From a Roar to a Whisper

Never much gave a thought to nature of women, as people or as a species. Sure,
I could appreciate a beautiful woman when I saw her. I could usually have them
if I wanted them. But I never quite realized they were an altogether different
animal. I have no memories of my mother and for years I thought she was just
a cunt. She dumped me in the trash after I was born, right? Mothers are supposed
to love their kids. The mother of mine does. But fate is fate and I've forgiven
my mother because it led me to where I am now and I like it here.

In the slam, they don't much care who they throw into the mess. I've seen some
pretty nasty shit done to women in there and seen them do more than some themselves.
It's always survival of the fittest and that's not always a man. There's not
many things from my past I'm proud of, but I never forced myself on a woman.
That was for the weak minded. A man isn't ruled by his heart or his mind, he's
ultimately ruled by his instincts. It's kill or be killed and not fuck or get
fucked. The law never gave me enough credit.

I've witness my wife give birth two of our children, and scream and curse all
through it like the most hardened merc who's ever hunted my ass. I got nothing
on her, she's the strong one. Take Kyra for example. She was strong enough to
resist and fool the Necromongers into thinking she was one of theirs. But she
was stronger, she protected what was hers, she saved me from the Lord Marshal.
I understand now why she was so pissed off with me when I abandoned her. She
thought of me as hers and I didn't see it until shy lay dying in my arms. I
named my first two kids after her. Jack and Kyra.

Women will go beyond all rhyme and reason to protect what's theirs. Last year
I went into the city for supplies. I'd done it lots of times before and it would
only take me two days to get everything we needed for a ce ofe of months. At
first I worried about leaving my family alone, even for a short time. Your life
can change in the blink of an eye and if I wasn't there and something happened,
I'd never know, would I? I never told her my fears, I thought they were stupid
to begin with. That's just a risk you have to take. You can't know the value
of another person without the fear of losing them.

She'd taken the children into the dense forest behind the house. Usually animals
don't come to close, knowing there's a predator like me guarding the perimeter.
It took them by surprise, there before they even knew it was a hundred yards
away. The beast is like a cat. It stand seven feet tall on its hind legs, with
claws as long as your fingers. It hunts feat eat and doesn't care about much
else. They usually stick to the mountains, but not this day. They move ten times
as fast as a human, so there's no sense in running. Jack was too young and too
scared to use his fire effectively, and Kyra was too small to do anything but
cry. The only benefit of being a water Elemental in a time like this was that
she could disperse and reform herself away from danger, but that would leave
the children without a shield. My girl's been in fights before, when she was
imprisoned, but nothing like this. She doesn't even know how to use a shiv,
not that she had one with her to begin with. How fucking stupid is it to take
on a wild animal with nothing but your bare hands? It was an act of bravery
the likes of which I'd never know before. Don't ever get between a woman and
her children.

As I approached the house I could smell her blood on the air, rich and coppery
and distinctly hers. I dropped my gear and followed the scent. It was over in
ten seconds. I saw her bloodied, torn up body covering Jack anra'ra's and the
beast about to have them for its dinner. My shivs were out and through it before
it knew I was a hundred yards away. There wasn't a single scratch on
the kids and when I went to them, they didn't realize it was over and wouldn't
let go of their mother. I carried the three of them back to the house. I didn't
have time to comfort them, I had to tend my wife's wounds. Her pulse was weak
and thready from the loss of blood, but fortunatelknewknew what to do. I submersed
her in a tub full of water and let nature take its course and prayed I wasn't
too late. I stayed by her side through the night, sitting in a chair with Jack
and Kyra in my lap, the boy retelling what had happened in broken sentences.

She used to like the sun on her bare back and wore these skimpy slips of cloth
that just barely covered her breasts. I could look at her all day as she danced
around, or did nothing at all. Now she covers herself up, thinks her scars make
her ugly, no matter how much I tell her otherwise. Now we have a ritual when
we make love. I spend time kissing her back, licking the length of each line
of white until she's shaking with desire. I make her feel beautiful, tell her
I love her, then I made her scream when she comes. I love those scars, they're
proof that she loves me. She was sacrificing herself to save our children and
I'm proud of her for that. How could she be anything other than beautiful to
me?

It was after that she was able to talk about what happened to her when the
government decided to hoard all the Elementals together in a prison. She talked
about all the unwanted attentions from the guards she had to defend herself
against. Telling me how she would have rather died than let another man have
what was mine. I wanted to tear those men from limb to limb. She talked about
the long cold nights of missing me and the warmth of my body. How she craved
my touch and my heat. She told me how scared she was to have Kyra in that place.

In all her visions of the future she nesaw saw a fraction of what we've been
through. She has this perfect picture in her head of our family decades from
now. Four very powerful half Furyan half Elemental beings that complete some
damned prophecy that's as old as both races. I still don't give a

about it and I hate every time I have to hear about it. I can usually think
of a few interesting ways to shut her up, after a little while she doesn't mind
so much.

I keep teg myg myself that one of these days I'll teach her how to fight. Each
time I've tried she's turned it into a game and I end up pinned under her slight
weight, loving all the wicked little things she starts to do with her hands
and her tongue. Beme eme every time. She brings out a side in me that no one
else sees. At first I thought it was a weakness to love and to want told hold
her and the children in my arms for hours on end. Soon enough I realized they
were my greatest strength because nothing could ever steer me off the path of
redemption I'd been put on. I'd fight any man to keep my family free and safe.
Hell, I'd take on legions as big as the Necros! Anything, anything to keep them
with me. And I know she'd do the same. Makes me love her all the more.

I look across the bed at her, skin soaked with our sweat and glowing in the
dim light of the candles on the window sill. Her eyes are hooded and she's trying
to get her breathing under control. She wipes the damp hair from her brow and
smiles. I take her foot in my hands and gently kneed the arch and she groans
again. I love the sounds she makes when I'm pleasuring her. She tries to be
quiet so not to wake the kids, but unless she sinks her teeth into my shoulder,
there's no stopping her. I pull her down the sheets and I crawl over her, a
low growl in my throat and a smirk on my face. Fuck, she's sexy.

"You're an insatiable man, Richard Riddick," she muses, locking her
arms around my neck.

"You're a beautiful woman," I reply, my voice a little husky. There's
a soft mew that threatens to soon become a wail coming by way of the crib on
the other side of the room.

"He'll be hungry." With a sigh I leave her and walk across the room
to where our new son lays. He's getting big now, bigger than his brother was
at three months. I cradle the baby against my naked chest and he relaxes, knowing
he's safe and I'm taking him to his mother. I lay the boy in her welcoming arms
and his mouth finds her swollen nipple and begins to suckle. I settle on the
mattress next to them and watch in fascination. She hums softly and caresses
his arms and legs and the top of his head. He watches us for a while, then his
eyes close. Riddick the family man? Never in a million years did I see it coming.
Now this one woman holds my whole world in her hands.

"I love you," I say suddenly before I realize the words were coming.
She smiles at me and touches my cheek.

"You don't say that often. It's nice to hear."

"I mean it every day."

"I know you do. It's still nice to hear." She leans back against
me and I wrap them up in my arms.

"Doesn't want for much does he?" I ask, my fingers skitting over
the soft down of our baby's head.

"No. He's perfect." She shifts and looks up at me, there's a strange
look on her face. "You're content, being here? Aren't you?" Now where'd
that come from? I've never given her reason to think otherwise.

"I ever say that? Aereon told me you grew up in a palace. This ain't no
palace." The boy's done feeding and is asleep again. She moves away from
me and returns him to his crib. She doesn't come back right away and I look
at her and wait.

"I was never happy in a palace." She looks like sheon ton the verge
of tears and I beckon her over. She comes to me quickly and my arms go around
her, trying to soothe from her what I don't know is wrong. Damned if I know
what to do.

"Your life before..."

"Was shit, and you know it."

"I didn't know you until after all the Necromongers were gone. I know
who you were before, you had the freedom..." I cut her off with a sharp,
bitter laugh.

"Price on my head and a couple of galaxies worth of bounty hunters on
my ass?"

"You only had yourself to worry about."

"I never worried about myself then."

"I don't know what I'm trying to say."

"Try harder." My tone was angry and she responded by hugging me harder.
Sometimes I don't think I'll ever understand this woman.

"I'm afraid if you get bored you'll leave. Or stay and hate me."

"You're out of your fucking mind, you know that right?" She doesn't
say anything, but I can feel those wheels spinning in her head. I have no clue
how to handle this. Sure she's had a few emotional moments, she is a
woman afterall. This one however doesn't seem to have a point of origin. So
like always, I follow my instincts. I turn her around in my arms so that we're
facing each other and can see eye to eye. "Do you know that sometimes I've
gone years without speaking aloud? Or seen another person? There've been times
when there's so much fucking noise I want to cut my own ears off. Solitude doesn't
always equal peace and neither does being around a city full of people. This
here, with you is what I've needed all my life, real peace. I'm a violent man
with a chip on his shoulder and the ugliest past in the galaxy. I don't deserve
you or our children, I should be in a pit in the darkest slam in the universe
for all I've done..."

"Including saving the universe?"

"Lucky break. I'm not leaving the best thing that ever happened to me."

"I'm sorry I said those things, I know you love us. You're a good man,
Richard."

"No, I'm not."

"No, you're not - but you're a good husband and a good father."

"That I'll own." She smiles at that and gets a bashful look
on her face. Sometimes she's so beautiful I start to believe that God doesn't
hate me after all. With her hands on my shoulders and her sweet face reflecting
in my eyes she speaks again.

"I just want to make you happy." And there she is, as pure and as
innocent as the day she first touched me back on that desert planet where the
second chapter of my life began. Well, maybe not so innocent anymore. She's
my woman afterall. All she wants to do in this world is make me happy.
That's a revelation. "It just seems..."

"What?"

"Richard B. Riddick tore through a hundred galaxies with a mighty
roar. I just seems wrong that he should go out in a whisper." So that's
it. She thinks I've given up something to be with her and she's not measuring
up? Now I'm certain I'll never understand her, but I love her even more. I close
the gap between us, my lips descending to her throat, licking, sucking and kissing
until that first little shudder of arousal breezes through her. After I get
the heated gasp I'm after I lay her down and move over her, between her legs
and ease inside.

"The only whispering ever comin' from me, honey, will be when we're doin'
this. Got it?" She nods slighty, a little too preoccupied with what's going
on down below to speak. "Ain't nothin' better than this to make me roar,
baby." She arches into me and we start the dance over again. It's times
like these when I'm her slave and never the other way around. She never hides
from me and accepts every challenge I give her. How could this woman ever bore
me? I worship her. God? I worship her.

In the hour before dawn I awao soo soft sounds from the other side of the room.
I disentangle myself from her sleeping form and go to my son. After taking care
of what he needs, I throw on a pair of pants, wrap him up and take him outside,
we'll watch the sun rise together. She was right though, I'm a whisper now when
I used to be a roar. It used to be that the mere mention of my name meant instant
fear or immanent death. Now it means savior. Not such a bad trade. I
think rea reason I keep us out of civilization is because I've never been civilized,
doesn't matter what kind of uncivilized I am. I'm not made for being
a king, but I'm no lone wolf in the wild either. Those days are long gone. And
after all, I thank God for that.

So here I am, Richard B. Riddick, retired murdered, still an ex-con, still
a jerk most of the time, holding a three month old baby that I had a hand in
creating. Redemption isn't something I give much thought to, but when my mind
is still and content like it is now, I can walk backwards down the long road
I've travelled. I see my mother, then Carolyn, then Jack and her new incarnation
as Kyra, Aereon, then my wife. Technically she's not my wife, we never had a
emonemony or any shit like that, she just is. All mine.

There's a moment just before the sun breaches the horizon when the sky breaks
into a a million shades of light. It doesn't hurt my eyes and it's glorious.
It's what I imagine Heaven would look like. I feel her approaching before I
hear her. She's wrapped herself in a robe and sits down next to me, sneaking
under my arm and resting her head on my shoulder. She smells beautiful after
a night in my bed.

It all comes back around to women it seems. A woman changed my life when she
left me for dead in a trash bin, a woman changed my life when she came back
to save my life and in turn lost her own; one more showed me what it was to
care about another human being and be willing to risk my hide to save them and
then another showed me I was worth loving. From inside the house I hear my daughter
calling for her Papa. I wonder what this one will teach me?

Maybe it's time for whispers rather troarroars? I don't think my fight's over
with yet. My eldest wants to learn to use a shiv. Furyans live almost twice
as long as regular humans, so I've only lived a quarter of my life. For right
now things are quiet and I have sense to know there'll come time when I crave
to return to this time in my life. The future is unknown for the most part.
I know my children have big parts to play, maybe even bigger than mine. I want
to see them through it, see it to its end.

Until then, all I have to do it protect them, provide for them and love them.
Nothing's ever been so easy. My woman's gone for just a few moments, returning
with the children. My son's still dozing and slouches next to me. Kyra's bright
eyed as she usually is so early in the morning, especially when her parents
want to sleep in. She climbs on to my knee and wraps her arms around my neck,
always happy to see her Papa. Just as the sun is about to rise, the beauty that's
made this all possible slips a pair of shades over my eyes. She doesn't sit
back down with us, but instead she watches the four of us. I spare a glance
from the sunrise to this radiant woman that I found my faith in God in. Despite
her words earlier, I can tell she's proud of the man I've become.

Our youngest son comes awake and instinctively she comes and sits down between
my legs in front of me. She opens her robe and accepts the baby from me. My
hand gently strokes her long black hair. We can sit here as long as we like,
peaceful, together. I prefer the night, so we'll watch the sunset like this
too. As the brightness of the new day's sun hits my eyes, I wince and close
them. I imagine the future - another child to complete those corners she mentioned;
more Furyans finding their way to this planet. Big changes ahead. Some things
will never change - my past, and our present.

I'll worry about the future another time, right now is the only place I want
to be.

The End