Timeless Two

5

"General," Grey stops. "I would like a bath if you don't mind. My father had a private bath in his room. You could watch me while I bathe if you would take me there, I also have clean clothes there." Ari asks greatly daring. The Grey of the other world would take her, but that Grey was her protector not her jailer.

Grey turns the wheelchair around and heads to castle. Once there Ari guides him through the corridors to the rooms Ari shared with her father. Grey inspects the place as Ari gets her clothes. One thing he notices, there is only one bedroom and that's the one Ari had just come out of. There is only one bed as well.

"Ari didn't you say that you shared these rooms with your father?" Grey asks wondering where her father had slept.

"That's right." Ari replies. She knows what he's going to ask next and her stomach turns.

"So where did you sleep?" Grey asks politely.

"In there." She replies and looks anywhere but at Grey. She starts getting undressed.

"Then where did your father sleep?" Grey thinks he knows but prays he's wrong. He looks over at Ari just as she finishes taking the hospital gown off.

"In the same bed as me." She says it softly, but almost defiantly. Grey stares at her. Ari explains, "When I was fourteen two of my father's friends were waiting for him to return, so I let them in and played hostess. They raped me." Ari takes a deep breath, Grey hadn't taken his eyes off her.

"When my father got home and they left I told him what they did and he didn't care. He said that the Queen had designated me as sexual relief. I had no idea what the hell that meant until my father showed me. He said that since the queen designated me that that meant that I could relieve his sexual needs." Ari gets up in agitation and walks through to the bathing room and gets in the small pool.

Grey follows her in. The scars covered her body. It makes him sick to think of what she'd been through. "After that day it seems that it was open season on me. Any one in the castle could take and rape me. If I fought back they'd take me to the dungeon and torture me and then rape me some more. My father would come home and he wouldn't be so gentle. He would get in trouble for me resisting the rapes. The queen must have loved making it a sport though, because I never got in trouble for running and hiding and if I escaped pursuit there were no repercussions.

"They say that the queen kept a running tally on how many rapes I had, but since father wouldn't allow any recording devices in these rooms her tally was off by a lot." Ari doesn't know why she's continuing this tale, it's not like it's going to make a difference to her fate anyway. She washes herself thoroughly even talking about the rapes makes her feel dirty. Especially the ones from her father.

"Who was your mother Ari?" No photos matched Ari's description.

"Some noblewoman from a nearby country. Father never told me her name. Just that she was fourteen when he kidnapped her right from her family's home. He raped her until she got with child, me. The queen was amused and wouldn't let him abort me. I think even then she had plans for me. Once I was born she was weakened and father didn't give her enough time to heal. She died when I was only a few days old. Father was ordered by the bitch to care for me and raise me. I was taught as well as the other children and surpassed many of them in my studies.

"Once the order came to use me many of the other students that had resented me used that excuse to hurt me. As long as they didn't permanently damage me the queen didn't care.

"But some girls were jealous of my grades and the attention the boys were giving me. Although if they had asked me I would have told them I didn't want the attention. Not that they would have cared. They too raped me, using objects. One got a little ambitious She used a knife. It almost killed me. The girls were punished and I was in the hospital for a week before the rapes began again. But after that they weren't so vicious at least for a while. But the girls made sure that I'll never be able to have children." Ari gives a bitter laugh. She wouldn't live long enough to have a child even if they hadn't done that to her.

Ari pauses in her narrative to rinse herself. She washes herself scrubbing hard again. She feels a hand stopping her and she wipes the soap from her eyes. "You are literally rubbing the skin off you." She was bleeding and the soap was stinging her from various locations. She rinses then gets out ignoring the blood she takes a clean towel from the shelf and dries herself off. She then takes a can and sprays it on the open wounds she'd created. The sting didn't even make her flinch she'd done it so many times before. But this would be the last since the can was now empty.

She walks over and gets dressed completely unconcerned about Grey watching her. This bothers Grey a bit though, "You don't mind me looking at you while you dress or bathe?"

She shrugs, "The Aelven bathe together males and females. I haven't known any other way. I didn't even know that some people find that embarrassing or wrong." She stops as she slips on her top.

"Sorry, did it bother you? I'll try to not do that in front of guys then. I am under arrest am I not?" Grey reluctantly nods.

"Then where are you going to hold me? I tend to go a little crazy when confined in small spaces. I have some truly bad memories about that." Ari confesses.

Grey stares at her. After the horror stories she told him and he could guess at a few more she hadn't and she doesn't like small spaces because of the memories she has? Just what the hell did they do to her?

"You'll be held in my tent." Grey finally decides. He can't leave her in her own tent as he had originally intended, his men, many of whom had lost members to Aelven raids might not protect her properly.

"Oh," She bites her lips.

Grey now feeling tired and not a little sickened by all that she's revealed to him is getting frustrated. "Out with it."

Ari takes a deep breath, "Okay. Well you know that dream or vision or whatever you had last night? Well, just don't let Sheila sleep with you. She will try to kill you."

"How-" Grey is cut off by his radio going off.

"We have access to the main computer sir. There's something I think you should see." The tech says once Grey answers.

"On my way." Grey says and then motions for Ari to sit in the chair.

"If I'm your prisoner than why don't you handcuff me?" Ari wants to know. She's being treated nicer as a prisoner than she had been as part of the Aelven.

"If I thought you needed them I would. How do we get to the control room from here?"

"Just down the corridor there's an elevator, get in that and take it to the lowest floor you can." Ari responds immediately. She isn't looking forward to this, she knows what they'd found on the computer.

"General, why are you being nice to me? I can tell you don't like me." It's just like the other Grey. Ari looks at the elevator walls trying not to cry.

"I'm not a nice person Ari, but I'm trying to keep my anger in check. I think you've suffered enough and don't need me adding to it." Grey says. Then he adds, "You can call me Grey." He'd liked how that had sounded coming from her. Although as a prisoner she should call him general.

"Grey, you're going to get yourself in trouble being this nice to me." Ari knows what she says is true, but she can't help feeling grateful that Grey is being nice to her. It's nice for a change.