One More Confessional

Part Ten

197S.9.9.15

These last few days have been exhausting. Not because of anything we have done or not done in the training, but because I'm spending all of my attention watching Nooj, wondering if he is going to do something rash, something dangerous. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't think. We're running out of water, my skin is burned and peeling from the wind and sun, and I barely even care. All I can do is worry about him.

Now we're settling down for the heat of day, and I'm almost afraid to sleep by him as I usually do. What if he starts muttering about death again? But I desperately need the comfort of his arms. Dammit! I wish there was something I could do!

197S9.9.16

I will not apologize. I refuse. My lover was in danger, and I saved his life. There's nothing more basic than that. I did what I had to do. I don't care how angry he is. I'd rather have him hating me and still alive. Even if he never speaks to me again.

I'm such a fool. Here I thought we had built something together, that we were two survivors healing one another's wounds, making each other whole again. But he's just been marking time, using me to satisfy his lusts while he looks for a place to die. I feel betrayed. I opened myself to him, let myself fall--

No. No! I shouldn't even be thinking those words, much less writing them. Writing them here, committing them to paper, will make it real, and I don't want it to be real. Not today.

Deathseeker. He's a fiend-damned Deathseeker.

I don't want to write about these events. I don't want to have to remember them, ever again. But I think I have to set them down anyway -- they play in the sphere of my mind's eye, over and over again, blocking out everything else, and I need to get them out, reduce them to their bare facts. Maybe then I can finally stop shaking.

Ever since Nooj started asking for death while he sleeps, I have been watching, waiting, dreading the moment that he might decide to give up on life. Early this morning, he made his move. The team had stumbled into a particularly nasty nest of fiends, but nothing they couldn't handle, or so I thought. Then suddenly they were all out of ammo, Gippal and Baralai reaching for knives and staff respectively, when out of the corner of my eye I saw Nooj drop his gun and walk straight for a sand-bear, shuffling and slipping over the sands.

I didn't stop to think, I just acted, dropping my camera and raising my rifle in a single motion. And I shot that sand-bear, three times, right between the eyes. It roared and fell over dead.

Nooj stood stock still for a second that lasted forever, and then he turned on me, screaming, his face twisted with rage, lashing out like a wounded animal. I don't know exactly what he said; I blocked it out, even at the time. All I remember is one phrase, repeated over and over: "How dare you? How dare you?" I wanted to scream back, but I just looked into the distance, keeping my face perfectly blank, wearing that vacant stare that served me so well when we first met.

The moment passed. Nooj retrieved his gun, I picked up my camera, the guys restocked with bullets, and we moved on, completely silent. He wouldn't look at me. The others couldn't look away from him.

As I write this, we're camped for the afternoon. Gippal found water, somehow, a few hours ago. We drank, then replenished our supplies a little before moving on. Now he's outside with Nooj, presumably tending to the machina. Baralai and I are in the tent. I'm leaning back against him as he sits behind me, propping me up, his arms lightly wrapped around my shoulders. He's giving me strength just by being here, and I'm so grateful. I'd probably have dissolved into a helpless mess otherwise. But I'm still shivering, despite the heat. I don't know if I'll ever be truly warm again.

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Baralai insisted that I talk to Nooj, so I did. I don't know whether either of us got anything out of it. I tried to explain myself, but it all came out wrong; I just can't think clearly about this yet. I also told him about the clues he had given me by talking in his sleep, and a look of terror flashed across his face before it was quickly replaced by a stony mask. He said that it was all right, that we could continue as we have been, but I don't believe him. How could this not change everything?

Then he asked me to leave him. I would have gone anyway -- everything about his body language said go away, and I'm not sure I would have wanted to stay if he'd asked me to. Part of me wants to go back there, to take him in my arms and stroke his hair and kiss him hard. But part of me never wants to touch or even see him ever again.

I need sleep. Although what I really want to do right now is cry. I haven't cried since I was eleven, but today I can feel the tears prickling at the back of my eyes. And I don't dare let them fall, because I can't spare the water.

I hate this. And I want to hate him for putting me through it. But I can't.

197S9.9.18

The last two days have been a blur. We walk through the shifting sands, fighting fiends when we can't avoid them, stopping for water when Gippal scents it (that would be the most extraordinary thing I'd ever seen, if only I could summon the energy to care), taking rest breaks and making camp in near silence. My sunburns are worse, the pain keeping me from real sleep. Baralai rubs me down with a cooling salve every time we stop, and then the sunscreen before we start moving; it helps, but not enough.

Nooj still isn't really speaking to me, which is just as well because if he did I'm afraid of what I might say. Taydrcaagan -- that's what Gippal called him. I may start using that word instead of Deathseeker. Having to run it through a mental translator softens it, makes it seem less immediate. But then maybe I need it to be immediate, if I'm going to break away from him.

Oh hell, it hurts to even write that, like the pen has become a knife and then been driven through my heart. How can I give him up? It hasn't even been a month, but he's already become a part of me.

But if he dies, I'll lose him anyway.

Should I stop worrying and just try to get the most out of whatever time we have left? It's not as though he couldn't die regardless, even if he weren't actively seeking it out. People can be snatched from our lives at any moment. No one knows that better than I do.

But knowing, knowing, that he's longing to be dead and that my presence in his life doesn't matter-- I can't even describe how deeply that hurts me, how it twists that knife. Can I live with that knowledge, that pain? Will every caress feel like a blow? I wish I knew.

According to Baralai's reading of the stars and Nooj's sharp ears picking up the sounds of other teams, we're getting close to our destination, might even be there tomorrow. I sincerely hope so. This trial can't be over soon enough.