Forever Captive

Chapter 16

"Victor?" Aska hisses, his voice once again coming from what seems to be directly on top of me. 

My eyes widen as I try to sit up as much as possible, "Aska? What the fuck are you doing here? Are you hurt? Just because bullets don't—"

"You are impaled. Do not speak of hurt." He growls, his voice layered in regret. It's more hissed than normal. Is he a snake again? At least he's alive. That would have been my only regret if I was left here for all eternity.

"Yeah," I laugh bitterly, "I don't suppose you'd do me a favor and pull it out?"

There's a flurry of familiarly foreign hisses and the distinctive clicking of his bones moving around. He moves to my side and I look at the only naga I've seen, finding his eyes to be glowing with the deepest red I've seen yet. They're almost black, though that may be the dimness. Oh, he is pissed.

He doesn't say anything even as his clawed hand gently touches my neck so I smile softly at him, "I'll take that as a 'no,' then. It's stopped hurting, if that helps. I can't feel anything past where it's going through."

"I hurt you." He hisses, his eyes seemingly darkening further as he continues to run his claw down from my neck to my chest, "I can not remember where I..."

I frown and push myself up onto my elbows, ignoring the sting as the weapon cuts deeper into me. With our faces close enough that I can feel his breath against my nose, I sigh, "That healed. That healed a while ago, you bit my dud leg. Besides, I am currently a mess of bullets and one very sharp machete. Your bite is the least of my worries."

His hand finally reaches towards the hilt of the weapon and I let out a very sharp, painful gasp when I'm released from the constant pressure I had gotten used to. It hit my stomach or intestines if I had to guess. What immediately ignites in pain, however, is my spine. 

He throws it to the side and effortlessly picks me up, relieving my back from the sand and replacing it with his hard, freezing scales. I groan slightly as my head hits against his blood-soaked chest. I didn't even notice until now. Interesting. 

"Thank you." I whisper, my legs still limp against him, "Why didn't you just stay away, Aska? Why not just pick them off one by one when they went to steal your food?"

There's a gentle vibration that flows through his chest as he softly whispers, "I heard the guns. I still could not move, but I... I thought... I thought they would treat you well if you simply brought one of your kind back. I did not realize... I only saw you from the water."

I shake my head weakly and nearly fall off of his tail when I try to move, pushing myself into a somewhat seated position when he catches me, "I did, too. Turns out, the kid was the only one after you. This whole thing was an excuse for all of those men to take me back to their country. They said that the one I stayed in didn't need something like me."

"I was angry." The gentle naga whispers, "First, at myself. You protected me from something I did not expect, and I have done very little to receive that care. I kept your leg incapacitated because I refused to be the cause of the pain I saw in your eyes. You continued to protect me even after I... harmed you."

"Aska—" I try to soothe the sorrow I hear in his words, but he silences me with his slightly scaley hand, his eyes now flecked with blue despite the red that still floods most of it.

He breathes out with a soft, clearly unintentional hiss, "Then, I saw how they responded to your return. You laid unmoving in the sand like the humans had found a way to give you the one thing you wanted... like I sought to. And then you moved. You... I thought that they would free you once it was discovered that they had failed. They did not."

I smile softly and lightly push my forehead against his chest, "I killed two of them and they wanted to make sure that I couldn't just get more of them. They were after me. They thought the plane would come and they could take me to their leaders and be done with me. They didn't know I told their leaders to abandon us. I'd say this was a reasonable response from terrified people who didn't know what to do with me."

"I wish..." Aska slowly starts, "I wish to give you everything you need. You... shall not be abandoned. I do not understand why humans would inflict pain on you, who looks human. Do not... I wish for you not to return to them."

That doesn't sound like a desire to imprison me. Actually, that sounds like opposite. He corrected himself before ordering me not to. It almost sounds like he is upset for my sake, like he wants to protect me from that. I don't need anything, though. I can live with nothing, and my humanity has gifted me the ability to get used to any position or situation.

"Why?" I've almost lost my voice, so it comes out weak and nearly just air. I have gone well past the time a person can naturally live with no water, and I have shouted purely out of frustration. My throat is unharmed but very aggravated with me. 

He tenses before I feel his tongue flick along my neck, a deep hiss of dissatisfaction prefacing the words, "Water should come first. I will answer all questions after."

Did he... Did he just use my words against me? Apparently, even a very strong and even more so lethal beast does not escape stupidity at times. I stare into his eyes in surprise, "Aska, I can't die. There is no point."

Still, he cradles me in his arms as he slithers towards the swamp we first met in. He doesn't even hiss a retort, just silently charges forward. To be fair, there is very little I can do to resist. I still have no sensation past my lower back beyond thrumming pain. 

He raises his arms slightly as he moves into the water, keeping me just above it far more tenderly than I expected. This is fresh water. Reasonably, I could just drink this. Would it taste as horrible as I remember it tasting? Most likely. But it is still water. If he doesn't intend to force this down my throat, then what water is he intending to bring me to?

Even in the dim light from the moon— dimmed further by the fact that trees block almost all of the sky— I can still make out a fair bit of his face. When he slept in that cave, he generally did so with his chest behind me. If I moved, I feared I would wake him up. Any time I actually saw his face, it was when we were talking or I had to care for him. I didn't have time to admire it.

His jawline is sharp and chiseled but rather human, if not for the completely smooth and hairless texture of his skin. The only hair he does have, as I know all too well, is thinner in diameter than any human hair I've felt and perfectly straight, though it falls over his shoulder as he looks forward towards the unknown destination. It's also incredibly soft. 

He does have rather human lips, though the forked black tongue that presses out is far from it. He also has a nose, which is a little strange. I suppose that this form, in which case, takes more of a feline approach to scenting. He must still have a vomeronasal— Jacobson's— organ. Otherwise, there is no point to his tongue remaining more serpent-like. I suppose that means he can smell different things than his serpent form or I, myself, could with just my nose. Maybe that is why he prefers this form. 

He doesn't display facial expressions even though he speaks with his mouth, but I think that's more of a lack of need rather than lack of ability. If he didn't have the muscles to, his face would look far less human. It makes him nearly unreadable when I can't see the color of his irises, though.