brother and I don't care about Adrix or Karron or the other Turians in town. We cared about Callux because he was influencing you."
Standing up with a grunt the cousin took a final, long drag before flicking away the cigarette. The moonlight played on the shadows on his face like a shattered porcelain mask, all his buried words now lay bare.
"You were my hero, Sindri. I loved you, so did Nikita and Alexandra. Every day we had to watch you walk around with this hurt inside you. Every year we had to watch you come to our homes for New Year's Pyre like a stray dog and we always made you stay the week because we knew you were all alone. And you tried to hide it so hard and help so many of us as a healer. You had honor and dignity, you walked tall in this town like you were a king. And we loved you for it."
"And then one day he shows up and it's like you lost your mind, all smiles and hugs for that fucking creature that shot your clansmen! And then you stopped talking to us! You walked around like you forgot what happened to you and you treated him like he was closer to you than we were; like we couldn't understand how much you were hurting inside when we were the ones who breathed life back into you, who hated them as you did because we felt what you felt every day."
Sindri sat silently, suddenly feeling raw and lost.
"We killed Callux because there was absolutely no way that our Sindri, the Hero of Fulga River, could ever forgive the enemies that tried to commit genocide on the Dubekan Clan when he'd fought them so hard. That Turian had to have something over you. And then, years later you protect one of their females and choose to give away everything and everyone to protect them. Sindri, you don't realize it but you are mad. Truly mad. I don't care that you can make friends with them or the other aliens, they aren't like us and they will always look at the clans like enemies or rivals to kill off. I remember what your rage tasted like, the pain too. I'd rather die than let what happened to you, happen to my clan."
"James", croaked Sindri as he struggled to find his voice through the body blow that came to him.
I created the men who murdered Callux. Oh Gods, oh Gods what have I done?!
"They aren't evil, James. Vetra is good, she's kind and so is Sid."
At the mention of their names, James spat on the ground.
"Which brings me to why I'm here. Alexandra told me what happened at your clinic. How the Turian assaulted her after she came to check up on you and how you've been sharing your bed and giving yourself to it."
"She is lying! Alexandra was making an ass of herself and she was thrown out of the Apothecary."
"Look me in the eye, Sindri. And tell me you are not in love with that thing. Tell me that you are not growing flowers for it."
The Exile stood sharp and angry even as his cousin sat still with palpable acrimony in his eyes. He looked at the goons and noticed how calm they were and how placidly they smoked as they watched the exchange.
He felt suddenly like he was very close to danger.
"Why are you men armed?"
The goons did not move but James stood and opened his jacket revealing a sharpened hatchet strapped to his belt.
Bitterly he put his hand on the head of the small axe and looked at Sindri, genuinely amazed.
"How did you know?"
"I lied. Either you'd have them or you wouldn't."
With a short barking laugh, James drew his hatchet and his friends drew a similar assortment of weapons.
"Crafty devil. For what it's worth I am sorry."
Popping a button from his greatcoat open as he carefully watched the others, Sindri drew his long knife dearly wishing he had another.
"For murdering me in cold blood?"
"No." James added as he stepped forward.
"For not having killed you sooner. You should have died on Dubek and been spared all this. I'll send you to your parents and I'll send Vetra and Sid straight to hell right afterwards."
-0-
"I'm so sorry Vetra," said Amanda in a low tone. Her bright blue eyes which so often glittered with happiness now were glassy and red.
The Turian shook her head and glanced at her younger sister still sleeping deeply on the couch by the warm fireplace.
"It's not your fault, I shouldn't have listened to you." she breathed as anxiety nipped at her feet.
"So, Ms. Nyx what do you intend to do when you speak to Doctor Bogatyr?" intoned Grin, outwardly no more agitated than the sleeping little Turian but her acute focus on Vetra betraying some poorly expressed anxiety.
Rubbing the back of her neck, Vetra winced.
"I'm going to leave him."
"But why? You two fit so well together, I thought you were happy."
"Rivana, I am not good for him. Period. He deserves to be with his own kind. This will hurt him but he's tough, he'll land on his feet and figure it out."
"I am sure you are aware, Ms. Nyx, Mr. Bogatyr is an exile, he-"
"I know Grin. I was there."
"But he has no familial future with the clan. His only recourse would be to find a suitable mate with the non-Darskirr."
"She knows that, Grinnisaria. Vee, you guys just had a little argument. Why are you leaving him?"
Shaking her head and looking into the fire the Turian scowled with a hard stare.
"It's not about that. I want Sindri to have a future with someone that can love him the way he deserves. He's a good man."
Jordun exhaled sharply through his nostrils, the noise passed for what Krogans would do for a snort.
"Then be that person, Vetra."
"I can't."
"Can't or won't? Listen, Nyx. Despite how irritating the clan in Grennik is they have a lot of admirable qualities. Most of them are Krogan qualities too. We Krogans choose who we fight and who we love and who we stand by, and so do they. Sindri ain't gonna let you go, I can tell you that. And if you try to bullshit him by hurting his feelings he's going to smell that lie a mile away."
"He doesn't have a say in it."
Exhaling again, Jordun turned his lips towards a drink he was slowly nursing down.
"What about Sid?" asked Mrs. Rivana.
Glancing at her younger sister who wore Sindri's poncho like a blanket and tucked her nose into his jacket like a pillow, she frowned but tried hard to hide it. It'd be like getting her shin plates drilled but it was better than the alternative.
"She'll get over it. She is a tough kid."
Deep inside, Vetra dreaded her sister's reaction to losing her brother.
And knowing that the last look Sindri would give her wouldn't be like when he'd kissed her and told her he loved her.
-0-
Pain
All across his battered body, Sindri felt the dull aches and frigid, coursing agonies of fresh cuts and bruises. He was not sure how long after his cousin and his friends had drawn blades on him he'd slept on the cold ground. Time was becoming hard to measure. There was a distant sense of urgency that motivated the dregs of disciplined efforts that were rapidly leaking out of him.
He struggled to get up and felt a deep but awkward pain in his abdomen. He looked down at his torn coat and pawed at where it was torn, his wrist found a hole, and his hand came away soaked in blood.
The dark was playing tricks on him. Perhaps an injury or two had broken his hands or perhaps the cold was withering his senses but he could not see his fingers or palms on his bleeding wrists. And his neck felt wet and ragged.
Again his wrist probed the injury despite being terribly bloody itself.
He needed to know. He had to make sure.
His skin felt the full and intermittent flow of blood against his naked forearm. Medical training told him what his instincts already knew. This was arterial damage and he was dying.
Drawing his scarlet wrist to his side he held it away from his body as strings of thick red blood whipped away from him, carried off by the howling wind.
The scent of blood pushed him further away from reality.
He had fought hard, hadn't he? Clarity escaped him as he struggled to recall if he'd killed anyone or how he'd ended up alone. Memories came to him like a drunken haze as what had been done to him felt like something that had happened a lifetime ago and to a different man.
He needed to hurry home. His friends would be worried.
On quaking legs Sindri wrapped his elbow around a sapling like a walking stick and breathed deep, trying to mask the fear nipping at his nerves.
The fire inside him was rapidly fading, it's cinders the only thing still lending him the courage to hurry through the dark woods. They seemed so deep to him and so dark and so very very cold.
He staggered against his own waning vigor and gravity trying to pull him down as his eyes strained to find the path out of the labyrinthine woods. With a painful grimace, he began to stumble forward.
As he continued his pace, shadows threatened to take his sight at the edges of his vision, all his will was bent towards taking another step for he knew that if he fell he didn't have the strength to rise again.
Unbidden his mind began to race with images, sounds, feelings and smells of a life whose thread was almost completely unraveled and he recalled with perfect clarity everything he'd done.
What did he have to fear then, really?
Sindri thought that twenty-eight years was generous, and a great deal of time for anyone.
None of the young men in his village had gotten to make families. And he'd gotten to make one, drawn from every corner of the galaxy.
He'd been luckier than he had any right to be and he had to be brave for them. He could not fall asleep or lay down. Not yet.
They needed him to come home.
Continuing forward as the wind swayed him, he walked towards the darkest part of the woods. His greatcoat, a gift from Amanda, whipped stiffly on his back as it grew heavy with his blood.
Opening his eyes wide, trying to cast away the shadows, he narrowed his vision into the dark trees and the hint of lights in the distance behind them. He knew he was on the right track. Looking down he realized that the snow was in a neat pattern between a rock-lined path that led out of the woods.
Why did this seem so befuddling and why hadn't he noticed it before?
No matter, the Gods did indeed have a sense of humor.
The human clenched his abdominal muscles and forced his failing eyes open.
He tried rubbing his vision back to sharp detail in the cold wind. Ungracefully he rubbed and rubbed and rubbed with hands he couldn't see or get to work and only succeeded in smearing blood on his face.
Sheepishly Sindri opened his crimson eyes again and frowned. His eyes were getting worse and the distant nerve pain in his abdomen told him he didn't have long to get back to the Apothecary. His coat felt heavy and his balance uneven.
Gods, I am so tired.
The opaque woods and fresh snow for a moment reminded him of his father, he felt like a lost boy again and dearly wished he was here. He'd know what to do.
He'd always known what to do when he'd taken him hunting as a child on a snowy moon much like this planet.
Before Sindri had left Dubek.
Before the Turians came and his village went up in flames.
Before he saved Callux.
Before he met Vetra and Sid.
Before his mother and father gave him siblings.
Before his father told him he was to protect, love, and care for them.
Before his father had shown him what it was to be a man.
Sindri was ready to make it back home.
He missed them.
With wet eyes and firmer legs he stood straight and stepped forward and against the shallow incline of the hill that worked so murderously to slow him down.
Each step felt like he'd run for miles and the increasing weight of his own body worked against him. But the end was in sight, if only he could reach the top of the hill he'd be but a short walk from home with Vetra and his parents.
Skidding on a patch of ice buried under fresh snow Sindri slipped as he reached the gentle summit. He didn't know if he struck his head. The fog in his brain only became thicker, like cloying, stifling smoke with the consistency of sludge.
Surely, there is something more I can do?
Ah yes.
This isn't so bad. My coat is keeping me cozy and the cold isn't too harsh.
Reaching up with all the strength left in him Sindri laboriously sat back up and against a tree atop the hill overlooking Grennik. Glancing around he realized this was the tree by which he and Vetra had shared a meal after a run-in with his cousins. Sid told him she loved him under this wispy tree. Far and away from him and several hundred yards down the hill and past the reveler's braziers was the edge of Calo Park and many blocks past that, nestled in the town's heart somewhere, was the Apothecary.
The walk ahead of him was so very long he realized, and drawing breath was so hard. His eyelids were heavy and closing them felt warm. Part of him screamed in an ever more muffled pitch that resting was a dangerous affair, that if he fell asleep he'd never wake again.
Sindri couldn't find it in himself to care as a feeling of well-being came upon him.
Only a little rest, just to catch his breath. Then he'd go home and be with Vetra and Sid.
Sindri Bogatyr closed his eyes as the last dying breath of winter washed over him.