Heart of the Sun Ch. 02

Bakur switched from asking her directly.

"Well can you tell me what you think is wrong, then? Because I'm stuck here while she's got my clothes and my helmet strapped to her hip and I need to leave. Sooner rather than later. My crewmates..." Bakur hadn't thought very much about them as people in the past few days. Just that they'd died and he needed to tell someone at Terminus Rex about it.

Malinka drew his focus back to her. "Bakur?"

"My crewmates were murdered, Malinka. I have to tell someone offworld. And every time I bring it up, Nilim stops talking to me and leaves. I can't stay here like this while the people that executed my crewmates are still out there running free."

There was a long silence after that. Bakur didn't know what was going on behind Malinka's impenetrable expression. Her blue eyes betrayed nothing, working at something in the space between them that Bakur could never hope to see. She seemed more lost and somehow more resolute than when she looked at Nilim's practice sketches of where her tozian would touch skin.

Eventually, Bakur couldn't wait for her to find the right words. "Malinka?"

"Nilim is afraid of letting you go," she answered instantly, finally looking at and not just toward him. "And of keeping you."

"What?" came out before Bakur realized.

"She is too close to breaking faith with the tribe by keeping you. She knows this; we have said nothing, but she knows the truth. Despite knowing what we think, she can't let you go."

"Why not?"

Malinka's shoulders relaxed by a fraction. "She says she can't bring herself to cast away Mother Sun's heart."

"Mother Sun's heart?" Bakur tried to find the lie this time, but he couldn't.

"She says you were sent to her by Mother Sun. That you're Her heart."

The night that Nilim had told him her story came to the forefront of his thoughts. Every detail about her story, her mother's promise that Mother Sun's heart would look over her. The solemn oath that she would ask Mother Sun to deliver unto Nilim her own heart when the Anorian's own was without hope.

"She said her mother told her that Mother Sun would send her heart when she needed it most." He looked away with disbelief. He could almost feel Nilim's palm on his cheek. Her smile, like one recognizing a complete stranger, came just as close to being there as well. You are the heart.

"I know," Malinka said. "Nilim told us about this."

"Does she think I'm Mother Sun's heart?" He already knew the asnswer. Nilim had outright told him that she thought so. He could remember that as vividly as the warmth radiating off her palm on his face in the same moment. Everything about that experience was probably ground into his brain forever at this point.

"Bakur, the Nakator tolerate you being here because Nilim is so respected and loved. We can't bring ourselves to cast her out, but we believe that you have overstayed a visitor's welcome on Anoria."

Bakur threw his hands up as if to show he had nothing to hide. "I've been trying to leave for days now!"

Malinka held a hand up to calm him down and he bit back everything else he wanted to say. This was actually going somewhere. Simmering and waiting was undoubtedly more helpful than getting up in arms about the injustice of his predicament at the moment.

"Many of us don't want you to," declared the Anorian matter-of-factly.

Bakur's brow knitted. "But you just said-"

"We don't know what Nilim would do if we forced you to leave."

"You think she'd hurt herself?"

Malinka shook her head. "We think she would try to leave Anoria with you."

"She knows she can't do that."

"No one has ever betrayed their tribe and cast themselves out for a visitor, this is true." She looked at him with directness. "But we think Nilim would. For you."

"I don't think you understand, Malinka. She can't leave. The -- what do you call them -- the Authorities? They don't let Anorians leave. There's a perimeter at the space port just for that purpose."

"All the same, Bakur, she would leave with you."

"Even with it being functionally impossible?" It felt like more of a challenge than a question when he said it. He couldn't fathom someone trying to walk through one of the most highly-monitored security checkpoints he had ever encountered. Even just to enter the space port, he and the entire crew had to strip naked and subject themselves to five different spectral scans, on top of collecting most of their biological data for a biosignature-linked ID bracelet.

Malinka leaned forward and brought him back into their conversation. "The day you gave her your gift, she was the happiest we've ever seen her. She couldn't contain it; she cried with joy in the stoa, where everyone could see. She didn't care; she wanted everyone, anyone to know. She wouldn't stop laughing!"

"My gift? Wait, sex? The first time we had sex?"

"She told us every detail."

"All we did was have sex."

Malinka sat upright again. "You didn't, though. Receiving a visitor's gift doesn't do that to anyone."

"Well I'm her guest, aren't I?"

The Anorian's eyes narrowed an almost imperceivable amount. "Yes, but the gift of a guest is just the same. Yours though...it wasn't. It was more."

"Well then why won't Nilim talk to me? If I'm mister candycock then what did I do after that to fuck things up so bad?" At that, Malinka looked away. Bakur immediately understood why there was such hesitation from the very beginning. She does know. Nilim told her exactly what's wrong.

"I won't betray her trust." The Anorian pulled her legs out of the water. Bakur's hand grabbed her ankle out of desperate, age-old instinct.

"Wait!" He fumbled for words. Any words. "Malinka, wait. Please. I know you know why she won't talk to me. Just- you're not betraying her. I know you've seen the faces she's trying to hide from me. She's miserable. And it hurts me just as much as it does you to see her like this."

She jerked her ankle from his grasp. "How could you possibly know the hurt that we do!" the Anorian shouted unexpectedly. "We, who have loved and known Nilim for our entire lives! Who have looked up to her for guidance, told stories about her, prayed to Mother Sun for her happiness! How could you possibly know better than her tribe!"

"Because I care about her!" he snapped back. Malinka drove her heel into his chest and sent him into the water flailing around like an idiot. It took him several seconds to right himself again, soap spilling down his face all over again. He felt as angry as he did ridiculous, but that didn't stop Malinka from launching back into her tirade just as quickly as he could listen.

"You say you hurt as deeply as we do when you see Nilim in pain! You can't possibly understand what we feel seeing Nilim's smile leave like the tide! When every passing day she leaves a little more of her joy behind with you! Because of you!"

"Are you accusing me of abusing her?"

"No, Bakur," Malinka bit back sharply. "But you don't love or understand her like we do. You never will."

"Oh? Well how many of you listened to her story?" Bakur asked, blood boiling. "How many of you ever even asked her what she wanted besides a tozian in her hand? What she felt? About her mother, even! I know her better than any of-"

Malinka's body flew at him like a spear thrown out of the sun.

Bakur didn't realize he was underwater until the Anorian's fist had already hit his face. He struggled against her, batting wild blows away with both arms. He broke the surface with her in pursuit, strikes landing everywhere that was exposed. She caught him in the eye and he felt his brow split open. He headbutted Malinka in the nose and she staggered back a single step, held upright in the water.

He grabbed her hands as she reached out to choke him. Her breath was hard and guttural, scraping up from her lungs like a motor's whine. She didn't even seem to notice that her nose was bleeding.

"You can't deny us our love for her, visitor," she snarled viciously. "Apistos deos. You would give with one hand and thieve with the other! We love Nilim more than we love ourselves! She is the heart of all Nakator! You are nothing! You would steal her happiness as soon as you've given it! You would even steal her!"

"You don't love her! None of you do!" Bakur raised his chin as Nilim tried to break his nose with her forehead. "None of you ever listened to what she wanted! To her story! Her life!"

"We have lived her story!" Malinka roared back.

"And you turned her into the entire tribe's live-in slave!" Bakur met his foe's eyes and finally caught the spark waiting in the back of his thoughts since Malinka had arrived. "She's been trying to leave this place for seven years! Do you know how badly she wants to go back to the Atanki? To hunt again? To even just see the Great Quarter for once in her life? No! Because none of you ever offered her anything! Not even to listen! You just take because she'll give!"

"We would give her our lives if she asked!"

"You wouldn't even give her a day off!" Bakur returned as quickly as Malinka had finished. "She spent seven years being your only tataion and it took me literally falling out of the sky to even give her a fucking second to herself! How can you honestly say you love her when you're making her life miserable?"

"Why do you think you're still here?" the Anorian asked, still simmering with focused anger, but losing some of the edge in her voice. She snorted away some of the blood trickling from her nose. "It's because she wants it. We have broken faith with the Authorities for her sake."

Bakur let go of her fists. "And she's still miserable despite it."

"Because of you." Malinka wiped her face with a free hand and looked at the blood smeared across her thumb and split knuckles. She didn't appear to have any more interest in going another round of yelling and throwing fists. For now, at least. Bakur released a long, tense breath and touched his brow gingerly. Pain radiated across his face. Nilim isn't going to be happy about that.

"If it's because of me, then I need to know what I-"

"She's afraid." Malinka didn't look up from her bloody hand. "We all are."

"Afraid of what, exactly?"

"Afraid of the decision she must make. She can't keep you, but she won't let you go."

Bakur rinsed his face off in the water and struggled with the inevitable unsuccessful conversation he was going to have with Nilim about this. Even with the knowledge of what was eating her up emotionally, it didn't make things any clearer. If it had been some transgression of his against her or the Nakator then he could apologize or make amends somehow.

This...

This was more...abstract than that. It wasn't their circumstance; it was the decision to change it. Nilim was fighting a moral battle that her entire tribe didn't want her to win. Or they wanted her to win a resounding victory. He couldn't tell. He didn't think they could either if Malinka was any indication. No matter what she thought about Nilim though, she definitely wanted to smack him again.

"Look," Bakur eased. "We're on the same team here, Malinka. We're both trying to help Nilim. And I don't think that beating the shit out of each other is going to get us any closer to doing that than it already hasn't."

That finally appeared to make her aggression toward him abate some.

"The Nakator cannot move her to act. We have done everything we can."

With everything on Bakur's shoulders now, the silence dragged on.

"Fuck it," he said finally. "I'll just have to confront her about it directly and hope for the best."

Despite her scowl, Malinka appeared to agree. Or at least not disagree. "Please do it with care."

"With care?"

"Gently."

Bakur resisted rolling his eyes. "I got that part. But she can't honestly expect to run away if I tell her I know why she's afraid to answer me. She'll have to face me then, with all her cards down."

"Just..." Malinka searched for words. "Be understanding. Know this is a difficult decision for her to make."

"Yeah, I can tell. It's been eating her from the inside out for days now. All I want to do now is help her decide what to do, you know?"

The Anorian nodded. "We are indeed on the same team, Bakur." She paused and thought for a moment. "I was wrong to call you nothing."

"And I was more wrong to say you didn't love Nilim. I'm sorry for that."

"No, Bakur, you weren't wrong to say it. We love her, but we have broken faith with Nilim. We chained her to this place and sat upon her shoulders like ungrateful children." She smiled as if amused with something outside of their conversation. Her split knuckles came up tap his chin. "Mother Sun is truly too clever for us."

Bakur rubbed his chin where she touched it. "What?"

"Remember to be gentle."

"I'll try," Bakur replied as Malinka gingerly wiped the remaining blood from her face.

"I'll speak with her too. It's time I listened when she speaks."

The wave of relief that washed over Bakur was unimaginable. He had somebody else on his side, someone that Nilim trusted implicitly. With at least some kind of answer, he could go forward with getting Nilim to talk. That, with Malinka's counsel, might be enough to get somewhere.

"Thanks, Malinka."

She pulled him into a hug, chin resting on his shoulder. "Be gentle, Bakur. Please. She's more to the Nakator than you could ever know."

"Gentle," He reciprocated softly, arms wrapping around Malinka's slim, lithe body with the same tenderness they did with Nilim's curvy, muscular one. "Got it." Bakur broke off a few moments later and the Anorian nodded with a solemn, determined expression.

"Mother Sun within," she said.

"Mother Sun without," came the answer.

She left with a different air than she'd arrived with. In the meantime, Bakur busied himself with finishing his bath, finding medical supplies to seal up his wounded brow, and tidying up the kitchen until Nilim returned.

When she came back from the stoa, Nilim was none too pleased to see Bakur with a bag of ice held to his temple.

"Bakur." She crossed the room with immediate quickness. He held a hand up in response, letting her know that everything was nominally alright.

"Hey Nilim, how was the stoa?"

"Fine," came the obligatory answer. "Your face."

"Yeah," he replied with a convenient lie ready. "Your uh, training dummy, hits a lot harder than I thought. I punched the thing and it damn near took my head off."

"You're hurt," she said worriedly, slowly pulling the ice bag away to view the swollen, bruised flesh beneath.

"Me? Nah, I'm fine. Whatever oitment you keep loading me up with should kick this in a day or two. You look worn out though. Good day?"

Nilim's lips pursed with worry, barely hidden. Maybe there was a little irritation at his casual dismissal of what would earn him a medal somewhere offworld? Either way, she was only answering him at all because she thought it would be rude not to. At least it was something.

"Fine. Very slow."

"Well, any good visitors? You have any good talks with Ta...Taminda?"

"Tyndarea," she corrected again.

"Well?"

Nilim realized she wasn't going to get anywhere with seeing to his wound and stopped hunching over him like an overprotective mother. She sat down next to him and replied, "Taminda is still round."

"Any good visitors today?"

"No." Her reply was especially short this time. Emotions were piling up on her face even as she remained silent.

Bakur finally relented. "Fine. Just be careful, alright? I took some painkillers, but it still hurts." In an instant, Nilim was back over him, observing his handiwork with an experienced eye. Numerous hunts and years of martial practice for the Atanki had honed her patchwork medical skillset. It took her a few minutes to decide that there wasn't enough wrong that it required resealing and cleaning.

"I was worried," she said in her defense.

"Alright, well, I'm fine right? Clean and clear?"

She pouted. "Yes."

"Well, my handsome face aside, are you hungry? I think there's still something left over from last night on the cool shelf."

"Yes."

"I'll get started then." Bakur heated up the leftovers on a heating element on the countertop and had enough food for two ready in a few minutes. He still marveled at how fast this thing cooked food and how evenly everything heated up. Half way through, he did a few bits of pan-and-food acrobatics and Nilim laughed. Bakur liked to see that. He was starting to miss it.

Soon enough, he had a plate in front of her and she picked a spoon out of the container and started eating. "Thank you."

"Any time, hot stuff," Bakur replied with a wink. Nilim smiled, a little wanly. Bakur could tell that putting her off-kilter wasn't having the same affect as it had when she walked in. She was slowly returning to the lukewarm equilibrium she'd been moving around at for nearly seven days now.

Looks like it's gonna be sooner rather than later, then.

"Hey."

She looked up from her food. "Yes?"

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked.

She immediately shut down. "No."

"Are you upset with me?"

"No."

"Do you want me to leave?"

Her eyes turned stony. "No."

"Then can you tell me what you're afraid of? I'll listen; I promise. I won't say anything. I just want to know what's bothering you." At her refusal to answer, he continued. "Can you at least say why you won't talk to me anymore?"

"I am," she countered lamely.

He sighed. "Look, Nilim...I don't know what changed when we had sex, but if I-"

"Bakur, please," she almost begged.

The mercenary decided to go all in.

"I know you're afraid to choose between me and the Nakator." At her anxious, surprised stare, he pressed on. "It's okay, Nilim. This must be the hardest decision of your life, but you can't just run away from it. You-"

Nilim pushed herself away from the counter and almost ran out of the kitchen, passing all the way through the adjacent pool room and leaving. Bakur heard her footsteps disappear down the entryway and knew that she wasn't coming back again tonight. He felt bad for doing that to her.

Bakur cleaned their plates up and made himself a small bowl of peach slices, nuts, and honey. He ate out on the balcony overlooking the olive grove and small graveyard beyond. The landscape was an idyllic mix of sweeping hills lined with gnarled, ancient trees no taller than Bakur himself, and a cliffside that dropped steeply to a narrow beach below. He and Nilim had spent two nights out there in the grove staring at the stars in silence.

The small stone path winding its way through the olive grove toward the beach below had seen her first laughing fit at one of his stories. The beach itself was where they met, and subsequently where she'd given him a decidedly bad blowjob. It was still a sore spot for her pride, which brought no end of amusement to him.

Overlooking the beach, carved from the cliffside was a little stone outlook where he told her what kind of men his former crewmates were. He figured that was the conversation where Nilim had begun to genuinely fear he was going to leave, or at least accept that it was a reality. He regretted it a little. It seemed so sudden to spring that realization on her, even if it was the truth.

Now, he didn't know what was going to happen.

"Guess there's nothing left to do but wait until the Nakator me out," he said to nobody in particular, enjoying a cool breeze as it passed by on its way inland.

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"Bakur." Nilim's voice woke him up with surprising ease, despite its softness. The mercenary sat up, looking around blearily until he found the Anorian at his immediate left, her hand on his.