Heart of the Sun Ch. 02

"Nilim."

"Come," she said as she gripped his hand firmly.

Bakur couldn't help himself. "About last night-"

"Come," she commanded this time, earning no protest. He followed her out of the house and into the olive grove. The sunlight gleaming across the ocean was like a candle right in front of his face. He shielded himself from it with his free hand. How early is it?

Nilim pointed to the stone outlook overlooking her little stretch of the beach below. Bakur went to it without asking for an explanation; he knew he wasn't going to get one. Nilim seemed even less talkative and more wound up today than any. Maybe today was the day that she finally broke?

By the time Bakur realized Nilim was gone, Malinka was already approaching through the twisted, hunched trees of the grove. He understood now. Nilim still wasn't going to talk to him. Malinka was here to deliver the bad news.

"Bait and switch, huh?" he asked as she sat down beside him.

"Bakur." Her nose was still a mess, but she looked a little more proper than yesterday.

"Does this mean I'm out now?"

"I spoke with Nilim last night," she explained, ignoring him.

He gave a chuckle at that. "Did your talk go better than mine?"

"Probably."

"What did she have to say then? Because she didn't want to say much of anything to me when I tried."

Malinka paused. "Nilim is firm in her decision to defy the tribes."

"So she's still not going to talk to me. And I'm still stuck here like some exotic pet that nobody can take care of."

"I don't know," the woman answered with genuine ignorance. "She said that her decision was made, about what she wants. But I don't know what it was. She knows the consequences of keeping you; no guest can stay forever."

Bakur nodded. "Did she say anything else?"

"She said many things that I can't put to words."

"Malinka, I want to help you make Nilim happy. I really do. But I need you to tell me what she said. Otherwise I'm stuck exactly where I am and she's still miserable. How is what you said in any way helpful to anyone in this case?"

Her hands balled into fists. "You make me want to change the shape of your head, Bakur."

"Then just tell me what she said. It doesn't have to be perfect."

"It...Nilim is our only tataion. She's our voice and our guide to the future. She sees us for who we truly are." She turned away and then looked directly at him with a fierce expression. "The way she spoke about you was different. You're not like us. Not to her. Not to us. Not after last night."

"Yeah, she thinks I'm the heart of a god."

"No," She stopped short on an insult and instead dragged her hands down her face in exasperation. "Anorian's don't love visitors. We accept their gift, return it as they desire, and watch them leave when it's done. Sometimes they stay for days. Sometimes only hours. But they always leave. There is no love in receiving and giving gifts this way; love is for the tribe."

"So when's Nilim going to see me offworld?"

Malinka slammed a fist down on the carved stone railing next to his shoulder. "Bakur, Nilim loves you!" she shouted. "She loves you more than she loves any of us! She loves you more than the entire tribe!"

Bakur ran a hand through his hair looked at the morning sky changing colors. He didn't know quite how to respond to that now that Nilim herself had confirmed it. Well, through Malinka, but still.

"Love, huh?" He thought about every face Nilim had turned away from him. "She even know what that feels like?"

"Don't insult her!" came the indignant reply. "You weren't there when she told us! You didn't see her tears, her smile, her heart unbound to everyone at the stoa. She knows she must release you from this place; there is no other way. Not for us. And she has torn her heart open for us to see, to judge her for breaking faith with us."

"So she's not going to let me go." Somehow, he had mixed feelings about that. It upset him to have his agency taken, to be crushed against hurting her to leave and hurting himself and his crewmates to let the crimes against them go unanswered. That was overshadowed by the almost welcome feeling of pride in him that Nilim would forego everything she had ever known if it meant being with him. Some nobody mercenary from half the galaxy away who happened not to die falling out of orbit.

Bakur couldn't understand his own desires. He...didn't want to go. He knew that he had to. Everything demanded that he leave. Justice. Duty. Loyalty. Brotherhood. Professionalism. Revenge.

He had to- needed to leave.

But he wanted to stay.

"Then how do I help Nilim?" he asked, cradling his head in one hand. "If she can't let me leave, you can't force her hand, and I am compelled to leave, then how to I help Nilim out of this? What do I do to make her explain to me how to resolve everyone's conflicts of interest?"

The Anorian was silent for a long time. "I don't know," Malinka said in truth.

"Then what do you know?"

"I know the Nilim we silenced with our greed." She stood to leave. "And so will you, Bakur. Whether you are or aren't Mother Sun's heart, you will know." Without looking back, she went back through the olive grove away from the estate. Whatever she had planned, Bakur didn't think he was going to be privy to it until the time was right. He didn't much care for inviting Malinka's fist to meet his face, so he left the matter alone.

"Guess I should be more delicate next time," the mercenary said wistfully. He meandered back through the olive grove after spending some time watching the tide wash against the stretch of sand below the lookout. The gnarled, twisted olive trees were quiet, offering up none of the wisdom of the age that had seen them planted here.

Bakur eventually returned to the pavilion with more questions than he'd left with the previous day. Checking his suit again to see the charge percentage, he was surprised to find it at nearly thirty percent capacity and streaming steadily along.

Confused, he ran a full diagnostics test on it and found that the charge rate had indeed skyrocketed. All readings were nominal and it would only take an estimated two standard days to reach optimum charge for both his suit and his rifle's magazines hooked up to it via cordleech. Bakur silently thanked whatever part of the Void sent him the stroke of fortune. At least now he had the option to walk to the space port if worse came to worst.

He made himself a small bowl of leftovers and ate on the veranda overlooking the olive grove. Half way through, he noticed Malinka sitting at the outlook again, this time with Nilim. He watched them in silence as their conversation carried on just out of earshot, with only the most vocalized bits coming through at all.

They appeared to be arguing about something. Or laughing. He couldn't tell from here. They passed a jug back and forth between them as they spoke. It almost looked like a game of 'act or admit' where they refused to choose act.

Nilim eventually turned to look at him conspicuously and he knew it was time to talk. Maybe she was going to clam up and refuse to say more than five words like all the other times in recent memory, but at least he was going to tell her how he felt. He wasn't going to let her run away this time. It was time for resolution.

As he approached, Malinka stands up, using Nilim to steady herself as she wobbles back and forth on her feet.

"Bakur, come sit."

"I think I'll stand, thanks," he replied, earning a thin-lipped frown from the younger Anorian.

"Please?" Nilim asked timidly. Something in her voice sounded off, like she was even more hesitant to speak than usual. He didn't fight her request, sitting down across from her as Malinka moved aside to make room.

"Okay."

"Nilim, the rest is up to you," Malinka slurred, pushing off her mentor's shoulder to start herself in the direction she was trying to go. "I can't promise I won't hit him if I stay." She walked off, swaying with every step like she was at the end of a three-day bender and the front door of her apartment was finally in sight. Bakur and Nilim watched her until she disappeared into the grove, using the ancient trees for support half the time and spending the other half trying not to get caught in their twisted, thick branches.

Eventually, Bakur turned his attention back to Nilim. "Are you finally ready to talk?"

"I am," she replied quietly.

"Really?" he pressed. He wasn't getting invested in this unless she was serious.

"I had to get drunk first. And take tinbenk," she explained, barely able to meet his eyes. "I'm too nervous when I look at you normally."

"Too nervous?"

"I look at you and all I can think about is having to let you leave. Or taking you in my arms and throwing you to the ground to take your gift. I want to tell you I..." She looked away, turning red. She balled her hands into white-knuckled fists and forced her eyes to meet his again. "I love you. I want to say it until I'm out of breath. I see everything I have wanted for seven years in you!"

"Then why run away from me?"

Nilim looked at the ground, ashamed. "I was afraid, Bakur. I am still afraid."

"Of letting me go?"

"Of everything. I am still afraid."

"Of what?" They both knew, but he had to hear her say it anyway. More importantly, she had to hear herself say it.

Nilim's body trembled. "I don't want you to leave. And every time we fight, I feel worse about trapping you were with me, keeping you from avenging your...crew. But I can't let you go. I feel like I'm betraying you every time I see you, but I still can't let you go. Because even if I am brought to tears when I think about what I'm doing to you, I still have you while you're here. You're still mine."

He took her hand and she calmed down some. "I was never going to be here forever, Nilim," he explained as softly as he could.

She looked disappointed, but understood. "I know this. I have known this from the moment you gave me your gift. But my life includes you now." She smiled with some small semblance of pride. "My story is incomplete without Mother Sun's heart. My name will never be known without you in it."

Bakur nodded solemnly. "I can't stay; we both know that."

"I know," she replied with some regret. "That's why I've decided to leave. With you."

At first, Bakur didn't register that she was serious.

Even the sincerity of her voice, the genuine expression on her face, the love in her eyes, he didn't believe her. As the seconds ticked by, he came to the realization that she was completely serious. She genuinely thought that the authorities, as the Anorians called the Great Quarter peacekeepers and paramilitaries, were just going to let her leave the planet.

He tried to explain. "Nilim, I'm pretty sure the authorities won't let you."

"I'm going to leave. With or without their consent." Her voice sharpened toward the end.

"No, Nilim, I mean that they will physically detain you if you try. The security at the space port is insane."

"So is leaving Anoria," Nilim countered. "But I'll do it anyway. I have to; you have to leave and I can't bear to live a life without you in it."

Bakur took her by the shoulders. "Yes, you can. You've known me for a handful of days. We've had great sex. The best sex of my life, even. You know things about me that nobody else in the universe does, and I know the same about you. But that's...that's not worth it. That's not love."

"Then what is?" she asked with unexpected fierceness, as if declaring that he was wrong outright.

He hesitated. "Look...I don't know. And you don't either. But I know this isn't it." She didn't look convinced, so he continued. "I like you, Nilim, a lot more than I thought I did when this conversation started, I realize. And thinking about you coming with me offworld makes me happy, but it's impossible."

"Why?" she questioned.

"Well, first of all, you're someone else's property. Shit, the whole planet is!"

Indignantly, she shouted, "We are not slaves!"

"According to the documentation on this planet, you're not even considered people," Bakur explained as candidly as possible. "You're basically self-replicating fuck-furniture as far as anyone offworld is concerned."

Nilim's disbelief was almost palpable. "I am no one's property!"

Bakur was past trying to put things nicely. "Regardless, they'll detain you at the cordon and possibly just shoot me for trying to-"

"I won't let anyone touch you," she snarled, more incensed by the idea of someone inflicting harm upon him than she was about her own freedom as a human being. Or genetically-modified human being, depending on how someone looked at her ultimate parentage.

Amused, Bakur continued. "Nilim, that's flattering, but I don't think you realize just how tight security is at the Great Quarter. It is impossible to sneak out. There are like six checkpoints that you have to get through and four of them have laser identification scans that have to match up with databanks offworld."

"They can't stop me," she declared. "Not with Mother Sun-"

"They can and they will," he interrupted.

She gave him a warning look. "I chose this, Bakur. I chose you over the tribe. Over Anoria. Over Mother Sun!"

"Nilim..." He read her determined, drunk expression and couldn't think of a way to explain that her culture had been formulated in a board room and meticulously manufactured in order to keep her bound to Anoria, despite her insistence that she had free will and A legal right to leave. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that helping her leave wouldn't be categorized as sentient biological trafficking, but rather as theft of property. Something about that level of dehumanization of the extraordinary woman in front of him rubbed Bakur the wrong way.

"I will leave with you," Nilim declared.

Bakur bit his lip in thought. "Look, I don't have any control over that. And neither do you, I think."

"But you're Mother Sun's heart!" she insisted fervently, taking both his hands in hers.

"I'm only human."

"You're not! You-" Nilim shot up from the bench and took Bakur by the shoulders, holding him in place, as if she needed to pin him with both her hands and force of will together. Either way, he was stuck in place and subject to her words. "You're Mother Sun's heart!"

"I'm just a guy trying to get offworld, Nilim. I'm not some prophet or hero. I'm just lucky not to be dead."

At that, Nilim slapped him.

Time stopped just short of ticking onward for several beats. He just stared at the teary-eyed Anorian with one side of his face throbbing in pain, trying to rationalize what just happened. Did she really just hit-

Her hands cupped his face and a kiss followed shortly thereafter. Bakur found his far-flung thoughts centered around her waist as his hands instinctively did what thousands of years of genetic memory trained them to, sliding over the smooth curve of Nilim's thick hips. She slid into his lap, knees on either side of him.

"I will be with you no matter how far I have to go," she stated, looking down at him from a position of power. "No matter how forbidden it is. No matter the cost; I will be with you."

He sighed with resignation. "You're gonna get yourself killed."

"Then I will gladly die," the Anorian declared with unwavering sureness. "I love you more than I have ever feared death."

"Then you're-" Bakur's words died in his throat as Marlin repeated Nilim's words in his memory. He realized that Nilim understood everything he thought he was fighting for -- honor, duty, loyalty, pride -- better than he ever would. She was going to leave with him, or at least try to, even if it killed her. She was willing to die for that reality, for the faintest glimmer of hope that they could be together somewhere out among the stars.

She had made up her mind. To be with him or to die trying.

Marlin, you fleet motherfucker. I finally understand.

Looking up into Nilim's stalwart green eyes, Bakur made up his mind too.

"We'll find a way."

Nilim threw her arms around his shoulders and let out a hoarse breath, throat closing tightly as her eyes filled with tears. Drunk and suddenly relieved that her decision to abandon everything she knew wasn't in vain, she started to weep into the crook of the mercenary's neck. His put a hand to the back of her head, sliding his fingers up through her blonde hair, and sighed. There was no turning back now. The decision was made.

"I'm sorry, Bakur," the Anorian said through her drunken sobbing.

"For what?"

She held in a breath and curled against him. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he assured her.

She persisted anyway. "It's not, Bakur. I-" She lurched out of his arms and over his shoulder, throwing half her body over the outlook's stone balustrade in one motion. The Anorian vomited violently off the edge, heaving from deep in her gut as Bakur took her hair in one hand and kept it out of the steady stream of fluid leaving her body. She continued for several minutes, reaching a hand back to him for reassurance as she did.

Eventually, she crawled off him and retrieved the abandoned jug by his feet, taking a few short pulls from it to wash her mouth out. The remainder of the lukewarm liquid refilled her stomach and she tossed the container aside when she was done.

Her weary panting signaled that there wasn't much more she had to offer in her current state.

"Let's get you to the pool, Nilim," Bakur offered.

She let him get an arm under her shoulders and knees and lift her off the curved stonework under her unsteady form. She turned red when she looked at him, still unable to meet his eyes after the visceral display moments ago. He didn't mind; he'd seen much worse on many occasions.

She was heavier than her athletic body would suggest, but he managed to get her uphill and into the villa without much trouble. Riding the rainbow drunk made her little more than dead weight, though, so by the time he managed to slide her into the pool he was nearly out of breath. He cleaned her off with various soaps and ointments, just the way she liked to do herself.

She groaned with approval as he stripped her clothing off and began to dry her body on the raised, heated stone dais she liked to lounge on after a good bath. Lazily, she helped him get the wrap off from around her hips and slap it aside with indiscreet impatience.

She put a hand on the back of his neck and forcefully pulled him down to meet her lips.

"I love you, Bakur," she confessed breathlessly. "I truly love you with everything that I am." She could hardly focus on him for more than a few seconds before her dilated pupils stuttered back and forth with involuntary excitement.

Under any other circumstances, Bakur would have left her there on the pleasantly warm stonework and waited for her to come down off the combination of tinbenk and alcohol. However, Nilim's firm grasp and desperate, lovestruck gaze made the mercenary hesitate to break away. It was long enough to see Nilim's mood change.

Bakur watched her enthusiasm drain away in moments. She looked away from him, mouth thin and tight with thought. He tilted her face back to him with two fingers, but she didn't smile like she usually did.

"I'm sorry for what I've done to you," she said, trying to meet his eyes and failing twice.

Bakur cupped her face in his hand and tried to reassure her. "Hey, it's behind us now. It's fine."

"It isn't," she said firmly, finally drawing her eyes to his. "I used your gift as a weapon; I took it when it wasn't offered. I hurt you, I know. I could see myself hurting you even as I was doing it, driving a blade into you, twisting it in you. And I continued because I was apistos deos. I broke faith with everyone, even Mother Sun."