“This will not end how you expect, you have no idea…” she begins.
I press the blade a little firmer to her throat.
“There’s two ways this goes down – first, you listen to what I say, and I won’t slit your sekating throat. Or – you try something, and you find out what your blade tastes like.” Thinking back to what she said before, I add “Your choice, I’m not particular either way.”
Her lips curl into a grin, her hand grips my restrained arm tightly and she begins to laugh aloud. My jaw flexes, but I do not cut her throat – yet.
“Gods, I’m really starting to enjoy you.” She says looking back at me now.
There is something in her expression that doesn’t feel right for the situation. Her breath heavy, almost like she is enjoying this exchange. I slide the blade closer to her artery, she stiffens a little, now focusing more.
“I’m going to release your cuffs, relax.” She says slowly raising up her wrist.
She releases my other arm and swipes a command on the holopad. The cuffs fall to the ground, and I pull her up with me as I stand. My body is sore from the beating, more than I expected it to be, causing me to lean on her while I hold the knife to her neck.
“Now, you’re going to tell me everything I need to know about this facility…” I begin.
“You don’t have much time; the Governor will send someone to find me.” She warns, her breath calm now, calmer than I expected.
“How long?”
“Maybe ten minutes.” She replies, there is a grin forming on her face again.
“Sekat.” I say, trying to think clearly about what is most important.
In the lapse of my focus, she swiftly shrugs her shoulder forward moving the knife from her throat and rolls sideways from me before I can grab her. Sekat, I am in no condition to fight properly.
Rushing towards her, I am forced to jump backwards as she swings her other blade at me, nearly cutting my abdomen open.
“You move well.” She says, taking her stance across from me.
“It would seem you do as well.” I admit, now taking my stance across from her.
My new blade feels the rage welling inside it, giving me strength.
“You’re not going to call the soldiers?” I ask her, as we slowly spin in a circle, measuring each other. She does not leave any openings, neither do I. If I was at my best, I am certain that I could take her, but I am not. I feel the deep bruising of my muscles, the spasms from my nerves as I move.
“Let them ruin my fun – I think not.” She says, there is a fierceness in her stance. Something is off though, I do not hear the song from her blade that I expected, nor do I feel the malice in the way she carries herself. What is this feeling coming from her?
“There is more to it than that.” I say weighing her reactions.
She does not reply with her words, but with a lunge of her blade right as I finish speaking. I move to the side, deflecting her first strike and slashing her arm, too shallow to kill. She cuts my shoulder as I twirl around her, after spinning the blade on her palm, changing its direction. Her cut also too shallow to kill. We break off, squaring up again, each studying the other.
“Why do you betray your people, why do you help the masters?” I ask her, as we strafe around each other in a circle again.
“You wouldn’t understand – you couldn’t…” she begins but I interrupt with a lunge.
She twirls around the blade, cutting my abdomen as I pull my blade back and graze her thigh. I can feel the rage building inside of me again, what she says pushes it further.
“You are a traitor to your people, you are a…”
She lunges with a fury now, taking swipes at me in earnest, there is rage in her that was not there before. Her speed surprises me, the breath of her ability expanding with each exchange – as though she is brushing off the cobwebs to a lifetime of honed skill. Sekat – I am not sure I can take her alive, not even sure I can take her at all in this condition. I cannot fail here – it is more than just my life that I fight for.
“Calling me a traitor, you do not even know me.” She says, coming low.
I roll backwards grabbing her arm as it tries to stab my chest, we tussle now on the white marble floors, punching with our hands and slicing with our blades. A tapestry of blood streaks around us.
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We both separate and stand once more, blood dripping slowly from us.
“You are a traitor.”
“Who do you think had the dulled blades meant for the first wave sharpened, who do you think…” I cut her off, lunging forward cutting the side of her arm, she rolls backwards now, I will not listen to her lies.
Pressing her now, she surprises me by biting my shoulder, finding purchase in it, blood flowing from the wound. She is not holding back now as we roll on the floor again, each aiming to kill.
“You don’t know me!” she screams, clawing deep into my side with her nails.
Her frenzy of emotion betrays her, throwing a lifetime of skill to the side. I see my opening and I take it, my blade less than an inch from her chest about to finally end her life. Then I see something that causes me pause. Something that I could not see before.
Both of our clothes have become tattered and shredded now, through the streaks of blood, I see upon her body a multitude of scars. They are the scars of someone who has endured a lifetime of pain. More pain than even I have been made to endure. She moves her blade towards my abdomen, I roll away from her. Sekat, she is the enemy – why does my blade not kill her? Why is my hand betraying me? She must die to satisfy the deaths of our people.
“Who do you think whispered to Marcus those ‘Fun Facts’ about those sekating Scorpions?”
We tussle once more, somehow neither of our blades can find purchase in the others flesh. The song they sing has changed, a tune neither of us has heard before. Our movements become slower until we come to rest on our knees, slowly standing for our final bout - the victor yet to be decided. Moving towards her I push her towards the wall, she does not fight against the push. Frustration in me is building that my blade does not take advantage, coupled with the fact that hers does not aim to kill me anymore either.
“Then why did you help us? Why do you help them one day and forsake them the next?” I ask pushing her back against the wall, I feel a press of the blade in my abdomen, but she does not drive it. I hold my blade to her throat, its song present in my mind. Everything screams to me, cut her tongue out - but something sleeping deep within tells me to hear her words. It is to this thing from the depths of my being that I listen, somehow it stays my blade and bids my ears to open.
“They are legion, we are the chaff for the scythe that only they are permitted to wield.” She says, I feel the blade in my abdomen pull back slightly.
There is a sadness in her beginning to leak from the edges of the persona that she displays, the mask of her false face she wears slipping. Part of me wants to drive the blade into her throat, the other part is starting to emerge slowly still from the depths.
“Then why do you help them wield this scythe? You sacrifice your people when they cry for…” I begin.
“Do not tell me of the cries of my people — it was my people who sold me to these savages, it was my people that gave me willingly for two days of rations. Do you know what that’s like? Not even a week of rations, only two days. My life reduced to a such a little thing. Do not tell me of their pain, I clawed my way to where I am, when they ripped out my eyes because the glow offended my master…” She chokes on her words, her eyes no longer meeting mine.
Tears begin to form in the ducts of her eyes striking my chest as she leans her head against it, washing the hate from my heart and filling it with sadness, my grip loosens on the blade.
“I apologized to him for the offense. Apologized for the eyes my mother gave me. Do not tell me of sacrifice. You have only begun to understand the word.”
The rage inside me turns away now, it does not see anyone deserving of its fury. Deep and profound sadness comes up in its place, the blade’s song now quiet it falls from my grasp to the floor. My arms reach out and I pull her softly into them. She clutches me back after a time, dropping her blade to the ground. Feeling her pain, I stroke her back softly as my mother would have done, letting her tears fall into my shoulder. She is Ulima - forsaken by her people, she is me in a different light, in a different life. In each other’s embrace there is a peace, not of wanting, but of true compassion, beyond the desires of the flesh.
There is a loud banging on the door, without realizing it, the ten minutes has elapsed.
“Warden Akaria the Governor has requested your presence. He said you have ten minutes to report, or we are to drag you to his chambers. This is an urgent matter ma’am.” A muffled voice says through the door.
She begins to push away, a rigidness in her now as she straightens herself and returns her blades to their sheathes. In her rigidity I sense that it is time to come back to our shared reality, one where we are not equals. She moves towards her chair, fixing her hair and pulling fresh clothes from a recess that appears in the wall.
“Well, that was - unexpected.” She says not meeting my eyes. There is a flush in her face.
I am about to speak but she raises a hand with something in its grasp.
“Can you help me? It will be hard to explain this otherwise.” she asks, holding a tube of medigel and the foaming solution, her voice is soft, and her eyes still do not meet mine.
She removes her clothes slowly, as though she is shy to show her scars fully. The fresh cuts streaking blood across the old ones. Wiping the blood away with a towel she handed me, I spray the foam on the cuts and inject the medigel into her shoulder. When I finish, she quickly dresses. The mask of her persona beginning to slide back into place, her cool demeanor returning to her once more.
“I am satisfied with your answers for now, you will be taken back to your grouping, where you will be administered medical attention. It’s better if it looks like – well if it looks like I was doing my job.” She clears her throat and points to the door, opening a holo and moving her hand through it, turning her back to me –it is strange though. I feel like she expects me to lunge and take her hostage again. Like she is giving me the opportunity to betray her. I stare at her for a time thinking about what has happened.
“Halla’Kena Mak.” I say to her finally. She turns, her eyes move slowly upwards to meet mine, taking in the words. They are rarely spoken by my people, it is seen as shameful to give them. But my heart tells me she needs these words. My heart tells me these words are not weakness, but strength. In the old tongue Halla’Kena Mak – I will take your pain, you need only ask. It is what you say to someone who has seen you, and you have seen them.
The door opens, the soldiers return, their rifles in hand. There is something she wants to say to me now, her lip quivers, the words wanting to fall – but she holds her tongue back, and looks at the soldiers nodding to them. They point to the door with their rifles raised now, I do not resist as I follow them to a pod, the glass door closes on me slowly - leaving me alone with my thoughts as it begins its journey.