Chilla: I dislike stories about me.

Melissa: It's a flashback episode.

Chilla: I hate flashback episodes.

Melissa: Plus it gives the readers a glimpse into your twisted psyche.

Chilla: And I really hate that.

Melissa: This story takes place about a month after 'Thirst'.

 

Ice Warrior

 

                Between my recent pregnancy and the fact that I'd been relying too much on my powers lately, I decided it was time I got back into training.  I am a warrior.  It was about time I started acting like one again.

 

                I must admit, this gym is one of the few creations of Alluro's that not only works as expected, but hasn't broken down.  Of course, that could also be because it's so rarely used.  It is a large room, almost three stories high, taking up a good chunk of the lower decks of Skytomb.  The pipes and planes of metal can be rearranged by machine to give different environments in which to train.  Currently it is fairly random, a giant jungle-gym.

 

                I am about twenty feet above the door when it opens and the room's designer walks in, holding a rolled-up piece of paper.  He looks around, calls to me twice, but doesn't realize my position.  I silently climb down several pipes before dropping to the ground behind him.

 

                Alluro jumps at the sudden noise, then whirls around to face me.  "Don't do that, Chilla!" he snaps, surprise getting in the way of caution.

 

                "What do you want?" I ask, picking up my towel and draping it around my shoulders.

 

                He waves the paper vaguely.  "I've come up with a few modifications to the Ice Runner, and... What did you do to your arms?"

 

                I hold my arms before myself to inspect them.  Same blue skin, same... That's right.  Alluro's never seen me with my gloves off.  "Ice warrior tattoos," I explain, turning my hands to show him my forearms.  An angular green spiral starts on each hand, one end trailing almost to my elbow.  Four short lines radiate from the sides of this tail while each of my fingers bears a line along its length.  "I've got them on my back, too," I say before I can think better of it.  Fortunately I stop before I mention the ones on my legs.

 

                Of course he has to walk around to check this out.  Oh well, he hasn't been irritating today, so let him get his kicks where he can.  Opting against my usual style of dress, I'm not wearing much more than a bodysuit and boots.  The back is low enough to see the top of the spiral pattern that starts from just below my neck.  It goes down to the small of my back, but no sense giving Alluro ideas.

 

                "It's a type of sun-pattern," I say.  "A spiral with four radiates."  Two of the radiates can be seen on my shoulders.

 

                "Didn't all that hurt?"  Apparently he'd calculated the size of the design.

 

                If Alluro had sounded concerned or pitying, I would have hit him.  He merely sounded curious.  "Not as much as it did when I got home."  Mentally I curse myself.  Why did I say that?

 

                "Ah, yes.  Your father wouldn't have approved."

 

                "Your sympathy is touching, but sorely misplaced."

 

                Behind me, Alluro sighs.  "It is well known that your half-brother suffered most of your father's wrath, but also that you yourself were not immune."

 

                I turn on him.  "How dare you presume to know me?"

 

                "Because I do.  As you would put it, depressing as it is, we're the closest things we have as friends around here."

 

                That is true, unfortunately.  Neither of us are liked in Skytomb, kept only for our skills.  Alluro designed Skytomb and keeps it running.  I am the only true warrior in the group.  Several of the others have some combat skills, but none match my ability.  Still, our mutual outcast status is hardly a basis for a friendship.  Besides, "I have Knave."

 

                "Knave is your brother.  I'm certain there are things you keep from him."

 

                "I am an ice warrior.  What use have I of friends?"

 

                As soon as I say it, I regret it, and Alluro's next words prove he knows me better than I thought.  "You seem proud of your status, yet you always wear gloves and a cape to cover your tattoos," he starts slowly.  "Has this to do with what your father thought of your chosen discipline?"

 

                Damn him.

 

                And suddenly I'm tired.  I worked myself too hard and everything hurts.  I'm tired of being an ice warrior.  I walk to a low-hanging beam and sit down.  Alluro merely watches this, uncertain whether to pursue the conversation, tell me about the Ice Runner, or leave.  I look up at the hypnotist and wonder if I'm going to regret my next words.  "You're right.  There are things that I won't even tell Knave."

 

                "To protect him."

 

                He's right.  I try to scowl, but fail.  "You can leave now or tell me about the Ice Runner, or you can hear me out.  And I warn you, Alluro, it will be a long story."

 

                He doesn't even consider his options, merely comes over and sits on the beam a discreet distance from me, setting the Ice Runner schematics on a nearby flat.  "If you need to tell it, I will listen."

 

                I'm leaving myself vulnerable, and I may curse myself later, but I need to say this.  Alluro is the safest choice.  I look at my hands, at the designs that cover them, and begin.  "You are Earthborn, and know little of the Moons.  I suppose I must start there..."

 

 

                Despite the common government, each Moon had its own language, culture, and society.  The Frozen Moon was heavily patriarchal, a fact that my father used to his advantage.  He ruled the House of Iespyk with an iron, and often swung, fist.  I always thought of him as a giant, though he can't have been much taller than I am now.  But he was broad, he was strong, and he had presence.

 

                Mother was his opposite.  Pale, thin, and sad, she moved through life like a ghost.  It wasn't until I was older that I realized why she wore long sleeves, high collars, ankle-length skirts and gloves always.  I have dim memories of her protecting me from father's anger, but she soon gave up.

 

                And that was life until Knave was born.  Father had been to Thundera for some reason, and had managed to acquire a cheetah woman.  Mother felt sorry for the Thunderan, but I think she was secretly glad that father had captured her.  It meant that mother wouldn't be beaten as often.

 

                I can't even remember the cheetah's name, or if I ever knew it at all.  I suppose it doesn't matter.  As soon as Knave was born, father killed her.  He was going to kill Knave then, too, but I stopped him.

 

                I was five years old.  I was playing alone in my room when I heard the screams.  Mixed with them was the mewling cry of a baby.  Frightened but curious, I followed the sounds to a room father had warned me to stay out of.  I knew that he kept a strange alien cat-woman in there, one with fur and spots, though at the time I didn't know the word 'Thunderan'.  This time the door was unlocked.

 

                The screams ended abruptly just before I reached the door.  I opened the door a crack, and peeked inside.  The cat-woman was sprawled motionless on her bed, covered with burns.  The baby was lying on a chair nearby, still crying.  Father turned to it and I knew that he planned to kill it.  So I threw open the door, stood between father and the baby and told him, "No!"

 

                What a sight I must have been.  A tiny girl, glaring defiantly up at this raging giant.  I didn't move when he ordered me out of the way and when he stepped forward I blew ice at him.  It didn't work, of course, not the way I planned.  He stopped to laugh.

 

                "Don't you hurt him!" I screamed, volume enhanced by fury.

 

                Father continued to laugh.  "And who will raise him?  You?"

 

                "Yes."

 

                He looked from me to the baby, and back again.  "Very well, Chilla, you can keep him.  He's a little bastard so he'll be called Knave."

 

                If I was a child before, I wasn't after that day.  Of course mother helped with Knave, but by the time he was five and I was ten, I pretty much had complete responsibility for him.  I got him up in the morning, got him dressed, made sure he ate, and protected him.

 

 

                I look over at Alluro.  He wears an expression of concern, ears twitched forward slightly in what I've learned to recognize as his 'hanging off every word' position.  I say, "You see, Knave isn't just my brother, he's practically my son.  He has called me 'a mother above all mothers', and still does when he needs to."

 

                "His protection of you is a sort of payback for all you've done for him," Alluro says, nodding, "And you can never be fully open with him because you don't want him to worry about you any more than he does."

 

                "I could make the same argument about you, though for different reasons," I point out.

 

                He smiles at that.  "But the stakes aren't as high and I'm more emotionally stable, hence the safer choice."  The smile fades, and again serious he says, "Do you wish to continue?"

 

                I do.

 

 

                Though my father always wished I were his son, he wasn't the type to want me a tomboy.  He had very definite ideas about male and female roles, and was determined I filled mine.  However, though female, I was still the favourite child, simply because of Knave's half-cheetah heritage.

 

                I decided to become an ice warrior because it was the one job on the Frozen Moon where men and women were treated equally.

 

 

                Alluro interrupts me.  "Psikaris was the top engineer and designer at the shipyard she worked, and she and Psychro were from the Second Moon."

 

                I shake my head.  "Remember, their father was the one who owned that shipyard.  And he was no ice Lunatac, but a sandweller.  Though he was not of the Frozen Moon, he still was head of his family, and what he said, went.  Psikaris' talents would have been suppressed otherwise."  Alluro nods in understanding, and I continue.

 

 

                I did my training in secret, not even Knave knew where I was.  I made various excuses for myself, usually that I was dating.  That was something father would approve of.  Tired of dealing with his headstrong daughter, he wanted me married off as soon as possible.

 

                I started my training at eighteen, the youngest they would accept students.  Six years later, I completed.  For the closing ceremony, I was given these - I trace the angular spirals on my hands - the marks of a novice.  I didn't receive the other marks, the radiates, the sun on my back, for years after.  Walking home I debated whether to wear my gloves and hide my status or to let father know of my - in his eyes - ultimate betrayal.

 

                In the end, the gloves stayed off.  I was a warrior, with nothing to fear from my father.  I knocked on the door that late hour, knowing that even if I was off doing a father-sanctioned activity, it was still far later what he decided was reasonable.  Yes, even as an adult I had curfew.

 

                Father was up waiting for me, of course, mother and Knave having gone to bed some hours ago.  I hung up my cape and turned to him saying, "I can defend myself now, father, myself and mother and Knave.  You won't control us by fear any more."

 

                And father laughed again.  "Little Chilla, did you think that any member of my household does anything that I'm not aware of?"

 

                "So you have spies," I spat.  "Care to see which of us is the better fighter?"

 

                "I already know," he said, and he took off one of his gloves.  Against his dark skin were the same green spirals as were on mine, as well as the lines on his wrists and fingers.  It was then I realized how little I knew about my father, that he could be thousands of years old and I would never know.  Under his vest was the full sun-spiral, the symbol of a master.  "I have old friends in high places," he explained, dropping his vest on a chair.

 

                This revelation to his past made me even angrier.  "How dare you?" I screamed, "How dare you wear those markings?  No ice warrior would abuse his family as you have done, would have used his training against those he should protect."

 

                "A man should always be in control of his family, and disobedient, stubborn daughters can leave one no choice but to beat some sense into them."

 

                Enraged, I attacked him, and was easily backhanded into a wall.  I must have attacked four or five times before I couldn't get up again.  He stood over me, dropped my gloves onto the floor.  "I let you go through with your training, Chilla.  I let you, just to prove my point.  I am in command in this house, and when you leave it, you will be under the command of your husband."

 

 

                "What happened to your father?"

 

                His voice is level, but Alluro's green eyes burn with fury.  "Dead," I tell him, "Killed by Thunderans two years later when he crash-landed on their planet.  One of the many ends that fitted him."

 

                "Good," says Alluro with the start of a feral smile, though I can tell he wished my father still lived so he could have the pleasure of killing him.  I understand.  Sometimes I want the same thing.

 

                I've answered the original question and briefly consider ending my story.  But it isn't over, and I know it, and I feel I somehow owe it to patient, attentive Alluro to finish.  So I continue.

 

 

                You may not have grown up on the Moons, Alluro, but you know what we are.  The Lunatacs, the yerin are demons, immortal until killed by violence.  Or until they lose the will to live.  This is what happened to my mother.

 

                I don't think my mother loved my father.  Maybe she did when they wed, but certainly she didn't by the time I was old enough to notice.  But she was a frail woman, and after father's death, she couldn't go on.  One night she went to sleep and simply did not wake up.

 

                Until the death of my father I couldn't continue my training.  As he said, he had old friends in high places, and I was simply not allowed in.  After his death they allowed me to rejoin.  In another six years I became a master.

 

                Also, before father's death, no one would hire Knave for anything, either due to his mixed blood or because they were afraid of our father.  However, once father was dead, Aurus Myntaello, Psychro and Psikaris' father, immediately hired him on.

 

                Which caused new problems for me.  Years ago, when I was twenty-three, I almost married Psychro.

 

 

                "What!?" Alluro almost shouts in his surprise.  "Chilla, you said that Psychro merely wanted to sleep with you!"

 

                "He did.  The marriage was just an elaborate ploy."  I shrug.  "About a week before the ceremony Knave showed me some dirt he had dug up on Psychro."

 

                "Remind me to thank Knave," murmurs Alluro.

 

                "In return for him almost tricking me, I let Psychro think I was still going to marry him, and just didn't show up," I say.  "Father was furious.  I got in trouble for not getting married, and Knave got in trouble for doing his research.  Psychro laughed it off."

 

                "Typical."

 

 

                Years ago, when I was twenty-three, I almost married Psychro.  Suddenly he was back in my life again, even if only by proxy.  Instead of being the slightest apologetic about his former behaviour, he continued to try to get me into bed.  However, because of what had happened those years ago, plus my main male role model was my father, I was less than interested in love, finding a mate, and men in general.

 

                Now, according to literary convention, is the time for me to say 'until I met...'.  So I will.  Until I met Kineto.  It was about a year before the war.  He was a sandweller, and apparently his parents named him before they realized he was a hypnotist.  He was a border patrol pilot, though at the time, the only other space-faring race were the Earthlings, who had set up a couple of outposts too close for comfort.

 

                However, since alien threats were minimal, he supplemented his income by test-flying various Myntaello-designed ships.  Knave sometimes did this as well, and the two become friends.  And I fell in love with Kineto.

 

                He never knew, unless Knave told him.  I don't know.  He died a few months before the war.  He and Knave were out joyriding in Psikaris' latest attempt at a faster-than-light ship.  It was close, according to Knave, just below the speed of light.  In any case, it was enough to take them out of the system.

 

                Knave says the ship developed some slight engine trouble, enough that they had to land to fix it.  The closest habitable planet was Thundera.  While Knave did the repairs, two panthers came out of the jungle.  A knife caught Kineto in the shoulder before he could react.  He tried to thrall them, but injured, he could only get one.  The other killed him.

 

 

                I sort of shake myself out of my trance and realize that Alluro's holding me and stroking my hair.  I'm not sure which one of us moved to the other first, but I'm curled against him, my hands on his chest and my face against my hands.  I turn away slightly, drying my eyes with my towel, then I settle back.  I consider pulling away, but he's warm and alive, so I stay.

 

                I can feel Alluro shaking slightly with my cold, and, as I realize when he speaks, emotion.  "I'm sorry," he says quietly, voice unsteady.  "I think I understand now.  Thank you, Chilla."

 

                Leaving my hands where they are, I pull away from Alluro slightly and look away.  "Thank me?  Why?  All I've given you is emotional baggage."

 

                He moves his hand from my hair and tilts my chin so I look at him.  "You trusted me enough to tell me all that, to let me carry your 'emotional baggage'.  You've given me a glimpse into your self, behind the cold ice warrior exterior.  I've seen the defiant child, the clever young lady, the woman in love."  His hand moves to stroke the side of my face.  "I can see what went into the strong, beautiful, and extremely guarded woman you became.  For that I thank you."  He pauses, locking his gaze with mine.  "I love you, Chilla."

 

                He's told me that before, I've seen the emotion in his eyes before, but I've never felt it from him as I do now, pouring from him like his body heat.  And I realize I like the feeling.  I like being cared for, I like not having to be the strong one.  Apparently he sees this, because he tilts my face up again.

 

                He's going to kiss me, I realize.  It hasn't been so long that I don't recognize the preliminaries.  But the rest of my life hangs on my next action.  I could give in to his advances, I could be loved, and maybe I could love again.

 

                I duck out of Alluro's embrace, leaving the surprised man to regain his balance.  At the door I turn to look over my shoulder.  Alluro gives me a sad smile.  I flee out the door, and behind me I hear, "I understand."

 

 

The End.

 

Chilla: I am not happy.

Melissa: You're never happy.

Chilla: But now you've exposed my inner thoughts to any users on the Internet!  I'll get you! [Melissa dodges an ice-blast and runs out.]

Melissa: Next issue: 'I Think, Therefore I Am'!  Be there!

 

 

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