My Kingdom Come Book 1: The Saints We See (Complete)

Chapter 29: Tears

665 standard years after the signing of the Alliance

Mikhail stepped into the hot shower and thoroughly washed the general's scent off his body along with the paint he'd worn to compliment the ridiculous outfit he'd sent. The general hadn't tried to do anything he wasn't entitled to do with Mikhail, but what he was allowed to do was much more than Mikhail wanted from him.

Mikhail ran his fingers softly over the center of his chest. When his master purchased him, some of their DNA would be injected into Mikhail's sternum. There was a bonding mechanism in that part of his body that would change Mikhail's DNA once his master's DNA was injected, bonding him physically and mentally to his owner. He would feel drawn to his owner. All the intimacy that turned his stomach now, would become pleasurable for him, because it would be pleasurable for his owner. Mikhail looked forward to that day. He wanted nothing more than to finally be bonded to the one he would spend his life serving. The sooner he was settled into his new life, the better.

All this time he was spending going to new places and learning new skills only reminded him of his days traveling with Galor. Of how much he missed Galor. Mikhail squeezed his eyes shut and leaned his head against the shower wall. He allowed hot tears to spill down his cheeks for a few minutes. He had no one now to rely on, no one who relied on him.

He pushed down his emotions and finished showering. Chentzo always got a little tetchy when people took too long in the shower. Showers, in Chentzo's opinion, were for cleaning the body, not for luxury moments away from reality.

Mikhail dried off and looked at himself in the mirror. An old habit from the days when he had to make sure his disguise was perfect before going planteside. In the last year his outward appearance had begun to change, he looked less like a child now. His hair was much longer. It was just past his shoulders now. Galor would have been aghast. Long hair gave your enemy an unnecessary advantage. Mikhail smiled at himself in the mirror and went to get dressed. 

He was fortunate to have received clothes as gifts from his sponsors. Chentzo didn't buy his slaves clothes, except for traveling, or for showing his slaves off, anything else was an unnecessary luxury.

He stepped out of his room and looked up and down the hall for one of the house slaves. He didn't see any, so he went down to the kitchen. He almost went through the dining room to the kitchen without pause, but there was such a feeling of abject misery in the room he stopped and looked around the room. A small figure was sitting hunched in the far corner, on the other side of the long table. It wasn't any of Chentozo's slaves. It was the Hosaik. Dae were crying.

Mikhail didn't want to startle daem. He laid down on his stomach and rested his chin on his fist watching daem through the legs of the table and chairs, then he began to broadcast feelings of kindness and warmth. Even though he couldn't directly effect the emotions of others, the Hosaik would feel them.

The Hosaik stopped crying and looked up. Dae saw Mikhail almost immediately. Dae went very still.

"Hi." Mikhail whispered. "I'm called boy. What's your name?"

"Dachvinder." The Hosaik whispered back. Dae was scared and hungry.

"Are you hungry?" Mikhail asked.

Dae swallowed and then nodded hesitantly.

Mikhail got up and walked over to daem. He crouched down next to Dachvinder. Dae was undernourished and unnaturally small, even for a Hosaik. Daer features were delicate and attractive. Shock and surprise flooded from daem, but it was quickly suppressed and replaced with fear and hunger again, with a tinge of repressed excitement showing around the edges. Mikhail put his hand on the Hosaik's knee and dae flinched. There was a spike of fear, then embarrassment.

Mikhail pulled his hand back, masking his feelings of surprise and concern. He projected calm. "I'm sorry." He said quietly. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

Dachvinder stared at Mikhail with daer big, bright blue eyes and said nothing.

Mikhail held his hand out to dae. "Come on, I'll prepare something for you to eat."

Dachvinder hesitantly took Mikhail's hand and he gently helped daem to daer feet. He hooked Dachvinder's hand through his arm and lead daem into the kitchen.

It wasn't the usual time to prepare any meals, no one was there. Mikhail wondered where all the household slaves were. He went over to the cold cabinet. "What do you like to eat?"

Uncertainty bloomed from the Hosaik and panic.

Mikhail patted daer hand. "It's okay, don't feel stressed, I won't make you choose something. Is there anything you don't like to eat?"

Dae shook daer head.

"Alright then." Mikhail smiled at Dachvinder. He opened the cold cabinet and pulled out a bowl of fruit. He carried it over to a counter and set it down, then he deposited Dachvinder on a nearby stool. "There. You can sit and watch me work." He prepared a two small bowls of fruit, poured cream over the fruit and gave one of the bowls to Dachvinder. He didn't wait to see if dae liked it. He went and put the fruit away and pulled out some other ingredients from the cold cabinet.

He brought the ingredients back to the counter and ate a bite of the fruit. He closed his eyes and savored the taste. The fruit was perfectly ripe. It must have been a gift from a sponsor. He glanced over at Dachvinder. Dae was watching him. Dae quickly dropped daer eyes.

The attraction Mikhail could feel from daem was expected, Hosaik were easily aroused, but not the feeling of intense shame that accompanied it. Mikhail turned, frowning, to get a pot. What had happened to Dachvinder that made daem feel so overwhelmingly negative towards daemself for simply existing?

Mikhail put the pot on the stove, splashed some oil in it and set it to start heating. He washed the vegetables he'd take from the cold cabinet and began to chop them. He noticed from the corner of his eye that Dachvinder was enjoying the fruit.

"I hope you like soup." Mikhail said conversationally. "I'm cooking you my favorite meal. Its the closest I've been able to come to the canned soup my father used to buy me. He would by it just for me, because he only ate meat. He would heat it up for me in our little kitchen on days that I was feeling especially sad and it was the most comforting thing." Mikhail swallowed. He never talked to anyone about Galor. His sponsors only wanted to hear about themselves. The other Durweh couldn't relate, they never knew their fathers. No one else cared.

"You're feeing sad now." Dachvinder said softly.

Mikhail looked up, surprised Dachvinder had spoken. "A little. I miss him."

"How did you know your father? I thought that Durweh didn't know their fathers."

Mikhail smiled. "Galor wasn't my biological father, he's the man who raised me." He slid some vegetables into the hot pot and began to chop some more.

"Weren't you born in a lab?"

Mikhail couldn't help the smile that again pulled at the corners of his mouth. Dachvinder was leaning forward with an eager expression in daer big blue eyes. Mikhail noticed how daer black hair highlighted the powder blue of daer skin. The feeling coming from daem was intense curiosity, the feelings of despair and shame less strong now.

"No, I wasn't. My mother ran away when she was pregnant with me. She took care of me until I was three, then she left me in the care of Galor."

"Where are your mother and Galor now?" Dachvinder asked eagerly.

"They're both dead now." Mikhail said it softly to lessen the blow. But the sadness that rushed out of Dachvinder made tears start in Mikhail's eyes.

Fear bloomed out of Dachvinder suddenly. Daer shoulders hunched and daer eyes were frightened. "I'm sorry." It came out as more of a plead than an apology.

Mikhail couldn't stop himself. He went over to Dachvinder, cupped daer face in his hands and lowered his forehead to daers. He closed his eyes and let Dachvinder's feelings flood into him without judgment. "It's okay." He whispered.

Mikhail pulled open a memory of Galor holding him when he had been sad and let the emotions of safety and comfort from that memory fold around himself and Dachvinder. "It's okay." Mikhail repeated.