Tideline

Chapter Six

 It was early in the morning yet still dark out when I finally managed to sneak out of the palace.

It was harder than usual, but I still had tricks and escape routes my mother hadn't discovered yet. I rode my rider as fast as possible to my observatory, wondering if the alien was still alive and well. I had snuck some more medical supplies with me, as well as some food, though I wasn't sure what would be safe for him to eat. He was both very different and very similar, and I wasn't sure what was more frightening and stranger. The differences or the similarities.

I activated the rider's anèlfel, feeling a strange twinge as I did so, and rode up the branches of the hanái. The tide was starting to fall back as the moons receded to the other side of the planet and the sun began to rise. The alien was still there, though he had moved. He had taken some of the leaves of the hanái and created a sort of nest and was fast asleep upon it. I could also see the remains of several birds, so he had found something to eat.

It was stupid, but I couldn't help but slip off my rider and move closer, wanting a closer look. He looked so much like us. Two eyes, a nose, a mouth. Though the eyes were smaller than normal, and the nose was a little different in shape. He had two ears, but they were rounded at the ends, while mine were long and pointed (there were some on my planet who had multiple points along the edges, like those of Red Clan). And he had no dāl, instead his skin was a smooth, dark shade of brown with darker speckles across the bridge of his nose and cheeks.

He was strangely...handsome, in an odd way. I reached out and softly, carefully touched one bare arm. The skin was soft, warm, and when I touched the hollow of his throat, I could feel the pulse of a heart that wasn't so different from mine. I traced the skin down his arm and across one hand. Five fingers, like mine, but his were shorter and had less joints. I was examining the hand closer when his eyes opened.

Dark brown eyes stared at me and for a second I froze, lost in a gaze that wasn't as alien as I would've expected. There was...emotion there, feeling and thought flashing in his gaze. I thought, for half a second, that I could even see fear that echoed the terror that clutched my heart and paralyzed my lungs.

It was for only a second that we looked at one another. And then I opened my mouth and sang.

I sang in soothing tones, encouraging him to fall asleep once more. But instead of a lullaby, I sang a story this time.

In a time, long and far ago, there were two women. One was a princess, and her name was Akêl. The other was a warrior, a bodyguard sworn to protect the princess, and her name was K(oe) ̅ff. And while K(oe) ̅ff had sworn to protect the princess's body, it was her heart that she treasured the most. And the princess came to see her bodyguard as more than a simple warrior, instead she saw her as the other half of her heart.

The alien's eyes slipped shut as my Ak(ae) ̌ffa urged him back to sleep.

But the princess had been betrothed to the prince of another clan. Both clans had been at war for generations, and their union would end the bloodshed. Akêl knew her duty, but she also knew her heart and her throat. And while K(oe) ̅ff was bound by honor to the princess, she was also bound by love. The two would lie together at night, gazing up at the star filled night sky. They would sing and cry together over what could not be.

I smoothed back the short black curls, the hair wonderfully soft and dry, and continued my story and song.

Akêl knew that K(oe) ̅ff would do anything she asked of her. But Akêl refused to ask her lover to help her commit treason. The princess knew her duty and knew that it was more important than her heart. K(oe) ̅ff was aware of the struggle the princess faced, but she couldn't ask her lover to give up honor for love. They were like two small i'hap, caught in a great current, unable to swim away to freedom. Swept up and away across the seas.

He was fast asleep, but I kept singing. It was my favorite ballad and I wondered why I had chosen to sing it to the alien.

The day of marriage came and K(oe) ̅ff escorted Akêl to the prince. Only it wasn't a marriage that awaited them, instead it was a trap. The prince had staged a coup on the king of his clan and decided to forcibly take Akêl's clan rather than her hand. K(oe) ̅ff was a wonder to behold during that battle. She was a song given blades; a dance made of blood. K(oe) ̅ff slew many of the traitors, but in the end the prince stabbed her in the heart. As she lay bleeding, dying, the prince approached Akêl, his dāl bright with victory and a bloody blade in his hand.

My throat constricted slightly, this part was always the hardest to sing, but I breathed deeply and let the words and song form together in my throat and spill out into the air.

Akêl sang sweetly to him and stabbed him with a hidden blade. The prince fell, but not before inflicting a mortal wound on the princess. With her dying breath the princess gathered her warrior, her lover into her arms. And together they breathed their last. Llóshac, the Tide Mother, saw their sacrifice and their love and plucked their hearts from their chests and set them high in the night sky. Where they could be together, forever.

I found myself leaning close over the alien, close enough to feel his breath on my cheek as I sang in his ear. I pulled back quickly, nearly falling over myself. The alien continued to sleep as the sun began to rise and with it, I could see Nem'Onái, the bright star dancing alongside the sun as it lightened the horizon. Gold spilled over the ocean's edge and lit a path leading toward the rising sun. Lighting my course home, where no doubt they had discovered that I was gone. As if summoned by my thoughts, my bíia began to beep urgently at me. Sighing, I crawled back to my rider.

I was in trouble again.