Tell No One

Tell No One.

Chapter 5.

The sensation of calloused fingertips brushing against the soft skin of her ritually adorned cheek, roused Mezhan Kwaad’s shapers tendrils. They began curling down in serpentine-like movements from their resting place, to investigate the subtle yet coarse touch independently. With their gentle motion, they in turn roused the shaper from her peaceful slumber upon the unforgiving coral floor. Eyes fluttering open, maa’it’s adjusting to the first sights they took in – at first, the shaper was startled by what she saw, her muscles contracting into tense bundles, preparing to unleash her finger-spears on whoever it was that had invaded her chambers unannounced.
But realization soon dawned on her like the sudden flash-break of the day cycle, and with a satisfied smile born of the purest satisfaction, she remembered the previous nights’ passionate endeavours.
Mezhan Kwaad was not in her chambers at all, but here, still in the caverns that housed the damutek’s much needed succession pools. She lay bare and tangled in the warm embrace of another, a certain warrior. As if prompted by his adoring gaze on her, her mind played back to her the events of the previous night cycles passionate tryst – and she felt weak inside.
Revelling in the ache of her sore muscles, the shaper felt the clotted wounds, she had blissfully sustained, crack and then begin to weep bringing acidic pain to her nerves to add to the delightful mix.

A sudden concern now glittered in her heard however, how long had they been here? And more importantly, had anyone seen them?
Vua Rapuung on the other hand, was not concerned by the same nagging worry as she. He reached out to her again, caressing her cheek in an almost tender gesture, before capturing her chin between calloused forefinger and thumb harshly – leaning in to capture her lips in a kiss so sublime it caused her to almost ache with the memories of the feverous kisses they had shared the night before – and that was not all they had shared, she thought smugly.

Mezhan Kwaad pulled away reluctantly, she needed to keep a clear head while they were still here – out in the proverbial open.
“Why did you not wake me?” she asked softly as her shimmering eyes scanned the yorik coral floor for her discarded oozhith.
Rapuung rose, retrieving the living garment for her, along with his own.
“I did not wish for our time together to be at an end.” He responded evenly, wrapping the cloth around his lower half, tucking the ends in the main sash so as to allow the creature to adhere to it’s self.

He stood, staring at the shaper both questioningly and adoringly as she dressed. Mezhan Kwaad took that as her cue, “You think this is the end of things?” She asked quizzically, her shapers tendrils dancing in slight amusement, “You think I wish to simply cast you aside as some forbidden mistake?”
The shaper inhaled sharply as she felt the stainless white oozhith continue on its meticulously painful path, adhering it’s self to her skin – pore by pore.
Vua Rapuung considered her words for barely a second or two, his nose ridge crinkled in dislike of her suggestions, but her mannerisms made sense enough.
His response was swift – “No, “
Mezhan Kwaad nodded once in simple approval, approaching him the moment the oozhith had finished adhering it’s self. She halted under an arms length away, shapers hand reaching out to rake over his taut, scarred chest with a delicate delight. The shaper met his gaze immediately, with certainty glimmering in her moss-green eyes,
“Then we are in agreement, Vua Rapuung,” she said – he loved the way she spoke his name, it made him crave her more so.

“This is not at an end-“ She ran a spurred fingertip lightly across one of his pectoral muscles, a think hair-line of black blood trailed in her fingers’ wake.
Leaning in close to her lips almost brushing temptingly, the warrior attempted to claim one more kiss from the shaper, but faltered. Placing her fingertip against his lips as if to silence him, she allowed herself a pleasingly lustful smile – before then finishing,
“- I look forward to our next encounter, whenever that may be.”

Mezhan Kwaad stepped away from the rather baleful looking warrior now, turned sharply on one heel and headed for the membranous exit tunnel. The shaper had barely got halfway to the exit when she paused, remembering something suddenly – worryingly.
“How did you find me?” she asked, tendrils coiling down into tight ringlets of tension, conveying curiosity and a sense of unease.

“I too have my ways,” Vua Rapuung replied cryptically, proud as ever in the knowledge that his actions had actually caused a master shaper to question them.

Mezhan Kwaad did not turn around, nor deign to offer Rapuung the honour of her favourable glances once again. Instead she merely nodded and uttered a small non committal “hm” for the affirmative, later adding, “You are certain you were not followed, that you could not be traced here?”

Vua Rapuung gnashed his teeth in slight insult – he was not that incompetent! For a moment, he considered voicing a rebuke, any warrior would have , should have. He thought better of it, when he saw the shaper flex and curl the hand containing the deadly finger spears…
“My tracks here were covered, I made certain of it.”

The shaper seemed to relax considerably at his words, once tense shoulders visibly sagged, tendrils atop her head forming longer serpentine coils that swayed now, rather than shivered and lashed.
“Good,” she surmised, “We can tell no one of this, understand? No one ..”
Vua Rapuung chopped his head once in agreement, but she shaper fixed him to the spot with a simple harshening of words so potently disdainful, he was almost taken aback by the tone in which they were spoken. The warrior could not see her face clearly at this angle, but he could imagine her expression – it made his stomach knot at how temptingly stunning she could look when asserting her point.
“ Not even the gods.” The emphasis on the last word was disturbing, almost insultingly so. Even so, Vua Rapuung sought the words to reply.

“The Gods are omnipotent Mezhan, they already know.”

Mezhan Kwaad’s shapers headdress swayed and curled furiously in every direction available to it. Stilling it’s emphatic movements with her hand, somewhat disturbed by his comments, she would have to take his word for it then…trust in his ability to keep this between them. Suddenly, things were not seeming as certain as they had moments before hand.
She departed the chamber for her damutek rooms, leaving the hapless warrior to the faintly neon-esque glow of the mernip youths, and his undeniably muddled thoughts.

****
Hul Rapuung stood stoically, waiting upon a knobbly rise in the surface of the yorik coral floor. Confusion wracked his mind, and anger filled his heart. The first day of a new dawn for his brother, Vua, and he was not here to see it in. Hul Rapuung had been forced to make several admissions as to knowing not, why his brother had departed the celebrations held in his honour the night before. He had, however, not mentioned their last topic of conversation.

There had been a subtle change in Vua Rapuung in those brief moments he’d last seen him, one that had almost caused Hul to fear for his creche brother – but fear was not their way, Vua would make his own mistakes to the ruin of himself, he always had. Hul could not allow the same to happen to their entire domain, whole domains had been sacrificed for the acts of one individual in the past, in abhorrently terrible dishonour.

The fact that Vua Rapuung had chosen to opt out of the morning’s hand to hand combat training was a grievous mistake on the new commander’s part. Neglecting your duty would not be looked upon kindly by superiors, or the gods. Good for Vua Rapuung then, that Hul was the only one here with enough authority to speak on an even level with his brother about this most irritating of mistakes. How could these young warriors learn to respect their superiors after all, if their superiors showed such an impertinent complacency?

Eyes cast toward the training ground, Hul Rapuung began to head on in himself, when the sounds of hurried footsteps at his back caused him to turn sharply on his heel to face the source of the approaching steps. Vua Rapuung.
Through the mergence of grunts and pained cries of triumph, Hul could hear the sounds of his brother shouting some form of greeting across the way to him. He didn’t catch it, a slow coursing anger had seeped into his veins and was pounding steady pressure into his ears.
Hul Rapuung was not in the least bit impressed, and as such, he offered no form of greeting in return save for a simple nod of his head.

“You are angered by my late arrival, this I understand.” Vua Rapuung spoke the obvious as he drew close enough for his crèche brother to hear. He had hoped to arrive ahead of them, truth be known, but time stood still it seemed – in the damutek succession pools anyway. The warrior could still smell the silty nutrients in his unkempt and recently tousled bunch of hair.

Hul Rapuung exhaled sharply, grumbling something Vua could not quite catch, he did not need to, it would be far from pleasant.

“At least you deign it worth your while to grace us with your presence now,” Hul added louder this time, pausing only for a moment as he let a pensive expression cross his deeply scarred features,
“And what was it that kept you from this glorious task?” he asked.

Vua Rapuung’s mind raced as he searched for a quick answer that would throw his crèche brothers attentions, but outwardly was a picture of calm collected emotion.
No one could actually know the truth, nor would they hear it from his mouth.
“You spoke last cycle about the time to choose a mate being at hand,” He responded, as evenly and matter of fact as he could manage – brow creased in apparent annoyance at being questioned like some shamed one.

Hul Rapuung’s brows rose slightly, and his eyes widened a little in surprise – he had not been expecting that.
This would certainly explain the late hour at which Vua was arriving, it could also, perhaps, also excuse him.”

The warrior mortality rate was not at all good. Few lived to see their hundredth year cycle, nearly all of those being as young as in their fifties when they embraced death. The weeding out stages were known as just that with good reason, all combat training was done with live – literally- weaponary. Those that survived these tenuous stages, were encouraged to breed often, their strong bloodlines would usher in a new wave of warriors less likely to fall foul of their own training and would learn from the strongest of examples.

“This I did not know,” That was as close as one got to an apology from Hul Rapuung, but Vua it seemed, took it well enough.
A little too well – Hul noted mentally as he watched his creche brother with interest as he inclined his head respectfully.
“You chose well?” Hul Rapuung asked soon after.

The other warrior was certain he had felt his heart stop beating completely then, it was not uncommon for crèche siblings to share such details among one another, what effected on could effect an entire domain after all. It was at this question he paused, because Vua Rapuung knew abhorrently that his brother was asking for a name.
“I did –“ He began, praying inside for divine intervention from Yun-Harla.
The warrior clamped down on that thought, even as it played across his troubled mind, crushing it as he would have crushed an errand nang-hul under his spurred heel.
“ – Suun Esh”
He plucked the name from the curling mists of darkness invading his thoughts like ominous velvety tentacles.
Vua Rapuung studied his sibling’s face with baited emotion, he had seen little in the way of any emotion cross Hul’s expression – this did not bode well for him at all. Perhaps the trickster goddess had heard his thoughts after all? Perhaps he had not been able to silence them in time. Yun-Harla would take his words, expose their truths, before twisting it wickedly to bind it’s creator in a tangle of barbed lies ineffectual to those who Vua Rapuung had hoped to deceive. Mezhan Kwaad had been right.

“Subaltern Suun Esh?” Hul Rapuung asked dubiously, but he did not pick up on the scent of abhorrent concern Vua Rapuung supposed he must wreak of.
The slightly younger warrior could not manage a verbal response, his concerns, his worries had all but choked him.

At the far reaches of the training pit, a gurgled cry rang out, reverberating off the arching, ribbed walls, indicating that a warriors opponent had delivered a lethal blow to the gut. The dying warrior managed a stiff salute, before falling to his knees and then slumping to one side lifelessly – his life’s blood flowing from his veins. Spectacle over with, the two conversing warriors returned their attention to the prior activity, even before several thirsty ngdin’s slithered hungrily across the floor to mop up the mess.

“Then it truly is cause for you to be here.” Hul announced, clapping his huge hand on his crèche brother’s back, directing him toward the training ground, “The gods smile upon you Vua Rapuung, they gave you someone worthy, now you must honour them in return with your insight in this glorious task.”

Vua Rapuung’s resolve lost none of it’s tense nature – despite the relief he felt. He would need to be keenly sharp in the fights to come, both on and off of the battle field.

*****

Mezhan Kwaad’s headdress knotted in pure annoyance as she stared down at the specimen bladder clasped tightly in her one natural hand. The liquid contained within was the result of an unexpected turn in one of her latest tasks. While her adepts worked quietly on their own little tasks, tending to the worldship’s needs, she had once again stolen time away in her own shaping chamber. Here she had hoped to resume the task of compiling a way to distribute her modified dweebit biots. The sight that had met her eyes upon entry to the chamber, had been most disturbing.

Far from being as complete as she had thought they were, some of the little beetles had escaped to mingle with the original unaltered specimens she had left contained in stasis gelatine, on the surface of the coral slab. Unable to defend themselves, the unaltered dweebits had been ferociously attacked by their hybrid cousins, reducing them to a sickly looking viscose puddle of half ingested goo. Half ingested, because the modified dweebits themselves had been reduced to nothing more than vile liquid and carapace. This Mezhan Kwaad knew, as she had analysed the contents of the bladder, was no fault of her own. The master shaper had found traces of a shaped chemical that derived in origin from the sap of the ancient and rarely seen lim tree. Protocols for such shaping were only available in the Qang qasah…and that qasah was only available for access by Master shapers alone. She had no reason to use this particular protocol in her research for exactly this reason and was more than a hundred percent certain that her heretical re-shaping of the tiny, but veracious, biots had been a complete success.
Yet one night Mezhan Kwaad had spent away from her damutek, one night from her usual place of rest, and that was all the opportunity a saboteur would need. And she was certain that it was indeed sabotage.

Anger and fear struck her heart like an icy fist. Whoever had been here, had to be a master shaper – who else would be allowed the knowledge after all?- and that meant that they knew about her heresy.
She had learned above all else in the crèche that fear was a weakness, that it drove you to do the insane, to give in where the strong would prevail. But a fierce instinct took place of what her mind told her she should feel.
She would be found out, dragged before the Supreme Overlord and if accusation against her was found to be true, sacrificed in the most horrible of ways imaginable. That would be the preferable option – she thought after a moment’s painful contemplation. And her work would die along with her, she could not let that happen.
The tendrils atop her head had begun to writhe and knead along side each other and against her scalp in unison, displaying her uneasiness to the entire chamber, should anyone have cared to enter and observe, and she felt an icy cold sheen of sweat form a cool layer atop her skin. Her mouth felt as dry as the barren ash-pits the shamed ones and workers tended in the lower levels of the worldships. No – she needed to focus.

It was a moment more before she played over the facts in her head again, this time allowing herself to access her vaa tumour in favour of it’s ability to shut out most emotions and simply enable her to evaluate the facts rather than both they and the consequences.

Originally, Mezhan Kwaad had assumed that the one that had sabotaged her work would have had to know implicitly what they were doing, but in retrospect- would they truly? If they wished to expose her heresy why not simply keep the modified dweebits alive for closer examination? It made no sense for a master shaper to do this if they wished only to oust one of their own. That left a few options – was this the work of someone who had minimal or no shaping knowledge at all, and had simply taken the chemical from another damutek. Had they done this on the orders of another?
Was this all some kind of cryptic warning?

Would Vua Rapuung have played some part in this plan? No, she decided, he stood to lose as much as her from the discovery of their tryst. It could not be him, but someone that might know about their union? How long had she lay there upon the floor of the succession pool chamber, and how vigilant had the warrior been exactly?
Too many questions meant too many troublesome variables…how had she been so careless?!

The familiar wet pop of the entrance membrane dilating caught her attention, causing Mezhan Kwaad to tense in preparation for releasing the reflex activated finger spears contained within her shapers hand. Her tendrils coiled into tight ringlets of surprise when she saw the figure of a young shaper initiate enter, his own many tentacled headdress displaying his instant genuflection.
Mezhan Kwaad’s maa’it implanted eyes came to rest – irritably, yet relieved – on the young shaper before her, watching as his gaze travelled toward the coral work-slab- was this his doing?
“Speak, Initiate.”

The master shaper continued to analyse the nervous initiate silently, he was of her own domain, but his name evaded her. Could those within her own domain wish to oust her as a heretic? They would do such things, she thought, to save themselves from greater shame- even if it meant their deaths.

“Master Yal Phaath has arrived, master” The initiate intoned, “he sends word that you were expecting him.”

Mezhan Kwaad did not display an outward curiosity, though this situation was becoming more curious by the second. She nodded, making an elegant gesture of acknowledgement with a wave of her tendrils.
“I will see him.” She said, waiting for the initiate to turn “what is your name initiate?”

The younger shaper – caught slightly off guard- genuflected again, barely managing to hide the despicable air of curiosity behind his own, natural eyes.

“Yakun Kwaad Master,” He replied.

Mezhan Kwaad recognized that name, he had been reassigned to this damutek compound from another – where he had tended the mernip breeding pools. The reason for his reassignment here had been a common one, too few in the way of new blood among the shaper caste, they needed to be spread out. This was feasible – the master shaper decided.

Motioning for him to leave, she set about clearing away her work, leaving only the single transparent specimen bladder – still full of the foul looking liquid – in a small clawed, coral holding rack along side some specimen bulbs. A risk, but she was nothing if not brilliant at daring the gods’ wrath.
If this had anything to do with Yal Phaath, she would soon find out.