Book 5

Siha: Rise of Rakhana

Part III

"Silver and Fire"

"Wow," Tetonbaum, Casnar, Ylyssus, and Braith recline on a bench among the mess of the room in which Davied belts out a solo, showing off for his old friends, the crew of the Sigourney that has become a new home and life to him—an outcaste still trying to reach home. Feron sits on his nuke case, a hand on his knee and slightly turned to watch and admire while the other four all are in a row with each other, Casnar having made the monosyllabic utterance.

Zaeed grins and listens, "…That's a voice, I dare say," he chuckles and swings his grizzled countenance.

Braith sits with her back against Ylyssus's shoulder, holding her two sleeping toddlers—despite the rocketing range of Davied's silken voice, "…He still has it."

"He does," Ylyssus rocks his shoulder and gives her a gentle bump as he turns his face into hair, "…Davied never stood a chance of returning home after Casnar came through Mohouni…We should try to help him when and if we can."

"That's a big if we can," Braith turns her eyes…

The closeness of her, her warmth, the smell of…her pregnancy?…

"…What?" Braith asks—having gone off into mentions of where home existed for Davied, if he would leave the Sigourney or could still, their own problems too numerous and frightening to lengthen with details…

Ylyssus shakes his head, "…Your scent—It is different…I don't know how, your pregnancy—"

"You know I'm supposed to be pregnant?…" Her eyebrows furrow, grays narrowing.

Jaspin kicks his leg out in a dream on her lap, nudging Jenner's opposite knee, causing him to stretch and yawn before tucking himself back untowards her belly.

Ylyssus looks down, "…How many snacks have you been eating since we found the galley on the courier?"

She looks, too—already there is a plumpness to her abdomen that seems…

"That's irregular…"

Ylyssus looks to her face, "…Are you swelling?" he asks. Braith looks away with consternation.

"It's different with this pregnancy…" She connects eyes with his, "…I hope it's not triplets."

"Maybe we should resort to some form of birth regulation," Ylyssus nudges Casnar with his elbow, disturbing the golden patak from its pleased awe of the music—to a scowl of immeasurable depths.

Even an exiled hiriwa holds onto his former tastes…

"What is it," Casnar growls, snapping green eyes and golden face towards them as the tebris folds lift some, then flatten at Braith's mindful stare, "…Lover," he purrs suddenly in guilty remission, "...Do you need me to take the twins from you for a while again?"

"I need to go check in with Zaeed, get an examination or something, Casnar."

"Why?" he asks, both anxious and peeved at the prospect of her wandering off with the human of one eye—though Zaeed hasn't been as terrible a stomachache as their initial communication lent Casnar the impression it would be…Casnar looks at her a while and understands…

Tetonbaum turns his head to the murmurings, sees there is something afoot, "…What is going on?"

Casnar snaps, "…She's not feeling well…" Standing while regarding Ylyssus and Braith, "…I'll go walk her to Zaeed, see if we can find someone or something on board to help learn what's happening—"

Ylyssus starts to rise, too. Tetonbaum intervenes, "…Let me…Braith is my responsibility when it comes to the pregnancy. That is what this is about..." His sapphires lower questioningly to Braith's face and she nods once.

"Yes," Casnar grumbles, taking the twins one by one from Ylyssus, who retrieves each from Braith's lap then helps her stand, "…Fine…You may take care of her, Tetonbaum," he hisses out, more to not disturb the twins snoozing over his forearms like limp dolls, their tebral folds relaxed as silk against his sleeves, "…Make sure you don't indulge your rakish need on our wife anymore, hear me, Tetonbaum?

"And don't be gone too long," Ylyssus adds.

Tetonbaum steps passed. Feron watches he and Braith pair to leave, "…Zaeed's over there," Feron points across his chest to the other end of the egglike room.

Davied observes the movement of his friends—and their companions, but does not hesitate from performing, only once rolling his eyes and closing his lids as he strengthens in the carry of his voice, singing and swelling through the entire ship's holds…

Braith slides herself onto the lit table, and pulls a glass shield over as she settles in…Moving her hair out from beneath her head before it impedes Braith's efforts to lay in place, Tetonbaum's fingers set the hair on her shoulder as she looks at him.

"You ready for this?"

Tetonbaum nods...Zaeed looks from his face to the computer, turns on the screen, "…It's only an imager. We can't do much be'sides takin' a look at things," his face turns back.

"Go ahead…I'm going to lay here, let you do all the work."

"Spoken like from a wet dream."

"Zaeed..."

"You set that one up," he palms the start keys.

The machine she lays in starts buzzing and clicking…On screen, line by line is produced, a black and white visual forming slowly, and that appears as nothing impressive.

"There, master piece of tech," Zaeed snarls and smacks the monitor's side rim.

The screen glitches and jumps—then rapidly flutters through several images before resting on one—

Tetonbaum's sapphires fixate to the outline of what appears to be an organism curled inside her uterus.

Braith looks up at the glass case, "…See anything, Zaeed?"

"Bumpy little sprig," the old merc jabs the screen with his finger, "…I think that there's a baby…Looks no bigger than a Mercurean fang sprout with a few bud-eyes," he chuckles, "…Who's the father, you be 'im?"

"I be, I think…" Tetonbaum turns his face to Braith, "…How do we know it is not Casnar…Nor Ylyssus's." He returns his eyes to the computer screen…His smile softening into a line.

They walk back through the passage of the ship, Zaeed having parted from them to close up the auto-Imager, and Braith and Tetonbaum are alone now, their silhouettes isolated in familiar spaces...

Hands on her back, Braith walks in a reflective silence—until Tetonbaum stops her with his hand, "…It is almost as if it is in a haste to grow, isn't it."

She turns her profile to his, "…Yeah…Looks that way."

Tetonbaum stares at her a while, then takes hold of her neck, "…It is mine?"

"Yes, Tetonbaum..."

There is enough room to speak in his control of her neck…Tetonbaum lowers his hand and grips her blazer's panel over the chest instead, pulling her closer and growling, "…I have sacrificed much for this…You are neither a drellahna nor entirely human…Morthwyl maybe…Parasite at best…" His breath hisses out, caramelesque on her face. His temper simmers, "…I cannot fathom how you have been able to live through mine collapses, torments and tortures, Braith…Maybe you are some true demon that has come to fool with the lives of us unfortunate victims of your need to spawn and survive…"

"Maybe that's you admitting more than you wanted, Tetonbaum…"

"Perhaps."

They can feel their powers winding and buzzing in ardent need of each other, despite the hostility of the hosts…Tetonbaum removes his grip.

"I don't deny that my power wishes to be with yours…My soul is damned, Braith..."

Braith steps back from him and stalks the rest of the passage alone. Tetonbaum sets his hands on a heater—cool to the touch for it is off. He raises a palm to his face, thinking before standing to catch up to her.

"Braith," his elbow goes to the side of the wall, right of the doorway—watching her slow and turn, looking with the gray eyes that remind him of the days the Beirchardt turned gray in its liquid foam about the Isle of Tears, "…Why are our powers brought together?…" His own pair of sapphires are perplexed, wince as he looks away and back to her, "…Did I not release myself from the shard when I gripped it, went in to find Casnar and Ylyssus?"

Her shoulders rising, her hands fall aside open-palmed, "…I don't know, Tetonbaum…How many millions of paths can the morthwyl mind create?…How easy was it to locate them—and extract yourself with them?…Can you simply do so, or do you have to find your way back out again, like through multiple layers of labyrinths, built atop one and other," her eyes narrow in thought, …There is one other place that reminds me of such a thing—such as Lothairaxl, "…Were it so simple to go in as well, and why have our powers—our own avatars," she recalls a time when she spoke to Kaidan Alenko of this term for the energy among them—the individual entities that lived inside them and defended their hosts, "…Why do they have such an existence now as never before…"

"I have always been aware, but not so physically of it as is now," he continues to support himself, "…It is as if we are used by these, you say, avatars…" His eyeridges bend some at the trial of the word…He lifts his chin, gazes downward, "…Instead of we using them."

His other hand rises, and Braith looks at the spread palm and splayed fingers…a moment later stepping closer, and moving her palm towards his.

They both send their gazes to their hands hovering inches apart and the color and warmth of two very separate energies manifest in pink and blue-silver mists, twining together as if another set of hands and fingers were forming into existence between their own.

"…What if," Tetonbaum conjectures, closing his hand unto Braith's—the light show enveloping both their hands, and down to their forearms, up to their shoulders each—creating a greater encompassing glow about them, "…We are among the Eye of S'syalahe still?"

Braith stares at the dance of biotic energy in their midst, eyes seeing through these tendrils to his, "…You know what, Tetonbaum?…I think you may be onto something…"

As he leans in through the flames to brush his lips with hers—this torturous paradise of pairings, despairs, passionate heat and couplings, endless futures, "…If we are in the Eye," she whispers, "…where the gods are you taking us."