Sakis Queen (Shredder/April 1987)

Part 6

Chapter 6

April sat stunned and watched Shredder. His eyes were fluttering and he was still muttering to himself. Did he just try to kiss her? Or? All of the sudden she realized that he was so out of it he probably had no idea what he was doing. He probably didn't even understand who she was. But he did seem dazed enough to be persuaded somehow...

She gathered her wits and reconsidered. Looking down at the sai in her hand tipped with blood, she realized she was going about this all wrong. She looked at the cut she had made on his shoulder and felt a bit ashamed. April walked across the large, silent room to the well-appointed bath suite and gathered a wetted towel and a dry one. Returning to the bed, she carefully set the sai on the ground well out of his reach. Taking the wet towel, she pressed it carefully to his chest and swabbed up some of the blood. His eyes fluttered open and he moaned softly. After cleaning up the blood, she pressed the dry towel to the small cut on his neck.

His eyes wandered around the room, as if looking for the person who was doing the touching. Then they focused on hers. "Have I met you before...?" He whispered.

April shuddered, but knew the tact she was going to have to take. "Uh-huh," she murmured. His hand rose from the bed and weakly moved up to cover hers which pressed the towel against him. She leaned closer, "I'm a friend, I want to help you..."

He gazed at her with a kind of desperation and she grew nervous, and not a little sad. Here was the turtle's great enemy, reduced to a kind of helplessness. She sensed a way to take advantage of this dreamy state he was in, where all his aggressions seemed drained, replaced by a kind of desire. Where was the terrible Oroku Saki now? Drugged and dazed, unable to distinguish faces and unable to remember his own rage.

Leaning in, she came toward his face, pressing her lips near his ear. "You were building a machine..." she whispered. "Do you remember it...?" She could smell the heat of his skin. She could tell he had been washed, and carefully anointed with oils.

"Yes." he said quietly.

"Did you want to go somewhere...?"

"...mm, yes..." he said. April jumped when she felt him touch her arm, caressing it slightly. This close to him, she could hear his slow breathing, almost drowned out by her own pounding heart.

"Where did you want to go..."

"Some place," he murmured. "A place...where they live forever..."

April tensed. She couldn't believe it. Did he actually know this place? Did he actually mean to come here?! Wherever here may be? That's impossible! He seemed just as shocked by the warrior women who captured them as the turtles. If he knew about the warriors, the priestesses, and their hunt for men, he never would have walked right into their trap...

"Tell me about these immortals..." she murmured, "I'd like to know them..." April pulled back from his ear, and looked him in the eyes, his face just inches from hers.

He gazed steadily into her eyes, seemingly transfixed. "I don't know them...I don't know what they are...I was just told...found out...a dimension of immortals...how they feed..."

April narrowed her eyes. Feed? What was he talking about? At least he seemed more focused. Her touching him seemed to bring him to a kind of rapt attention, seemed to focus his thoughts enough to extract memories, secrets. She studied his face. The dark skin, arched brows, intense eyes...always twisted into rage, now relaxed and filled with a growing desire, he was almost a different person. But not, she thought to herself. Not at all.

"Please tell me more..." she cooed quietly, bring a finger to his lips and tracing their lines.

He shuddered at her touch, "I knew they fed somehow...lived forever...I would learn from them this trick..."