Oriehn

Chapter 2- Taliesin

Her hesitation aided the final blow.

My words were my saber and, though choked, they didn't waver. Alice's hands remained moving as she prepared the side table, rolling out long swaths of gauze and wiping the steel instruments down with a sharp-smelling antiseptic, but her feet were rooted firmly to the floor. I had expected her to parry, perhaps scoff and throw in an insult, as anyone of true Oriehn ancestry would.

Instead, she fell on her sword.

She glanced back nervously, shifting her brow lower, and gathered the materials she needed for the procedure. "I was wrong," Alice contradicted, her silver eyes tracing a path across my temple, "Perhaps your kind does not understand us."

"We understand," I scoffed. "Aiyacka—English—is the language of simpletons. Butchered. Shortened."

"Our language is efficient. We find that ease in communication is preferable to laboring over multiple interpretations." She tightened her shoulders, holding a cloth in one hand and a vial in the other, both shaking ever so slightly. "I'm going to clean your wounds now."

I gripped the chains securing me to the table, baring my teeth in warning. "Any Oriehn would know not to approach bound kin. I do not take to being confined."

"I'm not your kin." Alice looked around. Her eyes traversed the four walls, finally landing on the mirror hiding the row of scientists behind. "You're a foreign imperialist, originating galaxies away. I am not." She raised her hand, tipping the vial into the cloth, turning slowly as she approached me, hands outstretched.

Panic rose in my throat as she moved closer. Though she was beautiful, and would make for a good bearer, the last thing I wanted was to receive a touch that I couldn't overpower when constrained. Worse than the thick air constricting my lungs, worse than the innumerable beatings, was the lack of control. "Inis! Stop," I gritted out through my tightly clamped teeth.

She looked up, eyes narrowed, and pressed the cloth to my skin. I growled as she began cleaning my exposed flesh in circular motions that spiraled outwards. "If we were home, you would lose that hand," I spat.

"For tending to your needs?" Alice pressed a cool hand onto my bare shoulder as she wiped away the grime on my back. It was far too unsettling.

"For touching me."

"Regardless of intent? The wardens beat you, whereas I'm trying to heal you."

"The wardens are too cowardly to use their hands. They hide behind leather that bites and steel that shreds. Physical contact amongst my people is reserved for the closest of kin."

"How odd... You claim you are a warrior, a hunter. You can even endure agony for hours on end without a single grimace. Yet you can't steel your mind against compassion," Alice cocked her head slightly as she replied.

"Compassion?" My voice rose, incredulous. "You are taking advantage of my weakness! No Oriehn would lower himself this way."

She hummed in response, and suddenly in the absence of a reply I needed a distraction from examining Alice— her hair, a golden tone, her eyes, the lightest silver. When I brought her back home, she would be found in the aristocracy— especially now that she was our last hope. Already, she far outweighed my station.

"You do not even know my name," I ground out, "And yet you continue your ministrations. Amongst our people, this would classify as intimacy between bearing mates."

She blushed, red blossoming on her cheeks, and paused her movement. "Our people? You seem to be forgetting this quite often now." Alice laughed slightly to dispel her nerves. "We were born worlds apart. I'm human."