17.2 - Finders Keepers

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"Rappia!" Sunji exclaimed, sinking her head in reverence.

A man slithered into the room, his entrance heralded by the jangling of jewelry. The air suddenly felt heavy with his authoritative presence, which commanded all attention to him, undivided. Regal was one way Sagan would choose to describe him. His visage held a sort of exotic majesty, what with its sharply-defined jawline, its high cheekbones, and the pair of rounded eyes that never seemed to blink. Like the little girl Sunji, his scalp was smooth and utterly hairless.

"That's the chief of this village. The head honcho," the lady in his mind uttered. "Show some respect."

Sagan bowed his head awkwardly. The chieftain answered with a smile, though Sagan could not decide if it was one of courteousness or pity. It was as good as anyone's guess.

"I see you awake," the man spoke in a voice that was surprisingly soft for a man of his impressively stature. Sagan noted the stilted way in which he spoke, which indicated the foreignness of the Orkhese words upon his tongue, but he silently commended the chief for not butchering them as bad as Sunji did. "I hope Sunji treat you good."

The orkhus swallowed a chuckle of irony that had built up at the base of his throat, opting to nod silently. Omitting the fact that the little girl had tried to enslave him after nursing him back to health, she certainly did a decent job.

Too decent a job, he suddenly realized, his hand gingerly touching the cool bandage around his torso. Sheer fortune had been the cushion to his fall, but even he could faintly recall the blazing pain that had twisted agonizingly within his body. The pain was no more than an unpleasant memory in the back of his mind now. It felt odd, the feeling of hollowness where it should have throbbed.

In hindsight, it almost frightened him. What sort of sorcery did the little girl use on him whilst he was unconscious? The injuries he'd sustained would not have healed so quickly.

"You were asleep three days," the chief continued. "Now you awake, I have questions to ask."

Three days. No wonder his head felt as if his skull was stuffed with cotton. Almost mechanically, Sagan nodded once more.

"Akhlamera. The Fire. The Rock from Sky. What do you know? Tell me all."

Sagan rested his hand upon his chin as he sank deep into thought, digging through the tangles of his memories and unearthing them. He transported himself back to the events of that night, three days ago.

The sound of a loud crash reverberated once more within his ear, ringing forcefully as if he was back at the moment when the meteorite crashed into the airship. He clenched his jaw, closed his eyes, and inhaled, deeply and shakily. "I was on an airship," he explained, drawing the elliptical shape of the airship's balloon in the air. "Then, it— the Rock — crashed into the ship. The ship fell to the ground. I fainted from the impact."

"When I came to, there was fire all around me, and—" Sagan suddenly stopped himself, biting his lower lip. How was he going to explain the disembodied voice to the chief? The man would certainly think him off his rocker. Even Sagan himself, at this point, was not entirely sure that he was sound of mind. Of course, the lady in his head would insist that she was real whenever such a doubt cropped up in his thoughts.

The pause hung in the air, neither orkhus, man-stygenian, nor child-stygenian breaking the silence. The chief looked at him expectantly with his round eyes, still unblinking from the time he slithered into the room. The hairs on Sagan's neck began to rise under his unnerving stare. He watched those eyes with some apprehension, waiting for the moment the eyelids closed over them. It never came.

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