Talla's Fallen Temple Ch. 02

If he was seeing blue sky and no sunlight in his room at Lyric's camp, then it would have to be early morning.

Scrubbing at his eyes with one hand, he propped himself up on his elbow. A mildly unpleasant feeling of lightheadedness overcame him.

"Easy, kid," someone said very softly.

He identified the voice before his eyes could focus on the face.

"Kenji," he croaked as the older man braced him.

"Ho," the other acknowledged. "Sit up really slowly."

"What in the nine hells happened?"

"You were tested," Kenji replied, terse as always. "You passed, if it matters."

"Passed what?" he asked.

He leaned over to hug his knees so his chin could rest between them. At least this way, he didn't need Kenji holding him up. He tried closing his eyes to steady himself but immediately realized what a mistake that was and instead kept his gaze locked on the wooden wall in front of him.

"The Test," Kenji repeated. "That's what it's called."

"That weird torture thing I did last night, chasing those girls, was a test?"

"The night before last," Kenji corrected.

Zhair'lo turned his head, which treated him to sensations that made him regret moving.

"What?"

"You spent yesterday in bed," he explained. "Even Master Lyric's never seen it hit someone so hard and he's been doing this a while."

Zhair'lo inhaled as deeply as he could to suppress a wave of nausea. The dispassionate words, 'from the diaphragm' echoed in his head, the very tone with which they'd been spoken helping to toughen his resolve.

"So I'm weaker than most of you."

"You're younger than anyone we've known to be tested," Kenji said, a faint tinge of sympathy in his voice. "We don't take blue ribbons."

Zhair'lo's blue ribbon was hanging over the square post at the foot of his bleached white bed frame. He was supposed to wear it from when he turned eighteen until he turned twenty, a sign that he was acceptable fodder for the Virgin girls on their Initiation nights.

"I really didn't need this," he told Kenji. "I thought it might just be some kind of fancy upgrade or something."

"We do our duty," Kenji pointed out in what was probably meant to be a helpful tone.

"Of course we do," Zhair'lo said. "Just some of us get duties worse than others."

A sudden breath escaped Kenji's lips in what seemed to be an involuntary manner. Had that been a laugh? He risked turning his head just a bit to examine the other man. Kenji was leaning back in his chair with his thumbs tucked into his belt.

"Aren't you a bit young to talk like that?" Kenji asked.

Zhair'lo frowned and glared at the floor beside Kenji's chair.

"I've seen enough."

"Enough what?" Kenji continued his mocking interrogation.

Their eyes met, finally.

"Have you ever seen a woman caught at Monogamy?"

If there had a been trace of humour in Kenji's expression, it vanished with that last word.

"What do you know of that?" he asked coldly.

Zhair'lo turned his gaze away, letting his chin rest on his knees once more.

"There was a girl I met," he explained. "More than once."

He choked on the rest of the words he wanted to say. If Kenji knew enough to flinch at the word 'Monogamy', then he was perfectly capable of filling in the rest.

"A brutal experience for her," Kenji remarked, back to his classic deadpan form.

"For us both," Zhair'lo corrected sharply.

"Really?" Kenji asked. "It hurt you to wield the whip as much as it hurt her to feel it land?"

The tone of his voice might have been flat, but his words were heavy with sarcasm.

"Yes," Zhair'lo told him, admitting a thing he had only ever mentioned to a single other human being. "When I struck her, my own skin burned."

There was a long pause at this statement. Out of the corner of his eye, Zhair'lo could see Kenji frowning at him. Some time passed before Kenji shook his head repeatedly as if trying to knock loose the idea Zhair'lo had planted inside.

"If you care about her at all," he told Zhair'lo, "then you'll stay away from her."

Zhair'lo let out a rude grunt at this.

"I'll get Is'ka to make you some porridge or something," Kenji said. "If you decide to faint, try to land your head on something soft."

This was acknowledged with a thankful wave of his hand.

Food would be a good idea. Maybe it would get his brain working.

So. He'd been tested, had he? And he'd passed. Did that mean that bow training would begin? Was that why Master Lyric had been waiting to train him? He needed permission from the Temple to begin.

That had to be it.

He tried to think back to the Test itself. What was it that they had wanted to know?

They had given him a drink which had prevented him from having an orgasm. They'd put him through a series of exercises, both sexual and not. He'd had sex with two girls before they'd given him another drink so he could finally come.

That had been the most difficult night in his life thus far. Well, not quite. There was the night he'd upgraded Talla. He'd really thought he was going to die right in the middle of the ritual. There was also that occasion, just two weeks ago, when that awful bitch in Form had forced him to whip Talla. Terrible, but in a completely different way.

This Test, however, was a marvel.

What was it they had wanted to know? He remembered a couple of different moments in which the girls had glared at him, their eyes piercing into his skull the way that rays of sunshine used to slip past his curtains in the morning -- back when he lived at Harzen's farm.

The last girl, what was her name? En'tha, that was it. She had stripped off her clothes, right in front of him, and just watched him. She'd been a little bit afraid, too. He remembered the little bit of fear in her eyes and the way she had flinched when he had stood up to face her.

What had she been worried about?

Her behaviour had been so strange. It was as if she had expected that he might -- what? - attack her? Did that make sense? When did men ever attack women? The formula was that women came to men and offered sex. In his experience, there was just no other way for it to work. Even that awful woman Sonja had been clear on that part: the blame for his encounter with Talla fell on Talla because she had made the offer. His duty was to accept that offer, even if she wasn't supposed to be making it.

He had a few images in his head, things he'd gleaned from Talla's memories. At some point in history, centuries ago, there had been men who led armies and waged wars against the Temple. Did the Temple have some concern that he was that kind of man?

There was a sinking feeling in his stomach. He was, after all, considering that sort of thing.

But Kenji had said that he'd passed the Test.

So whatever danger it was they were looking for, they hadn't found it in him.

"You were lucky," Kenji said as he pushed the door open. "Is'ka's been waiting for you to wake up."

He planted a bowl of some kind of porridge in Zhair'lo's lap. Zhair'lo was about to say that he didn't feel hungry, but he caught the scent of the bowl's contents. The odour of ginger and jasmine wafting up from it banished his concerns almost instantly, removing the blanket of nausea that had been covering a deep-seated hunger.

"Hunger is normal," Kenji remarked doubtfully, one eyebrow raised, while Zhair'lo demolished his meal. "I'll fetch you a second bowl."

Zhair'lo wiped his mouth on the back of his wrist. That had been invigorating.

"It's alright," Zhair'lo told him.

He took a deep breath and turned to plant his feet on the floor.

"I'll go get it myself," he declared as he stood up.

Both of Kenji's eyebrows raised.

"Well, then," he instructed Zhair'lo. "When you've eaten enough, report to the range."

Zhair'lo smiled.

The archery range, that meant.